Global Mining & Metals · JULY 21, 2026Record gold and copper prices and a federal permitting push have revived US hard-rock exploration in Nevada, Arizona and Alaska, but litigation and water still separate the projects that advance from the ones that stall.
The Take — in a $4,300-gold, $13,700-copper market the rocks are no longer the constraint; the permit map is. Bet on private-land and Tier-1-jurisdiction projects (AngloGold's Arthur, Hudbay's Copper World, Ivanhoe Electric's Santa Cruz) and treat the federal-land fights (Resolution, Pebble) as option value, not a base case.
One thread runs through half the complex: it was never about demand, it's about who owns the mines, the midstream and the processing — and right now that's a short list of countries. Our running coverage of the chokepoint.
Celsius Resources spent 18 years building a world-class copper-gold deposit in Kalinga Province and clearing every regulatory hurdle the Philippines could throw at it — then lost the boardroom to its own local partner six months after booking its maiden ore reserve. A full accounting of what happened and why.
The US government keeps backstopping domestic rare-earth projects with loans, equity and price floors, even though the elements themselves are common in the crust and the real bottleneck is separation, permitting and a thin market.
With gold near record highs around US$4,200/oz, Evolution Mining swung to net cash and kept paying dividends, while peers Northern Star and Newmont return cash through buybacks.
Champion Iron expects first commercial DR-grade pellet feed from its Bloom Lake DRPF project by the end of June 2026, upgrading roughly half of the mine's output toward 69% Fe just as steel decarbonisation lifts demand for low-impurity ore.
With high-cost Australian nickel idled, two sulphide developers — Centaurus Metals' Jaguar in Brazil and Lunnon Metals' Baker at Kambalda — are advancing first-quartile, Class-1-bound projects into a structurally tighter market.
Liontown reached its Kathleen Valley underground run-rate target early and booked its first positive net cash flow as spodumene prices rebounded, while Pilbara Minerals posted record output at A$560–600/t costs.
Celsius Resources is in arbitration with its 60% local partner Sodor over control of the MMCI vehicle that holds the MCB copper-gold project, echoing the dispute that pushed Ten Sixty Four into administration over its Co-O gold mine.
Capstone Copper posted its sixth straight record quarterly EBITDA into all-time-high copper prices while its Mantoverde Optimized expansion advances toward a Q4 2026 ramp.
Stanmore Resources and Whitehaven Coal posted strong met-coal cash flow and kept paying shareholders through a soft 2025–26, even as ESG financing policies keep lenders away from coking coal.
DRC export quotas have lifted cobalt metal back into the mid-$20s/lb, clearing the restart math for Jervois' Idaho Cobalt Operations — but that ex-China unit is now locked inside a delisted, privately held vehicle.
Peru's projected Fujimori win removes a near-term mining-tax threat, while Colombia's June 21 runoff and a US sanctions order on Cuba reshape the risk map for copper, nickel and cobalt names operating in the region.
With gold off its January peak but still above $4,300/oz, the majors are spending record free cash flow on deals — royalty roll-ups, regional consolidation and reserve replacement — rather than the drill bit.
Barton Gold completed an oversubscribed A$25.9m institutional placement at A$0.85 per share, led by Canaccord Genuity and MST Financial, to fund a Challenger DFS, Tunkillia studies and Tolmer drilling in South Australia's Gawler Craton.
Queensland's 2022 progressive coal royalty, topping out at a 40% marginal rate, is now reshaping investment and production decisions across the Bowen Basin's coking-coal producers.
Three Bowen Basin coking-coal names — Vitrinite, Bowen Coking Coal and Fitzroy — have all hit the wall or changed hands in under a year, and the common thread is the price of money, not the price of coal.
The most violent chart in the complex just V'd off a nine-year low — battery-grade carbonate roughly doubled through Q1 2026 and sits up around 30% on the year. Before you chase it, get straight on brine vs hard-rock, carbonate vs hydroxide, and who actually has the cost curve to print.
LME copper sits near $13,700/t after a record $14,527.50 in January, as mine disruptions, AI-and-grid demand and a US tariff scramble collide with stretched speculative positioning.
White Energy (ASX:WEC) proposes to acquire Nathan Tinkler's private Oceltip Coal 2 for $4m cash and install him as executive chairman, funded by a $15m raise at 6c, in a return to coal development.
The copper bull case is the most consensus idea in metals and still the most underbuilt. The problem was never demand. It's that you can't permit and dig your way out of a structural deficit in under a decade.
A wall of Indonesian laterite and HPAL capacity, much of it China-backed, has flattened the cost curve and left a graveyard of Western nickel producers. Pretending class 1 and class 2 are the same metal is how you misread the whole thing.
The least glamorous tonne in mining bankrolls the most glamorous bets. Before you get excited about a copper growth pipeline, ask where the cash to build it comes from. The answer is usually red dirt from the Pilbara.
A yieldless rock is near record highs while real assets are supposedly out of fashion. Gold isn't telling you about gold. It's telling you what the smart, nervous money thinks about everything else.
LFP took share, every cathode maker promised to engineer cobalt out, and yet the DRC still anchors the metal — and in 2025 the Congolese government proved it, banning then rationing exports and roughly doubling the price. Read the chemistry that ships, not the chemistry in the press release.
A field dispatch from the mining-conference circuit, where the canapés are warm, the resource estimates are warmer, and everyone has discovered the next Greenbushes in a tent in the Yukon. A (mostly) loving send-up.
The anode gets none of the glamour and most of the leverage. China dominates natural flake, synthetic graphite and — crucially — the processing in between. Building a Western anode supply chain is harder than building a mine.
The ferrous complex sets the macro mood for mining; precious metals set the fear gauge. Both move capital toward and away from the battery basket. A quick map of the markets behind the markets.
A field guide to the language juniors use when they want your money. Bonanza intercepts, 'district-scale potential,' and the difference between a discovery and a stock promotion. Companies, not just commodities, get covered here.
The structural bull case, for people who can hold a position longer than a quarter.
Champion Iron is about to flip half of Bloom Lake to 69% Fe — the quality trade gets a producerWhat the cost curve and the filings actually say, once the story's stripped out.
Washington Just Wrote Energy Fuels a $725M Check — and Rare Earths Aren't Even RareWhat the trading desk is actually whispering — positioning, flows, sentiment.
Permits, Not Geology, Are Picking the Winners in America's $4,300-Gold, $13,700-Copper Mining RevivalDispatches from the conference circuit and the field, with the tongue in the cheek.
Gold's near US$4,200 and Evolution just went net cash — the gold miner as cash machineAn interactive map of the mines and infrastructure that move this market — owner, stage, reserves, resources, status, and who controls the ports and smelters in between.
Tariffs, export bans, the IRA, critical-minerals lists, permitting, and resource nationalism. Mining is a policy business wearing a geology costume.
