Sibanye-Stillwater's chief executive Richard Stewart said on Wednesday that the group's US platinum group metals mine, Stillwater, will need time to recover momentum after a month-long strike at the operation ended this week with a new three-year wage agreement.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Joburg Indaba conference, Stewart said: "I think we're going to have a period of needing to settle down after this and rebuild our momentum. This has been a big disruption, and we're going to have to settle teams and rebuild."
What happened#
Employees represented by the United Steelworkers union at the Stillwater East mine and the Columbus metallurgical facility had been on strike for a month before signing a new wage deal, Sibanye-Stillwater said. The agreement is effective from July and allows for a 4.5% pay increase in the first year, followed by increases of the greater of 3.5% and 3%, and then the Consumer Price Index, in years two and three. This adds management's first public comment on the recovery timeline to DailyPlatinum's earlier report that the strike had ended.
The strike began on September 2 over the company's push to replace individual incentive pay with a team-based system as part of a wider mechanisation and cost-cutting drive. Stewart had warned at the time that "there may ultimately be no viable basis for the continued operation" if the plan could not be implemented and the mine remained unsustainable.
Production and cost context#
Stillwater mined 137,930 ounces of PGMs in the first half of the 2026 financial year, down 2% year on year, though it out-performed its all-in sustaining cost guidance. Even so, the mine's AISC for the half year was $1,347 per two-element ounce, 12% higher than the prior year and still above Sibanye-Stillwater's long-term $1,000/oz AISC target for the US operation. Stewart said the wage agreement sets a pathway for mechanisation at the mine, which the company views as central to lowering costs.
The Stillwater complex, which primarily produces palladium alongside platinum, has already been scaled back in recent years, with Stillwater West placed on care and maintenance in late 2024.
Why it matters for the PGM market#
A slower-than-expected recovery at Stillwater risks further near-term output softness from an operation that was already running above its cost target before the disruption, even as the group works to restore normal operations following the strike.
Prices and market context#
Platinum traded at $1,696.00 per ounce as of October 6, 2026, 12:21 p.m. ET, down $16.00 on the day, according to Kitco spot pricing. The metal remains well below the record $2,923/oz it reached on January 26, 2026, according to the World Platinum Investment Council, with a forecast market surplus weighing on sentiment. The WPIC's Q2 2026 Platinum Quarterly, published September 9, revised its 2026 outlook to a 265,000 oz surplus, a swing from the 297,000 oz deficit projected in its prior report.
For background on Sibanye-Stillwater's broader production footprint, see our Sibanye-Stillwater production page. Readers tracking the metal can follow live pricing on our platinum price page and palladium price page, and background on the mine's main product mix is available on our palladium uses page.