The past year was a difficult one overall for the metals, with the main standouts to the upside being a geopolitical risk-driven gain in gold, a China-driven rise in iron ore and a surge in uranium on broadening global support for nuclear power (Figure 1). A jump in global interest rates to near two-decade highs saw recession fears persist all year, and while one still did not actually eru...Read More

This year the post-global health crisis boom was brought to an end by a surge in inflation to forty-year highs, a major rise in global interest rates in an attempt to curb the rising prices and surging geopolitical risk after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While precious metals held up reasonably well as markets turned to them as a risk hedge, by Q2/22 the higher interest rates put an end t...Read More

Chile is the world leader in copper production, at 28.5% of the total in 2020, and this looks set to continue, with the country having the largest global reserves, at 23.0% of total. It is also the global leader for molybdenum, which is often found along with copper, and is a major lithium player, holding 51.1% of global reserves. Read More

Newfoundland has become a gold exploration hotspot over the past few years, with the sector seeing some of its strongest activity ever. While the province remains a small contributor to Canadian gold production, it has a substantial mineral industry well supported by the government, focused on iron ore, copper and nickel, and the surge in exploration suggests that gold output from the...Read More

Nevada is the core of the U.S. gold output, accounting for by far the majority, at 75.4% on average for the past year. The state looks set to remain a dominant player in U.S. gold, as it accounts for 49% of total U.S. reserves, with Alaska slightly ahead with 51% of reserves, but just 8.6% of current production. The U.S. accounts for 6.1% of global gold output, making Nevada one of the largest gol...Read More

The Golden Triangle in northwestern British Columbia has historically been a major site of Canadian gold production, beginning as early as the mid 1800s. There was a wave of production in the 1990s which cooled as the gold price declined, but larger scale production resumed in 2017, and the area has seen surging exploration interest over the past year, given that the region has some of the largest...Read More

In this report we outline the Quebec gold mining industry, including its major producers, and a survey of many of the junior miners focused on the province. Quebec accounts for 34% of Canadian gold production (second to Ontario, with 44%) and remains a major focus for both producers and junior miners.Read More

Red Lake has been one of the most prolific gold mining districts in Canada and the world, with exploration having started in the 1920s, and production, which began in the 1930s, continuing to the present day. The district is known for the high grade of its gold, its infrastructure, and strong institutional support, given the long history of mining in the area.Read More

Why China Is Prone to Bubbles ... The only sure way for China to prevent new bubbles is to tighten credit, slow money growth and allow risk to price assets properly. If the government keeps stepping in to prevent falling prices and to bail out banks or other investors, the possibility of loss is discounted. The probability of an asset crunch like the ones Japan experienced in the 1990s and the...Read More

Bloomberg Singer Says Gold Rally Just Beginning as Goldman Sees Losses ... Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer said that gold's best quarter in 30 years is probably just the beginning of a rebound as global investors — including Stan Druckenmiller — weigh the ramifications of unprecedented monetary easing on inflation. "It makes a great deal of sense to own gold. Other investors...Read More

Indian central bank governor says helicopter money no panacea ... Indian Central Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan said on Tuesday that he had doubts “helicopter money”, or free cash given directly to citizens to stimulate growth, would be successful if adopted by developed world policymakers. -ReutersRaghuram Rajan has come out against helicopter money and this is probably to be expected f...Read More

Why China Is Prone to Bubbles ... The only sure way for China to prevent new bubbles is to tighten credit, slow money growth and allow risk to price assets properly. If the government keeps stepping in to prevent falling prices and to bail out banks or other investors, the possibility of loss is discounted. The probability of an asset crunch like the ones Japan experienced in the 1990s and the...Read More

Bloomberg Singer Says Gold Rally Just Beginning as Goldman Sees Losses ... Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer said that gold's best quarter in 30 years is probably just the beginning of a rebound as global investors — including Stan Druckenmiller — weigh the ramifications of unprecedented monetary easing on inflation. "It makes a great deal of sense to own gold. Other investors...Read More

Against expectations and in some instances in defiance of fundamentals, commodities managed to climb a wall of worry over the first four months of 2016 giving mining stocks a welcome boost after three years of declines.But seven trading days into May and much of the gains are being wiped out as fears about the health of the Chinese economy returns with a vengeance. Demand for bellwether commod...Read More

Commodity prices have been on a downward trend for the past five years, which has put pressure on the budgets and operations of British Columbia's (BC) mining companies in 2015. According to the annual PwC BC Mining Industry Survey for 2015 the continued drop in the price of key metals and minerals, particularly metallurgical coal and copper, has led to a number of mines in BC being put into care...Read More

There was no commodity paradigm shift and there was no "peak everything" in 2011, says Jeremy Grantham in his recent letter to investors.The storied investor, writing in this spring's GMO Quarterly Letter, runs an autopsy on his own bullish outlook on commodities in 2011 and dissects how it all went wrong.Boston-based Grantham, Mayo, & van Otterloo has more than US$118 billion in assets under mana...Read More

Andrew Mackenzie says BHP won't wait for prices to recover, and insists the giant miner continues to drive down costs. (Image from archives)World's largest mining company BHP Billiton (ASX, NYSE:BHP) (LON:BLT) has decided to resume investing in projects aimed to boost production capacity, particularly in copper and oil, even if commodity prices have not fully recovered yet.Speaking at the Global M...Read More

Fault lines: GOP civil war deepens ... Donald Trump is poised to breeze through another round of primary contests this week — while the Republican Party splinters around him. Trump’s ascent to the top of the GOP, which was capped last week with Ted Cruz’s devastating loss in the Indiana primary, happened so fast that even the billionaire himself was surprised. And the whipsawed p...Read More

Fault lines: GOP civil war deepens ... Donald Trump is poised to breeze through another round of primary contests this week — while the Republican Party splinters around him. Trump’s ascent to the top of the GOP, which was capped last week with Ted Cruz’s devastating loss in the Indiana primary, happened so fast that even the billionaire himself was surprised. And the whipsawed p...Read More

Top publicly-held copper producer Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE:FCX) on Monday announced the sale of its largest African copper mine to China Molybdenum for up to $2.65 billion.Like many of its peers Freeport has been struggling to get its debt load under control which ballooned to $20 billion following the ill-timed acquisition of oil and gas assets three years ago. In February the Phoenix...Read More

Mining and metals investors were offloading the sector's big names on Monday after sharp drops in iron ore and copper prices following weaker than expected imports by top consumer China and renewed fears about the robustness of the 2016 rally in commodity prices.On the Comex market in New York copper for delivery in July fell as much 2.4% to $2.1025 a pound or some $4,635 a tonne. Copper's y...Read More

Atlas Copco launches its first battery driven product within the mining and underground segment. When it comes to safety for its operators, the Scooptram ST7 Battery has been developed to meet and exceed environmental standards and modern mining safety requirements.Traditionally, underground mobile equipment in the mining sector has relied on diesel engines which release emissions. Those emissions...Read More

Canadian Eldorado Gold (TSX:ELD) (NYSE:EGO) will resume work at its stalled Skouries mine, one of four Greek major operations where the firm is involved, following an approval of its updated technical study by the Ministry of Energy and Environment.The Vancouver-based miner had been awaiting a licence for the project in Halkidiki, a forested area in northern Greece, for over a year. But after mont...Read More

Panama Papers source breaks silence over ‘scale of injustices’ ... Whistleblower says leak of 11.5m Mossack Fonseca files on offshore tax havens has triggered debate but not enough action. -UK GuardianWho is this anonymous person who believes his vast Panama Papers leak hasn't triggered enough "action?"Why does he want Western governments to try harder to prosecute those who have put a...Read More

Creator of online money Liberty Reserve gets 20 years in prison ... Before the virtual currency Bitcoin there was Liberty Reserve — and its founder just got sentenced to 20 years in prison. Arthur Budovsky, 42, ran an online digital money business out of Costa Rica called Liberty Reserve. The U.S. government contended that the whole thing was just a massive, $6 billion money laundering opera...Read More

Panama Papers source breaks silence over ‘scale of injustices’ ... Whistleblower says leak of 11.5m Mossack Fonseca files on offshore tax havens has triggered debate but not enough action. -UK GuardianWho is this anonymous person who believes his vast Panama Papers leak hasn't triggered enough "action?"Why does he want Western governments to try harder to prosecute those who have put a...Read More

Creator of online money Liberty Reserve gets 20 years in prison ... Before the virtual currency Bitcoin there was Liberty Reserve — and its founder just got sentenced to 20 years in prison. Arthur Budovsky, 42, ran an online digital money business out of Costa Rica called Liberty Reserve. The U.S. government contended that the whole thing was just a massive, $6 billion money laundering opera...Read More

OZ Minerals (ASX:OZL) is betting big on copper with plans to begin mining ore at its Carrapateena underground mine by 2019.In a statement released on Friday, Australia's third-largest copper producer said it aims for output three years from now under a revised AUD$975 million construction plan - a far cry from the original plans back in 2014 for a project valued up to AUD $3 billion. The mine woul...Read More