(recasts, adds quotes, changes prices, pvs TOKYO)
By Atul Prakash
LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Platinum spiked to a new historic
high for the sixth trading day on Thursday, as investors flocked
in to snap up the metal on deepening concerns over supply from
top producer South Africa.
Bullish sentiment in the precious metals market, along with
a weaker dollar, lifted other metals, with palladium hitting a
six-year high, gold rising more than 1 percent towards recent
record highs and silver extending gains.
Spot platinum <XPT=> rose to a high of $1,850 an ounce
before falling to $1,841/1,848 at 1117 GMT, against $1,810/1,815
in New York late on Wednesday.
"People are now talking about a very significant supply
deficit yet again for platinum in 2008 and this is a problem
that is not going to go away in a hurry," said Ross Norman,
managing director at TheBullionDesk.com.
"Platinum is a very, very thin market in the sense that
there's very little metal between the miner, the refiner, the
fabricator and industrial clients."
"With the investment buying coming in, being a thin market,
it pushes the price massively higher," he said.
South Africa has appealed to mining companies for help in
cutting power consumption to ease a power crisis caused by the
failure of electricity generation to match economic growth.
Platinum producers in the country, which accounts for more
than three-fourths of global output, are still facing power
problems after halting mining operations for five days in
January and losing significant production.
"There seems to be increased nervousness in the market.
There is no doubt that given what happened in the first quarter
so far, we are likely to have another deficit this year," said
Jeremy Coombes, general manager at Johnson Matthey, the world's
largest refiner and fabricator of platinum.
"There is some investor activity and there were some ETF
purchases last week."
ETF INFLOWS
London-based ETF Securities now holds more than 210,000
ounces of platinum in its exchange-traded fund (ETF), backed by
physical platinum.
The market witnessed a deficit of 265,000 ounces of platinum
in 2007 and analysts said the shortfall between demand and
supply might jump to 300,000 to 400,000 ounces this year.
Demand for platinum jewellery had badly suffered because of
high prices and New Year holidays in China, the world's top
consumer of platinum jewellery, traders said.
Firmness in platinum prices boosted gold prices. Spot metal
<XAU=> rose as high as $911.00 before easing to $909.60/910.30
an ounce, against $900.40/901.10 late in New York on Wednesday.
The metal hit a record $936.50 on Feb. 1.
Palladium <XPD=> rose to a high of $429 an ounce and was
last quoted at $425/430, versus $416/421 on Wednesday.
COMEX gold futures extended gains after rising 1.7 percent
in New York on Wednesday. The April contract <GCJ8> was up $9.5
at $914.50 from the New York settlement.
(Additional reporting by Veronica Brown in London and Chikafumi
Hodo in Tokyo)
(Reporting by Atul Prakash; editing by Peter Blackburn)
