Fraught Mining Asset Sales Are Creating Opportunities $10 billion. $25 billion. The cash that analysts expected Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton to raise from asset sales just two years ago was being counted in the tens of billions. But it has not quite panned out that way. Caught between plunging commodity prices and a small…
Exclusive: Glencore in Talks over South American Copper Mines Glencore is in talks with Silver Wheaton and Franco-Nevada over gold and silver streaming deals on three of its copper mines in South America, according to high level sources directly involved in the process. Negotiations are currently focused on Glencore’s Antamina and Antapaccay copper mines in…
In a fascinating new study of metal prices on the London Metal Exchange, data compiled by Sanford Bernstein analyst Paul Gait suggests that base metals follow an almost boringly predictable seasonal pattern. Gait, who has become best known for his perma-bull stance on copper giant Glencore, has compiled metal price movements for every month and…
In part three of our series on mining companies warehousing assets at a cyclical low, we look at Newfound-based Altius Minerals, which is having a very good downturn indeed… “The eagle is landing,” Rio Tinto told shareholders, after a high-grade base metals discovery it made in Upper Michigan in 2002. The copper content was more…
The billion tonne question is raging. China’s tumult has been well publicised in recent weeks, but for coking coal and seaborne iron ore, the key question remains: will Chinese steel output ever trip through 1 billion tonnes per annum. If it does, continued output expansion by mining companies is arguably justified. But if it doesn’t,…
On the southern border of the United States, a string of elaborate buildings sit faded by the sun. Built in a grand European style, the stone facades of an opera house, courtroom and general store are in a grim, crumbling condition. Only the fierce heat has stopped the town’s sun-beaten streets becoming totally overgrown. Tyrone…
Gold Canyon Resources, PC Gold, Coastal Gold and Sundance Minerals; the list of companies being bought by First Mining Finance is growing. Led by banker-turned-miner Keith Neumeyer, First Mining is one of a small band of companies ploughing through mining deals at a depressed point in the cycle. Its corporate strategy has been aggressive, outbidding…
With commodities sitting at a six-year low, Master Investor looks at mining companies who are warehousing assets for cents in the dollar. In the first in a four-part series, Kaizen Discovery’s CEO Matthew Hornor says playing the contrarian is not always easy… Running into a building when others are running out is always a tough…
Mining investors feeling the pain have been offered a rare spot of relief, intentionally or not, by a copper mining company in Canada. Shareholders in Toronto-listed Copper Mountain Mining have not had much to smile about as of late: shares fell 8 per cent on Monday and are down 63 per cent this year. Since…
Surveying the Damage Monday’s China-led stock market sell-off (dubbed “Brutal Monday” by Reuters and “The Shanghai Shockwave” by City AM) was a horrendous day of losses for most stocks globally. But for the mining sector in particular, it was just the latest slump in a formidable, four-year bear market. Whilst it may be premature to…
