PLATINUM
PALLADIUM
RHODIUM
IRIDIUM
GOLD
Price per ounce
Last Updated
Sources: Johnson Matthey
PLATINUM GROUP METALS
An Australian PGM Story
Securing Australia’s first platinum group metals supply for a decarbonised future.
Podium is focused on delivering its Parks Reef project as a sustainable and secure Australian provider of critical platinum group metals for a clean and alternate energy future.
Our highly motivated technical and development team is accelerating Podium’s strategy to develop an Australian platinum group metals supply for a decarbonised future.
What are Platinum Group Metals and Why Do They Matter?
PGM catalysts are crucial to energy technologies including automotive catalytic converters, natural gas fuel cells and grid energy storage.
Otherwise known as platinum group metals, they are a collective of 6 chemically and physically similar minerals: platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd), rhodium (Rh), iridium (Ir), ruthenium (Ru) and osmium (Os).
Because of their similar make-up, platinum group metals tend to occur together in geological deposits, in varying proportions.
Applications of PGMs are often similar, but even the most innate of variances in composition can grant a particular PGM a market unique to its individual end use, not suitable to its other elemental ‘siblings’.
For example, elements platinum, palladium and rhodium have uses in more high-volume industrial and medical sectors, whereas iridium and ruthenium have established niche applications in the technological sector.
An Important Role in a Low Carbon Future
PGMs are considered particularly valuable as a result of their properties; being hard but malleable for formation of shapes/structures, chemically inert and biocompatible, as well as possessing high thermal resistance and hosting high/specific catalytic activity.
The Parks Reef Project is Podium’s proven 5E PGM orebody containing platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and gold, with base metal credits (Ni, Cu and Co).
World supply of PGM is dominated by South Africa, Russia and Zimbabwe, which contribute over 90% of platinum and 80% of palladium mine production.
Australia possesses a unique opportunity to offer an alternative, secure PGM supply: one that is economically stable, with advanced and environmentally conscious exploration and extraction methodologies.
Primary Market for PGMs - Hydrogen Revolution
Platinum group metals play a key role in the hydrogen industry which is showing an enormous growth trajectory in efforts to find non carbon alternate fuel sources.
Hydrogen fuel cell technologies, for both light and heavy vehicles, are becoming increasingly prominent in the transport sector, particularly as the collective global push to advance environmental strategies to reduce the impacts of global warming comes to a head.
Platinum and iridium play a key role as the anode and cathode in the fuel cell, allowing the transition of H2 gas into electrical energy. The only by-product from this reaction is the release of water and heat.
Hydrogen electrolysers, tasked with taking green renewable energy to split water atoms through electrolysis, hence generating H2 gas. This H2 gas can then be used to power fuel cells and general transforming this energy into a stored energy for other uses.
Primary Market for PGMs - The Automotive Sector
PGMs are crucial to accelerating the decarbonising of automotive emissions through deployment of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
A primary market for platinum, palladium and rhodium is the automotive industry – where mineral applications include automotive emission control catalysts (also known as autocatalysts).
An autocatalyst is a ceramic or metal cylinder/elliptical cross formed into a fine honeycomb pattern, coated with a combination of platinum, rhodium and/or palladium, as well as a combination of chemicals.
The unique properties of PGMs function to assist in the conversion of harmful exhaust pollutant emissions into harmless compounds (nitrogen oxide or NOx to nitrogen), as well as oxidising carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in light and heavy-duty vehicles, improving air quality.
What Makes A PGM Ounce At Parks Reef?
PGM Projects are a relatively new play in the Australian mining scene. Between commodity make-up per ounce and adjusting basket price according to relative weights and individual commodity prices, for a prospective investor unfamiliar to PGMs, the concept can seem quite onerous to come to grips with.
Podium’s geological team have put together the following graphical representation to provide further context to understanding and interpreting ‘what makes a PGM ounce at Parks Reef?’
Our PGM Metals Mix
As the world becomes acutely aware of the need for technologies that pave the way to a decarbonised future, PGMs are emerging as critical minerals that can facilitate clean energy production processes.
Pt
PlatinumHighly dense, malleable and arguably the most ductile commodity, cited as one of the most stable elements in nature.
Pd
PalladiumPossesses the lowest melting point and is the least dense element of the PGM suite.
Rh
RhodiumBest catalyst for after treatment of gasoline nitrogen oxides (NOx) from petrol exhausts and hybrid electric vehicles.
Ir
IridiumCharacteristics include extremely high melting point: most corrosion-resistant metal known.
Au
GoldA precious metal that is grouped into the PGM mix, the most malleable of all metals.
Base Metals At Parks Reef - Additional Opportunity
Having diversified, payable metals consolidated within one project presents a suite of benefits that can assure investment security and a stable ROI.
In addition to being a 5E PGM project, Parks Reef has base metal credits of both Nickel, Copper and Cobalt, which the company intends to extract alongside PGMs when the project enters production.
Copper is a well-known metal and will continue to play a key role in the electrification of our mainstream activities.
Nickel is now classified as a critical mineral in light of forecasted future demand for Nickel in battery storage requirements.
Cobalt is a crucial additive to batteries and is also classified as a critical mineral in Australia, the EU and the USA.