Reviewed August 2026 against Kitco Fundamentals, Statista, and USGS/Natural Resources Canada reserve data.

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Rhodium is found almost entirely as a byproduct of platinum and nickel mining, not as its own ore. South Africa’s Bushveld Complex supplied about 81% of the world’s mined rhodium in 2025, Russia’s Norilsk-Talnakh about 10%, Zimbabwe’s Great Dyke about 6% and the USA and Canada together about 2%. Total mine output was 701,000 troy ounces (21.8 tonnes), according to the Johnson Matthey PGM Market Report 2026. Kitco quoted a bid of $8,525 per ounce on 28 September 2026 (Kitco).

Where Is Rhodium Found? The Short Answer

If you searched “where can rhodium be found” expecting a mineral you could point to on a map the way you’d point to a copper porphyry or a salt dome, the honest answer is: you can’t, because rhodium doesn’t form its own deposits. It occurs at trace concentrations inside platinum-group-metal (PGM) ore alongside platinum, palladium, and nickel, and it only becomes “rhodium” after a refinery separates it out. Four places account for essentially all of the world’s supply:

• South Africa — the Bushveld Complex, ~80% of 2024 global mine supply (Kitco)
• Russia — Norilsk-Talnakh, ~12% of 2024 global supply (Kitco)
• Zimbabwe — the Great Dyke, ~4% of 2024 global supply (Kitco)
• USA and Canada combined — ~3% of 2024 global supply (Kitco), concentrated at Montana’s Stillwater Complex and Ontario’s Sudbury Basin

Other countries add about 7,000 oz (1%). Separately, recycling of old catalytic converters returned about 312,000 oz to the market in 2025 (Johnson Matthey). No country outside that list produces rhodium at a scale that shows up in global statistics.

Where Is Rhodium Mined? Region by Region

South Africa: the Bushveld Complex

The Bushveld Complex, centered on Rustenburg, is the reason South Africa dominates this market. Johnson Matthey puts South African primary rhodium supply at 566,000 oz (17.6 tonnes) in 2025, down from 645,000 oz in 2021 (Johnson Matthey). No other region comes close. The Bushveld’s PGM reef is mined for platinum and palladium first; rhodium is recovered as one of several byproducts from the same ore stream.

Russia: Norilsk-Talnakh

Russia’s Norilsk-Talnakh complex in Siberia is the world’s second-largest rhodium source, at 68,000 oz, about 10% of primary supply in 2025 (Johnson Matthey). Here rhodium rides along with nickel and copper mining rather than platinum mining — the ore body is a nickel-copper-PGM deposit, so rhodium output is tied to nickel production economics as much as to platinum prices.

Zimbabwe: the Great Dyke

Zimbabwe’s Great Dyke PGM belt supplied 45,000 oz, about 6% of primary rhodium, in 2025 (Johnson Matthey). Much of its concentrate and matte is shipped to South Africa for refining.

United States and Canada

The Stillwater Complex in Montana — the J-M Reef — is the only significant primary PGM mine in the US, but it is a palladium-rich reef and yields little rhodium. Canada’s rhodium comes out of the Sudbury Basin in Ontario, again as a byproduct — this time of nickel-copper mining, similar to the Russian setup. Combined, the USA and Canada supplied only 15,000 oz of primary rhodium in 2025, about 2% of the world total (Johnson Matthey). The US Geological Survey doesn’t break out Stillwater’s rhodium output as a standalone public figure — it’s treated as proprietary company data — so if you need a current US production number, the Stillwater/Sibanye-Stillwater investor disclosures and press releases are the only route to it; USGS aggregates it into the broader PGM category.

Rhodium Mine Supply by Country, 2021–2025

The most detailed public series on rhodium supply comes from Johnson Matthey, which tracks primary (mined) supply by region each year. Figures are thousand troy ounces (Johnson Matthey PGM Market Report 2026).

Three things stand out. South Africa’s output has drifted down from 2021, so the world has become no less dependent on it. North America’s share is small because Stillwater’s reef is rich in palladium, not rhodium. And mine supply alone has not covered demand in any of these years: recycled converters supply close to a third of the metal used, with stocks covering the rest.

Why You Can’t Find Rhodium on Its Own

This is the part an AI summary tends to flatten into “it’s found in ore deposits,” which is true but not useful. In practice, a mining company at the Bushveld Complex or Norilsk-Talnakh isn’t running a rhodium mine — it’s running a platinum or nickel mine, and rhodium comes out the far end of the refinery as one line item among several. That has two consequences worth knowing if you’re evaluating supply risk:

• Rhodium supply can’t respond quickly to rhodium prices. If rhodium spikes, a mining company can’t simply “mine more rhodium” — output is set by platinum and nickel production decisions, and rhodium is stuck riding along.
• Ore ratios vary by deposit. The Bushveld ore carries a different platinum:palladium:rhodium ratio than Norilsk-Talnakh or Sudbury ore, which is part of why South Africa’s share of rhodium supply (80%) is even higher than its share of platinum supply generally.

Reserves: How Much Rhodium Is Actually Left

Reserve data for rhodium specifically is limited because geological surveys report platinum-group metals as a combined category rather than breaking out rhodium’s share. Here’s what is published:

• Global PGM reserves: approximately 63,000 metric tonnes, combining platinum, palladium, rhodium, and the other PGMs (USGS data via Natural Resources Canada).
• South Africa’s share of global PGM reserves: approximately 83% (USGS-sourced data via Statista) — an even higher concentration than its 80% share of current rhodium supply, meaning the long-run picture tilts toward South Africa even more than the annual production numbers do.
• Stillwater Complex, Montana: reserves estimated above 700,000 ounces of rhodium specifically — one of the only deposits where a rhodium-specific reserve figure is published (MGS Refining).

What isn’t published: a reserve figure for rhodium alone at the Bushveld Complex or Norilsk-Talnakh, or Zimbabwe’s Great Dyke, separate from the platinum/palladium/nickel reserve it’s blended into. If you need that breakdown for investment or feasibility work, it generally has to come from a specific mining company’s own resource statement (e.g., Sibanye-Stillwater, Norilsk Nickel, or Impala Platinum’s technical reports) rather than a national geological survey, since surveys don’t delineate reserves by individual PGM.

Deposit Comparison Table

The table below is the fast answer to “where is rhodium mined” — the four regions that matter, what they’re mined alongside, and what share of global supply each holds.

Source and refresh path: Kitco Fundamentals (online.kitco.com/fundamentals/rhodium-investment) publishes updated regional supply shares; Statista’s country-level tonnage (Rhodium production volume worldwide by country) is updated annually. The USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, published each January, is the underlying government source both draw from — check that release for the most current year’s figures before citing this table.

Where the Rhodium Goes: Demand and the Converter Math

Knowing where rhodium is mined only answers half the question people are actually asking — the other half is why it’s worth chasing at all. On 28 September 2026 Kitco quoted rhodium at a bid of $8,525 per troy ounce (Kitco). Global demand was 1,063,000 oz in 2025, against mine supply of 701,000 oz and recycled supply of 312,000 oz, leaving a deficit of about 50,000 oz met from stocks (Johnson Matthey PGM Market Report 2026). Recycling covered roughly 29% of demand.

The overwhelming end use is automotive. A standard gasoline catalytic converter contains roughly 1–2 grams of rhodium (AutoNation Mobile Service), which is why rhodium demand tracks vehicle production and emissions-standard tightening rather than jewelry or electronics trends. At $8,525/oz — which works out to about $274 per gram — even that small quantity carries real value, which is the whole reason catalytic-converter theft and recycling markets exist.

Calculator: Rhodium Value in Your Catalytic Converter

Since the rhodium content of a converter and the daily spot price both move, here’s a way to price your own scenario instead of relying on a number that’s already stale by the time you read it.

Assumptions: uses the standard 1–2g rhodium range for a gasoline catalytic converter (AutoNation Mobile Service) and converts spot price per troy ounce (31.1035 grams) to a per-gram figure. It does not account for refining/recovery losses, platinum or palladium also present in the same converter, or scrap-buyer discounts off spot — actual payout from a recycler will be lower than this raw metal value.

How New Rhodium Deposits Get Found Today

Because rhodium only ever shows up inside PGM ore, finding new supply means finding new platinum-nickel-copper deposits — the same exploration problem as any other PGM project, just with rhodium as one of the payable byproducts. This is where mineral exploration technology matters more than it does for a standalone commodity: a company exploring for a new PGM body in an underexplored part of the Bushveld margin or a Great Dyke extension needs to screen large areas before committing to drilling.

• 🛰️ Rapid Discovery: Multispectral and hyperspectral satellite sensing reduces fieldwork time by 80–85% relative to ground-survey-first approaches.
• 🌍 Global Coverage: Screening works across the same terrain types that host layered PGM intrusions, from the Bushveld’s exposed reef to less-explored margins elsewhere.
• 💰 Cost Savings: Concentrates drilling budgets on the highest-probability structural targets instead of speculative grid drilling.
• 🌱 Zero Disturbance: Satellite-based screening is non-invasive, which matters in PGM districts where community and environmental permitting is already a long process.

The satellite based mineral detection service also outputs 3D structural visualization, letting a geology team see likely mineral zones and drilling angles before field deployment — see a sample here: satellite driven 3d mineral prospectivity mapping. This applies to PGM-nickel exploration the same way it applies to any layered or vein-hosted target.

Ready to scope a PGM or byproduct-metal exploration target? Get a quote for a prospectivity report, or contact Farmonaut to discuss what data already exists for your area of interest.

A Note on Sulfur Mining

If you arrived here also wondering about sulfur, that topic has moved to its own dedicated coverage, since sulfur’s supply picture (oil-and-gas byproduct recovery, salt-dome mining, volcanic sourcing) is a genuinely separate story from rhodium’s PGM-byproduct model. Start with sulfur mining extraction methods for how modern sulfur recovery actually works, or agricultural sulfur and sulfur salts deposits for the fertilizer-industry side. Sulfur recovery is also tightly linked to natural gas processing — see how that plays out at one of the world’s largest gas developments in Jafurah gas and Saudi energy-agriculture. And because both rhodium and sulfur mining carry water-management obligations, see water management in mining operations for the operational side of that requirement.

FAQ: Where Can You Find Rhodium

Conclusion & Resources

Rhodium is found in exactly four places that matter at scale — the Bushveld Complex in South Africa, Norilsk-Talnakh in Russia, the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe, and the Stillwater Complex/Sudbury Basin split between the USA and Canada — and in every one of them, it’s mined as a byproduct of platinum, palladium, or nickel, never on its own. South Africa’s roughly 81% share of 2025 mine supply (Johnson Matthey) and 83% share of global PGM reserves (USGS-sourced data) mean that country’s mining policy and labor conditions are the single biggest variable in rhodium availability worldwide.

The durable way to track this going forward, since every figure above will move: check the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries each January for the updated country-by-country production table, check Kitco’s rhodium price chart for the current spot price, and check Kitco Fundamentals or Statista for the current-year regional supply-share breakdown before citing any number as current.

• South Africa remains the single point of concentration for rhodium supply.
• Rhodium’s fate is tied to platinum and nickel mining economics, not its own market.
• North America (USA + Canada) supplies only about 3% of the world’s rhodium.
• New PGM deposits are increasingly located via satellite screening before drilling begins.
• For exploration in PGM-bearing terrain, request a custom mineral intelligence quote from Farmonaut.

Further Reading & Actions

• 🌍 Learn more: Satellite-Based Mineral Detection Overview
• 🗺️ 3D Mapping: Satellite Driven 3D Mineral Prospectivity Mapping Sample
• 📩 Talk to Us: Contact Farmonaut for consultations or exploration plans
• ⚡ Ready to act? Get a Quote Now for mineral resource intelligence
• 🧪 Related: Sulfur Mining Extraction Methods, Agricultural Sulfur & Sulfur Salts Deposits, Jafurah Gas & Saudi Energy-Agriculture, Water Management in Mining Operations