Table Environmental impacts in the production of nickel, palladium, and platinum. Nickel production is diversified, being Indonesia, Philipines and Russia the largest producers. For palladium, most production takes place at Russia and South Africa, while South Africa was the responsible for most platinum production. Differences arise between Russian and South African production because for the Russian production, noble metal extraction uses the waste of nickel production, whereas the South African extraction is highly efficient for a variety of noble metals.