Prospector News Michael Fox is joined by the President and Founder of the CPM Group, Jeff Christian. Last week the CPM Group launched its Annual PGM Yearbook and we get to take an overview of the PGM markets. Demand is essentially dictated by the transportation market as this is by far the largest user of PGMs in catalytic converters. There are many headwinds for PGMs here. Automotive sales have been in decline since 2019 and are looking toto continue that downward trend. Electric Vehicles (there are no PGMs used in EVs) now make up 13% of the overall market also taking a bite out of PGM demand.

EV sales in recent years seem to be topping out with Western consumers as some of the selling features seemed to have been overblown. For example, they may not reduce the carbon footprint but simply move who is responsible for carbon outflow. Batteries from the earliest of adopters are now reaching their end of life and consumers are now facing battery replacement bills in the thousands of dollars.

Given that EV sales don’t appear to be able to get to the levels gov’ts are dictating (these targets keep moving further out) it is possible that EV requirement might get switched out for hybrids going forward. As hybrids use more PGMs than conventional internal combustion engines this would ultimately be good for the PGM Market.

Supply side has issues. The 2 largest suppliers are South Africa (social and Labour issues) and Russia (Sanctions and war) there could always be potential interruptions to the supply chain but given the importance of the PGM to Western Automakers and to the economies of both countries, it is anticipated that these issues would be short-lived.

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