Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) surged to its highest in a month Thursday after the Canadian miner posted strong results for the first quarter of 2025.

For the three-month period, Ivanhoe recognized a record revenue of $973 million, operating profit of $471 million and EBITDA of $585 million, equivalent to a margin of 60%. Its adjusted EBITDA also set a record of $226 million.

These figures drove the company’s profit to $122 million, or $0.10 per share, beating the market forecast of $0.07 a share.

Shares of Ivanhoe jumped as much as 12% to a one-month high of C$13.74 apiece on the positive Q1 results. By 1:20 p.m. in Toronto, the stock traded at C$13.32 for an intraday gain of 8.8%, giving the company a market capitalization of nearly C$18 billion.

Kamoa performance

The first quarter results, said Ivanhoe founder Robert Friedland, reflect the company’s “strong efforts” at the Kamoa-Kakula copper complex in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

From January to March, the copper mine, in which Ivanhoe holds a 39.6% stake, produced a near-record 133,120 tonnes, compared to 86,117 tonnes the same period last year. From March 18, the copper production rate increased to 614,000 tonnes on an annualized basis, setting up a higher monthly output starting in April.

“Kamoa-Kakula is set for record production in the shorter month of April, achieving approximately 50,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate, equivalent to an annualized rate of over 600,000 tonnes – a remarkable achievement,” Friedland said in a press release.

During the quarter, the Phase 1, 2 and 3 concentrators at Kamoa-Kakula achieved a combined milling record of approximately 3.7 million tonnes at an average record recovery rate of 87.4%. This was underpinned by the Phase 3 concentrator operating 20% above its design capacity, Ivanhoe said.

Given these results, the company is maintaining its 2025 production guidance at 520,000 to 580,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate. In 2026, Ivanhoe is targeting approximately 600,000 tonnes of production as the Phase 1 and 2 recoveries improve and the Phase 3 throughput increases.

It also noted that Kamoa-Kakula’s 500,000-tonne-per-annum on-site, direct-to-blister copper smelter, the largest in Africa, is now complete, with the facility undergoing commissioning. Start-up of the smelter is expected in May, with first copper anode production expected in July.

Kipushi progress

Ivanhoe has also maintained its outlook for the Kipushi zinc mine, also in the DRC, on record production in the first quarter.

During Q1, the Kipushi concentrator milled a record 151,403 tonnes of ore at a record average grade of 32.5% zinc, producing 42,736 tonnes of zinc in concentrate at a contained grade of over 53%.

For the year, Ivanhoe expects Kipushi’s zinc output to range between 180,000 and 240,000 tonnes, as the mine continues its ramp up to steady state. The production rate is expected to rise to 250,000 tonnes in 2026 following the completion of ramp-up and debottlenecking activities at Kipushi.

The debottlenecking program, which is targeting a 20% increase in the concentrator’s processing capacity to up to 960,000 tonnes per annum, is about two-thirds complete, Ivanhoe said.

The company’s over the counter units trading on US markets (OTCPK:GLNCY) was down by 8.6% in mid-afternoon dealings, recovering from a double digit fall at the open.

Glencore stock is down more than 26% so far this year, affording the company a market capitalization of just under $40 billion. Its market value peaked at the end of Q1 2022 at more than $90 billion.

The Swiss-headquartered miner and commodities trader reported a 30% drop in first-quarter copper production to 167,900 tonnes, but maintained its full-year forecast for 2025 at 850,000-910,000 tonnes, expecting higher output in coming months.

The top of that range would still be down from the company’s 2024 annual production of 952,000 tonnes. The Q1 production miss was primarily due to lower ore mining rates, head grades and overall recoveries at Collahuasi (29,400 tonnes), Antapaccay (20,800 tonnes) and KCC (16,700 tonnes) Glencore said.

First-quarter production of cobalt rose 44% on higher grades and volumes at its Mutanda mine, while nickel production fell 21%, it said. The company kept 2025 production guidance unchanged for both.

Glencore forecasts full-year trading and marketing earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) in the middle of its long-term guidance of $2.2 billion to $3.2 billion this year, compared to $3.2 billion in 2024.

“Since quarter-end, financial markets, including commodities, have been highly volatile and unpredictable, responding rapidly to US tariff newsflow and uncertainty.

“In such an unpredictable environment, risk management has been a primary focus, noting the many complex supply chains we are exposed to, including the US, China, Europe and Canada. Despite the ‘noise’, primary commodity trade routes to date have not been meaningfully disrupted.

“However, owing to the various proposed and currently being implemented tariffs across commodity supply chains, it is likely that some physical trade flow re-orientation and dislocation will manifest over the coming months, which may present opportunities for our marketing business,” Glencore said in a statement.

The trading division, whose profit hit a record $6.4 billion in 2022, includes coal, oil, liquefied natural gas and related products, as well as metals.

“Disappointing that in these volatile times with significant regional arbitrage in copper that marketing guidance was not at the top end of the range,” RBC Capital Markets analysts told Reuters.

Glencore’s first-quarter thermal coal production fell 7% to 23.4 million tonnes from 25.2 million tonnes a year before on lower output from its Australian mines.

The company is one of the largest producers and exporters of thermal coal, mining 99.6 million tonnes in 2024.

Glencore said in March it would begin reducing production at its Colombia mine Cerrejon by between 5 million and 10 million tonnes annually.

(With files from Reuters)

The miner’s consolidated profit attributable to owners of the company surged 154% to 34.83 billion rupees (around $412 million) in the quarter.

The company said its normalized tax rate dropped to 28% from 46% in the year-ago quarter, mainly due to changes in its profit mix and a reduction in the tax rate of a foreign subsidiary.

Overall revenue increased by around 14% to 397.89 billion rupees, boosted by higher prices for aluminum and zinc, which gained by 19.6% and 17.5%, in the quarter, as per data from brokerages.

Vedanta’s aluminum business is the biggest in India and contributes about 40% of the company’s revenue. Zinc is its second-biggest business, followed by copper, whose prices gained 9.3% in the quarter.

The company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 30% to 116.18 billion rupees.

Its EBITDA, or core profit, margin expanded to 35% from 30% a year ago, helped by the strong commodity prices and cost-saving initiatives.

Earlier this week, Vedanta’s subsidiary Hindustan Zinc reported a higher fourth-quarter profit, although its finance chief flagged price volatility due to the uncertainty related to US tariffs.

($1 = 84.6170 Indian rupees)

(By Manvi Pant; Editing by Savio D’Souza)

Read More: Mining billionaire Agarwal moves closer to breaking up his empire

Industry sources said the turnaround came after members told the LME that the plan would be expensive for them and that other exchanges such as COMEX do not have this requirement.

The exchange’s plans to oblige members to transact private deals, known as over-the-counter (OTC) trades, on its electronic trading system Select were intially mooted in a white paper last year.

There will be a consultation period until June 13 on the revised plans, which include hedging LME contracts on Select.

The LME will progress with the original proposal if market monitoring indicates that on-exchange controls are encouraging more trading to take place OTC.

“Given this, the LME intends to increase the fee for OTC (trades) to be twice that of exchange business,” the exchange said in a release on Wednesday.

Fees for using LME prices in OTC contracts are $2.36 per lot. For copper where one lot is 25 metric tons, that would amount to nearly 10 US cents a ton.

Since the paper was published the LME, owned by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, has talked to its members and the wider metals market about its plans to boost transparency and liquidity.

“We have listened carefully to these views and they have enabled us to refine different elements to better meet the needs of different sections of the market,” said LME chief executive Matthew Chamberlain.

Earlier this year Reuters reported that the Futures Industry Association (FIA) and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) sent a joint letter to the LME laying out members’ concerns about these proposals.

The LME, the world’s largest and oldest forum for trading metals, has also tried to address members’ concerns about hedging LME contracts or block trades of up to 10 lots for the most liquid contracts, which include the three-month benchmarks.

“The feedback received suggested that there should be differentiation across different metals,” it said.

The LME has analyzed factors such as bid/ask spreads, size of the book, average trade size and notional size. It is proposing 15 lots or 375 tons for aluminum, 10 lots or 250 tons for copper, zinc and lead and 5 lots or 30 tons for nickel.

The plans also include expanding the definition of lower-cost short-dated carry trades to 60 days from 15 days, so long as the contracts to buy and sell are within 15 days of each other.

This will cut costs for physical market buyers and sellers who may want to switch delivery dates.

(By Pratima Desai and Eric Onstad; Editing by Jan Harvey and Freya Whitworth)

Both metals are expected to be in supply surplus this year, a turnaround for zinc but the third consecutive year of over-supply for the lead market.

The two metals are geological sisters, as they tend to be sourced from the same mines. Right now, they are also bound by weak demand.

ILZSG, which has just met for one of its twice-yearly catch-ups, estimates both metals experienced falling usage in 2024 and the group is forecasting only a modest recovery this year.

Zinc loses its shine

Zinc has under-performed the rest of the London Metal Exchange base metals pack so far this year.

After sliding to a one-year low of $2,515.50 per metric ton earlier this month, LME three-month zinc has since recovered to $2,636.00, but is still down by 11% on the start of January.

Fund managers have cut long positions and scaled up bearish bets into the recent price weakness. The collective net long has shrunk from almost 41,000 contracts in the middle of March to just 1,781.

Zinc market dynamics did not turn out as expected last year, a third year of falling mine production restraining metal output and pulling the market into a small 15,000-ton deficit.

That will turn to a 93,000-ton surplus this year, according to ILZSG.

Global mine output is forecast to grow by a robust 4.3% year-on-year, feeding a 1.8% rise in refined metal production.

There are signs this turnaround is already happening. Spot smelter treatment charges have bounced higher from last year’s record lows, signalling improved availability of mined concentrate.

Chinese smelters have pounced on the extra supply with first-quarter imports of zinc concentrates up by 37% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025.

However, zinc demand will not be enough to absorb the extra supply. ILZSG is forecasting usage to rise by just 1.0% in 2025, a significant downgrade from the 1.6% rate expected at the Group’s September 2024 meet.

Zinc’s problem is that 55% of global demand comes in the form of galvanized steel for construction, a sector that is weak everywhere, not least in China.

Moreover, the group said even its modest forecast growth rate may be optimistic if global economic growth slows “due to uncertainties linked to trade policy”.

More weight for heavy metal

Lead’s demand profile is quite different from that of its sister metal with automotive batteries accounting for 65% of total usage and replacement demand accounting for around 75% of that.

Weak automotive sales and an underlying shift towards electric vehicles, which use smaller lead-acid batteries than internal combustion cars, combined to drag global lead demand down by 0.8% last year.

ILZSG is expecting a return to 1.5% growth in 2025 on the back of stronger passenger car production in the West and China.

But refined production will rise by a faster 1.9%, generating an expected 82,000-ton supply surplus. The lift in mined zinc output this year will inevitably mean more lead and ILZSG forecasts mined lead supply will grow by 2.3% in 2025.

A forecast third year of lead over-supply will reinforce funds’ bear positioning in the LME market.

Investors were net short of LME lead to the tune of a record 25,700 contracts in January.

Many got burned as LME three-month metal rose to $2,100 per ton in March but the early-April collapse to a two-and-a-half year low of $1,837.50 has seen the bears return. The net short has grown back to over 23,000 contracts.

Shrinking premium

The lead price has proved surprisingly resilient given conspicuous surplus in the form of elevated exchange inventory. LME three-month metal is trading marginally up on the start of January.

That has shifted the relative-value trade between the sister metals with zinc’s premium over lead contracting from over $1,000 per ton in December to $668.

With so much lead demand coming from replacement batteries, the heavy metal is less vulnerable to the sort of macro turbulence highlighted by the ILZSG in its zinc forecasts.

Moreover, funds are already so bearish on lead’s price prospects, it’s hard to see how much more selling they can muster.

Zinc, by contrast, is a market in supply transition and funds have only started turning bearish as evidence of that shift in dynamics accumulates.

Just how more bearish they could become remains to be seen.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by Barbara Lewis)

Zinc prices, which averaged at about $2,900 a ton in financial year 2025, have oscillated between $2,500 and $2,700 so far in April, CFO Sandeep Modi said.

“It will take some time to create balance in prices due to US tariffs, but fundamentally prices will remain strong.”

Modi said prices are expected to average at $2,800-$2,900 a ton in fiscal 2026, which started on April 1. Rising commodity prices typically boost selling prices and margins for miners.

US President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs have sparked trade uncertainty and gutted global markets in recent weeks.

On Friday, Hindustan Zinc reported a jump in fourth-quarter profit, supported by higher production and prices.

The company, India’s biggest producer of the refined metal, forecast production growth of saleable metal at 1,100 kilo tons per annum (KTPA) in fiscal 2026, up from 1,052 KTPA a year ago, CEO Arun Misra told Reuters.

It also expects a project capex of $225 million-$250 million this financial year.

Modi said an expansion plan for the company is underway and expects approval from the board for its first phase in about a month. He did not elaborate on the plan.

Demand for zinc, which is commonly used to coat steel to prevent corrosion, is set to grow by 5% this fiscal in India, while steel demand will rise 4%-5%, Modi said.

Domestic zinc prices rose about 17.5% in the fourth quarter, according to analysts, on higher demand from India’s construction and manufacturing sectors.

The company, which commands 75% of the domestic zinc market, said its revenue from operations rose 21.2% to 88.29 billion rupees, while total expenses grew only 8.5%.

The zinc division reported a 20.6% increase in revenue.

($1 = 85.4350 Indian rupees)

(By Anuran Sadhu; Editing by Varun H K and Sonia Cheema)

The Hermosa project is currently the only advanced US mining project capable of producing two federally designated critical minerals: zinc and manganese, and received board approval for $2.16 billion in funding to develop the zinc-lead-silver deposit in February.

This represents the largest private investment in southern Arizona’s history, and the largest investment in the local Santa Cruz county economy to date by nearly nine times, the Australian miner said.

Last year, the Hermosa project became the first to be added to the United States’ FAST-41 permitting process. The company said it has the potential to become one of the world’s largest zinc producers.

Centro will use advanced automation to enhance safety and productivity — key pillars of sustainable operations, the company said, adding that the groundbreaking is the result of nearly three years of design and planning to align with its long-term economic and employment goals in Santa Cruz county.

Supporting an ‘All in Community’ workforce development ecosystem, the groundbreaking also marks the launch of the South32 Hermosa Workforce Development Executive Committee – an expanded initiative aimed at supporting long-term workforce development across Santa Cruz.

The committee brings together local education leaders and South32 representatives to focus on post secondary education, facilities development, resources and training needs of the local businesses, the company said.

“Centro represents more than just a facility – it is a commitment to create economic opportunity and shared value in Santa Cruz county,” South32 Hermosa president Pat Risner said in a news release.

“By establishing Centro in Nogales, we are ensuring that the economic benefits of Hermosa stay local, providing high-skilled, good-paying jobs and supporting the development of a skilled workforce for generations, while also providing opportunities for both populations historically excluded from the industry and underrepresented community groups.”

Attendees at the ceremony included Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, local and state officials, municipal leaders, and representatives from organizations such as the Port Authority, The Nature Conservancy and the University of Arizona.

“Centro, as the project’s state-of-the-art operations center, will create good-paying jobs and strengthen our economy,” said Congressman Juan Ciscomani.

“South32 Hermosa’s Centro is a major step forward for regional development and the production of critical minerals in southern Arizona,” Ciscomani added. “By anchoring high quality jobs, workforce training, and critical infrastructure in our communities, this project strengthens the local economy and positions our region to continue to serve as a hub for responsible innovation and growth.”

The company reported adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations of C$0.60, above expectations of C$0.32, according to data compiled by LSEG.

“Our profitability improved significantly … primarily as a result of higher base metal prices, increased copper and zinc in concentrate sales volumes, and the positive impact of a weaker Canadian dollar on our business,” Teck said in a statement.

Teck’s first-quarter copper sales volumes rose to 106,200 tonnes, an increase of 11% year-on-year.

Revenue rose to C$2.29 billion ($1.65 billion) from C$1.62 billion last year, beating expectations.

Teck also maintained its forecast for 2025.

In February, the company had said that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports will not have any material impact on its business.

($1 = 1.3867 Canadian dollars)

(By Kanjyik Ghosh; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

Read More: Teck sees copper supply/demand win

The company, which operates seven mines and five smelters in the Nordic region, Ireland and Portugal, said its operating profit nearly doubled to 3.06 billion Swedish crowns ($319.3 million) in the quarter. That beat analysts’ average forecast of 2.59 billion crowns in an LSEG poll.

Boliden, which mines base metals such as copper and zinc, as well as gold and silver, does not have any direct mining or smelting operations in the United States and said the impact of the announced global tariffs had so far been limited.

“But the big effect on us is the indirect effect,” CEO Mikael Staffas said in an interview with Reuters.

Global metal prices and currencies have fluctuated more than usual after the end of the first quarter, resulting in deteriorating base metal prices and a weaker dollar, Staffas said in the earnings statement, adding strong precious metal prices had only partially offset those effects.

Copper prices are still at a better level than a year ago, and Boliden is positioned to operate smoothly even if the conditions worsen, he told Reuters.

JPMorgan analysts said in a research note that given the company’s higher capital expenditure plans and headwinds like weaker prices, currency effects and scheduled smelter maintenance, they saw a “significant downside” to consensus estimates for second-quarter operating earnings.

Boliden raised its capital expenditure forecast to 15.5 billion crowns this year, instead of the previously targeted 14 billion, reflecting the recently closed acquisition of the Somincor mine in Portugal and the Zinkgruvan mine in Sweden from Lundin Mining.

Its share price was broadly unchanged as of 0830 GMT.

($1 = 9.5837 Swedish crowns)

(By Agnieszka Olenska and Izabela Niemiec; Editing by Milla Nissi)

The Antamina copper and zinc mine — owned by BHP Group, Glencore Plc, Teck Resources Ltd. — is working with Peruvian authorities to investigate the Tuesday incident, the operating company said in a statement.

Senior operations manager Edwin Colque Calisaya died in an accident at the Yanacancha area of the open-pit mine in the Andes Mountains north of Lima, Antamina said, without giving details. Photos posted on social media showed a passenger vehicle crushed by a giant haul truck.

The incident triggered a full safety shutdown, which was still in effect on Wednesday, a company spokesperson said. An extended stoppage at a mine that churned out 435,000 metric tons last year could further tighten global supplies of semi-processed copper known as concentrate.

In February, Peruvian authorities approved a key permit allowing a $2 billion extension at Antamina to proceed. The permit comes as the No. 2 copper-producing nation faces a dearth of new projects that threatens to constrain future production growth.

(By James Attwood)

Read More: RANKED: World’s biggest copper mines

While prices of aluminum, zinc, and copper have given up the heady gains of 2024, the 71-year-old tycoon is betting that a simpler structure for the sprawling group and growing demand for critical minerals will add to the allure of his companies even as the specter of a global recession looms.

The overhaul will allow the group to list each of its key businesses: aluminum, oil & gas, power, iron & steel, along with the publicly traded core company Vedanta. The demerger could provide new funding sources and increase financial transparency across the group, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mary Ellen Olson.

“The time for growth is now as demand is strong, supply is tight, and we’re positioned in the right markets,” Agarwal said in a recent video interview from his London home, adding that most of the materials mined by his company are locally consumed. The billionaire said that this makes Vedanta less vulnerable to potential disruptions in global supply chains arising from US President Donald Trump’s tariff measures.

Vedanta is also expanding the gamut of its operations by winning rights to mine critical minerals like nickel, chromium, platinum, and cobalt in India through November auctions. The global demand for these and other metals that are key to energy transition remains high and will give the group the next fillip of growth, Agarwal said.

Middle East and Africa

Agarwal has long dreamed of building an empire that spans continents and competing with the ranks of the world’s largest diversified miners, including Rio Tinto Group and BHP Group Ltd.

The group plans to spend more on overseas projects and is doubling on investments in the Middle East and Africa. Vedanta is set to invest $2 billion in copper-processing facilities in Saudi Arabia — one of the largest by a foreign firm — as the oil kingdom aspires to build its metals and mining industries significantly.

“Saudi not only has good geology but strong local consumption too,” Agarwal said, adding that “funding is never a problem for a project like that.”

According to local government estimates, Saudi Arabia has untapped resources, including phosphate, copper, gold, and bauxite, worth as much as $2.5 trillion. About a third of its investments in the country will be funded through internal accruals, and for the rest, the group will seek project financing, Agarwal said.

The company is currently seeking funds to develop mines in Africa, too. The Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia, which it controls, has a major copper deposit and cobalt reserves, according to Vedanta.

The financing options being weighed range from a billion-dollar bond offering, “off-take financing, or sale of a minority stake to global investors, for which there is significant demand,” Agarwal said.

Cutting debt

Vedanta shares dropped about 7% this year in Mumbai trading amid a slump in commodities prices. Other than economic growth woes, weighing on investor sentiment is the company’s $6.2 billion debt, the upshot of an acquisition spree since the turn of the century that includes stakes in Bharat Aluminium Co. and Hindustan Zinc Ltd.

Over the last two years, Agarwal has been on a drive to cut leverage and push back repayment deadlines on the group’s borrowings. The plan is to halve it over the next three years.

The group will be cautious about loading up on debt as it chases growth for each demerged unit, he said. All existing shareholders of Vedanta will receive one new share in each of the newly listed entities against each share they own in the parent company.

“There is no need for a stake sale to reduce our debt at the parent company level, and neither are there any plans to sell our stakes in any of the demerged entities,” Agarwal, who started as a scrap metal dealer and has weathered cash crunches and government friction, said. Each listed company can look at issuing fresh shares to raise funds for expansion, he said.

The so-called debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization ratio — a financial metric that measures a company’s ability to pay off its debt obligations — for Vedanta has to be brought down to 1 from the current 1.4 and maintained, according to him.

Over the years, Agarwal has been grooming his daughter Priya Agarwal Hebbar to take over from him as the head of the conglomerate. A psychology and film studies graduate from the University of Warwick, the 35-year-old is the chairwoman of Hindustan Zinc and is on the board of Vedanta.

“The group’s future is very focused on transition and critical minerals, and that is where the company will go,” Hebbar said.

(By Anto Antony)

Two weeks into the second quarter, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners had a combined market capitalization of $1.36 trillion, up $79.7 billion so far in 2025.

The total stock market valuation of the world’s biggest mining companies remains almost $400 billion below the peak hit in the second quarter of 2022.

This snapshot was taken at the close of trading on 17 April and not at the start of Q2 as usual to avoid some of the market distortions brought on by the chaotic weeks following Trump’s on-again off-again tariffs.

This flatters the index to some extent as gold stocks rode the coattails of the record setting bullion price and almost all big names regained some ground after the severe sell-off during the first week of April.

Newcomers

The volatile trading saw the greatest number of new entries – six in all – in a quarter since MINING.COM started tracking the Top 50 six years ago. From $6.7 billion at the end of 2024, the lowest ranked entry must now be worth $8 billion.

Mining and metals arguably suffered some of the biggest swings and roundabouts as the economic effects of a trade war and the focus on critical minerals played havoc – exemplified by the volatility on copper markets.

The bellwether metal hit a record high in the US at the end of March, only to plunge more than 20% over the next week and a half and then make up a big chunk of those losses going into the long weekend.

Amid the hectic trading, copper producers and diversified companies with large base metal portfolios lost a combined $53 billion to April 17 and are now trading $205 billion below their collective peak end-Sep 2024 as the sector’s ranks thin.

Lundin Mining dropped out of the Top 50 during Q1 following another copper counter, Poland’s KGHM, which did not make the cut off in Q4 last year. Q1 was a mixed blessing for the Canadian mining empire with the copper producer making way for Lundin Gold, entering the Top 50 for the first time after doubling in value in USD terms to $10.1 billion in Toronto.

Huayou Cobalt’s inclusion proved to be short-lived while South32 failed to make the cut for the first time since being spun out of BHP a decade ago. The base metals sans copper producer sits at position 51 after being narrowly edged out by Shanjin International Gold, so the stock may well return if (and not necessarily when) profit-taking in gold and gold stocks starts to make sense.

Another notable mover of 2025 is Amman Mineral, the worst performer in the index which lost over $10 billion in value as reality about its piercing run since its debut in Jakarta early 2023 continues to set in. The Indonesian copper-gold company is now worth an eye-catching $20 billion less than its high point at the end of Q2 last year, even after investors ran up the stock more than 20% just in the last week.

Nothing counters gold

While the direction of the copper price over the last few months was almost impossible to judge, gold’s record breaking run looked inevitable. At $3,420 per ounce gold at the time of writing, the yellow metal has now finally also surpassed its 1980 peak in inflation-adjusted terms.

Unsurprisingly, precious metals counters dominate the best performer list and make up the majority of new entrants. Gold, silver and PGM miners and royalty companies now represent a third of the value of the Top 50. The strength in precious metals has also seen Canada overtake Australia for the first time in terms of the value of miners headquartered there.

At 22% of the index, the 13 Canadian companies collectively are worth a smidgen under $300 billion compared to $275 billion for the now eight Australian firms with the inclusion for the first time of Sydney-based gold stock Evolution Mining. In their current form Melbourne-based BHP and Rio Tinto have been the top two global mining stocks since the turn of the century, together worth $220 billion today.

The MINING.COM Top 50 tracks stock value in USD terms not share price gains on local exchange and many stocks in the ranking benefitted from strengthening currencies against the USD.

South Africa’s Harmony Gold tops the gainers after jumping 24 spots to enter the ranking at no 37 following a 117% advance since end-2024. Like Harmony, Goldfields also benefited from the strong rand against the greenback, lifting the Johannesburg-based company’s shares by 83% year to date.

Russia’s Polyus, which added $14.4 billion in Q1, was only beaten by the top two gold stocks Newmont and Agnico Eagle which added $18.6 billion and $19.9 billion year to date in market cap gains. The ruble has strengthened by 20% against the US dollar in 2025 and Norilsk Nickel, thanks to captive investors on the MCX, has maintained its good standing in the Top 50 despite sanctions and trading restrictions. Norilsk is still worth north of $20 billion but still a far cry from its peak position as the world’s number 5 most valuable mining company reached mid-2021.

London-listed Fresnillo returns to the index after years in the wilderness thanks to a 74% surge in value for the Mexican silver and gold miner, majority owned by Mexican industrial group Peñoles. Together with Southern Copper, owned by Grupo Mexico, the country now represents nearly 6% of the value of the Top 50.

Gold counters are likely to only increase in number and size over the rest of 2025. Kazatomprom dual-listed in London and Astana in 2018, and Uzbekistan is now readying an IPO for Navoi Mining and Metallurgy Combinat – the world’s fourth largest gold mining company and significant uranium producer later this year.

Rare earth representation

China Northern Rare Earth is the only producer of the 17 elements in the ranking and despite the frenzy surrounding the sector as China tightens control. There are no obvious REE candidates that could join the Top 50 in short order.

MP Materials, which operates the Mountain Pass mine in California, has surged by 69% in value year to date but the Las Vegas-based company is still worth only $4.3 billion.

The company’s valuation peaked above $8 billion in March 2022, but the whole mining industry was riding high at the time and the high price ticket for entry at the time meant it fell just outside the ranking. Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths have also come close in the past and is up 26% this year for a valuation of $5.3 billion.

Lithium down to a single stock

Lithium’s representation in the ranking is down from six companies to a single stock – Chile’s SQM languishing in position 42 and worth less than $10 billion – following the exit of China’s Tianqi and US-based Albemarle during the quarter, with the latter dropping by 38% in 2025.

The value destruction caused by the slump in lithium prices has been nothing short of astonishing. Lithium stocks in the index peaked in the second quarter of 2022 with a combined value of nearly $120 billion.

While Albemarle now worth $6.2 billion may well make a comeback (the longer term prospects for lithium demand remains bright), the absorption of Arcadium by Rio Tinto makes it unlikely that the Top 50 will see a rush of lithium stocks any time soon, a rebound of the commodity notwithstanding.

Zangge Mining, which does derive a good proportion of income from lithium, but is mostly a fertilizer producer, is bubbling under at number 53. The Chinese company may not stick around either – it’s the subject of takeover overtures by Zijing Mining, which also helps explain the 25% rise in the stock on the Shenzen exchange in USD terms.

Notes:

Source: MINING.COM, stock exchange data, company reports. Share data from primary-listed exchange at close April 17/18, 2025 close of trading converted to US$ where applicable. Percentage change based on US$ market cap difference, not share price change in local currency.

As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious. We decided to exclude unlisted and state-owned enterprises at the outset due to a lack of information. That, of course, excludes giants like Chile’s Codelco, Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining (the gold and uranium giant may list later this year), Eurochem, a major potash firm, and a number of entities in China and developing countries around the world.

Another central criterion was the depth of involvement in the industry, and how far upstream is the bulk of its revenue, before an enterprise can rightfully be called a mining company.

For instance, should smelter companies or commodity traders that own minority stakes in mining assets be included, especially if these investments have no operational component or even warrant a seat on the board?

This is a common structure in Asia and excluding these types of companies removed well-known names like Japan’s Marubeni and Mitsui, Korea Zinc and Chile’s Copec.

Levels of operational or strategic involvement and size of shareholding were other central considerations. Do streaming and royalty companies that receive metals from mining operations without shareholding qualify or are they just specialized financing vehicles? We included Franco Nevada, Royal Gold and Wheaton Precious Metals on the basis of their deep involvement in the industry.

Vertically integrated concerns like Alcoa and energy companies such as Shenhua Energy or Bayan Resources where power, ports and railways make up a large portion of revenues pose a problem. The revenue mix also tends to change alongside volatile coal prices. Same goes for battery makers like China’s CATL which is increasingly moving upstream, but where mining will continue to represent a small portion of its valuation.

Another consideration is diversified companies such as Anglo American with separately listed majority-owned subsidiaries. We’ve included Angloplat in the ranking but excluded Kumba Iron Ore in which Anglo has a 70% stake to avoid double counting. Similarly we excluded Hindustan Zinc which is listed separately but majority owned by Vedanta.

With other groups like Mexico’s Penoles where refining and chemicals make up a substantial part of the business where possible the Top 50 would include separately listed operating subsidiaries that are dedicated to mining. This is also why Southern Copper represents Grupo Mexico in the ranking.

Many steelmakers own and often operate iron ore and other metal mines, but in the interest of balance and diversity we excluded the steel industry, and with that many companies that have substantial mining assets including giants like ArcelorMittal, Magnitogorsk, Ternium, Baosteel and many others.

Head office refers to operational headquarters wherever applicable, for example BHP and Rio Tinto are shown as Melbourne, Australia, but Antofagasta is the exception that proves the rule. We consider the company’s HQ to be in London, where it has been listed since the late 1800s.

Please let us know of any errors, omissions, deletions or additions to the ranking or suggest a different methodology: email Frik Els at fels@mining.com with Top 50 in the subject line.

Two weeks into the second quarter, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners had a combined market capitalization of $1.36 trillion, up $79.7 billion so far in 2025.

The total stock market valuation of the world’s biggest mining companies remains almost $400 billion below the peak hit in the second quarter of 2022.

This snapshot was taken at the close of trading on April 17 and not at the start of Q2 as usual to avoid some of the market distortions brought on by the chaotic weeks following Trump’s on-again off-again tariffs.

This flatters the index to some extent as gold stocks rode the coattails of the record setting bullion price and almost all big names regained some ground after the severe sell-off during the first week of April.

Newcomers

The volatile trading saw the greatest number of new entries – six in all – in a quarter since MINING.COM started tracking the Top 50 six years ago. From $6.7 billion at the end of 2024, the lowest ranked entry must now be worth $8 billion.

Mining and metals arguably suffered some of the biggest swings and roundabouts as the economic effects of a trade war and the focus on critical minerals played havoc – exemplified by the volatility on copper markets.

The bellwether metal hit a record high in the US at the end of March, only to plunge more than 20% over the next week and a half and then make up a big chunk of those losses going into the long weekend.

Amid the hectic trading, copper producers and diversified companies with large base metal portfolios lost a combined $53 billion to April 17 and are now trading $205 billion below their collective peak end-Sep 2024 as the sector’s ranks thin.

Lundin Mining dropped out of the Top 50 during Q1 following another copper counter, Poland’s KGHM, which did not make the cut off in Q4 last year. Q1 was a mixed blessing for the Canadian mining empire with the copper producer making way for Lundin Gold, entering the Top 50 for the first time after doubling in value in USD terms to $10.1 billion in Toronto.

Huayou Cobalt’s inclusion proved to be short-lived while South32 failed to make the cut for the first time since being spun out of BHP a decade ago. The base metals sans copper producer sits at position 51 after being narrowly edged out by Shanjin International Gold, so the stock may well return if (and not necessarily when) profit-taking in gold and gold stocks starts to make sense.

Another notable mover of 2025 is Amman Mineral, the worst performer in the index which lost over $10 billion in value as reality about its piercing run since its debut in Jakarta early 2023 continues to set in. The Indonesian copper-gold company is now worth an eye-catching $20 billion less than its high point at the end of Q2 last year, even after investors ran up the stock more than 20% just in the last week.

Nothing counters gold

While the direction of the copper price over the last few months was almost impossible to judge, gold’s record breaking run looked inevitable. At $3,420 per ounce gold at the time of writing, the yellow metal has now finally also surpassed its 1980 peak in inflation-adjusted terms.

Unsurprisingly, precious metals counters dominate the best performer list and make up the majority of new entrants. Gold, silver and PGM miners and royalty companies now represent a third of the value of the Top 50. The strength in precious metals has also seen Canada overtake Australia for the first time in terms of the value of miners headquartered there.

At 22% of the index, the 13 Canadian companies collectively are worth a smidgen under $300 billion compared to $275 billion for the now eight Australian firms with the inclusion for the first time of Sydney-based gold stock Evolution Mining. In their current form Melbourne-based BHP and Rio Tinto have been the top two global mining stocks since the turn of the century, together worth $220 billion today.

The MINING.COM Top 50 tracks stock value in USD terms not share price gains on local exchange and many stocks in the ranking benefitted from strengthening currencies against the USD.

South Africa’s Harmony Gold tops the gainers after jumping 24 spots to enter the ranking at no 37 following a 117% advance since end-2024. Like Harmony, Goldfields also benefited from the strong rand against the greenback, lifting the Johannesburg-based company’s shares by 83% year to date.

Russia’s Polyus, which added $14.4 billion in Q1, was only beaten by the top two gold stocks Newmont and Agnico Eagle which added $18.6 billion and $19.9 billion year to date in market cap gains. The ruble has strengthened by 20% against the US dollar in 2025 and Norilsk Nickel, thanks to captive investors on the MCX, has maintained its good standing in the Top 50 despite sanctions and trading restrictions. Norilsk is still worth north of $20 billion but still a far cry from its peak position as the world’s number 5 most valuable mining company reached mid-2021.

London-listed Fresnillo returns to the index after years in the wilderness thanks to a 74% surge in value for the Mexican silver and gold miner, majority owned by Mexican industrial group Peñoles. Together with Southern Copper, owned by Grupo Mexico, the country now represents nearly 6% of the value of the Top 50.

Gold counters are likely to only increase in number and size over the rest of 2025. Kazatomprom dual-listed in London and Astana in 2018, and Uzbekistan is now readying an IPO for Navoi Mining and Metallurgy Combinat – the world’s fourth largest gold mining company and significant uranium producer later this year.

Rare earth representation

China Northern Rare Earth is the only producer of the 17 elements in the ranking and despite the frenzy surrounding the sector as China tightens control. There are no obvious REE candidates that could join the Top 50 in short order.

MP Materials, which operates the Mountain Pass mine in California, has surged by 69% in value year to date but the Las Vegas-based company is still worth only $4.3 billion.

The company’s valuation peaked above $8 billion in March 2022, but the whole mining industry was riding high at the time and the high price ticket for entry at the time meant it fell just outside the ranking. Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths have also come close in the past and is up 26% this year for a valuation of $5.3 billion.

Lithium down to a single stock

Lithium’s representation in the ranking is down from six companies to a single stock – Chile’s SQM languishing in position 42 and worth less than $10 billion – following the exit of China’s Tianqi and US-based Albemarle during the quarter, with the latter dropping by 38% in 2025.

The value destruction caused by the slump in lithium prices has been nothing short of astonishing. Lithium stocks in the index peaked in the second quarter of 2022 with a combined value of nearly $120 billion.

While Albemarle now worth $6.2 billion may well make a comeback (the longer term prospects for lithium demand remains bright), the absorption of Arcadium by Rio Tinto makes it unlikely that the Top 50 will see a rush of lithium stocks any time soon, a rebound of the commodity notwithstanding.

Zangge Mining, which does derive a good proportion of income from lithium, but is mostly a fertilizer producer, is bubbling under at number 53. The Chinese company may not stick around either – it’s the subject of takeover overtures by Zijing Mining, which also helps explain the 25% rise in the stock on the Shenzen exchange in USD terms.

Notes:

Source: MINING.COM, stock exchange data, company reports. Share data from primary-listed exchange at close April 17/18, 2025 close of trading converted to US$ where applicable. Percentage change based on US$ market cap difference, not share price change in local currency.

As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious. We decided to exclude unlisted and state-owned enterprises at the outset due to a lack of information. That, of course, excludes giants like Chile’s Codelco, Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining (the gold and uranium giant may list later this year), Eurochem, a major potash firm, and a number of entities in China and developing countries around the world.

Another central criterion was the depth of involvement in the industry, and how far upstream is the bulk of its revenue, before an enterprise can rightfully be called a mining company.

For instance, should smelter companies or commodity traders that own minority stakes in mining assets be included, especially if these investments have no operational component or even warrant a seat on the board?

This is a common structure in Asia and excluding these types of companies removed well-known names like Japan’s Marubeni and Mitsui, Korea Zinc and Chile’s Copec.

Levels of operational or strategic involvement and size of shareholding were other central considerations. Do streaming and royalty companies that receive metals from mining operations without shareholding qualify or are they just specialized financing vehicles? We included Franco Nevada, Royal Gold and Wheaton Precious Metals on the basis of their deep involvement in the industry.

Vertically integrated concerns like Alcoa and energy companies such as Shenhua Energy or Bayan Resources where power, ports and railways make up a large portion of revenues pose a problem. The revenue mix also tends to change alongside volatile coal prices. Same goes for battery makers like China’s CATL which is increasingly moving upstream, but where mining will continue to represent a small portion of its valuation.

Another consideration is diversified companies such as Anglo American with separately listed majority-owned subsidiaries. We’ve included Angloplat in the ranking but excluded Kumba Iron Ore in which Anglo has a 70% stake to avoid double counting. Similarly we excluded Hindustan Zinc which is listed separately but majority owned by Vedanta.

With other groups like Mexico’s Penoles where refining and chemicals make up a substantial part of the business where possible the Top 50 would include separately listed operating subsidiaries that are dedicated to mining. This is also why Southern Copper represents Grupo Mexico in the ranking.

Many steelmakers own and often operate iron ore and other metal mines, but in the interest of balance and diversity we excluded the steel industry, and with that many companies that have substantial mining assets including giants like ArcelorMittal, Magnitogorsk, Ternium, Baosteel and many others.

Head office refers to operational headquarters wherever applicable, for example BHP and Rio Tinto are shown as Melbourne, Australia, but Antofagasta is the exception that proves the rule. We consider the company’s HQ to be in London, where it has been listed since the late 1800s.

Please let us know of any errors, omissions, deletions or additions to the ranking or suggest a different methodology: email Frik Els at fels@mining.com with Top 50 in the subject line.

The projects – which would supply copper, antimony and other minerals – have been granted FAST-41 status, a federal initiative launched in 2015 to streamline approvals of critical infrastructure.

The White House said it will add more projects.

The initial 10 are listed on a US federal website where their permitting progress can be publicly tracked, part of what the Trump administration calls a push for greater transparency and faster permitting.

“This transparency leads to greater accountability, ensuring a more efficient process,” the White House said in a statement.

The move boosts a proposed Idaho antimony and gold mine from Perpetua Resources, a proposed Arizona copper mine from Rio Tinto, a proposed Montana copper and silver mine from Hecla Mining, expansion of Albemarle’s Nevada lithium mine, an Arkansas direct lithium extraction project from Standard Lithium, and an Alabama metallurgical coal project from Warrior Met Coal, among others. Metallurgical coal is used to make steel.

Perpetua said it was “honored by this selection … which validates the urgency and importance of our project for America’s economic and national security.”

Rio said it believes its Resolution copper project in Arizona “is vital to securing America’s energy future and infrastructure needs with a domestic supply of copper.”

Albemarle said it looks “forward to further engaging with the administration as it seeks to advance a US lithium supply chain.”

Standard Lithium and Warrior were not immediately available to comment.

South32’s Hermosa zinc-manganese project in Arizona was fast-tracked by former President Joe Biden, the first mine to receive the FAST-41 treatment.

Trump earlier this week ordered a probe into potential new tariffs on all US critical minerals imports, a major escalation in his dispute with global trade partners and an attempt to pressure industry leader China.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Chris Reese)

Mines Minister Dele Alake said the two countries will partner on mining, including geological mapping using drones, share mineral data, and jointly explore agro and energy minerals in Nigeria.

Besides oil, Nigeria is also rich in gold, limestone, lithium, iron ore and zinc. Nigeria has around 23 mineral deposits in commercial quantities.

Nigeria is seeking to revamp a mining sector that has long been underdeveloped, contributing less than 1% to its gross domestic product.

South Africa’s established mining expertise makes it a key partner in this effort, Alake said.

(By Camillus Eboh; Editing by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo and David Evans)

Korea Zinc and Canadian miner Teck Resources have agreed annual fees of $80 per metric ton for the smelter to process Teck’s zinc concentrates into refined metal, according to Bloomberg.

That’s a sharp drop from last year’s benchmark of $165 per ton and the lowest outcome in at least 50 years, according to consultancy CRU.

Given smelters get to charge more in times of raw materials over-supply and less during periods of scarcity, this year’s super-low benchmark might at first glance seem a super-bullish signal.

But only relative to last year’s benchmark deal.

Relative to spot treatment charges, which turned negative towards the end of 2024, this year’s benchmark is a sign that both smelters and miners expect mined zinc supply to recover strongly in 2025.

Year of unexpected famine

Last year’s benchmark processing deal, negotiated by the same two companies, was out of date almost as soon as the ink had dried.

Spot treatment charges slumped over the remainder of 2024, touching an unprecedented low of minus $40 per ton in the fourth quarter, according to Chinese data provider Shanghai Metal Market (SMM).

The yawning disconnect with the annual benchmark showed just how unexpected was the shortfall of zinc concentrates.

A year of expected plenty turned into a year of famine due both to price-related mine closures in 2023 and a string of supply hits such as the fire at the big new Ozernoye mine in Russia.

At its April 2024 meeting The International Lead and Zinc Study Group (ILZSG) forecast global mine production to rise by 0.7% relative to 2023. The reality was a 2.8% contraction, marking the third consecutive year of falling output, it said in a February update.

The squeeze on raw materials availability caused global refined zinc production to fall by 2.6% last year, pulling the market into a 62,000-ton supply-demand deficit.

Mine supply cranks up

Chinese spot treatment charges for imported zinc concentrates have bounced sharply from their late 2024 lows and were last assessed by SMM at $35 per ton.

China’s zinc concentrate import volumes are also recovering after falling by 13% in 2024, the first year-on-year decline since 2021.

Inbound shipments over January and February jumped by 33% relative to the same two months last year.

China has started importing zinc concentrate from the Democratic Republic of Congo for the first time in many years, attesting to the restart of the Kipushi mine, majority owned and operated by Ivanhoe Mines.

Imports from Russia more than doubled year-on-year in January-February, suggesting the delayed Ozernoye mine is now also ramping up production.

Improved concentrates availability and recovering spot treatment terms are encouraging Chinese zinc smelters to lift run-rates.

Production of refined zinc in the world’s largest producer fell by 3.4% last year, according to ILZSG.

Output was still down by 3.0% in the first quarter of this year, according to SMM, but the data provider’s latest survey suggests production in March itself was up by 4.0% on March last year. Output is expected to rise even faster in April.

Feeding the bear narrative

If mined output continues to rise, Chinese smelters will be more than happy to process it into more metal.

Which is why zinc is out of favour with metals analysts right now.

Global demand grew by just 0.1% last year, according to ILZSG and zinc’s prospects this year don’t look encouraging.

Zinc’s heavy usage in construction leaves it exposed to a globally weak sector, while demand from the broader manufacturing sector will be buffeted by US President Donald Trump’s tariff turbulence.

The prospect of too much supply flowing into a weak-demand environment is why LME three-month zinc has fallen below the $2,600-per ton level for the first time since August and is now down by 13% on the start of the year.

Another surprise?

The scale of the zinc price collapse injects a note of uncertainty into the market’s bear script.

Were the zinc price to fall much further, it would be back at the depressed levels that caused multiple mine suspensions in 2023, contributing to last year’s scarcity.

Zinc supply has proven to be highly price sensitive in recent years, which is why raw material supply-chain dynamics can shift quickly, wrong-footing smelters.

Last year’s smelter processing benchmark proved an unreliable guide to how the zinc raw materials market ended up playing out.

The jury is out on whether this year’s will be any more reliable.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by David Evans)

Ma’aden is weighing a partnership with US-based MP Materials, China’s Shenghe Resources, Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths or Canada’s Neo Performance Materials, the sources said.

Ma’aden plans to choose at least one partner by the end of June to help develop plans for a rare earths processing facility and eventually a magnet facility inside the kingdom, according to the sources, who were not authorized to discuss the deliberations publicly.

The selection process, details of which have not previously been reported, underscores how minerals processing is fast becoming a necessity for tech-focused economies looking to produce their own building blocks for artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and other sectors.

Saudi’s growing mining industry is a key pillar in de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s Vision 2030 program to diversify the economy beyond oil.

The country, and the mining companies controlled by it, are eyeing projects to mine and process several minerals, including lithium, copper, zinc and rare earths, which are used to make magnets that turn electricity into motion for EVs, cell phones and other devices.

Ma’aden and MP declined to comment. Shenghe and Neo did not respond to requests for comment.

Lynas said it is focused on rare earths processing projects in Australia, Malaysia and the United States, and that it “regularly holds discussions with emerging rare earths companies around the world.”

Once chosen, the partner and Ma’aden will study how best to mine and process Saudi Arabia’s vast reserves of the minerals, a timeline expected to be finished by this December, one of the sources said.

Of the four companies under consideration, Shenghe and Neo have the most experience with rare earths processing and magnet production, although MP has been working to boost both inside the United States. Lynas processes rare earths in Malaysia and is building a refinery in Texas.

The standard process to refine rare earths can be dirty, expensive and time-consuming, fueling a push by scientists for better methods. Rare earths processors must contend with 17 metals, depending on a deposit’s geology, each of which is nearly the same size and atomic weight, making separation complex.

Those rare earths must be teased out in a specific order, a logistical challenge that would prevent Ma’aden and any future partner from cherry-picking specific elements they may want.

MP, which supplies Shenghe with rare earths from its California mine for processing inside China, invested in a Vietnamese rare earths processing facility with Shenghe in 2023. Both companies said earlier this year they planned to unwind that partnership.

China’s upper hand

China started rapidly expanding in the industry during the 1980s and now controls nearly 90% of global rare earths refining capacity, according to the International Energy Agency. Geologists with the state-controlled China Geological Survey have been mapping out Saudi Arabia’s mineral reserves since 2023.

China’s prowess in the minerals sector has helped propel the country’s economy to the second-largest in the world, a reality that the US and others have acknowledged and are working to break, especially after Beijing banned the export of rare earths processing technology in 2023.

Last week, Beijing placed export restrictions on rare earths, magnets and other finished products.

US President Donald Trump last month invoked wartime powers to in part boost American metals refining.

Saudi officials last year nearly doubled their estimate for the kingdom’s minerals reserves to $2.5 trillion, an increase largely due to the addition of rare earths.

Riyadh aims to have those rare earths processed into a form that can be used to make electronics inside the kingdom and does not want the supply chain to be exported elsewhere, according to one of the sources.

Broad investments

The move is only one part of Riyadh’s latest push into the minerals supply chain. The Global Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, a government program under the Saudi government’s National Investment Strategy, last November said it would invest 35 billion riyals ($9.32 billion) in copper smelters and refineries from India’s Vedanta and a zinc smelter from China’s Zijin.

The Saudi government’s sovereign wealth fund is the largest shareholder in California-based EV manufacturer Lucid, which in 2023 opened its first plant outside the US in Saudi Arabia.

Australia’s Hastings Technology Metals has also signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with the National Investment Strategy for a potential rare earths facility. US firm Critical Metals signed a non-binding MOU last year to explore the construction of a lithium refinery in Saudi Arabia with Riyadh-based Obeikan Group.

Ma’aden, which is controlled by the Saudi wealth fund, said last May it had successfully extracted lithium from seawater and was working to make the process commercially viable.

(By Ernest Scheyder, Clara Denina and Pesha Magid; Editing by Veronica Brown and Nia Williams)

Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) says its Kamoa-Kakula copper complex in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has reached a “major turning point” following a sizeable increase in imported hydroelectric power in recent weeks enabling the start-up of its new on-site smelter.

According to the Vancouver-headquartered miner, the amount of imported hydroelectric power at Kamoa increased by 40% — or 20 megawatts (MW) — to 70 MW in mid-March, and is expected to increase further to 100 MW over recent weeks.

Kamoa has been drawing 50 MW of domestically generated hydroelectricity and another 50 MW from imports to power the three-phased operation, which requires 130 to 140 MW to run. The balance of the required power is generated on-site.

The increase in imported hydroelectric power meant Ivanhoe could now begin the commissioning of its direct-to-blister copper smelter. The initial heat-up process is set to begin next month. The company aims to achieve first production of 99.7% copper anode in July 2025, then ramping up to 80% capacity by year-end.

The new 500,000-tonne-per-annum plant would “significantly reduce” the company’s C1 cash costs due to a more than 50% decrease in transportation costs, Ivanhoe founder Robert Friedland said in a press release. Once ramped up, the smelter is expected to hold approximately 17,000 tonnes of copper within its circuit.

“We are delighted that Kamoa-Kakula’s growing pains, which led to power challenges, are behind us following our successful efforts to secure additional imported hydroelectricity … with more imported hydroelectric power from the Southern Africa Power Pool on its way very soon,” Friedland added.

Q1 production results

The increased hydropower at Kamoa coincided with record production from the final two weeks of March, at an annualized rate of 630,000 tonnes, above the company’s 2025 guidance. For the entire quarter, Kamoa’s copper production came near a record high at 133,120 tonnes, for an annualized production rate of 550,000 tonnes per annum.

The performance, according to Ivanhoe, was underpinned by initiatives implemented earlier in the quarter that enabled the Phase 3 concentrator to be consistently fed at higher rates than originally designed. The Phase 1 and 2 concentrators also outperformed during the quarter, despite operations being hampered by maintenance shutdowns in the first half of March.

Given these results, the company has maintained Kamoa’s annual production guidance of 520,000 to 580,000 tonnes of copper.

Meanwhile, the Kipushi zinc mine, also in the DRC, produced a record 42,736 tonnes of zinc during the first quarter, having achieved ramp-up to nameplate capacity in February. For Kipushi, Ivanhoe is also maintaining its annual production guidance of 180,000 to 240,000 tonnes of zinc.

Ivanhoe Mines gained 6.9% to C$10.98 apiece in Toronto on the back of the Q1 production results. The share rise represents a contrast to the performance of many other big copper miners during the market rout. By noon ET, its market capitalization stood at C$14.9 billion ($10.5 billion).

May delivery copper is now down 18.4% from its record high hit near the end of March on frantic US buying ahead of the tariffs, only just escaping a technical bear market. In London copper did not fare much better, dropping 6.8% to $8,734 per tonne, the lowest since March 2020 at the onset of the covid pandemic.

Fair warning

A warning issued by BNP Paribas last week has turned out to be prescient. The French bank predicted a collapse in copper prices with senior commodities strategist David Wilson saying the imposition of tariffs will end the pricing dislocation, turning the market’s focus to the negative demand impact of US trade policies. BNP predicts a retreat to $8,500 a tonne this quarter.

Given its widespread use in industry, manufacturing, and construction copper is particularly vulnerable to slowing economic growth and the prospect of an outright recession sparked by what now appears to be a full-blown global trade war.

Max Layton, global head of commodities research at Citigroup, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that copper could fall by another 8% to 10% in the coming weeks while JP Morgan now predicts a 60% chance of a global recession if the tariffs continue.

The entire base metals complex retreated sharply leading to a broad-based sell-off in the sector.

Shares trading in New York of world no 1 mining company BHP (NYSE: BHP) dropped 9.5% for a market value of $107.3 billion while its nearest rival Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO) fell 6.4% to $93.5 billion in three times usual trading volumes.

Weakness in the Australian giants were compounded by a bearish outlook for iron ore, their traditional bread and butter commodity after Goldman Sachs predicted the steelmaking raw material could fall by as much as 15% from current levels around $100 a tonne.

Bear market

Copper specialist Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) which vies with BHP as the world’s top copper producer after Chile’s state-owned Codelco was the hardest hit on the day with a 13.1% decline after nearly 45 million shares changed hands. FCX is down 24.1% over the past week and is now worth $41.9 billion in New York.

Mexico’s Southern Copper (NYSE: SCCO) fell 9.6% on Friday bringing losses for the week to 16.7% and a market value of $62.4 billion. Southern Copper and Chinese firm Zijin Mining (NYSE: ZIJMY), down 7.2% at $56.9 billion both produce more than 1 million tonnes of the metal annually.

Glencore and (LON: GLEN) Anglo American (LON: AAL) depository receipts trading in the US declined by 11.5% and 11.0% respectively affording the diversified miners market capitalization of $36.9 billion and $28.6 billion respectively. Swiss-based Glencore and London-listed Anglo American are the world’s number six and seven copper companies based on output and both are down 20% for the week.

Further down the production stakes, Canada’s Teck Resource (TSE: TECK.B) also took a major hit, down 12.1%, while fellow Vancouver-based copper miners Ivanhoe Mines (TSE: IVN) saw its shares decline by 12.6% and First Quantum Minerals (TSE:FM) fell 12.8%.

The treatment charge that Korea Zinc will receive for smelting semi-processed ores known as concentrates will drop to $80 per ton this year, down from $165 a year ago, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named due to the commercial sensitivity of the matter.

The annual deals for concentrates produced at Teck’s Red Dog mine in Alaska are often used as a reference price for other agreements in the zinc industry. Nominally, it would be the lowest benchmark since 1972 and an all—time low in inflation-adjusted terms, according to CRU Group.

A sharp decline in processing fees could deal a major blow to global zinc smelters, as treatment charges typically account for one-third of their revenues.

The deal follows a collapse in treatment charges in the spot market over recent months, fueled by a rapid expansion of smelting capacity that’s driven up demand for mined ores. With profits plunging, there are growing expectations that smelters will need to dial back output or suspend production entirely.

Major zinc producer Trafigura Group launched a strategic review of its struggling Nyrstar assets in Australia last week and called for government support to keep them running. Glencore Plc is also in the process of reviewing its global smelting assets, citing challenging treatment charges in zinc and copper.

Zinc, mainly used in protecting steel from corrosion, is the world’s fourth most-used refined metal, after iron, aluminum and copper.

Spokespeople for Korea Zinc and Teck declined to comment.

(By Julian Luk)

Hole AM-25-90 returned 653 grams silver per tonne, 4.26 grams gold, 0.02% lead and 0.04% zinc over 5.85 metres true width from 119 metres depth, Vizsla said Monday in a statement. The same hole also returned an interval from 131 metres depth of 457 grams silver, 2 grams gold, 0.08% lead and 0.18% zinc over 2.6 metres true width, the company added.

The hole is located about 6 km northeast of the Copala resource area, which is located along the Animas vein system below historic mine workings. Vizsla is planning to follow up on the discovery with further drilling.

“While early stage, in our view the discovery underscores Panuco’s district scale potential,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Kevin O’Halloran said in a note to clients.

Five targets

News of the discovery comes as Vizsla carries out a 10,000-metre drill program – started late last year – to test several veins in five priority targets across the district. The discovery was made at the La Pipa target.

“This new discovery underscores the strong potential for new wide, high-grade silver and gold mineralization in the Panuco district, which has historically seen limited systematic exploration,” CEO Michael Konnert said in the statement.

“To date, drilling in the area has been limited, however ongoing geologic interpretation of the localized system suggests both grade and widths may increase at depth. We will evaluate plans to follow up on this exciting discovery.”

Further details on additional drilling will be provided “in due course,” Vizsla said.

Panuco is estimated to contain 12.96 million tonnes in measured and indicated resources grading 307 grams silver per tonne, 2.49 grams gold, 0.27% lead and 0.85% zinc, Vizsla said in January. This equates to 222.4 million oz. of silver-equivalent compared with a previous estimate of 155.5 million oz.

The project is located in southern Sinaloa, near the city of Mazatlán. The 72 sq. km district has more than 86 km of total vein extent, 35 km of underground mines, roads, power and permits.

Vizsla shares fell 0.9% to C$3.24 apiece in late morning Toronto trading Monday as wider markets fell on tariff fears. That gave the company a market capitalization of about C$935 million.

“Smelting capacity is a national security issue and therefore there probably needs to be significant government support for it,” Holtum, who became Trafigura CEO at the start of this year, said at the Financial Times Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Despite discussions among Western governments over challenging China’s dominance of minerals supply chains, metals processing plants across the world have been under financial strain as competition for raw materials heats up and costs stay high.

In a sign of a supply shortfall relative to smelter demand, spot treatment charges for zinc and lead concentrates have mostly stayed below zero since 2024’s second half — meaning smelters have had to pay to process ore.

Trafigura operates two smelters in Australia through its majority ownership of global processor Nyrstar. In Hobart it has a 280,000 ton per year capacity primary zinc smelter and in Port Pirie it has a 180,000 ton per year lead smelter. Those operations, which employ about 1,300 people, are “uneconomical” in the face of Chinese competition, the CEO said.

Nyrstar has already announced plans to cut around 25% of output at its zinc smelter in Australia from April. Another major zinc producer, Glencore Plc, is also pushing ahead with a review of its global zinc smelting assets, raising the possibility that tightness in the concentrate market will pass into metals.

“There are no sacred cows here,” the CEO said. “So what we’re looking at is every single asset that we own, we’re doing a strategic review of some of our struggling assets, Nyrstar Australia being a particular one.”

Zinc declined 0.6% to $2,955 a ton on the London Metal Exchange at 11:11 a.m. in Singapore, while lead was also down.

(By Archie Hunter and Jack Farchy)

Read More: Glencore halts Chilean smelter in setback for US copper rush

According to data tracked by S&P, the number of M&A transactions with gold as the primary resource metal more than doubled those in base metals at 43 (versus 19). The total transaction value was also nearly three times higher for gold at $19.31 billion, compared to $7.23 billion for base metals.

While the total M&A deal value of $26.54 billion was roughly the same as 2023 ($26.36 billion), the number of deals in gold increased by 32% from 47 to 62, including 13 more deals in gold. This highlights the increased appeal of gold in 2024 amid escalating geopolitical risks, which sent the metal’s price to multiple records, ending the year with a 27% gain.

The gold deals predominantly involved production-stage mining properties in Australia and Canada — two of the most geographically significant sources of gold. S&P says the two countries maintained their reputation as stable jurisdictions to investors and producers eager to capitalize on gold’s rise.

In 2023, there were already signs of the mining sector pivoting its focus towards gold, which had over two-thirds (30) of the total deals that year. The 2024 figure would mark the second straight year of gold dominance in mining and metals M&A.

*For inclusion in S&P’s database, the M&A transaction must have a value of at least $10 million and 1 million ounces of gold or 100,000 tonnes of base metal (copper, zinc, nickel) in acquired reserves and resources.

No big deals

S&P notes that the 2023 figures were skewed by Newmont’s $16.49 billion acquisition of Newcrest, meaning the 2024 M&A data would have painted an even brighter picture for gold deals. Without the Newcrest sale, gold’s total deal value would have been the highest since 2020, the firm says.

In 2024, there were no such megadeals (defined as those valued over $10 billion), which resulted in the lowest average deal value in five years at $428.1 million, down 24% from 2023. However, S&P points out that transactions involving gold remained consistently high through all four quarters, with at least one high-priced deal announced.

The three largest deals last year were company-level transactions, with a divided focus between gold and copper. The first was the acquisition of De Grey Mining by Northern Star Resources in December 2024 for $3.26 billion, closely followed by the Lundin Mining and BHP Group’s joint acquisition of Canada’s Filo in a $3.03 billion copper-focused deal. AngloGold Ashanti’s purchase of Centamin, priced at $2.48 billion, was the third-largest deal of 2024.

Base metals

Copper M&A activity was mostly muted in the first half of 2024 with only two deals, but the pace picked up in the second half once the metal’s price rose, S&P analysts observed, pointing to the surge in copper prices following an unprecedented squeeze on the COMEX in May.

Of the 16 announced copper deals, more than two-thirds were company acquisitions, with most targets evenly split between Canada and Chile. The largest deal was the Filo acquisition. However, other than that, activity in Canada was largely subdued after its government imposed stricter M&A regulations in July.

Majors were the most prominent buyer for copper assets. Without the billion-dollar deals, 2024’s total transaction value of $5.7 billion would have decreased 6% year over year. Much of the money spent by majors went to assets in the pre-production stage — a surprising turn given the pronounced focus on producing mines the year before. Although copper exploration budgets increased annually in 2024, miners still hesitated to rely heavily on exploration, S&P says.

After a dormant year in 2023, zinc-focused M&A activity returned in a big way with Boliden’s acquisition of two mines from Lundin. At $1.52 billion, the transaction was the largest primary zinc deal in more than five years, which was atypical for the commodity.

On the other hand, the number of nickel-focused deals declined from three to just one in 2024, along with a steep 97% drop in deal value. The lone deal was Horizon Minerals’ acquisition of Poseidon Nickel for $20.3 million.

More M&As

Based on the deals announced in the first quarter of 2025, it is likely that gold will continue to gain traction throughout the year, and that overall M&A activity will be stronger, S&P predicts.

As the critical minerals race grapples with concerns surrounding the Ukraine-Russia war and with trade tensions triggered by US tariff announcements coming to a head, metal prices are expected to fluctuate, especially for gold and copper, the firm says.

This is already seen in Equinox Gold’s February announcement of its acquisition of Calibre Mining for $1.87 billion, it adds.

So far, both metals have rallied during the first two months of the Trump administration. Gold, in particular, scored multiple record highs and recently surpassed the $3,050-an-ounce mark. Copper, mostly on anticipation of tariffs and stimulus in China, is also nearing its all-time peak.

As geopolitical turbulence continues to sway the markets, S&P’s analysts forecast an uptick in slightly more opportunistic acquisitions and supply chain consolidation efforts from players big and small.

Boliden said in a statement it planned to carry out the share issue through accelerated bookbuilding targeting Swedish and international institutional investors.

It intends to use the proceeds to finance the planned acquisition of two mines announced in December 2024, Somincor-Sociedade Mineira de Neves-Corvo in Portugal and Zinkgruvan Mining in Sweden, from Lundin Mining.

The share issue was authorized by shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting in January.

($1 = 10.1488 Swedish crowns)

(By Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Jan Harvey)

The licenses were awarded to Indian miner Vedanta and a consortium comprising local Ajlan & Bros and China’s Zijin Mining among others.

The exploration licenses cover the kingdom’s first mineralized belts located at Jabal Sayid in Madinah and Al Hajar in Aseer. They are both rich in base and precious metals, including copper, zinc, gold and silver.

The licenses cover a total area of 4,788 square kilometers (1,849 square miles), according to SPA.

The ministry said the miners would spend approximately 366 million riyals ($97.6 million) on exploration over the next three years.

The kingdom’s growing mining industry is part of the Vision 2030 plan to diversify the economy and cut reliance on fossil fuels. The government hopes to attract $100 billion a year in foreign investment under the plan by 2030.

Riyadh started awarding licenses to international miners in 2022.

Last year, Saudi Arabia revised upward estimates for its untapped mineral resources, including phosphate, gold and rare earths to $2.5 trillion, from a 2016 forecast of $1.3 trillion.

($1 = 3.7505 riyals)

(By Menna Alaa El-Din; Editing by Franklin Paul and Lisa Shumaker)

Read More: Codelco, Saudi Arabia eye joint copper investments

Russia is quickening the pace of domestic asset seizures after courts ruled early this year that a leading grain trader, Moscow’s sprawling Domodedovo airport and strategic warehouse assets be handed over to the state.

Russia’s finance ministry on Tuesday said it intends to revive plans for major privatizations in 2025 and also expects to bring in more than $1.2 billion by selling assets seized through the courts.

Dalpolimetall, which produces lead and zinc ores at two mines in Russia’s Far East and employs more than 1,500 people, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Foreign companies have grappled with the risk of state seizure ever since Russia sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022, but Moscow, under the auspices of strategic stability and domestic security, has increasingly brought domestic assets too into the crosshairs.

(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Alexander Marrow; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

The company’s copper plants in Quebec — as well as several recycling sites in the US — will be absorbed into the miner’s global zinc smelting division, with the aim of increasing business synergies and operational efficiency, according to internal memos seen by Bloomberg.

The consolidation comes as Glencore pushes ahead with a sweeping review of its global copper and zinc smelting assets, following an industrywide slump in profitability fueled by increased competition for mined ores. Glencore has already written down the value of several smelters and mothballed a copper plant in the Philippines, and is now pursuing major cost cuts at its assets in Canada.

“Our smelting and refining business continues to be under a high level of economic pressure due to challenging market conditions that have led to historically low treatment charges,” Suresh Vadnagra, Glencore’s head of zinc assets, said in an internal memo this week.

Xavier Wagner, Glencore’s chief operating officer, and Jon Evans, its head of industrial copper assets, are meeting locally with staff this week to “discuss the changes and importantly, the future of our Canadian copper and zinc metallurgical assets,” Vadnagra wrote.

The overhaul comes after Glencore in December let go about 85 of the roughly 100-strong team based in Montreal that was overseeing its Canadian copper and zinc assets, according to people familiar with the matter.

A Glencore spokesman declined to comment.

Glencore’s Canadian smelting assets comprise of Horne copper smelter in northern Quebec as well as Canadian Copper Refinery east of Montreal and CEZinc in southern Quebec. The operations collectively employ more than 2,300 people. CEZinc is North America’s second-largest zinc plant.

The Quebec smelters benefit from access to low energy costs, skilled labor and proximity to US consumers, but margins at the plants have come under threat after a massive expansion in global smelting capacity. The increased competition has made feedstock including copper and zinc ores and concentrates harder and pricier to get hold of, and soaring raw-material costs have strained smelters’ cashflows.

Last month, Glencore suspended operations at a copper smelter in the Philippines and took a $1.5 billion writedown on various smelting units. The company said it is strategically evaluating the longer-term business case for all of the assets, which also include plants in Spain, Italy, Germany and Australia.

Canadian metal producers are also contending with the threat of tariffs on shipments to its southern neighbor. US President Donald Trump already imposed a 25% tariff on global aluminum and steel imports, and he’s also exploring copper levies. Trump briefly imposed 25% duties on most Canadian and Mexican goods earlier this month, before giving a reprieve to April 2 by exempting goods covered by a North American free trade agreement.

Horne processes electronic scrap and concentrates to produce copper for the North American market, with an annual capacity to produce 210,000 metric tons of copper anodes. It is also the largest electronic-scrap processor on the continent, and is partly fed by collection plants run by Glencore in the US.

(By Julian Luk and Thomas Biesheuvel)

“This decision follows a thorough and extensive review and is a direct response to deteriorating market conditions and financial losses being sustained by Nyrstar Australia,” a statement said.

The zinc smelter in Hobart, which Nyrstar bills as one of the world’s largest, has a capacity of about 260,000 metric tons a year, the company said in an email, without providing the latest output figures.

Nyrstar said its Australian assets are facing significant financial challenges due to worsening conditions in raw material markets, negative treatment charges, and increased costs.

“We remain optimistic about the future and have the flexibility to lift production levels when operating conditions improve” Hobart general manager Todd Milne said.

Analysts expect a global market surplus of the metal mainly used for galvanizing steel this year of 147,000 tons partly due to the ramp up of new mines, according to a consensus forecast in a Reuters poll in January.

Benchmark zinc prices on the London Metal Exchange slumped last month to $2,706.50 a ton, their weakest in nearly four months before rebounding.

LME prices jumped on Wednesday following the news from Nyrstar, gaining 1.9% to $2,967 a ton by 1200 GMT, their highest in nearly three months.

(By Eric Onstad; Editing by Louise Heavens)

The investment, said Teck, secures high-quality, cost-competitive shipments of zinc and lead concentrates from the Bunker Hill mine located in Idaho’s Silver Valley.

Discovered in 1885, the Bunker Hill mine operated for nearly a century, and represents a legendary fixture in American mining history. During its active years, the mine accounted for nearly half of the base metals production from the Coeur d’Alene mining district. In 2020, Toronto-headquartered Bunker Hill Mining took over the project with a view of bringing back the once-productive mine.

Under an existing offtake agreement between the companies, production from Bunker Hill will go towards Teck’s Trail Operations, supplementing the existing feed from Teck’s Red Dog operations in Alaska.

Project financing

Teck’s investment is expected to support the completion of the Bunker Hill mine, ensuring that it remains on track to begin production in the second half of 2025. The mine was initially slated for an earlier restart, but management delayed its commissioning after determining that the restart cost was much higher than previously estimated.

According to a pre-feasibility study published in 2022, the Bunker Hill mine project has an initial capital cost of $55 million, but the revised mine plan shows a cost of $103 million. Its post-tax net present value is estimated at $52 million (at 8% discount), with an internal rate of return of 36% and 2.1-year payback.

Teck’s $40 million investment in Bunker Hill will take the form of a private placement of units priced at C$0.105 each. Separately, Bunker Hill has also arranged a placement of units at the same price, with BMO, CIBC and Red Cloud Securities acting as lead syndicates, to raise another $20 million.

The proceeds, said Bunker Hill, would provide it with sufficient capital to bring its mine closer to production. As of Thursday, the project is about 65% complete.

“This Teck-led investment helps to further strengthen and de-risk American metal supply chains, whilst creating new American mining jobs in the Silver Valley, Idaho at a critical time,” Bunker Hill CEO Sam Ash said in a news release.

The company will also sign a standby facility agreement with Teck that provides a $10 million prepayment to “further improve asset resilience” and reduce risk during the critical first three years of operation.

Additionally, the company plans to restructure its debt with creditors including Teck, Sprott Streaming and Monetary Metal, including the conversion of some debt into equity. This, Bunker Hill says, would “significantly reduce risk and increase the capital available to for investment in exploration and expansion.”

Upon closing, it is expected that Sprott will own greater than 20% of Bunker Hill’s shares and therefore become a control person. Teck is also expected to increase its stake from 6.6% to 35.8% following the debt restructuring.

Shares of Bunker Hill Mining fell 25% by 11:40 a.m. ET to C$0.15 apiece, for a market capitalization of C$50.4 million.

The US depends on Canadian oil, nickel, zinc, uranium, potash and germanium – among other resources – to make steel, ships and planes, fuel power plants and grow food, Jonathan Wilkinson said at the Prospectors & Developers of Canada Association’s annual convention in Toronto.

“When President Trump says he doesn’t need something from Canada, that’s just not true,” Wilkinson told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “And so looking at putting on either our own export tariffs or looking at other measures that would include deciding we’re going to sell some of those products elsewhere, those are fully on the table.”

After the US imposed 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods, and 10% on oil and minerals, Canada fired back with its own levies.

Separate 25% duties on aluminum and steel are due March 12. The minister’s planned trip to meet this week in Washington with Doug Burgum, US Secretary of the Interior, was postponed, Wilkinson’s staff said Wednesday.

The situation is fluid, with President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau due to speak by phone Wednesday morning. Trump is to make an announcement Wednesday afternoon that might exempt the auto sector or contain reduced tariffs, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg News.

The stunning move by the Trump administration to levy tariffs on its oldest ally and biggest trading partner when the continent has had a free trade agreement for more than 30 years has left Canadians bewildered but determined to fight back. While mining executives generally welcome a US President who’s keen to slash red tape and approve projects, the mood at PDAC was one of defiance against an irrational trade war.

Tariff irony

“With critical minerals, the option that the Americans have is to buy more from China, or it’s to buy more of some of them – the potash trade, in particular – from Russia,” Wilkinson said. “It’s hard to see how the measures that are being taken by the American president to a country that has historically been their closest friend and ally leads them down a path to purchasing more materials from their greatest adversaries.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday he would consider export taxes on nickel and electricity that could be around 25%. A day earlier, he suggested nickel could be stockpiled and sold in other markets. However, Minister Wilkinson and Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, couldn’t say exactly how these plans would work other than through federal-provincial cooperation. While provinces control extraction, Ottawa determines export policies.

Wilkinson noted that Atlantic region giant Irving Oil raised prices for its US-bound fuels like gasoline and heating oil by 10% on Tuesday. Canadians have already begun making choices to replace American products like Kentucky bourbon and Florida orange juice, while US Republican Senators Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell and Paul Thune expressed opposition to the tariffs.

“First and foremost, Americans are going to feel it at the pump and in their utility bills simply because of the tariffs that the President himself has imposed on American consumers,” Wilkinson said. “The first point of departure is to create domestic pressure, to get the administration to reflect on its decision.”

Teck, which sells most of its refined zinc to the US, has been working on a contingency plan for months, Price told the PDAC mining industry conference in Toronto.

“We have been reserving warehousing capacity, looking to reserve space in ports to export the metals to Asia,” Price said.

“We will find buyers and prices will adjust.”

The additional warehousing and port spaces would be in Canada, a company representative said.

Trump’s 25% tariffs on imports from Canada as well as Mexico took effect on Tuesday, launching new trade conflicts with the United States’ three biggest trading partners. Economists expect US companies to bear the cost of those tariffs.

Teck produces about 260,000 metric tons of refined zinc annually.

That equates to less than a third of total US demand in 2024 when it stood at 848,000 metric tons, or 6% of the world’s total, according to the International Lead and Zinc Study Group (ILZSG).

BNP Paribas estimates that the United States imports 62% of its zinc needs, mainly from Canada and Mexico.

Price said he expects the tariffs to raise the cost of commodities and drive inflation, and that “there is little upside”.

Vale Base Metals, the base metals spinoff of iron ore giant Vale that sells Canada-produced nickel to the US, is also looking to adapt to the tariffs, Vale Base Metals chair Mark Cutifani said.

“We are talking to everyone on this to see how this can be resolved,” he told reporters.

(By Divya Rajagopal, Polina Devitt, Pratima Desai and Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Veronica Brown and Barbara Lewis)

The tariff actions, which could upend nearly $2.2 trillion in two-way annual US trade went live at 12:01 a.m. (0501 GMT), hours after Trump declared that all three countries had failed to do enough to stem the flow of the deadly fentanyl opioid and its precursor chemicals into the US.

China responded immediately announcing additional tariffs of 10%-15% on certain US imports from March 10 and a series of new export restrictions for designated US entities. Later it said it had raised complaints about the new measures with the World Trade Organization.

Canada and Mexico, which have enjoyed a virtually tariff-free trading relationship with the US for three decades, were poised to immediately retaliate.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would respond with 25% tariffs on C$30 billion ($20.7 billion) worth of US imports, and another C$125 billion if Trump’s tariffs were still in place in 21 days. He said previously that Canada would target American beer, wine, bourbon, home appliances and Florida orange juice.

“Tariffs will disrupt an incredibly successful trading relationship,” Trudeau said, adding that they would violate the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement signed by Trump during his first term.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford told NBC that he was ready to cut off shipments of nickel and transmission of electricity from his province to the US.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was expected to announce her response on Tuesday, the country’s economy ministry said.

The European Union’s executive Commission said it “deeply regrets” the decision, which risked disrupting global trade. Trump has also floated “reciprocal” tariffs on EU goods.

Stacking China tariffs

The extra 10% duty on Chinese goods adds to a 10% tariff imposed by Trump on February 4 to punish Beijing over the US fentanyl overdose crisis. The cumulative 20% duty comes on top of tariffs of up to 25% imposed by Trump during his first term on some $370 billion worth of US imports.

Some of these products saw US tariffs increase sharply under former president Joe Biden last year, including a doubling of duties on Chinese semiconductors to 50% and a quadrupling of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to over 100%.

The 20% tariff will apply to several major US consumer electronics imports from China previously untouched, including smartphones, laptops, video game consoles, smartwatches and speakers and Bluetooth devices.

China’s new tariffs announced on Tuesday targeted a wide range of US agricultural products including certain meats, grains, cotton, fruit, vegetables and dairy products.

Beijing also placed 25 US firms under export and investment restrictions on national security grounds. Ten of these firms were targeted for selling arms to Taiwan.

China’s commerce ministry said the US tariffs violated World Trade Organization rules and “undermine the basis for economic and trade cooperation between China and the US.”

US farmers were hard hit by Trump’s first-term trade wars, which cost them about $27 billion in lost export sales and conceded share of the Chinese market to Brazil.

Recession fears

The tariffs on Mexican and Canadian products could have much deeper repercussions for a highly integrated North American economy that depends on cross-border shipments to build cars and machinery, refine energy and process agricultural goods.

“Today’s reckless decision by the US administration is forcing Canada and the US toward recessions, job losses and economic disaster,” Canadian Chamber of Commerce CEO Candace Laing said in a statement.

She said the US tariffs will raise costs for consumers and producers and disrupt supply chains. “Tariffs are a tax on the American people.”

Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council representing Detroit automakers, called for vehicles that meet the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s regional content requirements to be exempted from the tariffs.

Even before Trump’s tariffs announcement, US data on Monday showed factory gate prices jumped to a nearly three-year high, suggesting that a new wave of tariffs could soon undercut production.

Trump’s confirmation that the tariffs would proceed sent financial markets reeling with global stocks tumbling and safe-haven bonds rallying. Both the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso fell against the US dollar.

Piling on

Trump has maintained a blistering pace of tariff actions since taking office in January, including fully restored 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that take effect March 12, rescinding prior exemptions.

Trump on Saturday opened a national security investigation into imports of lumber and wood products that could result in steep tariffs. Canada, already facing 14.5% US tariffs on softwood lumber, would be hit particularly hard.

A week earlier, Trump revived a probe into countries that levy digital services taxes, proposed fees of up to $1.5 million on every Chinese-built ship entering a US port and launched a tariff investigation into copper imports.

These add to his plans for higher “reciprocal tariffs” to match the levies of other countries and offset their other trade barriers, a move that could hit the European Union hard.

(Reporting by David Lawder, Andrea Shalal, David Shepardson, David Ljunggren, Ismail Shakil, Kylie Madry, Ana Isabel Martinez and Joe Cash; Editing by Sam Holmes, Neil Fullick and Sharon Singleton)

The mineral exploration tax credit is a capital market tool that offers investors a 15% tax credit to invest in flow-through shares of smaller mining companies. It was set to expire on March 31.

Wilkinson said the extension is to ensure that the mining sector has the tools to raise capital for exploration projects. The move is also an attempt by the government to provide companies with an alternative source of capital to China.

Canada has maintained a tough stance against investments from Chinese state-owned enterprises in domestic mining companies. It has asked at least five companies to divest investments from Chinese state-owned enterprises in Canadian-listed companies.

“There was some degree of anxiety on the part of the sector, especially the juniors (exploration companies), whether it’s going to be renewed,” Wilkinson said in an interview.

The extension is expected to provide C$110 million ($76.05 million) to support mineral exploration investment, he added.

The extension will be announced during the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference in Toronto, one of the world’s largest gatherings of mining companies and their financiers, which starts on Sunday.

Miners are bracing for a possible trade war in North America unleashed by US president Donald Trump, who is threatening to impose a 25% tariff on most Canadian goods.

Miners are also watching for tougher controls on the export of critical minerals from China. Wilkinson said that Canada has pitched a mutually beneficial partnership to the US by offering Washington a secure supply of critical minerals such as germanium and gallium.

“There are specific types of critical minerals that Canada has that China has been providing in large quantities to the United States, that they have now banned the export (of) into the United States,” he said.

Wilkinson said his argument to US officials has been that it is far better to talk about how the US and Canada can help each other. Canada has prepared retaliatory measures in case Trump proceeds with tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

While Canada might not impose an export tax on metals in the first round of its counter-tariff measures, it is considering one on commodities such as zinc, copper, and nickel in the future.

“That may not be the first order of business, but certainly those are tools in the Canadian toolbox, and we’re not taking any tools out right now,” Wilkinson said.

Mining giants however have been demanding much more from governments. Mike Henry, chief executive officer of BHP on Sunday in a speech at PDAC said that Canada’s competitiveness has dropped compared to other countries that are emerging as new mining destinations and issuing faster permitting process for miners.

“Past success is not an indicator of future success,” Henry said referring to Australia and Canada, adding that even though BHP has had positive experience in Canada, the experience of other companies might not be the same. BHP is developing a potash mine in Saskatchewan Canada, which when it comes to production will be of the biggest investments ever made by a mining company in the country.

($1 = 1.4465 Canadian dollars)

(By Divya Rajagopal; Editing by Caroline Stauffer, Nia Williams and Alistair Bell)

The exchange does not provide the identity of parties holding large positions, but often investors or traders will hold inventories hoping to profit from looming shortages or to meet commitments to customers.

“It seems a fair assumption to think it must be a physical trader looking for metal to fulfil a physical short,” said Alastair Munro, senior base metals strategist at broker Marex.

That seems to be reflected in a spate of fresh cancellations in LME warehouses recently – 32,175 metric tons in a week – in which owners give notice of plans to remove metal, Munro added.

LME positioning data showed between 80% and 90% of LME inventories of aluminum and zinc were each held by one party as of February 20.

“The LME is closely monitoring the tightness in these markets and has the necessary controls in place to ensure continued market orderliness,” the exchange told Reuters in an email.

The LME is owned by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing.

Total LME stocks of aluminum stand at 535,900 tons, but the LME bases its position data on inventories that are available and not cancelled – earmarked for impending shipment – which is 208,400 tons.

Ninety percent of those available stocks of the metal used for transport, packaging and construction was worth $505 million at the LME cash price.

Benchmark LME three month aluminum prices touched its highest in nearly nine months on Friday at $2,736 a ton in the wake of a decision by the European Union to ban Russian primary aluminum imports.

Overall LME stocks have halved since May last year, suggesting a tighter aluminum market.

This is reflected in the premium of cash LME aluminum over the benchmark three-month contract, which surged to $38 a ton on February 17, the highest on a closing basis since May 2023.

The premium, also known as a backwardation, usually indicates shortages of near-term inventories on the LME.

The single large position of zinc held by one party was worth about $370 million, but the key LME zinc spread showed no backwardation.

While LME inventories of the metal mainly used for galvanizing steel have tumbled, mine supply is expected to recover and analysts have forecast a global surplus this year.

(By Eric Onstad, Polina Devitt and Pratima Desai; Editing by David Evans and Tomasz Janowski)

The company’s flagship Kamoa-Kakula copper complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo set record output of 437,061 tonnes of copper in concentrate and $3.11 billion in revenue. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization rose to $625 million from $604 million in 2023, the company said on Thursday.

The performance contrasts with Canaccord Genuity mining analyst Dalton Baretto recalling how a Jan. 2 fire knocked out backup power and delayed Ivanhoe’s forecast for this year. Baretto also critiqued the company’s $1.2 billion plan to expand the Platreef project in South Africa to output of 450,000 to 550,000 oz. of three platinum group metals and gold by late 2027.

“We note that these were more aggressive on timelines, capex and particularly costs,” Baretto said on a note on Friday. “We have adjusted our estimates.” The bank’s target share price slid to C$24 from C$27.50.

Ivanhoe shares fell 11% to close on Friday at C$14.97 apiece as wider markets dropped. The company is trading close to the bottom of its 12-month range at C$13.84, having achieved C$21.32 in the period. It has a market capitalization of C$20.3 billion.

After adjustments, Ivanhoe’s normalized profit was $386 million. This included a $164 million loss from the fair value of convertible notes and extra finance costs.

Kamoa-Kakula

Founder and co-chairman Robert Friedland lauded Kamoa-Kakula’s “extraordinary performance” in its record 133,819 tonnes for the three months to Dec. 31. “The completion of Africa’s largest and greenest copper smelter marks a pivotal moment, unlocking new potential for enhanced profitability, reduced costs and streamlined efficiencies,” he said.

Ivanhoe reported the complex faced challenges like higher use of imported and backup power. Still, its C1 or cash cost was between $1.65 and $1.85 per pound.

The site’s stage-three expansion is complete. The brand new, direct-to-blister copper smelter is to be switched on in April after a three-month delay caused by intermittent power availability. Similar challenges loom in 2025.

Kipushi flooding

The Kipushi mine, a high‐grade zinc–copper–germanium–silver asset also in the DRC, managed to hit design processing rates late in 2024 after initial ramp-up challenges. However, an electrical failure followed by flooding has now delayed further development.

A 344,000-tonne surface stockpile keeps mill operations running at design rates. But analysts warn that delays might hurt production later this year if development doesn’t meet expectations.

The disruption at Kipushi not only pushed C1 costs higher but also underlines the vulnerability of operations when critical infrastructure issues arise.

A debottlenecking effort is ongoing to boost processing capacity by 20%. They are also assessing an upstream dense media separation circuit to handle fines.

“For 2025, Ivanhoe is guiding to C1 costs of 90¢ to $1 per lb., well above our estimates,” Baretto said in Friday’s note. “We have updated our life-of-mine cost assumptions to be more conservative.”

Platreef

Ivanhoe’s expansion plan for Platreef aims to ramp up annual processing to 700,000 tonnes late this year with projected output of 100,000 oz. of three platinum group metals plus gold.

The second stage is projected to boost mining and processing rates to 4.1 million tonnes per year at an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of roughly $700 per ounce. A third stage plans to further increase capacity to 10.7 million tonnes at an additional capital cost of about $800 million, with production forecasts of 1 to 1.2 million oz. per year at an AISC of around $650 per oz. coming online in late 2030.

The biggest miner posted underlying attributable profit for the six months to Dec. 31 of $5.08 billion, it reported Tuesday. That was below analyst estimates of $5.39 billion. Steelmaking ingredient iron ore remains the company’s biggest earner — but only just — with copper now accounting for 44% of its revenue.

BHP’s move to cut its dividend to 50 cents a share, down from 72 cents the year before, will reinforce speculation the board has a renewed focus on capital management as it pursues growth. Analysts were anticipating a dividend of 53.3 cents.

The slip in profits continues a trend for BHP since it posted record earnings of $33.1 billion for the year to June 2022 as iron ore demand soared. Annual profits have since more than halved, with declining capital returns and rising capital expenditure weighing on its shares.

Still, chief executive officer Mike Henry struck a positive tone in Tuesday’s statement. “The demand for BHP products remains strong despite global economic and trade uncertainties, with early signs of recovery in China, resilient economic performance in the US and strong growth in India,” he said.

BHP’s shares in Sydney were up 0.2% at 3:18 p.m. local time.

Benchmark iron ore prices dipped 5% during the reporting period, while copper fell 9%.

The mining giant’s iron ore mines in Western Australia’s Pilbara were hit by Tropical Cyclone Zelia last week. The company said that while it was maintaining its forecast output of the steelmaking material from the region of between 282 million tons and 294 million tons for the year to June 30, it no longer expects production to be in the upper half of the range due to the impact of the storm.

Analysts from Citigroup Inc. and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. have flagged that this year will be one where major miners’ primary focus will be on capital allocation, with a particular emphasis on expanding portfolios of commodities central to the energy transition, such as copper.

Ongoing capital expenditure pressures will be a key focus of incoming chairman Ross McEwan, who will succeed outgoing Ken MacKenzie after he served in the role since September 2017.

During MacKenzie’s tenure, BHP focused on higher investor returns to ensure investor confidence, overseeing the divestment of a vast oil and gas portfolio and a large chunk of the company’s coal business. More recently, he steered the company back to inorganic growth with the acquisition of Australian copper play OZ Minerals Ltd. in 2022 and last year’s failed $49 billion takeover attempt of Anglo American Plc.

Adding pressure to the iron ore business are ongoing macroeconomic challenges in China. Despite attempts by Beijing to stabilize its debt-ridden property sector, the nation’s economic recovery remains brittle.

The top metals consumer is also yet to feel the sting of tariffs leveled by the US. Just two weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed executive orders imposing tariffs of 10% across the board on all imports from China.

“There have been some overall economic challenges and headwinds in China, but the sectors of the economy that are important to BHP’s commodity demand, for the most part, have been performing strongly,” Henry said in an interview on Bloomberg TV.

Meanwhile, India continues to be a “bright spot” for commodity demand, BHP said in the statement.

BHP sees copper as one of its most important growth areas, along with potash used to manufacture fertilizer, as China’s demand for steelmaking material iron ore plateaus.

During the reporting period, BHP announced it would spend at least $10 billion to maintain and grow copper production across its Chilean portfolio over the next decade and a half. It will spend at least $4 billion at its Escondida copper mine alone.

Mines such as Escondida, where BHP has an operational 57.5% interest alongside Rio Tinto Group, are aging and deposits of such size and scale are rare. In January, BHP completed its acquisition of Filo Corp. with partner Lundin Mining Corp., which owns the Filo Del Sol mine in Chile. BHP’s 50% stake in Filo cost around $2.1 billion.

“BHP will never be reliant on acquisitions or external opportunities,” Henry told Bloomberg TV when questioned about the company’s appetite for inorganic growth. “In the current market, it has become increasingly difficult for companies to pursue large-scale M&A for value.”

(By Paul-Alain Hunt)