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The strong ongoing investment demand for platinum is broadening to the minor platinum group metals (PGMs) such as ruthenium and iridium, SFA (Oxford) CEO Henk de Hoop pointed out on Wednesday June 3.
Questioned by Mining Weekly on the prospect of platinum investment demand remaining strong, De Hoop noted that up to half of some of the ruthenium imports into China had been for investment purposes rather than industrial demand.
Iridium is also being stocked away, and part of that might be strategic, part of it also the private sector seeing it as an investment opportunity, De Hoop added. ((Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)
"Probably the upside will be more limited as we start to move down, but I'm not necessarily so convinced that if platinum prices weaken, we're going to see a similar flood of platinum investment bonds coming back to the market, as has been seen in the past, which is good because it basically manages liquidity a bit better than what has happened in the past.
"Historically, when platinum prices would run up, for example, we would see Japanese bar buying ramping up quite enthusiastically, especially at certain price points in yen. In our last visit to Japan, it was also clear that because the gold price kept on rising, people who bought platinum investment bars did not come back and sell them on any dip in platinum prices.
"They've kept on buying on the way up, and we think a part of that has to do with the very uncertain environment out there. Direction is very difficult to read. It's also nervousness about stock markets, nervousness about global political events. There's a lot of stress from a political level, and we sense that it could well be that the investment angle for platinum is getting stronger and stronger, and we're not going to get this ride down to the same extent as what we had in the past. When platinum prices would weaken, it would almost get accelerated down with a lot of bars ending up being thrown back into the market and providing lots of liquidity.
"The big drainer of liquidity, I would say, would have been China over the last two years, where investment bar demand is very strong. It's a diversifier. Because of the gold bar demand being very strong, it helps to diversify holdings. But it was also easy to access. The manufacturers were putting a lot more platinum bars on display, and we heard stories there of wealthy individuals having hundreds of kilos of platinum bars stacked away at home. We're not so convinced necessarily that they'll rush back to the market, either, because remember the investment opportunities in China, particularly the housing market, have weakened dramatically, and people are very nervous about that. The stock markets are very volatile and have not been necessarily that good consistently for the Chinese," De Hoop explained.
The recent SFA (Oxford) Platinum Lectures 2026 had record attendance. "We had to actually stop registrations at one point, because we were going beyond the lecture hall capacity."
The high attendance arose against the background of "a lot of buzz, a lot of positiveness, partly obviously because the prices were pretty good as a background, but also I think because there was a broad range of market participants. We saw a lot more bankers and financial people there and there was more junior activity as well."
Mining Weekly: What do you foresee being spotlighted at the upcoming Shanghai Platinum Week in China?
De Hoop: First of all, the Shanghai Platinum Week is a really valuable conference. It's organised with the help of the World Platinum Investment Council. It's a combination of presentations and lectures, followed by site visits. We have two people going there this year again because I think it's an increa...
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