Glencore’s Bedfellows As Glencore heads towards a financing showdown with ASX-listed Aurelia Metals on Monday, its sometimes predatory approach suggests its relationship with junior partners must be tense. “There may be synergies and that is terrific,” Rio Tinto’s boss Sam Walsh quipped last year, having rebuffed a coal joint-venture with Glencore, “but if you lose…
Is Glencore Sitting on Copper or TNT? Panic begins to grip the market, but Glasenberg is muscling in on new assets… The market is losing confidence in Glencore. On rising volume, its shares have fallen 45 per cent this year, touching a record low on Wednesday of £1.59, as investors increasingly fret over its gross…
Mom & Pop’s Falling Out Atrum Coal has been the standout success story in the coal market in recent years. Arguably, it has been the only success story. The tiny Australian company listed in 2012, but it has since drilled-out a multi-billion tonne deposit in British Columbia, scooped-up assets as others have fled the sector…
Shares in AuRico Metals are flying, up nearly 50 per cent in three weeks on heavy trading volume, since Master Investor exclusively broke the news that the company is a takeover target. At the end of last month, we reported that Vancouver-based Sandstorm Gold was circling AuRico’s assets, including a portfolio of cash-flowing gold royalties…
Mining in Chaos Over China’s Currency Move China’s unexpected decision to trim the country’s official exchange rate twice in the last two days has sent shockwaves through the global economy, but one sector that is really grappling with the announcement is the world’s mining press. The policy move, which cut the value of the renminbi…
Photo courtesy of Richland Resources A Peculiar Pattern of Private Deals There is risk-free money to be made in sapphire mining licences. Last April, a private Australian company, Gregcarbil Pty Ltd, was granted two mining licences in Queensland’s gemstone district: ML70419 and ML70447. The area covers an abandoned blue sapphire deposit and after legal action…
Anglo American set for further trouble, Liberum Capital believes… Mining investors have found a new market darling. It is not BHP Billiton’s spin-off, quirkily named South32, after the line of latitude connecting its mines south of the equator. Nor is it Rio Tinto, which surprised to the upside with its half-year results last week. It…
Investors looking for clues that the coal market will struggle to fall much further were handed valuable ammunition this week, after a major Australian coal mine changed hands on Thursday for just one Australian dollar. Only three years ago, the mine was valued at nearly A$1 billion, after Sumitomo Corp., one of Japan’s largest trading…
In a sign of just how tough conditions have got for iron ore mining companies, a well known iron ore player in Canada has announced a bold shift in strategy. Under a partnership with its joint-venture partner WISCO, one of China’s largest steel groups, Toronto-listed Century Iron Mines won mining awards last year as Newfoundland’s…
“Another $50 off the gold price and this industry is toast,” Randgold Resources’ outspoken chief executive Mark Bristow told reporters earlier this month. The price has since dropped by more than $50 an ounce to under $1,100, extending an unforgiving slide in prices that is now in its fourth year. Analysts trying to pinpoint the…
