Investment demand for platinum remains extremely strong, with market fundamentals continuing to support platinum as a compelling investment.

Market tightness suggests that there is insufficient platinum availability.

By year-end, above-ground stocks are projected to provide less than three months’ global demand cover.

Platinum bar and coin demand is expected to be 33% higher in 2026 than in 2025.

All the conditions that spurred the 2025 price rally are still very much in play.

Incoming emissions regulations are supportive of automotive demand for platinum.

The need for regional energy security, particularly in Europe and East Asia, is getting hydrogen demand going again.

Even potential demand drag for platinum catalysts possibly coming through from automotive or petrochemical perspectives would likely be more than offset by platinum investment.

These and many other points were made by World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) director of research Edward Sterck, who spoke to Engineering News & Mining Weekly following the publication of the Platinum Quarterly for quarter one of 2026, in which WPIC CEO Trevor Raymond notes that platinum’s strong 2025 price performance and robust 2026 levels have increased global attention to platinum’s investment potential.

Raymond points out that a far wider cohort of investors is now actively considering platinum’s precious attributes and platinum demand is well insulated, the geopolitical Middle East headwinds notwithstanding.

“We’re also seeing platinum already playing a vital role across many technologies underpinning the rollout of AI infrastructure – from optical communications to data storage,” Raymond reported.

Engineering News & Mining Weekly: What are the key factors attributing to the fourth consecutive deficit forecast for 2026?

Sterck: There are a couple of key factors really. Firstly, supply is ultimately continuing to be extremely constrained. We’ve seen a pretty substantial increase in platinum group metal(PGM) prices over the last 12 months. Remember that the price rally started more or less a year ago. At one point we were up by almost over 200% and now we’re slightly over 100% up on prices one year ago. But despite that price increase, we haven’t really seen a meaningful change in supply outlook. Mine supply is fundamentally very, very limited by geological factors. These are, for the most part, deep-level underground mines. There’s an intrinsic limitation in terms of the ability to flex output from those operations on a short-term or even a medium-term basis. At the same time, we do see a little bit more flexibility in terms of recycling supply. We’ve got an increase around 9% year-on-year in terms of recycling supply outlook. But there are some potential headwinds to that in terms of credit availability and the availability of end-of-life vehicles and autocatalysts to be recycled. It is important to recognise that we do have some headwinds on the demand side of the equation but, for the most part, demand is proving to be extremely resilient. We’re not projecting significant growth. Automotive is down 2% year-on-year. Jewellery demand is down around 12% from last year, which is largely due to slightly reduced demand from China, whereas in the rest of the world, we’re expecting in most geographies demand to remain at or above last year’s levels. Then, in terms of industrial demand, we’ve got a return to growth after, cyclically, a very weak 2025. The big swing factor this year is investment demand. I think it’s important to emphasise, before I go into the detail, that actually investment demand remains extremely strong. It’s just that we’re not expecting the repeat of the massive inflows we saw last year into exchange stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Although we’re expecting very modest outflows from both those categories this year, bar and coin demand is expected to be extremely strong, and with ETFs and exchange stocks remaining pretty close to last year’s levels, that’s actually a pretty robust outlook. To summarise, constrained supply and demand at relatively robust levels overall.

What are the implications of only three months of above-ground stocks?

If you look at it at face value, only three months’ worth of above-ground stocks is extremely low, and so therefore there’s likely to be an ongoing shortage of metal availability. We do have elevated lease rates. They’ve eased the last few months, but they’re still, from an historical perspective, high. We’ve got ongoing backwardation in the London Over-the-Counter (OTC) market, which is another indication of market tightness. But I would caution that we need to treat above-ground stock estimates with a degree of sensitivity. They are, at best, estimates. They’re unlikely to be accurate in the extreme, but we should focus more on the change in direction of above-ground stocks. So, if above-ground stocks are coming down, then metal availability is reducing. If we see them going up, then, of course, they are increasing again. Looking at it on a broader picture than just this year and given that we’re in our fourth year of consecutive annual deficits, clearly whatever the above-ground stock levels are, those consecutive annual deficits have depleted them significantly from where they were four years ago, and if we look back at the catalyst behind the beginning of the price rally in May of last year, one of the catalysts was above-ground stocks falling to unsustainably low levels. Whatever those levels are is debatable but, clearly, the price move we’ve seen and the indications of market tightness suggest that there isn’t enough metal availability.

Recycling is bolstering supply due to higher prices but why is it more muted than expected and why is mine supply flat despite higher platinum prices?

To address the second question first, these deep-level underground mines are fundamentally dictated to by geology, by geotechnics, and it’s just not possible to flex output that quickly. We’re talking about, for the most part, large tabular orebodies. Expanding your production footprint requires a significant amount of off-reef development before you start getting into the reef. You need to increase your head count as well and I just don’t think the appetite is there from the mining companies, necessarily, to spend that capital right now. Bear in mind, we’ve only had 12 months of higher prices, and to commit to what would effectively be a multi-year programme in order to expand output, I think you probably want to see confidence that these prices are going to persist for, not just three or four years, but beyond that time period in order to make sure you get the return on capital that you need to deploy. Obviously, after the last, let’s say, ten years or so of fairly depressed platinum prices, you have a nice sunshine moment in terms of higher palladium and rhodium prices. But I just think that people are a bit cautious and somewhat reluctant to make that capital investment right now.