• The battery metals downturn has made IGO & Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo put grand plans for a processing plant in Kwinana on ice (West)

• Record profit for Zijin on strong production and commodity prices (MiningNews)

• BHP is facing cost & schedule hurdles with its copper growth plans in South Australia & is moving to strengthen the management team (AFR)

• Receivers for Calidus have been forced to shutter Warrawoona while they hunt to find a buyer for the collapsed business (West)

• Andrew Forrest is considering sacking the company’s external lawyers who presided over the surveillance of former employees (AFR)

• Iron ore’s US $100 floor is at risk of collapse with a jump in supply brewing, as large projects look to come online (Bloomberg)

• China once again holds the key to copper's fortunes as the market waits for the world's largest buyer to shake off its property woes (Reuters)

• APA Group will spend $20m to upgrade a Queensland pipeline to bring new gas from Senex’s $1b expansion (The Australian)

• Sprott said its new physical copper fund will be too small to have an impact on global availability, despite past controversy (Bloomberg)

• Geoff Jones abruptly stepped down as the chair of Global Lithium, but the lithium aspirant’s boss insists he’s leaving on “good terms” (West)

• African mines could account for nearly a 10th of the world’s rare earths in five years according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (Bloomberg)

• Mexican mining investment should remain stable versus last year at c. $5b but new regulations could hamper the development (Reuters)

• Alphamin delivered a smooth ramp of Mpama South production, including deferred sales the tin miner made US$70 million EBITDA (AFM)

• The Federal Court has approved the scheme that will see MMA Offshore acquired by Cyan Renewables (MRM)

• Receivers & managers at Calidus are transitioning Warrawoona to care & maintenance, while a dual-track recap & sale process starts (CAI)

• Brightstar has completed its acquisition of Linden Gold (BTR)

• Nexa Resources is in talks to sell the Pukaqaqa copper project in Peru, reported to have a US$655m price tag (Mining.com)

• Clara Resources sold its stake in First Tin to Arlington Group for $4.3 million, allowing it to acquire the remaining 60% of Ashford coal from Savannah Goldfields (C7A, SVG)

• WA1 has raised $60m at $17/share, following its maiden MRE & met work (WA1)

• There’s a bit of buzz in the air about the future strategy of IGO. We suspect a significant reduction in exploration expenditure to be on the agenda, announced with results in August but potentially even guided to before that. Unfortunately, that means jobs

• IGO’s lack of exploration success has made it an easy target for critics, including ourselves. There are whispers that IGO has had some lithium exploration success in the Forrestania area though. We suppose everyone found a bit of lithium over the last few years…

• News out of Kazakhstan last night could have massive implications on the Term pricing market for uranium… So what’s happened?

  • Mineral Extraction Tax (MET) will be increasing from 6% to 9% in 2025 (effectively a production royalty)

  • From 2026 onwards, the rate will be scaled up based on production volume (see below). Effectively, anything mined over 4kt of U₃O₈ (8.8mlbs) will be have a gross royalty of 18%

  • Additionally, if the Weighted Average U₃O₈ price exceeds US$110/lb, an additional 2.5% royalty will apply

  • Impact for Kazatomprom - Not much, because 75% of Kazatomprom is owned by that state Sovereign Wealth fund, so its just more money retained in-country…..they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul

  • Impact for JV Partners - Possibly massive. JV Partners such as Cameco, Orano and Rosatom will have a higher cost base now for the Kazakh mines

    • This may feed into demand for higher priced Term contracts in a market that is in, what some say, a “structural deficit”

• Fastmarkets 2024 conference painted a pretty bearish outlook for lithium, including that Chinese producers have vertically integrated mines in Zimbabwe now (Fastmarkets)

• European governments from Prague to Sofia have grand plans to build new nuclear plants, but the question is, who will pay? (Bloomberg)

• The global lithium sector is eyeing Argentina’s salt flats as Eramet, amongst others, runs tests to commercialise DLE (Reuters)

• ArcelorMittal South Africa's decision to continue operating its steel unit has boosted the nation’s manufacturing hope (Bloomberg)

• BYD has defied the EV stock sell-off, leading to investment banks boosting the company’s target price (Bloomberg)

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