Here are three royalty and streaming stocks. They enjoy lower expenses and less risk than their operating peers, while enjoying the upside of any successes.Government responses to COVID-19 are paving the way to a long-term credit crisis, excellent news for precious metals investors, as long as they can stomach a very bumpy ride to profits, says Sprott US Holdings president and CEO Rick Rule."Under...Read More

Long-term uncertainty among consumers over end-user demand in Italy benefits downstream distribution network Metal Link who aims to serve consumer needs more quickly than producers who need consumers to have a clear order outlook for around 10 weeks.In an interview with Fastmarkets this month, the aluminium products distribution network said the economic uncertainty caused by Covid-19 offers busin...Read More

Three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were collectively lower at the close of trading on Thursday July 30, with LME nickel's 1.3% price dip leading the complex-wide decline, while a tightening of copper's forward curve led to thin volumes and a negative close on the day.Weighing equally heavily on the base-metals complex, the US economy shrank by 32.9% over the second quarter...Read More

Brazilian miner Vale is expecting copper prices to remain at high levels through the remainder of 2020, because it sees strong signs of demand resilience amid expectations of reduced supply, especially from South America, the company's top executives said on Thursday July 30."We are firm believers in the copper price uptrend," chief executive officer Eduardo Bartolomeo told analysts and investors...Read More

The declining quality of global zinc concentrate has left Noranda Income Fund's (NIF) residue handling section at capacity despite ongoing work to optimize its electrolytic processing facility in Quebec, Canada, the company said.Two belt filters will be added to the handling section as part of a recently announced expansion project. They are expected to help improve production capacity and overall...Read More

A summary of Brazilian mining company Vale's financial results for the second quarter of 2020, as stated in its earnings report released on Wednesday July 29.In briefFerrous division: Iron ore fines' realized price - after adjustments on both a cfr and fob basis - was $88.90 per tonne in the second quarter, down by 6% from $94.60 per tonne a year before. Pellet's realized price was $129.40 per ton...Read More

The June quarter marked a new record for shipments of 47.3 million tonnes, 2% higher than the same quarter of 2019. Full-year shipments were 178.Read More

The order book total compares with circa-$350 million this time last year.The company has 15 drill rigs - nearly a quarter of its total fleet - deployed at Jundee, where it has worked for 15 years. It says the latest two-year contract extension, with a two-year option, was awarded "at Swick's target margins after a competitive tender process".A two-year extension at Perilya's Broken Hill lead-zinc...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday July 30 that are worth another look.Brazil's largest flat-rolled steel producer by capacity, Usiminas, is looking to correct the current domestic price discount to imports in the short term, commercial vice-president Miguel Homes said on July 30....Read More

Physical demand fell 36% year-on-year to 677 tonnes, with primary demand drivers such as jewellery, which usually accounts for about 55% of consumption, contracting 53% in the period to the lowest level seen in the past two decades.All key regions saw "severe losses" as demand was paralysed due to the virus outbreak and lockdowns in many markets, in tandem with gold's 8% rise to average US$1,711/o...Read More

Prices for cobalt salts, including cobalt tetroxide and sulfate, surged in the first half of this week, with suppliers refraining from offering large tonnages in the market. Fastmarkets' price assessment for cobalt tetroxide 72.6% Co min, delivered China was 190,000-195,000 yuan ($27,125-27,839) per tonne on Wednesday July 29, up by 10,000 yuan per tonne (5.5%) from 180,000-185,000 yuan per tonne...Read More

The price of steel scrap imported into Turkey rose further on Thursday July 30 on new bookings, continuing the trend started on July 29.A steel mill in the Iskenderun region booked two cargoes, one from the Baltic region and one from Western Europe.The first comprised 27,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $276 per tonne, 5,000 tonnes of bonus scrap at $286 per tonne and 3,000 tonnes...Read More

South Korean steelmakers were able to book bulk scrap cargoes from Japan over the past week at low prices although offers for US-origin deep-sea material continued to jump, sources have told Fastmarkets.Three cargoes of Japanese H2-grade scrap have been bought by a South Korean steelmaker at ?26,000 ($248) per tonne cfr over the past week, which would be equivalent to ?24,000 per tonne fob, Fast...Read More

ED&F Man's Ed Meir clinched the top spot on the base metals predictions leaderboard for the second quarter of 2020 with 98.87% accuracy while ING's Wenyu Yao took the top spot for precious metals predictions over the period with a 98.75% accuracy rating.For steel raw materials, Casper Burgering of ABN Amro topped the leaderboard with a 90.89% accuracy score. Click on the image below to download th...Read More

Base metals prices were for the most part firmer this morning, Thursday July 30, while broader markets were more mixed.The United States Federal Reserve provided more liquidity to international markets at its meeting that ended on Wednesday, but did not make any major changes. It also said that the path of the US economic recovery would depend on the course of Covid-19 in the country. Given the la...Read More

Two weeks after UC Rusal called for new Nornickel management and a relocation of its head office to Norilsk, Siberia - recently the center of three polluting events in six weeks - Nornickel has made several accommodations for its major shareholder. Rusal owns 27.82% of Moscow-based Nornickel.Having just announced multiple management changes, including the departure from public relations of a senio...Read More

SUNDRIDGE - The Ontario government is investing $95,540 in the Eagle Lake Gun Club in Sundridge to help build a provincial centre of excellence for biathlon training and racing. Funding through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC) will be used to upgrade its biathlon infrastructure and trail network, creating two jobs."We are helping build a new facility that will attract elite a...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday July 30 that are worth another look.Brazil's largest flat-rolled steel producer by capacity, Usiminas, is looking to correct the current domestic price discount to imports in the short term, commercial vice-president Miguel Homes said on July 30....Read More

Elon Musk...The super-rich super genius responsible for mainstreaming electric cars and sending reusable rockets into space has been getting a lot of flack lately.And not from the folks who've been shitting all over him and his electric car company before it even went public. Most of those folks just hated on Musk because the thought of an environmentally-friendlier vehicle that didn't rely on o...Read More

Talon Metals Corp. (TSX: TLO) is a base metals company, in a joint venture with Rio Tinto, on the high-grade Tamarack Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Project, located in Minnesota, USA, comprised of the Tamarack North Project and the Tamarack South Project.Talon, the Tamarack Project operator (as of October 2019), has an earn-in right to acquire up to 60% of the project. We learned from Sean Werger, Presiden...Read More