The AOCE and WB have moderate overall forecasts for the metals in 2025 inline with IMF forecasts for a decline in economic growth and inflation, although we see the probability of a stagflationary scenario as still reasonably high.Read More
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
Miners struggling to cut costs amid plunging metal prices just got some help from Argentine President Mauricio Macri, as he announced the government has revoked a 5% tax imposed by the previous administration on mining and energy companies.Macri, who took office in December on a platform of repealing government intervention that scared investors away, unveiled the measure during a visit to the min...Read More
Teck Resources Ltd. and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. led a mining stock rally on Friday as surging oil prices provided relief for their foray into energy before prices tumbled.Shares in Freeport surged 13 percent to $5.52 at 1:34 p.m. in New York, while Teck, Canada's biggest diversified miner, jumped 20 percent to C$6.19 in Toronto. They were the best performers in the Bloomberg Americas Mining Index.Fr...Read More
Mission incomplete: Rajan's overhaul of RBI … In a video conference in mid-2014, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan told employees that he wanted to hire talented external candidates and improve the quality of research at the 81-year-old central bank. The proposals, described to Reuters by three officials who heard Rajan speak, would hardly seem out of place in any major...Read More
Mission incomplete: Rajan's overhaul of RBI … In a video conference in mid-2014, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan told employees that he wanted to hire talented external candidates and improve the quality of research at the 81-year-old central bank. The proposals, described to Reuters by three officials who heard Rajan speak, would hardly seem out of place in any major...Read More
Teck Resources (TSX:TCK.B, TCK.A)(NYSE:TCK), Canada's largest diversified miner, logged Thursday a loss of $459 million in its fourth quarter, hurt by an ongoing rout in commodity prices and an asset impairment charge of $384 million (Cdn$536 million).The Vancouver-based company, North America's largest producer of steel-making coal, was hit extremely hard by a plunge in that and other commodities...Read More
Mining giant Rio Tinto (LON, ASX, NYSE:RIO) reported Thursday a loss for 2015 after metal prices, particularly iron ore and copper plummeted last year and are still trading at historical lows.The world's second biggest mining company, which posted a loss of $866 million, has also abandoned its promise to maintain or steadily increase its dividend annually each year. Rio said it could no longer jus...Read More
A 3 million-gallon spill from the abandoned Gold King Mine in Colorado last year is likely to have deposited more than 880,000 pounds of metals into the Animas River, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said.According to the agency's preliminary report, some of the metals reached the San Juan River, which the Animas joins in New Mexico, but most settled into the Animas riverbed before t...Read More
The Democratic Republic of Congo has decided not to change its mining code as the move could have driven away investors at a time of historically low commodity prices and energy shortages that are driving down output in the country.Copper production in DRC, Africa's biggest producer of the red metal, fell by 3% to 995,805 metric tons in 2015, the first drop in six years, the Chamber of Mines said...Read More
The B.C. government is throwing the mining industry an emergency lifeline in the form of deferred electricity bill payments that could be worth more than $300 million.Several metallurgical coal mines have closed in B.C. in the last couple of years, due to a prolonged commodity price plunge, and B.C.'s biggest mining company, Teck Resources (TSX:TCK.B) has taken to rotating shutdowns at those that...Read More
Republicans have spent the entire Obama presidency engaging in acts of disrespect against this president, and the office that he has been twice elected to by a majority of the voters. By refusing to give his budget a hearing, House Republicans have moved beyond disrespect of the man and into disrespect of the office of the presidency. It looks like House Republicans are so afraid of the President&...Read More
Republicans have spent the entire Obama presidency engaging in acts of disrespect against this president, and the office that he has been twice elected to by a majority of the voters. By refusing to give his budget a hearing, House Republicans have moved beyond disrespect of the man and into disrespect of the office of the presidency. It looks like House Republicans are so afraid of the President&...Read More
A lifeline being tossed to B.C. mines may not be enough to prevent the closure of the Huckleberry open-pit copper mine near Houston, B.C.Imperial Metals (TSX:III) has put employees at its Huckleberry mine on notice that the mine will shut down in August.The announcement follows on an earlier announcement in January that the open-pit mine would reduce its 260-person workforce by 100.Imperial said t...Read More
Courtesy of: Visual CapitalistIt's no secret that the world has been a little down on China.The world's most populous country has been the primary engine of economic growth for decades, but recently investor optimism around China has diminished significantly. With a sliding manufacturing sector and lower GDP growth, most mainstream pundits have shifted focus to whether the country will have a "sof...Read More
New Hampshire is the second state to make its picks for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees. Residents will cast ballots in primary elections on Feb. 9, one week after the first presidential nominating contest in Iowa, where Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Hillary Clinton emerged victorious from the caucuses … While all the early primary states are in the business of winnowi...Read More
New Hampshire is the second state to make its picks for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees. Residents will cast ballots in primary elections on Feb. 9, one week after the first presidential nominating contest in Iowa, where Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Hillary Clinton emerged victorious from the caucuses … While all the early primary states are in the business of winnowi...Read More
Grinding at Anglo American's (LON:AAL) Los Bronces copper mine in Chile has been halted after the firm detected a leak in a pipe carrying ground ore mixed with water on Sunday evening.According to local newspaper La Tercera (in Spanish), the discharge was noticed on farmland outside the capital Santiago during a routine inspection of the pipe, which connects Anglo's flagship mine with the Las Tort...Read More
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) have been exploiting conflict and instability in war-torn regions whilst making gargantuan profits for the least 15 years – and they've only increased in numbers … Hundreds of new companies have been established in the last few years alone … "The UK is an important hub for the PMSC industry. At the height of the occupa...Read More
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) have been exploiting conflict and instability in war-torn regions whilst making gargantuan profits for the least 15 years – and they've only increased in numbers … Hundreds of new companies have been established in the last few years alone … "The UK is an important hub for the PMSC industry. At the height of the occupa...Read More
Mining financier and entrepreneur Ross Beaty told an audience at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference in late January that it's a "phenomenal" time to buy resource stocks."The tide is way out and it's a buyer's market everywhere across the board from oil, mining, currencies, and real estate," Beaty said. "Every so often cycles get to the point where they're at today and it's just hard to l...Read More
The B.C. government is throwing the mining industry an emergency lifeline in the form of deferred electricity bill payments that could be worth more than $300 million.Several metallurgical coal mines have closed in B.C. in the last couple of years, due to a prolonged commodity price plunge, and B.C.'s biggest mining company, Teck Resources (TSX:TCK.B) has taken to rotating shutdowns at those that...Read More