Stillwater mine officials welcome tariff ruling, caution against quick expectations

COLUMBUS — While Montana's congressional delegation celebrated this week's federal tariff ruling on Russian palladium as a major step toward restoring jobs at Sibanye-Stillwater, company officials are urging caution about timelines for rehiring the nearly 700 workers laid off in fall 2024.

"This will not happen this year," Heather McDowell, Sibanye-Stillwater's Senior VP and General Counsel for Legal and External Affairs, said in response to optimistic statements from Montana's congressional delegation after Monday's Commerce Department announcement.

The U.S. Department of Commerce issued a preliminary determination imposing a 132.83% antidumping duty on Russian palladium imports, finding that Russian producers have been selling palladium in the U.S. at prices well below fair market value. Because no Russian producers cooperated in the investigation, Commerce compared Russian export prices to other palladium export prices to calculate the margin.

Sen. Steve Daines told the Billings Gazette the tariff would "allow us to be competitive again in terms of price and hopefully that will mean Stillwater is looking at bringing many of these miners back on board."

Montana's entire congressional delegation — Sens. Daines and Tim Sheehy, and Reps. Troy Downing and Ryan Zinke — have been pushing for federal action against Russian palladium imports since the layoffs, including legislative efforts to ban Russian mineral imports and letters to President Trump calling for immediate tariffs.

But McDowell emphasized that returning to full production "could be considered after a year or two," not immediately.

"We must sort out our operational plan to achieve lower costs — a target of $1,000 per ounce — before we return to full production," McDowell said. "We can't afford to take a misstep here. When we hire people back we need to give them some certainty."

She noted that while the company is "incredibly grateful for the last few months of good prices" with palladium trading above $1,600 per ounce, "there is not yet certainty for us in our operational planning or in the market, but we're optimistic and working hard to get there."

McDowell praised the delegation's efforts to expedite the trade case, calling the preliminary determination "a great result" that will "significantly enable our operations." But the decision to reopen the west side of the Stillwater Mine and bring employees back to work is a function of both price and cost. That area of mining operations has much higher costs than the east side of the Stillwater Mine and East Boulder, and the plan to reduce those costs must be implemented before mining on the west side can resume.

"Control over Russian palladium imports is something that will significantly enable our operations when the time is right," she said. "Every day we have with higher prices is helping to create that certainty."

The preliminary tariff addresses only dumping — selling below fair market value. A concurrent countervailing duty investigation examining Russian government subsidies to palladium producers is still ongoing and could result in additional duties.

A final determination on the antidumping case is expected around April 28.