Aquarius Platinum says it will suspend operations at its Marikana operations in South Africa, citing low platinum prices, and said trading conditions in the industry were expected to remain difficult in the short to medium term.  

Aquarius Platinum, the world’s fourth-largest primary platinum producer, said it wanted to preserve the ore reserves at the mine until extraction was economically feasible.  

The Marikana 4 shaft and the Marikana concentrator plant would be placed on care and maintenance, the company said.  

The management functions at the Marikana pooling and sharing agreement (P&SA2), an agreement between the company and Anglo Platinum, would be consolidated with those of the P&SA1 at Kroondal.  

The platinum mining industry has been hit by rising costs and falling prices amid weaker demand, with the spot platinum price falling about 15% in the last three months.  

“The macro is unlikely to improve materially in the short-term until there are significant supply cuts from the majors, especially Anglo and Impala,” Numis Securities’ Andy Davidson said.  

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Thu May 23 22:58:00 SAST 2013 ::

Jun 11, 2012

wamorobella

Bad roads in the area plays a major role as well.Communities & business people complained to the deaf ears of the provincial government about the conditions of the roads in general.





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Jun 12, 2012

DjEp

@REUTERS
i dont think its the major's issue that the micro's are closing down, we are feeling the pinch all over the show. There is a niche Market somewhere else that flooded our Market early in the year. it can take up to 6 months before we can see any changes, that is later in the year. Big mining houses are also feeling this, however becuase of vast resource distribution,they use the other operations with high grade,low mining cost and low overheads to push the rest.
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