The other half of the report :Since then, the price of platinum,...

The other half of the report :
Since then, the price of platinum, a key ingredient in catalytic converters in cars, has climbed 7 percent, in part because of fears about supply disruptions. South Africa is home to 80 percent of global platinum reserves.
60,000 OZ LOST

At a results conference in Johannesburg on Thursday, Implats bosses said the firm had lost 1.2 billion rand in revenue and warned that total output and earnings for the remainder for the financial year would also take a hit.

Chief Executive David Brown told reporters the company had re-hired 6,000 of the dismissed workers but added that he had no idea when work at the mine would resume. The 35-day strike is costing the company an average of 3,000 ounces a day.

"If workers don't come back to work, we'll have to hire new people. It'll take two to four weeks to get back to operational normality," Brown said.

Putting up with lengthy and often costly strikes is familiar terrain for investors in South Africa, home to some of the world's deepest and most dangerous mines.

Miners are increasingly looking for better pay in return for the hazardous jobs and the government is pushing for an industry-wide improvement in safety.

"The government is quite correctly very concerned around safety issues and until those issues get fixed it is going to cost these guys a lot of money," said Nic Norman-Smith, a portfolio manager at Lentus Asset Management in Johannesburg.

Shares of Implats tumbled 3.1 percent to 159.69 rand, the worst performers in Johannesburg's benchmark Top-40.

Implats said it had lost an additional 33,000 ounces in the final four months of 2011 from government-ordered safety stops. Some industry executives have criticised the safety push as too restrictive.