Sibanye-Stillwater: PGM autocatalyst recycling market remains depressed
The global autocatalyst recycling market remains depressed, with no visible signs of recovery. Persistent macroeconomic challenges, including high interest rates, inflationary pressures, and elevated prices of used and new vehicles, continue to dampen consumer demand for new vehicles. As a result, older light-duty vehicles remain in service for longer, extending scrappage periods and impacting the availability of spent autocatalysts for recycling. These factors continued to impact spent autocatalyst receipt and feed rates during 2024. The average spent autocatalyst fed for 2024 increased by 1% to 10.6 tonnes per day, a marginal improvement from 10.5 tonnes per day for 2023, but still well below average feed rates of around 24 tonnes fed at the peak in 2021. Total PGM ounces fed for 2024 of 316,470 3Eoz were 2% higher year-on-year.
It is anticipated that the US PGM recycling operations will also qualify for a S45X credit of approximately 10% of operating costs. Once they have the contract certificate from its contractor refiner it expects to be able to claim approximately US$59 million (R1.1 billion) for 2023 and approximately US$32 million (R586 million) for 2024, with approximately US$30 million for 2025 (R547 million), improving the profitability of the recycling operations.
Since its acquisition in March 2024, Reldan has delivered solid financial and operational results, particularly benefiting from higher gold volumes and prices compared to 2023, processing over 20 million pounds of mixed scrap and industrial waste. By increasing volumes of higher margin industrial waste and reducing volumes of lower margin electronic waste, the operating margin increased by 1% for 2024.
Reldan sold 107,680 oz gold, 1.7Moz silver, 15,292 oz platinum, 19,835 oz palladium and 2.6Mlbs of copper, contributing adjusted EBITDA of US$15 million (R268 million) for 2024 since acquisition to the Group.
