Commodities

By Alastair Ford “When we discovered NICO in the mid-1990s, only one per cent of cobalt consumed globally was used to manufacture rechargeable batteries”, says Fortune Minerals’ Troy Nazarewicz. “Now, with the ubiquity of smartphones and other portable electronics, it’s a little over 40 per cent.” So a seismic shift has taken place over the…

The latest research from GMP Securities on Mincor makes no bones about what the implications are of the recent drill results from the company’s Cassini, Voyce and Durkin nickel projects. “Impact: positive”, says GMP succinctly. “These are very encouraging results.” Mincor, as regular Minesite readers will already know, is well-established as an existing nickel miner,…

By Amy McLellan Those companies that took on too much debt without shoring up defences against a rout in the oil price – and four years of high oil prices lulled some into complacency on oil price risk – are now feeling the pain of falling cash flows, breached covenants and looming bankruptcy. Swedish oil…

 by Our Oilbarrel Staff There was support for the executive team at Gulfsands Petroleum at the end of last week as strategic partner Arawak Energy International said it would recall its US$20 million loan facility if dissident shareholders succeed in getting CEO Mahdi Sajjad and commercial director Ken Judge removed at a general meeting set…

By Stewart Dalby Central Petroleum has amassed what it says is the largest package of proven and prospective oil and gas acreage across central Australia at a critical time for Australia’s energy supply. We last wrote about Central in July (2014) when we said that two years on from the bruising boardroom struggles that marked…

By Alastair Ford “Construction at Altintepe, all being well, will complete by the end of this quarter”, says Stratex International’s Bob Foster. All eyes are on this, the company’s leading Turkish asset, because when it does finally come into production it will deliver Stratex its maiden operational cashflow, albeit that it will be delivered through…

By Amy McLellan Green Dragon Gas plans to deliver a 50 per cent uplift in gas production this year as it steps on the gas with an aggressive drilling campaign across its acreage in China. As we reported earlier this month, the Hong Kong-based company has hired AIM-quoted Greka Drilling, in which it has a…

By Alastair Ford “People are definitely interested”, says Dave Copeland of Rathdowney Resources. “Zinc is going to be in deficit. You look at the number of closures that are happening. And you look at who is developing large projects – nobody. The only significant project at all is Teck’s expansion of Red Dog in Alaska.”…

By Stewart Dalby This year could mark a turning ­­­­­­­point in the fortunes of the Kurdistan oil industry in general and Genel Energy in particular. The share price of the £1.65billion London-listed mid- cap group which often operates more like a major, was in the doldrums for the second half of last year and the…

Minews. Good morning Australia, it seems to have been another good week for your market with gold again leading the way. Oz. It wasn’t a bad week, but much of what happened down this way was a direct result of events in Europe, especially the after-shocks of the Swiss going deeper into negative interest rate…