In Allan Trench's Strictly Boardroom column on MiningNewsPremium.net today, I have helped him co-author an article entitled "The pleasure and pain of sexy metals". The article looks at the challenges in developing some of the so-called 'sexy metals' such as bismuth, cobalt, graphite, lithium, niobium, phosphate, potash, radium, rare earths, sulphuric acid, tantalum, tungsten, uranium and vanadium (admittedly some of these are… 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 →
Vale has announced it will buy Brazilian copper smelter-refiner, Paranapanema, for BRL2.01 billion (US$1.14 billion). Paranapanema is Brazil's largest copper smelter-refiner, owning the Caraíba Metais facilities, which also manufacture semi-finished copper products such as rod and wire. Paranpanema also owns CibrafErtil, a phosphate fertiliser plant. With the copper smelting industry facing the double problem of acquiring copper concentrate raw materials… 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 →
