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Anglo Pt poor in delivering growth expectations - Mike Townsend, Ford Asset Mngt In an interview on ClassicFM @ 18:15 on Monday, 17 September 2007 [miningmx.com] -- ANGLO Platinum had not taken full advantage of the higher platinum price by failing to deliver on its output targets, said Mike Townsend, a resources analyst for Ford Asset Management. "They have always controlled the bulk of platinum resources in South Africa but to my mind they have failed to deliver the growth that one expects from a well endowed company such as Anglo Platinum," said Townsend. Speaking on Classic Business, a week-nightly radio broadcast, Townsend added: "They (Angloplats) outsource their growth projects to joint ventures and BEE deals." Meanwhile, the outlook for platinum remained positive going forward. "If one looks at the supply/demand situation you see that there is also environmental demand as well as the autocatalyst demand driving the overall demand for PGMs," he said. "There is also the Chinese jewellery sector, which is booming in terms of consumer spend and all that bodes well for South Africa given the fact that it supplies over 70% of the world's platinum demand," he said. Over the years, earnings from platinum companies had out-performed those of gold companies and the market was also beginning see the same situation coming through in terms of the platinum versus the gold index, he said. "The gold price has doubled over the last four to five years; that has not been the case with platinum. "But what one needs to bear in mind is the fact that by-products such as nickel, rhodium and palladium are also produced during the platinum mining process, which adds to platinum earnings," said Townsend. Nickel had grown from contributing just a few per cent turnover to platinum mining companies to contributing about 10% of their earnings. Rhodium had also seen remarkable growth with its price rising from $500/oz a couple of years ago to 6,000/oz and was having a huge impact on platinum mining companies' overall turnover. Commenting on production, Townsend said there was to be no significant boost in production coming to the market in a near future. "There has been a lot of corporate activity taking place, but there are still very few producers on the market. "Eland Platinum and Annoraq Resources have not started mining as yet so there is going to be no significant amount of platinum coming on stream," said Townsend.
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