Russian Platinum mining jump to 1% in 1Q

Zimbabwe, North American & Canadian mined less! 

Recently, World Platinum Investment Council [WPIC] published their Platinum Quarterly for the Q1 2025 for the Supply. At the Supply front WPIC said, global refined mine supply of platinum faced significant headwinds in Q1’25, with weakness across all major producing regions except for Russia. 

Despite a relatively low base in Q1’24, supply fell 10% year-on-year to 1,108 koz in Q1’25, the lowest quarterly output in the time series, with the exception of the Anglo-American Platinum ACP shutdown in Q2’20. South Africa accounted for the bulk of the decline, with output down 10% year-on-year to 715 koz. The country experienced unusually intense rainfall during the quarter, with particularly severe rain in February causing widespread flooding. 

River overflows and the collapse of a dam resulted in flooding at parts of the underground Amandelbult mine, where full operations are not expected to resume until Q3’25f. Several other operations were also affected.  

Anglo American Platinum’s refined output fell due to lower mined volumes, planned maintenance of processing infrastructure, and a triennial stock count at the Precious Metals Refinery. Implats’ output was affected by a rebuild of Furnace 3 and unscheduled repairs to Furnace 5; however, platinum volumes remained stable year-on-year.  

Output from Zimbabwe also fell, dropping 13% year-on-year to 115 koz. Maintenance and lower grades at Unki, along with reduced availability of the mechanised fleet and optimisation work at the furnace, impacted Zimplats. We estimate that North American volumes declined 30% year-on-year to 50 koz. This reflects Sibanye-Stillwater’s restructuring of its US operations to create a smaller operating footprint, alongside reduced output from Canadian by-product nickel mining. Russian supply recorded a modest 1% increase, reaching 180 koz for the quarter.