JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Platinum mining and refining company Impala Platinum (Implats) is providing technical support to the South African Mint on the development of a platinum coin and, in a separate initiative, on the feasibility of platinum being held as a reserve asset by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

Responding to questions at a media roundtable in which Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online took part, Implats CEO Terence Goodlace said decision-making on these two separate matters was the total preserve of the SARB and that the role of Implats was to provide technical support alone.

The decision on both the coin and the holding of platinum as a reserve asset was ultimately in the domain of the Reserve Bank, Goodlace emphasised.

Implats group refining executive Paul Finney, who is working on the project with Implats marketing executive Sifiso Sibiya disclosed that the company has been working very closely with the South African Mint, to which it had supplied metal.

“It’s been very successful and it’s with the Mint now to make a decision as to the timing, as and when, in terms of the production of a coin.

“We provide as much technical support as we can and it has progressed to the point where the Mint is taking a platinum coin into consideration,” Finney added.

Questioned further on the possibility of the SARB holding platinum as a reserve asset, Goodlace said the holding of platinum as a reserve asset was an entirely separate matter.

While coins were legally traded tenure, platinum as a reserve asset would typically be held in ingot form.

“This is not in our hands,” Goodlace insisted, adding that Implats was the provider of technical support.

At the same time, the World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) had been building the case for holding platinum as a reserve asset, Finney explained, adding that should the SARB decide to hold, say, 500 000 oz of platinum, a holding at that level would represent less than one per cent of the $47-billion worth of reserve assets that the bank currently holds.

Moreover, the technical case being put forward by the WPIC had indicated that such a holding, on a risk-adjusted basis, would be beneficial to the bank.

“That information is there but it’s the Reserve Bank’s call. We’re supplying as much technical support as we can on both of those premises,” Finney reiterated.