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Article	Type	Published Date	Rating
Indian Summer Two weeks ago, on February 26, India’s 74-year-old finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, delivered a budget that reflected resurgent confidence in the sub-continent	Comment Article	12 Mar 2010 10:59am
Canadian puck The hosts achieved a record haul of gold at the recent Winter Olympic Games, with the record-clinching 14th medal being delivered by the ice-hockey team	Comment Article	05 Mar 2010 11:38am
Head banging At the end of January, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development published a report (Golden opportunity or false hope?’) that was critical of the activities of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd (AGA) at Mongbwalu in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo	Comment Article	25 Feb 2010 1:22pm
Planting Season The northern hemisphere might still be in the grip of winter but the mining industry’s thoughts have turned to the growing season	Comment Article	19 Feb 2010 11:47am
Trading places At the end of last week, the chief financial officer of Rio Tinto, Guy Elliott, said that the global demand for aluminium, iron ore and copper will be so strong in the long term that it will "elevate prices”. A leading commodity analyst has described this type of thinking as “naïve”.	Comment Article	12 Feb 2010 11:58am
iMINE As half the globe knows by now, Apple Inc has put an end to weeks of speculation by unveiling its new tablet device. In launching the iPad at an event in San Francisco, Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, described the touch-screen machine as a “third category” between smart-phones and laptops	Comment Article	05 Feb 2010 10:54am
Casual corruption The mining industry is castigated in a Mining Journal article this week	Comment Article	29 Jan 2010 11:32am
Soldiering on With this week’s Mining Journal we include a supplement on mining in Africa to coincide with the imminent Indaba conference in Cape Town	Comment Article	22 Jan 2010 11:04am
Story time As a mining-company executive (if you are not, bear with me – pretend), what is your worst corporate nightmare? For those short on imagination, let me suggest a frightening scenario, made all the more chilling by starting so seductively	Comment Article	15 Jan 2010 11:32am
Taking sight Turning insight into foresight takes a particular skill, and can only be properly judged, of course, in hindsight. London-based Exclusive Analysis Ltd (EAL) has a go every year with its ‘Foresight’ series. This year’s effort is focused on confronting uncertainty, which was the title of a workshop held by the specialist intelligence company in June last year	Comment Article	08 Jan 2010 11:00am
Africa's turn As we draw to the end of the first decade of the new millennium, it is easy to visualise at least one scenario that will dominate the geopolitical scene in the 2010s	Comment Article	18 Dec 2009 10:57am
Sukuk Credit Attempts by Dubai World to restructure its US$26 billion debt have dominated the financial press this month. The malaise has spread to other parts of the United Arab Emirates, with markets tumbling in the Middle East and credit downgrades triggering accelerated debt-repayment clauses	Comment Article	11 Dec 2009 11:17am
Sino sink Overcapacity in a sector can have a profound impact on it and on dozens of associated industries	Comment Article	04 Dec 2009 12:31pm
Risk returns Just as we started to look forward to Christmas, the markets have fired a Scrooge-like shot across our bows	Comment Article	27 Nov 2009 11:11am
Road ahead Platinum and palladium are fascinating metals, being valued both for their aesthetic and physical properties	Comment Article	20 Nov 2009 10:43am
Rough Club Groucho Marx is famously quoted as saying “I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members”	Comment Article	13 Nov 2009 10:51am
Impaired vision Despite the severe economic conditions of late 2008 and early 2009, few mining companies wrote down their asset values	Comment Article	06 Nov 2009 10:47am
Community toolkit The ability to handle local grievances has leapt up the skills ‘wish list’ of mining executives. Hardly a week goes by without news of disturbances at a site somewhere. A combination of factors are at play, including recession-fuelled concerns for job security, relatively high metals prices, a drift to left-leaning regional governments, resurgent pressure groups and the ease of internet communication	Comment Article	30 Oct 2009 9:50am
Building brics The world’s biggest producer of iron ore has announced that it is to increase its annual capital expenditure by 30% to US$12.9 billion	Comment Article	23 Oct 2009 10:55am
Traders celebrate Trading conditions for metals this week were described by one market participant as “ludicrous”	Comment Article	16 Oct 2009 10:42am
Stepping out Mongolia must seize development opportunities when it can. It is therefore with some relief that the government signed an investment agreement this week with the owners of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold deposit.	Comment Article	09 Oct 2009 12:12pm
To boldly go We know more about deep space than we do about the deep ocean, but as competition for mineral resources continues to increase, deep ocean mineralisation may form a larger proportion of the resources mix	Comment Article	02 Oct 2009 10:27am
Transparent question The global recession has had a severe impact, and a recent report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) makes it clear that foreign direct investments (FDI) have suffered badly, with the organisation describing the crisis as delivering a “sharp blow to FDI flows”.	Comment Article	25 Sep 2009 11:33am
Blowing bubbles JM Keynes summarised our current financial crisis rather well, and he was writing 70 years beforehand	Comment Article	18 Sep 2009 10:06am
Casting light The subjects of uranium and Iran are hard to separate	Comment Article	11 Sep 2009 11:21am
Century not out This month sees the 100th anniversary of the launch of the biggest competitor to Mining Journal	Comment Article	04 Sep 2009 10:53am
Accommodating bankers International equity markets drew comfort from a gathering of central bankers last weekend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The delegates announced that monetary policy around the world is likely to remain ‘ultra-accommodative’.	Comment Article	28 Aug 2009 10:38am
Patience please Last Monday, the South African President, Jacob Zuma, marked his first 100 days in office. I am not the only person to be pleasantly surprised – even astonished – at his performance so far, and so too, no doubt, is the local mining industry.	Comment Article	21 Aug 2009 9:50am
Stern test Although still deeply worrying for the individuals concerned, the ‘white-collar’ crime with which Stern Hu and his colleagues are accused in China (see p1) comes as a relative relief.	Comment Article	14 Aug 2009 10:22am
Cucumber time Perhaps rather better known as the ‘silly season’, we have entered the dread period for journalists when politicians and entrepreneurs alike go on their holidays.	Comment Article	07 Aug 2009 11:04am
Paying for lunch The executives of Rio Tinto arrested in China on bribery allegations now risk prosecution by US law-enforcement agencies.	Comment Article	31 Jul 2009 9:57am
Bullet dodged A rapid cooling of global steel activity in the second half of 2008 saw spot prices for iron ore plummet.	Comment Article	24 Jul 2009 10:32am
Golden constant Despite enthusiastic predictions earlier this year, gold remains stubbornly under US$1,000/oz. Yes, the threat of a global economic meltdown has receded (even if only properly signalled by the return this week of awesome bonus payments for hitherto-bankrupt bankers).	Comment Article	17 Jul 2009 10:26am
To Tweet The generation that remembers mobile phones as bricks that required shoulder straps will scarcely believe the news that the wife of the UK Prime Minister is to provide a web log (blog) of behind-the-scenes activity at this week's G8 summit in Rome.	Comment Article	10 Jul 2009 11:09am
Red flag Russia is suffering more than most countries from the international financial crisis. This week Vladimir Putin told the heads of the country’s leading banks “not to plan any summer holidays” until they had increased their lending rates to industry.	Comment Article	03 Jul 2009 10:45am
He’s behind you This time last year, The Melbourne Mining Club held its second annual lunch at London’s Café Royal. The keynote speaker that day was BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers who was in the middle of a takeover tussle with Rio Tinto.	Comment Article	26 Jun 2009 11:10am
Risky business One of the most popular board games of the 1970s was a very basic strategy game called Risk. Compared with today’s computer-based strategy games, such as Civilisation, it was simplistic and required very little skill. However, the basic principles in both types of game remain the same - just about every activity we take part in and every decision we make involves taking a risk.	Comment Article	19 Jun 2009 11:17am
Winners and losers As the dust settles on the Rio Tinto saga it should become clearer who are the winners and losers. Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton have signed an iron-ore production joint venture in the Pilbara region of Western Australia that preserves their respective marketing arrangements	Comment Article	12 Jun 2009 10:48am
Back to the future Harry Adams, chief executive of EMED Mining, is an engaging speaker and he certainly did not let his audience down while presenting his company’s business plans in London this week	Comment Article	05 Jun 2009 10:38am
Who can stop the runaway train? Letter to the Editor: I read with interest your comment entitled The runaway train (Mining Journal May 15).	Letter To The Editor Article	05 Jun 2009 10:38am
Benchmark spotted It has stood the test of time but after 40 years the future for an integral part of the metals market now looks unclear and is getting darker by the day.	Comment Article	29 May 2009 10:15am
Out of South Africa For the past five days, London has been focusing on PGM as it has been platinum week.	Comment Article	22 May 2009 10:50am
The runaway train In times of recession, markets and prices turn south very quickly. Think back to 2008 as double-digit percentage point falls were registered by share prices and commodities on a daily basis. Sentiment turned bad overnight and the speed of the decline was breathtaking	Comment Article	15 May 2009 11:14am
Resource rage There is a belief that the next world war may finish the planet and that this world war will be fought over the demand for dwindling resources. The argument continues that certain parts of the globe will become so overpopulated that governments will have to fight for these resources, such as fresh water.	Comment Article	08 May 2009 10:24am
Swings and roundabouts Diamond sales to consumers during the 12 months to October 2009 are expected to have declined by less than 15%. Consumers still fall in love, get engaged and married, and still celebrate these happy occasions with diamond jewellery	Comment Article	01 May 2009 10:11am
Chinese wisdom While the political world watched history being made in the US with the election of the country’s first black president, the mining world turned its gaze to China.	Comment Article	28 Apr 2009 3:44pm
Timing is everything The threat and use of industrial action are no strangers to the mining industry. Workers are usually galvanised over working conditions, safety, wages and job security. In South Africa this week the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) asked for a 15% wage increase from gold and coal producers, and said negotiations on their pay would begin in the second week of May.	Comment Article	24 Apr 2009 9:32am
First signs It has been an interesting week for the mining industry, a week that may be seen as when market sentiment showed some small signs of improvement.	Comment Article	17 Apr 2009 10:30am
Beggars and choosers IT HAS been reported that a US$1 billion fund has been established by a Hong Kong-based capital raiser to invest in mining assets, with a view to catching the bottom of the price cycle.	Comment Article	09 Apr 2009 10:19am
Always believe in "You’re indestructible Always believe in, because you are Gold." These were the words penned by UK band Spandau Ballet in April 1983.	Comment Article	03 Apr 2009 9:23am
Speaking in tongues The proposed incursion by the Chinese into Australia’s mining sector is generating a lot of smoke, or is it hot air? The issue was given added piquancy this week when China rejected Coca-Cola’s proposed US$2.4 billion takeover of Huiyan Juice	Comment Article	20 Mar 2009 12:25am
Giving publicly During the International Council on Mining and Metals’ seminar on Mining and Sustainability in London this week I was reminded of a video that I was asked to review more than 10 years ago.	Comment Article	12 Mar 2009 7:16pm
Cowards of us all Long periods of interrupted sleep provide plenty of opportunities for reflection. Between the cries of the new-born, what better way to wile away the wee hours than to contemplate the state of the mining industry.	Comment Article	05 Mar 2009 5:53pm
Tomorrow’s war Last week’s Mining Journal carried an interesting news item from Austria: Wolfram Bergbau und Huetten GmbH is selling its tungsten mine and processing plant to Sandvik AB. The Swedish equipment manufacturer is securing supplies of a metal that is crucial in its high-speed cutting tool	Comment Article	27 Feb 2009 10:52am
Commodity matters There was a clear accord between mood and commodity at the recent Mining Indaba in Cape Town. The metals targeted had a large influence on the conduct of corporate delegates and, understandably, those with a focus on gold were in high spirits.	Comment Article	20 Feb 2009 12:34am
Rough times It was more grim news for diamond companies at the Indaba mining conference in Cape Town this week. De Beers stressed that prices for rough stones may not recover until Christmas 2010, while diamond veteran Chaim Even-Zohar, principal of Tacy Ltd, advised that demand for rough gems may drop as much as two-thirds this year as the downturn cuts into consumer spending.	Comment Article	13 Feb 2009 12:26am
Out of Africa This weekend, many members of the world’s mining community will descend on Cape Town for the annual Indaba conference.	Comment Article	06 Feb 2009 1:02am
Safe haven The price of gold breached US$900/oz this week following an all-time high in the sterling price (£661/oz) and likewise a record high in the euro price (€701/oz).	Comment Article	30 Jan 2009 10:14am
Comment In the 14 months since the two titans began sparring over the takeover bid from BHP Billiton, the protaganists have moved apart.	Magazine Article	23 Jan 2009 12:02pm
Healthy green shoots THE search for the green shoots of economic recovery has been much in the news in the UK this past week. Speaking on a lunchtime television news programme on ITV, the Minister for Competitiveness and Small Business, Baroness Vadera, said that she could see a few “green shoots” of economic recovery. The minister said it was too early to say how they would develop and she was not predicting the end of the current downturn.	Comment Article	23 Jan 2009 8:52am
Calling the tune	Comment Article	16 Jan 2009 1:36pm
Great but fragile expectations Why do stock markets often react negatively to what, on the face of it, seems to be good news? For example, a decent set of results from a company is often met by a reduction in the company’s share price. Conversely, why do markets rise on what seems to be bad news?	Comment Article	12 Jan 2009 9:25am
Not immune after all This is the time of the year when people take stock and ponder the prospects for the next 12 months.	Comment Article	19 Dec 2008 1:03am
Tunnel illumination A significant portion of the global mining community has been in London in the past ten days.	Comment Article	12 Dec 2008 3:36am
How low can you go? Smart investors buy at the bottom of a stock... ...	Comment Article	31 Oct 2008 12:00am
How low can you go? Smart investors buy at the bottom of a stock... How low can you go? Smart investors buy at the bottom of a stock market cycle while the rest of us, known as the herd, tend to buy at the top of the cycle and quite frequently sell at the bottom as our nerve cracks. The secret to good fund managemen...	Comment Article	24 Oct 2008 12:00am
Chinese Burn THE unthinkable has happened – China, the hothouse... Chinese Burn THE unthinkable has happened – China, the hothouse of the commodity boom, is slowing down, so says Tom Albanese, Rio Tinto’s chief executive. His comments sent the mining sector into freefall on Wednesday and Thursday. His exact word...	Comment Article	17 Oct 2008 12:00am
A shifting financial landscape IN THE weeks since July the commo... A shifting financial landscape IN THE weeks since July the commodity and mining worlds have changed beyond recognition. And the changes that are certain to come in the next few weeks will create a new working and investment environment for the secto...	Comment Article	10 Oct 2008 12:00am
Money in the bank THESE are nerve-racking times, financially spea... Money in the bank THESE are nerve-racking times, financially speaking, with the markets rapidly swinging to and fro – predominantly downwards – and many mining companies sinking into the gloom of worrying about securing financing for their projec...	Comment Article	03 Oct 2008 12:00am
Phil Halliday’s talk at Finex ’08 at the Geological Society o... Phil Halliday’s talk at Finex ’08 at the Geological Society on Tuesday. Vectors for funding explorationWhen I was asked a couple of months ago to give this talk on exploration funding the climate for finance was very different to that of today....	Comment Article	26 Sep 2008 12:00am
The longest week? More than 40 years ago, a UK politician coined ... The longest week? More than 40 years ago, a UK politician coined the phrase “a week is a long time in politics”. Following the events of the past week on the global equity and commodity markets, the same can be said for our industry. Last week,...	Comment Article	19 Sep 2008 12:00am
Taking a view At the main Denver Gold Forum reception on Monday e... Taking a view At the main Denver Gold Forum reception on Monday evening, delegates were entertained by, among others, a man doing tricks with a pack of playing cards. I and a fellow journalist from Northern Miner watched the man pull the card that sh...	Comment Article	12 Sep 2008 12:00am
The cracks are starting to show WE ARE just over a year into the... The cracks are starting to show WE ARE just over a year into the financial imbroglio, known in the UK as the credit crunch, that is threatening to turn into a global recession. Last year as the fall-out from the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage ma...	Comment Article	05 Sep 2008 12:00am
Energy Drive ENERGY has been moving to the very top of quite a f... Energy Drive ENERGY has been moving to the very top of quite a few business and political agendas of late, driven by a combination of economic growth strategies and carbonmanagement imperatives. The most innovative global strategies envisage renewa...	Comment Article	29 Aug 2008 12:00am
An undisputed winner? AS THIS year’s Olympic Games track and fi... An undisputed winner? AS THIS year’s Olympic Games track and field programme moves into its final few days, it is probably safe to say that the performances of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt in the 100 metres and 200 metres will be one of the games...	Comment Article	22 Aug 2008 12:00am
Fossil way COAL may be king, again, but the fossil fuel certainly... Fossil way COAL may be king, again, but the fossil fuel certainly lives up to its dirty image. For example, for the same unit of electricity, coal emits twice as much CO2 emissions as natural gas. A recent report from the sustainable future investme...	Comment Article	15 Aug 2008 12:00am
Dirty electricity KINGSNORTH coal-fired power station on the Medw... Dirty electricity KINGSNORTH coal-fired power station on the Medway in Kent, UK, has been the scene for a week-long demonstration by activists to prevent E.ON UK, the energy company, going ahead with plans to replace the coal-fired unit with another...	Comment Article	08 Aug 2008 12:00am
People Puzzle THE US produces more sports coaches than engineers,... People Puzzle THE US produces more sports coaches than engineers, according to a speaker at the World Mining Investment Congress in London back in June. The speaker was referring to the skills shortage in the mining industry and it is a topic that ha...	Comment Article	01 Aug 2008 12:00am
Burnt offering NOTWITHSTANDING the excitement being generated by ... Burnt offering NOTWITHSTANDING the excitement being generated by the precious metals and oil markets, it is arguably the performance of coal that has been the most significant development so far this year. Coal prices are at record levels after doubl...	Comment Article	25 Jul 2008 12:00am
All that glisters is not gold WHITE is the new yellow in the je... All that glisters is not gold WHITE is the new yellow in the jewellery world. I was informed at the World Mining Investment Congress in June that on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro the girls are now wearing white jewellery – platinum or pallad...	Comment Article	18 Jul 2008 12:00am
Great expectations MAKING predictions can be a dangerous business... Great expectations MAKING predictions can be a dangerous business – and yet we all do it. Many people do it as a way of making a living. Stock markets, for example, are driven by investors’ expectations and share prices are often based on peoples...	Comment Article	11 Jul 2008 12:00am
Spectate and speculate FUND managers like to talk shop, and thos... Spectate and speculate FUND managers like to talk shop, and those gathered at this week’s Henley Royal Regatta were no exception. As the rowers toiled on the water, the fund managers pontificated on the tumbling share markets around the world and...	Comment Article	04 Jul 2008 12:00am
Not dead yet IN THE final days before the run-off election for th... Not dead yet IN THE final days before the run-off election for the presidency of Zimbabwe, the British government asked companies that are involved in the country to reconsider their positions there. Furthermore, the London Financial Times said the F...	Comment Article	27 Jun 2008 12:00am
From the horse`s mouth THE head of a global telecommunications co... From the horse`s mouth THE head of a global telecommunications company once answered a question I asked him about his group’s finances with the words: “Don’t ask me, I’ve got a finance director to deal with all that.” His remark sprang to...	Comment Article	20 Jun 2008 12:00am
New money for old rope DURING a radio interview this week I was ... New money for old rope DURING a radio interview this week I was asked to explain the economics of coal mining. As the subject of the interview was about the explosion at the Karl Marx mine in the eastern Donetsk region of the Ukraine, I inferred tha...	Comment Article	13 Jun 2008 12:00am
Speculate to accumulate a bubble DOES George Soros read Mining J... Speculate to accumulate a bubble DOES George Soros read Mining Journal? The chairman of Soros Fund Management, a US$17 billion hedge fund, might well do, because this week he picked up on the issue of whether or not we are witnessing a commodities b...	Comment Article	06 Jun 2008 12:00am
Safe Haven Chris Hinde in his handover commentary in the last iss... Safe Haven Chris Hinde in his handover commentary in the last issue looked back at his 23 years’ involvement in Mining Journal. As I have only three weeks to comment on, I will stick to the present and the possible future. Among the changes Chris h...	Comment Article	30 May 2008 12:00am
Changing places As signalled in the previous Comment, this week ... Changing places As signalled in the previous Comment, this week I move over (for the third time in my 23 years at Mining Journal) from editor to the role of editorial director. During my various stints on the Mining Journal team, well over 1,100 iss...	Comment Article	23 May 2008 12:00am
Hearts and minds A new editor takes over the reins at Mining Jou... Hearts and minds A new editor takes over the reins at Mining Journal next week, and in normal circumstances I would try and write something memorable. However, I would prefer to repeat a Comment (in italics below) that we published exactly ten years...	Comment Article	16 May 2008 12:00am
Carnival commences ON WEDNESDAY last week, Standard & Poor’... Carnival commences ON WEDNESDAY last week, Standard & Poor’s raised Brazil’s credit rating to ‘investment’ grade. This makes Brazil only the third country in Latin America to achieve this status (after Chile and Mexico). President Luiz In...	Comment Article	09 May 2008 12:00am
Growing Money INTREPID Potash Inc, the largest US producer of a ... Growing Money INTREPID Potash Inc, the largest US producer of a potassium compound used in fertiliser, has raised US$960 million in an initial public offering. Last week’s debut was described as “sparkling” by analysts. In truth, almost everyo...	Comment Article	02 May 2008 12:00am
Drilling down Early last month, Metals Economics Group (MEG) and... Drilling down Early last month, Metals Economics Group (MEG) and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) hosted a half-day meeting to discuss issues facing the international exploration community. A summary of the thoughtprovokin...	Comment Article	25 Apr 2008 12:00am
Major caution IN THE past week, two diversified corporations have... Major caution IN THE past week, two diversified corporations have an- nounced plans to demerge and list their mining assets on the main board of the London Stock Exchange (LSE). As we reported in last week’s Mining Journal, Amsterdam-based New Worl...	Comment Article	18 Apr 2008 12:00am
Right sizing AN INTERESTING thing happened last Friday. Right sizing AN INTERESTING thing happened last Friday. John Reed confessed that the landmark merger that created Citigroup was a “mistake”. His comments came on the 10th anniversary of the US$166 billion deal that combined Mr Reed’s Citicorp b...	Comment Article	11 Apr 2008 12:00am
Trumpet blowing I HOPE that you can forgive this rare indulgence... Trumpet blowing I HOPE that you can forgive this rare indulgence because I can’t resist the opportunity to note that we just got bigger. Two of the world’s major mining publishing companies, London-based Mining Communications Ltd (MCL; publishe...	Comment Article	04 Apr 2008 12:00am
Social skills THE publication of the Democratic Republic of the C... Social skills THE publication of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s mining review has brought the social demands of host governments regarding mineral-resource projects into even sharper focus. Many of the letters sent to companies involved abo...	Comment Article	28 Mar 2008 12:00am
Silver Lining? JUST when it seemed that the world’s central ban... Silver Lining? JUST when it seemed that the world’s central bankers had the credit crisis under control, along comes Bear Stearns. Suddenly, there is a very real danger that what was already a financial crisis will spiral out of control – and thi...	Comment Article	21 Mar 2008 12:00am
Clear message SIX months after being approved by the country’s ... Clear message SIX months after being approved by the country’s parliament, the latest horror from Zimbabwe has passed into law. The Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act gives local owners the right to take majority control of foreign compani...	Comment Article	14 Mar 2008 12:00am
Tiger`s tale HILLARY Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain receiv... Tiger`s tale HILLARY Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain received a sharp reminder this week of the type of awkward foreign- affairs issue that one of them will face next year. Some 20 years after the cessation of the eight-year war between the two...	Comment Article	07 Mar 2008 12:00am
AIM low INVESTORS in AIM-listed mining companies may not be prote... AIM low INVESTORS in AIM-listed mining companies may not be protected by the UK’s usual takeover safeguards. This damning indictment of London’s Alternative Investment Market comes from Richie Clark, head of AIM at London law firm Fox Williams LL...	Comment Article	29 Feb 2008 12:00am
THIS week, Australia became the first country publically to quest... THIS week, Australia became the first country publically to question the investments being made by ‘sovereign wealth funds’ (SWFs). Although this collective noun was coined relatively recently, government-backed investors are not a new phenomenon...	Comment Article	22 Feb 2008 12:00am
Resolute relationship IN delivering his company’s financial res... Resolute relationship IN delivering his company’s financial results this week, the chief executive of ArcelorMittal, Lakshmi Mittal, maintained his upbeat assessment of the steel industry. Although the relationship between steel and economic activi...	Comment Article	15 Feb 2008 12:00am
Fiery breath TRY as we might, it is difficult to ignore China. Fiery breath TRY as we might, it is difficult to ignore China. Even in a week that has seen BHP Billiton confirm its takeover offer for Rio Tinto, it is the dragon in the room that demands comment. Even by its own recent standards, Chinese activity...	Comment Article	08 Feb 2008 12:00am
In the dark THE South African mining industry has just suffered o... In the dark THE South African mining industry has just suffered one of its darkest weeks, in both senses of the word. To a barely credulous international audience, one of the world’s leading mining industries shut down. As we wrote in last week’...	Comment Article	01 Feb 2008 12:00am
World`s Apart AS Mining Journal goes to press, the African Union... World`s Apart AS Mining Journal goes to press, the African Union (AU) is about to start a one-week meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss industrial development on the continent. At the same time, a world away, the great and the good of the po...	Comment Article	25 Jan 2008 12:00am
Siren song IT IS not often that commodities are described as sing... Siren song IT IS not often that commodities are described as singing an “alluring melody”, let alone be likened to the Sirens of Greek mythology. However, that is exactly how Deutsche Bank describes them in its latest Commodities Outlook report....	Comment Article	18 Jan 2008 12:00am
ON THURSDAY this week, the UK government gave the go-ahead for a ... ON THURSDAY this week, the UK government gave the go-ahead for a new generation of (privately-developed) nuclear power plants. The decision, which will be another fillip for the uranium-mining sector, follows a long consultation period but is still h...	Comment Article	11 Jan 2008 12:00am
AS 2008 dawns, one look at the financial press is enough to leave... AS 2008 dawns, one look at the financial press is enough to leave all but the bravest entrepreneur in bed. London’s Financial Times, for example, has given us “treacherous waters”, “dollar stumbles”, “Outlook worst since dotcom bust” an...	Comment Article	04 Jan 2008 12:00am
Bearing gifts AS 2007 draws to a close, the temptation for every... Bearing gifts AS 2007 draws to a close, the temptation for everyone in the mining industry will be to thank their respective deities, and to pray for a repeat in 2008. However, a more immediate, and practical, way of securing the future of the indus...	Comment Article	21 Dec 2007 12:00am
THIS Friday sees the end of the 12-day UN ‘climate change’ co... THIS Friday sees the end of the 12-day UN ‘climate change’ conference on the Indonesian island of Bali. Over 10,000 delegates, observers and advisers from some 180 countries have met for what is, in reality, a meeting about a meeting – namely e...	Comment Article	14 Dec 2007 12:00am
CHINA continues to dominate the debate over metals demand but the... CHINA continues to dominate the debate over metals demand but the country this week announced that it is shifting its monetary policy from ‘prudent’ to ‘tightening’. This is the latest sign that Beijing is concerned about China’s rate of gr...	Comment Article	07 Dec 2007 12:00am
Blame Culture THIS publication was launched in 1835 to campaign f... Blame Culture THIS publication was launched in 1835 to campaign for improved safety in the mines of 19th-century England. Our position on safety for those working on, or around, mines has not changed in the intervening 172 years. Happily, mines in t...	Comment Article	30 Nov 2007 12:00am
Going longLONDON has hosted the fifth Mines and Money conference ... Going longLONDON has hosted the fifth Mines and Money conference this week. Central to the discussions at events such as this is the evaluation of risk and reward in making investment decisions. Investing in commodities themselves has become commonpl...	Comment Article	23 Nov 2007 12:00am
Digging DeepMELBOURNE-BASED BHP Billiton has followed up last wee... Digging DeepMELBOURNE-BASED BHP Billiton has followed up last week’s sounding-out of Rio Tinto by claiming that an amalgama- tion of the two companies would “unlock value” and yield a “unique portfolio of large-scale, low-cost, long-life asse...	Comment Article	16 Nov 2007 12:00am
Time out THE US has moved a step closer to dismantling a mining s... Time out THE US has moved a step closer to dismantling a mining statute signed into law 135 years ago by President Ulysses S Grant. At the end of last week, the House of Representatives voted 244-166 in favour of a bill (HR2262) that would restrict a...	Comment Article	09 Nov 2007 12:00am
Another European revolution AS WE go to press, a revolution has s... Another European revolution AS WE go to press, a revolution has swept Europe. On November 1, the European Union’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) became effective, and the financial services industry across the continent is brace...	Comment Article	02 Nov 2007 12:00am
Playing Ball IN SOUTH Africa, it is not just rugby union supporte... Playing Ball IN SOUTH Africa, it is not just rugby union supporters who have had reason to be pleased in the past week. In its latest international survey, Barclays Wealth identified South Africans as being the nationality most willing to take risks...	Comment Article	26 Oct 2007 12:00am
Mining in the media THIS week a Canadian mining company called to... Mining in the media THIS week a Canadian mining company called to dispute a particularly sensitive quote the Mining Journal had recently published, attributed to its former chairman. “He says he never said it,” the company spokesman claimed. A qu...	Comment Article	19 Oct 2007 12:00am
Too little, too late CHILE may supply the world with over a third... Too little, too late CHILE may supply the world with over a third of its copper, but even its own mining minister acknowledges that the country’s position as the leading producer is slipping. Successive governments have failed to address water and...	Comment Article	12 Oct 2007 12:00am
A RECOVERY in the US dollar early this week was cited by traders ... A RECOVERY in the US dollar early this week was cited by traders as an important factor in downward pressure being exerted on commodity prices. Another frequently-cited factor in any metals weakness recently has been the US-induced squeeze in interna...	Comment Article	05 Oct 2007 12:00am
THERE are more than a few smug mining executives in London this w... THERE are more than a few smug mining executives in London this week. Many snapped up blue-chip mining shares for their private portfolios when prices plunged during the mid-August sub-prime stock market wobbles. “It was so obviously crazy,” said...	Comment Article	28 Sep 2007 12:00am
COLOMBIA’S successful efforts to wrest control from guerrillas ... COLOMBIA’S successful efforts to wrest control from guerrillas in many areas of the republic have opened up previously inaccessible regions for mining companies. With just 10% of the mineral-rich country explored, the government has embarked on an...	Comment Article	21 Sep 2007 12:00am
LAST February the heads of the world’s global mining companies ... LAST February the heads of the world’s global mining companies gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where they complained bitterly about China’s dominance in Africa. China’s no-strings-attached deals with corrupt African countries, as...	Comment Article	14 Sep 2007 12:00am
China’s new face CHINA has a well-deserved, dreadful reputatio... China’s new face CHINA has a well-deserved, dreadful reputation for its mining practices, both in its own country and abroad, especially in Africa. From paying workers in tinned fish at a nickel project in Papua New Guinea, to a blatant disregard...	Comment Article	07 Sep 2007 12:00am
LAST week saw the introduction of ‘Rule 26’ on London’s Alt... LAST week saw the introduction of ‘Rule 26’ on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM). The London Stock Exchange (LSE) set a deadline last February of August 20 for all companies on AIM to provide a website that adheres to specific rules....	Comment Article	31 Aug 2007 12:00am
THE international mining industry received a sharp reminder last ... THE international mining industry received a sharp reminder last Thursday that price cycles are cyclical. This was mid- August, though; smack in the middle of the ‘silly season’, when many traders and investors, in the northern hemisphere at leas...	Comment Article	24 Aug 2007 12:00am
THREE recent political developments in Canada are giving cause fo... THREE recent political developments in Canada are giving cause for concern to the local mining industry. These events are: legal recognition of the primary rights of the ‘first nations’ (Aboriginal) peoples to legal title in Ontario; a mooted cha...	Comment Article	17 Aug 2007 12:00am
MINING executives pondering why more women can’t be found to he... MINING executives pondering why more women can’t be found to help alleviate the global skills shortage may have found part of the answer draped over the front page of Kalgoorlie’s local newspaper, the Kalgoorlie Miner, this week. Her name was Al...	Comment Article	10 Aug 2007 12:00am
ZIMBABWE’S mining sector is helping prop up Robert Mugabe’s r... ZIMBABWE’S mining sector is helping prop up Robert Mugabe’s regime. High prices for key commodities like nickel, gold and platinum mean mining now officially contributes 40% of the country’s increasingly scarce foreign currency earnings, and th...	Comment Article	03 Aug 2007 12:00am
“A NEW bull market [in copper] has begun”. “A NEW bull market [in copper] has begun”. “Nickel prices will move ahead”. “Strong demand growth (in iron ore) to continue in the burgeoning Asia market”. Sound familiar? These forecasts were written in the Mining Journal at the end of...	Comment Article	27 Jul 2007 12:00am
THE rapport between some Australian politicians and BHP Billiton ... THE rapport between some Australian politicians and BHP Billiton appears to be as frosty as diplomatic relations between the UK and Russia, if reports published in local newspapers are anything to go by. The story begins back in 2004, when Xstrata l...	Comment Article	20 Jul 2007 12:00am
ALCOA’S courtship of Alcan has been long and troubled, but like... ALCOA’S courtship of Alcan has been long and troubled, but like any ardent but patient suitor, the world’s number-two aluminium producer was hanging in there, in the hope its proposal would eventually be accepted. This week US-headquartered Alco...	Comment Article	13 Jul 2007 12:00am
IN THE rush to catch the eye of the investors, minerals industry ... IN THE rush to catch the eye of the investors, minerals industry companies are leaving out key information from their announcements. The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) recently announced that it had identified reporting by mining companies that...	Comment Article	06 Jul 2007 12:00am
Fraught times Last week Mining Journal remarked that BHP Billito... Fraught times Last week Mining Journal remarked that BHP Billiton’s five-year, US$300 million investment on climate change technology amounted to just 11 days’ profit. BHP Billiton’s chief executive Chip Goodyear asked to respond: “Your Jun...	Comment Article	29 Jun 2007 12:00am
Hot Air BHP Billiton won little environmental credit this week fo... Hot Air BHP Billiton won little environmental credit this week for its revised climate change policy, under which it plans to commit US$300 million over five years to support low carbon emissions development within the company. US$300 million is a l...	Comment Article	22 Jun 2007 12:00am
Historical baggage OUTGOING UK Prime Minister Tony Blair success... Historical baggage OUTGOING UK Prime Minister Tony Blair successfully cast off Labour’s trade union roots to find electoral success. But in Australia, the opposition Labor party is still shackled by its trade-union constituency. This was clearly e...	Comment Article	15 Jun 2007 12:00am
African delusion BANKS report that negotiating with African gover... African delusion BANKS report that negotiating with African governments is now the longest and hardest part of putting deals together for mining projects in the region. Governments are now expecting more, and demanding more. Many have passed laws th...	Comment Article	08 Jun 2007 12:00am
When too much is never enough US-BASED miner Doe Run Co has spen... When too much is never enough US-BASED miner Doe Run Co has spent US$116 million to clean up its La Oroya smelter in Peru, but that’s not enough. Now under fi re from NGOs, the company has belatedly addressed the environmental legacy it inherited...	Comment Article	01 Jun 2007 12:00am
NEVER out of the news for long, the nuclear-power debate has come... NEVER out of the news for long, the nuclear-power debate has come roaring back onto the front pages in the UK and Australia – albeit from opposite ends of the spectrum. Meanwhile, sparked by the burgeoning interest in carbon-friendly power generati...	Comment Article	25 May 2007 12:00am
Eat or be eaten? WITH merger mania dominating headlines, the que... Eat or be eaten? WITH merger mania dominating headlines, the question to ask is: which mining companies perform the best – the aggressive ‘acquirers’, or more cautious companies that rely on organic growth? In the current climate the answer ma...	Comment Article	18 May 2007 12:00am
Latin resources battleground JAPAN is now grappling with a major ... Latin resources battleground JAPAN is now grappling with a major threat to its global, government-sponsored programme to find and fund early-stage exploration projects: China. Concerns are already well documented about Chinese state-owned mining com...	Comment Article	11 May 2007 12:00am
Problems come in threes YET another mining company with assets in... Problems come in threes YET another mining company with assets in Russia or the former Soviet Union has experienced a setback in attempts to secure a London listing. This time a leaked report revealed that three billionaire owners of Eurasian Natural...	Comment Article	04 May 2007 12:00am
Corporate rehab AFTER doing it tough raising money for his Lesot... Corporate rehab AFTER doing it tough raising money for his Lesotho Diamond Corp, disgraced Australian businessman Alan Bond has taken the first steps towards corporate rehabilitation. He’s got AIM-listed River Diamonds to buy a stake in his compan...	Comment Article	27 Apr 2007 12:00am
Counter claims By day, Richard Solly, a 47-year-old devoted Catho... Counter claims By day, Richard Solly, a 47-year-old devoted Catholic, works for a non-government organisation championing Gypsy and Travellers’ rights. After hours he’s an anti-mining activist, although Solly disagrees about his activities being...	Comment Article	20 Apr 2007 12:00am
Yes, ministerWHEN politicians say ill-advised or stupid things th... Yes, ministerWHEN politicians say ill-advised or stupid things there is a tried and tested course their spin doctors often recommend to minimise the fallout: blame the media for taking quotes out of context, and refuse to comment further. South Afric...	Comment Article	12 Apr 2007 12:00am
Hitting the rocks Anybody attending last month’s Prospectors an... Hitting the rocks Anybody attending last month’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada annual convention in Toronto couldn’t help but notice the enormous presence of Endiama, Angola’s government-owned diamond company. Although tainte...	Comment Article	06 Apr 2007 12:00am
Deal with the devil When left-wing Venezuelan leader Hugo Ch&#225... Deal with the devil When left-wing Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez addressed the UN General Assembly last September he told the audience he could still smell the sulphur left in the room by the devil: US President George Bush, who’d been there 2...	Comment Article	30 Mar 2007 12:00am
Grieving coal communities AS ONE coal-mining community in Siberia... Grieving coal communities AS ONE coal-mining community in Siberia begins grieving, another in West Virginia is still hearing conflicting reports about why their loved ones died. The Sago mine disaster on January 2, 2006 is best remembered because of...	Comment Article	23 Mar 2007 12:00am
Legacies and lawyers IN SOUTH Africa, the mining industry refers... Legacies and lawyers IN SOUTH Africa, the mining industry refers to the deeply entrenched racism that once characterised its operations as ‘legacy issues’. It’s a non-confrontational way to describe apartheid and the policies that excluded bla...	Comment Article	15 Mar 2007 12:00am
THE temperature plunged to -20°C in Toronto as a record numb... THE temperature plunged to -20°C in Toronto as a record number of delegates inundated Canada’s financial capital for the most important event on the international mining calendar – the PDAC convention. The crowds literally squeezed into hund...	Comment Article	09 Mar 2007 12:00am
Historic uranium u-turn It’s been a jittery week for mining sto... Historic uranium u-turn It’s been a jittery week for mining stocks, but those with an interest in uranium should mark April 30 in their diaries to watch the market. That’s the day when the price of shares for uranium companies with exposure in A...	Comment Article	02 Mar 2007 12:00am
JUST getting to the airport in the Democratic Republic of the Con... JUST getting to the airport in the Democratic Republic of the Congo involves paying somebody off , says local private mining consultant David Hollaway. It’s all part of life in one of the world’s most corrupt and desperate places where Hollaway s...	Comment Article	23 Feb 2007 12:00am
Word is your bondEyebrows were quietly raised in mining circles l... Word is your bondEyebrows were quietly raised in mining circles last month when convicted fraudster and disgraced Australian businessman Alan Bond tried to flog his Lesotho diamond project (again) for an Alternative Investment Market (AIM) listing.Bo...	Comment Article	16 Feb 2007 12:00am
Standing tallThe global mining sector has a brash new spokesman... Standing tallThe global mining sector has a brash new spokesman – and it’s not a prominent mining executive but rather an Irish filmmaker.Former Financial Times journalist Phelim McAleer is saying what most mining companies think in private about...	Comment Article	09 Feb 2007 12:00am
Battle for AfricaJust days before China’s president Hu Jintao l... Battle for AfricaJust days before China’s president Hu Jintao launched his eight-nation African tour this week, the heads of some of the world’s leading mining companies met secretly at the World Economic Forum in Davos.Dominating discussion was...	Comment Article	02 Feb 2007 12:00am
Davos momentThis Thursday, shortly before Mining Journal went to ... Davos momentThis Thursday, shortly before Mining Journal went to press, Peter Munk, the chairman of Barrick Gold Corp, delivered an address to the Mining Governors meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Mr Munk repeated his messag...	Comment Article	26 Jan 2007 12:00am
Troubled watersThis week, the former US Secretary of State, James... Troubled watersThis week, the former US Secretary of State, James Baker, issued a damning report on the safety practices of the oil giant, BP.Shortly after seeing the report, BP’s highly-regarded chief executive officer, Lord Browne, announced that...	Comment Article	19 Jan 2007 12:00am
Financial diggingThe impetus for an international standard for th... Financial diggingThe impetus for an international standard for the reporting of financial results is being driven by the capital markets, which need the most reliable information possible.While mining companies’ financial reporting has improved sig...	Comment Article	12 Jan 2007 12:00am
Extended familyAs appropriate at this festive time of year, the E... Extended familyAs appropriate at this festive time of year, the European Union is celebrating the latest stage in its expansion.On January 1, Romania and Bulgaria brought the number of countries in the EU to 27. The six original EU members from 1958...	Comment Article	05 Jan 2007 12:00am
In March 2006, Mining Journal Online was launched and, with it, a... In March 2006, Mining Journal Online was launched and, with it, a new era for Mining Communications Ltd.Less than a year later, www.mining-journal.com has 40,000 unique users (with half of Mining Journal’s 3,000 subscribers also choosing to downloa...	Comment Article	22 Dec 2006 12:00am
Russian BearRussia is an enigma. Russian BearRussia is an enigma. Its economy is growing at an annual rate of around 6% but needs external finance for urgent modernisation. It contains over 15% of the world’s mineral resources, but the development rate is disappointing. And yet, t...	Comment Article	15 Dec 2006 12:00am
Split BricsAs we report in this issue (from the Mines and Money c... Split BricsAs we report in this issue (from the Mines and Money conference; p16), the burgeoning Chinese demand for commodities continues to drive the international mining industry.This week, yet another statistic arrives to bludgeon the mind; the Or...	Comment Article	08 Dec 2006 12:00am
Pricewaterhousecoopers has delivered its second annual survey of ... Pricewaterhousecoopers has delivered its second annual survey of London’s AIM mining sector: ‘junior mine’. On the face of it, the accountancy firm has given an unambiguously positive ‘end-of-term’ report, but the survey contains coded warn...	Comment Article	01 Dec 2006 12:00am
Cash and questionsAnother day, another US$18 billion in cash on t... Cash and questionsAnother day, another US$18 billion in cash on the table. A slight exaggeration in terms of frequency, but Freeport’s US$26 billion friendly bid for Phelps Dodge – of which 70% will be cash (see p1) – is the third this year wit...	Comment Article	24 Nov 2006 12:00am
STOCKTAKINGVague rumours last week of a possible exchange-traded ... STOCKTAKINGVague rumours last week of a possible exchange-traded fund (ETF) drove the platinum price higher (MJ, November 17, p3). Such a plan would have inherent difficulties, although for producers these are of the ‘nice problem to have’ variet...	Comment Article	17 Nov 2006 12:00am
Case studyInvolving the issue of US$2. Case studyInvolving the issue of US$2.8 billion in new shares and the assumption of US$266 million in assumed debt, Kinross Gold’s planned acquisition of Bema Gold is a relatively small deal compared with the recent M&A activity in Canadian nic...	Comment Article	10 Nov 2006 12:00am
Cost-benefit analysisUntil this week, the only mining companies a... Cost-benefit analysisUntil this week, the only mining companies appearing comfortable on the issue of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were the ever-decreasing band of the irredeemable – those either denying that climate change is happening or that i...	Comment Article	03 Nov 2006 12:00am
Last Saturday (October 21) marked the 40th anniversary of one of ... Last Saturday (October 21) marked the 40th anniversary of one of the darkest days in international mining.There have been mining accidents, before and since, involving a greater loss of life, but Aberfan stands out in the memory of all those in the i...	Comment Article	27 Oct 2006 12:00am
“Why don’t they understand us?” This is a common lament amo... “Why don’t they understand us?” This is a common lament among explorers and mine developers when their proposal to open a new mine, or even to explore for one, is met by a seemingly irrational negative response from local citizens.In a recent p...	Comment Article	20 Oct 2006 12:00am
Business is clearly booming on the London Metal Exchange. Business is clearly booming on the London Metal Exchange.The LME reported record trading volumes in 2005, and the data for the first nine months of this year suggest further records will be announced when 2006 is closed.So, with much to celebrate as...	Comment Article	13 Oct 2006 12:00am
Control freaks may demur, but most intelligent and properly trai... Control freaks may demur, but most intelligent and properly trained people produce their best work when given a degree of autonomy. In modern business jargon the word is ‘ownership’, but this isn’t a bad description, as it conveys both respons...	Comment Article	06 Oct 2006 12:00am
Still a risky businessLast week’s preliminary number from Metal... Still a risky businessLast week’s preliminary number from Metals Economics Group for budgeted exploration spending this year (MJ, Sept ember 22, p1) serves as quantified confirmation of some very obvious qualitative evidence.The sheer number of ann...	Comment Article	29 Sep 2006 12:00am
The maxim ‘buy low, sell high’ is sometimes attributed to the... The maxim ‘buy low, sell high’ is sometimes attributed to the late J Paul Getty – almost certainly inaccurately and probably stemming from a remark the oil magnate made about buying when others are selling, which is a rather more sophisticated...	Comment Article	22 Sep 2006 12:00am
Uranium exploration certainly has a ‘flavour of the month’ fe... Uranium exploration certainly has a ‘flavour of the month’ feel in the junior equity markets at the moment, but the mood at a recent meeting of nuclear-industry professionals suggested the optimism regarding the fundamentals of the uranium-mining...	Comment Article	15 Sep 2006 12:00am
Mergers in mining seldom have industrial logic – cost savings a... Mergers in mining seldom have industrial logic – cost savings are difficult to secure with immovable assets, unless they happen to lie adjacent to one another, and the integrating of raw-material supplies with downstream processing assets is compli...	Comment Article	08 Sep 2006 12:00am
Focused as Mining Journal is on mining as a business, it’s easy... Focused as Mining Journal is on mining as a business, it’s easy to forget that the financial health of the industry relies on the day-to-day mining operations normally covered by Mining Journal’s sister publication, the monthly Mining Magazine.A...	Comment Article	01 Sep 2006 12:00am
High prices bring obvious benefits, but they can also bring probl... High prices bring obvious benefits, but they can also bring problems. Among those predictable at the start of this year (MJ, January 6, p2), one is currently all too evident. The strike at Escondida in Chile, the world’s largest copper mine, is rec...	Comment Article	25 Aug 2006 12:00am
CVRD’s bid for Inco is now clearly leading the field following ... CVRD’s bid for Inco is now clearly leading the field following Teck’s withdrawal, as Phelps Dodge was already fast fading into an outsider. And, in bidding for the Canadian nickel producer, CVRD has finally launched the ‘big deal’ it has been...	Comment Article	18 Aug 2006 12:00am
CASH is dominating the corporate world of the diversified mining ... CASH is dominating the corporate world of the diversified mining majors right now: how much they’re generating, and what to do with it. Anglo American plans to return US$5 billion to shareholders, over and above its normal dividend pay-out and foll...	Comment Article	11 Aug 2006 12:00am
INTRODUCING De Beers’ interim financial results last Friday, ch... INTRODUCING De Beers’ interim financial results last Friday, chairman Nicky Oppenheimer talked of the “testing time” at which Gareth Penny and Stuart Brown were taking on their new jobs as managing director and finance director, respectively.Mr...	Comment Article	04 Aug 2006 12:00am
GORDON Wylie, then head of exploration for AngloGold Ashanti, des... GORDON Wylie, then head of exploration for AngloGold Ashanti, described it as “probably the most prospective place on our books” (MJ, November 12, 2004, p2); Steven Whisler, chief executive of Phelps Dodge, said it hosts “the largest and highes...	Comment Article	28 Jul 2006 12:00am
The accounting world underwent one of its most wide-reaching and ... The accounting world underwent one of its most wide-reaching and fundamental changes at the start of last year, with the introduction of International Financial reporting Standards (IFrS) in a number of jurisdictions important from a mining perspecti...	Comment Article	21 Jul 2006 12:00am
Even those of us with relatively long memories in mining realise ... Even those of us with relatively long memories in mining realise these are extraordinary markets for the industry’s products; and with little consensus about what is actually going on behind the record prices.So when news and information giant Reut...	Comment Article	14 Jul 2006 12:00am
THE rejection last Friday by shareholders in pan-European steel p... THE rejection last Friday by shareholders in pan-European steel producer Arcelor of a possible merger with Severstal of Russia finally brought to an end the takeover battle for Arcelor, which dates back to the launch of a hostile bid by Mittal Steel...	Comment Article	07 Jul 2006 12:00am
Should Xstrata ultimately come back from Canada with none of the ... Should Xstrata ultimately come back from Canada with none of the corporate prizes – and the battle is by no means over – it may console itself a little with this thought: the surprise deal that pushed it out of contention finally settles any argu...	Comment Article	30 Jun 2006 12:00am
ONE swallow may not a summer make, but two almost identical deals... ONE swallow may not a summer make, but two almost identical deals do suggest a change in the corporate temperature. During the past six months, two of the world’s major mining groups, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, have announced exploration joint ven...	Comment Article	23 Jun 2006 12:00am
Hostile M&A inevitably creates a conflict of interest for the... Hostile M&A inevitably creates a conflict of interest for the management of the target company between serving their shareholders and protecting their jobs.Share options should help to realign interests, but a top executive gains more than just m...	Comment Article	16 Jun 2006 12:00am
ANYONE wondering what the mining industry is doing with all the c... ANYONE wondering what the mining industry is doing with all the cash it is generating at current commodity prices – saving it, blowing it or giving it to the owners – could do worse than start with financial-services group PricewaterhouseCooper...	Comment Article	09 Jun 2006 12:00am
SOMETIMES, the ‘wave of consolidation’ seems to have been swe... SOMETIMES, the ‘wave of consolidation’ seems to have been sweeping through the mining industry for a very long time. Those old enough to remember what a downswing feels like will recall its tug even then.The rationale for merger when prices are l...	Comment Article	02 Jun 2006 12:00am
STOCK markets around the world tumbled at the end of last week, a... STOCK markets around the world tumbled at the end of last week, and commodity prices followed suit. Emerging markets were hardest hit as investors bailed out of riskier assets in favour of safe havens such as government bonds. On Monday, the Vix, a m...	Comment Article	26 May 2006 12:00am
THE settlements of iron-ore prices between CVRD and Rio Tinto, an... THE settlements of iron-ore prices between CVRD and Rio Tinto, and certain major European and Japanese steel producers (p1) are the first for the current steel year, and follow an unusually protracted round of negotiations. Last year’s record rise...	Comment Article	19 May 2006 12:00am
WITH the corporate combinations in Canada resembling the marriage... WITH the corporate combinations in Canada resembling the marriage possibilities of a television soap opera – and the interminable extensions to the Inco-Falconbridge deal only reinforcing that image – the involvement at last of the country’s th...	Comment Article	12 May 2006 12:00am
AT CURRENT commodity prices, deterring foreign mining companies f... AT CURRENT commodity prices, deterring foreign mining companies from investing in a geologically prospective country is an achievement managed by only a handful of dedicated governments. In early March, Zimbabwe’s mines minister, Amos Midzi, announ...	Comment Article	05 May 2006 12:00am
INVESTMENT professionals are fond of using apparently innocuous e... INVESTMENT professionals are fond of using apparently innocuous events as indicators that a long-running trend is about to reverse. For some, a bull market is in dangerously overbought territory when taxi drivers start to tip it. For others, the sign...	Comment Article	28 Apr 2006 12:00am
THE US Government’s threat to cut the budget of the minerals in... THE US Government’s threat to cut the budget of the minerals information department of the US Geological Survey by almost one-third (p7) is not the first that the organisation has suffered.Exactly five years ago, a proposal was made to cut the Inte...	Comment Article	21 Apr 2006 12:00am
THE modest lead of Ollanta Humala in the Peruvian presidential el... THE modest lead of Ollanta Humala in the Peruvian presidential election last weekend, in which he failed to achieve the 50% level needed for outright victory, means the mining industry must wait another month or so – until the run-off against the s...	Comment Article	13 Apr 2006 12:00am
ANOTHER day, another high in metals prices. ANOTHER day, another high in metals prices. Such is the bullish sentiment in metals these days, fresh price highs are starting to lose their news value. The reasons have been well documented: unexpected supply disruptions in many metals against a bac...	Comment Article	07 Apr 2006 12:00am
FOR the dwindling band who might describe themselves as long-term... FOR the dwindling band who might describe themselves as long-term ‘Anglo watchers’, Anglo American’s decision to sell around a billion dollars’ worth of shares in its gold-mining arm (see p12), though well signalled, is a pretty radical move....	Comment Article	31 Mar 2006 12:00am
BEFORE welcoming the new guidance from London’s AIM market spec... BEFORE welcoming the new guidance from London’s AIM market specifically for mining and oil companies, it is worth remembering that AIM has been in existence for almost 11 years. So, with some 143 mining and 81 oil companies now listed, ranging from...	Comment Article	24 Mar 2006 12:00am
SPEAKING in Toronto at last week’s Prospectors and Developers A... SPEAKING in Toronto at last week’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s annual conference, the association’s executive director, Tony Andrews, highlighted Canada’s importance as a minerals producer, and its leading contribution...	Comment Article	17 Mar 2006 12:00am
THE deal announced last week by Xstrata to buy a one-third share ... THE deal announced last week by Xstrata to buy a one-third share in the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia has two features of particular importance: the US$1.7 billion price tag will not be trumped by a rival, and the group’s management is unlike...	Comment Article	10 Mar 2006 12:00am
THE move by Mittal Steel, the world’s largest producer, for Arc... THE move by Mittal Steel, the world’s largest producer, for Arcelor, its nearest rival (MJ, February 3, p1), has stirred massive political reaction, and the business arguments for and against the deal are in danger of being lost in the ensuing nois...	Comment Article	03 Mar 2006 12:00am
THE markets were buzzing with rumours this week, following the an... THE markets were buzzing with rumours this week, following the announcement last Friday from Lonmin that the company had been discussing a possible takeover offer (p15). Various runners and riders were named in the noise, some combinations showing in...	Comment Article	24 Feb 2006 12:00am
REFERRING to his impending retirement after eight years as managi... REFERRING to his impending retirement after eight years as managing director of De Beers, Gary Ralfe said he would have preferred to have departed on a “more sparkling” set of financial results (p13). But although it is all too common nowadays fo...	Comment Article	17 Feb 2006 12:00am
THERE is a significant statistical correlation, much loved by geo... THERE is a significant statistical correlation, much loved by geographers, between the decline in the stork population and the birth rate in a certain European country during part of the last century. This relationship shows not that babies really ar...	Comment Article	10 Feb 2006 12:00am
IT’S an old story. IT’S an old story. A woman spends her life establishing a spotless reputation, then she goes abroad and falls for an attractive foreigner with a mysterious past. Of course, corporate relationships are not driven by hormones – well, not usually ...	Comment Article	03 Feb 2006 12:00am
AT THE end of last week, the vast majority of the shareholders in... AT THE end of last week, the vast majority of the shareholders in Placer Dome accepted Barrick Gold’s revised takeover offer (see p17), putting Barrick and its venerable founder, Peter Munk, on top of the world of gold mining at last. There will be...	Comment Article	27 Jan 2006 12:00am
AS METALS prices across the board hit fresh multi-decade highs on... AS METALS prices across the board hit fresh multi-decade highs on a seemingly weekly basis, much of the credit – or blame depending on one’s perspective – has been ascribed to ‘investment funds’. There is no doubt that the price rises are m...	Comment Article	20 Jan 2006 12:00am
THE vote of no-confidence in the Ukrainian Government delivered t... THE vote of no-confidence in the Ukrainian Government delivered this week by the country’s parliament over the gas-supply compromise deal reached with Russia illustrates the importance that energy policy can command in any importing country.More th...	Comment Article	13 Jan 2006 12:00am
HAVING signed off the old year arguing that the really important ... HAVING signed off the old year arguing that the really important external factors for the mining industry are the unforeseen ones (MJ, December 22, 2005, p2), it would be somewhat capricious to start the new year by trying to predict the major influe...	Comment Article	06 Jan 2006 12:00am
IF IT serves a useful purpose – apart from an excuse for a part... IF IT serves a useful purpose – apart from an excuse for a party – the turning of another year offers an obvious, even inevitable, point for reflection. And 2005 has been quite a year on which to reflect: record prices across a range of mineral c...	Comment Article	22 Dec 2005 12:00am
CANADIAN companies are facing two changes to their disclosure law... CANADIAN companies are facing two changes to their disclosure laws from the end of this month. The first, involving revisions to the standards of disclosure for mineral projects, is cosmetic. The second, involving new disclosure-liability legislation...	Comment Article	16 Dec 2005 12:00am
A CYNIC once said: “The only real journalism is what they don... A CYNIC once said: “The only real journalism is what they don’t want printed – the rest is just PR”. That assessment may be apocryphal; it is certainly idealistic. In the real world, the journalist, especially the business journalist, makes a...	Comment Article	09 Dec 2005 12:00am
AT THE risk of oversimplification, the ‘bulks’ are essentiall... AT THE risk of oversimplification, the ‘bulks’ are essentially those commodities which, for a combination of reasons, are shipped from the mine site with a significantly lower level of beneficiation than other mineral products. One major conseque...	Comment Article	02 Dec 2005 12:00am
THERE is a well-worn truism in sport that the only thing harder t... THERE is a well-worn truism in sport that the only thing harder than reaching the top is staying at the top. The Australian cricket team’s legendary reign at number one has been attributed in part to a ruthless selection policy. The lesson is simpl...	Comment Article	25 Nov 2005 12:00am
WITH two major takeover bids (Inco- Falconbridge and Barrick-Plac... WITH two major takeover bids (Inco- Falconbridge and Barrick-Placer) currently ‘live’, worth a total of more than US$20 billion in shares and cash, it is not surprising that the attention of many commentators is focused on the perceived benefits...	Comment Article	18 Nov 2005 12:00am
AT FIRST sight, the ‘black economic empowerment’ (BEE) deal ... AT FIRST sight, the ‘black economic empowerment’ (BEE) deal announced by De Beers for its South African arm this Tuesday looks pretty straightforward (p1). Ambitious, certainly, with a total value of R3.8 billion. Although equally De Beers has t...	Comment Article	11 Nov 2005 12:00am
THERE must be something in the air in Toronto in October. THERE must be something in the air in Toronto in October. In the middle of the month, Inco surprised the market with a friendly, C$12.8 billion offer for local rival Falconbridge, and on the very last day of October Barrick Gold announced plans to bi...	Comment Article	04 Nov 2005 12:00am
SPARE a thought for commodity analysts. SPARE a thought for commodity analysts. This consideration comes begrudgingly, of course, from those of us outside the financial sector. However, even the curmudgeonly among us will admit that making metals-price predictions must be fraught with anxi...	Comment Article	28 Oct 2005 12:00am
THERE is a well-worn maxim that when the mainstream financial pre... THERE is a well-worn maxim that when the mainstream financial press – and, in particular, that portion aimed at amateur investors – starts to trumpet the virtues of an asset class, it is time for professional investors to take their profits. It h...	Comment Article	21 Oct 2005 12:00am
SINGLES searching in vain for that perfect partner might spare a ... SINGLES searching in vain for that perfect partner might spare a thought for Xstrata. After losing Miss Right (WMC) earlier this year to the smoothie with the bigger wallet (BHP Billiton), Xstrata had been courting Falconbridge. Unfortunately, the co...	Comment Article	14 Oct 2005 12:00am
Most would probably agree that driving a motor-car at 320 km/h is... Most would probably agree that driving a motor-car at 320 km/h is dangerous, but a professional racing driver would regard this as routine. Obvious? Of course, but it illustrates the point that perceptions of risk are governed largely by knowledge an...	Comment Article	07 Oct 2005 12:00am
LAST week offered a quick trip to the 1990s, with Metals Economic... LAST week offered a quick trip to the 1990s, with Metals Economics Group calculating that this year’s aggregate exploration budget for the worldwide minerals industry is not far short of the US$5.2 billion peak recorded in the heady days of 1997. M...	Comment Article	30 Sep 2005 12:00am
ARE the high prices prevailing for most mined commodities here to... ARE the high prices prevailing for most mined commodities here to stay; or do they represent just a break, albeit an unusually long one, from the long-term downward trend of the past two to three decades? The current rally has been of such size and d...	Comment Article	23 Sep 2005 12:00am
IT IS received corporate wisdom that oil and mining do not mix. IT IS received corporate wisdom that oil and mining do not mix. BHP was, and remains, an obvious exception, but even BHP has had its critics, and the calls to split the businesses were particularly strong when the group merged with Billiton in 2001....	Comment Article	16 Sep 2005 12:00am
SUMMER bank holiday week. SUMMER bank holiday week. London swelters under a cloudless sky, and the shops are filled with winter coats and warm pullovers. As the fashion industry anticipates the changing seasons in its relentless pursuit of sales, so fashions in corporate stra...	Comment Article	02 Sep 2005 12:00am
YOU may well think that anyone who admits to reading a 188-page... YOU may well think that anyone who admits to reading a 188-page ‘Report to Creditors pursuant to Section 439A of the Corporations Act (2001)’ willingly, and to the wrong side of midnight, should ‘get out more often’. In that case,...	Comment Article	26 Aug 2005 12:00am
TWO of the big unresolved questions of the year were answered thi... TWO of the big unresolved questions of the year were answered this week, when Xstrata announced the purchase of a 19.9% shareholding in Falconbridge (p1). The first had been: what would Xstrata seek to buy next, following the trumping of its bid for...	Comment Article	19 Aug 2005 12:00am
THAT the mining industry is currently enjoying a boom, both in th... THAT the mining industry is currently enjoying a boom, both in the volume of demand and in received prices, is obvious. The ‘big three’ London-listed diversified groups make good barometers of the state of the industry, because their operations c...	Comment Article	12 Aug 2005 12:00am
THE granting of AngloGold Ashanti’s mineral-rights conversion (... THE granting of AngloGold Ashanti’s mineral-rights conversion (p3) will come as a relief to all concerned. That the government would ultimately refuse to convert the mining rights of one of the country’s largest gold producers and a major employe...	Comment Article	05 Aug 2005 12:00am
AS IF dealing with a less-than-friendly domestic government in So... AS IF dealing with a less-than-friendly domestic government in South Africa (MJ, May 27, p18) is not challenge enough, the next chief executive of De Beers, Gareth Penny, faces a set of ambitious corporate goals revealed this week by his predecessor,...	Comment Article	29 Jul 2005 12:00am
ALTHOUGH we all know it is impossible to forecast the future with... ALTHOUGH we all know it is impossible to forecast the future with any accuracy, there is a morbid fascination in the ritual of polling the metals analysts for their price forecasts. The latest of arguably the best known of these, the bi-annual poll c...	Comment Article	22 Jul 2005 12:00am
WHEN Brazilian iron-ore producer CVRD was part-privatised in May ... WHEN Brazilian iron-ore producer CVRD was part-privatised in May 1997, a controlling 41.7% block of voting shares was sold to a consortium for the equivalent of US$3.2 billion. The winning consortium was led by Brazilian steel producer Companhia Side...	Comment Article	15 Jul 2005 12:00am
PERHAPS the most surprising feature of Rio Tinto’s deal with Ha... PERHAPS the most surprising feature of Rio Tinto’s deal with Hancock Prospecting to form a 50:50 JV with respect to the Hope Downs iron-ore project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia (p1) was the fact that the market was so surprised. That...	Comment Article	08 Jul 2005 12:00am
WHEN President Vladimir Putin of Russia met with US and German in... WHEN President Vladimir Putin of Russia met with US and German industry leaders in St Petersburg last weekend, he was clearly looking to smooth relations with a jittery foreign investment community. However, for the international mining industry, the...	Comment Article	01 Jul 2005 12:00am
THE announcement at the end of last week that Norsk Hydro will cl... THE announcement at the end of last week that Norsk Hydro will close its 71,000 t/y primary aluminium smelter at Stade in Germany by the end of 2006, and will recommend closure of the 130,000 t/y Hamburger Aluminium Werk (HAW) smelter in which it hol...	Comment Article	24 Jun 2005 12:00am
TO MANY outside the European Union, which means most of the world... TO MANY outside the European Union, which means most of the world’s mining industry, the bickering between European political leaders over the EU’s budget, and the efforts to pass blame for the effective collapse of plans for a European Constitut...	Comment Article	17 Jun 2005 12:00am
LAST week, the world’s second-largest gold producer, Anglo-Gold... LAST week, the world’s second-largest gold producer, Anglo-Gold Ashanti, was accused by the non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch in a report ‘The Curse of Gold’ of giving financial assistance to local militia groups in the Ituri reg...	Comment Article	10 Jun 2005 12:00am
THE mining industry, at least the top tier, is in a pretty good s... THE mining industry, at least the top tier, is in a pretty good state, according to two new reports. In ‘mine*’, published this week, financial services group PricewaterhouseCoopers has aggregated publicly-available information from 40 mining com...	Comment Article	03 Jun 2005 12:00am
“A DREAM … that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where... “A DREAM … that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down,” lamented Dickens’ Sidney Carton. Harmony’s chief executive, Bernard Swanepoel, may be of a similar mind this week, as he reflects on the final failure of his ambiti...	Comment Article	27 May 2005 12:00am
JOHNSON Matthey’s review of the platinum group metals (PGM) mar... JOHNSON Matthey’s review of the platinum group metals (PGM) markets continues to be a tale of two metals (p18). JM estimates platinum to have been in a continuing deficit in 2004, which kept prices strong, averaging US$846/oz for the year. Its “c...	Comment Article	20 May 2005 12:00am
A COMMON misconception stemming from the ‘China story’ is tha... A COMMON misconception stemming from the ‘China story’ is that Chinese demand for raw materials will drive commodity prices ever higher. Just this week, in a discourse on China broadcast on UK radio, an eminent political commentator urged listene...	Comment Article	13 May 2005 12:00am
CONVENTIONAL wisdom holds that the major diversified mining group... CONVENTIONAL wisdom holds that the major diversified mining groups, with their ever-strong balance sheets, make their acquisitions when assets are cheap. Thus, BHP Billiton’s A$7.85/share all-cash counter-bid for WMC Resources in March came as a su...	Comment Article	06 May 2005 12:00am
TO UNDERSTAND the seaborne iron-ore business, start at the coast. TO UNDERSTAND the seaborne iron-ore business, start at the coast. In most businesses involving bulk minerals, marketing is a vital part of the process, and in iron ore this means having the right products available at the right time. The coast is the...	Comment Article	29 Apr 2005 12:00am
THE discovery of base-metals deposits has been on a generally dec... THE discovery of base-metals deposits has been on a generally declining trend for the past 30 years, and there has not been a major new discovery so far this millennium. This was one of the main observations to emerge from the sixth Biennial Explorat...	Comment Article	22 Apr 2005 12:00am
GOOD relationships are based on openness and honesty, but the sta... GOOD relationships are based on openness and honesty, but the start of any relationship is all about signals. Signals gently test the other party’s aspirations and intentions, while protecting the pride of the sender. The relationship between Russi...	Comment Article	15 Apr 2005 12:00am
SIXTEEN Chinese steel producers are closing ranks in a bid to for... SIXTEEN Chinese steel producers are closing ranks in a bid to force BHP Billiton to reconsider its attempts to impose a US$7.50-10.00/t surcharge on sales of its iron ore to China. In a statement on its website, the Chinese Iron and Steel Association...	Comment Article	08 Apr 2005 12:00am
AT FIRST glance, extending the Debswana diamond-mining partnershi... AT FIRST glance, extending the Debswana diamond-mining partnership into marketing seems logical enough (p4). For the Botswanan Government, the move should facilitate the local cutting of the country’s rough diamonds, both raising the export value a...	Comment Article	01 Apr 2005 12:00am
WHEN the London Stock Exchange opened its AIM market for smaller ... WHEN the London Stock Exchange opened its AIM market for smaller companies in 1995, the management clearly had its eye on the TMT sector. The junior mining sector was roaring ahead at the time, but over in Canada, and technology, media and telecommun...	Comment Article	24 Mar 2005 12:00am
Historical baggage OUTGOING UK Prime Minister Tony Blair success... ...	Comment Article	17 Mar 2005 12:00am
AS BHP Billiton’s chief executive, Chip Goodyear, said this wee... AS BHP Billiton’s chief executive, Chip Goodyear, said this week: “Opportunities to acquire tier-one assets in low-risk regions, well positioned to serve the Asian markets, do not come around very often.” The attractiveness of WMC’s assets is...	Comment Article	11 Mar 2005 12:00am
NO ONE listening to the conference call given by Cleveland-Cliffs... NO ONE listening to the conference call given by Cleveland-Cliffs in January to explain the rationale behind its offer for Portman Ltd of Australia could fail to be struck by the scepticism among the bidder’s institutional shareholders. It appeared...	Comment Article	04 Mar 2005 12:00am
THE three-months copper price hit a sixteen-year high this week a... THE three-months copper price hit a sixteen-year high this week and zinc came close to an eight-year peak. With the treatment and refining charges levied by smelters also enjoying a period of reasonable strength, especially in copper where they have...	Comment Article	25 Feb 2005 12:00am
THE question was prompted by the buoyant mood among London-based ... THE question was prompted by the buoyant mood among London-based mining analysts this Wednesday morning, as the largest group in the mining universe, BHP Billiton, released record half-year earnings (p1). The price of BHP Billiton’s London-listed s...	Comment Article	18 Feb 2005 12:00am
ONE thing can be relied upon with respect to the latest pro-posal... ONE thing can be relied upon with respect to the latest pro-posals that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mobilise part of its 103.4 Moz of gold reserves to help the poor: whatever does happen will not happen quickly. Nevertheless, the p...	Comment Article	11 Feb 2005 12:00am
THAT mining companies need to replenish their reserves and resour... THAT mining companies need to replenish their reserves and resources if they are to survive, let alone grow, is an indisputable fact. However, whether the best strategy for shareholders lies in exploring for resources or buying them has been a subjec...	Comment Article	28 Jan 2005 12:00am
TWO weeks ago, WMC Resources released its ‘target’s statement... TWO weeks ago, WMC Resources released its ‘target’s statement’, in response to the hostile bid made at the end of last year by Xstrata plc, containing an independent valuation of the company calculated by Grant Samuel in the range A$7.17-8.24/s...	Comment Article	21 Jan 2005 12:00am
A RECENT issue of Rio Tinto’s corporate magazine Review contain... A RECENT issue of Rio Tinto’s corporate magazine Review contained a somewhat surprising comment from John O’Reilly, the group’s head of technology: “Projections based on current reserves show that in about 15 years’ time, Rio Tinto could be...	Comment Article	14 Jan 2005 12:00am
WHATEVER the Kimberley Process to control trade in ‘conflict’... WHATEVER the Kimberley Process to control trade in ‘conflict’ diamonds has or has not achieved, one interesting by-product of the scheme came into the public arena just before Christmas. The Russian Government released data on the country’s rou...	Comment Article	07 Jan 2005 12:00am
SO, WILL 2004 be remembered as a vintage year for the mining indu... SO, WILL 2004 be remembered as a vintage year for the mining industry? Certainly, any year in which the flagship three-months copper price contract on the LME finishes over 40% up – with strong and, in tin’s case, even stronger rises by all the o...	Comment Article	23 Dec 2004 12:00am
IF DEVISING a set of accounting standards that will work across a... IF DEVISING a set of accounting standards that will work across a wide range of geographical jurisdictions were not difficult enough, another of the underlying aims of the move to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a shift away fro...	Comment Article	17 Dec 2004 12:00am
EVEN allowing for the relatively strong position currently held b... EVEN allowing for the relatively strong position currently held by energy in US public consciousness, two coal-mining IPOs coming in the same week must surely constitute something of a purple patch for the ndustry. Foundation Coal has been formed by...	Comment Article	10 Dec 2004 12:00am
IT IS now nearly two years since the Kimberley Process Certificat... IT IS now nearly two years since the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme for the trade in rough diamonds was launched (MJ, November 8, 2002, p319), albeit with a half-year tolerance period allowed to some participants to ensure that trade was not...	Comment Article	03 Dec 2004 12:00am
AS THE attention of the mining corporate world is focused on the ... AS THE attention of the mining corporate world is focused on the mud-slinging in South Africa over the Harmony-Gold Fields battle (p12), a rather more gentlemanly affair is developing in Australia. That do...	Comment Article	26 Nov 2004 12:00am
ONE of the inevitable consequences of the recent surge in the ava... ONE of the inevitable consequences of the recent surge in the availability of equity funding for the junior mining and exploration sector (MJ, November 12, p1) is the growing demand for non-executive directors to serve on the boards of the proliferat...	Comment Article	19 Nov 2004 12:00am
ONE of the peculiarities of exploration spending by the junior mi... ONE of the peculiarities of exploration spending by the junior mining sector is its supply-driven nature: junior spending is driven less by the demand for orebodies to develop, and more by the supply of money. Right now...	Comment Article	12 Nov 2004 12:00am
THE question is: what’s changed? In mid-August, at the release ... THE question is: what’s changed? In mid-August, at the release of Xstrata’s interim results, chief executive Mick Davis rightly noted that value-enhancing deals are difficult to achieve when commodity prices are so high (MJ, August 13, p13)....	Comment Article	05 Nov 2004 12:00am
NICKEL laterites are relatively abundant and easy to mine, so the... NICKEL laterites are relatively abundant and easy to mine, so the story of their exploitation has really been one of technological developments in their complex processing. Some have been successful and some not. Recent history has been do...	Comment Article	29 Oct 2004 12:00am
IF THERE was any hope remaining that Harmony’s proposed takeove... IF THERE was any hope remaining that Harmony’s proposed takeover bid for Gold Fields announced this week (p1) could result in a friendly deal, it should have been firmly dispelled by the public comments of Harmony’s chief executive. Bernard Swane...	Comment Article	22 Oct 2004 12:00am
IT’S hard to avoid commodities in the news these days, with the... IT’S hard to avoid commodities in the news these days, with the oil price climbing over US$50/bbl, copper spiking well above US$3,000/t and even the perennial laggard zinc soaring: every man, and his proverbial dog, seems to be developing an intere...	Comment Article	15 Oct 2004 12:00am
THIS year’s big corporate story in the gold sector reached its ... THIS year’s big corporate story in the gold sector reached its conclusion this week, although the final element in the four-way takeover battle, initially launched as a simple merger between Wheaton River Minerals and Iamgold back in April, turned...	Comment Article	08 Oct 2004 12:00am
THERE is probably no better yardstick of the wellbeing of the int... THERE is probably no better yardstick of the wellbeing of the international mining industry than the level of exploration activity by junior companies. If so, then our industry is in rude health according to preliminary figures from Metals Economics...	Comment Article	01 Oct 2004 12:00am
THE main arguments for mining in a socially and environmentally r... THE main arguments for mining in a socially and environmentally responsible manner, above and beyond varying local regulations, are now well known in most quarters of the industry. They include the avoidance of disruptions to operations from...	Comment Article	24 Sep 2004 12:00am
THE first US election campaign fought after the September 11 terr... THE first US election campaign fought after the September 11 terror attacks, with US forces still heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, was always going to be dominated by foreign policy and defence issues. Mining, seldom high on the US political...	Comment Article	17 Sep 2004 12:00am
AFRICA is sometimes referred to as the ‘unlucky continent’, a... AFRICA is sometimes referred to as the ‘unlucky continent’, and with many of its national economies heavily dependent on just one or two primary commodities that is perhaps not surprising. But commodities are notoriously volatile, and right now m...	Comment Article	10 Sep 2004 12:00am
THERE was a distinct sense of déjà vu around Sons of Gwalia thi... THERE was a distinct sense of déjà vu around Sons of Gwalia this week. Almost exactly five years ago, also in a period of relatively strong gold prices, another apparently healthy gold producer with a proud history, Ashanti...	Comment Article	03 Sep 2004 12:00am
IT MAY be depressing to all but an economic theorist, but in ever... IT MAY be depressing to all but an economic theorist, but in every commodities boom are sown the seeds of the rally’s destruction. Higher prices depress demand, although by how much is governed by a complex relationship for each commodity. They al...	Comment Article	27 Aug 2004 12:00am
THE pressure exerted by the strong rand on South African profit m... THE pressure exerted by the strong rand on South African profit margins remains one of the most important stories in mining, with recent five-year highs representing a 58% fall in the value of US dollar-priced exports over the past 2½ years (MJ, Jul...	Comment Article	20 Aug 2004 12:00am
IN THIS information age, it is rather ironic that it seems to be ... IN THIS information age, it is rather ironic that it seems to be ever more difficult to determine which way the global economy is heading and hence the prospects for the consumption of metals. Over the...	Comment Article	13 Aug 2004 12:00am
RUSSIA is rightly regarded as one of the great new frontiers for ... RUSSIA is rightly regarded as one of the great new frontiers for minerals development, so it was at first sight a little surprising to hear that a Russian mining entrepreneur is setting up an office in one of the world’s more mature mining countrie...	Comment Article	06 Aug 2004 12:00am
ONE of the wonders of commodity markets is the speed at which the... ONE of the wonders of commodity markets is the speed at which they can turn from glut to shortage, and back again. Of course, glut and shortage are relative expressions here, since a small change in supply or demand in overall terms can have a large...	Comment Article	30 Jul 2004 12:00am
SOME 16% of the world’s electricity is generated from the input... SOME 16% of the world’s electricity is generated from the input of around 67,000 t/y of uranium contained in nuclear fuel, feeding 441 power stations with a combined generating capacity of 364,000 MW (Source: NEA, end-2002 data)....	Comment Article	23 Jul 2004 12:00am
MINING countries need to attract mineral exploration. MINING countries need to attract mineral exploration. The discoveries made by the explorers are vital to maintain an existing mining industry, with its jobs and tax-generating potential, and form the basis for expansion. The competition for those exp...	Comment Article	16 Jul 2004 12:00am
ANGLOGOLD Ashanti’s agreement last week to buy a 29. ANGLOGOLD Ashanti’s agreement last week to buy a 29.9% interest in Trans-Siberian Gold, the maximum allowable short of a full takeover offer, is so similar to Barrick Gold’s deal made last year with Highland Gold (MJ, October 17, 2003, p298) that...	Comment Article	09 Jul 2004 12:00am
THE transfer this week of authority in Iraq was accompanied by a ... THE transfer this week of authority in Iraq was accompanied by a roughly 4% fall in the market price of oil, apparently in relief that this seminal point had passed without a major incident directly disrupting Middle Eastern supplies. The mining indu...	Comment Article	02 Jul 2004 12:00am
‘CORE competencies’ is so firmly a piece of modern business j... ‘CORE competencies’ is so firmly a piece of modern business jargon that it has become a cliché, but like most clichés it is based on a fundamentally sound premise: identify those activities at which your business is the best, or at least better...	Comment Article	26 Jun 2004 12:00am
RUMOURS broke late this Tuesday that CVRD, the world’s largest ... RUMOURS broke late this Tuesday that CVRD, the world’s largest iron-ore producer, may be preparing a takeover offer for Canada’s largest diversified mining and metals group Noranda. The story emerged via Bloomberg news agency, which went as far a...	Comment Article	18 Jun 2004 12:00am
ONE advantage of the current structure of the international minin... ONE advantage of the current structure of the international mining industry is that it makes studying the aggregate performance relatively easy to manage. ‘Mine – a review of global trends in the mining industry’ (www.pwc.com/mining), an admira...	Comment Article	11 Jun 2004 12:00am
ALMOST five years ago, in August 1999, this column carried the ti... ALMOST five years ago, in August 1999, this column carried the title ‘Bye.com’. The subject was the number of junior mining companies rushing to jump on the internet bandwagon, usually with nothing more than a business concept and a change of nam...	Comment Article	04 Jun 2004 12:00am
THE decision by Xstrata to close the Windimurra vanadium project ... THE decision by Xstrata to close the Windimurra vanadium project in Western Australia earlier this month appeared, at first sight, to be fairly routine. The project had, after all, been on care and maintenance since February 2003, so the job losses h...	Comment Article	28 May 2004 12:00am
ASK a typical European about mining, and the answer will more tha... ASK a typical European about mining, and the answer will more than likely involve coal, environmental legacies, and maybe even declining subsidies and jobs. Apart from those living in the immediate vicinity, very few would res...	Comment Article	21 May 2004 12:00am
IN THE past few years, Canada has shot from nowhere to stand thir... IN THE past few years, Canada has shot from nowhere to stand third in the ranks of diamond producers, with 15% of the world total in value terms. Production is thus far confined to the Northwest Territo...	Comment Article	14 May 2004 12:00am
A CLICHÉ popular among economic commentators over the years ran ... A CLICHÉ popular among economic commentators over the years ran ‘when the US sneezes the rest of the world catches cold’, and never more so than in the 1990s. The US remains the world’s largest economy, but for the markets in m...	Comment Article	07 May 2004 12:00am
THE past few months have brought proposals for higher minerals ro... THE past few months have brought proposals for higher minerals royalty rates, or the imposition of new royalties, in three significant mining jurisdictions: Chile, New South Wales and Zimbabwe. These developments follow the announcement a year ago of...	Comment Article	30 Apr 2004 12:00am
PRICE and exchange-rate risk are a fact of life for mining compan... PRICE and exchange-rate risk are a fact of life for mining companies and the analysts that track them. Some producers try to minimise risk, actively using futures and options. Others, particularly the majors, claim to be self-hedged. The self-hedgers...	Comment Article	23 Apr 2004 12:00am
THE state mining group of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Géca... THE state mining group of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gécamines, is famous for having once been one of the world’s great copper producers. Back in the 1980s, the group was producing at something approaching its official capacity of 475,000 t...	Comment Article	16 Apr 2004 12:00am
SOUTH Africa’s general election next Wednesday, only the third ... SOUTH Africa’s general election next Wednesday, only the third fully multi-racial poll in the country’s history, will undoubtedly maintain the African National Congress party in government. However, the te...	Comment Article	09 Apr 2004 12:00am
THE joint venture sealed this week between Rio Tinto and Peter Ha... THE joint venture sealed this week between Rio Tinto and Peter Hambro Mining over the latter’s newly-acquired Chagoyansk project (this issue, p8) is certainly a fillip to the AIM-listed gold producer. Howev...	Comment Article	26 Mar 2004 12:00am
A CHARACTERISTIC of the mining sector in recent years has been th... A CHARACTERISTIC of the mining sector in recent years has been the polarisation of the corporate scene: at one end, giant diversified groups and large, single-commodity focused companies; at the other, exploration juniors hoping to discover deposits...	Comment Article	19 Mar 2004 12:00am
PRICES are rallying strongly, but we all know that rallies do not... PRICES are rallying strongly, but we all know that rallies do not run forever and that commodity prices are cyclical. This raises the question of the appropriate prices – and these days exchange rates – for a company to use in both its reporting...	Comment Article	12 Mar 2004 12:00am
THE annual PDAC convention, which starts this weekend, has been a... THE annual PDAC convention, which starts this weekend, has been anticipated more keenly across the mining industry this year than at any time for seven years. And if the attendance at this year’s Indaba conference, the PDAC’s smaller African half...	Comment Article	05 Mar 2004 12:00am
Whatever else it may have failed to achieve, the World Bank’s E... Whatever else it may have failed to achieve, the World Bank’s Extractive Industries Review (EIR) managed one hitherto seemingly impossible task: it has brought together the multilateral finance agency, the mining industry, governments of rich and p...	Comment Article	27 Feb 2004 12:00am
Cape Town has always seemed a bit incongruous as a venue for an A... Cape Town has always seemed a bit incongruous as a venue for an African mining conference: it has no real mining within hundreds of kilometres (the nearest is the iron-ore and base-metals operations of Northern Cape Province), and first-time visitors...	Comment Article	20 Feb 2004 12:00am
In the first years of the new millennium, international mining is... In the first years of the new millennium, international mining is restructuring globally. This restructuring has been spurred by poor profitability and by strained relations with politicians and the public.The environmental disasters following tailin...	Comment Article	13 Feb 2004 12:00am
Presenting his first set of results as chairman of Rio Tinto this... Presenting his first set of results as chairman of Rio Tinto this week, Paul Skinner described 2003 as “a challenging year”. Although the group commendably drew early attention to “a number of operational problems”, these had a relatively sma...	Comment Article	06 Feb 2004 12:00am
FINANCIAL reporting may seem a bit of a dull subject to the non-a... FINANCIAL reporting may seem a bit of a dull subject to the non-accountants among us, but there are times when it is of the utmost importance. One such is fast approaching: from January 1, 2005, all compa...	Comment Article	30 Jan 2004 12:00am
IN MOST countries, the conduct of fiscal and monetary policies is... IN MOST countries, the conduct of fiscal and monetary policies is like a hand on the wheel. Whether that hand is one of government or an independent central bank, a gentle touch is generally all that is needed to keep the ship on course. Those gentle...	Comment Article	23 Jan 2004 12:00am
THE Russian diamond producer Alrosa has always had a rather quirk... THE Russian diamond producer Alrosa has always had a rather quirky approach to its media output: long on news of VIP delegations, and the discovery of large individual stones; but short on the key parameters by which business performance is normally...	Comment Article	16 Jan 2004 12:00am
THE days around Christmas are traditionally quiet for corporate n... THE days around Christmas are traditionally quiet for corporate news, so the two moves made by Gold Fields Ltd immediately prior to the holiday period stand out in part-icular. In the first, the South African-based gold produce...	Comment Article	02 Jan 2004 12:00am
SOME years, 12 months can seem like quite a long time. SOME years, 12 months can seem like quite a long time. This week, the copper market woke up to the magical words ‘dollar copper’: back in January, with copper trading at around US$0.70/lb, produce...	Comment Article	19 Dec 2003 12:00am
THE mood in the mining markets is undeniably upbeat. THE mood in the mining markets is undeniably upbeat. Metals prices are one reason: a gold price beginning with a four is something for many to cheer, and copper over US$0.90/lb and nickel at around US$5.50/lb will be celebrated by the larger companie...	Comment Article	12 Dec 2003 12:00am
ONE of the notable features of the various statements made around... ONE of the notable features of the various statements made around World AIDS day this Monday has been the realisation that the epidemic is more than just a human tragedy.In the countries worst affected, which are currently mostly in Sub-Saharan Afric...	Comment Article	05 Dec 2003 12:00am
YES, we know, it must come as a bit of a shock after all these ye... YES, we know, it must come as a bit of a shock after all these years. In fact, it is just one month short of a decade since Mining Journal last changed its look, adopting the now characteristic blue colour, and we have had a facelift in mind for seve...	Comment Article	28 Nov 2003 12:00am
Another week, another ‘empowerment’ deal. Another week, another ‘empowerment’ deal. However, the announcement last Thursday that African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) is to acquire control of Avmin, subject to shareholder approval (MJ, November 14, p.399), does have a certain historic resonance...	Comment Article	21 Nov 2003 12:00am
The billion-dollar equity raising made by Newmont Mining last wee... The billion-dollar equity raising made by Newmont Mining last week is the most dramatic example to date of the growing appetite of investors for gold shares. The junior end of the sector is clearly able to raise money more easily too, acr...	Comment Article	14 Nov 2003 12:00am
Almost exactly a year ago, the United Nations angered just about ... Almost exactly a year ago, the United Nations angered just about every mining company that had operated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in recent years by publishing the report of its ‘Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural...	Comment Article	07 Nov 2003 12:00am
Logic dictates that to lose a high-profile takeover battle is neg... Logic dictates that to lose a high-profile takeover battle is negative, otherwise why bid in the first place? True, the loser may be fundamentally no worse off than before the bid (unless the winning bidder is a competitor that has thus gained some a...	Comment Article	31 Oct 2003 12:00am
Judging by the noises coming from Johannesburg in recent weeks, t... Judging by the noises coming from Johannesburg in recent weeks, the South African mining industry is facing its worst jobs crisis since the gold price plumbed lows around US$256/oz in 2000. The basic problem is a 25% strengthening in the rand against...	Comment Article	24 Oct 2003 12:00am
Although Barrick Gold is keen to stress that its investment in Hi... Although Barrick Gold is keen to stress that its investment in Highland Gold does not necessarily presage a stream of investments in Russia, the comments made by Barrick’s chief executive, Gregory Wilkins, do point to more than taking a 29% stake i...	Comment Article	17 Oct 2003 12:00am
The two-year delay to the opening of De Beers’ first diamond mi... The two-year delay to the opening of De Beers’ first diamond mine in Canada, the US$207 million Snap Lake project in the Northwest Territories (NWT), caused by permitting problems over the issue of providing diamonds to the nascent local cutting in...	Comment Article	10 Oct 2003 12:00am
The attitude of past governments of British Columbia towards mini... The attitude of past governments of British Columbia towards mining has been a sticking point with the industry, most notably ten years ago when a declaration was made outlining parks areas in the Province, ever after to be preserved as pristine wild...	Comment Article	03 Oct 2003 12:00am
The rise of almost 50% in the price of gold since its nadir, coup... The rise of almost 50% in the price of gold since its nadir, coupled with the poor performance of most other assets classes, has raised the metal’s profile. Despite this higher standing there has been relatively little impact on gold investment de...	Comment Article	26 Sep 2003 12:00am
The recommendation by the board of Pechiney of Alcan’s latest t... The recommendation by the board of Pechiney of Alcan’s latest takeover offer seems certain to result in acceptance by the former’s shareholders. Pechiney reacted with suitable indignation to Alcan’s opening gambit of €41/share. However, as th...	Comment Article	19 Sep 2003 12:00am
Almost two years ago, Outokumpu announced plans to sell its Tara ... Almost two years ago, Outokumpu announced plans to sell its Tara zinc mine in Ireland, as part of a general strategy to exit mining apart from minority interests to secure concentrate feed for its smelters....	Comment Article	12 Sep 2003 12:00am
Although obviously central to the mining world, commodities have ... Although obviously central to the mining world, commodities have generally struggled to be taken seriously as an asset class by the wider investment community. Commodities face the twin handicaps of not usually yielding an income and, at the same tim...	Comment Article	05 Sep 2003 12:00am
The developers of mineral properties frequently find themselves i... The developers of mineral properties frequently find themselves in close proximity to local communities, including existing small-scale and artisanal miners. Such relationships are rarely easy and often downright confrontational. However, as Dr Satos...	Comment Article	29 Aug 2003 12:00am
Reading the reports of terrified refugees seeking shelter in the ... Reading the reports of terrified refugees seeking shelter in the shattered Liberian town of Buchanan in recent weeks, it is hard to imagine that in 1980 some 20 Mt of iron ore was exported through the port (Source: Mining Annual Review)....	Comment Article	22 Aug 2003 12:00am
AngloGold’s management should be feeling that particular sense ... AngloGold’s management should be feeling that particular sense of déjà vu that comes when circumstances are repeated but the factors that previously were adverse are now lined up in favour. Almost exactly two years ago, AngloGold launched a bid f...	Comment Article	15 Aug 2003 12:00am
Another week, another alumina expansion. Another week, another alumina expansion. Confirmation of plans to expand the Paranam refinery in Suriname (this issue, p.91) follows last week’s formal go-ahead for the next stage in the Alunorte refinery in Brazil. In res...	Comment Article	08 Aug 2003 12:00am
Acommon feature in the financial reporting of mining companies us... Acommon feature in the financial reporting of mining companies using US accounting standards in recent years has been the emergence of adjustments to earnings (invariably non-cash) caused by the need to account for derivative contracts under new acco...	Comment Article	01 Aug 2003 12:00am
This week’s announcement from Rio Tinto and BP that they have a... This week’s announcement from Rio Tinto and BP that they have agreed to sell their Indonesian coal joint venture, Kaltim Prima, to the local private-sector group Bumi Resources appears finally to have satisfied the ‘indigenisation’ of the asset...	Comment Article	25 Jul 2003 12:00am
The attention and resources devoted to the protection of the phys... The attention and resources devoted to the protection of the physical environment are generally very much greater in the developed world than in the developing world, not least because the wealth of the former means that it has vastly more resources...	Comment Article	18 Jul 2003 12:00am
The profits warning issued by Anglo Platinum (this issue, p. The profits warning issued by Anglo Platinum (this issue, p.33) is the latest in a rising chorus of pain coming from minerals producers squeezed by revenues driven down in local terms by the falling US dollar....	Comment Article	11 Jul 2003 12:00am
Impala Platinum’s takeover offer for Zimplats has been on the c... Impala Platinum’s takeover offer for Zimplats has been on the cards for the best part of a year, ever since the South African producer, in conjunction with ABSA bank, picked up the 21% shareholding in Zimplats that the newly-formed AurionGold had d...	Comment Article	04 Jul 2003 12:00am
In recent years, research and development in the minerals industr... In recent years, research and development in the minerals industry has moved from its traditional role as a problem solver to take a central position in corporate strategy. This broadly falls into three categories: first, to use a technology applicat...	Comment Article	27 Jun 2003 12:00am
The long-term alumina sales contract announced last Friday betwee... The long-term alumina sales contract announced last Friday between Comalco and Hydro Aluminium was rightly hailed by the parties involved as one of the largest in the industry’s history. (Indeed, at 500,000 t/y over 25 years, it is hard to think of...	Comment Article	20 Jun 2003 12:00am
Engineering & Mining Journal (E&MJ) has been closed and its remai... Engineering & Mining Journal (E&MJ) has been closed and its remaining editorial staff made redundant. The news brings a real sense of shock, even on this side of the Atlantic, as the publication has a long and proud history. Until recent staff cutbac...	Comment Article	13 Jun 2003 12:00am
Its been a long time coming, but the signs are now clear that the... Its been a long time coming, but the signs are now clear that the Russian aluminium industry (‘Focus’, p.382) is preparing to access Western capital markets in a major way in the next few years....	Comment Article	06 Jun 2003 12:00am
The importance of China to the mining industry has become a clich... The importance of China to the mining industry has become a cliché in recent months but, like most clichés, it is based on reality. One key factor is the intensity of materials consumption in the economic growth of developing countries, of which Ch...	Comment Article	30 May 2003 12:00am
AngloGold and Ashanti are keeping suitably tight-lipped regarding... AngloGold and Ashanti are keeping suitably tight-lipped regarding their merger discussions, and one can only speculate just how long the two companies have been courting one another. However, the key to moving as far as to specify a merger ratio must...	Comment Article	23 May 2003 12:00am
Argentina (‘land of silver’) is not the only country whose ge... Argentina (‘land of silver’) is not the only country whose geological potential is clearly much greater than its mineral output. However, sharing a 4,000 km-long border down the line of the Andes with Chile, arguably the mining development succes...	Comment Article	16 May 2003 12:00am
Anglo American’s simultaneous purchases of interests of 20. Anglo American’s simultaneous purchases of interests of 20.1% in Kumba Resources and 34.5% in Avmin slightly over a year ago appeared at the time an elegant coup de main to effect an entry into iron ore, a sector in which openings of significant si...	Comment Article	09 May 2003 12:00am
Since the start of this year, scarcely a presentation or a chief ... Since the start of this year, scarcely a presentation or a chief executive’s statement has come from a minerals producer without some reference to the importance of China to demand. In his chairma...	Comment Article	02 May 2003 12:00am
The South African Government has been widely criticised for its r... The South African Government has been widely criticised for its recent proposal to introduce a system of royalties based on gross revenue, rather than adopting the more enlightened approach of restricting the state’s direct economic share from mini...	Comment Article	25 Apr 2003 12:00am
Managers at operations belonging to international mining companie... Managers at operations belonging to international mining companies can no longer rely solely on compliance with national laws and regulations. They will be judged harshly, not least by their peers, if they operate to less stringent standards than tho...	Comment Article	18 Apr 2003 12:00am
The proposed takeover of MIM by Xstrata formally launched this we... The proposed takeover of MIM by Xstrata formally launched this week has been regarded by the market as a probable deal ever since last November, when the two companies took the slightly unusual step of confirming that they were in discussions. This g...	Comment Article	11 Apr 2003 12:00am
Even at the best of times, press coverage of the mining and miner... Even at the best of times, press coverage of the mining and minerals industry has never been very complimentary: mine tragedies, environmental disasters and investment swindles provide far more interesting copy than new mines, technological breakthro...	Comment Article	04 Apr 2003 12:00am
South Africa’s new minerals legislation represents the most rad... South Africa’s new minerals legislation represents the most radical revision of its kind since the nationalisations of the last century and, given that it seeks to maintain and even increase the inflow of foreign investment, is a far more difficult...	Comment Article	28 Mar 2003 12:00am
‘Find it or buy it’ is one of the mining industry’s perenni... ‘Find it or buy it’ is one of the mining industry’s perennial questions, but the call made last week by the head of exploration for one of the world’s largest, and most influential, gold producers marked a noteworthy turn in the debate. Barri...	Comment Article	21 Mar 2003 12:00am
Last week, the UK Government announced that it will give £60 mil... Last week, the UK Government announced that it will give £60 million in aid to the country’s declining coal industry. Owing to the rules restricting subsidies to industry in member states of the European Union, the coal aid must be earmarked for c...	Comment Article	14 Mar 2003 12:00am
Mining has been an international industry for many hundreds of ye... Mining has been an international industry for many hundreds of years, and exchange-rate movements have been important ever since currencies were allowed to float. However, in recent months, it seems as though almost every part of the industry has rai...	Comment Article	07 Mar 2003 12:00am
President George Bush’s recent commitment of funding for the ... President George Bush’s recent commitment of funding for the ‘hydrogen economy’ (this issue, p.144) appears to be good news all round. It should please the ‘hawks’ in his administration, who wish to reduce the vulnerability of the US to the...	Comment Article	28 Feb 2003 12:00am
In 2002, global output of smelter-grade alumina was around 50 Mt. In 2002, global output of smelter-grade alumina was around 50 Mt. According to metals analysts at ABN Amro, of this total around 33 Mt was consumed by vertically integrated aluminium producers and just over 17 Mt was sold to ‘independent’ smelter...	Comment Article	21 Feb 2003 12:00am
The mining industry of Africa gathers in Cape Town this weekend f... The mining industry of Africa gathers in Cape Town this weekend for its annual ‘networking opportunity’. Among the handshakes and deals, there is seldom much attention given to the overarching issues that afflict much of the continent....	Comment Article	14 Feb 2003 12:00am
Last week’s decision by Noranda to close its technically-troubl... Last week’s decision by Noranda to close its technically-troubled Magnola magnesium smelter also highlights serious questions regarding the viability of a Western magnesium production industry. The closure challenges a number of the precepts on whi...	Comment Article	07 Feb 2003 12:00am
The prices of gold and platinum have been in the limelight over t... The prices of gold and platinum have been in the limelight over the past few days, and the precious metals complex as a whole has risen by an (unweighted) average of over 7.9% since the start of the year. Falling equit...	Comment Article	31 Jan 2003 12:00am
The new year has already proved eventful for De Beers, the worl... The new year has already proved eventful for De Beers, the world’s largest producer and distributor of rough diamonds. Late last week, the group announced that the European Commission’s competition authorities have give its new ‘supplier of cho...	Comment Article	24 Jan 2003 12:00am
The World Bank has sponsored a conference in Maputo this week to ... The World Bank has sponsored a conference in Maputo this week to discuss its policies towards the extractive industries of Africa. For an example of what not to do, delegates need look no further than Mozambique’s northwestern neighbour. The mining...	Comment Article	17 Jan 2003 12:00am
Any merger is bound to produce clashes, both of individual person... Any merger is bound to produce clashes, both of individual personality and between the corporate cultures of the merging companies. In the case of BHP and Billiton, merged in the middle of 2001, such potential problems were in danger of being exacerb...	Comment Article	10 Jan 2003 12:00am
Another year has flashed past and, despite the continued relative... Another year has flashed past and, despite the continued relative weakness of physical demand for most minerals in 2002, the world’s economies still managed to consume some 15 Mt of copper, 28 Mt of aluminium, 6.4 Moz of platinum ... etc....	Comment Article	03 Jan 2003 12:00am
Lights, drumroll . Lights, drumroll . . . and curtain. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Mining Journal awards for 2002. All businesses depend on their markets, so the first award category tonight is for the ‘most exciting market’, which goes to China. Scarcely...	Comment Article	20 Dec 2002 12:00am
Sipping champagne in Paris amongst the glamorous habitués of the... Sipping champagne in Paris amongst the glamorous habitués of the world of fashion makes a change from the average mining conference. Well, it’s a tough and dirty job, but... The event was ‘F...	Comment Article	13 Dec 2002 12:00am
The evidence for regular long-term price cycles in the economy is... The evidence for regular long-term price cycles in the economy is somewhat contentious. Wholesale prices for a number of countries do seem to display a 60-year cycle, with peaks in the 1810s, 1860s, 1920s and late 1970s. Data for prices of various co...	Comment Article	06 Dec 2002 12:00am
The merger discussions confirmed last week between MIM Holdings o... The merger discussions confirmed last week between MIM Holdings of Australia and London-listed Xstrata are just that, discussions, and the two companies remain a long way short of a deal. Nevertheless, th...	Comment Article	29 Nov 2002 12:00am
The announcement of new leadership for just over a fifth of the w... The announcement of new leadership for just over a fifth of the world’s population should be a pretty important event at any time. However, the appointment of Hu Jintao last Friday as Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party comes at a time when Ch...	Comment Article	22 Nov 2002 12:00am
The acquisition by Harmony Gold of South Africa of a 21% sharehol... The acquisition by Harmony Gold of South Africa of a 21% shareholding in Toronto-based High River Gold Mines, holder of a 53% interest in Russia’s fifth largest gold producer (this issue, p.351), is a further sign of the growing interest of Western...	Comment Article	15 Nov 2002 12:00am
One thing that can be said in favour of last month’s report fro... One thing that can be said in favour of last month’s report from the United Nations-appointed ‘panel of experts’ on illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is that it is even-handed: just about ev...	Comment Article	08 Nov 2002 12:00am
Speaking in London this Wednesday at a meeting organised by the f... Speaking in London this Wednesday at a meeting organised by the financial services group Old Mutual, the South African Minister of Minerals and Energy, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, made two important points clear. First, her govern...	Comment Article	01 Nov 2002 12:00am
One of the factors that has called into question the economic via... One of the factors that has called into question the economic viability of many of the magnesium projects currently under development is the view that Western magnesium producers cannot compete against the low-cost producers of China....	Comment Article	25 Oct 2002 12:00am
An international certification and verification system for rough ... An international certification and verification system for rough diamonds, the so-called ‘Kimberley Process’, is to be implemented on January 1, 2003. The process is intended to eradicate the trade in ‘conflict diamonds’, whereby rough (uncut...	Comment Article	18 Oct 2002 12:00am
The first round of Brazil’s presidential election last Sunday w... The first round of Brazil’s presidential election last Sunday was given additional significance by the background of economic and political instability in a number of South American countries. The leftwing candidate, Luiz Inacio Lula da Sil...	Comment Article	11 Oct 2002 12:00am
Much is written about the suffering of indigenous people caused b... Much is written about the suffering of indigenous people caused by mining, but has anyone spared a thought for the indigenous stroller in London’s Park Lane next Tuesday evening? After giving his umpteenth set of directions, across some of the worl...	Comment Article	04 Oct 2002 12:00am
The rise of Barrick Gold over the past decade and half, from a go... The rise of Barrick Gold over the past decade and half, from a gold producer started on the side of a small oil and gas company, to the world’s pre-eminent gold-mining share, has seldom included half measures. Nevertheless, looking past the undenia...	Comment Article	27 Sep 2002 12:00am
Toronto-based mining consultant Gerald Harper has a sobering mess... Toronto-based mining consultant Gerald Harper has a sobering message for the mines ministers of Canada’s provinces and territories. In a paper on recent exploration trends in Canada presented to the ministers’ annual meeting in Winnipeg this week...	Comment Article	20 Sep 2002 12:00am
The commitment made last week by the Russian Prime Minister, Mikh... The commitment made last week by the Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, that his country will ratify the Kyoto Protocol to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases means that the treaty is now almost certain to be implemented....	Comment Article	13 Sep 2002 12:00am
The mining industry has grown accustomed to being a ‘whipping b... The mining industry has grown accustomed to being a ‘whipping boy’ where environmental issues are concerned. There is no disguising a mining operation – large open pits, spoil heaps, tailings dams, headframes etc are difficult to conceal, and m...	Comment Article	06 Sep 2002 12:00am
This week, Coal & Allied Ltd, Australia’s largest producer of t... This week, Coal & Allied Ltd, Australia’s largest producer of thermal coal (and majority-owned by Rio Tinto), will offer to sell 130,000 t (a single Capesize-vessel load) of standard Australian thermal coal at Newcastle via an auction on the Global...	Comment Article	30 Aug 2002 12:00am
Grupo Mexico acquired a 54% shareholding in Peruvian copper produ... Grupo Mexico acquired a 54% shareholding in Peruvian copper producer SPCC through its takeover of US-based Asarco nearly three years ago, and quickly announced plans to restructure its mining assets. Grupo Mexic...	Comment Article	23 Aug 2002 12:00am
Among the ‘developing’ countries, there are few that have as ... Among the ‘developing’ countries, there are few that have as much room for improvement as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The potential is certainly there. The southern province of Katanga has 10% of the world’s copper and 50...	Comment Article	16 Aug 2002 12:00am
The dust is starting to settle from the media-delivered bombshell... The dust is starting to settle from the media-delivered bombshell of the leaked draft Mining Charter in South Africa, but eyes are still smarting. The latest palliative was a joint statement this Tu...	Comment Article	09 Aug 2002 12:00am
The plunge in world equity markets last week underlined the gener... The plunge in world equity markets last week underlined the general acceptance that the much-hoped-for recovery of the global economy in the second half of 2002 is not going to happen. As a consequence, base-metals prices have crumbled. However, the...	Comment Article	02 Aug 2002 12:00am
On the surface, the merger announced last week between the Anglo-... On the surface, the merger announced last week between the Anglo-Dutch steel producer Corus and Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN) of Brazil looks like an opportunistic calculated risk on the part of Corus, taking advantage of the depressed market...	Comment Article	26 Jul 2002 12:00am
It hurts to admit it, but in the wider scheme of things, mining i... It hurts to admit it, but in the wider scheme of things, mining is actually quite simple. Most minerals are relatively plentiful, particularly now that few parts of the world are off-limits, and the bulk of the technology required is straightforward...	Comment Article	19 Jul 2002 12:00am
Although few participants would openly admit it, the gold-mining ... Although few participants would openly admit it, the gold-mining sector is quietly enjoying the accounting scandals being unearthed in the US. Each new revelation has further undermined confidence in equities, already weakened by the bursting of the...	Comment Article	12 Jul 2002 12:00am
The European Commission (EC) issued its final report last week on... The European Commission (EC) issued its final report last week on the green paper ‘Towards a European strategy for the security of energy supply’*, which will be influential in shaping European Union (EU) energy policy in the coming years....	Comment Article	05 Jul 2002 12:00am
The concept of mining as the ‘engine’ of development in poor ... The concept of mining as the ‘engine’ of development in poor countries has long been a source of pride for the industry, offsetting misgivings about the inevitable adverse environmental and social impacts of mining. The argument seems well supp...	Comment Article	28 Jun 2002 12:00am
The South African draft Mineral and Petroleum Resources Developme... The South African draft Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development bill is currently in its final stages of consultation, and various parties were making formal submissions last week to the parliamentary minerals and energy committee. The key aim of...	Comment Article	21 Jun 2002 12:00am
The Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe held its annual general meeting ... The Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe held its annual general meeting at the end of last month in a sombre atmosphere. The Chamber estimates that in the past two years 45 mines have been closed with the loss of some 10,000 jobs, largely owing to the gover...	Comment Article	14 Jun 2002 12:00am
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Placer Dome’s A$2 billion... Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Placer Dome’s A$2 billion all-share bid for AurionGold Ltd is that it did not come sooner in the past five months. Recent consolidation in the gold sector has generally...	Comment Article	07 Jun 2002 12:00am
Someone once said that all new countries wanted a flag, an anthem... Someone once said that all new countries wanted a flag, an anthem, an airline and a steelworks. If it were just a flag and an anthem there would be no problem, but airlines and steelworks are part of the world economic system....	Comment Article	31 May 2002 12:00am
Sir Robert Wilson, chair of the Global Mining Initiative (GMI) an... Sir Robert Wilson, chair of the Global Mining Initiative (GMI) and chairman of Rio Tinto, described it as “an historic opportunity”, and Doug Yearley, chairman of the International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM) and chairman emeritus Phelps...	Comment Article	24 May 2002 12:00am
One of the legacies of Britain’s industrial past is the large n... One of the legacies of Britain’s industrial past is the large number of abandoned underground coal mines. They total close to 1,000, and pose significant environmental problems in terms of surface subsidence, acid mine drainage and the leakage of...	Comment Article	17 May 2002 12:00am
As the delegates gather in Toronto for next week’s Global Minin... As the delegates gather in Toronto for next week’s Global Mining Initiative conference on sustainable development, a good many readers may still be wondering what exactly is ‘sustainable development’. At first glance, mining clearly cannot qual...	Comment Article	10 May 2002 12:00am
The release last week of a detailed report on HIV/AIDS by AngloGo... The release last week of a detailed report on HIV/AIDS by AngloGold Ltd, ‘Facing the Challenge of HIV/AIDS 2001/2002’ (www.anglogold.com), comes at a time that offers significant potential in South Africa’s battle against the epidemic. A week e...	Comment Article	03 May 2002 12:00am
Mergers and acquisitions are often described with the symbolism o... Mergers and acquisitions are often described with the symbolism of marriage, but in truth that phase in the cycle has more in common with war. Battles over key positions and processes of attrition, leaving the survivors as victors. The marriage boom...	Comment Article	26 Apr 2002 12:00am
At first glance, the events that removed Venezuela’s President,... At first glance, the events that removed Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chávez, from office, to be held temporarily as a prisoner last weekend, appeared to be an old-fashioned South American military coup. Closer examination shows a fundamental s...	Comment Article	19 Apr 2002 12:00am
Received wisdom has it that the mining industry is a price taker,... Received wisdom has it that the mining industry is a price taker, churning out minerals and accepting the prevailing market price. Management resources have traditionally been focused on optimising the technical aspects of the operation, such as mini...	Comment Article	12 Apr 2002 12:00am
A recent cartoon depicted a secretary answering the telephone and... A recent cartoon depicted a secretary answering the telephone and then asking her boss if “we have room for another geologist”, and the picture showed her to be working for a window-cleaning company. This somewhat brutal image highlights the huma...	Comment Article	05 Apr 2002 12:00am
The start of official trading in shares in Xstrata plc on the mai... The start of official trading in shares in Xstrata plc on the main market of the London Stock Exchange this Monday marks a strong endorsement of the London market, and one completed in remarkably quick time. Just six months ago, the assets at the cen...	Comment Article	29 Mar 2002 12:00am
Leaving aside the moral and legal implications of the manner in w... Leaving aside the moral and legal implications of the manner in which Robert Mugabe won the Zimbabwean presidential election last week, mining people outside southern Africa and the Commonwealth, which means most of the world, may be forgiven for won...	Comment Article	22 Mar 2002 12:00am
Economic forecasting is a science (art?) ever fraught with diffic... Economic forecasting is a science (art?) ever fraught with difficulties. However, sometimes the margins of error are greater than others. The world has clearly become a riskier place in recent months, and the range of uncertainty associated with all...	Comment Article	15 Mar 2002 12:00am
Until the 1990s, the mining industry was disinclined to respond t... Until the 1990s, the mining industry was disinclined to respond to its more vociferous environmental critics. It was content to keep its head below the parapet, confident that, whatever its shortcomings, society would always need the raw materials th...	Comment Article	08 Mar 2002 12:00am
Metals can be as fickle as last season’s fashions. Metals can be as fickle as last season’s fashions. Less than a year ago, aluminium was considered to have the best fundamentals of all of the base metals. The power crisis in the US northwest had forced smelters to cut output, and other power-relat...	Comment Article	01 Mar 2002 12:00am
Few mining conferences are graced with the presence of the head o... Few mining conferences are graced with the presence of the head of state of a major country. Thabo Mbeki’s opening address at the Investing in African Mining conference (‘Indaba’) in Cape Town last week thus underlined the importance of mining...	Comment Article	22 Feb 2002 12:00am
With a population of 170 million and a land area covering half th... With a population of 170 million and a land area covering half the continent, Brazil is the giant of South America. It is also the economic dynamo. The economy grew by 4.2% in 2000, exceeding the most optimistic expectations, and an expansion of GDP...	Comment Article	15 Feb 2002 12:00am
Over the years, new developments in technology have been highly i... Over the years, new developments in technology have been highly influential in certain metal markets. The new uses, or in modern parlance ‘killer applications’, can lift metals from relative obscurity into the limelight. Examples include platinum...	Comment Article	08 Feb 2002 12:00am
To the outsider, perhaps the most inspiring feature of sub-Sahara... To the outsider, perhaps the most inspiring feature of sub-Saharan Africa is the widespread cheerfulness of its people in the face of the most crushing adversity. Those smiles will be a struggle on the Zambian Copperbelt this week, following Anglo Am...	Comment Article	01 Feb 2002 12:00am
Since its formation in the late 1890s, the De Beers group has bee... Since its formation in the late 1890s, the De Beers group has been a colossus astride the international diamond industry. Its mines account for almost half of the world’s 110 Mct of mined rough diamonds, and De Beers’ wholly-owned Diamond Trading...	Comment Article	25 Jan 2002 12:00am
Although all analysts and market commentators seem agreed that ba... Although all analysts and market commentators seem agreed that base-metals prices will rise this year, the key questions remain: when and by how much? Apart from production cuts, which dominated the news at the end of last year (MJ, December 7, 2001,...	Comment Article	18 Jan 2002 12:00am
After four months, and six offers and counter-offers, the battle ... After four months, and six offers and counter-offers, the battle between Newmont Mining of the US and Anglo-Gold of South Africa to acquire Normandy Mining of Australia could be resolved in Newmont’s favour by the end of this week, when AngloGold...	Comment Article	11 Jan 2002 12:00am
One of the reasons that business newspaper editorials published a... One of the reasons that business newspaper editorials published at this time of year are invariably full of comment on the year past is that, with the major Western commercial and political forums closed for the holiday season, there is usually a dea...	Comment Article	04 Jan 2002 12:00am
Swing low The most striking statistic behind the BHP Billiton gro... Swing low The most striking statistic behind the BHP Billiton group’s decision to cut its copper production by 170,000 t/y on an annualised basis last week is not the size of the cut, but the current cash operating cost at the Escondida sulphide op...	Comment Article	16 Nov 2001 12:00am
Zinc bath Although a devastating blow for the mining industry of ... Zinc bath Although a devastating blow for the mining industry of Ireland, Outokumpu’s decision announced last week to close Tara, Europe’s largest zinc mine, should come as no surprise in terms of either the zinc market or corporate strategy. Ove...	Comment Article	09 Nov 2001 12:00am
Victims of terror At the risk of giving away an admittedly rather... Victims of terror At the risk of giving away an admittedly rather obvious trade secret, the amount of coverage given to a particular news item by newspapers and other media depends not only on the item itself, but also on the quantity and perceived s...	Comment Article	02 Nov 2001 12:00am
Noblesse oblige As might be expected in the current environment, ... Noblesse oblige As might be expected in the current environment, sentiment at the London Metal Exchange seminar this Monday was very negative. The gloom deepened as one analyst after another presented forecasts that pointed to at least another six mo...	Comment Article	26 Oct 2001 12:00am
Price perspective At Mining Journal Ltd’s Metals Outlook Summit... Price perspective At Mining Journal Ltd’s Metals Outlook Summit this week, delegates assembled at the Savoy Hotel to hear messages of doom and gloom. Indeed, scarcely a day goes past without more tales of anguish. Recent examples are not hard to fi...	Comment Article	19 Oct 2001 12:00am
Friendly warning If there is anyone left in the mining industry w... Friendly warning If there is anyone left in the mining industry who still dismisses ‘sustainability’ as a passing fad, and its proponents as wellintentioned but misguided extremists, he or she might browse the website of Friends of the Earth Inte...	Comment Article	12 Oct 2001 12:00am
Odd man in Among the many indirect casualties of last month’s t... Odd man in Among the many indirect casualties of last month’s terrible events have been a number of equity-based deals (offerings and mergers) around the world. The depressed outlook for demand for most materials and a general aversion to risk in t...	Comment Article	05 Oct 2001 12:00am
Where you find it Scanning through the latest edition of Mining A... Where you find it Scanning through the latest edition of Mining Annual Review, one is struck, yet again, by Nature’s capriciousness in its distribution of mineral deposits within the Earth’s crust. Some essential commodities such as iron, copper,...	Comment Article	28 Sep 2001 12:00am
Soldiering on “Events, dear boy, events”, runs the quotation,... Soldiering on “Events, dear boy, events”, runs the quotation, attributable to a former UK Prime Minister. The point being that, for all the effort a politician makes to form policy, it is his reaction to unforeseen events by which he will be judg...	Comment Article	21 Sep 2001 12:00am
Second wind The first impression to strike a visitor to Alrosa’... Second wind The first impression to strike a visitor to Alrosa’s core mining operations in Yakutia, in central Siberia, is the enormity of the engineering challenges presented by the distances involved and by the harsh climate (‘Focus’, this is...	Comment Article	14 Sep 2001 12:00am
A mixed bag A series of mergers over the past couple of years has... ...	Comment Article	07 Sep 2001 12:00am
A mixed bag A series of mergers over the past couple of years has... A mixed bag A series of mergers over the past couple of years has led many in the mining industry to hope for much greater restraint in building new production capacity: partly because the money has been spent on acquiring existing capacity; but also...	Comment Article	31 Aug 2001 12:00am
Wasted “To put it in blunt terms, accident statistics such as t... Wasted “To put it in blunt terms, accident statistics such as those from Donetsk last week serve only to remind us that, in safety terms, Ukraine is probably operating at a level comparable to that found in the UK or the US during the early 1950s o...	Comment Article	24 Aug 2001 12:00am
A black mark As the delegates to an international diamond confere... A black mark As the delegates to an international diamond conference gather in Vancouver next Wednesday, Winifredo Amoguez, Roberto Bautista, Doug Larsen and Jason Pope will have been missing for precisely 1,018 days. They were kidnapped from the Yet...	Comment Article	17 Aug 2001 12:00am
China: the new Japan During the 1960s and 1970s, the rapid expans... China: the new Japan During the 1960s and 1970s, the rapid expansion in Japanese industrial output provided a major stimulus to the widespread development of iron ore, coal, copper and other mines in the Pacific Basin and farther afield. Furthermore,...	Comment Article	10 Aug 2001 12:00am
Out of the frying pan The euphoria that has greeted the appointme... Out of the frying pan The euphoria that has greeted the appointment of Megawati Sukarnoputri as President of Indonesia (the country’s fourth leader in just three years) overwhelmingly reflects widespread relief that her predecessor, Abdurrachman Wa...	Comment Article	03 Aug 2001 12:00am
Realpolitik? This week has been a mixed one for cynics. Realpolitik? This week has been a mixed one for cynics. The cynic will hold that the vast majority of mankind will willingly sacrifice its future well-being for more immediate gratification, if that future is sufficiently distant. (Smokers, especiall...	Comment Article	27 Jul 2001 12:00am
A fast buck We live, it is often said, in an age of instant grati... A fast buck We live, it is often said, in an age of instant gratification. Investment is no exception. Just over a year ago, Billiton, arguably the world’s leader in applying bio-technology to the processing of base metals, announced a joint ventur...	Comment Article	20 Jul 2001 12:00am
Blurred vision The only areas of the global economy that seem cer... Blurred vision The only areas of the global economy that seem certain to grow in the short term are the number and range of statistics released and opinions expressed regarding the outlook. If the late 1990s was the party of unprecedented growth, at...	Comment Article	13 Jul 2001 12:00am
The other Ashes tour Only the most inattentive of Mining Journal ... The other Ashes tour Only the most inattentive of Mining Journal readers (is there such a creature?) could have failed to notice the growing popularity in recent months of London’s Alternative Investment Market as a source of mining capital. AIM wa...	Comment Article	06 Jul 2001 12:00am
Private party The planned merger announced this Monday between Ba... Private party The planned merger announced this Monday between Barrick Gold and Homestake is almost certain to go ahead. Apart from that of the regulators, the only approval required to close the deal is that of shareholders in Homestake, and they ar...	Comment Article	29 Jun 2001 12:00am
Killer applications In more sexist times, it was said that behind... Killer applications In more sexist times, it was said that behind every great man, there is a great woman. Substitute mining company for ‘man’ and orebody for ‘woman’. Most of the great orebodies from which the leading mining companies of tod...	Comment Article	22 Jun 2001 12:00am
Chicken and egg Last week, Australian Magnesium Corp. Chicken and egg Last week, Australian Magnesium Corp. Ltd (AMC), developer of the Stanwell magnesium project in central Queensland, secured a A$932 million debt package for the project, prompting the company’s chairman, Dr Roland Williams, to decla...	Comment Article	15 Jun 2001 12:00am
Go West Groucho Marx famously held that he would not join any clu... Go West Groucho Marx famously held that he would not join any club undiscerning enough to accept him. Aspirant platinum producers face the reverse of this paradox. Mining, smelting and, particularly, refining platinum group metals are complex procedu...	Comment Article	08 Jun 2001 12:00am
Power sources Last week, the energy bandwagon was well and truly ... Power sources Last week, the energy bandwagon was well and truly rolling. Investors snapped up the Peabody coal IPO, and President Bush’s pro-producer energy strategy, unveiled the week before, also sent the share prices of uranium miners soaring....	Comment Article	01 Jun 2001 12:00am
Debt to society The financial performance of mining projects is a... Debt to society The financial performance of mining projects is affected by many things, and increasingly by the indirect effects of mining-related accidents and problems related to the communities in which mines are based. The Europe-wide outcry ove...	Comment Article	25 May 2001 12:00am
A dirty business The popular image of mining, at least in communi... A dirty business The popular image of mining, at least in communities where mining is not a major employer, is probably about half a century, perhaps even a century, out of date. An average passer-by would probably conjure up an image of a man engage...	Comment Article	18 May 2001 12:00am
Hard knocks If experience is the best school, then Rio Tinto has ... Hard knocks If experience is the best school, then Rio Tinto has had a double helping of extra homework every night for the past twelve years on the subject of community relations. Rio Tinto’s 53.6%-owned subsidiary Bougainville Copper Ltd lost pos...	Comment Article	11 May 2001 12:00am
Dancing with the Devil It is hard to find sympathy for either sid... Dancing with the Devil It is hard to find sympathy for either side in the very public row between the management of Anaconda Nickel of Australia and its largest shareholder, Anglo American. Anglo is engaged in a campaign to persuade other shareholder...	Comment Article	04 May 2001 12:00am
Shared barricades In the same week that the leaders of 34 countri... Shared barricades In the same week that the leaders of 34 countries have signed an accord to create free trade across the Americas, the Geneva-based United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has published a report which concludes th...	Comment Article	27 Apr 2001 12:00am
Early warning system According to reliable sources in Washington,... Early warning system According to reliable sources in Washington, the detailed budget for the US Geological Survey, released this Monday, contains no provision for the International Minerals Section. The budget will now be submitted by the executive...	Comment Article	20 Apr 2001 12:00am
Settling the bill There are several points worth grasping before ... Settling the bill There are several points worth grasping before considering the very public debate under way between government, domestic mining industry and organised labour regarding South Africa’s new minerals legislation. First, the African Na...	Comment Article	13 Apr 2001 12:00am
Leader lost Last week, President Bush shocked the world by annou... Leader lost Last week, President Bush shocked the world by announcing that the US will no longer back the Kyoto Protocol, the international accord reached in Japan in 1997 to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Such gases are believed to be contributing t...	Comment Article	06 Apr 2001 12:00am
Arrivals and departures This week, I sign off as MJ Editor, havin... Arrivals and departures This week, I sign off as MJ Editor, having been in the post since 1987 and a member of the editorial team since 1979. The past two decades or so have not been uneventful. The period has seen the Iron Curtain dismantled and eco...	Comment Article	30 Mar 2001 12:00am
More than a blip With their diverse asset bases, the planned merg... More than a blip With their diverse asset bases, the planned merger of BHP and Billiton marks one of the more significant developments in what is becoming a rapid consolidation of the world’s mining industry. Over the past year, merger and acquisit...	Comment Article	23 Mar 2001 12:00am
Favourite stumbles As the December-quarter reporting season draws... Favourite stumbles As the December-quarter reporting season draws to a close, two overriding themes have emerged: the substantial improvement in corporate earnings in most sectors of the mining industry during 2000, and the importance of the final co...	Comment Article	16 Mar 2001 12:00am
Social pressures The World Business Council for Sustainable Devel... Social pressures The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) was formed in 1992 with the aim of getting business involved in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The WBCSD has now grown to a coalition of 150 international companies...	Comment Article	09 Mar 2001 12:00am
More than a noveltyIn 1974, the Club of Rome forecast that there ... More than a noveltyIn 1974, the Club of Rome forecast that there would be limits to growth based on the availability of natural resources. At the time, it warned that mineral resources are finite and that supplies of some metals/ minerals could be ex...	Comment Article	02 Mar 2001 12:00am
Still hopeless? In May last year The Economist ran a feature arti... Still hopeless? In May last year The Economist ran a feature article: ‘Africa, The Hopeless Continent’. It pointed out that, despite an immense amount of technical and financial assistance, Africans were no better off than they had been at the en...	Comment Article	23 Feb 2001 12:00am
Australian rules In 1992, Australia’s highest court recognised ... Australian rules In 1992, Australia’s highest court recognised for the first time that the country’s indigenous people have legally recognisable rights to land, and that these rights have their source in traditional laws and customs (MJ, March 19...	Comment Article	16 Feb 2001 12:00am
A private affairLast week’s news that a consortium is seeking t... A private affairLast week’s news that a consortium is seeking to acquire De Beers has been widely welcomed. Indeed, there will be few losers if the consortium, comprising De Beers’ sister company Anglo American plc, Central Holdings Ltd (the Oppe...	Comment Article	09 Feb 2001 12:00am
The difficulty in trying to predict the future course of the mini... The difficulty in trying to predict the future course of the mining industry is that, for all the careful analysis of the known factors, many of the really important influences come out of the blue.Few who were enjoying the strong metals prices in la...	Comment Article	02 Feb 2001 12:00am
A professor of mining and economics from Lubumbashi, who was Laur... A professor of mining and economics from Lubumbashi, who was Laurent Kabila’s economics adviser, claims to be the sole witness to last week’s assassination of the Congolese leader. Emile Mota says that, whilst he and Mr Kabila were alone discussi...	Comment Article	26 Jan 2001 12:00am
After his eventful election battle, George W. After his eventful election battle, George W. Bush will be inaugurated this Saturday (January 20) as the 43rd US President. Although criticised, somewhat simplistically, during the election campaign for his meagre international experience and largely...	Comment Article	19 Jan 2001 12:00am
Over the past five years, several natural resource companies have... Over the past five years, several natural resource companies have been drawn into human rights controversies in countries such as Colombia, Indonesia and Nigeria. The issues involved are both sensitive and complex, making it harder for individual ent...	Comment Article	12 Jan 2001 12:00am
The more significant events that have taken place within the mine... The more significant events that have taken place within the minerals sector over the past 12 months are reviewed elsewhere (p.4). Looking to the current year it is clear that for mining, as for all other industry sectors, much will depend on the hea...	Comment Article	05 Jan 2001 12:00am
End of an era Not surprisingly, the complications, not to mention... End of an era Not surprisingly, the complications, not to mention the shenanigans, that have protracted the outcome of the presidential election in the world’s most powerful nation for the past five weeks have been a preoccupation for the internati...	Comment Article	22 Dec 2000 12:00am
Sharpening the flavour The decision of Phelps Dodge to divest i... Sharpening the flavour The decision of Phelps Dodge to divest its chemicals, and cable and wire businesses to concentrate on mining (this issue, p.479) underlines an important trend. Arguably, the first in the current series was Noranda, which anno...	Comment Article	15 Dec 2000 12:00am
Copper going south Last week, BHP and its partners announced a ... Copper going south Last week, BHP and its partners announced a further major expansion at the Escondida copper mine in Chile which will increase average annual production by some 50% to around 1.2 Mt beginning in 2002. There was also news that Bill...	Comment Article	08 Dec 2000 12:00am
Missing the tide Over billions of years the climate has shaped th... Missing the tide Over billions of years the climate has shaped the Earth’s landscape and controlled the flora and fauna which exist. Species have come and gone, and Man’s arrival is very recent. We have far to go if we are to match the occupancy...	Comment Article	01 Dec 2000 12:00am
Money hears results The period since the fifth Asia-Pacific Minin... Money hears results The period since the fifth Asia-Pacific Mining and Quarrying (APMQ) conference was held, in Jakarta in 1996, has been turbulent for Asia in general and for Asian mining in particular. The background to that conference was one of c...	Comment Article	24 Nov 2000 12:00am
Lasting impressions Exploration personnel are the advanced guard ... Lasting impressions Exploration personnel are the advanced guard in any new mineral development. From the outset they are working in somebody else’s backyard – whatever assurances, guarantees or mineral titles that have been secured from central...	Comment Article	17 Nov 2000 12:00am
Crisis in Peru The brief occupation of Toquepala a fortnight ago ... Crisis in Peru The brief occupation of Toquepala a fortnight ago by rebel soldiers calling for President Fujimori’s resignation, and a purge of Peru’s military leaders, struck a chord of sympathy amongst many Peruvians and are indicative of the g...	Comment Article	10 Nov 2000 12:00am
New lessons In his paper to this week’s MassMin conference in Q... New lessons In his paper to this week’s MassMin conference in Queensland (this issue, p.354), Rio Tinto’s chief economist David Humphreys examined the impact that the ‘new’ economy will have on mining. One of the lasting impacts, according to...	Comment Article	03 Nov 2000 12:00am
Rules of engagement It may well sound like one of the latest poli... Rules of engagement It may well sound like one of the latest politically correct terms, but ‘engagement’ will be a key factor in how the mining industry develops and responds to public and investor needs in the coming years. Put simply, engagemen...	Comment Article	27 Oct 2000 12:00am
Philippines glimmer Last year, the Philippines appeared to have f... Philippines glimmer Last year, the Philippines appeared to have finally shaken off the lingering effects of the Asian crisis. A strong rebound in agriculture and a continued expansion of the services sector contributed to a 3.2% growth in GDP (as aga...	Comment Article	20 Oct 2000 12:00am
African delusion BANKS report that negotiating with African gover... ...	Comment Article	15 Sep 2000 12:00am
Light and Dark At a time when there is worldwide concern about gl... Light and Dark At a time when there is worldwide concern about global warming, and fossil fuels are in the dock because of their major contribution to emissions of CO2, the nuclear industry should be a major beneficiary. Nuclear power produces the le...	Comment Article	08 Sep 2000 12:00am
Living with AIDS The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that cau... Living with AIDS The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is estimated to be infecting around 25 million Africans at present, and AIDS has killed some 11 million Africans since the start of the ep...	Comment Article	01 Sep 2000 12:00am
Family values Perhaps it is the selectivity of the media, but th... Family values Perhaps it is the selectivity of the media, but those born into privilege seem generally to tend to one of two extremes: squandering the wealth and position they inherit, or regarding these advantages as carrying an inherent duty to us...	Comment Article	25 Aug 2000 12:00am
Stock Response In the ‘good old days’ metal brokers on the Lo... Stock Response In the ‘good old days’ metal brokers on the London Metal Exchange were not averse to periodically taking metal off-warrant in LME warehouses to make stocks appear lower than they were in reality. If prices strengthened as a result...	Comment Article	18 Aug 2000 12:00am
Warts and all A reader recently took us to task for publishing a... Warts and all A reader recently took us to task for publishing a photograph of an exploration drilling rig showing an operator inadequately dressed from a safety point of view. Among other omissions, the man was not wearing a hard-hat when the situa...	Comment Article	11 Aug 2000 12:00am
Minding the shop Takeover offers from the two sides of the Oppen... Minding the shop Takeover offers from the two sides of the Oppenheimer family empire for two of Australia’s famous mining names in the space of a week. Although the weakness of the Australian dollar and the relative low market value of mid-tier re...	Comment Article	04 Aug 2000 12:00am
Turning Japanese Anglo’s offer for North (this issue, p. Turning Japanese Anglo’s offer for North (this issue, p.57) represents a bid to establish arguably the most comprehensive commodity portfolio of any of the top mining groups. Following Anglo’s agreement to spend US$900 million on Shell Coal earl...	Comment Article	28 Jul 2000 12:00am
Field assistance In the UK earlier this month a ceremony was hel... Field assistance In the UK earlier this month a ceremony was held in Cambridge to celebrate the opening of the first United Nations institute in Great Britain for 50 years. The World Conservation Monitoring Centre joins the UN Environmental Programm...	Comment Article	21 Jul 2000 12:00am
Disposable assets In the industrialised countries waste disposal ... Disposable assets In the industrialised countries waste disposal is a mounting problem; the millions of tonnes being generated each year by a throw-away consumer society are rapidly exhausting available landfill sites and there is environmental oppos...	Comment Article	14 Jul 2000 12:00am
Ringing the changes Rudolf Wolff & Co. Ringing the changes Rudolf Wolff & Co. was founded in 1866, at a time when London was becoming a major clearing house for the world’s metals. A metals ‘futures’ market evolved and in 1877 the company was amongst the group of founder members...	Comment Article	07 Jul 2000 12:00am
In 1980, Robert Mugabe’s ZANU(PF) party campaigned for control ... In 1980, Robert Mugabe’s ZANU(PF) party campaigned for control of the soon-tobe- independent Zimbabwe after a shaky ceasefire that followed a protracted and often savage bush war. ZANU(PF)’s approach was: “If you don’t vote for us the war wil...	Comment Article	30 Jun 2000 12:00am
Church Wedding Opposites, so the theory runs, make the best marri... Church Wedding Opposites, so the theory runs, make the best marriage partners. If so, Gold Fields, the second-largest gold producer in South Africa, and Franco-Nevada of Canada (MJ, June 16, p.473) should live happily ever after. It is hard to think...	Comment Article	23 Jun 2000 12:00am
Exclusive club The PGM sector has just about everything an inves... Exclusive club The PGM sector has just about everything an investor could ask for: shortterm price excitement owing to disruptions to exports from Russia, the swing supplier; good long-term fundamentals, as strong demand prospects are set against re...	Comment Article	16 Jun 2000 12:00am
Trading places The purchase by Anglo American of Shell Coal, anno... Trading places The purchase by Anglo American of Shell Coal, announced last week, is the latest in a series of major transactions in the international coal industry. The sellers have in the most part been companies for whom coal is not now a core bus...	Comment Article	09 Jun 2000 12:00am
Rough justice For many people, Africa has become synonymous with... Rough justice For many people, Africa has become synonymous with political instability, corruption, economic hardship, epidemics, natural disasters and wars. It is true that some of the problems are a legacy of the continent’s colonial past, when...	Comment Article	02 Jun 2000 12:00am
Irish music A country’s attractiveness as a place to explore f... Irish music A country’s attractiveness as a place to explore for minerals is dependent on a number of factors. The geology, of course, is of prime importance but political risk, the commercial regime, a fair rate of taxation, transport and infrast...	Comment Article	26 May 2000 12:00am
Mind the gap The past 18 months have been exciting times in the ... Mind the gap The past 18 months have been exciting times in the platinum sector. Uncertainty over Russian supplies has led to market volatility, and rising demand has underpinned a significant increase in average prices. Platinum averaged US$440/oz...	Comment Article	19 May 2000 12:00am
Endemic Perceptions At the end of last month, a report produced j... Endemic Perceptions At the end of last month, a report produced jointly by the World Health Organization, Harvard University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine revealed that malaria is restricting the economic growth of countries...	Comment Article	12 May 2000 12:00am
Aurul context Two months ago, following requests from the govern... Aurul context Two months ago, following requests from the governments of Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia, the United Nations appointed at short notice a team of international experts to visit the areas affected by the cyanide spill which took place...	Comment Article	05 May 2000 12:00am
Peruvian predicament These are testing times for Peru. Peruvian predicament These are testing times for Peru. For ten years, the Andean country – roughly the size of Alaska and with a population of 25 million people – has enjoyed peace and stability, and has made real and substantial economic progre...	Comment Article	28 Apr 2000 12:00am
In recent years, Russia has been providing up to 70% of the world... In recent years, Russia has been providing up to 70% of the world’s palladium needs and about 20% of its platinum requirements but regular supplies of platinum group metals (PGM) from Russia are not assured. All sales are executed through a single...	Comment Article	21 Apr 2000 12:00am
Forest fallacy As if the Bre-X revelations in 1996-97 were not e... Forest fallacy As if the Bre-X revelations in 1996-97 were not enough, foreign investor confidence in Indonesia’s mining sector has been further undermined since then as a result of a number of developments. For one, the country’s Contract of Wo...	Comment Article	14 Apr 2000 12:00am
End of the beginning After more than three years of deals, cance... End of the beginning After more than three years of deals, cancelled deals, reformed deals and sales of peripheral elements, the main operating assets of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines have finally been sold. Those breathing a hefty sigh of relief...	Comment Article	07 Apr 2000 12:00am
Kremlin gets boss Vladimir Putin won Russia’s presidential ele... Kremlin gets boss Vladimir Putin won Russia’s presidential election last Sunday, securing an outright majority of 52% and thereby avoiding the need for a run-off next month with his principal opponent Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist Party chief. H...	Comment Article	31 Mar 2000 12:00am
Zimbabwe stumbles Zimbabwe’s mining industry has been battered... Zimbabwe stumbles Zimbabwe’s mining industry has been battered by ill fortune recently, including the closure of the Hartley platinum project last year, a cyclone induced period of extreme rainfall that cut its export links to Mozambique and South...	Comment Article	24 Mar 2000 12:00am
Stretch your legs An old Turkish proverb translates as ‘stretc... Stretch your legs An old Turkish proverb translates as ‘stretch your legs to the edge of the blanket’, meaning find out how cold your feet are! The proverb was quoted by Dr Chris Anderson in a presentation at the Mining Millennium 2000 Conventio...	Comment Article	17 Mar 2000 12:00am
Latin beauty The announcement last Friday that Billiton and Code... Latin beauty The announcement last Friday that Billiton and Codelco are to advance their copper bioleaching joint venture to a commercial level, with a view to pursuing suitable opportunities worldwide (this issue, p.189), marks long-awaited moves o...	Comment Article	10 Mar 2000 12:00am
A long haul A fortnight ago, the Ministry of Mines of the Democr... A long haul A fortnight ago, the Ministry of Mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), aided by the World Bank, organised a seminar in Kinshasa with the aim of examining the country’s existing mining policy and setting in train reforms that...	Comment Article	03 Mar 2000 12:00am
Political football The announcement this week that Ashanti Gold... Political football The announcement this week that Ashanti Goldfields Co. has secured a formal agreement with its financiers (this issue, p.156) promises that the company may at long last be able to get back to the business of producing gold. It ha...	Comment Article	25 Feb 2000 12:00am
In the dock again Increasingly, it seems, the only time that mini... In the dock again Increasingly, it seems, the only time that mining activity hits the headlines is when the news is bad. This week is no exception. Photographs of dead fish floating in the Danube, Europe’s most important inland waterway, have caugh...	Comment Article	18 Feb 2000 12:00am
A widening gap The United Nations Conference on Trade and Develo... A widening gap The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development – the main UN organisation that addresses socio-economic conditions in developing countries – begins its tenth quadrennial session this weekend in Bangkok. It will be attended...	Comment Article	11 Feb 2000 12:00am
Two to tango Corruption in the international mining industry is ... Two to tango Corruption in the international mining industry is a bit like adultery: we all know it happens but it is seldom discussed in public. Those that campaign against corruption argue that it is precisely this lack of willingness to air the i...	Comment Article	04 Feb 2000 12:00am
Canadian quagmire A fortnight ago, the world’s second largest ... Canadian quagmire A fortnight ago, the world’s second largest nickel producer, Inco, announced that it had failed to reach agreement with the Provincial Government of Newfoundland and Labrador concerning the commercial development of the worldclas...	Comment Article	28 Jan 2000 12:00am
‘Superbrokers’ Last week’s news that Standard Bank is to a... ‘Superbrokers’ Last week’s news that Standard Bank is to acquire the business of LME ring dealer Brandeis is a further sign that the membership of the London Metal Exchange is set to continue down the path of consolidation. Since the 1980s the...	Comment Article	21 Jan 2000 12:00am
Sat too long The surprise resignation of Russia’s President, B... Sat too long The surprise resignation of Russia’s President, Boris Yeltsin, on the last day of 1999 was welcomed by many in Russia and the West alike. There was little doubt that Mr Yeltsin had passed his peak, both in terms of his popular mandate...	Comment Article	14 Jan 2000 12:00am
Critical issues On the threshold of a new millennium, the challe... Critical issues On the threshold of a new millennium, the challenges facing the mining industry are not so much commercial and technical (and concerned with such mundane tasks as ensuring that the resource base is adequate) as with convincing societ...	Comment Article	07 Jan 2000 12:00am

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Tunnel illumination

How low can you go? Smart investors buy at the bottom of a stock...

How low can you go? Smart investors buy at the bottom of a stock...

Chinese Burn THE unthinkable has happened – China, the hothouse...

A shifting financial landscape IN THE weeks since July the commo...

Money in the bank THESE are nerve-racking times, financially spea...

Phil Halliday’s talk at Finex ’08 at the Geological Society o...

The longest week? More than 40 years ago, a UK politician coined ...

Taking a view At the main Denver Gold Forum reception on Monday e...

The cracks are starting to show WE ARE just over a year into the...

Energy Drive ENERGY has been moving to the very top of quite a f...

An undisputed winner? AS THIS year’s Olympic Games track and fi...

Fossil way COAL may be king, again, but the fossil fuel certainly...

Dirty electricity KINGSNORTH coal-fired power station on the Medw...

People Puzzle THE US produces more sports coaches than engineers,...

Carnival commences ON WEDNESDAY last week, Standard & Poor’...