July 2nd, 2025 - The Mine Wire

METALS MARKET

Platinum continued its gain again this past week and is up 27.67% this past month. Palladium (12.97%), Tin (9.79%) and Uranium (9.53%) are the other strong performers this past month. So far in 2025, Platinum (51.54%) and Cobalt (37.18%) are leading the pack with other strong performers in the 20’s (Gold, Silver, Copper & Palladium).

^{**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.}

KEEPING AN EYE ON GOVERNMENT DECISIONS

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

• 🇺🇸 The United States Senate managed to pass the President’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” with a 50-50 vote split that allowed Vice President Vance to cast the tie-breaking vote. We didn’t read the entire 887 page bill document but as it relates to mining, the big winner from this bill passing seems to be metallurgical coal. Miners will be able to claim an advanced manufacturing production tax credit, available for critical minerals, that would pay 2.5% of costs. The bill will now go back to the house for final approval. (Reuters)

• 🇺🇸 U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced that he is renewing the charter for the National Coal Council (NCC), a Federal Advisory Committee that was terminated under the previous administration. The principal activity of the NCC is to prepare reports and give advice to the Secretary of Energy. The U.S. Department of Energy will now begin the process of selecting and vetting prospective members of the committee. Let the jockeying begin! (U.S. DOE)

• 🇺🇸 The U.S. Department of the Interior announced $725m for the fiscal year 2025 to clean up abandoned coal mines and restore opportunity in America’s historic coal communities. Pennsylvania ($244.8m), West Virginia ($140.7m), Illinois ($75.7m), Kentucky ($74.2m) and Ohio ($46.4m) were the top awardees of the 22 states and Navajo nation receiving funding. (U.S. DOI)

• 🇺🇸 The Department of the Interior also announced new policy steps to speed up the search and development of critical minerals offshore. For early-stage exploration, or prospecting, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will apply existing streamlined environmental reviews whenever appropriate. It also plans to extend the duration of prospecting permits from three to five years, giving companies more time to complete their work without unnecessary interruptions. (U.S. DOI)

• 🇺🇸 The U.S. Department of Energy issued a Request for Information seeking public input from industry, academia, research laboratories, government agencies, Tribes, and other stakeholders to inform DOE’s 2026 Energy Critical Materials Assessment. Responses to the RFI must be received by July 25, 2025. Responses are not required for all categories or questions. Definitely check this one out if you are based in the United States or have relevant projects. (U.S. DOE)

• 🇦🇺 Australia’s Department of Industry, Science & Resources published its resources and energy quarterly for June 2025. The report forecasts a reduction over the next few years in Australia’s resource exports due to rising trade barriers and slowing economic growth. From an estimated $385bn in 2024–25, resource and energy export earnings are now forecast to fall to $369bn in 2025–26 and $352bn in 2026–27. (DISR REPORT)

• 🇨🇱 Chile's congress approved long-awaited legislation to speed up the permitting process for investment projects in the country. Economy Minister Nicolas Grau said, "This will allow us to substantially reduce permitting times, reducing processing times between 30% and 70%, and we'll do it without reducing regulatory standards." (Reuters)

• 🇬🇦 Gabon has signed a $3.8bn memorandum of understanding with the African Export-Import Bank to fund major national development projects across mining, energy, and transport sectors.

• 🇮🇳 🇿🇲 India has apparently sent a team of geologists to Zambia to explore copper and cobalt deposits. The Zambian government agreed earlier this year to allocate 9,000 square km (3,475 square miles) to India for the exploration of cobalt and copper.

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MINING MATTERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

• 🇵🇰 Congratulations to Komatsu, which landed a $440m deal to supply primary mining equipment to Barrick’s Reko Dig copper-gold project in Pakistan. The deal marks Komatsu’s first major mining equipment placement in its Middle East territory. The order includes haul trucks, electric rope shovels, mining excavators and electric wheel loaders. The excavators are manufactured in Germany with the rest of the equipment manufactured in the United States. (Komatsu)

• 🇦🇺 Thiess scored a A$2.3bn contract extension over three years at Jellinbah Group’s Lake Vermont coal mine in Australia. Barminco also snatched up a three year contract, worth A$200m, from Westgold Resources for underground mining services at the Great Fingall project, in Western Australia.

• 🇦🇺 Energy Fuels (TSX: EFR) announced that the Government of Victoria, Australia approved the Work Plan for the construction and operation of the Donald Rare Earth and Mineral Sand Project, a joint venture with Australia-based Astron Corporation Ltd. (ASX: ATR). Mark S. Chalmers, President and CEO of Energy Fuels stated: "The Work Plan approval for the Donald Project is significant as it moves us one step closer to creating an important link between the United States and Australia on rare earths and critical minerals. We believe the Donald Project is exceptional, as it contains large quantities of the 'light', 'mid' and 'heavy' rare earth oxides needed for a variety of commercial, clean energy and defense technologies. Energy Fuels plans to import the rare earth minerals from the Donald Project into the USA, where we will process them into separated oxides at our Mill in Utah for domestic and other customers." Sounds like a winner to us, but full disclosure, we hold Energy Fuels in our own portfolio and are not providing investment advice! But we like it, we like it a lot. (Energy Fuels)

• 🇦🇺 EQ Resources (ASX: EQR) received a Letter of Interest from EXIM that states it is able to consider a 10-year debt facility of up to US$34 million for the capital expansion and further development of the Mt Carbine Tungsten Mine. The market liked the news and the junior miner is up 40% in the past 5 days. Anyone at EXIM want us to help draft communications? No special reason, we promise. (EQ Resources)

• 🇨🇳 China’s EACON Mining Technology secured over US$55M in Series D funding to accelerate its global expansion. The company delivers turnkey autonomous haulage solutions designed to optimize surface mining operations. The round was led by CATL and included a host of other Chinese firms. (CISION)

• 🇨🇳 🇰🇿 In other Chinese mining news, Zijin Mining landed a deal to purchase the Raygorodok Gold Mine in Kazakhstan for $1.2bn. The mine and it’s processing facilities are currently held by Kazakhstan’s RG Gold LLP and RG Processing LLP. (Reuters)

• 🇮🇳 Indian state-owned miner NMDC said it is exploring acquisition opportunities for critical minerals in Africa, Australia and South America, as part of its global mineral diversification strategy. It has opened an office in Dubai and is looking at Africa for lithium, iron ore, copper and cobalt as well as exploring coking coal assets in Indonesia and Australia. (Reuters)

• 🇨🇱 The world’s second largest lithium miner, Chile’s SQM, announced that it will lay off 5% of its workforce in Chile as lithium prices continue to slump.

• 🇨🇦 Victoria Gold’s Eagle Gold mine is officially for sale after an Ontario court approved the mine receivers application to start the sales process. PWC, the receiver, will accept letters of intent until August 6th, and then will ask qualified bidders to file their offer before October 15th. As part of the process, applicants will need to meet with the Yukon government and the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun. According to CBC, the Yukon government has lent up to $220m to PWC as of March. There are also a number of secured creditors owed more than $173m. Another $82.7m is owed to hundreds of businesses with unsecured debt. That is $475.7m in debt by our count. The mine was valued at $824m when the heap leap failure occurred. Could there be a deal to be had? (CBC)

MINING BITS

• 🌍 The World Bank published a report titled - Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations: Intertwined Crises, Multiple Vulnerabilities. These 39 economies are characterized by deep-seated challenges including weak institutions and armed conflict, and they face difficulties in delivering basic services, particularly healthcare. Many of these countries are also heavily reliant on commodity exports and are vulnerable to climate-related disasters. The report also takes a look at 5 countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Nepal, Rwanda and Sri Lanka) to show that targeted policies and sustained international support can help FCS countries move forward. Certainly an interesting read for anyone with or considering projects in some of these challenging geographies. (World Bank)

• 🇰🇭 Speaking of the 5 countries on the up and up, we liked this briefing on the potential of Cambodia. With know bauxite, iron ore and gold reserves, the government offers 100% foreign ownership and a host of other incentives to attract mining investment. The biggest downside in Cambodia seems to be the lack of infrastructure which includes grid, road, rail and port infrastructure. Still, Emerald Resources (ASX: EMR) Okvau gold mine produced 114,076 ounces in 2024. (ASEAN Briefing)

• 🇺🇸 Researchers take a look at U.S. industry practices and attitudes towards reprocessing mine tailings for metal recovery. Despite the large volume of tailings and widespread enthusiasm for tailings reprocessing, there are relatively few sites where tailings have been systematically reprocessed to recover metals. The study uses three methods to examine the state of practice and identify knowledge gaps around tailings reprocessing: 1) a survey of Qualified Persons; 2) a review of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings; and 3) a review of the scholarly literature on tailings reprocessing. (ScienceDirect)

• 🇨🇦 In other research news CNN takes a look at work published in Science on the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec. Here, researchers believe they’ve found the oldest rocks on earth — some 4.16 billion years old. Other research groups have dated this belt to be around 3.75 billion years old. Does it really make a difference? Well apparently it does since the oldest rocks in the world are dated at 4.03 billion years old. They are from the Acasta Gneiss Complex, a group of rocks exposed along a riverbank nearly 200 miles (300 kilometers) north of Yellowknife, in northwestern Canada. (CNN)

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