February 12th, 2025 - The Mine Wire

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METALS MARKET

🇬🇧 The Bank of England cut interest rates by a quarter point bringing rates down to 4.5%, which is still quite high relative to other western peers. 🇺🇸 The United States Federal Reserve continues with its cautious tone as Chairman Powell told Congress yesterday that there is no rush to lower rates given the strong economy. President Trump has been vocal about his desire to have rates lowered quickly, so expect this one to heat up publicly.

🇮🇳 Last Friday, The Reserve Bank of India cut its key interest rate for the first time in nearly five years, lowering rates by 25 basis points to 6.25%. The country saw slower growth this past year and with easing inflation, the decrease is expected to help growth recover.

🇻🇳 Data shows that Vietnam imported 31% more thermal coal in 2024 to help power its economic growth. The southeast nation imported 44m metric tons while the rest of the world only increased its exports by 1% (1.01bn metric tons). (Reuters)

**For our chart above we are taking prices from Tuesday 4pm EST to Tuesday 4pm EST, so not the typical week of Monday through Friday.

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KEEPING AN EYE ON GOVERNMENT DECISIONS

Here are some of the notable government policy moves this week:

  • 🇺🇸 President Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports "without exceptions or exemptions". The move will impact countries like Canada, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and other countries that were exempt under free trade agreements. The President said he would give “great consideration” to Australia’s request to be exempt since the United States actually has a trade surplus with the island nation. In terms of aluminum, 80% of U.S. imports come from Canada. A majority of the aluminum production is in Quebec where abundant cheap hydropower is leveraged in the energy intensive smelting process. With cars, chips and pharmaceuticals up next, buckle up as it may be a rocky 2025. (Reuters)

  • 🇨🇦 Not surprisingly, tariffs continue to dominate the global news as nations wait to see if they’ll be in President Trump’s crosshairs. One silver lining, if you can call it that, is that some governments like those in Canada are finally feeling a sense of urgency to make projects happen. In British Columbia, the provincial government said it will look to fast-track 18 projects, including 4 mines which include: Eskay Creek Gold + Silver (Skeena Gold + Silver), Highland Valley Copper Expansion (Teck Resources), Red Chris Expansion (Newcrest Mining), and Mount Milligan Copper and Gold (Centerra Gold). A good start, but let’s hope this is a wake-up call for politicians and leads to action on lengthy regulatory processes and approval timelines. (Financial Post)

  • 🇨🇦 The Manitoba government is investing $36.4m over two years to the Arctic Gateway Group for capital infrastructure projects at the Port of Churchill that will expand international trade. In August 2024, AGG and Hudbay Minerals Inc. piloted a successful 10,000-tonne zinc concentrate export shipment through the port, establishing Churchill as a northern trade critical minerals supply route. The Canadian government is also kicking in over $43m towards the project and to support indigenous communities in the region. (Manitoba Government) & (Canada Government)

  • 🇨🇦 The Canadian government also handed out $39.8m in conditionally approved investments, pending final due diligence, under the Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund for six energy and transportation infrastructure projects to support critical minerals development: $20m for Critical Elements Lithium Corporation, $1.1m for Dumont Nickel, $1.3m for Sayona Nord Inc., $13.5m for Eskan Company, $1.3m for Cbay Minerals Inc and $2.6m for Commerce Resources. Congratulations to all of the companies involved. (Canada Government)

  • 🇺🇸 Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California, during a Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearing last week, said the nation’s mining law from 1872 is “ancient” and lacks any requirement for companies to pay royalties for mining on public lands. He encouraged Elon Musk & “his tech bros” to take a look at changing this in order to generate revenue instead rummaging through personal tax records and so forth. Our advice don’t use the word tech bros if you want someone to take your suggestion seriously. (E&ENews)

  • 🇺🇸 U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber of Minnesota reintroduced his Superior National Forest Restoration Act, legislation to overturn the Biden administration’s mineral withdrawal of 225,504 acres in the Superior National Forest, restore long-held mineral leases, and ensure timely reviews of Mine Plans of Operation. (Congressman Pete Stauber)

  • 🇦🇺 With support from the Greens, the Australian Labor government passed their critical minerals tax incentives bill in parliament on Monday. The Greens supported the legislation after securing an amendment to prevent funding for uranium mining. The opposition had said, "Labor's tax credits come with additional and unnecessary red and green tape" and therefore, they wouldn’t support the bill as structured. No doubt, the Albanese Labor government will use these incentives to try and lure voters in the upcoming May election. Current polling suggests that the election is up for grabs so we will have more coverage on parties and their platforms and what to expect as we near the election period. (Reuters)

  • 🇳🇿 New Zealand’s Resources Minister Shane Jones said that his government is rethinking New Zealand’s opposition to deep-sea mining. New Zealand backed a ban on deep-sea mining under former progressive Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 2022, citing the risk of "irreversible" damage in poorly understood ecosystems. Jones said, "We can't deny ourselves the option where critical minerals have an increasingly critical role to play… We can't afford these luxury beliefs that have been imposed upon us." In the region both Nauru and Tonga are pushing for deep-sea mining in international waters, while Palau, Samoa and Fiji are staunchly opposed. (France24)

  • 🇲🇱 It looks like Mali’s gold production dropped 23% in 2024, falling from 66.5 tons in 2023 to 51 tons last year. Wow, who would have thunk it? You mean threatening, arresting, blocking exports and forcing new agreements doesn’t help you increase production? Shocker! Hopefully things get sorted out before its too late. (Reuters)

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MINING MATTERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Source: Ma’aden

  • 🇸🇦 Congratulations to Ma’aden which had no issue raising US$1.25bn through the issuance of two types of Sukuks (Sharia-compliant bond). The company reported that the offering was more than 9.2 times oversubscribed, with orders exceeding US$11.5bn. Maybe we should start publishing The Mine Wire in Arabic as well? (Ma’aden)

  • 🌍 Meanwhile S&P Global reported that funds raised by junior & intermediate producers in 2024 fell 12% to $10.27bn, the lowest since 2019. And while we understand that the risk profiles are quite different, Ma’aden had more money offered for its Sukuks than this group got financing in 2024. (S&P Global)

  • 🇦🇺 Australia's Global Lithium Resources (ASX: GL1) has asked the government to intervene in what it believes is a covert takeover attempt by Chinese investors. Back in November, Global Lithium said, "The concerns include the potential for transfer of effective control of Global Lithium’s 100% owned Manna Lithium Project...without a control transaction taking place or premium being paid." Talk about being between a rock and a hard place - on one hand Australia wants to stay close to the U.S. on security but it also doesn’t want to piss off it's largest customer China or so we assume. (Reuters) 

  • 🇺🇸 🇿🇦 ReElement Technologies announced a partnership with South African Novare to develop integrated refining facilities across Africa through an investment of USD$100m. The partnership would see the first critical and rare earth element refining facility on the continent. Well, we are rooting for both companies and look forward to seeing more about this development in 2025. (EINPresswire)

  • 🇸🇪 Swedish miner Boliden's stock is up almost 12% since earnings last week. The company’s operating profit increased to 3.81bn crowns (USD$348.8mn) from 2.02bn crowns a year earlier, beating expectations. The miner also announced that it wouldn’t pay a dividend for 2024 in order to reduce the new share issuance associated with the acquisitions of the Neves-Corvo and Zinkgruvan mines from Lundin Mining. The CEO said this was the preferred route of shareholders they heard from. (Reuters)

  • 🇨🇦 First Quantum reported its Q4 results yesterday evening. The miner had a gross profit of $405m, net earnings of $99m ($0.12 earnings per share) and adjusted earnings of $31m ($0.04 adjusted earnings per share). We will be watching this one today as it seemed to perform better than consensus. (First Quantum)

  • 🇮🇳 🇷🇺 Indian state-owned iron-ore miner NMDC reported a 30% year-on-year rise in profit to 19.44 billion rupees ($222m) for Q4. Meanwhile, Russia’s Nornickel saw it’s 2024 revenue fall by 13% to $12.5bn while it’s net profit fell 37% to $1.8bn. "Sanctions and restrictions as well as falling prices of our key metals continued to weigh on our revenue, profitability and ability to generate cash flow," said Nornickel's President Vladimir Potanin.

MINING BITS

  • 🇺🇸 In what could be an advocacy trend related to seabed mining, U.S. based First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) has agreed to refrain from using minerals mined from the sea, "until scientific findings are sufficient to assess the environmental risks of this potentially devastating new mining process." We wouldn’t be surprised to see more and more of these announcements as environmental groups target the end users of these minerals and their customers. (Reuters)

  • 🇬🇧 🇲🇺 We really enjoy this perspective on the Chagos archipelago, The United Kingdom and Mauritius. The Chagos islands have been under British rule since 1814 and while Mauritius was given independence in 1968, these islands have remained under British control. Well Mauritius has claimed sovereignty over the islands some 2,100 kms away (roughly Toronto to Orlando, London to Gibraltar or Sydney to Cairns) and that has irked some Brits who feel the current deal is unfair. The author makes some suggestions on how to move forward. Most interesting to us? The suggestion to give over control of the island of Diego Garcia to the United States who currently have an air bomber base there - we think this could earn the United Kingdom some brownie points with President Trump. Further, given that the island was discovered by a Portuguese explorer in 1512 and was uninhabited until Europeans used it, is their a traditional owner? What do you think? (The Geopolitics)

  • 🌏 The IEA takes a look at 4 critical minerals (Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel & Graphite) and posits that the large concentration of production in the top 3 country producers could lead to significant risks in the coming decade. For example, “Some 75% of planned projects for refined lithium, nickel and cobalt, and over 90% for battery-grade graphite projects, are being developed in today’s top three producers.” This means that global supply chains are highly vulnerable to supply shocks whether from extreme weather, trade disruptions or geopolitics. In laymen’s terms, if China were to put export controls on these minerals in the coming decade, they could have significant cost implications on EV’s, batteries and a host of other products. Definitely worth a read and certainly highlights the importance for western governments to invest in domestic projects that target the above. (IEA)

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