IEA Report: Oil Supply to Fall 5.8M b/d by 2026, Outpacing Demand Drop, Boosting Prices

[SMM Gold Flash] Golconda Gold's Gold Mine in South Africa produced a company-record 4,301 ounces in the third quarter, up 18% from 3,648 ounces in the second quarter and 20% from 3,588 ounces a year earlier. The operation processed 49,166 tonnes of ore, compared with 44,811 tonnes in the preceding quarter. Combined ore mined from the Galaxy and Princeton zones rose to 48,833 tonnes from 40,159 tonnes in the second quarter. Golconda attributed improved operating efficiency to recent spending on underground equipment and surface infrastructure. Management expects further improvement in the fourth quarter, but that remains a forecast; the update did not provide a third-quarter all-in sustaining cost or realised gold price. A later release corrected only a spelling error in the original headline.

[SMM PGM Flash] Tharisa has announced that its subsidiary had entered a binding, multi-year agreement for Valterra Platinum’s Rustenburg Platinum Mines to buy 50% of the PGM concentrate produced at the Tharisa Mine in South Africa from 1 January 2027. Valterra will replace Sibanye-Stillwater as buyer of that share. Northam Platinum retains its arrangement for the remaining 50%. The contract secures a future sales route for half the mine’s concentrate; it does not mean deliveries to Valterra have begun. The companies are also exploring fine-chrome recovery using Tharisa’s Vulcan X technology. Tharisa says its pilot plant is complete and testing is under way, but has not announced commercial deployment. This new Tharisa Mine agreement is distinct from both this week’s production report and the earlier Valterra offtake arrangement for the Karo project in Zimbabwe.

Although palladium prices have dropped roughly 30% year to date, with the market largely focused on weak demand and oversupply concerns, capacity restructuring by Russian mining giant Nornickel is exposing the global palladium supply chain to potential structural risks. In July, Nornickel completed the consolidation of its precious metals processing capacity, relocating copper anode slime calcination operations from its Norilsk Copper Plant in Siberia to its Kola Mining and Metallurgical Company (Kola MMC) facility in Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula. As Nornickel accounts for approximately 40% of global primary palladium supply, the consolidation means nearly 40% of the world’s critical palladium processing capacity is now concentrated in a single production