The Neometals Ltd (ASX: NMT) share price is rocketing today after the company reported the latest nickel and palladium finds at its Western Australia mine.
As of writing, the miner's share price is trading at 45 cents, up 8.5%. By comparison, the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is 0.08% lower.
Let's take a closer look at the announcement and how it's affecting the Neometals share price.
What's in the update?
In today's release, Neometals gave an update to the nickel and palladium deposits at its Armstrong Deposit at its Mt Edwards Project in WA.
Nickel
Neometals advised there were at least 13,200 tonnes of pure nickel at the deposit. Neometals tested the nickel at the site to see if it could be floated. Floatation is the process where the metal is separated from the ore.
Nickel is currently trading for US$16,782.25 per tonne. The metal's price is up 1.17% today and 4.65% this month. It is, however, down 14.6% since hitting a 5-year low earlier in the year.
According to Trading Economics, the price fell as supply levels increased. In economics, this is known as the laws of supply and demand. The website does forecast the nickel price to increase in the long run as demand for electric vehicles increases.
Palladium
As a bonus for the Neometals share price, the company also announced the discovery of palladium, and to a lesser extent platinum, during its routine nickel mining operations.
In its statement, the company said it would further explore the discovery to see if there was enough of the metal at the site to be commercially viable. The company claims the location and concentration of nickel correlate with the palladium.
Palladium is currently trading on the commodities market for US$2,624.74 per troy ounce. It's only slightly down from its 1 year high of US $2,684.73 per troy ounce of 4 days ago.
Once used almost exclusively in jewellery, Palladium is now mostly used as a catalyst converter in petrol engines. Its demand, and price, is forecast to increase over the long term as environmental regulations become more stringent.
Neometals share price snapshot
The Neometals share price is up 178% over the past 12 months. Its share price has been lifting alongside the prices of the metals and lithium as demand for these elements increases.
Neometals has a market capitalisation of $237 million.
