Financial Times
Warning on volatility of palladium
By Gillian O'Connor, Robert Corzine and Paul Solman
Palladium's volatile supply and consequent price rises could endanger the precious metal's future, analysts Roskill warned yesterday.
As prices of platinum and palladium converge, one of the main reasons for using palladium disappears and, although it is technically superior to platinum when used in motor vehicle catalysts, platinum could win back customers.
Yesterday, palladium was slightly cheaper than its sister metal at $347 an ounce against $369 but at the start of the decade it cost only a quarter as much. Russia supplies roughly two-thirds of the world's palladium and Roskill said it "seems incapable of meeting demand".
Ross Norman of Precious Metals Research said some uses required twice as much palladium as platinum. Adapting plant was expensive, so if manufacturers switched, they were unlikely to switch back.
Three-month zinc, nickel and tin all closed firmer on the London Metal Exchange yesterday but copper fell through the key $1,400 a tonne level to a new 11-year low of $1,393 a tonne.
Crude oil prices were generally flat as the markets mulled over yet more contradictory inventory data from the US, the world's biggest petroleum market.
Brent Blend for April delivery was up 3 cents in late trading on London's International Petroleum Exchange to $10.16 a barrel.
Prices had received a boost earlier when the Department of Energy in Washington published data showing a 1.7m barrel decline in US crude stocks over the week. That contradicted American Petroleum Institute data showing a 2.6m barrel rise.
The level of oil inventories in the US has become a key bellwether for crude prices, given the extent of the global surplus, but some analysts say the erosion of the US surplus of refined products is a prerequisite to any revival in crude prices.
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