China has yet to approve the deal, with Bunge executives and advisers growing increasingly concerned the political rift will continue to hold up the process, said the people, who asked not to be named because they’re not authorized to discuss the progress of the merger. Chief executive officer Greg Heckman has traveled to China a number of times for talks with authorities, the people said.

Bunge, which has its corporate headquarters in Missouri, is the B in the so-called ABCD quartet of storied agricultural commodity trading firms that dominate crop markets. The company announced it would buy Viterra in June 2023. At the time, JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimated the acquisition would create a $25 billion agriculture giant capable of competing with Cargill Inc., the world’s top crop trader.

Bunge is in the final stage of regulatory approval and it’s had a “constructive dialogue” with Chinese officials, the company said in a statement to Bloomberg. A spokesman for Viterra deferred questions to Bunge. China’s commerce ministry and the state administration for market regulation didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The company has already missed its initial deadline to close the deal by mid-2024. It has also blown past the two automatic three-month extensions in the agreement. If the deal falls through due to failure to obtain antitrust approvals, Bunge would have to pay Viterra a $400 million termination fee.

It isn’t unusual for Chinese reviews of takeovers by foreign companies to drag on. But the recent souring of relations between the US and China and President Donald Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs have come at a critical point for the merger.

The deal has already received the green light from the European Union and Canada, where there were concerns about the impact on competition. Argentina has yet to weigh in, but antitrust laws in the South American nation allow for the deal to be completed, with any remedial action potentially being required later.

Bunge shares fell 2% on the news, and then quickly erased losses. The stock was up 0.3% as of 12:20 p.m. in New York. The company operates about five oilseed plants in China, while Viterra has a crop marketing unit there.

China has only blocked deals on rare occasions since its anti-monopoly law came to force in 2008, such as Coca-Cola Co.’s bid to buy China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd. in 2009. Other deals in limbo amid the trade war include chip-designer Synopsys Inc.’s pending $34 billion purchase of software developer Ansys Inc., one of the biggest acquisitions in recent years.

China could impose conditions on deal terms to maintain competition. When Japanese trading house Marubeni purchased US grains trader Gavilon a decade ago, China required the companies to maintain independent trading units for selling soybeans to China.

On the Bunge deal, there was scrutiny from the Chinese side that the merger will increase industry concentration and could impact Beijing’s food security interests, one of the people said. The person added that the relevant regulators are conducting a careful compliance review amid the significance of the deal.

Bunge was founded in 1818 by Amsterdam importer Johann Bunge, and seven decades later it allied with another family to start trading grains. It expanded to Latin America in 1884 and the US in 1923. The company has repeatedly shifted its headquarters — to Argentina, Brazil, New York and, more recently, Chesterfield, Missouri, which is a suburb of St. Louis

The company said in the statement the deal will “strengthen global food supply resilience, benefiting farmers and end consumers around the world by ensuring a stable, diversified and reliable supply of key agricultural products.”

While Bunge is listed in New York, it’s domiciled in Switzerland, with its commodities trading desk based in Geneva. About 80% of the processing capacity of a combined Bunge-Viterra company would be located outside the US, as would more than 85% of employees.

(By Isis Almeida and Hallie Gu)

Ukraine gets a long-term commitment for US investment in “a free, sovereign, and secure Ukraine”. The United States gets a stake in Ukraine’s future resource potential. And Trump gets to prove that he is, to quote White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, “the great deal maker”.

Just don’t expect a Ukrainian critical minerals rush soon.

Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, posted on X that she does not expect the jointly-owned Reconstruction Investment Fund to pay out any dividends in the first 10 years.

Don’t mention the rare earths

At least everyone has stopped calling it the rare earths deal. The agreement covers all sub-soil resources, including oil, gas and a wide spectrum of metals.

Ukraine has a couple of rare earth deposits, which is not surprising given the size of the country and that rare earths are not as rare as their name suggests.

Deposits that are viable economically and technically are relatively unusual and how promising Ukraine’s are is unclear.

Even the best-mapped Novopoltavske field was last surveyed in 1982-1991. It is also inconveniently located just north of Chernihiv in Zaporizhzhia province, which is the wrong side of the front line from a Ukrainian point of view.

So are two of the touted lithium projects. Indeed, about 40% of Ukraine’s metal resources are under Russian occupation, according to estimates by Ukrainian think tanks We Build Ukraine and the National Institute of Strategic Studies.

Unlocking the full value of the minerals deal will be impossible without a definitive peace and reconciliation of Ukraine’s and Russia’s competing territorial claims.

Long road from mine to market

Ukraine has other lithium deposits and also hosts reserves of critical minerals such as uranium, titanium and graphite.

But since existing production facilities are not included in the deal and many have been closed since the start of the war anyway, Ukraine will be building a minerals production chain from scratch.

That is a long journey.

The challenge with many of the metals on everyone’s critical raw materials list is not getting them out of the ground, although that can be capital-intensive enough, but in refining them into high-purity products ready for the manufacturing process.

Rare earths’ separation and processing is notoriously tricky and dominated by Chinese operators, which is another reason why no-one’s calling it the rare earths deal any more.

Mined uranium also needs to be enriched before it can be fed into a nuclear power plant and titanium ore needs to be processed into aviation-grade alloy before it can be used to build aircraft.

It’s an inconvenient truth that Russia is one of the world’s largest titanium processors and accounted for 27% of the enriched uranium supplied to US commercial reactors in 2023.

Russia, however, is explicitly excluded from benefiting from the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Price protection

Market price is another problem.

Ukraine’s graphite deposits are both on the right side of the front line and relatively well mapped. The Balakhivske project is at the feasibility study stage, according to the Ukrainian Geological Survey.

There is a ready European market for the material needed for the anode in electric vehicle batteries.

But will mining it in Ukraine be economically viable?

Canadian miner Northern Graphite, the only producer in North America, has announced it is putting its Quebec plant on care and maintenance due to a 50% collapse in the graphite price.

China controls 70% of the global supply chain and can exert huge influence over pricing, in this case flooding the market to undermine potential competitors.

The West’s lithium ambitions are being similarly stymied by Chinese over-supply and rock-bottom market prices.

Ukraine will find that private investment will need government help to shield start-ups from price turbulence.

The United States has already understood the need for direct federal action. The Department of Defense is a strategic investor in a domestic rare earths processing project being led by Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths.

Staking the metallic future

This minerals deal is clearly going to come with a long repayment schedule.

But it is a sign of the times. As the world transitions from a fossil fuel economy to a metallic future, minerals have become the new geopolitical currency.

In this new world order China is the dominant incumbent and the West the challenger.

The United States has just made a strategic move in the great global minerals game. It will not be the last.

Next up is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where another minerals-for-security deal is on the table.

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

(Editing by Barbara Lewis)

Trafigura was behind a major part of the just over 20,000 tons requested for withdrawal on Friday, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named as the information isn’t public. The orders cut available inventories of copper on the LME in Asia to the lowest in a year.

Mercuria and other traders have also been taking delivery from the LME in recent months, the people said. Bloomberg previously reported that Mercuria had been a major buyer of copper on the exchange.

The withdrawals come amid growing signs of tightness in China: the Shanghai copper market is in the steepest backwardation in nearly two years and inventories on the exchange witnessed record drawdowns.

Traders say that Chinese copper buying has been strong in spite of concerns about the trade war with the US. At the same time, the threat of tariffs on American copper imports has spurred a rush to ship copper to the US, draining stocks in the rest of the world.

Available, “on-warrant” LME stocks dropped to 108,725 tons as a result of Friday’s drawdown. That includes 66,700 tons in Europe, which traders say is almost all Russian material, for which there are fewer buyers.

Available LME copper stocks in Asian warehouses fell to 42,025 tons, the lowest since May 2024. Most of that was in Kaohsiung, the Taiwanese port that accounted for more than 80% of Friday’s requested drawdowns.

Mercuria’s head of metals Kostas Bintas told Bloomberg in March that the rush to ship metal to the US risked leaving the rest of the world perilously short of copper, and predicted that prices could hit record highs.

While prices plunged in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariff announcement on April 2, they have since rebounded. On Friday, benchmark LME copper prices rose as much as 2.7% to $9,485.50 a ton.

Spokespeople for Trafigura and Mercuria declined to comment.

“The LME monitors its markets closely and has the necessary controls in place to ensure continued market orderliness,” a spokesperson said.

(By Jack Farchy and Alfred Cang)

Developing mines that produce strategically important minerals in countries with established mining sectors such as Canada and Australia can take 10 to 20 years, mining consultants said on Thursday.

But most mineral deposits in Ukraine have scant data to confirm they are economically viable. Investors may also baulk at funnelling money into a country where infrastructure such as power and transport has been devastated by Russia’s three-year-old full-scale invasion and future security is not guaranteed.

“If anyone’s thinking suddenly all these minerals are going to be flying out of Ukraine, they’re dreaming,” said Adam Webb, head of minerals at consultancy Benchmark Minerals Intelligence.

“The reality is it’s going to be difficult for people to justify investing money there when there are options to invest in critical minerals in countries that are not at war.”

While the financial benefits from the deal are uncertain, officials in Ukraine hailed it as a political breakthrough: They believe it will help shore up US support for Kyiv that has faltered under President Donald Trump.

Ukraine needs US support – especially weapons and cash – to withstand Russia’s military invasion.

On the US side, Trump heavily promoted the deal, especially the access it provides to Ukraine’s deposits of rare earth elements which are used in everything from cellphones to cars. So government policy could hasten investment.

The US does not produce significant amounts of rare earths and has ramped up a trade war with China, the world’s top supplier.

The text of the deal signed in Washington showed that revenues for the reconstruction fund would come from royalties, licence fees and production-sharing agreements.

The text mentions no financial terms, saying that the two sides still have to hammer out a limited partnership agreement between the US International Development Finance Corp and Ukraine’s State Organization Agency on Support for Public-Private Partnership.

The text details 55 minerals plus oil, natural gas and other hydrocarbons. According to Ukrainian data, the country has deposits of 22 of the 34 minerals identified by the European Union as critical, including rare earths, lithium and nickel.

“The transition from a discovered resource to an economically viable reserve requires significant time and investment, both of which have been constrained, not only since the onset of the war but even prior to it,” said Willis Thomas at consultancy CRU.

Ukrainian finance ministry data showed that in 2024, the Ukrainian state earned 47.7 billion hryvnias, or around $1 billion, in royalties and other fees related to natural resources exploitation.

But the joint fund created under the deal will only get revenue from new licences, permits and production-sharing agreements concluded after the accord comes into force.

Slow pace of mining licences

Ukraine was slow to issue new natural resources licenses before Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. From 2012 to 2020, about 20 licences were issued for oil and gas, one for graphite, one for gold, two for manganese and one for copper, according to the Ukrainian geological service. There are 3,482 existing licenses in total.

Since the agreement creates a limited partnership, the two countries may be looking at direct government investment in a mining company, analysts said.

Chile, the world’s biggest copper producer and owner of state mining company Codelco, could be an example they follow, Webb said.

Another hurdle is that some potentially lucrative projects are on land occupied by Russia, and the agreement does not include any security guarantees. Washington has said the presence of US interests would deter aggressors.

Seven of 24 potential mining projects identified by Benchmark are in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine and include lithium, graphite, rare earth elements, nickel and manganese.

An official of a small Ukrainian company that holds the licence for the Polokhivske lithium deposit, one of the largest in Europe, told Reuters in February it would be tough to develop without Western security guarantees.

“The deal ties the US more closely into Ukraine in that now they’ve got a bit more of a vested interest in this war coming to an end so that they can develop those assets,” Webb said.

(By Eric Onstad, Pavel Polityuk and Christian Lowe; Editing by Veronica Brown and Cynthia Osterman)

The Kremlin was silent on Wednesday’s agreement, but former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said it meant Trump had “broken the Kyiv regime” because Ukraine would have to pay for US military aid with mineral resources.

The accord, which was signed in Washington and heavily promoted by Trump, establishes a joint investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction as the US president tries to secure a peace settlement in Russia’s three-year-old war in Ukraine.

The agreement grants the US preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals projects. It is central to Ukraine’s efforts to mend ties with the White House, which frayed after Trump took office in January.

The deal will show the “Russian leadership that there is no daylight between the Ukrainian people and the American people, between our goals,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business Network in an interview.

“And again, I think this is a strong signal to the Russian leadership, and it gives President Trump the ability to now negotiate with Russia on even a stronger basis,” he said.

His remarks appeared to send a signal to Russia that Washington remains aligned with Kyiv despite question marks over its commitment to its ally since Trump’s return to power upended US diplomacy.

The Ukrainian parliament must still approve the pact.

Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who signed the accord, told reporters in an online briefing that would happen in the next few weeks.

“We want to ratify it as soon as possible. So we plan to do it within the coming weeks,” Svyrydenko said, adding that some technical details had to be completed before a joint US-Ukraine investment fund could become operational.

“We really need to be more sustainable and more self-sufficient, and this is a real tool that can help us achieve this goal,” she said.

Ukraine’s Economy Ministry said the two sides did not expect the agreement to begin generating revenue this year.

Vatican talks were key

Senior Trump administration officials said three agreements had been signed – a framework deal and two technical accords – and that they expected Ukraine’s parliament to approve them within a week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he hoped there would be no delays in securing parliament’s approval, although some lawmakers said they expected it to take longer than a week.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met parliamentary factions at a closed meeting on Thursday. Some members complained they had not seen the text of the agreement or been properly consulted.

“The agreement has changed significantly in the preparation process,” Zelenskiy said in a video posted on Telegram, hailing what he called a “truly equal agreement” that created opportunities for investment in Ukraine and the modernization of industry and legal practices in his country.

He and Bessent both underlined that talks between Zelenskiy and Trump in Rome during Pope Francis’ funeral on April 26 played an important role in securing a deal.

“In fact, now we have the first result of the Vatican meeting, which makes it truly historic,” Zelenskiy said.

Kyiv has been highly dependent on US military supplies since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and says Moscow has intensified attacks on Ukraine since the US stepped up efforts to secure a peace settlement.

Washington has signalled its frustration with the failure of Moscow and Kyiv to agree on terms, and Trump has shown signs of disappointment with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not moving faster towards peace.

Medvedev, who is now a senior security official in Russia, suggested Ukraine had been forced into the agreement.

“Trump has broken the Kyiv regime to the point where they will have to pay for US aid with mineral resources,” he wrote on Telegram. “Now they (Ukrainians) will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country.”

Ukraine’s international debt rallied after the signing of the deal, which financial analysts said had come with better terms for Ukraine than they had originally thought likely.

Ukraine is rich in natural resources including rare earth metals used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles and military applications, among others. Global rare earth mining is dominated by China, which is locked in a trade war with the US after Trump’s sharp tariff increases.

Ukraine also has reserves of iron, uranium and natural gas.

(By Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, David Lawder, Anastasiia Malenko, Tom Balmforth, Karin Strohecker, Yuliia Dysa and Timothy Heritage; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

The agreement “signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement late Wednesday.

Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko also confirmed the deal on social media. In a post on X, she wrote: “Together with the United States, we are creating the Fund that will attract global investment into our country.”

The deal, as first reported by Bloomberg News, will grant the US priority access to new investment projects involving critical materials such as aluminum, graphite, oil and natural gas. It also establishes a reconstruction fund, managed by Washington, through which profits will be funneled.

The fund is intended to support Ukraine’s recovery and offset future US military assistance, the draft of the agreement reads.

Trump’s 100th day

The announcement comes as US President Donald Trump marks the first 100 days of his new term, amid mounting pressure to deliver foreign policy wins and restore his political standing. Trump, whose support Kyiv views as critical to any potential truce with Moscow, has expressed frustration with the pace of ceasefire negotiations.

“We made a deal where our money is secure, where we can start digging and doing what we have to do,” Trump told a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “It’s also good for them because you’ll have an American presence at the site … that will keep a lot of bad actors out.”

The agreement follows weeks of negotiations, including a visit by Ukrainian officials to Washington earlier this month. Talks had stalled over technical details until the sides agreed to finalize all components of the deal simultaneously.

Earlier in the day, the Financial Times reported the deal had hit a last-minute snag, with issues arising related to governance, transparency mechanisms and the traceability of funds.

Resource partnership

The reconstruction fund is designed to facilitate future cooperation in energy and resource development, including mining and technology. Kyiv views the pact as a strategic step toward its long-term goal of joining the European Union—an issue Ukraine insisted must not be compromised.

According to Reuters, while the agreement gives US preferential access to new Ukrainian natural resources deals, it would not automatically hand Washington a share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth.

US officials said that the deal does not require Ukraine to repay past military aid, estimated in the billions of dollars since Russia’s full-scale invasion began over three years ago. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed that Washington had dropped its earlier demand for retroactive compensation.

“This economic partnership positions our two countries to work collaboratively and invest together,” the US Treasury said.

Total gold demand reached 1,206 tonnes in the first three months of 2025, a 1% increase from the same period a year ago, the WGC said in a new report Wednesday. Soaring inflows into gold ETFs fuelled a 170% surge in investment demand to 552 tonnes, the highest since the first quarter of 2022, WGC said.

As gold prices set multiple record highs this year, including touching $3,500.05 per oz. last week, investors have piled into physical gold ETFs, which grew by $21 billion in the first quarter, their second highest quarterly level since the second quarter of 2020.

Gold’s average price reached $2,860 per oz. in the quarter, a 38% jump from a year ago, according to data compiled by the London Bullion Market Association.

Flows into gold

Investment flows into physical gold will probably continue to gather pace this year, the WGC said. Key factors supporting demand include continued geopolitical tensions, near-term stagflation risks, medium-term recession risks, elevated correlations between stocks and bonds and an expected increase in US deficits.

Central banks bought 244 tonnes of gold in the first quarter, 21% less than in the same period a year ago but within the quarterly range of the last three years. Persistent trade tensions will probably drive full-year central bank purchases close to the range of the past three years, according to the WGC.

First-quarter bar and coin demand rose 2.6% to 325 tonnes, which is 15% above the five-year quarterly average. China accounted for much of the increase, posting its second-highest quarter of retail investment.

Tech demand

Technology demand was little changed at 80.5 tonnes. Ongoing artificial intelligence adoption drove continued growth in the electronics sector, but uncertainty over tariffs should result in a challenging environment for the rest of the year, the WGC said.

Jewelry consumption shrank 21% from the year-ago quarter to 380 tonnes, weighed down by elevated prices. Consumption in the period hit its lowest level since the Covid-19 pandemic brought global economies to a standstill in 2020, and WGC economists predict full-year jewelry demand will be weaker than expected in 2025 on lower growth and higher prices.

Total gold supply grew 1% from a year earlier to 1,206 tonnes, with mine production hitting a first-quarter record of 856 tonnes. Recycling declined 1% as consumers kept their gold hoping for higher prices.

Mine supply this year will probably stay close to its 2024 record level, the WGC said. “Unprecedented” cash generation should allow announced development plans to advance and mine production to stay strong. While Ghana, Chile and Canada have healthy production pipelines, disruptions in Turkey and Russia and cutbacks in Australia are expected to weigh on total output.

Read More: Annual gold price forecast tops $3,000 for first time: Reuters poll

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 Group, which recently concluded its biannual meeting with key industry players in Lisbon, forecasts global copper surplus to reach 289,000 tonnes in 2025, more than double the 138,000 tonnes from last year. This forecast also represents a larger surplus than its earlier projection of 194,000 tonnes.

In 2026, the surplus is expected to remain high at 209,000 tonnes, extending the surplus for a third straight year after a largely balanced market in 2023.

The widening surplus over the 2025-26 period, according to ICSG, can be largely attributed to higher mine supply and rising smelting capacity.

Mine supply growth

For 2025, the Group expects global mine production to increase by 2.3% to 23.5 million tonnes, benefiting mainly from the ramp-up of the Kamoa-Kakula mine in the DRC and Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia and the commissioning of the new Malmyz mine in Russia.

In 2026, a higher growth of 2.5% is anticipated, supported by the continued ramp-up of new/expanded capacity (including China), an expected improvement in Chilean and Zambian output, and a recovery in Indonesia from expected declines in 2025.

In both years, ICSG said a series of smaller expansions and the start-up of a number of small and medium-sized mines will also contribute to the increase in global production notably in the DRC, Brazil, Iran, Uzbekistan, Ecuador, Eritrea, Greece, Angola and Morocco.

Higher refining capacity

The ICSG also sees expanded Chinese smelting capacity, as well as the start-up of new refineries in India, Indonesia and DRC, to contribute to a 2.9% increase in refined copper output this year.

In 2026, however, total refined production is expected to decline by 1.5%, due to constrained availability of copper concentrates leading to a slowdown in primary refined production. This will be offset partially continued growth in the secondary processing sector, which generates refined copper from scrap.

Demand impact

According to the ICSG, uncertainty surrounding international trade policy is likely to weaken the global economic outlook and negatively impact copper demand, dragging this year’s refined copper usage down to 2.4% compared to its previous forecast of 2.7% and the 2.8% recorded in 2024.

Copper usage growth is expected to slow further to 1.8% in 2026, largely reflecting an anticipated loss of momentum in China, where copper usage is expected to shrink from 2% this year to just 0.8% next year.

Demand in other key copper regions such as Europe, Japan and the US is also expected to remain “subdued”, leaving the Asia region as the lone key driver of demand.

However, ICSG also acknowledged that demand drivers such as energy transition technology and data centers will continue to support copper usage, helping to offset some of the broader manufacturing hit from a prolonged trade war.

The full ICSG report is here.

The landmark agreement would grant Washington preferential access to new Ukrainian mineral and energy projects in exchange for future investment and military assistance, as reported by multiple media outlets.

According to unnamed sources cited by the Financial Times, Ukraine’s Minister of Economic Development Yulia Svyrydenko, who arrived in Washington on Wednesday, is aiming to revisit some of the terms that were initially agreed upon over the weekend.

The sticking points, according to sources cited by the Financial Times, revolve around governance, transparency mechanisms and the traceability of funds. In response, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his team warned that Svyrydenko should “be ready to sign all agreements, or go back home”.

However, Ukraine refuted the American version of the events, adding that the only reason why they could not sign all the documents on Wednesday was because the fund agreement, which would complete the full minerals deal, must be ratified by the country’s parliament first.

A draft of the deal, previously reviewed by Reuters, indicates that it includes the establishment of a joint US-Ukrainian reconstruction fund, which would receive half of the profits and royalties earned by Ukraine from newly issued natural resources permits.

While this arrangement does not transfer direct ownership of assets or infrastructure, it ensures that the US — or designated entities — would have first access to new licenses and projects.

The draft clarifies that existing mineral or energy contracts will not be affected, and earlier proposals that would have given the US influence over Ukraine’s gas infrastructure have been dropped, Reuters reported.

In parallel reporting, Bloomberg said the deal’s scope includes development opportunities across a range of critical commodities such as aluminum, graphite, oil and natural gas. According to officials familiar with the process, the agreement has been in the works since February and will require ratification by Ukraine’s parliament.

As part of the arrangement, the US has agreed that only future military aid will count toward its contributions to the fund.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed this change on Sunday, noting that previously delivered assistance—worth tens of billions of dollars—will not be monetized under the new framework.

Shmyhal described the agreement as a “strategic investment partnership” to rebuild Ukraine and foster its long-term development. “It is truly an equal and beneficial international agreement,” he told Ukrainian television on Wednesday, according to CNN.

US President Donald Trump has linked the mineral partnership to broader questions around Ukraine’s ability to “repay” Washington for its support since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

The deal also aligns with Trump’s broader push for a negotiated ceasefire. However, progress on that front remains stalled as Russia demands complete control over contested eastern Ukrainian regions.

Despite the high-level tensions—including a failed signing attempt in February following a contentious Oval Office meeting—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and President Trump appear to have restarted dialogue. The two met privately at the Vatican over the weekend during Pope Francis’s funeral.

Ukraine claims to hold nearly $15 trillion worth of mineral resources, making it one of the most resource-rich nations in Europe. The country is home to the continent’s largest reserves of lithium, titanium, and uranium.

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)

A new estimate for District Metals’ (TSXV: DMX) Viken project in central Sweden raises uranium resources so much it’s now the world’s second largest deposit of the nuclear metal, the company said Tuesday. Shares shot up.

The report gives Viken 456 million indicated tonnes grading 175 parts per million (ppm) uranium oxide (U₃O₈) for 176 million contained lb. U₃O₈, an almost ninefold rise over the previous resource from 2010. Inferred resources grew 44% to 4.33 billion tonnes grading 161 ppm U₃O₈ for 1.53 billion contained pounds.

Viken was already one of the world’s largest uranium deposits, and the new report makes it the second largest, District CEO Garrett Ainsworth said in a release.

“The stunning growth of the current Viken [estimate] from the 2006 to 2012 drill data is a testament to the continuity in grade and thickness of the mineralized Alum Shale formation found across the Viken deposit,” he said. There’s “strong” potential to increase the inferred resource even more, he said.

District shares gained 23% to C$0.35 apiece in afternoon trading Tuesday in Toronto, for a market capitalization of C$45.9 million.

Swedish uranium momentum

The new resource for Viken, located 570 km north of Stockholm, adds to tailwinds for uranium in Sweden as the country moves towards lifting its 2018 ban on exploration and mining of the nuclear metal. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s government has sought to overturn the ban since 2023, and the legislative changes lifting it are expected to take effect next January.

Sweden’s uranium output is minor by global standards, with its resources accounting for 27% of the European total, according to the country’s geological survey. But demand for the metal is high around the world as countries seek zero-emissions energy to power electricity-hungry AI servers.

Viken’s global ranking

While Viken hosts the largest uranium resource by contained metal in Europe, how it ranks globally depends on how uranium projects are weighed.

District assumed a scenario in which Viken is compared to other deposits where uranium is the primary or secondary metal, Ainsworth said in an email to The Northern Miner, citing a table by S&P Global Intelligence on the world’s largest uranium deposits.

In that scenario, Viken sits under BHP’s (NYSE, ASX, LSE: BLT) polymetallic Olympic Dam project in South Australia.

Critical mineral bounty

Viken also hosts significant amounts of other critical minerals such as vanadium, zinc and nickel.

The new resource raises by more than 16 times the indicated vanadium tonnage, which now grades at 2,836 ppm vanadium oxide (V₂O₅) for 2.85 billion contained pounds. The inferred vanadium resource grows by 45% to 24.29 billion lb. grading 2,543 ppm V₂O_5.

The indicated zinc resource totals 413 contained lb. grading 411 ppm zinc, and inferred resources add 3.9 billion contained lb. at 417 ppm zinc.

Nickel comes to 332 million contained lb. at 330 ppm in the indicated category, and 3 billion contained lb. in the inferred category grades at 321 ppm nickel.

Sweden’s proposal to lift the uranium mining ban will influence District’s decision to pursue a preliminary economic assessment for Viken in the fourth quarter, Ainsworth said.

The new resource is based on 122 holes and includes data from holes drilled between 2006 and 2012 by previous operators, District said.

A historic run in gold prices has shaken up the MINING.com Top 50, putting precious metals back on top—and pushing battery metal and base metal giants down the list.

The latest rankings reveal fresh momentum for gold stocks, new market entrants, and a major geographic shift in mining power.

In a conversation with Devan Murugan, Frik Els, the editor behind the list, breaks down what these changes signal for investors, and where the industry may be heading next.

In its latest report, Sprott notes that uranium prices have stabilized near $65/lb following a correction driven not by weakening fundamentals, but by a pause in utility contracting. Buyers have been waiting for clarity on US tariffs and potential trade restrictions on Russian enriched uranium.

Some of that uncertainty began to clear in early April, helping steady the spot market. Sprott maintains that uranium’s decline reflects macro sentiment and technical selling—not a reversal in the commodity’s structural outlook.

“Despite market pressures, uranium’s term price remains stable at $80/lb and global supply is constrained below demand levels,” the firm said.

Resilience amid volatility

While broader equity and commodity markets have seen volatility in recent months, uranium has shown relative stability.

In early April, it remained uncorrelated with other risk assets—holding firm even as equities sold off, bond markets wobbled, and volatility spiked.

Uranium and uranium equities have outperformed other commodities and global equities over the past five years, driven by a deepening supply deficit and growing global policy support. That trend, Sprott argues, is far from over.

Supply lags demand

Supply constraints remain a central part of the bullish case. Few new uranium projects are advancing, and some juniors—like NexGen, Deep Yellow, and Paladin—have delayed development. Kazatomprom has also guided production toward the lower end of its outlook amid cost and input challenges.

In Australia, heavily shorted producers such as Paladin and Boss Energy have come under pressure, but Sprott believes short positioning in uranium equities is out of sync with underlying market dynamics. “This wave of equity weakness is a sentiment story, not a structural one,” the report reads.

On the demand side, China continues to expand its nuclear fleet, and the US—backed by bipartisan support—has reaffirmed its commitment to nuclear power as a strategic asset. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Meta are also pushing for an ambitious tripling of global nuclear power capacity by 2050 to meet growing baseload energy needs.

Sprott expects the next leg of the uranium bull cycle to begin as utilities return to the market and long-term contracting resumes. With global uranium production still well below reactor requirements and long timelines for new supply to come online, the firm sees a structurally tight market for years to come.

The US president has put pressure on Kyiv by threatening to stop the flow of military supplies to help it fight Russia’s invasion unless the US gets some payback for the billions of dollars the aid is costing.

But the deal is sensitive for Ukraine, which has a proud history of mining coal and iron ore and hopes to exploit seams of increasingly sought-after rare earths. Mineral revenues are a crucial pillar of the state budget.

In the city of Kryvyi Rih, on whose outskirts open-cast iron ore mines have gouged huge craters in the landscape, 71-year-old pensioner Oleksandr had little time for Trump: “You can’t trust that ginger guy, he’s not that kind of person.”

“From what I can see, they only want to take, not to give,” he said as he shopped near the UGOK iron ore mining and processing plant.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, himself from Kryvyi Rih, said on Monday the negotiations on creating a mineral revenue fund from which the US would draw had made progress since a memorandum of intent signed on April 18:

“The document has become much stronger – more equitable – and could be beneficial to both our peoples, for Ukraine and for America.”

‘Minerals belong to the people’

Zelenskiy knows he must win Trump over after a difficult relationship so far, but that there will be uproar at home if he makes a bad deal.

About 60 km (40 miles) north of Kryvyi Rih is the town of Zhovti Vody – or “yellow waters” – where uranium and iron ore were mined for decades.

“I hope that the people who are involved in this think about Ukraine and its people, because our mineral riches belong to the people,” said 71-year-old resident Nina Fesenko.

Olga Marynska, 68, said she hoped the government would prevent Ukraine being exploited.

“We don’t have to give them everything,” she said. “I don’t think we have to do it in such a way that they take everything out of that fund.”

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Sunday that there was now agreement that the deal would not seek to pay for US aid provided to Kyiv in the past.

That may help to reassure Ukrainians who feel they have battled Russia since 2022 not only for themselves but also on behalf of the West: the US-led NATO defence alliance that they seek to join, and the European nations to which many Ukrainians feel much closer than to President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

“I do think that for us as Ukrainians, it feels a little bit like another country is using our vulnerability, which was not created by us,” said Ukrainian legislator Inna Sovsun.

She said it was “critically important when we are designing the future to keep in mind that people will live here in the future”.

(By Vladyslav Smilianets, Thomas Peter, Anastasiia Malenko and Christian Lowe; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

The vast Central African nation is home to large reserves of copper, cobalt, lithium and uranium among other minerals, but chronic instability has long been an obstacle to the foreign investment needed to fully develop them.

Kinshasa is currently on a push to attract new players to the sector and talks are already under way with Washington after a Congolese senator pitching a minerals-for-security deal contacted US officials.

Asked by Reuters on Monday about possible interest in Congolese minerals, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Prevot said Belgium had firms with the know-how to ramp up its role in the sector.

“We have globally recognized expertise with players like Umicore and John Cockerill, who have the capacity to process all these rare critical materials,” he said.

“If one day the opportunity arises to also be an investment partner, we will not pull back,” he added.

Despite China’s dominance, Belgian firms have been involved in mining, processing and trading Congolese cobalt, copper and diamonds for decades.

Belgium-based global materials technology group Umicore signed a deal with state miner Gecamines last year to ship germanium concentrates to Europe.

Prevot said Belgium’s approach to working with Congo was good for both countries, contrasting it with how some other partners operated.

“We observe the motivations of other international actors that can sometimes have a more transactional approach,” he said.

Prevot was due to visit the city of Beni on Tuesday as part of a trip intended to draw attention to serious human rights issues, particularly in Congo’s eastern provinces where the army is facing an offensive by Rwandan-backed M23 rebels.

(By Ange Kasongo, Maxwell Akalaare Adombila and Sofia Christensen; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Joe Bavier)

European Metals Holdings (EMH), the project’s majority shareholder, announced that the funding will come from the EU’s Just Transition Fund and will be overseen by the Czech Ministry of Environment.

The funds are contingent on the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA), which must be submitted and approved by the Czech environment ministry by year-end.

EMH said the grant will help accelerate development and potentially increase the project’s annual lithium production by unlocking economies of scale. Executive chairman Keith Coughlan said the financing would allow the company to “fast-track a number of critical path items” as the project moves toward construction.

Cinovec, located in the Krusné Hory Mountains near the German border, is the largest hard rock lithium resource in the European Union. It was declared a Strategic Project under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act in March and also recognized as a Strategic Deposit by the Czech government. These designations are expected to streamline permitting and secure support from EU institutions.

EMH has appointed engineering firm DRA Global Limited to complete a definitive feasibility study by the end of 2025. If environmental approval is granted, construction permits could follow within 24 months.

Separetely, EMH posted its March quarter report, showing a cash balance of A$4.3 million and no debt as of the end of the first quarter. 

Cinovec remains central to Europe’s strategy to secure domestic sources of critical raw materials, particularly lithium, which is vital for electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy storage.

The company, formerly called Polymetal, reiterated its full-year guidance of gold equivalent production at 470,000 oz.

Solidcore, Kazakhstan’s second largest gold miner, said its first quarter sales declined by 67% to 38,000 oz. of gold equivalent after the temporary shipment delays with a strong recovery expected in the second half of 2025 as toll-processing returns to normal conditions.

(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Read More: Solidcore eyes Gulf financing in post-Russia strategy

“It was agreed that assistance provided prior to the signing of the agreement will not be counted towards it,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday night, according to the Financial Times. He added legal teams were finalizing the document and noted that Ukraine’s “red lines” had been clearly defined.

The agreement’s momentum follows a brief meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral. The White House described the 15-minute conversation as “very productive,” while Zelenskiy called it “very symbolic” and said it had the “potential to become historic.”

Negotiations have been fraught. A signing ceremony for an earlier version of the agreement collapsed in February after a public clash between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office.

Signs of progress resurfaced Friday when Trump posted on Truth Social that the rare earths deal was “at least three weeks late” but hoped Ukraine would sign it “IMMEDIATELY.” He also claimed peace talks between Ukraine and Russia were advancing “smoothly”.

Senior Ukrainian officials told the Financial Times that the framework agreement covers all mineral resources, including oil, gas, and major energy assets across Ukraine.

A draft signed earlier this month would grant the US access to Ukraine’s critical mineral deposits — which include graphite, lithium, titanium, uranium, and rare earth elements vital to high-tech industries. 

Under the partnership, Kyiv would be required to channel all income from natural resource exploitation into a joint investment fund controlled by Washington, with the US holding first claim on profits. Ukraine has pushed for improved terms, including security guarantees, and successfully resisted efforts to recognize previous US aid as a form of debt.

Under a court-approved plan of arrangement, Alkane will buy all issued and outstanding common shares of Mandalay. Mandalay shareholders will receive 7.875 Alkane shares for each Mandalay share held. After the transaction, former Mandalay shareholders will own 55% of the combined company, with existing Alkane shareholders holding 45%.

The merged entity will operate under the Alkane Resources name, maintain its Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listing, and seek a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). It will have an implied market capitalization of A$1.01 billion ($640 million) and expects to produce 160,000 gold-equivalent ounces in 2025, rising to more than 180,000 ounces in 2026 from three operating mines: Alkane’s Tomingley project and Mandalay’s Costerfield mine in Australia, and Björkdal mine in Sweden.

The tie-up, unanimously approved by both companies’ boards, comes amid a wave of consolidation in the gold sector, driven by record bullion prices. Gold hit a record $3,500.05 per ounce last week, up more than 25% this year on the back of geopolitical tensions and strong central bank demand.

Recent deals include Equinox Gold’s C$2.6 billion acquisition of Calibre Mining in February. Spartan Delta (TSX: SDE) agreed to a A$2.4 billion takeover by Australia’s Ramelius Resources (ASX: RMS) less than a month later. South Africa’s Gold Fields (JSE, NYSE: GFI) made a A$3.3 billion bid for Gold Road Resources (ASX: GOR), though it was rejected.

Last week, Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) completed an A$5 billion acquisition of De Grey Mining.

Nic Earner, Alkane’s current managing director, will lead the merged company. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2025.

Speaking at the Future of Energy Security summit held in London this week, IEA executive director Fatih Birol highlighted the strong expansion of clean energy technologies in recent years — while remarkable — also creates a new problem: the urgent need for raw materials.

“To manufacture this new clean energy technologies, you need critical minerals,” Birol said during the two-day event co-hosted by the British government. “We look at where the critical minerals are produced, where they are refined and where they are manufactured, that is a huge concentration, and this is something that we think is risky.”

According to the IEA, the world’s supply of critical minerals — such as copper, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements — are currently dominated by China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, Chile, Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, the US.

This concentration of raw materials, said Birol, represents a “new emerging energy security challenge”, and the reason why the Agency launched its critical minerals program.

“Currently, we are A) not able to keep up with the demand, and B) the ability of manufacturing these critical minerals is concentrated in one single country or two,” Birol said in a speech last year when announcing the program.

In response to this challenge, the IEA urged nations to focus on policies that promote the diversification of mineral sources and move away from “critical mineral monopolies.”

“Most of these critical minerals are currently controlled by just one or two countries and it is important to ensure diversity in clean energy,” Birol told reporters from Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu on Friday.

“This is not about whether a country is good or bad. If there is a technical problem or a geopolitical development in that country, entire energy supply chains could be jeopardized,” he said.

On the sidelines of the summit, Birol noted China’s dominance in the critical minerals sector and its contribution to low-cost clean energy technologies. The Asian nation is the main producer for 30 out of 50 minerals deemed critical by the US, and is the world’s top miner and processor of rare earths.

Nations within the Chinese sphere process 53.1% of the world’s copper, far surpassing the American-aligned bloc at 15.6% and the “Coalition of the Willing” at 19%.

Russia, grouped separately, accounts for 5.6% of global capacity, while 6.8% of copper processing remains in “Undrafted” countries not formally aligned with any major power bloc, such as Iran and India.

Analysts warn that while access to raw materials is crucial, the ability to process them may ultimately determine strategic advantage in the race for technological and industrial dominance.

Explore the full infographic:

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RELATED: RANKED: World’s biggest copper mines

Energy-intensive metal production can have a major impact on the environment because of the carbon and other pollutants that are emitted. Some end-consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable practices that cut emissions.

“By making a sustainability price differential public, the value attached to sustainable metals will be transparent and could support the development of the market for sustainable metals,” the exchange said in a release.

“The LME is discussing its proposals with a range of physical market stakeholders, and will provide further progress updates in due course.”

The LME, the world’s largest and oldest forum for trading metals, partnered with digital platform Metalshub for an initiative launched last year to develop a price discovery mechanism for low-carbon nickel.

It is now planning to launch a broader series of sustainable metal premia for the aluminum, copper, nickel and zinc traded on its platforms, underpinned by a robust assessment process.

“We welcome the LME’s proposal as a much-needed move to enable the proper pricing of low-carbon, sustainable products,” said Nick Stansbury, head of climate solutions, asset management, at financial services company L&G.

“We believe transparent pricing of sustainable materials is critical to incentivizing investment into transition technologies in the mining industry.”

The exchange will aim to establish an administrator to set the rules, policies and process for the sustainability premia.

Its proposed sustainability criteria would include carbon footprint thresholds, calculated with a metal-specific carbon footprint methodology, and third-party sustainability assurance.

(By Anjana Anil and Pratima Desai; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

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)

North American and European investors bought about 240 tons of gold in ETFs as of mid-April, according to data from the World Gold Council. That’s more than half the 441 tons they sold in the past three years.

The “swing from providing supply to absorbing supply — that’s a very large change,” Aakash Doshi, global head of gold strategy at State Street Global Advisors, said in an interview. “That has a high impact on prices, whereas central banks and China may continue to buy but that change isn’t going to be as large as the ETF buyer.”

The precious metal surged past $3,500 for the first time early Tuesday as US President Donald Trump’s criticisms of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell rattled markets and triggered a flight to haven assets including gold.

Doshi predicts bullion will reach $5,000 over the longer term.

SPDR Gold Shares, the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, has seen $8.65 billion of net inflows as of Monday, with the majority of the inflows coming from institutional investors increasing allocations to gold as an equity-overlay hedge, economic-portfolio hedge and forex and rates hedge, according to Doshi.

Gold has climbed roughly 30% this year, already surpassing the 27% price increase achieved in 2024. The precious metal’s ferocious run started last year, helped by large purchases from central banks as they sought to diversify foreign-exchange holdings beyond the US dollar and insulate themselves from the threat of sanctions.

(By Yvonne Yue Li)

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.

The licences, sponsored by the UK and located in the Pacific Ocean, are held by UKSR, which was acquired in 2023 by Norway’s Loke Marine Minerals from US defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Loke filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, prompting an auction for its assets.

The Department for Business and Trade said the transfer of these licences could be assessed under the National Security Investment Act, according to an email sent to Loke’s CEO Walter Sognnes and reviewed by the Financial Times. The government official also reportedly suggested restructuring UKSR under a UK holding company to avoid scrutiny, stating that having a Norwegian parent company would be “problematic”, according to the the FT.

The Act grants the British government authority to examine and intervene in transactions deemed a threat to national security. The department declined to comment when contacted by FT.

The potential sale comes amid heightened global interest in critical minerals used in batteries, such as nickel, cobalt and copper, which are found on the ocean floor.

US President Donald Trump recently voiced support for accelerating deep-sea mining, adding pressure on allies to secure mineral supply chains.

Loke, which had been developing seabed mapping technology, said any ownership structure would be discussed by the future owner and UK authorities.

Seabed mining permits in international waters require state sponsorship under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. China currently leads in the number of such licences. Norway plans to begin commercial deep-sea mining in its national waters, while the UK, France and Germany remain cautious over environmental concerns.

The Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) previously warned Loke that UKSR risked non-compliance with exploration terms. The company has also reportedly fallen behind on licence payments.

Sources close to Loke said the company struggled to raise capital, blaming regulatory uncertainty and delays by ISA member states.

“No international regulation has taken longer to get into place than this one,” one source told FT.

Among the bidders for UKSR’s licences was environmental group Greenpeace, which entered the auction as a stunt to protest the commercialization of deep-sea mining. Other bidders include Loke’s founders and UK-based TechnipFMC, one of its investors.

Duncan Currie, legal adviser to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, criticized foreign control of licence-holding firms, stating that it undermines the legal framework that governs seabed access.

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.

Donald Trump has boldly imposed a new era of US economic policy dominated by tariffs, trade wars, and threats to the sovereignty of nations it has long considered allies (Canada, Denmark, Panama), as the second-term president aims to rewrite the rules of international trade mostly by disregarding them as he pursues an America-first agenda.

Global stock markets hate the uncertainty of Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs, with many economists seeing the tariffs bringing a fresh wave of inflation to already-struggling consumers worldwide, but especially in the States where import duties have been threatened on at least 80 countries, with a minimum 10% tariff currently in place. 

Trillions of dollars have been wiped off US stock indexes, with the S&P 500 down 10% year to date, the Dow falling 6.4%, and the Nasdaq plunging 15.4%, as of this writing.

If the tariffs continue, global growth is projected to stall, which could mean higher unemployment, lower corporate earnings, and the recession many expected with double-digit inflation but never came.

It is indeed a magical time for gold. The precious metal has powered higher on safe-haven demand, as investors flee stocks and bonds in favor of hard assets. It’s also benefited from a lower dollar. The almighty buck started the year at 108.49 against a basket of currencies but has fallen 9% to 99.47 — the lowest it’s been since the darkest days of the pandemic in April, 2020.

Remarkably, safe-haven demand for gold is currently stronger than real interest rates. Gold tends to do well when real interest rates (the 10-year Treasury rate minus inflation) are negative, but due to the collapse in bond prices and the rise in bond yields (the two move in opposite directions), real interest rates are currently positive at 1.99%.

US inflation is down from 3% in January to 2.4% in March, but that could be because the tariffs haven’t yet taken effect. We are currently still in a 90-day pause.

Gold’s meteoric rise last year (+31%) was predominantly due to central bank buying, as emerging economies, fearful that what happened to Russia when it had its foreign exchange reserves confiscated after invading Ukraine, could happen to them, backed up the truck for gold.

According to the latest numbers from the World Gold Council, central banks added 1,045 tonnes to global gold reserves in 2024 — extending their buying streak to 15 consecutive years.

2024 was also the third consecutive year in which gold demand surpassed 1,000 tonnes, far exceeding the 473-tonne average between 2010 and 2021.

Similar to the preceding 14 years, gold buying in 2024 was driven by emerging market banks, led by Poland, which purchased 90 tonnes. Other significant purchasers included the Czech National Bank, the Central Bank of Hungary, the Central Bank of Turkey, the Reserve Bank of India, and China, which bought 44 tonnes. At the end of 2024, the PBoC reported holding 2,280t of gold, accounting for 5% of its total international reserves.

As the chart below shows, the United States held the most gold at 8,133 tonnes, followed by Germany, Italy, France, Russia, and China.

What’s next for the gold price? Will it continue to push higher as Trump sows division and market fear? Safe-haven demand will certainly be a factor, but some are pointing to a little-known change in the banking system as being the next catalyst for gold.

More than that, the change to banking rules ostensibly to better insulate banks from economic crises, could represent the next step in the process of de-dollarization, as the banking world moves in a direction that makes gold the center of a new monetary system.

What is Basel III?

After the financial crisis, new banking rules known as Basel I, II and III came into effect. The regulations were created by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), an offshoot of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

The regulations require banks to maintain proper leverage ratios and to meet certain minimal capital requirements. Tier 1 capital assets, such as cash and sovereign bonds (like US Treasuries), are considered the core measure of a bank’s financial strength from a regulator’s point of view.

Under the old Basel I and II rules, gold was rated a Tier 3 capital asset. Banks traditionally discounted a bank’s gold holdings by 50% of the market value. With gold’s value cut in half, banks had little incentive to hold gold as an asset.

As of April 1, 2019, gold bullion is a Tier 1 capital asset. Also, and this is important, under Basel III a bank’s Tier 1 capital assets must rise from the current 4% of total assets to 6%.

Because gold is now a Tier 1 capital asset, banks can operate with far less capital than when gold was classified as Tier 3. Then, banks had to hold extra capital on their books against gold holdings.

First announced in 2017, the Basel III rules apply to banks operating in the US, the European Union and Switzerland. Basel III was supposed to apply to UK banks as of Jan. 1, 2022, but according to the Bank of England, implementation has been delayed until Jan. 1, 2027. 

Under the new regulations, allocated (physical) gold will be considered a Tier 1 asset and will continue to have zero risk weighting. Conversely, banks’ unallocated gold will be considered a Tier 3 asset. Unallocated gold refers to so-called “paper gold” like gold ETFs and gold futures.

In plainer English, Basel III requires the banks hold more high-quality assets to prevent liquidity crisis, reduce risky lending practices, and ensure the banks are more prepared for any kind of financial shock.

Key features of Tier III include:

• Increased capital requirements: Banks are required to hold higher levels of capital to absorb potential losses and increase their resilience to financial shocks.
• Leverage ratio: Basel III also introduced a non-risk-based leverage ratio to limit the degree to which banks can fund their activities with borrowed money.
• Liquidity requirements: Two liquidity standards are outlined in Basel III: the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) and Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR).
• Counterparty credit risk: There are also measures to mitigate counterparty credit risk in derivative transactions.

Central bank gold buying, particularly in Tier 1 assets, is significantly impacting the gold market, driving up the price and contributing to the overall demand for gold. 

According to the World Gold Council, central banks bought gold in 2019 as a direct result of the reclassification of gold as a Tier 1 asset under Basel III.

Many central banks and financial regulators have implemented Basel III, either fully or partially. Key examples include the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECB), the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) in Canada, and the Bank for International Settlements, headquartered in Switzerland.

There have also been notable increases in gold reserves from the central banks of China, India and Poland, among others, with the trend attributable to Basel III regulations.

Central banks clearly see the value of holding gold over paper assets; after 2008, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) lost most of their value and they have also suffered massive value destruction by holding sovereign debt such as Greek bonds that became nearly worthless during the Greek debt crisis in 2015.

Perhaps almost a doubling of gold bullion purchases in 2018 over 2017 indicates that central banks believe gold is a better Tier I asset than government debt and MBS? There is also that 2% increase in total assets to 6%, which now needs to be filled, likely by gold.

Basel III and the US

The implementation of Basel III across the global banking system has been ongoing since 2019, but the United States has not yet moved to it.

This, however, is about to change. As of July 1, 2025, the US will adopt gold as a Tier 1 asset under Basel III regulations — thus aligning US bank capital rules with global standards. The reforms will impact larger banks, those with $100 billion or more in assets, more significantly.

According to Stansberry Research,

Simply put, banks will no longer have to hold extra capital to support their gold holdings. And banks will be able to have gold on their books at 100% of the market value…

The Basel III regulation change will only increase the institutional demand for gold… which will continue to drive the gold bull market that’s underway.

All that is true, but let’s dive a little deeper into why the US has waited six years to implement Basel III, and what it could actually mean.

First we need to define a new term: Basel III Endgame. This refers to the final set of rules from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) that aims to strengthen bank capital requirements by requiring banks to hold more capital against credit, operational and market risks.

In the US, the phased-in approach starts on July 1, with full compliance expected by July 1, 2028. This means that the changes impacting banks particularly those with $100 billion or more in assets will be introduced gradually over three years.

Global monetary reset

To the question of why the United States delayed Basel III until this year. There is no obvious answer but two theories are plausible.

First, the US understands that the sooner Basel III goes into effect, the sooner the dollar will lose its standing as the world’s reserve currency. This is obviously something the US government fears and wants to avoid at all costs. If Basel III forces banks to treat gold as a Tier 1 asset — the same as cash and Treasuries — it could disrupt a dollar-denominated world where confidence is based on debt, derivatives and fiat-backed assets. “The US has a lot to lose as gold’s role expands because it threatens dollar supremacy,” states a video on the topic.

The other theory is that the US is buying time to get a “Plan B” in place. Many are pointing to a recent comment by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said “within the next 12 months we’re going to monetize the asset side of the US balance sheet”. Could Bessent have been referring to anything other than gold?

Regardless of the cause of the US delay, one thing is for sure: the rest of the world is moving forward towards gold especially BRICS nations; they are preparing for the transition. We saw this in the aforementioned central bank gold-buying numbers cited by the World Gold Council.

Also, could there be any coincidence in the fact that the final stages of preparing for the Basel III Endgame started on Jan. 1, 2023? Since then, the spot gold price has jumped over 60%.

I previously alluded to Basel III being more than it appears to be, i.e., a mundane change to the banking system. The narrator in the video by ITM Trading asks the question: “Is Basel III just about stabilizing banks? Or is this laying the foundation for a massive monetary reset, one that puts gold at the center of the system?”

She also asks rhetorically whether this elite group of regulators, the BIS, really didn’t realize the banks were overleveraged until after 2008? Clearly not, meaning that “these [Basel III] changes might not be about preventing the next crisis; they are about preparing for the next crisis.”

In other words, central banks are stockpiling gold to be prepared for when the fiat currency system eventually breaks down.

Another important point about Basel III is how it treats allocated/ physical gold versus unallocated/ paper gold.

In the past, if gold prices went up, it didn’t really impact central banks because gold was Tier 3. By making gold a Tier 1 asset, Basel III is forcing a shift away from paper gold, towards physical gold. Moreover, a rise in the gold price will hugely benefit central banks because it increases the value of their reserves, far more than previously. 

Physical gold will be at the center of the new financial system because of something called the Net Stable Funding Ratio, or NSFR. The NSFR essentially makes it harder to suppress real gold values with paper gold contracts. As the narrator in the video explains,

The spot price of gold that you read about in the news is actually much lower than it should be if true supply and demand were in charge, essentially the COMEX and the LBMA. They operate on a fractional reserve system the same way banks do. Think about your deposit in a bank. They don’t keep 100% of that deposit, they keep a small fraction but there is an illusion that they have 100% of the deposits in their holdings. The same thing happens in the gold market, they make multiple paper claims — gold ETFs, gold futures contracts on the same piece of physical gold — meaning that they are able to artificially suppress the price of gold by creating all this paper when in reality the amount of physical gold they have is far less. Last year alone the LME did trillions of dollars in paper gold trade on unallocated metals, so even as true demand for gold rose, the price didn’t accurately reflect that because they suppressed it with the amount of paper trades that were going on.

But Basel III is changing the game. Under the new rules banks must hold physical gold; there can no longer be this huge reliance on unallocated contracts. The system is crumbling in live time.

She references what happened earlier this year, when a surge in gold shipments to the US, essentially frontloading gold to the COMEX ahead of the expected Trump tariffs on metals, led to a shortage of bullion in London.

“People can’t get their hands on gold because so much has been shipped to New York, and the rest is stuck in the queue,” one industry executive told the Financial Times. “Liquidity in the London market has been diminished.”

“The veil is being lifted on this system that has been suppressing gold prices and everyone is starting to wake up and realize it,” states the ITM Trading video. “At the same time central banks are buying gold in record numbers especially over the last three years. Why? because they know what’s coming.”

Could this be the reason the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) plans to audit Fort Knox’s 147.3 million ounces of gold, representing roughly 59% of the Treasury’s gold supply with a market value of $431 billion based on $2,930 gold?

Conclusion

Central banks are buying gold because of protection against currency instability, as global debt reaches unsustainable levels. When trust in fiat currencies is shattered it is gold that will act as a true hedge against inflation and a safeguard against devaluation.

The second reason they are purchasing gold is because there is a global shift toward a multi-polar currency or neutral settlement currency as China, Russia and the BRICS-alliance countries work together to move away from the dollar, which the United States has weaponized against them. Gold is neutral, it is not affiliated with any country, it transcends politics and acts as universal true money.

Most importantly, central banks are buying gold because they are preparing for a new gold-backed monetary system once reasons one and two come to fruition. As ITM Trading reminds us,

“When the fiat system that we know today collapses, these banks are going to be leaning on their hard assets. They’re going to need gold as a way to set themselves up in the new system because every major monetary shift in history has had gold at the heart of it and this time will be no different.”

As for what this means for retail investors, the answer is simple — buy gold because demand will surely exceed the supply and move the price even higher than it is now. Also, having gold will be the most effective form of wealth protection when paper money becomes worthless. 

“If central banks are stockpiling gold it is for a reason, and if they are preparing for a reset then we should be too. The gold supply squeeze is going to be real as banks and institutions move towards physical gold. What was considered expensive today will be considered cheap tomorrow. And lastly, the wealth transfer is happening now. Those who see what’s really going on and prepare today will be in a position of power when the final stages of the reset come into play.”

(By Richard Mills)

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China is the world’s largest producer of antimony, germanium and gallium, which have niche but vital roles in clean energy, chipmaking and defence. Since 2023, Beijing has gradually added the metals to its export controls list. In December it banned exports to the US.

For any item on the control list, exporters must apply for licenses, an opaque process which allows Beijing to exert the dominance it has built for years over the mining and processing of important minerals.

Fresh customs data released on Sunday reinforced a pattern building since controls were imposed: exports are down and some buyers, especially in Europe, are cut out of the supply chain.

Exports of antimony and germanium products in the first quarter were down 57% and 39%, respectively, compared to a year earlier.

March exports of gallium hit their lowest level since October 2023. Quarterly shipments were up on last year, but the current trend is still well below 2022, the last full year before curbs.

Minerals that are exported, in the case of antimony, are going to a smaller set of countries.

After a five-month hiatus, small shipments of antimony were sent to Belgium and Germany in March, but exports were well below historic levels and former large buyers like the Netherlands haven’t received shipments since September.

The pattern across the three metals raises questions about how many export licenses China will approve for the seven rare earth elements it added to the control list this month – and how fast. Exporters say they expect to wait months for licenses and even longer if selling to the United States.

There have been no antimony exports to the United States since September last year and none since 2023 for germanium and gallium.

Fewer exports from China have left overseas consumers scrambling to source material, pushing prices higher, which in turn has supported prices in China.

Chinese spot prices of antimony , for example, have jumped by nearly two thirds so far this year to a record high of 230,000 yuan ($31,509) a ton on April 18, LSEG data showed.

($1 = 7.2995 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(By Lewis Jackson and Amy Lv; Editing by Ros Russell)

BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, projects copper demand to explode and rise by 70% in 2050, reaching 50 million tonnes per year.

To meet this staggering demand, the mining industry would need hundreds of billions in investment to keep pace and grow enough supply. BloombergNEF estimates that as much as $2.1 trillion could be required by 2050 to meet the raw materials demand of a net-zero world.

This places tremendous pressure on mining companies to not just discover new sources of supply, but also expand on their existing operations to achieve supply growth.

Over the next few years and decades, the biggest copper mines would play a pivotal role in the energy transition.

Below is a list of the world’s 10 biggest by 2024 production:

# 1: Escondida

The vast Escondida mine in Chile retains its top spot, churning out 1.28 million tonnes of metal for an increase of 16% from 2023. Escondida is majority owned and managed by BHP (57.5%), with Rio Tinto holding 30% and Japan’s Mitsubishi and JX Advanced Metals the remaining 12.5%.

In February, BHP said it would move forward with a $2 billion plan to optimize its concentrator at Escondida, the first initiative of its decade-long $10.8 billion investment plan announced last year.

BHP’s copper production in 2025’s first three months climbed 10%, boosted by the ramp-up of Escondida operations.

#2: Grasberg

Jointly owned by Freeport McMoRan and PT Mineral Industri Indonesia, the Grasberg mine produced 816,466 tonnes of copper in 2024, up 8.4% from 2023. Work at Grasberg was halted temporarily in 2023 after flooding and debris flow from heavy rains and landslides damaged its milling complex, but the skies were fairer in 2024.

#3: Collahuasi

The Collahuasi mine in Chile, jointly owned by Glencore, Anglo American and Mitsui, saw its production fall 2.5% to 558,636 tonnes in 2024, compared to 573,200 tonnes from the prior year. Watch a compilation of 21 years of mining at Collahuasi in 21 seconds here.

#4: Kamoa- Kakula

The Kamoa-Kakula mine complex, jointly owned by Ivanhoe Mines, Zining Mining, the DRC government and Crystal River Global, increased its production to 437,061 tonnes in 2024, up 11% from 2023. Kamoa-Kakula in 2023 was named the world’s lowest carbon-emitting major copper mine.

#5: Buenavista

The Buenavista mine in Mexico came in fifth place with 433,000 tonnes of metal produced in 2024, up nearly 4% from the 416,600 tonnes in 2023. Wholly owned by Grupo Mexico subsidiary Southern Copper, Buenavista has been producing since 1899, making it the oldest operating copper mine in North America.

#6: Cerro Verde

In sixth place is Cerro Verde in Peru, an open-pit copper and molybdenum mining complex that is a joint venture between Freeport McMoRan, Buenaventura and Sumitomo. In 2024, Cerro Verde produced 430,459 tonnes, down 3.71% from 447,034 tonnes in 2023.

#7: Antamina

Also in Peru, Antamina is jointly owned by Glencore, BHP, Teck Resources and Mitsubishi. The mine produced 413,000 tonnes in 2024, a 2.13% decline from 422,000 tonnes in 2023.

Production figures for the mines below are based on FY2024 estimates:

#8: Tenke Fungurume

The second Congolese mine on the list, Tenke Fungurume produced an estimated 400,000 tonnes in 2024, which would represent a 42.7% yearly jump. In 2021, China’s CMOC, which jointly owns the mine with Congo state-controlled Gécamines, invested $2.51 billion to double its production. The project was completed and came online in 2023.

#9: KGHM Polska Miedz

The only mine in Europe to make the list is KGHM Polska’s Miedz in Poland, churning out an estimated 395,160 tonnes in 2024, approximately in line with the 395,400 tonnes from 2023.

#10: Polar Division

The Polar Division copper mine in Russia, owned by Norilsk Nickel, rounds out the list with an estimated 345,000 tonnes in 2024, an approximate increase 6.3% from the 324,600 tonnes in 2023.

*Cobre Panama, Central America’s largest open-pit copper mine, produced 330,863 tonnes of copper in 2023 before the government ordered it to shut down. If it was still operating, it would have become a 100-million-tonne-a-year operation in 2024, placing it near the top of the world’s copper throughput ranking.

The document paves the way towards an “economic partnership agreement and the establishment of the investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister and economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko, said in a thread on X.

The memorandum signing follows remarks by US President Donald Trump earlier in the day that a deal on Ukraine’s critical minerals will be signed next Thursday.

Present at the memorandum signing was US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was the first cabinet-level official in Trump’s administration to visit Ukraine earlier this year to hold initial talks. Bessent hinted earlier that the deal would be signed around April 26.

“We have a minerals deal which I guess is going to be signed on Thursday,” Trump said during a meeting with Italian Prime Minster Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office. “And I assume they’re going to live up to the deal.”

A draft of the deal under discussion earlier this month would give the US access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits and require Kyiv to place all its income from the exploitation of natural resources in a joint investment fund. Ukraine holds sizable deposits of critical minerals, including rare earth elements that are essential to a variety of high-tech applications, as well as graphite, lithium, titanium and uranium.

The partnership accord would see the US have first claim on profits transferred into a special reconstruction investment fund under its control. Kyiv has been pressing for better terms in the negotiations, including US security guarantees, and had refused to recognize the past US aid as debt.

After a new round of talks, the Trump administration has agreed to bring down its estimated assistance to Kyiv since the start of Russia’s invasion closer to Ukraine’s own estimate of $90 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Still, even with a deal in the offing, Trump remains critical of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, with whom he had a heated exchange late February in the White House when the two parties had planned to sign a deal.

“I don’t hold Zelenskiy responsible but I’m not exactly thrilled with the fact that war started,” Trump said, referring to his Ukrainian counterpart’s role in its fight with Russia.

Swiss customs data on Thursday showed that the country’s gold imports from the US rose to a thirteen-month high of 25.5 metric tons in March, from 12.1 tons in February. Gold exports from Switzerland to the US fell 32% month-on-month to 103.2 tons.

US warehouses approved by Comex, part of the CME Group, have seen eight consecutive days of gold outflows for the first time in fourteen months, daily Comex data showed, as the US futures premium wound down after major dislocation.

Gold, silver and platinum worth more than $80 billion was delivered to Comex warehouses in the December-March period, keeping logistics firms and Swiss refineries busier than usual.

However, the urgency to fly gold and ship silver to New York was removed when Washington excluded the metals from President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs two weeks ago and the flow is now slowly reversing back towards Switzerland.

Comex gold stocks are down 1.5 million troy ounces, worth $4.8 billion, to 43.6 million ounces (1,357 metric tons) since hitting an all-time high of 45.1 million ounces on April 4. They had started rising from 17.1 million ounces in November when Trump was elected President again.

Part of what is currently being delivered out from the US gold vaults is coming back to Switzerland, the world’s biggest bullion refining and transit hub, said a source at a Swiss refinery.

The outflow from the US will be modest for now as gold in the country’s vaults continues to serve as a hedge against the ongoing wider uncertainty for part of the market, he added.

In a typical year, the US consumes about 115 tons of gold in physical coins and bars, meaning that the remaining kilobars in CME-registered warehouses are sufficient to last this segment of the market for nearly 12 years, said Ross Norman, an independent analyst.

“A great time to be in gold logistics and gold refining,” he added.

(By Polina Devitt; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

MINING.COM and The Northern Miner mapped global copper production through a geopolitical lens, dividing the world into five “spheres of control”: American, Chinese, Russian, Coalition of the Willing, and Undrafted.

These groupings reflect geographic, social, cultural, and economic ties—as well as potential alignments in an increasingly polarized world.

In this interview, Anthony Vaccaro, the author of the graphic and president of The Northern Miner Group, explains how the five blocs compare in terms of copper extraction.

Explore the full infographic:

After making his fortune in chrome and shipping under family conglomerate Yildirim Holding AS, he spun off those businesses this year into CoreX Holding. The new venture already has some nickel-processing facilities, and with prices near a multiyear low, Yildirim sees now as a good time to scale up.

Nickel has slid as Chinese firms ramped up output in Indonesia, leading to fire sales from some major miners as their higher-cost assets struggle to compete. Yildirim thinks he can make such assets profitable by improving operations, and initially focusing on products with higher nickel content than Chinese nickel pig iron. He expects nickel prices to recover in the next two to three years.

“We want to come to the nickel market when people are exiting,” the 65-year-old said in an interview in his Istanbul office. “Eventually it will come up and find an equilibrium.”

His foray into nickel also comes at a time when critical metals are increasingly under the spotlight as Western nations view supplies as a matter of national security, especially as the global energy transition stokes fears of potential future shortages. China is the key player in the nickel market, both through its own domestic industry and investments by its firms in places like Indonesia.

He has put about $500 million into the nickel push so far, which includes CoreX’s first acquisition — a majority stake in Ivory Coast miner Compagnie Minière Du Bafing SA in December — and ferronickel plants in North Macedonia and Kosovo that were transfered from the family holding firm. Other parts of his existing metals business include ferroalloy plants in Sweden and Russia, a US chrome and chemicals unit and mining companies in Kazakhstan.

With $2 billion earmarked for more deals, Yildirim said he’s in talks to buy six mines in Colombia, Guatemala and Africa, without elaborating. As the portfolio grows, he plans to order newbuild vessels to cover the supply chain from production to shipping.

The aim is to offer nickel buyers in Europe and the US an alternative to Chinese-supplied products. That will initially be in the stainless steel industry due to the crossover with Yildirim’s chrome business, before expanding to nickel used in batteries, and then to metals including copper, gold and zinc.

China has become a leader in many critical minerals used in everything from electric-vehicle batteries to wind turbines. Western governments are trying to reduce their dependence on those supplies — including through boosting domestic output and striking trade alliances.

To help fund the nickel deals, the billionaire has started talks with long-term investors, and is targeting those including infrastructure and sovereign wealth funds, private equity and family offices.

“I’m not young, I don’t have too much time to waste,” Yildirim said. “So I need to focus on the mid-size or big size projects.”

Anglo-MMG deal

CoreX had its first major setback earlier this year, when it lost out to MMG Ltd. in a bid to buy Anglo American Plc’s nickel business in Brazil. Yildirim said he offered $900 million with financing from UBS Group AG — much higher than the transaction value — and got as far as negotiating the terms of a deal, but Anglo hasn’t explained to why his offer was rejected.

When disposing of assets, it’s not uncommon for sellers to prefer more established miners where there’s more certainty around financing. MMG, controlled by state-owned China Minmetals Corp., has mines across the globe, including the giant Las Bambas copper mine in Peru.

Yildirim bemoaned the decision, calling it a “game-changer in nickel history.” Anglo said it can’t discuss those involved in the process.

“China has grabbed this very important asset from the West to take to China and Anglo is the company letting this happen,” Yildirim said.

(By Patrick Sykes)

Sandvik, which kicks off the earnings season for Nordic industrial companies, is considered a reliable indicator of demand given its broad customer base and short lead times for orders.

Orders in Sandvik’s Manufacturing and Machining Solutions business, which makes up around 40% of its revenue, had been stable so far in April, CEO Stefan Widing said.

“We were also nervous waiting for these numbers to come in during these first two weeks, but the only thing we can say is we don’t see any abnormal activity,” Widing told analysts in a call.

The value of orders Sandvik received in the first quarter rose by 2% to 32.76 billion Swedish crowns ($3.33 billion), compared to the same period last year.

“The recent escalated global tariff announcements will impact the macroeconomic environment going forward,” Widing however warned in the earnings statement.

He also told reporters that one big risk to future profitability would be a global recession.

An escalating trade war has spurred fears among investors of a recession in the US, while manufacturing in the country contracted in March after growing for two straight months.

Based on current tariff rates and mitigating actions taken by Sandvik, which include re-routing trade flows and informing customers about potential surcharges, it expects the impact of the levies on its margins to be limited.

Sandvik also said it was preparing for increased production capacity in its US facilities if tariff rates “increase materially from current levels”. It made more than 14% of its revenue in the US last year.

Its operating profit before amortization and items affecting comparability rose 9% to 5.77 billion crowns in the first quarter, but missed a mean forecast of 5.91 billion crowns from analysts polled by LSEG.

The miss was driven by weak cutting tools orders for general engineering and automotive industries, Jefferies analysts said in a note.

Sandvik’s shares were 1% lower at 1200 GMT.

($1 = 9.8252 Swedish crowns)

(By Greta Rosen Fondahn; Editing by Milla Nissi)