Minor PGMs 2026: A Precious Metals Investor Overview

Minor PGMs — rhodium, iridium, ruthenium and osmium — are the smallest, most volatile and most structurally interesting precious metals markets. The four metals together account for under 1.5 million ounces of annual primary supply, against more than 200 million ounces of gold and 800 million ounces of silver. Concentration of supply (over 80% from South Africa and Russia for rhodium and iridium), absence of liquid futures markets, no exchange-traded funds for any of the four, and pivotal industrial roles in autocatalysts and electrolysers make minor PGMs both a high-conviction thematic and an operationally difficult investment. This pillar overview consolidates the rhodium market and its 2021-2023 crash, iridium and electrolysers, ruthenium and osmium niche markets, and PGM recycling from catalytic converters.

Rhodium market

The 2021 spike to USD 30,000/oz

Rhodium spot prices rose from approximately USD 600/oz in early 2016 to a peak of USD 29,800/oz in March 2021, driven by tightening Euro 6d/China VI emission standards that increased rhodium loadings per autocatalyst, combined with a 6-9 month operational disruption at Anglo American Platinum's Rustenburg converter plant in 2020. At the peak, the rhodium-gold ratio exceeded 17:1.

The 2022-2024 crash to USD 4,000/oz

From March 2021 to mid-2024 rhodium fell more than 85% as autocatalyst recycling rebuilt inventories and the EV transition began to compress incremental ICE demand. The rhodium price action since 2024 has stabilised in the USD 4,000-5,500 range, with sustained supply discipline from Sibanye-Stillwater, Anglo American Platinum and Implats.

Why no rhodium ETF exists

Three structural reasons:

1. Liquidity floor too thin. Total annual supply is ~30 tonnes; an ETF of meaningful size would dominate the float.
2. Custody costs. Rhodium has no LBMA Good Delivery list; bars are produced to refiner standard with limited fungibility.
3. Sponsor risk appetite. The collapse of the Deutsche Bank Xetra-Gold rhodium product (DB Physical Rhodium ETC, delisted) and the troubled history of small physical PGM products have left institutional sponsors cautious.

See /categories/rhodium-market.

Iridium and electrolysers

The green-hydrogen bottleneck

Proton-exchange-membrane (PEM) electrolysers — the dominant low-temperature electrolyser technology for green hydrogen production — use iridium as the oxygen-evolution-reaction catalyst. Loading is typically 0.5-2.0 g of iridium per kilowatt of installed capacity. Annual primary iridium supply runs 7-9 tonnes (240,000-290,000 oz). A 100 GW PEM build-out — within the range targeted by EU REPowerEU and US Inflation Reduction Act tax credits — would require 50-200 tonnes of iridium, equivalent to 6-25 years of current supply.

The price response

Iridium spot rose from roughly USD 1,500/oz in 2018 to a peak of USD 6,300/oz in 2021, then settled into a USD 4,000-5,500 range through 2024-2025. The market remains structurally tight on any electrolyser build-out scenario, though demand timing is uncertain as PEM competes with alkaline and solid-oxide technologies.

Substitution research

WPIC and academic groups (Imperial College, NREL) are tracking iridium-loading reduction research. Cell designs reducing iridium loading to 0.1-0.3 g/kW are demonstrated at lab scale; commercial deployment is the open question. See /categories/iridium-electrolysers and the cross-pillar /categories/mining-equities.

Ruthenium and osmium

Ruthenium

Ruthenium has annual primary supply of roughly 30 tonnes. Demand is split across hard-disk-drive perpendicular magnetic recording media, chip resistors, chemical catalysis (acetic acid, ammonia synthesis research) and emerging anion-exchange-membrane (AEM) electrolysers. Ruthenium prices rose from around USD 250/oz in 2019 to over USD 800/oz in 2021, then settled in the USD 400-550 range. AEM electrolyser scale-up is the principal upside catalyst.

Osmium

Osmium is the rarest and densest of the PGMs, with annual primary production estimated at under 1 tonne. Industrial use is minimal — fountain pen tips, alloy hardening, niche catalysts. The market is small enough that a single Swiss group (Osmium-Institute, Murnau) has attempted to establish a crystalline-osmium investment standard with serial-number certification. The product remains niche and illiquid, more numismatic than investment-grade.

See /categories/ruthenium-osmium.

PGM recycling from catalytic converters

Loop economics

Autocatalyst recycling is the dominant secondary supply channel for platinum, palladium and rhodium. The loop:

1. End-of-life vehicle (ELV) collection. EU ELV Directive (2000/53/EC) mandates 95% recovery; US relies on voluntary scrap markets.
2. Converter de-canning and milling. Ceramic monoliths are ground; metallic monoliths are sheared.
3. Smelting and refining. Major operators: BASF Catalysts, Heraeus, Johnson Matthey, Umicore, Sibanye-Stillwater (acquired the Reldan recycling business in 2022).

Recycling supply share

The EV transition risk

The scrap-converter pipeline runs on a 12-15 year lag from new-vehicle sales. As BEV penetration rises, the pipeline of feedstock converters will compress from 2030 onwards. For investors, this implies a structural tightening in PGM recycling supply by the 2035 horizon, partially offsetting the well-publicised demand erosion from BEVs. See /categories/pgm-recycling and the cross-pillar /categories/recycling-refining-tech.

Investment vehicles for minor PGMs

Given the absence of ETFs, investor access to minor PGMs is via:

• Producer equities. Sibanye-Stillwater (JSE/NYSE: SBSW), Anglo American Platinum (JSE: AMS), Impala Platinum (JSE: IMP), Northam Platinum (JSE: NPH). All carry South African operating risk.
• Royalty/streaming. Royal Bafokeng-related vehicles, Wheaton Precious Metals (limited PGM streams).
• Physical bars. Available from refiners (Heraeus, BASF, Tanaka) but with bid-ask spreads of 5-15% and storage challenges.
• Catalyst and chemical companies. Johnson Matthey, BASF, Heraeus.

See /categories/gold-markets and /categories/silver-markets for cross-pillar reference frames.

The investor synthesis

Minor PGMs combine three properties rare in commodity markets: structural undersupply on plausible demand scenarios (iridium for electrolysers), opaque price discovery (no ETF, thin futures), and high concentration risk on the supply side. The investment case is therefore inherently asymmetric — large potential upside on demand inflection, large downside on demand cancellation (e.g. PEM losing to alkaline). Position sizing should reflect both the conviction and the illiquidity, typically 1-3% of a precious metals sleeve rather than core allocation.

Read next

• /categories/rhodium-market
• /categories/iridium-electrolysers
• /categories/ruthenium-osmium
• /categories/pgm-recycling