China’s mega dam unleashes ‘flurry’ of bullish iron ore trades Alex Gluyas Markets reporter Jul 22, 2025 https://www.afr.com/markets/commodi...urry-of-fresh-iron-ore-trades-20250722-p5mgsv China’s plan to build a mega dam in Tibet has revived hopes that Beijing is targeting steel-intensive projects to drive growth, triggering a spike in iron ore trades as the market positions for more stimulus measures in the weeks ahead. As Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced the country was proceeding with a 1.2 trillion yuan ($256.2 billion) hydroelectric project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, futures in Singapore jumped as much as 4 per cent on Monday to a four-month high of $US104 a tonne. A decommissioned steel mill at Shougang Park. China is hoping to bolster unprofitable mills by cracking down on excess production. Bloomberg Barrenjoey’s commodity desk has reported a “flurry of fresh trades” that centred around medium-grade iron ore fines, which are a crucial component in the steel-making process. Futures for reinforcement bar in Shanghai surged to the highest level since March. “Fresh trading activity during the day reflected the bullishness in the market,” said Barrenjoey’s head of resources Glyn Lawcock. “Commencement of the hydropower project was seized by Chinese markets as proof of economic stimulus.” Iron ore futures gained a further 1.5 per cent to $US105.10 a tonne on Tuesday, extending a run of four straight weekly gains that lifted prices more than 11 per cent from their June lows. propelled this month’s rotation into ASX mining stocks, helping lift Rio Tinto another 2.6 per cent to $117.40 on Tuesday. BHP added 2.1 per cent to $41.32 and Fortescue climbed 2.5 per cent to $17.68. Shares in the mining giants are up more than 15 per cent each over the past month. Comparative performance (%) BHP Rio Tinto Fortescue 29June6July13200246810121416182022 Source: Bloomberg The project “promises to deliver a positive economic boost for construction materials such as concrete and steel”, said ANZ senior commodity strategist Daniel Hynes. “It also triggered hopes that the government is returning to its old handbook of fiscal stimulus measures to support economic growth.” Iron ore markets have burst back to life in recent weeks amid Beijing’s renewed push to curb so-called involution, where intense competition and overcapacity has crushed margins across several industries. The reforms have already shown signs of working – margins at steel mills have jumped to the highest level since September, when authorities unleashed stimulus to ensure China’s economy expanded at its annual target of about 5 per cent. Last year’s measures, which targeted the property sector, equity market and local government debt, sent iron ore prices surging from below $US90 a tonne in September to nearly $US110 a tonne in October. “The lift in China’s steel mill margins in the absence of any substantial stimulus policy underscores how effective China’s anti‑involution campaign has been,” said Commonwealth Bank commodity analyst Vivek Dhar. “When demand lies at the heart of a rise in steel mill margins, the case for higher iron ore prices is undeniable as steel mills look to procure iron ore to boost steel production.” Iron ore price ($US/tonne) Jun 23Jun 26Jun 30Jul 3Jul 7Jul 9Jul 12Jul 16Jul 1892949698100102104106 Source: Bloomberg Iron ore traders are also hopeful that authorities will unveil fresh stimulus at China’s politburo meeting later this month, though CBA said there was less urgency to roll out large-scale policy measures given the economy grew above the government’s 5 per cent target in the first half of the year. “That said, the Politburo meeting may still hint at the government’s appetite for additional stimulus,” said CBA currency strategist Carol Kong. “Further piecemeal policy support is also possible.” Red flags as China stockpiles iron ore Commodity strategists remain concerned about Beijing’s aggressive cuts to steel output, which typically weigh on iron ore demand. Indeed, the country’s steel production contracted by 6.9 per cent in May and 9.2 per cent in June compared to the prior year. Both figures came in well below forecasts by Westpac’s iron ore specialist Robert Rennie, who warned that China has been building up vast stockpiles of iron ore to capitalise on relatively lower prices. “There is no way of knowing when that will stop, though we suspect that once we get closer to first iron ore from Simandou that will be the case,” Rennie said, referring to a massive iron ore project in Guinea. Rio Tinto confirmed last week it had accelerated the start of production from the SimFer mine, which is part of Simandou, to around November. The guidance implies shipments will be 500,000 to 1 million tonnes this year, with supply ramping up over 30 months to full capacity of 60 million tonnes each year. “Once we start to see evidence of that supply, we expect to see prices down to and through $US90,” Rennie said. With Bloomberg
Two towns face jobless wave as miner warns it may halt operations About 17,000 jobs are in jeopardy as Swiss miner Glencore reveals it is considering shutting down two operations. Harrison Christian July 23, 2025 https://www.news.com.au/finance/bus...s/news-story/951e9761fb3ab6161c795c94bbb07376 North Queensland locals have been left on edge as Swiss miner Glencore reveals it is considering shutting down two operations, placing thousands of jobs in jeopardy. The Mount Isa copper smelter and Townsville copper refinery directly employ 550 people, with 500 jobs also threatened at Dyno Nobel’s Phosphate Hill operations, but lobby group Townsville Enterprise estimates 17,000 jobs are connected to the downstream copper assets. Without government assistance, the company will have to place the Mount Isa and Townsville operations into care and maintenance, according to an internal memo to staff from Glencore’s interim chief operating officer on Wednesday morning. Roland Lobegeiger, a field services manager for Isadraulics, which services hydraulic component systems, told news.com.au the move would be a “significant loss” not just for his company, but the town of Mount Isa. “Without it, the town’s not going to be here,” Mr Lobegeiger said. “There are other mines – there would be other work in the area, but would the town recover? It’s hard to say. “It would be a significant change for a lot of businesses, homes, house prices – you name it. “It’s definitely a bit of a dark cloud over the area. Everyone’s still optimistic that they won’t shut it down, but no one knows.” There are fears for the future of Mount Isa if its copper smelter shuts down. A worker at the at the Glencore Copper Smelter in Mount Isa. Picture: NewsWire / Dan Peled Mr Wilson’s internal memo painted a grim picture of the company’s position in North Queensland. “To date Glencore has been absorbing losses hopeful that a viable solution could be found,” he wrote, according to the Townsville Bulletin. “However, we are fast reaching the point at which Glencore cannot continue to absorb these losses. “We need to know in the coming weeks whether there is a viable solution on the table from governments. “Glencore is genuinely disappointed at the prospect of placing the smelter and refinery into care and maintenance if we do not receive adequate government support.” Talks between Glencore and the Queensland and federal governments have yet to reach a solution, with the miner on track to lose billions of dollars from the two operations over the next seven years. Senior Glencore executive Suresh Vadnagra said the company remained open to taxpayers taking a big equity stake in the refinery and smelter. “Time is running out,” Mr Vadnagre told The Australian. “We have been engaging with government for the past five months. “We need to know in the coming weeks whether there is a viable solution on the table from governments or whether we start to planning to transition the copper smelter and refinery into care and maintenance.” Workers at Glencore’s copper smelter in Mount Isa. Picture: Supplied It comes as smelters and refineries are struggling to operate across Australia. The country’s biggest aluminium producer, the Rio Tinto-owned Tomago, has requested billions of dollars from the federal and NSW governments amid high power prices and competition with China. The Labor government has held out the possibility of providing loans and taxpayer funds to prop up Australian smelters. “The truth is, if these facilities didn’t exist, governments would be trying to build them,” Industry Minister Tim Ayres told The Australian Financial Review.
I wrote this before, Australia is a heavily unionized nation, akin to Scandinavian nations more than the UK. Salaries and benefits in the mining industry are significant, no doubt contributing to high inflation in the regions they operate in. Global mining companies measure profitability against their global operations and the industry as a whole, and I suspect Australia is among the costliest. Blaming unions is what I love to do but I'm fully aware that non union corporate jobs are adjusted to compete with union payrolls so everyone is benefiting from union power. The consequences of Glencore's shakedown of state and federal governments to take a share of the payroll burden is essentially socializing their activity while retaining profits. Like its Scandinavian models, Australia should have long ago created a sovereign fund, nationalizing the land, bid out operations to private actors and get a cut of profits. That fund would today rival Norway's sovereign fund and benefited all Australians rather than the industry's narrow ecosystem. If miners cannot be competitive in Australia, they should pull out. The government should take a hard look at the various options they have to become competitive without taxing all Australians to maintain the bloated payrolls of a few.
Copper price collapses by 20% as US excludes refined metal from tariffs Staff Writer | July 30, 2025 Markets USA Copper https://www.mining.com/copper-price-collapses-by-20-as-us-excludes-refined-metal-from-tariffs/ Stock Image. Copper prices collapsed by 20% on Wednesday afternoon after US President Donald Trump excluded the most widely imported form of copper from his planned import tariffs. In its statement, the White House confirmed that the 50% import tariff will only apply to semi-finished products such as copper pipes, wires, rods, sheets and tubes, and to copper-intensive goods like pipe fittings, cables, connectors and electrical components. Copper futures collapsed following the tariff announcement. The most actively traded COMEX copper futures fell by 19.6% to $4.5235/lb. as of 4:15 p.m. ET, the lowest since early May, following the announcement. Prior to that, US copper prices had been trading as high as 28% above the benchmark futures in London, as traders anticipated the tariff would be applied to all refined metal imports. The decision is the latest surprise from Trump to upend the copper market. When the US president first launched a probe into copper tariffs earlier this year, US copper prices skyrocketed relative to the rest of the world and set off a race to ship the metal into US borders to beat the tariffs. Then earlier this month, he triggered another surge in the US copper market with an announcement that the tariff would be 50% — twice what most market participants had been expecting — which sent prices to a new all-time high. Analysts say the move to exclude refined copper — known as cathodes — from the tariffs is likely to further roil global trade flows of the metal. The massive volumes of copper that have been shipped to the US in recent months created a huge stockpile that now may be re-exported. “If cathode is excluded, the arb is over,” said Michael Haigh, head of FIC and Commodity Research at Societe Generale. The market “should approach parity again.” The move to differentiate between refined metal and semi-processed products in the tariff policy follows lobbying from the copper industry, with some key players arguing that the US did not have sufficient capacity to replace all of its copper imports immediately. The copper levies will also not stack on top of separate charges on automobile imports, which Trump put in place earlier this year, according to the White House. (With files from Bloomberg)
Mount Isa's underground copper mine ceases production after 70 years By Abbey Halter and Maddie Nixon ABC North West Qld 4 hours ago https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-31/mount-isa-glencore-underground-copper-mine-closed/105585118 Underground copper miners in Mount Isa officially left the shaft for the last time this week. (Supplied: Glencore) The ground usually shakes twice a day in Mount Isa — it has done so for seven decades. But today, the underground blasts won't happen. It's a silence that marks the end of copper mining in one of the richest mineral deposits in the world. The closure of Mount Isa Mines' underground copper operation, owned by Swiss multinational Glencore, has cost close to 500 direct jobs. Mount Isa Mayor Peta MacRae said the mine loomed large in the city. "It is ingrained in our psyche," she said. "I don't think there's any other towns where it is actually built right around the mine." Staff perform final checks before initiating a 1.3-million-tonne mass blast. (Supplied: Barry Merrick/Mount Isa Mines Photographic Collection) Cr MacRae said the reality was yet to set in for many residents. "I think it's going to take a couple of months for us to fully realise the impact of this," she said. "We hear people are slowly moving away and it saddens us when we know that potentially there's still so much opportunity left here." The mine's Urquhart Shaft headframe at the top of the diagram is visible from Mount Isa's CBD. (Supplied: Barry Merrick/Mount Isa Mines Photographic Collection) Earth-shattering alarm clock Historian and archivist Barry Merrick said the blasts felt by residents were caused by the detonation of explosives used to reach valuable metals like copper, zinc and silver. They happened at 8am and 8pm sharp. For residents the blasts were a daily ritual, but for visitors they were often a surprise. The operation advanced mining and processing technologies in the 1990s. (Supplied: Barry Merrick/Mount Isa Mines Photographic Collection) Mount Isa resident Jenelle Robartson said "a huge one" went off one day while backpackers were visiting a local bottle shop. "All the bottles were shaking on the walls clinking together and they both ducked under the counter and put their hands over their heads," she said. "We all kind of had a bit of a giggle but then had to explain it was just the mines." And a former ABC reporter once thought he had stumbled across a big story, after feeling a blast in his hotel during his first night in Mount Isa. 'Boom time' to closure The 1.9-kilometre-deep copper mine has fed the smelter that sits beneath the city's candy-cane-striped smokestack for 70 years. It was Australia's deepest underground copper mine and the country's third-largest producer of copper. About 600 metres underground, a cactus grab is operated from a suspended cabin then raised to the surface. (Supplied: Barry Merrick/Mount Isa Mines Photographic Collection) The mine is so big that if you joined the 900 kilometres of underground tunnels together, you could drive through them from Mount Isa to Townsville. Mr Merrick said the mine was established in 1924, but it was mainly a lead, zinc and silver mine for its first 30 years. He said it wasn't until World War II that the mine temporarily shifted its focus to copper at the request of the federal government to help with the war effort. The firing switch powered the firing lines connected to explosives in the mine. (Supplied: Barry Merrick/Mount Isa Mines Photographic Collection) A surge on global copper demand in 1953 led the Mount Isa Mines to launch a dual-stream copper and lead-zinc-silver production, as well as commission a copper smelter — which is now burned into the city's skyline. "From then on it was just boom time after boom time," Mr Merrick said. "There was always expansion work, accommodation in town was next to impossible to get and the influx of people was everywhere." Century life span By 1975, the mine had extracted 10 million tonnes of copper ore. Mr Merrick said the closure was a reminder that the earth's minerals were a finite resource. "It doesn't keep growing, if you take it out, nothing can replace it," he said. Workers celebrated the 10 millionth tonne of ore hauled from the X41 Copper Mine. (Supplied: Barry Merrick/Mount Isa Mines Photographic Collection) The historian said copper mine's end was only a few years shy of what was predicted of its counterpart zinc, lead and silver mine back in 1929. "The government geologist said at that point in time, Mount Isa would have a life of 100 years at the rate that they were extracting the ore," Mr Merrick said. While copper production may have ceased, Glencore Metals Australia interim chief operating officer Troy Wilson said the mine's legacy would live on in Mount Isa. Ring firing foreman Norm Mitchell prepares for Australia's largest mass blast in an underground mine in 1975. (Supplied: Barry Merrick/Mount Isa Mines Photographic Collection) "Mount Isa Mines, including Mount Isa Copper Operations, has a rich history and for generations, Australian miners have considering working at Mount Isa Mines a rite of passage," Mr Wilson said. "It has been nothing short of remarkable and will be felt for years to come."
I wonder... Does this make Trump a fascist or a communist? I guess the copper players didn't get the message.
Lithium Stocks Surge as Chinese Mine Closes After Permit Expires The CATL Jianxiawo lithium mine in Yichun, Jiangxi province, China. Photographer: Gilles Sabrie/Bloomberg By Yvonne Yue Li and Annie Lee August 12, 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...loses-after-permit-expires?srnd=homepage-asia Shares of North American lithium producers soared as investors bet that the suspension of a major Chinese mine would ease a supply glut and likely lead to a rebound in prices. The suspension of CATL's mine will support higher lithium prices in the near term and is bullish for producers, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sean Gilmartin. Reduced Chinese output has led to more upside for lithium prices, signaling the market has found a bottom, with more constructive fundamentals likely to emerge in the next two years, Gilmartin said. Shares of North American lithium producers soared as investors bet that the suspension of a major Chinese mine would ease a supply glut and likely lead to a rebound in prices. CATL, the world’s biggest battery producer, confirmed the closure of its Jianxiawo mine on Monday, saying it’s seeking to renew its expired permit. The fate of the mine, the largest in China’s lithium hub of Yichun, had been under close scrutiny for weeks amid speculation that authorities wouldn’t extend its license. The mine accounts for about 6% of global output, according to Bank of America Corp. “In the short term, abrupt supply cuts would trigger further price volatility, disrupt the domestic battery industry and benefit foreign lithium miners,” said Martin Jackson, head of battery raw materials at consultancy CRU Group. Shares of US producer Albemarle rose nearly 16% Monday in New York in its biggest intraday increase in four months. Piedmont Lithium Inc. rose as much as 18%, while Lithium Americas Corp. surged as much as 14%. Chilean producer SQM also jumped as much as 12% in US trading. Lithium producers have struggled with a global supply glut exacerbated by demand headwinds for electric vehicles, including President Donald Trump’s rollback of incentives for the industry in the US. The suspension of Jianxiawo mine could help narrow the massive supply surplus in the lithium market, potentially bolstering slumping prices of the battery metal. The suspension of CATL’s mine will support higher lithium prices in the near term and is bullish for producers such as Albemarle Corp. and SQM, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sean Gilmartin wrote in a note Monday. Reduced Chinese output has led to more upside for lithium prices, signaling the market has found a bottom, with more constructive fundamentals likely to emerge in the next two years as supply ramp-ups start to fade, Gilmartin added. Demand still is expected to grow by 15% over the period, he said.