Jeff Christian & Dan Steffens - PGM Market Overview, In Depth Oil Commentary
Summary
Christian argues platinum's run to a $2,900 January record came from investors chasing a deficit story, not from autocatalyst demand.
PGMs (platinum group metals — six noble metals clustered on the periodic table) are industrial metals, losing share as battery electric vehicles replace catalyst demand.
Fuel cell and hydrogen forecasts keep underdelivering, while opaque minor PGMs like iridium and ruthenium offer price upside with almost no way to exit.
Steffens expects the real oil supply shock in August as US Strategic Petroleum Reserve drawdowns stall and crack spreads, the crude-to-product margin, hit extremes.
Energy producers at $80-plus return cash through dividends and buybacks rather than adding rigs, and Magnolia's $4 billion deal signals renewed M&A appetite.
Dan Steffens's takeaways
- Top takeaway The guest argues the real oil supply shock arrives in August 2026 and that oil should be worth $120 to $150 a barrel, against just under $85 at the July 25, 2026 recording; he says the calm price is about paper traders who fear the US president could suddenly declare a deal.
- He expects the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to run out of drawable oil in August because a third of its sites may already be at tank bottoms, which he says would leave European refineries unable to supply Europe.
- He says refined products are where the shortage already shows: he cites jet fuel around $140 a barrel while crude was near $75, and OECD refined-product inventories at the lowest days of cover ever measured.
- He treats the Strait of Hormuz supply chain as physically broken, citing roughly 9.9 million barrels a day of shut-in wells in surrounding countries by end of June 2026 with no quick way to restore them, and expects the conflict to run into 2027.
- He advises investors that if oil stays above $80 these companies are extremely profitable, and says he personally favours names with sustainable dividends and buybacks rather than producers traded on hedges.
Jeff Christian's takeaways
- Top takeaway The guest says platinum's record run, from around $900 in May 2025 to a record near $2,900 in January 2026, was investor-driven, rejecting the promotional claims of a massive deficit and a China import surge; he notes the price had given back about half, to roughly $1,600, by the July 25, 2026 recording.
- He expects platinum and palladium to have upside over the next three to five years but to come back off beyond roughly 2030 to 2032, and prefers them to the minor metals because exchange trading gives investors visible prices and a way to exit.
- He does not expect platinum to regain its historical premium to gold, arguing gold's rise reflects a lasting shift in who is able to own it while platinum is an industrial metal that has already lost about 13% of its vehicle market to battery electric vehicles.
- He describes palladium as a very tight, roughly balanced industrial market, with a small surplus in the prior year and a small deficit this year, but warns it carries the same auto-catalyst vulnerability as platinum.
- He dismisses fuel-cell and green-hydrogen demand stories for platinum and iridium as repeated false starts, noting about 58 gigawatts of announced electrolyser electrode capacity against roughly 5 gigawatts of actual capacity.