<<<"Stillwater Mining Company is the only U.S. producer of palladium and platinum and the only significant primary producer of platinum group metals outside of South Africa."
Does that mean that North American Palladium is insignificant?>>>
Compare current annual PDL production of about 75,000 oz PGM's to SWC's production of about 400,000 oz PGM's.
Predicted future production after expansions (both are trying to triple production rates of PGM's) at both gives about 250,000 oz of PGM's for PDL versus about 1,200,000 oz of PGM's for SWC.
I think PDL is a significant producer, but much smaller than SWC now,...and in the future.
PDL Production Table,
Yr....Pd(oz)...Pt(oz)...AU(oz)...CU(lb)......Ni(lb)
1999..64,441...4,744....4,888...1,377,464...973,817
1998..73,390...4,770....4,179...1,010,252...795,131
The company is undertaking a major expansion at its Lac des Iles open pit mine, which is expected to triple annual palladium production to 250,000 ounces, or 5% of the world's annual palladium supply, by 2002.
http://www.napalladium.com/mineopset.html
SWC
In 1999, production was 409,000 ounces of palladium and platinum compared to 444,000 ounces produced in 1998. Palladium accounts for 75% of Stillwater Mining's production, with the remaining 25% from platinum. Also recovered in the mining process are small amounts of gold, silver, rhodium, copper, nickel and cobalt, which are considered byproducts.
Embarking on an aggressive expansion program, Stillwater Mining expects to nearly triple its production rate by 2001.
http://www.stillwatermining.com/Home/HTML/Main.html
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