US Department of Energy Office of Inspector General report on audit of the Department of Energy`s management of precious metals

The US Department of Energy (Department) used precious metals primarily in the production of nuclear weapons. In accordance with Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, the Department stopped producing nuclear weapons and much of its precious metals inventory became excess to programmatic need. The purpose of the audit was to determine if the Department and contractor officials were efficiently and effectively administering this valuable asset. The authors found that 6 of 11 Departmental organizations were not adequately identifying and disposing of excess precious metals. At the time of the audit, the Department had approximately $52 million worth of precious metals inventory on hand. Included in this inventory was about $10.3 million that was considered excess. In addition, the Department has the opportunity to recover precious metals worth about $36 million from disassembled nuclear weapons that will also be excess to programmatic need. Although substantial quantities of excess precious metals existed, property management officials had not developed effective procedures to dispose of excess metals through other Government agencies or on the open market. The term precious metals is defined in the property management regulations as uncommon and highly valuable metals characterized by their superior resistance to corrosion and oxidation. Eight metals fall under this definition: gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, and osmium