information:extraction
Occurrence

As overall mine production of palladium reached 210,000 kilograms in 2022, Russia was the top producer with 88,000 kilograms, followed by South Africa, Canada, the U.S., and Zimbabwe. Russia's company Norilsk Nickel ranks first among the largest palladium producers globally, accounting for 39% of the world's production.

Palladium can be found as a free metal alloyed with gold and other platinum-group metals in placer deposits of the Ural Mountains, Australia, Ethiopia, North and South America. For the production of palladium, these deposits play only a minor role. The most important commercial sources are nickel - copper deposits found in the Sudbury Basin, Ontario, and the Norilsk–Talnakh deposits in Siberia. The other large deposit is the Merensky Reef platinum group metals deposit within the Bushveld Igneous Complex South Africa. The Stillwater igneous complex of Montana and the Roby zone ore body of the Lac des Îles igneous complex of Ontario are the two other sources of palladium in Canada and the United States. Palladium is found in the rare minerals cooperite and polarite. Many more Pd minerals are known, but all of them are very rare.

Palladium is also produced in nuclear fission reactors and can be extracted from spent nuclear fuel (see synthesis of precious metals), though this source for palladium is not used. None of the existing nuclear reprocessing facilities are equipped to extract palladium from the high-level radioactive waste. A complication for the recovery of palladium in spent fuel is the presence of Pd, a slightly radioactive long-lived fission product. Depending on end use, the radioactivity contributed by the Pd might make the recovered palladium unusable without a costly step of isotope separation.