ICSG forecasts copper surplus in 2015
After five years in a row of deficits, the copper market should show a production surplus in 2015, according to The International Copper Study Group.
Opinion/Commentary
Ross Middleton on boosting productivity, returns
“Productivity is the prime imperative for the mining industry of the decade or decades to come,” Ross Middleton, a partner with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), told attendees at Mining Magazine’s “Optimizing Mine…
Commentary: Steel demand cools
The following is an edited excerpt from the World Steel Association’s (worldsteel) “Short-range outlook for 2014 and 2015.” It forecasts that global apparent steel use will increase by 2% to 1,562 million tonnes in 2014 after…
Commentary: Rise and growth of gold ETFs
The last decade has been an eventful one for gold markets. We have seen a remarkable 12-year bull market, a shift in demand from the developed West to the rising East, and global central banks as net buyers of gold for the first time since…
Commentary: Securing uranium supply: Why the spot price is rising
For those who may not have been following the uranium sector, the spot price for uranium oxide has climbed more than US$3.50 per lb. in a matter of weeks. Recent events over the past year have woken utilities up to the fact that securing…
Commentary: Why Colombia hasn’t lived up to its mining promise
Mining in Latin America has had an outstanding period of growth in the last two decades, but is now facing many challenges. These challenges vary from country to country, as well as region to region within each country.
Commentary: Keystone XL – When politics obscures priorities
VANCOUVER — In its four-year journey through the permitting process, the Keystone XL pipeline has become a symbol of America’s reliance on oil. And those who oppose the pipeline have framed the U.S. government’s upcoming…
Commentary: Pay packages shrink for mining execs
Over the past year in the mining industry, we have seen many impairments and writedowns, project cancellations, project postponements, capital spending cuts, profit downgrades and reported net-income losses. Not surprisingly, this has affected…
Commentary: Reward potential still lives in ‘market wasteland’
After two years of pain for resource stock investors, there is a little bit of relief in sight. Gold has moved almost 20% off its late June low, and trading volumes and interest in resource explorers have increased. That’s good, but the…
A diamantaire/miner’s view of the diamond market
Whither the diamond? It’s a good question. Ask the man on the street about the diamond industry, and he’ll insist that it couldn’t be going better — hell, diamonds are…
Commentary: Watch out for the activist shareholder!
Last year was a busy one in Canada with respect to shareholder activism. There were high-profile proxy battles, such as those at TELUS and Canadian Pacific Railway, as well as several lower profile ones in the junior mining sector. These…
Commentary: The cyclicality of global mining executive pay
Mining is an unpredictable business, but it’s still cyclical in nature. In good and bad times, the industry faces new, unique challenges, and nowhere is this more evident than in executive compensation.