Jaco Prinsloo

SYLVANIA Platinum shares nearly trebled in 2025, but they rallied off such a relatively low base that shareholders only clawed back losses from when the bottom fell out of platinum group metal (PGM) prices in 2023. That explains Jaco Prinsloo’s downbeat assessment of his company’s valuation as recently as September. We can understand his disappointment because operationally Sylvania has been a solid performer, beating 2025 production guidance with a record 81,003 in PGM ounces.

This trend continued when, in the first (September) quarter of the 2026 financial year, the firm commissioned its Thaba JV. Thaba JV produced first chrome and PGMs and is on track to hit steady-state production in the third (March) quarter this year. All in all, Thaba will add an additional 6,800oz of PGMs and 210,000 tons of chromite. The long-term prospects of Sylvania’s production profile will depend on what it decides with new PGM and base metal projects over which it holds approved mining rights: Hacra, Aurora and the most advanced – Volspruit.

Prinsloo was non-committal in his 2025 review, saying that various disposal options for Hacra were being evaluated while the process of securing all necessary licences at Volspruit continued. There’s good reason for the caution. Volspruit would cost more than R4bn to build, a big ask and a huge development risk for a company of Sylvania’s size. A JV with a well-financed partner seems a more likely outcome.