Different markets, different cycles. Mining companies suffered for their sins in the downturn a little earlier than the oil and gas sector. Now they are emerging into a new upturn, also ahead of the game. What challenges do they face that oil and gas companies might learn from? I asked Julian Kettle, Vice Chairman of Metals and Mining Research, to share his thoughts. A battle...Read More
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Commonwealth Fusion Systems have partnered to advance a new generation of fusion experiments and power plants based on advances in high-temperature superconductors, which could help achieve the long-sought goal of producing fusion power.In a press release, the scientists and funders involved in the project define fusion power as a potentially "inexhaus...Read More
Image: Codelco via FlickrWhen Richard Adkerson, boss of Freeport-McMoRan, presented to the BMO Capital Markets conference in Florida last month he showed a slide headlined World class copper discoveries are extremely rare.Adkerson said the Phoenix-based company has been putting these graphs in investor slide decks "for years".Only one project - Oyu Tolgoi's underground expansion - will crack the t...Read More
Barrick Gold's chairman John Thornton has just given a fresh boost to the company's global employee share plan, leading by example.The boss of the world's top miner of the precious metal bought Tuesday 306,000 additional shares in the company, bringing his total share ownership position to 2,720,991 common shares.Two other directors also hiked their stake, Barrick said, including Rob Prichard - w...Read More
Deep Green Resources (DPG), a seafloor mining start-up partnering with Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company, is about to launch a six-week cruise on April 12-14 from San Diego CA to an area of the Pacific Ocean where it will begin a process that it hopes and fully expects will solve the problem of how to mine the minerals and metals essential for a cleaner, greener world in a fa...Read More
Rio Tinto-controlled Turquoise Hill Resources said Tuesday it had received an "information" request from the Mongolian Anti-Corruption Authority (ACA) to provide financial data associated to its giant Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia.The petition relates to an investigation about possible abuse of power by authorized officials during negotiation of the 2009 Oyu Tolgoi investment agreeme...Read More
Shares in Chilean miner Antofagasta Plc. (LON:ANTO) spiked Tuesday after it posted a 59% increase in profits to almost $2.6 billion last year, thanks to strong copper prices and cost-cutting measures that helped offset a slight decline in production.Net profit for the year ended Dec. 31 climbed to $750.6 million from $158 million a year earlier, a more than four-fold increase, which allowed the co...Read More
The past 18 months have been difficult for precious metals investors. If you had known Donald Trump would be elected and the US Dollar would soon begin a nearly 15% decline, you would have expected Gold to blow past its 2016 high. You would have been shocked to see the gold miners and junior gold stocks trading lower. Gold has fared okay but the gold stocks and Silver have lagged. As US equities h...Read More
Shares in Newcrest Mining fell more 4.6 per cent Monday after the miner declared that its performance for fiscal 2018 will be definitely affected by the breach of a tailings dam wall at its Cadia gold mine."Whilst it is too early in the evaluation and recovery process for Newcrest to provide an indication of the extent to which FY18 production, capital and cost guidance will be impacted, this even...Read More
On Monday copper for delivery in May declined nearly 1% on the Comex market in New York at $3.1095 per pound or $6,855 a tonne amid a general weakness on commodity and financial markets gripped by uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration's trade policies and the strength of demand from China, the globe's number one metals consumer.That's a 2.4 billion pound or $7.6 billion decline from rec...Read More
BELGRADE, March 12 (Reuters) - China's Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd. has expressed interest in buying loss-making Serbian copper miner and smelter RTB Bor, which the Balkan state has been trying to sell for the past decade.President Aleksandar Vucic on Monday met representatives of the Chinese firm, who expressed an intention to invest several hundred million dollars in the business, his office said...Read More
The US mining industry is asking the Supreme Court to revoke an Obama-era rule banning the mining of uranium on public lands nearby the Grand Canyon.The National Mining Association (NMA) and the American Exploration and Mining Association (AEMA) filed petitions on Friday asking the court to reverse the 2012 ban implemented by the previous administration as uranium prices soared and a flurry of n...Read More
There's a strange thing about the fear going through the global mining industry after the Democratic Republic of Congo signed an order to lift royalties last week: Compared with most other countries, these levies are still relatively low.The existing 2 percent rate on copper extraction compares with royalties five times that level in Chile and Peru, the two biggest producers.Even at the new 3.5...Read More
The small contrarian gold-mining sector remains deeply out of favor, universally ignored. Thus the gold stocks are largely drifting listlessly, totally devoid of excitement. But that's the best time to buy low, when few others care. The gold stocks continue to form strong technical bases, paving the way for massive mean-reversion uplegs. And they remain exceedingly cheap relative to gold prices,...Read More
The Indonesian government is forcing Freeport to sell up after years of back and forth about in-country beneficiation, although the US company will likely stay operator of the mine as it moves to a block cave model. Read More
The Antofagasta action, the first time miners would have gone on strike in the over 17 years it has been operating, is likely to lead to tighter supply and higher prices.Read More
Good infrastructure, an easy-to-follow permitting regime, responsive government regulator and the odd tax break are all seen as positives.Read More
Chile's development agency Corfo said any purchase of a stake in SQM by Tianqi Lithium or associated entities would "gravely distort market competition", given Tianqi and SQM together controlled 70% of the global lithium market, according to a 45-page complaint filed on Friday, the wire service said.Corfo head Eduardo Bitran told Reuters Tianqi had presented a non-binding offer for Nutrien Ltd's 3...Read More
Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.Read More
The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada said 2018's convention attendance hit 25,606, the best turn out since 2013.Attendance was still marginally better than last year, just up six percent from 24,161.The PDAC Convention in Toronto, arguably the world's largest annual mining convention, is a bellwether of the industry's health. Participants from 125 countries attend.Organizers said the...Read More