Platinum
LPPM / NYMEX
Thirty times rarer than gold, cheaper than gold since 2015, and waiting on the hydrogen economy.
Top Producers
share of 2025 mine production
Top Consumers
share of 2025 demand by region
Main Uses
share of 2024 demand by end use (WPIC); industrial is glass, chemical, and electrical
Top Exporters
share among platinum exporters by 2024 export value (UN Comtrade); South Africa dominates mine-backed supply, with London and Zurich as refining and clearing hubs
Top Importers
share among platinum importers by 2024 import value (UN Comtrade); China leads on jewellery and industrial offtake, ahead of the UK clearing hub, US, and Japan
Annual mine supply
roughly 5.5 million ounces, plus roughly 1.5 to 2 million recycled
as of 2024
South African share of mine supply
roughly 70 percent
as of 2024
Market balance
deficits of roughly 700,000 to 1,100,000 ounces per year; WPIC put the 2025 shortfall at roughly 1.1 million ounces, the largest in its records
2023-2025
Discount to gold
platinum below gold continuously since 2015
as of June 2026
Rarity
roughly 30 times rarer than gold in the Earth's crust
as of 2025
Price
roughly $1,700 per troy ounce; record near $2,900 set in late January 2026
as of June 2026
Platinum is the most abundant of the platinum group metals and still one of the scarcest commodities traded: total annual supply is roughly 250 tonnes, about 8 million ounces, versus roughly 3,500 tonnes for gold. Roughly 70 percent of mine output comes from a single geological feature, South Africa's Bushveld Igneous Complex, worked by deep, labor-intensive, electricity-hungry mines run by Anglo American Platinum (now Valterra), Impala, and Sibanye-Stillwater. Russia supplies roughly 10 percent as a by-product of Nornickel's Arctic nickel mines, and Zimbabwe's Great Dyke most of the rest. That concentration means South African power cuts, wage strikes, and shaft closures move the price the way OPEC decisions move oil.
Demand is an unusual three-way split. Autocatalysts take roughly 40 percent, historically concentrated in diesel engines, which is why the 2015 Volkswagen diesel scandal hit platinum so hard: diesel's share of European car sales halved in the following decade and platinum fell from a then-record $2,290 in 2008 to roughly $1,000 for most of the 2020s, below gold continuously since 2015 after a century of trading above it. Jewellery, led by China and Japan, takes roughly 25 percent. Industrial uses, glass fiber bushings, chemical and petroleum catalysts, hard disk layers, take most of the rest. The forward-looking story is hydrogen: platinum is the catalyst in PEM fuel cells and, with iridium, in PEM electrolyzers, a demand source that is still small but is the reason the metal appears in every energy transition portfolio.
The market consists of loco London/Zurich OTC trading benchmarked by the LBMA platinum auction (the London Platinum and Palladium Market, LPPM, sets good delivery standards), plus the NYMEX 50-ounce PL future. Liquidity is an order of magnitude thinner than gold. Since 2023 the World Platinum Investment Council has reported persistent supply deficits in the hundreds of thousands of ounces as South African output erodes faster than diesel demand fades, drawing down above-ground stocks and setting up the rally that finally pulled platinum off its decade-long $900 to $1,100 shelf: up roughly 76 percent during 2025, through the 2008 record to a peak near $2,900 in late January 2026, then back toward $1,700 by June 2026.
How It Trades
| Venue | OTC loco London/Zurich under LPPM good delivery standards; NYMEX (CME Group) for futures |
| Benchmark contract | NYMEX Platinum Futures (PL); LBMA Platinum Price auction as the OTC reference |
| Contract size | 50 troy ounces |
| Price terms | USD per troy ounce |
| Settlement | PL is physically delivered into exchange-approved depositories; OTC settles loco London or loco Zurich; the LBMA Platinum Price auction prints twice daily in London |
| Typical curve | Mild contango in normal conditions; flips toward backwardation when South African supply disruptions or lease-rate spikes signal physical tightness, as in 2025 |
| Liquidity | Roughly a tenth of gold's depth: NYMEX PL trades roughly 20,000 to 30,000 contracts per day, and large OTC clips move the price |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global daily traded volume across futures and OTC, 2025; OTC turnover is not publicly reported, so the split is an estimate
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- South Africa: roughly 4 million ounces per year, roughly 70 percent of mine supply, almost all from the Bushveld Complex
- Russia: roughly 650,000 ounces per year, by-product of Nornickel's nickel operations
- Zimbabwe: roughly 500,000 ounces per year from the Great Dyke
- North America: roughly 250,000 ounces per year, mainly Sibanye-Stillwater in Montana and Canadian nickel by-product
- Recycling, mostly spent autocatalysts: roughly 1.5 to 2 million ounces per year
Bushveld mines are deep, hot, labor-intensive, and exposed to Eskom power availability; South African supply has declined for two decades and several shafts sit underwater at sub-$1,000 prices. Mine response time to price is measured in years, not quarters.
Top consumers
- China: the largest single market, spanning jewellery, chemicals, and glass fiber
- Europe: diesel autocatalyst demand, declining with diesel's market share
- United States and Japan: autocatalysts, industrial catalysts, and electronics
Major uses
- Autocatalysts, weighted to diesel engines: roughly 40 percent
- Jewellery: roughly 25 percent
- Industrial: glass manufacturing, chemical and refinery catalysts, electronics: roughly 25 to 30 percent
- Investment bars, coins, and ETFs: variable, roughly 5 to 10 percent
- Hydrogen PEM fuel cells and electrolyzers: small today, the principal long-term growth story
What Moves the Price
- South African mine supply: Eskom power cuts, wage negotiations, and shaft closures
- Diesel's share of European and global car sales, the legacy demand anchor
- Platinum-for-palladium substitution in gasoline autocatalysts, which added demand after palladium's 2019-2022 spike
- Chinese jewellery and industrial offtake
- Hydrogen policy: PEM electrolyzer and fuel cell build-out
- The gold price, which sets the gravitational field for all precious metals
- Above-ground stock drawdowns against the post-2023 supply deficits
- Rand strength, which sets the cost floor for the Bushveld industry
Moments That Made the Market
1924
Hans Merensky traces the platinum-bearing reef of South Africa's Bushveld Complex, the deposit that still anchors world supply
2008
Eskom power cuts halt South African mines; platinum spikes to a then-record $2,290 in March, then collapses below $800 in the financial crisis
2012
The Marikana strike turns deadly in August: 34 miners killed at Lonmin's operations, the darkest moment of the platinum belt's labor wars
2015
The Volkswagen diesel scandal breaks in September, accelerating diesel's European decline; platinum drops below gold and stays there
2021
Hydrogen strategies in the EU, Japan, and China put PEM electrolyzers, and platinum, into national energy plans
2023
The World Platinum Investment Council reports the market's swing into persistent supply deficit as South African output erodes
2025
Sustained deficits and substitution demand finally break platinum out of its decade-long range around $1,000; the price gains roughly 76 percent on the year
2026
Platinum takes out the 2008 record, peaking near $2,900 in late January as the precious complex reprices and deficits drain above-ground stocks
What Changed Since the 2010 Handbook Era
- Platinum traded at a premium to gold for most of a century; it has traded at a discount continuously since 2015, at times more than $2,000 under
- Diesel, the demand engine of the 2000s, went into structural decline after the 2015 Volkswagen scandal and the EV transition
- The platinum and palladium fixes became LBMA-administered electronic auctions in 2014-2015
- South African supply shrank for two decades under power shortages and underinvestment, turning chronic surplus into post-2023 deficit
- Hydrogen electrolyzers and fuel cells emerged as the first genuinely new platinum demand category since the autocatalyst itself
- Substitution reversed direction: automakers now swap platinum INTO gasoline catalysts to displace more expensive palladium, the opposite of the 2000s trade