Know What's Happening in Mining
Know What's Happening in Mining
Mining Titans Surge $250B Amid Iran Conflict, Valuing Sector at $2.41T
The MINING.com Top 50 miners posted a combined market capitalization of $2.41 trillion at the end of Q1 2026, up roughly $250 billion from the start of 2025. Valuations rose despite the US‑Iran war and a sharp drop in gold and silver prices, with copper only modestly down and lithium firms re‑entering the list. Six companies now exceed $100 billion in market value.
London‑listed ACG Metals is actively pursuing up to ten copper‑mine acquisitions, focusing on assets already producing or near production. The company completed its first 2024 deal, buying Turkey's Gediktepe gold‑silver mine for $300 million and plans to start copper output there this year. ACG aims to lift annual copper production to 300,000 tonnes, positioning itself as a western supplier amid rising copper demand and price volatility. Founder‑CEO Artem Volynets says sustained price swings could accelerate further M&A despite higher seller valuations.
Silver just made a massive breakout, and the next explosive move could start any day. If you’ve been waiting for a “better entry,” this is the moment the market often doesn’t give you one. Meanwhile, gold & silver mining stocks (GDX...
Data centers are already here, and they’re here to stay. They’re only going to get bigger, use vastly more power, and require millions of tonnes of copper at a scale we simply do not have the capacity to mine yet… We...
Falcon Energy Materials has lodged a $100 million arbitration claim with the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, alleging Guinea illegally expropriated its Lola graphite project. The claim invokes the bilateral investment treaty between Guinea and the United...
Ending the war does not mean ending the crisis. We have countries that literally shut down production because their storage is full. To bring back that oil to a pre-crisis level takes time. For [liquified natural gas] in particular, it takes a very...
Kuya Silver’s Bethania mine in Peru is ramping up to produce about 1.5 million ounces of silver annually in Phase One. The company recently secured the mill processing its ore, improving control and paving the way for a second mill that...
Spartan Metals CEO Brett Marsh used PDAC 2026 to highlight the company’s tightly held capital structure and its plan to revive Nevada’s historic tungsten district. Largest shareholder Burton Egger exercised warrants, bolstering the treasury and giving the firm more financial flexibility. The...
NMDC Ltd announced it will become India’s first miner to produce 50 million tonnes of iron ore in a single financial year, targeting FY 2025‑26. The output surge, from roughly 30 Mt in 2015 to the projected 50 Mt, marks the fastest expansion in...
Botswana Minerals announced major exploration progress, securing eight copper‑focused prospecting licences covering about 7,000 km² in north‑west Botswana. The licences result from the company’s AI‑driven analysis of its extensive 95,000 km² geoscientific dataset, which includes over 375,000 line‑km of airborne and ground...
Fastmarkets will shift its CIF China copper scrap price publication from a monthly to a weekly schedule and add three new grades—millberry, cobra and clove—under the GB 38471‑2023 standard. Existing No 1 and No 2 grades retain their definitions, with minimum contract sizes...
Fox Tungsten Ltd., after selling its copper asset, rebranded at PDAC 2026 to focus exclusively on tungsten. The Fox project in British Columbia’s Cariboo region hosts a resource grading roughly 1 % tungsten, claimed as the world’s highest‑grade deposit. With about $4 million...
Africa is emerging as a strategic source of rare earths and critical minerals as the United States seeks alternatives to China-dominated processing. The continent hosts vast deposits, including DRC cobalt, Zimbabwe lithium, and new rare‑earth projects in Namibia, Tanzania, and...
South Africa's mineral exploration spending fell for the seventh consecutive year, dropping 5.3% in 2025 to 738 million rand (about $44 million) at constant 2015 prices. Over the past 30 years, total exploration investment has slumped more than 85%, signaling waning investor confidence....
At PDAC 2026, ABx Group CEO Mark Cooksey outlined the company’s plan to produce a mixed rare‑earth carbonate (MREC) from ionic clay deposits in Tasmania that are unusually rich in heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium. The project leverages low‑cost...
Rising fuel prices linked to the Hormuz crisis could add $30‑35 billion to global container shipping costs if sustained for a year. Sea‑Intelligence estimates an extra $153‑$178 per TEU, potentially pushing freight rates higher. While direct fuel expenses are significant, analysts...
Toubai Resources has broken ground on its Kobada Gold Project in southern Mali, following a board‑approved final investment decision. The initial construction phase targets bulk earthworks for the processing plant, tailings storage, water dam and staff accommodation, with the first...
Zambia’s Ministry of Mines will allocate roughly 8,000 hectares at the Kikonge gold site to more than 500 artisanal miners, organized into cooperatives. Each cooperative is slated to receive about six hectares, enabling regulated, government‑overseen mining. The move follows a...
At PDAC 2026, Power Metallic CEO Terry Lynch highlighted high‑grade copper results from the Lion zone in Quebec’s James Bay region. The company has completed 35,000 metres of a 100,000‑metre drill program, reporting intercepts such as 32 metres grading 7% copper‑equivalent and...
Historic Gold Stretch vs. Crude May Signal Peak - "Unsustainably high" describes the 79 barrels of WTI crude oil equal to an ounce of gold at the end of February. Only the collapse to negative crude prices in April 2020...
Centaurus Metals secured a five‑year, $450 million off‑take with Glencore for 20,000 tonnes of 32% nickel concentrate annually, covering roughly one‑third of the Jaguar project’s planned output. The agreement ties sales to LME nickel prices and includes copper and cobalt by‑product terms....
Ghana’s Parliament approved two bills on Friday: the Education Regulatory Bodies (Amendment) Bill 2025, which makes the six‑year charter requirement optional for private tertiary institutions, and the Growth and Sustainability (Amendment) Bill 2026, which cuts the mining levy from three...
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, together with Abu Dhabi’s ADQ and New York‑based Orion Resources, signed a non‑binding MOU to acquire a 40% stake in Glencore’s Kamoto and Mutanda cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The move...
Harena Rare Earths has signed an exclusivity agreement to evaluate buying 100% of Paradigm Critical Minerals, which holds heavy‑rare‑earth and uranium exploration permits in San Bernardino County, California. The assets boast historic drilling that returned up to 2 % total rare‑earth oxide...
A new review in *Sustainability* evaluates how the 100 billion‑ton global mining waste stream can be transformed into construction inputs such as asphalt fillers, road bases, and concrete additives. Researchers found that mine tailings can replace up to 50 % of natural...
Lots of commentators are suggesting the Strait of Hormuz closure will disrupt uranium supply. I think they’re wrong. Their logic seems simple and obvious: most uranium mining relies on sulphuric acid, a large share of global sulphur exports pass through the...
Researchers introduced a passive seismic imaging technique that leverages interferometry of regional Pn‑wave coda to generate empirical Green’s tensors. The approach was applied to the Akanvaara V‑Cr‑PGE ultramafic deposit in northern Finland using a dense network of 771 three‑component stations....
Sandvik has launched the HPA20 automatic injection pump, a next‑generation system for underground resin‑based ground support in hard‑rock mining and civil engineering. The pump combines intelligent automation with a flexible architecture, allowing both manual and fully automatic injection of two‑component...
Allison Coppel, founder of Pacha Associates and co‑founder of Maven Exploration, discussed the indispensable role of mining in modern economies during a rapid‑fire interview. She emphasized that every facet of daily life—from smartphones to renewable‑energy infrastructure—relies on mineral extraction. Coppel...
A new structured dataset characterizes technologies and facilities across U.S. chemicals, cement, iron and steel, food, and non‑manufacturing sectors. It provides facility‑level inventories for six manufacturing sectors and technology options for three non‑manufacturing sectors, harmonizing assumptions, costs, and resource use...
Iran has started a new phase of its oil war: Tehran is clearly going after the Strait of Hormuz bypass route, with Fujairah (UAE) coming under attack. But so far, the Saudi pipeline bypass hasn't been attacked (and neither the Yemeni...
South32 CEO Graham Kerr, who will depart after 12 years, says the Perth‑based miner is too risky for larger acquisition predators. He highlights a strategic pivot toward base metals, targeting 90% of production in that sector within 18 months, with...
Ariana Resources will commence Phase 2 diamond drilling at its Dokwe North gold project in Zimbabwe in late March 2026, following a successful reverse‑circulation program that returned high‑grade intercepts and suggested the mineralised system extends beyond the current resource envelope. The RC...
MetalMiner provides metal price forecasting services tailored to U.S. manufacturers, combining proprietary price indices, market‑signal forecasts, and support/resistance analysis. Its indices aggregate 10‑15 years of data and are normalized to reflect the actual mix of metals bought by U.S. firms....
♦️Here’s a striking example of how a closure of the Strait of Hormuz can reshape global oil flows—and how Saudi Arabia can rapidly adapt by diverting supplies from its eastern fields to western Red Sea terminals. ♦️A VLCC oil tanker was...
Indonesia’s high‑pressure acid leach (HPAL) plants that produce nickel pig iron (NPI) saw output plunge more than 67% in mid‑February after a processing‑waste landslide disrupted operations near the Morowali Industrial Park. Satellite‑based monitoring by Navigate Commodities shows ore flows rebounding...
Tantalite prices have surged to $200‑$210 per pound, the highest level in over twenty years, after a landslide shut the Rubaya mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC, which supplied more than half of global tantalum output in...
The Pentagon warned that the United States remains 95% dependent on China for rare‑earth minerals, a vulnerability that threatens national‑security supply chains. In response, the Defense Department has pledged over a billion dollars in direct investments and secured billions in...
Novelis commissions bag houses at UK plant to support an 85,000 t/yr recycling expansion before UK DRS. https://www.metalnomist.com/2026/03/novelis-commissions-bag-houses-at-uk.html
Nova Minerals has received its first batch of mining and processing equipment at the Estelle project in Alaska, marking a major milestone toward US antimony production. About 95% of the major equipment has been delivered, with roughly 70% already en...
US-Chile critical minerals talks open to secure copper, lithium, and rare earth supply chains. https://www.metalnomist.com/2026/03/us-chile-critical-minerals-talks-kick.html
This is a rare Russian LNG shipment going through the Red Sea to Southeast Asia. Why is it rare? Because neither the LNG nor the carrier is sanctioned, and most likely it is not going to China. All previous...
💥 We lost about 32% of world traded crude oil supplies. 💥 Rerouting and SPR may cover up to 40% of it AT BEST. Anyone who thinks the rest of the oil industry can stretch its production to cover the GAP knows...
One interesting topic that needs more work: China's push on sodium-ion batteries and whether this is actually more innovation or their acceptance of contraction on their critical minerals dominance (it's more the latter, but anyone can debate me after they've...
President Trump will get his $50 oil price wish before the elections— but only after triggering a global recession. Or: End the war this week and keep flooding the market with SPR releases in the coming months.
Copper Giant $CGNT.v strong infill results at Mocoa porphyry in colombia 257m @ 0.63% CuEq incl. 191m @ 0.72% CuEq from hole MD-057. Beats current 1.1B t inferred resource model. Higher grades at depth along southern margin. @Cu_Giant
Can we get through 2026 with crude and gold volatility not trickling up to stocks? https://t.co/owCVec57DY
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the US government has NOT intervened in the oil derivatives market
Not much progress at Perth Mint on silver, I see. Only 1oz bullion coins available. https://t.co/5dJdMKZcbF
Somewhere in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin is rubbing his hands. India is paying ~$99 a barrel for Russian crude Urals (including shipping costs). And since the US eased its sanctions on Russian crude, it's all legal.
Iran War Energy Crisis: How Long Will India Stay Exposed to Global Insta... https://t.co/JcyDp1BD9k via @YouTube
