Platinum and palladium price forecasts have been cut by BMI as shrinking global car sales curb autocatalyst demand and South African PGM supply recovers, easing earlier deficit concerns. Sibanye-Stillwater is restructuring a loss-making shaft in South Africa and simultaneously facing a strike at its Stillwater and East Boulder palladium operations in Montana, adding mine-level uncertainty. The World Platinum Investment Council estimates above-ground platinum stocks will fall to cover only about 3.4 months of demand by year-end, signalling tighter physical availability despite softer prices.

Global coal demand is now forecast by the IEA to rise 1.2% in 2026 to 8.94 billion tonnes, reversing an expected decline as Strait of Hormuz disruptions drive LNG shortages and push thermal coal prices up to around $150/t. Increased coal-fired generation in Europe, Japan, South Korea, China and other gas-reliant markets with idle coal capacity, combined with an unusually strong El Niño cutting hydropower, is tightening supply. Global output will stay above 9 Bt but dip in 2026 after Chinese safety inspections, with a modest production rebound only expected in 2027.

Osisko Metals has extended mineralisation beneath the historic Gaspé Copper mine in eastern Quebec, with hole 30-1228 cutting 257 m at 0.85% Cu and 5.13 g/t Ag from 33 m, including 28.5 m at 4.74% Cu and 27.4 g/t Ag about 200 m downhole, 50 m below the historical C zone to 275 m vertical depth. The porphyry copper-skarn project now hosts 1.83 billion measured and indicated tonnes at 0.27% Cu and 0.017% Mo, supporting a planned 160,000 t/d operation with estimated initial capex of about US$1.4 billion. Infill and expansion drilling, including June’s 80 m at 1.93% Cu at Needle Mountain, is aimed at upgrading inferred resources and testing zones currently modelled as waste inside the conceptual pit.