Rhodium

Most commodities, except for the heavyweights gold and oil, are poised for a down year in 2011, the first fall for this sector since the financial crisis hit in 2008.

Lonmin joined AngloPlat and Implats, this week signing a far-reaching two year wage pact ensuring a steady supply from Southern Africa where 75% of platinum is produced. The price of platinum has crashed from $1,915/oz in August as PGMs come under pressure due to sagging demand from the automobile sector which is slashing use of the precious metals to cut costs. And miners reducing supply to up prices is unlikely say analysts.

North American stock exchanges are on a tear today after central banks made more funds available to lenders, giving investors hope for a way out of the European debt debacle. The markets were also cheered by better than expected private sector job growth in the United States. The mining-heavy S&P/TSX Composite was up 2.5% to just over 12,000 at time of writing. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 384 points, or 3.3%, the most on a closing basis since Aug. 11, according to Bloomberg. Spot gold was up $32 from yesterday to $1747 which is just above the 20-day moving average of $1744, noted Kitco. Silver was up marginally to $32.86 from yesterday's $31.92, while benchmark copper was up more than 5% to a two-week high of $7,885/tonne. Zinc, lead, aluminum and nickel were also up from Tuesday.

WawaTay News reports Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation – a community of 1,200, 600km north of Thunder Bay, Ontario – is preparing for what may be a confrontational winter after talks on traditional land use with the Ontario government broke down last week. KI walked away from negotiations after Ontario said they were unable to stop God’s Lake Resources, a junior gold mining company, from exploring in the area while the panel meets. The land under dispute at Sherman Lake was the site of a gold mine active from 1938 to 1941. KI claims there are numerous burial sites in the area. KI was involved in a similar dispute with a platinum miner a few years ago.

One of the more unique lots at Christie's Magnificent Jewels auction on November 29 in Hong Kong is likely to be a set of poker chips made by the Swedish artist and jeweller Kristian Ståhl. The 120 chips are made of 18K white gold and are set with a total of 5,160 calibrated top-quality diamonds, rubies and sapphires. But what makes the set truly unique is that each chip was sliced from the 1 million year old Muonionalusta meteorite that contains iron, nickel and rare earths. The set is estimated at $100,000 – $150,000 and Stahl said he was inspired to create it after his Siberian mammoth ivory dice sold well at auction last year.

During Q1 Implats production fell 12% due mostly to planned operational outages. Gross platinum production was 388,000 oz compared to 441,000 during the same quarter a year ago. Palladium also declined in line with platinum, coming in at 251,000 oz compared to 285,000 year ago. Rhodium declined by just 7% from 53,000 oz compared to 57,000 oz. Costs also rose during Q1. "Group unit cost per platinum ounce produced excluding share-based payments rose by 10.8% from the previous quarter a year ago primarily due to the recent impact of the 10% wage settlement and the continuation of high electricity tariff increases," said the company in a statement.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Nov. 16, 2011) - Solitaire Minerals Corp. (TSX VENTURE:SLT) (Solitaire) is pleased to announce that the company has signed an option to acquire a 100% interest in a Platinum-Group Element (PGE) property north of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Previous exploration has located 14 mineral occurrences on the property with analytical results up to 2.2 grams per tonne of total precious metals ("TPM") or platinum + palladium + gold. A diamond drilling program is planned to test five conductors defined by a 2010 airborne VTEM® survey.

Caledonia Mining, an African focused mining and exploration company with a mine in Zimbabwe, shot up 20% to 11 cents a share after announcing a six-fold increase in profits in Q3. The company said that gross profit was $9.36 million compared to $1.607 million in the comparative quarter. "This is almost a six-fold increase on the comparative quarter and is the seventh consecutive quarterly increase in gross profit," said the company in a statement.