Rhodium is the story of the day: TD Commodity Strategy said the metal's four-year run of supply deficits is set to end in 2027, even as spot prices continue to trade near $9,000 an ounce. Platinum firmed on NYMEX futures while palladium held broadly steady, and a South Korean research team reported a palladium membrane advance relevant to green ammonia production.
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TD Commodity Strategy calls the top of rhodium's deficit cycle#
TD Commodity Strategy said in research reported by Mining.com on 25 September that rhodium prices are poised to fall as weakening autocatalyst demand pushes the market into surplus next year, though exceptionally thin inventories leave the metal vulnerable to sharp supply-driven rallies. The bank projects rhodium will fall from about $9,000 an ounce to $7,600 in 2027 and $6,500 in 2028, and after four consecutive years of deficits, it expects a 20,000-oz surplus next year as rising mine and recycled supply combines with flat-to-declining consumption. TD added that the shift would mark the market's first surplus since 2022 and would follow a projected deficit of about 50,000 oz this year, and said the balance could have turned sooner had a 2025 shaft collapse not delayed output at South Africa's Amandelbult mine.
The bank's bearish call comes with a caveat: above-ground inventories are expected to fall to little more than three months of demand, leaving little room to absorb a disruption at a major mine or refinery. Rhodium's supply chain is also structurally slow to respond to price signals. TD said moving material from mine production to refined metal takes more than three months, versus just over a month for platinum and palladium, a lag that could still produce sudden price spikes even as the broader market drifts toward surplus. That dynamic matters for the wider PGM complex because rhodium is largely a by-product of platinum and palladium mining: TD noted it represents only about a quarter of mined PGM revenue, so mine investment and output decisions are driven mainly by the economics of the broader PGM basket rather than rhodium alone. See our platinum market deficit and rhodium primers for background.
Softer EV uptake, not a demand collapse, still cushions rhodium#
Rhodium consumption is tied overwhelmingly to gasoline catalytic converters, and TD said that growth in autocatalyst demand has stalled as electric vehicles have taken a larger slice of new car sales. The bank's more nuanced point is that the pace of that shift has run behind earlier EV-adoption expectations, which TD said should limit how quickly rhodium demand falls and makes a sharp, sustained price collapse less likely in the near term; older vehicles staying on the road for longer also slows how quickly rhodium locked in scrapped catalytic converters flows back into the recycling stream. TD also highlighted a shift in investor behavior, noting that rhodium exchange-traded funds have started attracting net new money again after roughly ten years of outflows, although total holdings remain far below their early-2010s peak. This ties directly to the dynamics we track on our PGMs in autocatalysts page, where secondary rhodium supply from scrapped vehicles is the key swing factor TD is watching.
Palladium membrane advance reported for green ammonia synthesis#
Away from mine economics, Interesting Engineering reported on 26 September that a South Korean research team built a palladium membrane designed to let hydrogen pass through while keeping water out of the reaction environment, an approach applied to an electrochemical route for making ammonia. Limited detail was available in the coverage we could verify, but the underlying chemistry involves a lithium-mediated nitrogen reduction step on the far side of the membrane. The finding is a reminder that palladium's demand base extends beyond autocatalysts into membrane and catalysis research.
Prices and market context#
Rhodium traded at $9,000 per troy ounce as of 24 September, up $100 on the day, according to Kitco, while Umicore's 10am reference price for rhodium was quoted at $9,450 per troy ounce on 24 September on its Precious Metals Management page. Both readings sit well below rhodium's roughly $29,800/oz peak reached in March 2021, a level attributed to dealer-quoted series rather than a single confirmed benchmark, and far above the $6,500 to $7,600/oz range TD projects for 2027-2028 once the current deficit cycle ends.
Platinum futures on NYMEX rose 2.77% to $1,800.80 an ounce on 25 September, according to Armenpress, while Kitco's spot reference showed platinum at $1,773.00 per troy ounce ($57.00 per gram) as of 26 September. Palladium's spot price stood at $1,251.00 per troy ounce ($40.22 per gram) as of 25 September, per Kitco, while JM Bullion's live feed showed palladium at $1,277.58 an ounce earlier the same day, a reminder that retail dealer quotes can diverge intraday even when tracking the same underlying market.
What to watch#
- Whether above-ground rhodium inventories keep shrinking toward the roughly three-month buffer TD flagged, a level the bank says leaves the market exposed to sharp rallies on any refinery or mine disruption.
- Recovery progress at the Amandelbult mine following the 2025 shaft collapses that TD cited as a factor that delayed the rhodium market's return to surplus.
- Rhodium ETF inflow data in the coming months, after TD said flows turned positive for the first time in roughly a decade.
- WPIC's next Platinum Quarterly update, expected in the coming weeks based on its established quarterly publication cadence, for an independent read on the rhodium supply-demand balance.
Sources: Mining.com (https://www.mining.com/td-sees-rhodium-surplus-ending-four-year-squeeze/), Kitco Rhodium (https://www.kitco.com/charts/rhodium), Umicore PMM (https://pmm.umicore.com/en/prices/rhodium/), Kitco Platinum (https://www.kitco.com/charts/platinum), Kitco Palladium (https://www.kitco.com/charts/palladium), JM Bullion Palladium (https://www.jmbullion.com/charts/palladium-price/), Armenpress (https://armenpress.am/en/article/1261383), Interesting Engineering (https://interestingengineering.com/science/green-ammonia-without-water)