South African Platinum Output to Fall 15% by 2034

SOUTH AFRICA · MARKETS

South African platinum output is set to fall about 15% by 2034, miner Sibanye-Stillwater told analysts on 23 June 2026. A slower-than-expected switch to electric vehicles is keeping demand firm and tightening a market the country dominates.

Why South African platinum output is shrinking

Platinum is one of the rarest of the precious metals, and South Africa sits on most of it. The country’s mines account for about 70% of global supply, which means decisions taken in Johannesburg ripple through the entire market.

The decline now in view is not a sudden shock but a slow drift. “For platinum, we were looking at about 6.2 million ounces a year in 2019, and we see that moving down to 4.7 million ounces by 2034,” Kleantha Pillay, Sibanye’s executive vice president for sales and marketing, told analysts.

The reason is caution rather than collapse. South African producers are reluctant to sink money into new shafts while long-term demand is uncertain, so output edges lower as existing reserves are worked out.

The electric-vehicle twist

Most platinum ends up in the catalytic converters that scrub pollution from petrol and diesel engines. Battery-electric cars do not use them, so the rise of the electric vehicle has long looked like a threat to the metal.

Yet that threat is arriving more slowly than expected. Sibanye now forecasts that electric vehicles will make up 35% of global car sales by 2034, well below the International Energy Agency’s projection of a 50% share by 2035.

The forecast keeps shifting. Pillay said the battery-electric-vehicle outlook has been revised downwards every year for the past four years.

She pointed to the European Union’s easing of emissions targets last December and a US proposal to delay enforcement of vehicle-pollution rules, which she said give combustion engines a little more time.

A tighter market and rising prices

Falling mine supply meeting stubborn demand is the recipe for a squeeze. Global platinum output is forecast to slip to 5.46 million ounces in 2026 from 5.56 million last year, according to refiner Johnson Matthey.

Palladium, which can stand in for platinum in some uses, is expected to follow the same path, dropping about 15% to 5.6 million ounces by 2034. Recycled metal, the market’s other main source, is seen holding near 5 million ounces and so will not fill the gap.

Investors have already noticed. Platinum-group metal prices have climbed through 2026, and the rally lifted Sibanye’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation by 198% in the third quarter of 2025, to 9.9 billion rand (about 560 million dollars), even as the company dug up less metal.

Why it matters beyond South Africa

Platinum is one of the resources at the centre of a wider contest over the materials that power modern industry. A market controlled from a single African country, with thin spare capacity, gives South Africa unusual leverage at a time when great powers are scrambling for critical minerals.

The metal also has a possible second act. Beyond cars and jewellery, platinum is a key ingredient in the hydrogen fuel cells and electrolysers that some governments are backing, which could add a fresh source of demand later this decade.

For now, the message from Johannesburg is simple. The world’s main platinum tap is being turned down slowly, and buyers will be paying more to keep it flowing.

A hard business behind the metal

Mining platinum in South Africa is expensive and getting harder. The richest seams lie deep underground, where heat, distance and safety rules push up the cost of every ounce.

Years of unreliable electricity and rising wages have squeezed margins across the industry. That backdrop helps explain why companies are choosing to bank today’s higher prices rather than gamble on costly new shafts.

The sector is also a major employer, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs in mining towns. A managed decline in output, rather than a sudden one, gives those communities and the wider economy more time to adjust.

Sibanye itself has spent the past two years reshaping its South African operations, trimming or restructuring loss-making shafts. That discipline has paid off as prices recovered, turning thinner volumes into healthier profits.

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