JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – If you gave me an option to have any portfolio of platinum group metal (PGM) assets in the world, this is the portfolio I would take – without a doubt, Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Dr Richard Stewart declared unequivocally as he pointed out his company’s South Africa PGM asset base during Capital Markets Day on Tuesday, June 23.

Stewart outlined how the “magnificent” asset suite, which hosts two-million-plus PGM ounces, is providing the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Sibanye-Stillwater with size, scale, timing, mining method, and orebody optionality, in its building of a long-term 30- to 40-year PGM business on the western limb of South Africa’s endowed Bushveld Complex, the world’s most concentrated PGMs source. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Flashing across the screen as Stewart presented were Sibanye-Stillwater’s contiguous mine-to-market portfolio of PGM operations labelled as Anglo American Platinum (Rustenburg), Aquarius (Kroondal) and Lonmin (Marikana).

“We’re sitting with a huge amount of optionality within the company. There's no other PGM business in the world that has that kind of optionality … and the opportunity we’ve got is how best to create value through that optionality, and that’s the strategy we’ve put together,” an upbeat Stewart told investors, analysts and media. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

While the PGM mining industry is pretty certain about what is going to happen for the next ten years, it is less certain about what could happen beyond that, owing to structural vehicle change. “It could be stable. It could go down a little bit, or it could significantly ramp up as we find new demand. To have our level of flexibility, to be able to deliver into that market wherever it changes, is unique."

Contiguous resources were intentionally targeted for two reasons. Number one, to realise value through operational synergies and savings, something learnt during many years of gold mining. Number two, to reimagine resource extraction by dropping mine boundaries.

"We’ve only done the first step so far and in doing that first step, we’ve been able to realise almost R3-billion savings per year. That’s been banked, just by putting these three together. I think it's well known these operations have returned more than seven-and-a-half times what we paid for them, just through that.”

The acquisitions of the three mines at the time of purchase were based on life-of-mine and synergies alone. Not yet unpacked is the value of dropping mine boundaries. Not yet unpacked is the value of investing within the resources that came with the operations.

That is only being started now at a time when Sibanye-Stillwater owns 100% of the property.

“You're going to see how, by dropping a simple mine boundary across significant mines like Bambanani and Siphumelele, which were due to close within the next two years, they are now going to have plus ten to 15 years and unlock hundreds of thousands of resources that were previously sterilised, that could not be mined by Aquarius, could not be mined by Anglo.

“They tried. They had technical plans. You couldn't make it economically liable, but by dropping that boundary, suddenly we've unlocked tens of years of mineral resource, and that's why, I'll say it again, this is the best portfolio of PGM assets that you'll find in the industry today,” Stewart reiterated at the event covered by Mining Weekly.