UNITED STATES March 25 2014 1:45 PM

NEW YORK (Scrap Register): The spread between platinum and palladium has declined to a 12-year low on an outperformance by palladium, said Mitsubishi in a snippet.

Palladium hit a 2 ½-year high late last week. The catalysts were a surprise announcement from Standard Bank that it would launch a physically backed palladium exchange-traded fund in South Africa Monday, swiftly followed by an announcement from Absa Bank that its planned South African palladium ETF would begin trading on Thursday.

“Together with rumors that Norilsk’s palladium output suffered a severe fall in February, the ongoing South African mining strike and growing speculation about the impact of possible economic sanctions against Russia, and an unprecedented degree of tightness in the palladium sponge market, investors piled in and the platinum/palladium spread moved to a new 12-year low of 1.82,” said Mitsubishi via Kitco News.