Anglo American said the supply and demand of the three platinum group metals were set to be in small deficits this year.
The world’s biggest platinum producer announced the developments on Monday as it released the results for the year 2022.
The Anglo American majority-owned group said in its 2022 results that platinum’s underlying surplus had fallen in recent years, as supply had underperformed, while autocatalyst demand had improved – reports IOL.
“In 2023, whether it is in surplus or deficit would depend on the direction of investment demand; a return to more historically normal investor inflows would mean it will be in a small deficit,” it said.
“Palladium is set to see surpluses in the next few years, but in 2023 weak mine supply and robust automotive demand should keep it a deficit, albeit much smaller than in 2022.
“Rhodium is likely to be in a similar deficit in 2023 as it was in 2022, thanks to a rise in industrial demand offsetting higher supply.”
It is reported that the company expects metal-in-concentrate and refined products to be between 3.6 million and 4 million ounces in its new financial year, while unit costs were forecast between R16 800 and R17 800 per PGM ounce.
Amplats CEO Natascha Viljoen said: “This financial year has seen us navigate a complex operating environment with macro-economic challenges, supply chain disruptions, socio-economic unrest, and electricity load-curtailment as well as some operational headwinds of our own.”
“But we have seen good levels of resilience across operations, and the team has worked through these challenges to deliver our mined production, refined production, and sales numbers for the year.
“The prior year benefited from an increase in refined products, which was due to a strong performance from the ACP Phase A leading to an additional drawdown of one million PGM ounces from work-in-progress inventory.”
The platinum mining company also declared a final dividend of R9 billion or R34 per share, bringing the total for 2022 to R115 a share or R30bn, equivalent to a 62% payout of headline earnings.
Amplats said revenue for the year came in at R164.1bn compared with R214.6bn a year prior. Adjusted Ebitda was R73.9bn compared to R108.4 bn.
Viljoen said headline earnings went down from R79bn to R49bn and the return on capital employed of 111% highlights a strong financial performance. The company ended the year with a resilient balance sheet, with net cash of R28bn.
“While headwinds at Mogalakwena and Amandelbult impacted production, Mototolo and Unki delivered a strong performance, increasing mining activity to fill the increased concentrators’ capacities following successful de-bottlenecking projects,” she continued.
“The delay was due to the delivery to us of sub-standard materials, highlighting the need for our increased focus on supply chain reliability. Waterval and Mortimer’s smelters achieved record utilisation.“
“We have a net build-up of work-in-progress inventory of only 100 000 PGM ounces. We are happy to report our Polokwane smelter is up and running and performing at its usual capacity.”
