Page 25 - Bullion world volume 4 issue 6 june 2024

Bullion World | Volume 4 | Issue 6 | June 2024

The Automotive Sector – PGM Under

Pressure – but so are the Politicians

Ms Rhona O’Connell
Head of Market Analysis - EMEA & Asia, StoneX Financial Ltd

The platinum, palladium and rhodium markets are to
varying degrees dependent on the automotive sector
for their demand as they are the only materials that
can clean up the exhaust gases from gasoline-fuelled
vehicles and (platinum) diesel particulate emissions.
At the simplest level, platinum is most effective for
oxidising carbon monoxide to CO2, palladium for
oxidising unburned hydrocarbons (also producing CO2)
and rhodium for reducing nitrogen oxide and dioxide to
nitrogen. An anecdote: in the early 1980s this writer
was working for a major mining company and during
a feasibility study for what is now a large-scale PGM
mine the Chief Engineer of Engelhard (now BASF), then
the world’s second largest precious metals refiner and
fabricator behind Johnson Matthey, said “for every man
designing PGM onto emission control catalyst, there are
ten men trying to design them off again”.

Fast forward by 40 years and it still hasn’t happened!
The push towards net zero carbon emissions means
a ban on the internal combustion engine in favour of
electric and, for the interim at least, hybrid vehicles
including both battery technology and an internal Ms Rhona O’Connell
combustion engine, while fuel cells are becoming an
increasingly attractive alternative.
by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net
There is a broad scientific consensus that “in order to zero around 2050” (University of Oxford). The latest
prevent the worst climate damages, global net human- schedule from the International Energy Agency is as
caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) need to fall follows: -

Source: International Energy Agency, September 2023

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