I have XME heading down today and lots of red on other metals including silver stocks with gold mostly green today. TXBM & PICK another one to look at, also heading south. PS: I'm not bearish on metals atm, but they are softening up very recently along with the broader mkt.
ATM I'm overweight gold regretfully, own a couple silver positions, hold one Lithium position, that's it on metals. I'm not bullish metals atm, haven't seen any much interest in copper so didn't buy into that. Uranium is hot recently but on ASX they're all penny stocks so can't be bothered buying. All in all, metals are mediocre, as murray turtle mentioned there are better sectors to choose. Hydrogen is a new theme cropping up, but a bit speculative atm, most listed companies are just making statements about intentions and are not actually building or operating so much. Saudi Arabia will be a big competitor and I think hydrogen will only pop briefly and become another 'Natural Gas' (disaster).
The World Will Need 10 Million Tons More Copper to Meet Demand By James Attwood 20 March 2021 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ed-10-million-tons-more-copper-to-meet-demand Supply gap looms as mines become trickier and pricier to build BI analysts warn of possible dearth of mine projects from 2025 Processing facilities at Freeport McMoRan Inc.’s Grasberg mine complex in Indonesia. Photographer: Dadang Tri/Bloomberg Within a decade, the world may face a massive shortfall of what’s arguably the most critical metal for global economies: copper. The copper industry needs to spend upwards of $100 billion to close what could be an annual supply deficit of 4.7 million metric tons by 2030 as the clean power and transport sectors take off, according to estimates from CRU Group. The potential shortfall could reach 10 million tons if no mines get built, according to commodities trader Trafigura Group. Closing such a gap would require building the equivalent of eight projects the size of BHP Group’s giant Escondida in Chile, the world’s largest copper mine. Used in everything from wiring and pipes to batteries and motors, copper is both an economic bellwether and a key ingredient in the push toward renewable power and electric vehicles. If producers fail to address the deficit, prices will keep rising and present a challenge to the Biden administration and other world leaders counting on a worldwide energy transition to fight climate change. Higher copper prices may lead to more recycling and substitution with cheaper alternatives such as aluminum, which could ease shortfalls. To be sure, copper projects are in the pipeline. But producers are wary of repeating oversupply mistakes of past cycles by accelerating plans at a time that mines are getting a lot trickier and pricier to build -- one reason why copper prices are near decade highs at above $4 a pound. “Increasing technical complexity and approval delays could lead to a dearth of shovel-ready projects in 2025-30,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Grant Sporre and Andrew Cosgrove wrote this week in a report. New projects are being developed that may ease copper deficits between 2022 and 2025, according to the BI analysts. Stronger-for-longer prices should make some costlier projects more profitable, while expansions of existing operations normally mean less onerous approval processes than new sites. Still, there’s also considerable execution risk, the BI analysts wrote, particularly in the 2022-23 period. All eyes are on Indonesia this year, where Freeport-McMoRan Inc. is developing its underground mine at Grasberg. The ramp-up, which has been slower than expected, is set to be done by year end, easing global supplies that have been disrupted by the pandemic. Behind Grasberg is the Kamoa-Kakula project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s scheduled to come online in July, according to co-owner Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. What Bloomberg Intelligence Says “After China’s State Reserve Bureau mopped up all of the excess copper from 2020’s Covid-19 slowdown, the market now looks fundamentally tight, with our analysis pointing to at least two years of deficits. With these shortages, alongside investor interest in copper’s decarbonization credentials, we think a price above $8,500 a ton is well supported.” Anglo American Plc’s Quellaveco project in Peru may start producing next year as long as community relations don’t sour, as they have done elsewhere from time to time in the South American country. Southern Copper Corp., which wants to tap more of the industry’s biggest reserves to almost double output by 2028. A chunk of next decade’s new supply could come from the Reko Diq deposit in Pakistan, which has been fraught with political and legal uncertainties, as well as Tampakan in the Philippines. Companies are having to engage communities and governments much earlier in project development these days given rising social and environmental awareness and expectations. Partly as a result, the average lead time from first discovery to first metal has increased by four years from previous cycles to almost 14 years, according to BI. “Ironically, a keener focus on the environmental impact of mining activities has left the industry unable to respond quickly to market deficits through new supply, despite the price being well above an incentive price,” Sporre and Cosgrove wrote. The irony isn’t likely lost on the top brass of the world’s biggest copper producers. Freeport Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson told an industry gathering last week that even if copper soared to $10 a pound tomorrow, it would take his company seven or eight years to get new production to the market. — With assistance by Andy Hoffman
%% I seldom follow any meatal$ except silver; I DO WATCH cash copper, but seldom trade any metal. I did buy FCX in [copper king miner] teens when Carl Ichan was buying it/back when i bought single stocks.....................................................................................................NOT much of a diVidend on FCX.
There's booms and busts in metals, in general most metals appear mkt correlated. Western Australia where I live has probably the greatest concentration of mines in the world and there's a huge number of listed stocks from this region, gold, iron ore primarily, but also mineral sands, aluminium. Diamonds once were mined here but the mines have become depleted, unprofitable, difficult due to constant de-watering (heavy rainfall area). Then we also have plentiful oil and gas. Queensland has lots of coal, also NSW. Tasmania has Tin, Northern Territory has manganese, zinc, uranium. South Australia has copper. Victoria has oil and gold. The beauty of Australia is the risk factors as against for example; Africa, NewGuinea, Indonesia, Asia, Russia, Mongolia, South America. North America and Canada being the exceptions, Europe has only a small amount of mines imo. So where I live, plenty of mining news gets bandied about.
I got stopped out of my Platinum position today. I don't see good things ahead for it. That was the only precious metal that had anything behind it... The complex is dead money right now.
Like this.... MARCH 25, 2021 15 HOURS AGO Sundance refers iron ore dispute with Congo Republic to arbitration By Reuters Staff DAKAR (Reuters) - Australia’s Sundance Resources said on Thursday it had referred its dispute with Congo Republic over the Nabeba iron ore project to arbitration in London, where it is seeking $8.76 billion in damages. Congo’s government revoked Sundance affiliate Congo Iron’s permit in December and awarded it to a little known company backed by Chinese investment. It accused Sundance of making insufficient progress developing the mine and failing to pay royalties, which the company denies.....
China flat steelmakers set to cash in on manufacturing boom Min Zhang and Gavin Maguire Mar 31, 2021 Beijing | China’s top flat steel producers are primed for profit from a post-COVID-19 recovery in global manufacturing and goods demand in 2021, as well as from an emissions-cutting drive that will likely knock out high-cost competitors, sector analysts said. Prices for hot rolled coil (HRC) - flat steel rolled at high temperatures for use in cars, home appliances and machinery - have climbed 50 per cent in the past six months as China’s manufacturers cranked to life after coronavirus lockdowns were lifted in mid-2020. A crane moves a steel roll. Bloomberg Steel demand from manufacturing is improving significantly and the ferrous sector will have the biggest supply shortage since 2017, when supply-side reforms slashed steel mill capacities, analysts with CITIC Securities said in a note. “Profits earned by steel firms are likely to hit a record this year,” said CITIC Securities........ https://www.afr.com/markets/commodi...cash-in-on-manufacturing-boom-20210331-p57ffl
Higher Chinese imports herald coming copper scrap surge Andy Home Mar 31, 2021 London | China’s imports of copper scrap surged over the first two months of 2021, jumping by 60 per cent year-on-year to 191,720 tonnes. A new import regime reclassifying scrap as a “resource” came into effect last November, removing high-grade copper recyclables from the list of “solid wastes” that are now banned. Citi, which is calling for a “copper supercycle”, is not convinced scrap availability can expand enough to fill its forecast 500,000-tonne supply deficit this year. Bloomberg China has historically been the world’s largest buyer of copper scrap but imports seemed in danger of disappearing altogether as the country’s customs department steadily tightened purity thresholds for metallic waste over 2018-2020. The new customs codes should see import volumes recover, reducing the country’s need for copper in refined form this year. Volumes will also recover because copper’s remarkable one-year rally will stimulate movement of the global scrap pool. Just how much scrap flows down the supply chain in response to higher prices will determine the timing and degree of tightness in the global refined copper market. Business as usual? China’s copper scrap imports have averaged 103,000 bulk tonnes per month in the last three months, up from 76,000 tonnes in the three-month period before November’s customs code changes. Delays to the new system - it was supposed to be rolled out in July last year - and ongoing teething problems are likely to restrain imports over the short term. So too will the combination of disruption to the shipping sector over the past year and the specific issues around container traffic to China. That said, the new import tolerances are broader than many expected and China’s metals recycling body has just authorised another 26 foreign suppliers to supply copper scrap to the country. That suggests that imports should continue accelerating over the course of this year, but the international scrap trade is unlikely to simply snap back to where it was before China started closing the door in 2018. Outright volumes won’t return to the previous peaks in the early part of the last decade, when China imported over four million tonnes of copper scrap each year. Much of that volume was inflated by lower-grade material which cannot now enter the country even under the new customs codes. Moreover, trade flows have changed shape over the past couple of years with lower-grade scrap transiting through Malaysia, where it is sorted and upgraded to higher-quality material or copper ingots before onwards shipment to China. Malaysia is now China’s largest supplier of copper scrap, accounting for 18 per cent of total imports last year. The United States, once the dominant supplier to China, accounted for just 11 per cent. The country shipped more copper scrap to Malaysia than China last year. China has in effect off-shored its lower-grade copper scrap business and the Malaysian upgrade hub looks to be here to stay. Changing the balance Copper scrap has been a key part of China’s supply picture for many years, which is why the country’s copper sector pushed back hard and ultimately successfully against a complete import ban. When imports drop, it reduces both the amount of secondary refined production and the amount of “direct-melt” material used by product manufacturers, forcing buyers to turn to refined metal. Several factors have combined to drive China’s red-hot imports of refined metal, which rose by 1.1 million tonnes to a record 4.7 million tonnes last year. A strong post-coronavirus rebound in manufacturing activity, an associated restocking of the supply chain and strategic purchases by state agencies have all played a part. So too has a shortage of scrap with total Chinese imports slumping by another 37 per cent to 943,000 tonnes last year. Any offset from higher-purity levels was already largely spent in 2019 as all but the highest-content scrap was blocked. Thus, the 550,000-tonne year-on-year decline in bulk volume imports translated into a significant supply shock for China’s copper industry. Conversely, as copper scrap imports now pick up momentum, the displacement effect on the refined market should diminish. Scrap wave This relationship between scrap availability and the pull on refined copper is not just a Chinese but a global phenomenon. Recycled copper, whether fed directly into products or processed at a refinery, accounts for around 30 per cent of global copper usage each year. The more lower-priced scrap is available, the less the amount of virgin metal needed to balance the market. A 1 per cent rise in global scrap penetration is equivalent to around 300,000 tonnes of primary metal, according to Morgan Stanley. (“Copper and Renewables”, March 23, 2021) The single biggest driver of scrap availability is price. Higher prices incentivise the collection and processing of end-of-life scrap. Global scrap volumes for refining into new metal jumped by 20 per cent in 2006, a year when the copper price almost doubled, according to the International Copper Study Group. They continued growing over copper’s boom years and surged by another 25 per cent between 2010 and 2012, when the price peaked out. Copper’s price slide over the middle of the decade translated into a 10 per cent decline in volumes by 2016, according to the group. History suggests that a new scrap surge is imminent, given London Metal Exchange copper has more than doubled in price since last March’s COVID-19 low point of $US4371 per tonne. For analysts such as Morgan Stanley this is a reason for caution about copper’s prospects over the course of 2021. The bank has a fourth-quarter forecast of $US8488 per tonne, below the current LME price of $US8780. Citi, which is calling for a “copper supercycle”, is not convinced scrap availability can expand enough to fill its forecast 500,000-tonne supply deficit this year. The bank looks at seven scenarios of potential scrap availability based on previous patterns and concludes that only one - a repeat of 2012 - would generate enough material to fill the gap. (“Supercycle sunrise - Part III”, March 23, 2021) “We think this is a stretch and is not likely to occur as quickly as the market needs, given logistical constraints and the fact we find that there tends to be an eight-month lag between price strength and copper scrap export increases,” Citi argues. The paucity of data on the scrap sector means that the numbers are inevitably ambiguous and so too is any calculation of the follow-through impact on the refined copper market. But be in no doubt that scrap, one of the copper market’s most powerful balancing mechanisms, is about to have a revival. Just how strong will determine the copper market landscape over the coming months. Reuters https://www.afr.com/markets/commodi...-copper-scrap-surge-andy-home-20210331-p57ffi