THE South African platinum industry should be shutting unprofitable mines rather than selling them, Wesizwe Platinum chief operating officer Paul Smith said on Thursday.Wesizwe had looked at all the assets put up for sale by Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) and Impala Platinum (Implats) but had not found any attractive, he said. Its focus remained on building its own 420,000oz-a-year platinum group metal mine, which would reach steady production in 2021.Wesizwe wants to sell its 17% stake in the neighbouring Maseve mining project, owned by Canada’s Platinum Group Metals. "Have we had any real interest? No. What interest we did see was superficial," Mr Smith said. Wesizwe was content to keep the stake because it would no longer fund Maseve.In October, Mr Smith said a "perfect storm" was about to hit the local platinum sector. "We are in that storm right now," he said in an interview on Thursday.While a number of assets or joint ventures are now up for sale, platinum producers rushed...
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