Lithium sinks to five-month low amid 2027 glut fears
Lithium futures in China sank to a five-month low on Tuesday as expectations that a wave of restarted mines will tip the market back into oversupply next year overshadowed strong…
Articles by Frik Els
Copper price nearing US record as premium doubles, Shanghai stockpiles drop 82%
Copper surged to its highest in more than a month on Tuesday as evidence of a tightening physical market in China piled up and traders rebuilt bets that Washington will…
Acid test: IEA warns copper supply outlook has “worsened considerably”
Copper’s sulphuric acid market has been thrown into chaos by the Middle East conflict and Beijing’s export ban, according to the International Energy Agency, which warns the metal faces “a…
BMI hikes copper price forecast 6.7% on supply deficits
Industry research firm BMI lifted its 2026 average copper price forecast by 6.7% to $12,700 per tonne, citing converging supply-side pressures, tariff-driven tightness and AI-fuelled optimism.Copper trading in New York…
CHART: Copper price surge mints 23 unicorn mines
Tech venture capitalists invest in startups and get to call them unicorns. The official definition of a unicorn is a startup with a $1 billion valuation while still a private company. There are 1,765 unicorns globally, past…
CHART: First Quantum’s Peru project joins copper giants
First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) has outlined the La Granja project it holds with Rio Tinto (ASX. LSE, NYSE: RIO) in Peru as one of the copper sector’s largest undeveloped…
BHP now expects nearly 2M tonnes copper production after record Escondida throughput
BHP (NYSE, LSE, ASX: BHP) reinforced confidence in its fiscal 2026 outlook on Wednesday, with solid copper and iron ore performance underpinning expectations that production targets will be met. In…
Top 50 mining companies power through Iran war – up $250 billion in 2026
At the end of the first quarter the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners had a combined market capitalization of $2.41 trillion, up $250 billion so…
RANKED: Top 20 automakers by battery metals spending
The global passenger EV market, including plug-in and conventional hybrids, fell short of 30 million units last year, but still showed robust growth of 18% year over year. In combined…
CHART: EV battery metals index jumps to 27-month high
December’s raw materials bill for global electric vehicles topped $2 billion for the first time since August 2023 and surging lithium, nickel prices going into 2026 puts battery metals slump…
Copper price dips as smelting activity hits decade low
After rallying through 2025 (not without some deep troughs) and into this year driven by supply disruptions in Indonesia and South America alongside tariff disruptions, copper prices are pulling back…
CHARTS: Global mining is now a brownfield industry
The dearth of new greenfield mines – particularly copper – has been a problem for the industry for decades. A new study by the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute…