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Sustainable technologies group Johnson Matthey notes in its latest 'PGM Market Report' that platinum demand will exceed supply again this year on the back of firm industrial use and constrained mine supply, while ruthenium and iridium are also expected to be in deficit amid rising demand from the data storage and energy transition sectors.

Palladium and rhodium are, however, likely to record small surpluses in supply this year.

The report states that all the platinum group metals (PGMs) recorded supply deficits this year, with the three autocatalyst PGMs – platinum, palladium and rhodium – recording deficits on the back of weak supply.

"Autocatalyst recycling has been slow to recover from a downturn during 2023/24, while primary supply from South Africa and North America has been eroded by rationalisation and mine closures," Johnson Matthey points out.

At the same time, it adds, industrial demand has been robust, especially in the petrochemicals and electronics sectors, while the production of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles remained resilient, although there was some metal substitution, thrifting and model mix impacts.

Platinum recorded a deficit of 951 000 oz in 2025, a widening on the deficit of 559 000 oz recorded in 2024. The deficit for this year is estimated at 317 000 oz.

Palladium recorded a deficit of 416 000 oz for 2025, compared with a deficit of 218 000 oz the year before. It is estimated to move into a surplus of 214 000 oz this year.

Rhodium recorded a deficit of 50 000 oz in 2025, compared with a deficit of 9 000 oz in 2024, but is expected to move into a surplus of 15 000 oz this year.

Johnson Matthey states that the near-term outlook for PGM demand is uncertain owing to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, unresolved questions over US trade policy and increasing resource nationalism.

"Our forecast shows demand for all the PGMs except iridium contracting in 2026. Lower global output of ICE vehicles will hit automotive PGM use, while jewellery and investment demand could also weaken this year. Ruthenium chemicals demand will fall, but industrial PGM consumption will otherwise be broadly stable, albeit with some downside risk due to disruption to petrochemical shipments.

"Mine production is expected to drop, especially in Russia, but double-digit growth in autocatalyst recycling will boost secondary supplies," it notes.

Johnson Matthey says it expects modest decline in South Africa's PGM supplies for this year, on the back of a smaller benefit from the release of work-in-progress than in the prior two years, as well as a limited contraction in underlying mine production volumes.

PGM supplies from Russia are expected to contract sharply this year, as Norilsk Nickel's output is likely to be lower owing to changes in the mining mix at its operations.

Further, platinum supplies from North America are expected to increase slightly, but palladium supply is likely to fall as Canada's Lac dee Iles mine nears the end of its life.

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

The ownership transition of Cementation Africa is enabling this underground mining contracting business to advance at a time of capital investment uptick in mining.

Transitioning outside of the Murray & Roberts group and beyond the business rescue process of Murray & Roberts Limited has given Cementation Africa the opportunity to shake off negative connotations and to re-establish itself as an underground contract miner.

"This ownership transition is really important for us as a business. It really enables us to focus on what we do, and that is mining," Cementation Africa MD Japie du Plessis outlined to Mining Weekly during an interview in which Mark Salmon participated as the Head of Special Situations Fund at Differential Capital, which is Cementation's new shareholder. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

In navigating its way out of business rescue with Differential Capital, Cementation Africa has managed to retain all assets as well as skills.

"A very important role we play when we provide capital is helping to retain vital skills for the benefit of all stakeholders," said Salmon, who expressed excitement about the future for the company, which is going all out to improve its African footprint and collaborating with its American sister company.

Branding has been aligned across jurisdictions and steps are being taken to leverage on common engineering design strengths across time zones.

In South Africa, Cementation Africa has a five-year contract for the execution of the underground mining development and construction works at Tharisa Minerals chrome and platinum group metals mine.

In Zambia, it has reopened its office and is executing work at Mopani copper mine.

In Ghana, it has registered a fully compliant local business.

In raise boring, it is intent on expanding.

On the modernisation front, it is partnering with leading technology providers.

"Modern technology is really improving the efficiencies, improving safety and we're constantly looking to identify where technology can assist us to improve our efficiencies, improve our safety performance and we'll never stop that process. We'll forever constantly look to evolve as technology evolves and we're already setting ourselves a challenge to find projects and operations where we can challenge ourselves to get to autonomous operations and even remote operations. We're partnering with leading tech companies, and hoping, in the not-so-distant future, to share a little bit more about that," du Plessis revealed.

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The strategic focus of Differential Capital, an investment company, has been on using big data and AI within the financial services industry.

About two years ago, it identified a distinct opportunity in the mining contracting space, on the back of low capital investment in mining sector, "and that meant that institutions or companies that provided those services, were likely to have exceptionally good prospects," Salmon explained.

Against that background, Differential Capital took the opportunity to acquire all the Cementation assets out of the business rescue process and to assist the African and American Cementation businesses. "They've done an amazing job in navigating that period and we're really excited about the future. You've already started to see capital investment announcements pick up over the last couple of months, and you're starting to see order books become relatively robust," Salmon pointed out.

Mining Weekly: What is on offer from your in-house engineering design office?

du Plessis: We do anything from prefeasibility, feasibility studies all the way through to detail design work, and our most recent sizable design package was on Ivanplats' Platreef, where we have transitioned a ventilation shaft in...

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

The symbol U and the atomic number 92 are once again among the energy elements being looked at with greater intensity amid global fossil fuel supply disruption and growing demand for triuranium octoxide, or U3O8, commonly known as "yellow cake".

Coupled to the current disruption is also the aspiration for a decarbonised energy alternative, which the naturally occurring radioactive uranium can provide.

While uranium's primary use is in nuclear power plants and South Africa mines uranium as a gold-mining byproduct, South Africa's State-owned Koeberg nuclear power station sources its uranium from international rather than local suppliers.

Uranium is not traded in any significant volume on global commodity exchanges. Contracted selling prices are determined by pricing mechanisms that reference common industry published prices for spot and term uranium contracts and may be subject to escalating floor prices and ceiling prices. These include base-escalated, fixed-price, and market-related pricing mechanisms.

Following the 1973 oil crisis, France initiated a large State-driven pivot toward nuclear energy to secure energy independence and McKinsey & Company reports now that the US may need up to 300 gigawatts (GW) of new nuclear capacity by 2050 to keep up with the electricity demand from AI and hyperscale data centres. The US currently has a capacity of 97 GW.

McKinsey also reports that US uranium mining capacity has declined dramatically from its peak of 20 000 t of U3O8 a year in 1980. In fact, in 2023, 90% of the uranium purchased by US reactor operators came from Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Canada and Australia. While the US has the world's greatest uranium demand, less than 1% is sourced from domestic mines.

The Southern African region's insight into uranium comes largely from Namibia in general and Paladin Energy in particular, which on Wednesday, May 13, published an interim financial report recording a gross profit of $34.4-million for the nine months to March 31.

WTS Energy positions Namibia after Kazakhstan and Canada as the world's third-largest extractor of uranium. It calculates that Kazakhstan provides 39% of global uranium, Canada 24%, and Namibia 12%, while Australia, Russia, Uzbekistan, Niger, and China also play uranium mining roles.

During the three months to March 31, Paladin reported that ramp-up of production at its Langer Heinrich mine continued, when the mine produced 1.29-million pounds of U3O8 at an average recovery rate of 92%, driven by strong processing plant performance. The completion of its ramp-up is expected by the end of the 2026 financial year.

The average price realised for 1.03-million pounds of U3O8 was $68.3/lb and the cost of production for the quarter was $40.3/lb.

The opencast Langer Heinrich, located in the Erongo region, has estimated reserves, Wikipedia reports, of 57 000 t of 0.055% uranium ore.

Also in Namibia, outside of the Paladin group, are the Rössing uranium mine, which turns 50 this year and is extending mine life to at least 2036, as well as the Husab uranium mine, formerly known as Rössing South.

Although the western central Damara Belt hosts Namibia's best-known Rössing, Langer Heinrich and Valencia deposits, uranium has also been found in the northern Engo Valley and in the southern Namaqua Belt.

In Canada, Paladin has the Patterson Lake South project in Saskatchewan and the Michelin project in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In Australia, it has uranium exploration assets in Queensland and Western Australia.

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

ASX-listed Perenti's underground mining business Barminco has been awarded a four-year underground mining contract, valued at about A$850-million, at Bellevue Gold's Bellevue project, in Western Australia. The contract term will start on August 1, with Barminco to take over from current mining contractor ASX-listed Develop Global.

The award follows a competitive tender process.

"Barminco presented an extremely attractive proposal across safety, operational capability and technical expertise, positioning Bellevue strongly for the next phase of operational delivery and growth. Its depth of underground mining experience and global scale will further support Bellevue as the operation continues to mature and optimise," comments Bellevue Gold MD Darren Stralow.

Bellevue points out that Barminco has extensive experience in Western Australia with current contracts at the nearby Gold Fields-owned Agnew mine, as well as at Regis Resources' Duketon underground mines, Ramelius Resources' Dalgaranga mine, AngloGold Ashanti's Sunrise Dam mine and IGO's Nova Bollinger mine.

The Bellevue project is a long-life, high-quality underground gold operation in a well-established mining jurisdiction and represents an important addition to Barminco's Australian portfolio. Under the agreed scope of works, Barminco will provide all underground mining services to support the ongoing development and production activities. "We are excited to partner with Bellevue as we focus on delivering enduring value for our clients, our people, the communities in which we work and, ultimately, our shareholders. This contract award reinforces Barminco as a global leader in underground mining, further strengthening Barminco's underground mining portfolio and earnings in Australia. This award supports our strategy to deliver sustainable cash generation and future earnings growth," says Perenti MD and CEO Mark Norwell.

"The award of the Bellevue gold project recognises the ability of the Barminco team to consistently deliver safe and reliable performance. This delivery is enabled by strong technical capability built from more than 35 years' experience in underground mining. We look forward to working closely with Bellevue to deliver this high-quality project for many years to come," adds Perenti contract mining president Gabrielle Iwanow.

Bellevue Gold says comprehensive transition planning has been undertaken collaboratively between it and Barminco, including workforce, equipment, systems and operational readiness activities, with a strong focus on safety, operational continuity and production stability.

The mobilisation and transition period will start immediately in preparation for the contract handover.

Stralow thanked Develop for its work at the project over the past four years, stating that Develop's commitment and partnership played an important role through the development, establishment and ramp-up phases of the operation.

Develop, in turn, thanked Bellevue Gold for giving it the opportunity to establish its mining services division.

The company has informed shareholders that that the completion of the Bellevue contract will coincide with the scheduled start of underground mining at Core Lithium's Finniss lithium project, in the Northern Territory, where Develop has been awarded a A$274-million three-year contract.

"Our new contract with Core Lithium is ideally suited to our key strengths and will see us relocate highly experienced people from our Bellevue site to the Finniss project," says Develop MD Bill Beament.

Develop intends to retain the personnel it employed at Bellevue, saying the team includes some of the most skilled and experienced underground miners in Australia and, given a tight labour market, these skilled employee...

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

A significant zone of visible copper sulphide mineralisation has been intersected down-dip of a wide zone of high-grade copper mineralisation intersected last year.

The intersection has taken place during the first resource-optimisation drill hole completed at the Okiep copper project Flat Mine East prospect, located in South Africa's well-endowed Northern Cape. The drill hole was designed to test an open zone in the block model, 36 m down-dip of previously reported high-grade mineralisation.

The 7.88 m zone of significant visible copper sulphide mineralisation is from a 311.26 m down hole.

The new intersection confirms that the highly prospective mafic norite and previously confirmed significant copper mineralisation continues down-dip beyond the current indicated resource envelope.

The latest results add further momentum to the development strategy of the Sydney- and Johannesburg-listed Orion Minerals for the Okiep copper project.

"Our ongoing drilling at the Okiep Project continues to demonstrate strong resource growth potential, particularly down-dip of previously intersected wide, high-grade copper mineralisation," Orion MD and CEO Tony Lennox commented in a media release to Mining Weekly.

Importantly, the newly intersected mineralisation remains open down-dip, which Orion is targeting with the next drill hole.

"While we remain cautious ahead of laboratory assays, these early observations provide further encouragement regarding the continuity and scale of the mineralised system beyond the current resource envelope.

"These latest results reinforce the quality and growth potential of the Flat Mines area as a cornerstone of Orion's broader Okiep development strategy. We look forward to reporting assay results in approximately three weeks," added Lennox, a former leading light of Palabora Mining Company, which operates a copper smelter and copper refinery complex in South Africa's Limpopo province.

The current drilling programme in the Northern Cape's Flat Mines area fall within the executed mining right, which is surrounded by granted prospecting rights, which host several historically drilled prospects and historical mines that offer the potential for additional mineral resources through future drilling.

The results reported in this announcement continue to demonstrate the potential to extend or in-fill partially drilled zones of high-grade mineralisation in the currently reported mineral resource. Furthermore, a structural control model for the high-grade mineralisation is being developed to enable targeted follow-up drilling where the mafic unit is affected.

South Africa's State-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has agreed conversion of its convertible loan facility to Orion Minerals into equity.

Orion is reviving the fully permitted Prieska copper/zinc mine (PCZM) in South Africa's Northern Cape, which last operated in 1991, with a mining resource of 31-million tonnes at 1.2% copper and 3.6% zinc.

The equity will be in Orion's subsidiary, PCZM HoldCo, in accordance with the loan facility agreement dated February 2023 and the implementation agreement executed on Tuesday, March 31. Following completion of the equity conversion, the IDC will hold 23.8% of PCZM HoldCo, an effective interest of 16.7% in PCZM and retain a shareholder loan of R272.4-million.

Meanwhile, BHP Xplor is looking to provide longer-term exploration potential in the Northern Cape.

The BHP entity's series of workshops to promote and support greater intelligence and collaboration in minerals exploration in key mining jurisdictions in sub-Saharan Africa will also uplift discovery potential.

The workshops are directed not only at junior mining and exploration companies but also at the region's academic institut...