Platinum shares hit multi-year lows as spot price targets $1,000

JOHANNESBURG, July 8 (Reuters) - Platinum shares hit multi-year and even decades lows on Wednesday as the metal's spot price pursued a relentless decline to new six-year lows, approaching the $1,000 level that will push most of the struggling industry into the red.

Lonmin (LSE: LMI.L - news) shares tumbled to their lowest since 1983 in morning trade in London, while its Johannesburg shares sank to their lowest since 1999.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in the world's top producer, Anglo American Platinum , sank over 2 percent to 248.80 rand, the lowest in a decade.

World no. 2 producer Impala Platinum (Other OTC: IMPUF - news) also stumbled 2 percent to near 12-year troughs.

Platinum prices hit their lowest in nearly 6-1/2 years on Wednesday at $1,005.75 an ounce, after sliding 2.4 percent in the previous session.

At mid morning in European trading hours, the metal was down 1.8 percent at $1,017.24 an ounce.

A move below $1,000 would mean two-thirds of the industry, which is still recovering from an often violent five-month strike last year, is loss-making, analysts say.

Platinum has been hit by a combination of technical factors, weakness in gold and the broader commodities complex, recent strength in the dollar, and perceptions that supply of the white metal used for emissions-capping auto-catalysts is ample. (Writing by Ed Stoddard; Additional reporting by Silvia Antonioli and Jan Harvey in London; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)