South Africa appears to be exerting far too little influence on the price of platinum, despite having the lion’s share of world platinum resources and production.

A close watcher of the system, who has once again been in email contact with Mining Weekly, believes South Africa is now largely decoupled from platinum price reality, with paper transactions rather than metal delivery ruling the platinum price roost.

His contention is that futures markets, like the Nymex and the London Platinum and Palladium Market, have, by and large, taken control of the platinum price, even though the physical volume of platinum involved in futures transactions appears to be next to nothing.

He contends that, in the main, futures markets simply swop pieces of paper that set the ‘paper’ price at South Africa’s cost of production.

The upshot is that mining companies are becoming less profitable, the South African government is losing out on tax, workers are in perpetual unrest and the natural wealth that should accrue to South Africa is instead being transferred from South Africa to New York and London.

Does South Africa need to establish an independent inquiry into how and why the mining companies sell platinum for diminishing profit, despite being the near-monopoly supplier? He believes it does.

* * * *

Mining Weekly’s new look and feel

Readers will perhaps by now have noticed that this edition of Mining Weekly has a new masthead and a new look and feel.

The thinking behind the redesign of Mining Weekly and Engineering News, as well as Creamer Media’s websites, mobi sites, daily emails, social media, iPhone and iPad editions, is to have consistent branding across all platforms.

As reading habits evolve in line with the seemingly limitless possi- bilities presented by new media technologies, Creamer Media regards the presentation of strong, distinguishing branding as being crucially important.

“This will serve to reinforce our commitment to offering readers accurate and timely news that they can use every day, across all possible platforms,” said CEO Kenneth Creamer.

The masthead includes a new logo at the top-left, which has been stylised to form the letters ‘MW’.

A strong red border encapsulates the front cover. Inside, whiter, coated paper and crisp modern fonts have been introduced to enhance the reader experience.

In expressing the hope that readers will find the new-look magazine pleasing to the eye and as reliable as ever in providing cutting-edge news on mining developments in South Africa and the world, Creamer Media reiterates its mission to provide credible and accurate news – an essential ingredient to good decision-making in business and the public sector.