Sibanye-Stillwater is under pressure to rethink the future of its US palladium mines as the country’s funding for local critical mineral miners dries up under US President Donald Trump.
With US state support set to end in eight years, incoming CEO Richard Stewart will be forced to make some tough calls as he navigates the shifting policy landscape.
Until recently, the group’s Stillwater and East Boulder operations in Montana were rewarded handsomely for their role in boosting the country’s domestic production of critical minerals. They are the only source of primary platinum group metals (PGMs) supply in the US, which has designated PGMs as critical minerals given their importance in the energy transition. Their strategic significance is also underpinned by emerging applications in military technology.
This enabled them to serve as a buffer against deteriorating US-SA relations, buoying confidence in the group as geopolitical noise weighs on SA’s broader mining sector.
Soaring precious metal prices allowed the group to more than double its value on the JSE this year. Since end-December, shares in Sibanye have skyrocketed nearly 145%, outperforming all other major listed miners.
However, the outlook shifted in July when Trump signed into law his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, changing how tax credits for critical minerals are handled under the Inflation Reduction Act. Trump now plans to phase out credits awarded to producers like Sibanye in 2031-34.
The looming loss of these credits has forced the company to take a step back and reconsider its US growth ambitions. Trump’s policy change will cost them “critical financial support” — in the six months to end-June it was $159m (R2.8bn) — and the news saw Sibanye recognise a R3.83bn impairment in the first half of this year.
Sibanye must now rethink its investment in the US operations, weighing the shelter they provide from the country’s increasingly protectionist foreign policy stance against the potential for losses without state aid.
The question goes to the heart of Sibanye’s origin story. Founded in 2013 through the unbundling of Gold Fields’ SA mines, Sibanye’s purchase of Stillwater Mining Company in the US in 2017 transformed the group from a local gold miner into the international precious metal player it is today.
In recent years, the group has demonstrated its commitment to the US by holding onto Stillwater and East Boulder through a sustained period of low PGM prices — a move Sibanye attributed to its long-held suspicion that the global world order was on a gradual shift towards protectionism and trade independence.
“[We] recognised in 2021 that the global trade model was unsustainable and that there would be a shift towards establishment of regional value chains,” outgoing CEO Neal Froneman said in the group’s latest interim results.
“We anticipated that achieving greater trade independence would require significant financial support and investment from regional governments, which would benefit strategically positioned businesses. This led to us keeping the US PGM operations in production at reduced scale despite sentiment from some analysts and investors that they should be shut down,” he said.
Still, the ongoing policy shifts in the US have thrown a spanner in the works. Without government production credits, the US operations’ long-term viability now hinges on bringing all-in-sustaining costs below $1,000/oz, said Froneman. They stood at $1,207/oz in June 2025, down slightly from $1,217/oz in June 2024.
In recent months, there have been signs that trouble may be brewing in Sibanye’s US operations. The miner recorded its second consecutive full-year loss last year after writing down $500m of its palladium assets amid low prices.
Last month, it sounded alarm bells over the sustainability of US palladium supplies, urging the government to consider imposing a tariff on Russian palladium imports, which it said were flooding the market at a reduced price.
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