It is difficult to see how some platinum mining companies can be profitable at the current low dollar price of platinum in the $950/oz range.

To continue to produce at current oversupplied levels is unsustainable.

Ounces will at some stage cease to flow adequately and the price will go back closer to $1 500/oz.

But the question is when, which will be the last mines standing and is this the way to run the business?

The platinum industry should consider taking a leaf out of the 2008/9 chrome book, which resulted in not a single retrenchment of a permanent employee but a significant temporary cutback in production.

The chrome business was fortunate to have stockpiled material that could continue to be sold while idled employees were put through special training sessions in an exercise to uplift skills.

Currently, the chrome and ferrochrome businesses are doing well and in the platinum context, chrome has even become a significant contributor to platinum mines that are extracting chrome- containing upper group two reef.

The tough new circumstance confronting platinum mining companies is demanding that extraordinary moves be made to cope with the low-price environment.

The comment of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch at last month’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention, in Toronto, that the platinum price would rally if platinum producers cut supply by 300 000 oz to 400 000 oz is worth pondering at industry level.

Supply discipline has not only worked for chrome, but also for coal and manganese.

This discipline should be done over short time spans and be designed to protect what is a national patrimony.

There is a sense that a display of leadership at industry level will win immediate response and bring balance back to a sector that finds itself in the invidious position of having to subsidise consumers of a metal that deserves far better management.

The exercise of supply discipline will increase the value of ounces in the ground, bolster balance sheets and the market will understand that going forward is not a one-way bet downwards.

Currently, the country is virtually paying external interests to take its precious platinum out of the country – and simultaneously damaging employment prospects.

South Africans should be ensuring that the country receives a fair return and its citizens have a chance to be put to work in greater numbers.

Current prices are too far below sustainability not to evoke an industry reaction.

Platinum is a vital catalyst for the cleaning of the air above the world’s biggest cities and it should be out of the question that the people of Africa subsidise that cleaning process by giving away the continent’s metal at give-away prices.

Platinum’s current low price is obscuring its future, that needs to return to a steady upward state to avoid eventual price spikes that put consumers off what is a wonderful product and stimulate them to look for alternative replacements.