查看更多>>摘要：The penny finally appears to have dropped. Legislation proposed at the end of March in the US will see Joe Biden's government fast track supplies of critical minerals, while European nations are at last waking up to the impending shortage of metals integral to the energy transition. But those with only a cursory knowledge of mining appreciate these things take time. Bringing a mine online takes an average of about 20 years from discovery, while in high-risk countries the timeframe can slip by a matter of decades. Which is why junior miners with promising projects and established resources in low-risk jurisdictions have seldom been so well placed.
查看更多>>摘要：The days of abundant funds for mineral exploration sourced from risk-friendly individual investors are numbered. The 2022 Mining Journal Global Finance Report, released in March, characterised the mining industry as being in the middle of a "funding bonanza". Descriptions of the industry being "now generally awash with capital" were cited in the report. The number of new resource sector entrants into Australia's public markets since the start of 2021 is set to top 150 this month, all with healthily replenished budgets.
查看更多>>摘要：Technological advancements are transforming the mining industry at a breakneck pace. One company at the forefront of this rapid evolution is recently-listed Orexplore Technologies Ltd, which launched on the Australian Securities Exchange in January. The company has invested strongly in world-class research and development in recent years, inventing a new technology platform that sees the company poised to accelerate its commercialisation across the mining value chain, focusing on delivering rapidly improved decision-making for customers across their operations from exploration to mining, processing and beyond.
查看更多>>摘要：After seeing its stock jump about 33% after reporting a high-grade intercept at its Mocoa copper-molybdenum project in Putumayo in Colombia, Libero Copper and Gold may regret drilling the first hole on at the site in about a decade as the country prepares for a presidential election. Hole 43 caused a stir among some NGO's and the anti-mining lobby in the region, with claims that the company should not have been drilling, which we will dig into later in this article.
查看更多>>摘要：A steep fall in the price of copper over the past month could have been a lot worse if not for what seems to have been an equally steep fall in supply. The 9% drop in the copper price from US$4.84 per pound in early April to latest trades at $4.40/lb has been blamed on sluggish demand in China as it enforces widespread COVID lockdowns and fear of a global recession due to the Ukraine war. But copper might easily have slipped into the $3.90/lb range last seen 12-months ago if not for all of the major copper mines missing their production guidance targets, some by a wide margin.
查看更多>>摘要：Barrick Gold still has a lot of costs to squeeze out of its business despite its all-in sustaining cost (AISC) for both gold and copper increasing in the March quarter, president and CEO Mark Bristowtold Mining Journal following its results conference call, with the company's dividend policy set to reflect its net cash position. The company saw its gold AISC increase 14.3% to US$1,164 per ounce compared with the prior-year quarter, and 19.9% compared with the December 2021 quarter. Its CI cash cost for copper increased 13.1% to $1.81 per pound year-on-year and 11% from the December quarter.
查看更多>>摘要：Pure Gold Mining has seen its market capitalisation be crushed from about C$1 billion less than 18 months ago to about $100 million now as the start-up of its PureGold mine in Ontario, Canada ran into difficulties which impacted its balance sheet. With its technical team bolstered by the arrival of Bryan Wilson as VP mine GM, and Terry Smith as COO, the company believes it is now on track to turn the corner, if it can obtain the capital required to do so.
查看更多>>摘要：The US will ban Russian-affiliated shipping from the country's ports as Washington ratchets up sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. "That means no ship - no ship that sails under the Russian flag or that is owned or operated by Russian interests - will be allowed to dock in a United States port or access our shore," US President Joe Biden said on April 21. The new order is scheduled to be effective from April 28.
查看更多>>摘要：Trilogy Metals is responding with all guns blazing to a US Department of the Interior (Dol) motion to remand the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) and suspend the right-of-way permits issued for the Ambler Access Project (AAP) for the Arctic copper project in Alaska, US, which it is looking to develop with joint-venture partner South32. In addition to itemising the extensive local support for the project, the company couched its April 5 response in President Joe Biden's invocation of the Cold War-era statute Defense Production Act (DPA) to increase the US domestic production of critical metals including cobalt, nickel, lithium, manganese and graphite.
查看更多>>摘要：Commodity prices are no longer the most important guide to the success of a mining company in Australia, replaced by the cost of labour - if workers can be found in the first place. A countrywide shortage of labour, skilled and unskilled, had a significant effect on mine production in the March quarter and was worsened by COVID-19 absenteeism as governments continued to enforce isolation rules for the infected and their close contacts.
NSTL