Editorial Platinum coin a spur to exploration

On the face of it, the Royal Canadian Mint’s recent decision to add platinum Maple Leaf and silver Maple Leaf coins to its already highly-successful Maple Leaf investment-vehicle gold coins, seems fairly sure to spur exploration and eventually further production of platinum in Canada.

There is no direct platinum production in this country at the present time, other than as a byproduct from nickel producers Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge Ltd., but exploration for the metal has definitely heated up in recent years and there are several projects in Canada with distinct promise of getting into production in the not-too-distant future.

The Mint naturally hopes to source platinum in Canada first for the new coin but with just some 150,000 oz of the byproduct produced here, and under orders from the federal government (as an anti-apartheid measure) not to source platinum from the world’s biggest producer, South Africa, the Mint is going to have to get the metal where it can.

“We will be using virgin mine material in bar form, with the bars bearing hallmarks other than South African,” says Murray Church, Mint public relations director. And he says while there is no intention to source directly with the U.S.S.R, the world’s biggest platinum producer next to South Africa, there is expectation at least some of the needed supply will come from there. A difficulty is that export from the Soviet Union tends to be held in check by that country because of the metal’s strategic value. However, Church does not see any real problems in getting adequate platinum supplies for the new coins, from whatever sources.

For the new silver coin, too, because Canada is the world’s third largest silver source, the Mint won’t have any difficulty meeting its full supply requirements from this country alone.

Both new coins are expected to take a profitable ride on the coattails of the Gold Maple Leaf, which has already won some 55% of the gold investment coin market. Of the two new ones, though, it is the platinum coin which could have the most impact on Canada’s mining scene, by spurring greater platinum exploration and discovery here.

The Gold Maple Leaf has already succeeded in doing something of that, for the yellow metal.