Russia To Delay Platinum Group
Exports Again
MOSCOW, Feb 15, 2000 -- (Reuters) Russia is
expecting further delays to the long-awaited signing
of export quotas for platinum group metals, the head
of state precious metals reserve Gokhran was
quoted as saying on Tuesday.
"It may take weeks, maybe more," Valery Rudakov
said in remarks quoted by Interfax news agency.
The price of palladium immediately jumped to its
highest ever level of $625 per ounce on the news,
while platinum jumped $15 to $525/535 per ounce
in London.
The new delay is just the latest in a series of glitches
that has kept platinum, palladium, rhodium and
ruthenium off the market.
Platinum group metals can only be sold abroad when
export quotas are signed by presidential decree and
licenses issued by the trade ministry.
The only authorized sales agent is
Almazjuvelirexport, part of the finance ministry, but
loose wording in a law signed in December 1998
misidentified Almaz as a "state organ" rather than an
"organization".
This piece of bureaucratic bungling kept Almaz from
exporting platinum for the whole of 1999. In theory
Russia exported not an ounce of the metal.
But in fact precious metals refiner Johnson Matthey
estimates Russia exported 800,000 ounces of the
metal last year, while South African Implats
estimates the total at 450,000 ounces - a typical
disparity in a market mired in secrecy, with Russia
issuing no production or export data at all.
Palladium has been luckier, as it was covered by a
separate presidential decree which enabled its
exports last year. But spot supplies of this metal too
have dried up, leading prices to spiral.
Russian authorities are extremely reluctant to
comment on the status of negotiations on exports of
the metals. One who is willing to talk, Yuri Kotlyar,
chairman of Russia's largest producer Norilsk
Nickel, has repeatedly said he expected quotas to
be signed in mid or late February.
But this seems to have been dashed by Rudakov on Tuesday.
Three Russian bodies, Gokhran, the central bank and Norilsk, hold stocks of
platinum and palladium.
But Norilsk Nickel, which unlike the others has a 10-year export quota, sells
practically all the palladium it produces directly under long term contracts.
And according to Yevgeny Ivanov, vice chairman of the Rosbank group
which controls Norilsk, Gokhran does not have sufficient palladium stocks to
affect the market.
Russia accounts for 70 percent of world supplies of palladium, used mainly in
auto catalysts, and some 20 percent of platinum.
PHIL |
