A few months ago my PhD supervisor, Allan Trench, presented a paper co-authored with myself and a colleague at CRU Group, Paul Robinson, to the AusIMM New Zealand Branch Annual Conference. Allan's presentation focused on CRU commodity price forecasts, however, the paper we submitted alongside also looked at some of the problems of commodity price forecasting and ways it can be… Read this post →
Adelaide, Australia Yesterday Allan Trench presented a paper we co-authoured on "Perspectives on Mineral Commodity Price Cycles and their Relevance to Underground Mining" to the 12th AusIMM Underground Operators Conference, in Adelaide, Australia. The paper is available in the proceedings (digital and paper) through the AusIMM. The abstract is below: Mineral commodity prices are subject to volatility over both the… Read this post →
Behre Dolbear's ‘2010 Ranking of Countries for Mining Investment’ ranks 25 countries with major mining exploration and operations on seven criteria that focus on “political risk”. Seven criteria look at the country’s economic and political system, the degree to which social issues affect mining, delays in obtaining permits, corruption, the stability of the local currency and the tax regime. For… Read this post →
At the recent ITRI International Tin Conference, metals and mining consultancy CRU Group presented an update of its "Commodity Price Climate Change" forecast. This has nothing to do with which commodities would benefit from an anthropogenically warmed planet (we'll cover that another day), but is a way of summarising their views of whether commodity price outlooks will be “hot”, “warm”,… Read this post →
Considering it has provided most of the world's tin, the South East Asian Tinbelt is probably not as well known and understood as it should be. This visit highlighted the fundamental long-term supply challenges the industry faces and the implications this has for the LME's least-followed metal. Our bullish travel account provides a background on the tin mining industry, a… Read this post →
