SNL Metals & Mining has carried out some valuable number crunching on mine financing by regions from 2013 through the first quarter of 2015 that shows miners are off to a “poor start” in 2015, though Canadian companies and projects are still attracting investment dollars.
SNL tabulated that miners and explorers had raised US$82.9 billion to fund their operations over that 27-month period, with Canadian projects attracting 14% of the total, behind Asia/Middle East (20%), Latin America (17%) and Australia (15%). Canadian companies raised the most money over that period at US$22.2 billion, but SNL found only a third was allocated domestically.
Between 2013 and 2014, total global mine financing rose 4% to US$39.9 billion, with Canada as a destination seeing the biggest positive swing year-over-year, more than doubling to US$6.6 billion from US$3.2 billion.
SNL found that Canadian companies raised US$8 billion in 2013 and planned to spend 19% of it domestically, but that rose to US$11.6 billion in 2014, of which 35% would be spent in Canada.
As for what commodities have been financed the most, it’s no surprise that gold was in top spot, with base metals (especially copper) and silver sharing second place. Following these were coal, platinum group metals, diamonds, potash, phosphates and diamonds — with Canada attracting half the diamond-directed funds.
SNL concluded by noting that January 2015 was an “abysmal” month for mine financing at less that US$500 million raised, but that February and March had seen “somewhat healthier” totals above US$1 billion each month, with Canada moving up to take a third of all funds raised in 2015 so far.
SNL’s full report is available at www.snl.com.
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