Home > Chemical News

Chemical News

Ruthenium, iridium dip on lower offers, rhodium range narrows

https://www.chemnet.com   Aug 04,2015 Platts
Ruthenium and iridium prices followed the recent path of rhodium and moved lower this week on lower offers and weak industrial demand.

The Platts New York Dealer ruthenium price range slipped to $30-$40/oz this week from $35-$42/oz last week, while the Platts New York Dealer iridium price dropped to $450-$500/oz from $475-525/oz.

Both markets, which attract few speculative buyers, have been hampered by a prolonged lack of demand from industrial consumers.

Demand for ruthenium, which is used to make computer hard disks, has been affected by the advent of cloud data storage.

Iridium is used to make high-temperature crucibles used for growing sapphire crystals for light-emitting diode displays.

Though demand for LED displays remains strong, the crucibles themselves are often recycled to make other crucibles, thus diminishing the demand for iridium.

"It's just been offered down and no one has stepped forward," one platinum group metals dealer said of ruthenium, putting the range at $30-$40/oz. Other trade sources agreed.

Some sources believed the lower offers came from the same seller that offered more than 1,200 oz of rhodium Thursday on the private Comdaq electronic trading platform, operated by London-based Comdaq Metals.

Only a few hundred ounces of rhodium exchange hands in a normal Comdaq trading day.

As a result, rhodium dropped $50/oz on the Comdaq and the Platts New York Dealer rhodium price narrowed this week to $775-$850/oz from $750-$900/oz last week.

"Somebody had a lot to sell, and as someone once said, 'If you're looking to move the market, that's the way to do it because everybody sees it,'" a second PGM dealer said, putting rhodium at $775-$850/oz.

"And to show how quiet it was, he or somebody else offered iridium and ruthenium [on the Comdaq] this morning and couldn't get anyone to show any interest," he said.

One PGM refiner said the rhodium offer on Comdaq may have come from a speculative investor.

"There was some pretty chunky selling today that drove the rhodium price down and it looked like spec-type, investor-type selling," he said, putting rhodium this week at $775-$850/oz.

The decline in ruthenium and iridium this week signals the continuation of a recent downward trend.

Ruthenium hovered at $50-$56/oz for much of the first quarter and $40-$50/oz during the second quarter, but the market has edged lower since the start of July.

Iridium prices remained steady in the $525-$580/oz range for much of the second quarter but also began slipping in early July.
 Print  |    add to Favorites  |    Close