PDAC 2004: Ride the resurgence

By: Joe Hamilton, Chairman, and Kerry Smith, Co-Chairman, Convention Planning Committee

The global mining industry witnessed a resurgence in metals prices throughout 2003, led by gold and nickel, with copper and zinc prices building towards the end of the year. To the relief of investors, capital markets anticipated a global economic recovery and posted appreciable gains. Resource sectors benefited from larger pools of capital, which restored financial health to many companies.

Consolidation continued in the mineral resources sectors, with Canadian companies combining to form world-class gold, coal and aluminum businesses. These companies complement the existing world-class diamond, zinc, uranium and fertilizer companies that continue to contribute to Canada’s rich mineral industry. Elsewhere, Canadian capital markets financed exploration and development projects on all continents, although gold, nickel and copper projects seemed to once again consume the lion’s share of capital raisings.

As shown at last year’s conference by a number of speakers, the rate of new discoveries in Canada over the past decade has declined substantially, although Canadian professionals have been involved in major discoveries in Mongolia, China, Africa and Latin America. With rising commodity prices, most mining companies should show a return to profitability, and we expect that exploration spending will increase over the coming years. As usual, it will likely be the junior sector that fills the gap in greenfields exploration with the larger producers resurrecting development projects.

This year’s convention promises to bring together an unprecedented number of individuals and companies involved in all facets of exploration, from financing to regulation and promotion. Indeed, attending this one meeting alone enables people in or associated with the industry to keep up-to-date with events and developments in their own and others’ fields of work. PDAC 04 boasts the largest contingent of exploration companies ever represented in the Investors Exchange and the Trade Show has also expanded to accommodate the swell of interest.

The organizing committee has recognized this trend by introducing a ‘spotlight on exhibits’ Tuesday afternoon. The main technical program and open session will not run at this time to allow delegates sufficient time to explore all of the displays and booths. Be sure to take advantage of this new opportunity.

The organizing committee has created an outstanding technical program that provides insights on trends and market outlook for commodities (gold; silver; platinum/palladium; copper; nickel; and zinc), once again examines the diamond and gold sectors, provides updates on new geophysical techniques, and addresses challenges to industry growth. We are pleased to include a different perspective on China as our focus country again this year, and we have limited the new discoveries session to clearly economic deposits. Don’t miss the session which examines the nickel exploration sector, and should prove to be very exciting.

Once again, the convention will feature keynote luncheon speakers who are sure to stimulate thought and discussion. Thomas Homer-Dixon, the keynote speaker at our Mineral Outlook Luncheon, is renowned for groundbreaking research that addresses the difficulty in creating and implementing ideas fast enough to solve problems — environmental, social, and technological — that the western world has created through global economic expansion. Hopefully some of his ideas will shape development programs as the Canadian mining industry moves further a field. At the PDAC-CIM joint luncheon, we are honoured to welcome Sir Sam Jonah, currently CEO of Ashanti Goldfields. Sir Sam will address the challenges that he faced and overcame in creating a world-class mining company in developing Africa. These thoughts and experiences are sure to be beneficial to any professional.

We would like to thank all of our sponsors for their generous and loyal support of this year’s convention. Special thanks to our platinum sponsors for their continuing support, Placer Dome Inc. and Canaccord Capital. A full list of sponsors is available on our website at www.pdac.ca.