Sibanye-Stillwater gives notice to hundreds of Montana miners as palladium prices collapse.

Sibanye-Stillwater, the only platinum and palladium mine in the United States, gave employees a 60-day notice of upcoming layoffs – blaming a loss of more than $350 million since the beginning of 2023 and plummeting metal pricing due to predatory Russian price dumping.

The South Africa-based miner expanded in the U.S. through the purchase of Stillwater Mining Company in 2017 for $2.2 billion during rising platinum and palladium prices. The Montana platinum group metal mines that came with this acquisition sustained the company through turmoil, from intense strikes to several worker deaths at Sibanye's South African gold mines.

As recently as March, Sibanye-Stillwater expanded its U.S. presence through the acquisition of Reldan, a Pennsylvania-based recycling group that reprocesses various waste streams, including industrial and electronic waste, to recover precious metals.

The company recently restructured U.S. operations to protect margins and reduce operational costs to ensure stability in what the company website deems "a lower palladium price environment." This restructuring, however, was not expected to significantly impact production.

Stillwater Mining Company's south-central Montana mine complex includes two principal mining sections – Stillwater West, which has been in operation since 1986, producing platinum and palladium in concentrate; and the Stillwater East, which is still in a delayed build-up phase between the towns of Nye and McLeod.

Ore from the operations is milled and treated at integrated concentrator complexes located at each. Concentrate smelting and refining takes place at the smelter complex situated in the town of Columbus, Montana.

The company will be putting the Stillwater West operations on pause. It also expects to lay off roughly 700 employees at East Boulder south of Big Timber and reduce operations at a smelting facility and metal refinery in Columbus.

Leadership continues to focus on improving efficiencies in operating Stillwater East and East Boulder mines that could allow the Stillwater West mine to reopen, , according to Stillwater Mining Company Executive Vice President Kevin Robertson.

The industry has suffered severely declining prices for palladium, which is most notably used in catalytic converters. Two years ago, the precious metal was about $2,200 per ounce and has more than halved to a price below $1,000/oz over the past three months. Platinum pricing has also suffered, though not as dramatically.

"We believe Russian dumping is a cause of this sharp price dislocation," Robertson wrote in a letter to employees explaining the layoffs. "Russia produces over 40% of the global palladium supply, and rising imports of palladium have inundated the U.S. market over the last several years."

In response, Montana senators Steve Daines (Republican) and Jon Tester (Democrat) have promised to introduce legislation prohibiting such imports – Daines introduced a bill last week banning Russian critical minerals such as platinum and palladium, which would end one year after Russia ends its war with Ukraine. Other prohibited minerals in the bill include copper, nickel, rhodium, ruthenium and zinc.

"There is no reason the United States should be importing critical minerals that we can find right here at home," said Daines. "Montana is rich in minerals, and we need to be supporting American mines and American jobs, not Russia's."

This downsize follows a previous layoff of 100 workers last year, when the company also stopped work on an expansion project, leaving another 30 jobs unfilled. Contract work has been being phased out, according to Heather McDowell, a vice president at Sibanye-Stillwater, affecting 187 contract workers (about 67% of the mine's usual complement) all due to declining prices.