Trident aims to fill valuable nicheSPONSOREDtrident royaltiesThe above result from December drilling was from surface and part of a broader 243.7m intercept grading 0.31g/t gold and 0.06% copper, while the second hole returned higher grades including 1m at 22.9g/t gold."Los Osos is the first 100% Salazar Resources-owned project that we have drilled since 2017, and we are encouraged that the first...Read More

With China still on holiday, base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange have been consolidating this morning, Tuesday February 16, even though broader markets remain upbeat.* Optimism remains high while the market focuses on vaccine-enabled and stimulus-driven recoveries* While complacency is a risk, the pent-up enthusiasm from a year of Covid-19 may last a long time* BHP raises its outlook,...Read More

Swedish state-owned iron-ore producer LKAB plans to reopen its iron ore mine in Lapland, Sweden, to meet the increased demand for iron ore products, Fastmarkets heard on Tuesday February 16.LKAB plans to reopen the Mertainen mine, which was mothballed in 2016 amid a change in the market situation, in the autumn 2021, the company said. The primary goal of the mine's reopening is to meet the increas...Read More

Turkish steel producers have extended their absence from the deep-sea scrap markets because they were focusing on finished steel sales, market sources said on Tuesday February 16.The daily scrap indices had risen by more than $22 per tonne week on week after two Turkish steelmakers booked US cargoes at $410 per tonne cfr on an HMS 1&2 (80:20) basis.Since the upturn in scrap prices, most Turkish st...Read More

Algerian Qatari Steel (AQS) started its own direct reduced iron (DRI) production on Sunday February 14, and thus will stop importing DRI, the company told Fastmarkets.The module has the capacity to produce 2.5 million tonnes per year of DRI. This is in addition to the 2.1 million tpy of crude steel and total rolling capacity of 2 million tpy of rebar and wire rod...Read More

With long-serving chief executive officer Ivan Glasenberg departing on a trade-fueled high, Glencore looks likely to continue along a familiar path while also tackling one of its biggest challenges to date.The world's largest commodity trader's marketing department beat analyst expectations to make profits before tax of $3.3 billion in the full year of 2020. This was 41% more than in the previous...Read More

Fob seaborne premium hard coking coal prices continued to slide on Tuesday February 16 due to weak demand from end users for seaborne spot cargoes, despite reports of some trader interest. Fastmarkets indices Premium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $141.76 per tonne, down $2.55 per tonne Premium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $217.23 per tonne, unchanged Hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $125.07 per tonne,...Read More

BHP released its results for the first half of its 2021 financial year on Tuesday February 16, while seaborne iron ore prices remained flat.Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $166.88 per tonne, unchanged62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $167.25 per tonne, unchanged58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $152.66 per tonne, unchanged65% Fe Brazil-origin fines, cfr Qin...Read More

Belgian multinational Umicore is seeing strong demand for raw materials for battery production, spurred on by a resurgent electric vehicle (EV) market in China, according to comments by the company's chief executive in its 2020 full-year earnings call on Thursday February 11.Lithium prices have started to recover while cobalt prices have rallied hard since the start of 2021, both driven by improve...Read More

The Cobalt alloy grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lbtrade log including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparencyinto the markets it covers and the pricing process it applies.Fastmarkets assessed Cobalt alloy grade,...Read More

The Cobalt standard grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lb trade log including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparencyinto the markets it covers and the pricing process it applies.Fastmarkets assessed Cobalt...Read More

British ferro-titanium producers have moved to allay any worries about trading with Europe after the UK's exit from the European Union trading bloc ('Brexit'), with most confident they can satisfy the EU's strict regulations on chemicals.The EU's regulations on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemicals (REACH), which came into force in 2006, monitors the pr...Read More

A summary of stainless steel producer Aperam's results for the full year and fourth quarter of 2020.In briefEarnings and sales were lower for the full year 2020 year on year owing to Covid-19 Earning increased, however, in the fourth quarter on both a yearly and quarterly basis amid a resurgent European market.Overall deliveries in the fourth quarter were...Read More

Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN; US-OTC: IVPAF) expects to start producing copper concentrates in July from its Kamoa-Kakula underground mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is confident it can find more deposits like them on its Western Foreland licences, which are adjacent and to the west of its Kamoa-Kakula discoveries."This whole area holds massive potential and we started quietly picking...Read More

This week's episode features CIM Sudbury's special panel, Low-grade nickel deposits in the battery electric age, with Dumont Nickel president Johnna Muinonen, Canada Nickel CEO Mark Selby, ERM partner Roberta Pedlar-Hobbs, and Wes Carson, vice president, mining operations, at Wheaton Precious Metals. The discussion explored how Canadian low-grade nickel deposits could help provide much-needed supp...Read More

BHP (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) reinforced talks of a new supercycle today by rewarding investors with a record US$5.1 billion first-half dividend and forecasting a "very constructive" outlook for the commodities market fundamentals, as the global economy rebounds from Covid-19.The world's largest miner said first-half profit jumped by 16%, hitting a seven-year high, as demand from top metals...Read More

Mining has long been the source of materials for modern society. It also has been critical in the establishment of associated secondary and tertiary economies. However, mines have a finite life, and mine closure poses a material risk to mining companies, other dependent industries and local economies. To manage this risk, there appears to be a shared recognition of a need to better integrate closu...Read More

It seems odd not being in Toronto during the first full week of March. For as long as I can remember, the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention has started on the first Sunday in March. This year, however, not only is the first Sunday on the 7th (which is the latest it has been for 11 years) but the coronavirus leaves us with a Monday start. At least the mining industry'...Read More

Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO; LSE: RIO; ASX: RIO) has teamed up with two European companies to explore production of low-emissions hot briquetted iron (HBI) in Canada, amid increasing pressure from stakeholders to make steelmaking a more environmentally-friendly activity.The mining giant, which has been working on cutting the sector emissions since 2019, has inked a memorandum of understanding with Luxe...Read More

For decades, the global demand for copper has been rising steadily, having tripled over the past half-century according to the International Copper Study Group. Demand for copper - a metal key to the green energy transition - is expected to keep rising over the coming years as emerging economies led by China continue to ramp up industrial activity.According to the USGS, roughly 700 million tonnes...Read More