The most consequential action that price-hit platinum group metals (PGM) producers can take as an industry is the stimulation of demand.

"But the issue is, are we doing enough to advance the technologies that will benefit our industry, and our views always conclude that we should be doing more," Implats CEO Nico Muller posits.

Currently PGM producers carry out demand stimulation through:

Platinum Guild International (PGI), a marketing organisation created in 1975 with the vision to develop the global platinum jewellery market.

AP Ventures, which advances innovation in hydrogen and decarbonisation.

World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC), which provides insights to advance platinum investment.

International Platinum Group Metals Association (IPA), which focuses on industrial demand issues.

Shanghai Platinum Week, which this year served as a core platform for innovation and collaboration; and

individual companies have combined, for example Sibanye-Stillwater and Implats, to sponsor switching technology between platinum and palladium.

"We also, from time to time, do research-type work in the industrial area, and specifically historically, we've worked very directly with the technical team of Heraeus in Germany to develop new applications," Northam Platinum CEO Paul Dunne outlined during Northam's media roundtable last Friday.

But while battery electrification has received major attention, "hydrogen has been the quiet brother in the corner," Muller observed during last week's Implats' media roundtable.

"Most of us, not all, are members of collaborating entities. As Northam, we are members of the PGI, WPIC, and the IPA, and within those organisations, we contribute financially and with time to promote use of these metals," added Dunne in response to Mining Weekly.

Following the Shanghai Platinum Week, the Guangzhou Futures Exchange announcing details of the first PGM derivatives in China, which are the coiuntry's first platinum and palladium futures contracts.

These physically settled platinum and palladium futures are expected to transform domestic price risk management and lift demand for platinum products.

"The reason we go to Shanghai is because China is the single biggest market and we need to be thoughtful and interactive there. We and Anglo American Platinum were well represented, and so was Tharisa Minerals.

"All three companies spoke during that conference on various aspects of mining and what we're all about and on the sidelines, professional contact was made and fiberglass, fuel cell and electrolyser producers visited.

"I do believe it's an important venue for the world's miners and we'll continue to go, just like we go to the London Platinum Week," said Dunne.

On Northam also be attending and presenting at upcoming New York platinum events in the interests of demand stimulation, he added: "We're going on an investor roadshow during that week to Boston and New York, specifically targeting our US investors post results, and we'll also present at one or two of the platinum conferences that take place in New York."

COPING WITH WEAKER PRICING

The PGM industry is obliged to comply with very strict Competition Commission rules, which means that as producers, they must compete. As single entities within this commodity market, they are not in a position where they can sit around a cigar table and agree in the way that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries - OPEC - which is why Mining Weekly put this question to Muller: In what way is Implats strategising to cope with the weaker rand pricing for PGMs?

This was his response: "We always follow a very similar process. The best defensive strategy against weak pricing starts with maximising production throughput because we are a commodity producer, so an increase in volumes reduces one's cost per ounce.

"The second strategy is to reduce costs - and you will see this from our year-on-year unit cost increase of 5% - but in part that is a consequence of incorporating ...