Public Investment Corporation: ‘Platinum firms should control output’

South African platinum producers, which account for almost three quarters of world supply, should consider controlling output to improve prices, the head of Africa’s biggest fund manager said last week. Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin needed prices to climb to offset rising costs in an industry already beset by a “concerning” 11-week wage strike, said Elias Masilela, the chief executive of the state-owned Public Investment Corporation. “They may, as an industry, want to think about supply and demand conditions globally to influence the price,” Masilela said. “South Africa is a major supplier of platinum, but remains a price taker. There must be a way of balancing that out given its size.” Masilela’s comments echo those by the governments of South Africa and Russia, which together hold about 80 percent of platinum group metal reserves. The countries planned to set up a production bloc resembling Opec, a cartel of the biggest oil-producing countries, they said last March. – Bloomberg