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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energyplay who wrote (39346)	10/8/2003 5:14:35 PM
From: rolatzi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

I jumped in with some more PAL a few days ago and am glad I did. If you sold at the peak today, your timing is better than mine. It is still up really well today up 11%. Here's an interesting article mostly about platinum, the growing demand for it as jewelry in China and how it is being affected by the foreign exchange differential. BTW what's the difference between the yuan and the renminbi? mips1.net Best, RO >Prohibitive platinum price? By: Daniel Thöle Posted: 2003/10/03 Fri 19:32 ZE2 \| © Mineweb 1997-2003 JOHANNESBURG – Platinum rose to fresh 23 year highs, raising concerns about demand for the metal as price action dents jewellery demand and encourages substitution with cheaper palladium. The rapid increase in the price, to levels as high as $725/oz has come as supply concerns have resurfaced following speculation that world number one producer AngloPlat will scale back its plans to produce 3.5 million ounces of platinum by 2006 by as much as 20 percent. The group told Reuters on Friday that it would make an announcement on its expansion in November. AngloPlat spokesman Mike Mtakati said it was too early to comment on speculation that it would cut back, but that chief executive Ralph Havestein had warned the ramp-up was under review because of the strong rand. Impala Platinum, AngloPlat’s largest rival, was widely seen as the beneficiary of any plans to cut back expansion, but on the weekend marketing director Derek Engelbrecht said that any scaling back of Angloplat’s expansion would not be positive for Impala, because the price implications would impact platinum demand. Engelbrecht said he expected AngloPlat’s expansion to yield “somewhere between” the projected 3.5 million ounces by 2006 and 2.9 million ounces. He said it was too early to comment on the full effects on any possible AngloPlat move to scale back production, and that Impala was trying as hard as it could to get platinum to the market, with no plans to curtail its own output. Engelbrecht said Chinese jewellery demand has shrunk with platinum trading over $700/oz, but Engelbrecht expects this to recover if the metal slips back under $700/oz. “The South African industry has put a lot of effort into promoting platinum jewellery, and we don’t want to lose ground in that market,” he said. Engelbrecht said that if the Chinese floated their currency, as they had been pressurized to do, platinum would become cheaper for that market, and demand would get a shot in the arm. Engelbrecht said the higher platinum prices would support palladium, as auto catalyst manufacturers continued their substitution of more expensive platinum with palladium. Angloplat’s projects will not be the only one’s suffer at the hands of the strong rand – world number two Impala’s Two Rivers platinum project, which it jointly owns with Anglovaal Mining is seen as highly marginal, and the bulk of Impala’s growth is seen coming from its acquisition of Zimbabwe Platinum. The X factor for the platinum market has always been Russia, and Engelbrecht said there will be a vote before the end of the year on the disclosure of production, following intense pressure on the Russian government. “The one thing which won’t be disclosed is the level of the state’s stocks,” he said.