It has been hard not to notice the recent furore over “rare earth elements”. China provides over 90% of the mined supply of these elements, and for some elements, all of the world’s supply. This has worried governments and consumers in North America, Europe and non-Chinese Asia. A scramble to develop rare earth mines outside China has begun and miners,… Read this post →
Greenfields recently spent the week in the junior mining hub of Vancouver. We were there to present the results of a tin mine cost modelling exercise to the board of ITRI, the tin industry body, and to attend ITRI’s International Tin Conference. The conference left us with multiple reasons to be bullish about tin. Plenty of positives for tin The… Read this post →
London's mining scene gathered in force at the Mining Journal's Gold Day. However, we left with concerns about the extent to which gold prices are being supported by investors, and about increasing political risk for gold miners, which is reducing some miners' leverage to the booming gold price. Investor-supported gold Just how much the current high gold price has been… Read this post →
The final stop on our tour of the SE Asian Tinbelt, which started in Malaysia and Thailand, is the current source of nearly one-third of the world's mined tin - Indonesia. Stopping briefly in Jakarta to attend the spectacle of an Indonesian wedding and narrowly missing out on a visit from Indonesia’s most famous former resident, Barack Obama (he was… Read this post →
Having cleverly avoided the frigid London winter (only just - the aeroplane had to be de-iced on the runway before take-off) by spending January in Perth, Australia, it’s only fair to share some thoughts on this mining hot spot. In particular, its contrast with London, which seems to be in the grip of a harsh physical and financial winter. Summer… Read this post →
