Robert Friedland at the Hong Kong racetrack in 2011. Photo: Thom Calandra

Robert Friedland at the Hong Kong racetrack in 2011. Photo: Thom Calandra

I wrote my article on Robert Friedland so fast on Saturday I forgot to include a critical part of the story, notably, how he's going to finance platinum production at Platreef in South Africa, amidst abysmal capital markets for mining projects. This is what he said:

"We're still running one of the world's greatest exploration programs and I personally see no reason why we couldn't double, triple or quadruple this endowment. What's fantastic about this resource is that it will be not mined by slave labour, it will be mined by young technicians driving air conditioned equipment getting a very high wage as if they were working in Sudbury. This is ethical platinum, which is what the Toyota Motor Company needs for their fuel cell cars... We can't sell a yuppy a new fuel cell car in California if the platinum came from slave labour."

The Japanese have all the money in the world, according to Friedland. "They know their Yen is going to be smaller in the future so they want to spend it now. They gave me 282 billion Yen when they bought their first 8%... They want as big and as fast as we can do it, because they know in their head how much they need, and they want the off-take. So don't worry about where we're going to finance this because money in Japan is free. In fact you want to borrow Yen because they're going to get smaller agains the US Dollar."

"This is the cat's ass of platinum. Mechanized, and negative cost."

Mr. Friedland's comments were made following a Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements. Please read the disclaimer on page 2 of Ivanhoe Mines corporate presentation

Ivanhoe Mines Presentation September 2013

Ivanhoe Mines Presentation September 2013

I own shares in Ivanhoe Mines.