Dave, at the risk of being labelled as being obsessed, do you correlate Russian PGE production with Russian Ni production? You know more about it than I do, but I thought that as Norilsk was the major supplier of both, that the metals were conjoined in the same ore bodies.
The surge in Ni this year (70%) and the rapidity of the increase recently (with no apparent end in sight) is saying something, but I'm not sure what.
I do not think the price surge is formulated on a realization that laterites are disappointing, or a realization that stainless demand is up, as those facts have been increasingly apparent over the last 3-6 months. There's war in Indonesia now, 200 km from PT Inco; and it looks like a shooting war will happen over Taiwan before Xmas. As far as I can figure, Ni is discounting war demand, unless it is anticipating breakdown of Russian supply. A lot of recent articles have said that Ni scrap, or stainless scrap, which used to be in high supply out of Russia and CIS is now unavailable.
And for Ralph, who likes the classics from the 60's:
I bet on the grey horse,
I bet on the bay,
If I'd a bet on old Stewball,
I'd be a free man today.
If we had bet on Stillwater rather than CMR, we'd all be rich, and could then decide whether to invest more in CMR.
Dave, don't platinum and Pd have price/demand elasticity, in that Co recently demonstrated to be a substitute for PGE in fuel cells (and I believe) in catalytic convertors.
TIA for your thoughts, also if you could link some of the PGE articles. |
