The energy transition, the AI revolution and the electrification of almost everything, are driving demand for metals at a scale the world has never seen before. Getting those metals to market responsibly, reliably and at the right cost is one of the great industrial challenges of our time.

That is why we invited Dr. Richard Stewart, CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater, on The Next Big Thing. Sibanye-Stillwater is one of the world’s largest producers of platinum group metals, a major gold producer and a growing player in battery metals and recycling, with operations spanning South Africa, the United States, Finland and Australia. Richard told us about how Sibanye-Stillwater, a business with deep roots in precious metals, is reshaping itself for the demands of a new industrial era.

This blog post summarizes some of the key messages from the conversation. Listen to the full episode here.

Why We Spoke with Sibanye-Stillwater

As of July 31, 2026, Sibanye-Stillwater was a 0.45% holding in WisdomTree Efficient Rare Earth Plus Strategic Metals Fund (WDIG). WDIG provides investors with exposure to companies focused on mining, processing and assembling strategic metals into things like magnets that society can use, as well as to futures contracts on specific metals themselves. It is an actively managed approach that provides $180 of notional exposure for every hypothetical $100 invested.

• $90 to companies focused on mining, processing and assembling metals into usable formats
• $90 to futures contracts on specific metals
• $10 to short-term U.S. Treasury securities to serve as collateral for the futures contracts

Often, investors see the case for increasing demand for different metals, but can then be faced with a difficult decision as to whether companies or futures contracts make more sense. WDIG takes the need for that decision off the table.

What Is Sibanye-Stillwater?

Richard described Sibanye-Stillwater as a precious metals company first and foremost, with gold and platinum group metals (PGMs) accounting for the vast majority of revenue. Beyond that, the business includes a lithium project in Finland that is now coming online, and a recycling operation in the U.S. that has grown well beyond its origins in PGMs to cover a broader range of precious metals. What sets Sibanye-Stillwater apart, in Richard’s view, is a strategy built around three pillars: primary mining, secondary mining of old waste and recycling. Together, he calls this a resource stewardship model, and it shapes how the business thinks about capital allocation, risk and responsibility.

What Are Platinum Group Metals and Why Do They Matter?

Richard made the point that platinum group metals are among the rarest metals on earth. The entire PGM market produces less than 15 million ounces a year across all six metals, compared to 120 to 130 million ounces for gold. They are produced almost exclusively in southern Africa, Russia and a small part of North America. They are deeply industrial, with roughly 70% of demand coming from auto catalysts in internal combustion engines. But Richard was keen to highlight how fast the application base is growing. Iridium, for example, is critical in producing touch screen glass. Ruthenium is essential in hard disk drives and has seen its price rise sharply as data center demand has grown. And platinum sits at the center of hydrogen fuel cell technology, which could become a major energy source for data centers and other large-scale applications.

What Is the Keliber Project and Why Does It Matter?

The Keliber project in Finland is one of the most strategically significant things Sibanye-Stillwater has built. Richard explained that it is the only mine-to-market lithium project in Europe. Rather than simply mining lithium ore and selling it to China for processing, Sibanye-Stillwater went all the way through to producing a final refined product that feeds directly into the battery supply chain within Europe. He noted that there were five lithium projects in Europe at a similar stage of development, and only Keliber made it into production. The others are still at the exploration stage. The key reasons Keliber succeeded, in Richard’s telling, were a supportive Finnish government with a clear battery metals strategy, strong local community backing linked to the environmental case for electrification and a location that was not on environmentally sensitive land. The project cost over 800 million euros to build and is a clear demonstration of what it takes to bring critical minerals supply online outside China.

How Does the Supply and Demand Dynamic Work in Mining?

Richard walked through the classic mining cycle in a way that was genuinely illuminating. The basic dynamic is that demand drives up prices, which creates an incentive for new supply, but new supply in mining takes a long time. A greenfield project, one built from scratch as Keliber was, requires enormous capital and can take a decade or more. A brownfields project, which uses existing infrastructure and simply extends or optimizes what is already there, is much faster and lower risk. Richard’s point was that Sibanye-Stillwater is well placed in PGMs precisely because of its brownfields opportunities. In lithium, the long-term demand picture justified a greenfield investment. In recycling, the capital model is different again, because you are buying scrap material and processing it for a margin, which gives much more predictable economics. The three-pillar model is not just about responsibility, it is a deliberate capital allocation strategy across different risk and demand profiles.

What Is the Recycling Opportunity?

Recycling was one of the most compelling parts of the conversation. Richard made the case that a recycled PGM ounce has roughly a hundredth of the environmental footprint of a primary mined ounce, whether you measure it in water use, energy or rock waste. His view is that responsible supply should start with recycling and use primary mining to fill the gap, not the other way around. From a business perspective, recycling already contributes significantly to Sibanye-Stillwater’s earnings. The economics work differently than mining. You buy scrap material at a price linked to commodity prices and earn a margin, which means less exposure to commodity price volatility but also more stable returns during downturns. Richard described it as a great underpin to the business, and one that becomes more strategically important as countries look to build supply chain security without having the raw minerals in the ground.

How Is Technology Changing Mining?

Richard borrowed a line attributed to Bill Gates to frame his answer here: we tend to overestimate the impact of technology in two years and underestimate it over ten. He applied that directly to mining. In the U.S. operations, where labor costs are high, Sibanye-Stillwater is already pursuing higher mechanization and automation to make workers 30 to 40 percent more productive. In South Africa, where operations are more labor intensive and infrastructure-heavy, the bigger opportunity is digital twinning and AI-driven logistics optimization. Richard described running 10,000 people down a single shaft underground every day as a logistical operation of enormous complexity, and said that AI-driven scheduling and energy optimization has already delivered double-digit improvements in energy efficiency. His view was that the companies that embrace these tools over the next decade will leapfrog those that do not.

What Does It Mean to Be a Modern Metals Business?

Richard ended the conversation on this idea, and it was a fitting way to bring everything together. His argument was that mining companies of the past were largely extractive businesses focused on cost efficiency. What is changing is not just the responsibility dimension, though that matters, but the relationship with downstream customers and supply chains. A modern metals business does not just dig things up and sell them into commodity markets. It thinks carefully about what metals to produce, where to produce them, how to integrate into the supply chains that actually need those metals and how to supply them in the most responsible way. Recycling fits into that model as the first call on supply, not an afterthought. Keliber fits in as a deliberate strategic bet on where Europe needs its own supply chain. The resource stewardship model ties it together as a way of thinking about capital allocation across the full range of options available to the business.