On the horizon

Forthcoming industry events:

28th – 30th September 2008, Kyoto, Japan
SFA (Oxford) will be attending the LBMA Precious Metals Conference 2008 at the Okura Hotel in Kyoto

6th – 9th October 2008 Sun City, South Africa
The South African Institute for Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM)
Third International Platinum Conference - Platinum in Transformation
SFA (Oxford) speakers at the event:
Beresford Clarke, Senior Consulting Analyst, Head of Research
“Upcoming economic hurdles for new South Africa platinum supply”
Dr Jenny Watts, Consulting Technology and Development Analyst
“Future shifts in platinum-group metals demand”

22th – 26th September, New York, USA
SFA (Oxford) Director and Principal Consulting Analyst, Stephen Forrest, will be in New York between for the annual NYMEX Platinum week event

New frontiers in research

Recycling PGMs and the future opportunities and threats involved: this exciting new research involves examining the life-cycle of vehicles, especially looking at how PGM loadings in autocatalysts have changed in composition over the years, and new legislation designed to promote more vehicle recycling. This adds up to an outlook of the blue-sky opportunities for companies to access significant levels of PGMs through recycling spent autocatalysts, and a detailed breakdown of the costs involved and participation in the larger PGM value chain and market going forward.

Full market update for 2008: producer reports and new macroeconomic outlook data from Oxford Economics have allowed us to complete our ten-year market outlook for all the PGMs, including cost updates, new producer peer-group rankings, and demand sector performance, all coming together to form SFA's new long-term PGM price outlook.

Quantification and impact assessment of the current and future constraints on PGM production for both majors and juniors, associated with the Eskom-related power shortages in South Africa
Expanding our benchmarking and comparative analysis to include some 30 projects in the South African junior PGM producer group, providing a comprehensive break-down of forecast costs, margins, CAPEX, ore grades, production parameters and hedging requirements, all contextualised within the global PGM producer peer group