Commodities

China Tanking; Yours for 99p

China Tanking; Yours for 99p

1 mins. to read

Shares in Glencore rattled below £1.00 in trading this morning, amid a fierce sell-off in London that sent the FTSE 100 below the 6,000 mark for the second time this year. Glencore touched 99p for the first time since the company listed at £5.30 in 2011, whilst Rio, BHP and Anglo American are all falling…

Fraught Mining Asset Sales Are Creating Opportunities

Fraught Mining Asset Sales Are Creating Opportunities

5 mins. to read

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…

Glencore in Talks over South American Copper Mines

Glencore in Talks over South American Copper Mines

4 mins. to read

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…

Hold Your Hats! Copper & Nickel to Resume Downward Slide

Hold Your Hats! Copper & Nickel to Resume Downward Slide

2 mins. to read

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…

Brian Dalton’s Patience Rewarded

Brian Dalton’s Patience Rewarded

2 mins. to read

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…

STOP PRESS – A lesson in IRRs and NPVs

STOP PRESS – A lesson in IRRs and NPVs

1 mins. to read

By John Cornford This is a follow-up piece to my article in the September issue of Master Investor Magazine. The fact that Condor Gold (CNR) is putting up for sale its La India gold project in Nicaragua is a blow to sentiment in all miners – not just gold. On the surface, all-in cash costs…

China’s One Billion Tonne Question

China’s One Billion Tonne Question

3 mins. to read

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,…

Tyrone: A Ghostly Reminder of a Punishing Cycle

Tyrone: A Ghostly Reminder of a Punishing Cycle

5 mins. to read

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…

Keith Neumeyer’s Gold Deal Binge

Keith Neumeyer’s Gold Deal Binge

2 mins. to read

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…

Matthew Hornor’s Copper Ambitions

Matthew Hornor’s Copper Ambitions

2 mins. to read

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…