In September it was my great pleasure to give one of the plenary presentations for China Metals Week in Beijing, organised by Metal Pages. My presentation aim was to draw together the themes of the conference, which were the electronic metals, battery metals, light alloys and antimony. The presentation was entitled: "An Economic History of the Esoteric Metals Markets: Batteries, Electronics, Light Alloys,… 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 →
Like many others over the new-year period, Greenfields took time to reflect on what has past and what may be forthcoming. As a mineral economist, this of course involves thinking about commodity prices, with an annual compilation of the Greenfields Research Commodity Price Barometer. This New Year 2014 edition steps out from the usual monthly and quarterly reviews to do… Read this post →
The Greenfields Research Commodity Price Barometer continues to show a dim view of commodities this month, with 22 of the 30 commodities covered having fallen in price. Only three commodities remain in the “dry” and “fair” categories; these are tantalum, tungsten and palladium. At the other end of the barometer, gallium, molybdenum, nickel and rhodium remain in stormy markets with… Read this post →
The Greenfields Research Commodity Price Barometer shows a gloomy view of commodities this month, with more commodity prices in the “rainy” and “stormy” categories than in the “dry” and “fair” ones. Furthermore, a large majority of the commodities dipped in price again during May, suggesting the bad weather will continue into the near future. Just palladium and tantalum remain at… Read this post →
