These are just back of the envelope figures, but I just want to highlight why it won't take much to see platinum trading back towards its historic average of 1.5x the value of gold.
Known as rich mans gold, platinum is a lot rarer than gold. Platinum supply this year will be around 8million ounces compared to around 90million ounces of gold.
Approximately 50% of annual gold production(approximately 45million ounces) is used for jewellery, while approximately 30% of platinum (approximately 2.5million ounces) is presently used in jewellery.
With platinum presently trading at a 20% discount to gold, many jewellery buyers will switch to buying platinum. If even 5% switch(5% of 45million ounces is 2,250,000 ounces) it would equate to almost 30% of the total annual global supply of platinum.
The Chinese appetite for platinum jewellery has been steadily growing from over 1.5 million ounces in 2010 to over 2 million ounces by 2013.
Platinum not only has special characteristics gold doesn't have but it is also much rarer.
Make no mistake Zijin are on to it and want to get as much of the very limited platinum resource into their portfolio as soon as they can.
NKP Price at posting:
8.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
