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…
AuRico’s insiders aggressively buying stock in recent weeks, royalty clause acts as “poison pill” Sandstorm Gold is in the race for royalty assets held by AuRico Metals, according to separate sources with detailed knowledge of the situation. Osisko Gold is also eyeing the royalties, promising competition for assets new to the market. Trading in AuRico…
Limited growth options for the diamond industry mean it is entering a sweet-spot of free cash flow and dividends, says Stornoway Diamond’s chief executive Matt Manson. A wave of companies are currently building their first diamond mines, including Stornoway, Firestone and Mountain Province, with each due for production in the next 2 years, but with…
Brazil’s mining giant Vale has made what looks to be a monumental leap forward for the iron ore industry, pulling back from a production race that has crushed prices from $190 to under $50 per tonne since 2011. Shares in Vale, one of the big three iron ore majors, jumped nearly 9 per cent in…
How Mining Companies Are Using New Tech to Fund New Deals A raft of junior mining companies are turning to novel and increasingly inventive tech solutions to meet the industry’s funding needs, as conventional sources of capital remain barren for a sector in its fourth consecutive year of a bear market. Dubbed The Gold Rush,…
A sudden collapse in Chinese equities is hammering commodity markets, piling fresh pressure on mining stocks, already sitting at multi-year lows. The Shanghai stock exchange has lost 32 per cent in less than a month, knocking $3.5 trillion dollars off the value of Chinese companies since early June. Commodities have also gone into a tailspin,…
Trading giant Glencore is holding active and ongoing talks with Australian authorities over a potential takeover of Rio Tinto’s thermal coal mines in New South Wales, sources involved in the process told Master Investor this morning, as a battle for the assets intensifies. Glencore’s arch rival X2 Resources, the private equity vehicle led by former Xstrata…
John McGloin: “Deals have to answer questions, not make the question bigger” A mass roll-up of gold assets in West Africa, touted by analysts and investors as the ultimate upshot of gold’s current weakness, is unworkable and unlikely to happen, says John McGloin, chairman of London-based Amara Mining. Predicting a gold consolidation drive in West…
An investigation into the 2012 Marikana massacre at Lonmin’s platinum operations in South Africa reported late last week, with complex implications for the company at the heart of the bloodiest police operation since the country’s apartheid era. Lonmin’s shares initially fell on the release of the report, which was led by retired judge Ian Farlam,…
