Platinum Week: analysts split on whether the rally can keep doubling

Delegates at the platinum industry's annual Platinum Week gathering in London in May 2026 broadly agreed the metal's bull run had further to run, even as they cautioned against extrapolating its recent gains. Platinum had risen 89% over the preceding year, though it had pulled back 13% since the start of Middle East hostilities, with the rand PGM basket price easing to around R43,000/oz from a pre-conflict peak near R52,000/oz. World Platinum Investment Council research director Ed Sterck told the conference "I would hesitate to suggest prices will double again," while still describing the market as structurally tight given persistent supply deficits.

New sources of demand beyond the car

Speakers pointed to demand drivers well beyond the traditional autocatalyst market. Johnson Matthey's Rupen Raithatha highlighted growing data-centre demand for PGMs and what he described as the first commercial-scale use of iridium in green hydrogen electrolysis, while Nedbank Securities' Arnold van Graan argued there was no evidence of a structural decline in demand, saying electric-vehicle adoption timelines remained further off than earlier forecasts had assumed.

Where the value was seen to sit

Berenberg's Richard Hatch pointed to smaller producers, naming Tharisa and Sylvania Platinum specifically as offering value at a point when larger producers' share prices had already re-rated substantially. Analysts also quantified the inflationary risk the Middle East crisis posed to costs, estimating an additional 2% to 4% impact industry-wide and as much as 7% to 10% specifically for Valterra Platinum, given its cost base. Free cash flow yields for the larger producers remained attractive even after the rally, with Sibanye-Stillwater and Northam Platinum quoted at 11.6% and 10.5% respectively.

The overall message from Platinum Week was one of cautious conviction: the World Platinum Investment Council reiterated its forecast for another platinum market deficit in 2026, even allowing for an expected wave of investor redemptions from exchange-traded products, of around 50% of existing positions. For an industry accustomed to a decade of subdued prices and underinvestment, the debate had shifted from whether the recovery was real to how much further, and how durably, it could run. Several delegates said the tone of the conference had shifted noticeably from the caution of previous years, with attention now focused less on whether the recovery was genuine and more on how long producers could sustain the elevated capital discipline that had helped drive it.

Sources

• Miningmx: Platinum Week cognoscenti agree the metal will keep rolling on, 26 May 2026

Photo: The London Stock Exchange area, host to the platinum industry's annual Platinum Week gathering. Ben Brooksbank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.