He says the current deal-making environment has worsened, lamenting a diminished availability of high-quality projects meeting the team’s investment criteria. He suggests the industry’s chronic underinvestment in exploration and development for new mines is partly to blame.

Smallwood also outlines in an interview during a recent industry event in Toronto with The Northern Miner’s western editor, Henry Lazenby, how Wheaton plans to achieve its long-term objective of reaching and maintaining over 850,000 gold-equivalent oz. of yearly production.

Watch the full video here:

Newmont is working with Citigroup Inc. on the disposal and they have started sounding out prospective suitors, according to the people. Shandong Gold Mining Co. and Zijin Mining Group Co. are among companies showing early interest in the asset, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining Co. is also studying Akyem, said the people. Australian miner Perseus Mining Ltd. said last month it would consider the asset as well.

Deliberations are at an early stage and suitors could decide not to proceed with bids, the people said. Representatives for Newmont, Citigroup, Shandong Gold and Zijin declined to comment. A spokesperson for Chifeng Jilong didn’t reply to a request for comment.

The sale of Akyem is part of Denver-based Newmont’s effort to raise $2 billion in cash through divestitures in the wake of its acquisition of Newcrest Mining Ltd. in November. On top of Akyem, Newmont wants to sell four gold mines in North America and one in Australia.

Akyem produced 420,000 ounces of gold a year at the end of 2022, the company’s website shows. The precious metal surged above $2,200 an ounce this week for the first time and it has rallied about 10% in a month.

(By Vinicy Chan)

The leading mid-tier-gold-stock benchmark is the GDXJ VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF. With $4.3b in net assets mid-week, it remains the second-largest gold-stock ETF after its big brother GDX. That is dominated by far-larger major gold miners, though there is much overlap between these ETFs’ holdings. Still misleadingly named, GDXJ is overwhelmingly a mid-tier gold-stock ETF with little weighting allocated to juniors.

Gold-stock tiers are defined by miners’ annual production rates in ounces of gold. Small juniors have little sub-300k outputs, medium mid-tiers run 300k to 1,000k, large majors yield over 1,000k, and huge super-majors operate at vast scales exceeding 2,000k. Translated into quarterly terms, these thresholds shake out under 75k, 75k to 250k, 250k+, and 500k+. Today only two of GDXJ’s 25 biggest holdings are true juniors!

Their Q4 production is highlighted in blue in the table below. Juniors not only mine less than 75k ounces per quarter, but their gold output generates over half their quarterly revenues. That excludes both primary silver miners producing byproduct gold, and royalty and streaming companies that purchase future gold output for big upfront payments used to finance mine builds. But mid-tiers often make better investments.

These gold miners dominating GDXJ offer a unique mix of sizable diversified production, excellent output-growth potential, and smaller market capitalizations ideal for outsized gains. Mid-tiers are less risky than juniors, while amplifying gold uplegs much more than majors. Our newsletter trading books are now filled with fundamentally-superior mid-tiers and juniors, smaller gold miners which we’ve long specialized in at Zeal.

While the mid-tiers’ fundamentals are stellar as you’ll soon see, GDXJ’s recent performance has been wanting. Ultimately gold stocks are leveraged plays on gold, and its latest upleg was born back in early October. By early December, gold had surged 13.8% to its first new nominal record close in 3.3 years on gold-futures short-covering buying. GDXJ only rallied 27.9% in that early-upleg span, mere 2.0x upside leverage.

After that gold consolidated high before slipping into a mild pullback into mid-February. Gold just gave back 3.9%, yet GDXJ plunged 21.1% as gold stocks fell out of favor again! The extreme euphoria and greed spewing out of the general-stock-market bubble were overshadowing alternative investments. Gold bounced back strong, surging 9.6% over the subsequent few weeks into mid-March. But mid-tiers kept lagging.

GDXJ merely rebounded 18.5%, amplifying gold an even-worse 1.9x. At best in mid-March, gold’s upleg had powered 19.9% higher achieving nine new nominal record closes! Yet GDXJ was only up 19.6%, just pacing gold. Much riskier than their metal, gold stocks need to way outperform to compensate traders for their big additional operational, geological, and geopolitical risks that are heaped on top of gold price trends.

For 31 quarters in a row now, I’ve painstakingly analyzed the latest operational and financial results from GDXJ’s 25-largest component stocks. Mostly mid-tiers, they now account for 64.7% of this ETF’s total weighting. While digging through quarterlies is a ton of work, understanding smaller gold miners’ latest fundamentals really cuts through the obscuring sentiment fogs shrouding this sector. This research is essential.

This table summarizes the GDXJ top 25’s operational and financial highlights during Q4’23. These gold miners’ stock symbols aren’t all US listings, and are preceded by their rankings changes within GDXJ over this past year. The shuffling in their ETF weightings reflects shifting market caps, which reveal both outperformers and underperformers since Q4’22. Those symbols are followed by their recent GDXJ weightings.

Next comes these gold miners’ Q4’23 production in ounces, along with their year-over-year changes from the comparable Q4’22. Output is the lifeblood of this industry, with investors generally prizing production growth above everything else. After are the costs of wresting that gold from the bowels of the earth in per-ounce terms, both cash costs and all-in sustaining costs. The latter help illuminate miners’ profitability.

That’s followed by a bunch of hard accounting data reported to securities regulators, quarterly revenues, earnings, operating cash flows, and resulting cash treasuries. Blank data fields mean companies hadn’t disclosed that particular data as of the middle of this week. The annual changes aren’t included if they would be misleading, like comparing negative numbers or data shifting from positive to negative or vice-versa.

The mid-tier gold miners’ overall Q4’23 performance again proved spectacular! These sweet-spot-for-upside smaller gold stocks grew their production while slashing mining costs. That along with surging prevailing gold prices fueled massive earnings jumps, both per-ounce and bottom-line. Last quarter was undoubtedly one of the best the mid-tier and junior gold stocks ever reported, which should attract back investors.

Production growth trumps everything else as the primary mission for gold miners. Higher outputs boost operating cash flows which help fund mine expansions, builds, and purchases, fueling virtuous circles of growth. Mining more gold also raises profitability, lowering unit costs by spreading big fixed operational expenses across more ounces. The GDXJ-top-25 gold miners delivered again for the seventh quarter in a row!

Their collective production grew 2.8% YoY to 3,543k ounces last quarter. That trounced the larger super-majors and majors dominating GDX, which I analyzed in another essay last week. In Q4’23 the GDX-top-25 gold miners suffered a big 4.6%-YoY output drop to 8,845k ounces. The World Gold Council reported overall global gold-mining output in Q4 slipped 1.7% YoY to 29,925k. So the mid-tiers are outperforming.

But not as much as their aggregate production implies, as fully 14 of these GDXJ-top-25 stocks reported lower Q4 production. The biggest output growth came from GDXJ’s largest component, Pan American Silver which just grew into a major gold miner over this past year. Its Q4’23 gold production soared up 63.0% YoY, mostly because it acquired Yamana Gold at the end of Q1’23. PAAS’s output shot up 104k ounces.

That exceeded the GDXJ top 25’s total growth of 96k, so without that buyout aggregate production would have shrunk. But it still would’ve been much better than the GDX-top-25 majors. Some of the GDXJ mid-tiers reported great growth, including Centamin’s and Eldorado Gold’s surging 21.8% and 11.4% YoY. A sizable fraction of these elite mid-tiers and juniors have expansions going live this year that will boost output.

Equinox Gold is a great example, launching one of the biggest assaults into GDXJ’s upper ranks over this past year. One of my favorite mid-tiers which we’ve long owned, EQX operates seven gold mines. Later this year, its eighth and biggest-ever mine-build is going live. Equinox’s stake of average annual output is forecast near 240k ounces, big growth is coming. 2024’s midpoint guidance is 25% above 2023’s actual production.

And 2024 only includes a half-year of that new mine’s output, as it isn’t spinning up until the second half of this year. Even better, it is a low-cost operation with all-in sustaining costs projected near fantastic $850-per-ounce levels! That will drag down EQX’s higher overall AISCs, boosting profitability along with its production for years to come. One of Canada’s largest gold mines, it has a 14-year initial projected life.

Similar great growth stories aren’t particularly rare among smaller gold miners, helping make them such compelling investments. After decades analyzing and trading these high-potential stocks, I love learning about expansions and mine-builds nearing production. Because it is so labor-intensive to stay abreast of many dozens of smaller gold miners, surging production and falling costs tend to surprise most traders.

They then rush to buy after great quarterlies reflect new projects coming online, bidding stock prices way higher. Our newsletter trading books are full of growing mid-tiers and juniors. OceanaGold is another example, producing 477k ounces of gold in 2023 at $1,587 AISCs. But OGC has already guided to 2024, 2025, and 2026 midpoints of 540k, 570k, and 650k ounces, with AISCs falling near $1,538, $1,500, and $1,325!

While GDXJ’s smaller gold miners are far-superior to GDX’s larger ones, there is still too much overlap between these sibling ETFs. Fully 15 of these GDXJ-top-25 components are also GDX-top-25 ones, with 5 more in GDX’s lower ranks. These mutual holdings weigh in at 56.9% of GDXJ, but just 26.5% of GDX. The GDXJ top 25 are mostly clustered between GDX’s 11th to 32nd weightings, which is a big advantage.

GDXJ effectively lops off the ten biggest GDX components, which are dominated by super-majors. As I analyzed in my essay last week on the GDX top 25’s Q4’23 results, those are burdened with crushing deadweight. That means super-majors perpetually unable to overcome depletion to grow their outputs organically, so they resort to expensive corporate acquisitions. Yet still their unit mining costs inexorably climb!

Gold-stock portfolios carefully built with handpicked fundamentally-superior individual mid-tier and junior gold miners will yield the best gains by far during major gold uplegs. That’s long been our specialty at Zeal, with our newsletters detailing our active portfolios and their buying and selling. But if owning a single sector ETF somehow better suits you, GDXJ is a far-better option than GDX. I’d totally avoid the latter.

Unit gold-mining costs are generally inversely proportional to gold-production levels. That’s because gold mines’ total operating costs are largely fixed during pre-construction planning stages, when designed throughputs are determined for plants processing gold-bearing ores. Their nameplate capacities don’t change quarter to quarter, requiring similar levels of infrastructure, equipment, and employees to keep running.

So the only real variable driving quarterly gold production is the ore grades fed into these plants. Those vary widely even within individual gold deposits. Richer ores yield more ounces to spread mining’s big fixed expenses across, lowering unit costs and boosting profitability. But while fixed costs are the lion’s share of gold mining, there are also sizable variable costs. That’s where recent years’ raging inflation hit hard.

Cash costs are the classic measure of gold-mining costs, including all cash expenses necessary to mine each ounce of gold. But they are misleading as a true cost measure, excluding the big capital needed to explore for gold deposits and build mines. So cash costs are best viewed as survivability acid-test levels for the mid-tier gold miners. They illuminate the minimum gold prices necessary to keep the mines running.

The GDXJ top 25 reporting cash costs as of the middle of this week averaged $1,004 per ounce, which shrunk a slight 0.8% YoY. That made for the third quarter in a row these elite mid-tiers reported declining direct mining costs. And these are skewed high by Hecla Mining, which has always struggled with very-high-cost operations. Excluding its crazy-high $1,702, the rest of these GDXJ top 25 averaged $957 last quarter.

All-in sustaining costs are far superior than cash costs, and were introduced by the World Gold Council in June 2013. They add on to cash costs everything else that is necessary to maintain and replenish gold-mining operations at current output tempos. AISCs give a much-better understanding of what it really costs to maintain gold mines as ongoing concerns, and reveal the mid-tier gold miners’ true operating profitability.

The GDXJ top 25 knocked it out of the ballpark on the AISC front, with Q4’23’s average plunging 8.1% YoY to $1,325 per ounce! That also proved these elite mid-tiers’ third quarter in a row of declining AISCs. Excluding Hecla’s endless high-cost morass, that average drops to an even-better $1,282. Comparing the GDXJ top 25’s AISCs to the larger GDX top 25’s helps illustrate mid-tiers’ fundamental superiority.

While the GDX majors’ average AISCs were slightly lower last quarter at $1,317, they climbed 3.9% YoY. During the last 21 quarters, the GDX top 25 have only reported a single quarter of retreating AISCs! The super-majors dominating GDX argue their vast operations give them economies of scale on management. Yet smaller gold miners with way-fewer mines are achieving similar AISCs and much-better falling-cost trends.

Considered another way, the GDXJ top 25’s $1,325 AISCs were 80% up into their 31-quarter range of $860 to $1,442. Mining costs naturally climb over time, reflecting both inflation and higher prevailing gold prices making higher-cost deposits more economical to tap. In Q4 the GDX top 25’s AISCs were 85% up into their own 31-quarter range of $825 to $1,405. Smaller gold miners are outperforming on the costs front.

And the mid-tiers’ $1,325 average AISCs in Q4 made for fat profits with near-record average gold prices. Those soared 14.2% YoY to $1,976 last quarter, just a hair under Q2’23’s record of $1,978! Subtracting those quarterly-average GDXJ-top-25 AISCs from quarterly-average gold prices yields a great proxy for smaller gold miners’ unit earnings. The resulting $651 per ounce skyrocketed a stupendous 125.7% YoY!

That epic doubling-plus made for the strongest annual unit profits growth in at least the last 31 quarters. And it followed another massive 106.4%-YoY skyrocketing in the preceding Q3’23. And that streak of gargantuan earnings growth is almost certain to continue in this current almost-over Q1’24. Quarter-to-date, gold has averaged a dazzling new record $2,060 on close! And the mid-tiers are forecasting similar AISCs.

Their average full-year-2024 AISC guidances ran $1,334 per ounce, which would yield massive $726-per-ounce profits this quarter! That would make for more huge 51.9%-YoY growth! I suspect full-year AISCs will come in lower, closer to the bottom of forecast ranges than these midpoints. These elite mid-tiers have plenty of new mines and expansions coming online this year, which should soon help drive down costs.

Today’s battered mid-tier gold-stock prices are far from reflecting these awesome fundamentals. A good chunk of these GDXJ top 25 are trading at single-digit or low-double-digit trailing-twelve-month price-to-earnings ratios today, even without Q4’s windfall profits fully factored in! And as earning continue rising, undervaluations will deepen unless smaller gold miners enjoy a long-overdue massive mean reversion higher.

While swirling winds of sentiment bully around stock prices over the short term, eventually they will reflect some reasonable multiple of underlying corporate earnings. Warren Buffett’s renowned mentor, legendary investor Benjamin Graham, famously said markets are voting machines over the short run but ultimately weighing machines over the long term. Gold-stock prices need to start normalizing relative to their earnings.

The GDXJ top 25’s hard accounting results under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles also looked fantastic last quarter. Their total revenues soared 16.8% YoY to $8,563m, crushing the GDX top 25’s mere 4.6%-YoY sales growth. The mid-tiers’ 17%ish surge tracks perfectly with 3%ish production growth combined with Q4’s average gold prices shooting about 14% higher. And bottom-line earnings looked way better.

In Q4’23 the GDXJ top 25’s total accounting earnings skyrocketed 81.9% YoY to $463m! That compares to colossal $3,484m losses reported by the GDX-top-25 majors, mostly driven by super-majors’ huge non-cash writedowns. These gigantic gold miners squander shareholders’ money overpaying to acquire other gold miners. Then they later have to flush those resulting “goodwill” premiums through their income statements.

That further injures super-majors’ shareholders, as institutional investors seeing such huge accounting losses avoid buying those companies’ shares. The GDXJ-top-25 mid-tiers did have some Q4 writedowns too, but nowhere near the super-majors’ embarrassing scale. These writedowns were also for better reasons than paying too much to buy out companies, such as impairments from mining-law and tax-law changes.

Without Q4’23’s larger unusual noncash charges, the mid-tiers’ total accounting earnings soared way up to $921m. Those are understated too, as one larger British gold stock Endeavour Mining isn’t reporting its Q4 results until March 27th. This smaller major is also projecting good 11.9% midpoint output growth near 1,200k ounces in 2024 as two big new projects come online next quarter, keeping AISCs low around $995!

Comparable Q4’22 GDXJ-top-25 earnings excluding big writeoffs then were closer to $1,040m, implying that mid-tier operating earnings declined about 11.4%. That’s still way better than the super-majors and their endless goodwill writeoffs. Because bottom-line mid-tier earnings nearly doubled last quarter, these gold stocks’ valuations are heading considerably lower. Again their stock prices need to mean revert far higher.

Last quarter’s operating-cash-flows generation was also very strong, blasting up 40.6% YoY to $2,375m for the GDXJ top 25. That funneled lots of cash into their coffers to continue expanding existing mines and build new ones. They’ve been investing those cash flows, as evident in their total cash treasuries slipping 3.7% YoY to $6,173m. Once EDV reports its Q4 results, that total will surge into growth territory.

These elite mid-tiers and juniors achieved higher production, lower all-in sustaining costs, and big growth in revenues, earnings, and operating cash flows last quarter! Their implied per-ounce profits more than doubled, while their hard accounting ones almost did. That made for a heck of a quarter for these smaller fundamentally-superior gold miners. Sooner or later investors will figure this out and flood into these stocks.

By advancing great gold projects into mines and growing relatively fast, mid-tiers and juniors are the gold-production pipeline ultimately feeding the majors. We research extensively to find fundamentally-superior smaller gold miners, then ride them until gold and gold stocks get unsustainably overbought or they are acquired. Smaller gold stocks can easily double, triple, or more during major gold uplegs, multiplying wealth!

The bottom line is mid-tier gold miners just reported their second spectacular quarter in a row. They are doing everything right, led by growing their production while lowering mining costs. That combined with near-record average gold prices fueled skyrocketing profits. Smaller gold miners’ fantastic operating performances were reflected in great accounting results, a stark contrast to the super-majors’ endless struggles.

And this awesome soaring-earnings trend is set to continue. The mid-tiers are forecasting similar mining costs this year, while prevailing gold prices continue to surge to new records. So their earnings are going to grow even fatter. These great fundamentals will eventually attract back investors, fueling a dramatic mean reversion higher in undervalued gold-stock prices. More gold record highs will accelerate this process.

(By Adam Hamilton)

In a media statement, the DOE said that this funding—made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—will support a variety of locally-driven projects that range from solar, microgrids, and pumped storage hydropower to geothermal and battery energy storage systems and that can be replicated in other mining communities across the country.

“President Biden believes that the communities that have powered our nation for the past 100 years should power our nation for the next 100 years,” Jennifer M. Granholm, the US Secretary of Energy, said in a statement.

“Thanks to the President’s Investing in America agenda, DOE is helping deploy clean energy solutions on current and former mine land across the country—supporting jobs and economic development in the areas hit hardest by our evolving energy landscape.” 

Three projects are on former Appalachian coal mines, thus supporting economic revitalization and workforce development on land that is no longer viable for industrial purposes. In the West, two projects seek to displace fossil-fuel use by ramping up net-zero mining operations and providing the critical materials needed for a domestic clean energy supply chain. These projects are also expected to create more than 3,000 construction and operations jobs.   

From geothermal to PV

In Graham and Greenlee Counties, Arizona, a project led by Freeport seeks to deploy direct-use, geothermal, clean heat combined with a battery energy storage system at two active copper mines, helping decrease the mines’ reliance on onsite thermal backup generators while supporting the annual extraction of 25 million pounds of copper.

In Bell County, Kentucky, Rye Development proposes converting former coal mine land to a closed-loop, pumped-storage hydroelectric facility with the potential to dispatch up to eight hours of power when needed, such as during times of peak demand or extreme weather events. This project will support the increase of local tax revenues that have decreased steadily since the 1970s and create approximately 1,500 construction and 30 operations jobs.

In Elko, Humboldt and Eureka Counties, Nevada, a project led by Nevada Gold Mines aims to develop a solar photovoltaic facility and accompanying battery energy storage system across three active gold mines.

“By shifting to clean energy, this project could demonstrate a replicable way for the mining industry to reach net-zero operations, while meeting growing demands for minerals across multiple sectors—including the clean energy supply chain,” the DOE’s release states.

In Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, Mineral Basin Solar Power, a subsidiary of Swift Current Energy, plans to repurpose nearly 2,700 acres of former coal mining land to support the largest solar project in Pennsylvania. At 402 MW, Mineral Basin will generate enough clean energy to power more than 70,000 homes. This project is expected to increase regional access to clean energy and fill a critical electricity generation gap following the closure of the Homer City coal plant.

The initiative is also expected to provide $1.1 million in annual tax revenue to Goshen and Girard townships, Clearfield County and the Clearfield County School District.

In Nicholas County, West Virginia, a project led by Savion, a company that’s part of Shell, plans to repurpose two former coal mines with a utility-scale, 250 MW solar PV system that would power approximately 39,000 West Virginia homes. These two inactive mine sites provide land and access to existing energy infrastructure that will transmit the clean, solar energy the project generates to the grid.

“The Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land will help provide the mining industry with a range of ways to decarbonize their operations and minimize environmental impacts and air pollutants, abating greenhouse gas emissions and disturbances to fragile, surrounding ecosystems,” the brief reads.

“Simultaneously, replicating clean energy technologies like these on other current and former mines will help maximize local workforce development and community opportunities for generations.”   

Goldboro is an advanced-stage gold project located in Guysborough county. To date, Signal has progressed the project through several permitting milestones, with the most recent being the environmental assessment approval in August 2022.

Applications for the key remaining permits have all been submitted, and the company said it remains committed to working to obtain these permits within the next 12 months.

At the same time, Signal’s exploration team continued to grow the mineral resource at Goldboro. It now has measured and indicated resources of 1.42 million oz. (15.7 million tonnes at 2.82 g/t gold) for the open pit, and 1.16 million oz. (5.9 million tonnes at 6.09 g/t gold) underground.

A 2021 feasibility study on the project demonstrated an approximate 11-year life of mine with average gold production of 100,000 oz. per annum and an average diluted gold grade of 2.26 g/t.

Its after-tax net present value, discounted at 5%, is pegged at C$328 million, with an internal rate of return of 25.5% and projected payback of 2.9 years. The initial capital cost is estimated C$271 million, and the life-of-mine sustaining capital is C$63.1 million.

Still, this “robust, high-grade project with significant leverage in an increasing gold price environment” is being substantially discounted, Signal said in its media release, adding the company is “focused on being capital efficient, with an emphasis on minimizing shareholder dilution and maximizing value.”

“Signal Gold recognizes that a larger, better capitalized, or cash flow generating company could be better positioned to advance or assist in the advancement of Goldboro over the development timeline,” it said.

Shares of Signal Gold shot up 11.7% to C$0.095 by 10:40 a.m. in Toronto. Over the past 52 weeks it traded within a range of C$0.08-C$0.35 The gold junior has a market capitalization of C$23.9 million ($17.7m).

Spot gold set a new record of $2,222.39 during the early hours of trading, before retreating to $2,206.10 by 9:05 a.m. EDT for a 1.0% gain. US gold futures soared 2.4% to $2,208.20.

[Click here for an interactive chart of gold prices]

Gold’s latest rally, which started mid-February, is underpinned by longstanding tailwinds including heightened geopolitical risks and increased central bank buying. This month alone, the safe-haven metal hit new highs on five occasions.

Its rapid ascent, according to Bloomberg columnists, has surprised many seasoned market observers, as there hasn’t been a clear catalyst. What has been partially driving bullion are expectations for looser monetary policy in the US, and that has now been reaffirmed by the Fed.

On Wednesday, Fed chair Jerome Powell continued to highlight officials would like to see more evidence that prices are coming down, but “it’s still likely in most people’s view that we will achieve that confidence and there will be rate cuts,” he said.

“What we saw last night was the green light really for gold traders to come back in,” said Chris Weston, head of research for Pepperstone Group.

“The Fed have said that right now they’re tolerant of the inflation that we’ve seen, they’re tolerant that the labor market strength is not going to be the impediment,” Weston told Bloomberg.

Speculation around the timing of the Fed’s long-anticipated pivot may have provided the trigger for recent gains, with data showing that traders boosted their net long positions on gold in the week through March 5 by the most since 2019.

The metal stands to benefit even more when US interest rates actually do come down, as bullion-backed exchange traded funds look likely to increase their holdings, according to UBS Group.

On the geopolitical front, there are a number of risks boosting gold’s allure as a haven asset: Russia appears to be gaining the upper hand in its war in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas conflict continues unabated and has led to a re-routing of global shipping, while the US presidential election at later this year could prove massively consequential for markets.

Chinese buying has also underpinned prices. As well as the central bank, people have been stocking up on coins, gold bars and jewelry to safeguard their wealth from a years long property downturn and losses in the country’s stock market.

(With files from Bloomberg)

The miner’s profit last year rose 14% to $195.1 million from $171 million in 2022, with revenue climbing 13% to $891.3 million from $788.4 million. 

Gold sales from Sukari in Egypt, the company’s only producing mine, totalled 456,625 ounces, up 4% from 438,638 in 2022. This as Centamin saw realized prices for the precious metal increase 8.6% to $1,948 per ounce from a previous $1,794 per ounce.

Bullion prices climbed 15% in 2023, ending at $2,078.4 an ounce, a record high year-end figure, according to data from the World Gold Council. The average 2023 price of $1,940.54 an ounce was 8% higher than the 2022 average, marking the metals’ best year since 2020.

“2023 was the third consecutive year that we have safely delivered on our production guidance, reflecting the operational improvements and flexibility from our three-year reinvestment plan,” chief executive Martin Horgan said.

The company cut its payout to shareholders to 2 US cents, down from 2.5 US cents it handed in 2022. This made a total payout of 4 cents, down 20% from 5 cents the previous year.

Improvements at Sukari

The executive said Centamin had “re-positioned” Sukari to achieve a consistent annual production of 500,000 ounces. He also anticipated a reduction in operational expenses following the establishment of solar power generation capabilities.

The company invested less than expected last year, with a $204 million total capital expenditure bill, below guidance of $272 million. It attributed the drop to cost savings, lower costs capitalization and changes to equipment rebuild schedules.

Centamin highlighted a grid connection project that it kicked off last year, thanks to recent upgrades to Egypt’s power distribution infrastructure. The completion of this project, which would be supplemented with the existing onsite solar power generation, is expected to cut $41 million a year just in diesel costs.

The plan would also help Centamin achieve its near-term decarbonization goals. It is targeting a reduction of 30% of its Scope 1 and 2 emissions, those hose incurred through mining operations and power consumption, respectively, by 2030.

The miner left its 2024 gold production guidance range of 470,000 to 500,000 ounces per annum unchanged.

The funds will be used to support a pilot project to process 5,000 kg per day of raw materials into approximately 2,500 kg of extracted platinum group metals per year.

Founded in 2020, pH7 is headquartered in Vancouver and was recently listed on the Cleantech Group’s 2024 Global Cleantech 100. The new process enables efficient metal extraction from low-grade resources or difficult substrates in a cost-effective way, it said.

The company has created a proprietary closed-loop process using advanced chemistry to extract and refine critical metals that will help the mining sector transition to renewable energy in an environmentally and economically sustainable way, the ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said in a news release.

Metal alloys including platinum group metals, copper and tin produced by pH7 are then refined by industrial customers. This method results in significantly less greenhouse gas emissions, electricity and water usage compared to mining or other recycling methods.

“BC is home to a growing clean-energy sector, accounting for 20% of Canada’s world-leading cleantech firms that are having positive impacts globally,” Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, said.

“With near net-zero environmental impact in the extraction of critical metals and minerals, pH7 is demonstrating the kind of innovative thinking that can transform mining around the world.”

Since 2008, the ICE Fund has committed approximately C$112 million ($83m) to support pre-commercial clean-energy technology projects, clean-energy vehicles, research and development, and energy-efficiency programs.

“The clean, green future we envision requires more critical metals than we have access to currently,” said Mohammad Doostmohammadi, founder and CEO of pH7 Technologies.

“Through innovation and collaboration, we look forward to bringing our cleantech solution to help scale the extraction of metals and make existing processes much more sustainable and cost-effective.”

The push echoes calls from the mining industry for clarity on how permits can be obtained for mines that produce copper, lithium and other energy transition minerals. Executives have long complained the US process can be complex, expensive and opaque due in part to a federal mining law enacted in 1872.

“Our message to the Biden administration is, ‘Do everything you can to do everything here in America. Get your permitting processes streamlined,'” Dunleavy told Reuters on the sidelines of the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

It is “somewhat nonsensical,” the governor said, that Biden has pushed for greater adoption of electric vehicles – which require far more critical minerals to build than internal combustion engines – but has blocked Northern Dynasty’s Pebble copper and gold mining project.

“If we don’t get our permitting processes together, if we don’t start to use data and science again instead of emotion, this chaos is going to continue,” he said.

Dunleavy sued Biden last week for the president’s 2023 decision to block Pebble. The suit seeks more than $700 billion, an amount that the governor says the state will lose in economic development without the mine. Dunleavy tried unsuccessfully last year to have the US Supreme Court overturn Biden.

Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty itself sued Biden on Monday.

The proposed Pebble mine would have “unacceptable and adverse effects on certain salmon fishery areas” in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, the US Environmental Protection Agency said last year.

Dunleavy said he believes the mine and the state’s salmon fishers can co-exist.

“The science is there to be able to develop the mine responsibly,” he said. “We can put the safeguards in, and that’s why I’m a supporter.”

Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, Alaska’s two Republican US Senators, oppose Pebble, which Dunleavy acknowledged is a hindrance.

“However, my job as the governor is to advocate for our state, advocate for the development of our state lands or minerals, and advocate for the prosperity of our people,” he said.

Ambler road

Dunleavy, who has endorsed his fellow Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Biden in the 2024 US presidential election, is also pushing Biden to approve the construction of an access road to the prospective Ambler mining district in northern Alaska.

The Ambler project seeks to open a remote area rich in copper, zinc and lead and could yield deposits of rare earths used in weapons manufacturing. Trilogy Metals is one of the region’s potential developers.

“I hope it’s approved this year. But if it’s a post-election decision and there’s a new administration, I hope it’s approved immediately,” Dunleavy said.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by David Gregorio)

The underwriters have the option to buy up to an additional 15% in overallotments.

Calibre says the proceeds will be used towards continued development of the Valentine gold project in Newfoundland; the El Limon and La Libertad gold mines in Nicaragua, and the Pan gold mine in Nevada. Provision has also been made for more exploration and for general corporate and working capital purposes.

Chief among Calibre’s projects is the wholly owned Valentine open pit gold development in central Newfoundland. This will be the largest gold mine, producing 195,000 oz. per year for the first 12 years, in Atlantic Canada. Production is planned for the first quarter of 2025.

The Valentine project has estimated proven and probable reserves of 2.7 million oz. of gold in 512.6 million tonnes grading 1.62 g/t gold. Total measured and indicated resources (inclusive of reserves) contain 3.4 million oz. in 64.6 million tonnes grading 1.90 g/t gold. Additional Inferred resources are 1.1 million oz. in 20.8 million tonnes grading 1.65 g/t gold.

In Nicaragua, the El Limon mine has produced more than 3.5 million oz. of gold and the La Libertad and the La Libertad mine has produced about 1.9 million oz. The two mines have a probable reserve containing 6.8 million oz. of gold. Both are 100%-owned by Calibre.

The Pan gold mine in Nevada, also 100%-owned, is an open pit and heap leach operation. The smallest of Calibre’s mines, producing about 45,400 oz. of gold in 2022, Pan has tremendous exploration potential with targets both to the north and south of the operation.

The world’s No. 2 gold miner wants to continue exploring the region, it said, after its success at the Kibali gold mine in northeastern DRC. The mine yielded 343,000 ounces of gold in 2023, representing nearly 8.5% of the company’s output for the year.

“Kibali has transformed what was previously the disadvantaged northeast region of the country into a new economic frontier and a flourishing commercial hub,” Barrick CEO Mark Bristow said in a news release.

“Of our $5 billion investment in the DRC, more than half has been spent with local contractors and suppliers,” Bristow said.

Last year, Barrick announced it intended to search for additional copper deposits in Zambia and the DRC as part of its efforts to expand its presence in the African copper belt.

The new per-share offer price of A$0.575 represents a 4.5% increase over its previous bid of A$0.55, which was turned down by OreCorp earlier in the year. However, the Perth, Australia-based gold miner has maintained its confidence in completing a deal, and earlier this month, it extended its previous offer to April 19.

Perseus currently holds 22.01% of OreCorp’s share capital, having increased its stake by another 2.11% immediately prior to the new offer. It is now the largest shareholder of OreCorp, just ahead of Silvercorp (21.11%).

In a news release confirming Perseus’ latest offer, OreCorp said it has notified Silvercorp of what is determined to be a “superior proposal” in accordance with the matching rights process set out in the bid implementation deed signed between the companies in December 2023.

Silvercorp, which initiated its takeover proposal in August 2023, now has a five business days to make a better offer.

Should Silvercorp fail to provide such an offer within the five-day period, the OreCorp board intends on recommending that shareholders accept the amended proposal in the absence of a superior proposal, the Australian gold developer said.

OreCorp also said it had received statements of intent from major shareholders, who in aggregate hold approximately 15.6% of its shares, indicating that they intended to accept the new proposal from Perseus.

At the heart of this takeover battle is the Nyanzaga project in Tanzania, located near Barrick Gold’s (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) Bulyanhulu mine and AngloGold Ashanti’s (JSE: ANG) (NYSE:AU) Geita mine.

A 2022 definitive feasibility study gave the project an after-tax net present value of $618 million at a 5% discount rate and an internal rate of return of 25%.

Geographically, Perseus is the closer suitor with three operating mines in West Africa producing gold at a rate of more than 535,000 ounces per year.

Silvercorp has two producing mines in China but has been looking to diversify its portfolio.

The miners were trapped on Monday by a rock fall at the Pioneer gold mine. The mine, one of Russia’s largest, is located in the Amur region which borders China, about 5,300 km (3,300 miles) east of Moscow.

“The situation remains difficult,” Amur Governor Vasily Orlov said on Telegram. Orlov said that specialist mine rescuers had flown in from Russia’s vast coal region, the Kuznetsk Basin known as Kuzbass, and other Siberian regions.

He said hundreds of rescuers had cleared swathes of rubble and rock and that they were pumping out water. There was no contact with the trapped miners.

Orlov said that rescuers had decided to drill down through several hundred metres of rock to where the miners are, in an attempt to assess their condition and establish contact.

President Vladimir Putin has been informed of the situation and ordered that every effort be made to save the miners, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

Russian emergency services said on Wednesday that the volume of rubble and rock at the mine was nine times larger than previously estimated, the RIA state news agency reported.

The mine is owned by sanctions-hit Russian copper and gold producer UMMC.

(By Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

In a paper published in the journal Solar RRL, the researchers explain that the process involves creating metallic ‘clusters’ of just nine gold atoms chemically ‘anchored’ to titanium dioxide which, in turn, drives the reaction by converting the energy of absorbed UV light.

The gold nanocluster cocatalysts enhance the photocatalytic work of the titanium dioxide and reduce the time required to complete the reaction by a factor of six.

“These types of heterogeneous semiconductor-mediated photocatalysis systems provide a significant advantage over other advanced chemical processes,” Gunther Andersson, senior author of the study, said in a media statement. “It can facilitate the mineralization of a large range of organic pollutants, like azo dyes, into water and carbon dioxide molecules with a high degradation efficiency.”

Methyl orange

Andersson explained that a variety of physical, chemical and biological processes are currently used to remove carcinogenic and recalcitrant organic compounds from water. This is because chemical industries, including dye manufacture, and textile and cosmetics production, release toxic and non-biodegradable dyes into the environment.

Nearly half of the dyes used in the textile and dye industry are azo dyes. Methyl orange – one of the most common indicators used in analytical chemistry to determine pH – is among the widely used water-soluble azo dyes.

With this in mind, the researchers have also demonstrated the usefulness of the gold cluster cocatalyst and modified semiconductors for the synthesis of novel photocatalysis systems for the degradation of methyl orange.

In a second study, published in Applied Surface Science, they tested photocatalysis in a vortex fluidic device developed at Flinders University.

They wanted to address the issue of traditional treatment methods often not effectively removing dangerous contaminants from wastewater.

“The reason for this is that some chemicals, especially those with aromatic rings, are resistant to chemical, photochemical and biological degradation,” Anahita Motamedisade, lead author of the paper, said.

“In addition, they generate dangerous byproducts – by oxidizing, hydrolyzing, or undergoing other chemical reactions – of synthetic dyes containing wastewater, which are detectable wherever they are disposed of. We hope to build onto these more sustainable and thorough photocatalytic degradation processes to help completely remove the toxins and tackle this global problem.”

The gold producer, with operations in Mali, Guinea and Liberia, called Corica’s move “a clear breach of the mining contract” as it alleges the contractor “failed to meet mining contract volumes due to delays in mining equipment mobilization, commissioning, and overall operating performance”.

Hummingbird issued a notice to Corica on Monday, demanding the resumption of mining by the end of Tuesday. The company warned that if the contractor failed to do so, it might step in to resume mining operations, or work with alternative suppliers.

According to Corica, Hummingbird Resources owes it $27 million for work already completed. It noted the measure remains conditional and reversible provided the miner pays the pending invoices and provides a Deed of Company Guarantee by April 7.

“Corica has over two decades of history in contracting with major clients and is proud to have had zero litigation to this date,” it said in the statement.

Hummingbird issued late on Wednesday a response to Corica, disputing the accuracy of the amount owed and the need for payment.

“Since the inception of the contract in September 2022, Corica has consistently underperformed against established contractual performance targets, failing to meet the mining contract volumes principally due to delays in mobilizing mining equipment, commissioning the equipment, as well as recruitment and training,” Hummingbird said.

The miner argues it has been cooperating with Corica in good faith since July 2023, when it informed the contractor of a contract breach due to the operation’s underperformance.

Kouroussa, Hummingbird’s second operating mine, achieved first gold pour in June 2023 and it is expected to churn out an average of 120,000 to 140,000 ounces of gold for the first three years of commercial production. After that, Kouroussa would average 100,000 ounces of gold a year over an initial seven-year life. 

Hummingbird took on a $55 million loan with Coris Bank in September, pledging to cut $122.8 million in debt over three years starting with a $77 million debt repayment by the end of this year. 

The miner also raised $30 million mainly through a share placement at an average price of 11.26 pence per share with shareholders, including 45% shareholder CIG, an investment bank.

Hummingbird agreed at the time to hedge 30,000 ounces of gold, which represents about 15% of its total production. This decision was made amid soaring bullion prices, which hit a new all-time high of $2,195.15 per ounce on March 8.

The miner has faced challenges in bringing the Kouroussa mine up to full production. Aside the ongoing issues with Corica, activities at the mine were disrupted last year by rain and delays associated with skill development.

Yellow Giant is an underground gold and silver project on British Columbia’s north coast on Banks Island on the eastern shore of the Hecate Strait, 110 km south of Prince Rupert. 

Benjamin Mossman appealed the decision that found him guilty of 13 environmental violations, including discharging mine waste, failing to report environmental spills and dumping, and discharging substances in concentrations exceeding permitted amounts.

The court ruling had found that former CEO Benjamin Mossman was “actively or passively involved” in the Yellow Giant mine exceeding permitted amounts of zinc on multiple occasions, polluting fresh water lakes and creeks in and around the exploration sites.

Banks Island Gold filed for bankruptcy in 2016.

In the March 15 ruling, the judge also said previously dropped charges of failing to report the pollution to authorities would have to be heard at a new trial because of errors in an earlier ruling, CBC News reported.

The discovery in the emerging Sore area returned significant intercepts such as 26.45 grams gold per tonne over 2.5 metres, including a higher-grade segment of 108.5 grams gold per tonne over 0.5 metre, including 1.05 grams gold over 40.7 metres and 1.33 grams over 17.9 metres. This area has not seen any previous diamond drilling within 1 km, the company said in a release.

“A new discovery, greenfield and on a blind target, further highlights the prospectivity of the Aurion-B2Gold 290 sq. km JV property and the quality of B2Gold’s exploration team,” Aurion CEO Matti Talikka said.

Company shares reached an intra-day high of C$0.62 apiece before settling at C$0.59. Aurion has a market capitalization of C$79.5 million.

Results are pending for about 4,000 metres of diamond drilling completed this year.

However, the drilling program was halted after Rupert Resources (TSX: RUP) entered discussions on March 11 to buy B2Gold‘s 70% interest in the JV. Aurion says it is considering its options regarding its right of first refusal. It will have until May 9 to decide whether to exercise the right, granted under a 2019 shareholders agreement between the partners.

The discovery is located 1.7 km northwest of the Kettukuusikko prospect and 38 km northwest of the Helmi discovery.

Rupert is also focused on the Central Lapland belt. Its Rupert Lapland project contains the multi-million-ounce Ikkari discovery, located 50 km southeast of Agnico Eagle Mines’ (TSX: AEM; NYSE: AEM) Kittila gold mine and the Pahtavaara mine and mill.

The JV between and B2Gold covers about 290 sq. km along the Sirkka Shear Zone, which is a significant structural feature in the region known for hosting various gold occurrences. The area has yielded numerous discoveries, showcasing the high prospectivity and potential for further discoveries within the belt.

The incident occurred on March 10. Processing operations at Kainantu were subsequently halted for three days, and have since resumed on the existing stockpiles.

Preliminary investigations by both the company and the Papua New Guinea police have led to the conclusion that the incident is a “non-industrial” in nature.

On March 13, the PNG authorities ordered a temporarily suspension of underground operations, pending the completion of action orders in relation to an independent safety audit and the installation of a collision avoidance system.

Work on these action orders is underway and were in process prior to the issuance of the action orders, the Canadian gold miner said in a news release.

Given the non-industrial nature of the incident, procedural, determination and jurisdictional breaches of the Mining (Safety) Act in issuing the action orders, the company said it filed an appeal on March 14 and expects this to be addressed shortly.

The incident marks another fatality reported at the Kainantu mine over the past year. In both May and June of 2023, two separate vehicular accidents occurred in or around the mining area, leading to the deaths of two workers in each instance.

The Kainantu project in PNG’s Eastern Highlands province was originally acquired from Barrick Gold in 2014, and it has now become K92’s flagship operation. The mine is now entering its next phase of expansion to ultimately become a Tier 1 operation with a per-annum run rate of up to 470,000 oz. gold equivalent.

Shares of K92 Mining were down 2.3% to C$6.20 when the market opened in Toronto. The company has a market capitalization of C$1.45 billion ($1.1bn).

Highland Gold has been under US sanctions since December 2023. Putin’s order did not name the buyer.

(Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

The loss was mainly due to lower gold sales, corporate restructuring costs, higher environmental provisions as well as costs of job cuts, care and maintenance at Córrego do Sítio in Brazil, which was idled last August.

It compares with a restated headline profit of $489 million the year before. AngloGold Ashanti, which also has operations in Africa and the Americas, restated its financial statements for 2022, which the company said “contained an error related to the reported amount of the deferred tax asset with regard to the Obuasi mine” in Ghana.

The miner said while it anticipated gold production at its Tropicana mine to be impacted during the first half of 2024, “any decrease is expected to be largely recovered in the second half”.

“Consequently, the company does not believe that this event will have an impact on its gold production and cost guidance provided in February 2024, which guidance is therefore maintained,” AngloGold Ashanti said.

Tropicana, which is 70% owned by AngloGold Ashanti and contributed 310,000 ounces or 12% of the group’s total 2023 output, was impacted this month by heavy rains and flooding.

Mining operations have been restricted due to the flooding, while the processing plant is treating stockpiled ore at a reduced throughput rate, AngloGold Ashanti said in a statement.

(By Nelson Banya; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Refineries vetted by the LBMA still source gold from “questionable suppliers and mines” and are not tackling “serious human rights violations and environmental degradation,” a collection of eight organizations that analyze mining, led by Swissaid, said in a letter to the LBMA, seen by Reuters.

In an emailed statement in response to questions, the LBMA said it looked forward to discussing various proposals at an event in London later this week.

The LBMA, which governs access to the world’s largest bullion market, has, in common with other organizations, established initiatives to try to prevent problematic gold from passing through the LBMA’s refiners and into the vaults of banks.

One of these is the LBMA’s Good Delivery List (GDL), which catalogues refiners the body considers responsible sources of gold because of the due diligence systems they have in place.

Once accepted into a vault as Good Delivery, gold can be freely traded between players on the gold market.

The NGOs said that there had been “some slight improvements” in the LBMA’s systems since 2021, but that “many” refiners on list have, in recent years, sourced gold from suppliers linked to money laundering, land and water pollution, or human rights abuses.

This, in turn, allows problematic gold to enter the global market.

The letter cited cases that had been exposed by media or researchers across countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East but did not name any of the refiners.

“The LBMA has a key role to play in setting standards for the industry and holding its members accountable,” the groups said in their letter.

Refiners do not engage enough with the communities where the gold they process comes from, the groups said. The voluntary nature of the guidance on what information refiners publish leads to a lack of transparency over the origins of gold.

The letter cited the example of the United Arab Emirates being named in a 2023 report as the country of origin of nearly 150 metric tons of gold sold to GDL refiners in 2021. The UAE does not mine any gold but it has established itself as a hub for gold from all over the world.

“The origin of this gold is not the UAE, it was merely transited through this country,” the letter said, calling for refineries to report the origins of gold publicly.

The LBMA said it would address specific concerns brought up by the groups after a summit on the responsible sourcing of minerals this week.

(By Reade Levinson and David Lewis; Editing by Barbara Lewis)

“Communications are being restored and mechanized clearing of the transport slope is being carried out,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

The accident occurred at the Pioneer mine, one of the largest gold mines in Russia based on processing capacity, Russian media reported. The mine is located in the Eastern Siberia Amur region that borders China to the south.

The mine is owned by sanctions-hit Russian copper and gold producer UMMC.

(By Lidia Kelly; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Launched Monday, the Barrick Academy is designed to offer tailor-made training programs aimed at developing the miner’s frontline managers to grow as leaders in their fields, while equipping them with the skills to manage their teams more effectively and to improve performance.

The Barrick Academy will be training more than 2,000 foremen, supervisors and superintendents from the Africa and Middle East region in the next 24 months.

Barrick said the Academy would also gear up to include contractors and expand the curriculum to cover wider disciplines, including financial leadership, advanced computer literacy and safety courses.

The opening follows the construction of an airport terminal at Buzwagi’s Kahama airstrip in January, which has paved the way for a scheduled airline service that can serve more than 200 passengers at a time, Barrick said, adding that it is expected to be a major catalyst for economic growth in the region.

According to Barrick’s chief operating officer for the Africa and Middle East region, Sebastiaan Bock, the airport terminal and Academy form part of Barrick’s plan to turn Buzwagi into a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

A feasibility study commissioned in 2021 showed that the creation of the SEZ had the potential to replace the mine as the region’s economic driver and could sustainably create 3,000 jobs annually, generate more than $150,000 each year from service levies for the local municipality and deliver approximately $4.5 million in employment taxes a year.

The government of Tanzania approved the conversion of the mine into a SEZ through a government notice that was issued in February this year. A number of investors have started the process of setting up manufacturing industries inside this area.

“How we close our mines is just as important to us as how we build and operate them,” Bock said in the statement.

“Our Buzwagi mine was a significant economic powerhouse in the region for nearly 15 years before it poured its last gold in 2021. From our perspective, however, that is not the end of the story for Buzwagi as we transform it into an alternative productive asset that will serve the community.”

The developer on Friday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Anchorage challenging the EPA’s 2023 final determination prohibiting the discharge of mining waste in the state’s Bristol Bay over concerns the materials would degrade the watershed and harm important fishing ecosystems.

Northern Dynasty said the determination made under the Clean Water Act was arbitrary and capricious in violation of federal administrative law, because it failed to adequately consider the economic impact of the decision and used a “wild overestimate” of what protected waterways would be impacted by mining activity.

Northern Dynasty claims it has spent at least $1 billion over two decades in its efforts to develop the project, which was effectively killed by the decision, including $200 million on environmental studies.

“This is just another example of gross EPA overreach of the powers granted to it by Congress,” said Ron Thiessen, Northern Dynasty’s president and CEO, in a statement.

The EPA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

The Bristol Bay watershed in southwestern Alaska supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery and is known for its large mineral resources. The watershed also provides habitats for 29 species of fish, more than 190 birds and dozens of mammals, according to the EPA.

The proposed mine, which has languished in a lengthy approval and permitting process for decades but has not started construction, would tap one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits.

The EPA claims it would permanently destroy over 2,000 acres of wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act.

The developer also filed a lawsuit against the US government on Thursday alleging the veto amounted to an unconstitutional taking of its property in violation of the US Constitution’s 5th Amendment, which says that private property can’t be taken for public use without compensation, in the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington, DC.

The state of Alaska also sued the US government in that court last week seeking $700 billion over the decision, arguing the EPA’s veto infringed on the state’s sovereignty and would deprive it of funds from taxes, licensing fees and royalties it would have received from the mine.

The state had already challenged the EPA’s decision last year directly with the Supreme Court, arguing it violated the state’s sovereign right to regulate its land and waters, as well as a 1976 land swap with the US government that gave the state ownership over the area in question.

The Supreme Court declined to take that case in January, but did not say why.

The developer’s new lawsuit in Alaska makes similar claims, arguing the Clean Water Act does not give the EPA authority to override the state’s preferences for using the lands for extracting valuable minerals.

The EPA had previously argued in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court that Alaska’s statehood and the land swap do not preclude the agency from evaluating projects to ensure they comply with environmental law.

The case is Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd v. US Environmental Protection Agency, US District Court for the District of Alaska, No. 3:24-cv-00059.

For Northern Dynasty Minerals: Keith Bradley and Jeffrey Walker of Squire Patton Boggs

For the EPA: Not yet available

(By Clark Mindock)

Samples from the Denise, Gratien, Grey Cat, and Team gold zones were tested by gravity, flotation and leaching. Gold and silver were recovered from a Knelson MD-3 concentrator at a coarse primary grind of 80% passing 184-416 μm. All samples were amenable to gravity recovery, ranging from 34% (in lower grades) and up to 72% in higher grades.

A single flotation test was performed on a 2-kg subsample of each of the gravity tailings. The samples were treated with potassium amyl xanthate and methyl isobutyl carbinol at a natural pH for 10 minutes. Under these conditions an additional 70.1% to 93.1% of the gold was recovered.

Amex said that direct cyanidation of the gravity tailings may recover gold and silver as well as does flotation.

The flotation test was performed on half the flotation tailings. The slurry was reground to 70% passing 90 μm and leached in a bottle roll for 48 hours at pH 10.5 to 11.0. Cyanidation as tested gave excellent results, recovering 79.0% to 96.7% of the gold in the tails.

Eldorado Gold (TSX: ELD; NYSE: EGO) recently spent C$15 million on charity flow-through shares of Amex and now holds a 9.9% interest in Amex.

Out of each year’s four quarterly earnings seasons, Q4’s are the most challenging to analyze. While the annual reports are more comprehensive than quarterlies, some companies report less Q4 detail focusing on full-year results. And annual reporting deadlines are looser and more spread out than quarterly ones, running 60 days after year-ends in the US and a bewildering 90 days for gold stocks trading in Canada!

So plenty of gold miners in the Great White North wait until late March to publish Q4 results, when Q1 is almost over. That’s way too late, leaving shareholders with stale fundamental data. Thus I try to split the difference between US and Canadian reporting, gathering and analyzing all available Q4 reports in mid-March. While not fully complete then, the resulting picture of major gold stocks’ fundamentals is more timely.

The GDX VanEck Gold Miners ETF remains this sector’s dominant benchmark. Birthed way back in May 2006, GDX has parlayed its first-mover advantage into an insurmountable lead. Its $12.9b of net assets mid-week dwarfed the next-largest 1x-long major-gold-miners ETF by nearly 31x! GDX is undisputedly the trading vehicle of choice in this sector, with the world’s biggest gold miners commanding most of its weighting.

Gold-stock tiers are defined by miners’ annual production rates in ounces of gold. Small juniors have little sub-300k outputs, medium mid-tiers run 300k to 1,000k, large majors yield over 1,000k, and huge super-majors operate at vast scales exceeding 2,000k. Translated into quarterly terms, these thresholds shake out under 75k, 75k to 250k, 250k+, and 500k+. Those two largest categories account for over 58% of GDX.

Unfortunately gold stocks are languishing well out of favor today because of recent dreadful underperformance relative to the metal they mine. Gold is enjoying a strong upleg, powering 19.9% higher at best since early October achieving nine new nominal record closes! Yet in that parallel span GDX only rallied 16.9%, making for terrible 0.9x upside leverage. Much riskier than their metal, gold stocks need to outperform.

Normally they do, with GDX’s major gold stocks tending to amplify material gold moves by 2x to 3x. That compensates traders for miners’ big additional operational, geological, and geopolitical risks heaped on top of gold price trends. This vexing lagging has really damaged confidence in this high-potential sector. The battered gold stocks need to stage a massive mean-reversion catch-up rally to restore bullish sentiment.

For 31 quarters in a row now, I’ve painstakingly analyzed the latest operational and financial results from GDX’s 25-largest component stocks. Mostly super-majors, majors, and larger mid-tiers, they dominate this ETF at 87.3% of its total weighting! While digging through quarterlies is a ton of work, understanding the gold miners’ latest fundamentals really cuts through the obscuring sentiment fogs shrouding this sector.

This table summarizes the operational and financial highlights from the GDX top 25 during Q4’23. These gold miners’ stock symbols aren’t all US listings, and are preceded by their rankings changes within GDX over this past year. The shuffling in their ETF weightings reflects shifting market caps, which reveal both outperformers and underperformers since Q4’22. Those symbols are followed by their current GDX weightings.

Next comes these gold miners’ Q4’23 production in ounces, along with their year-over-year changes from the comparable Q4’22. Output is the lifeblood of this industry, with investors generally prizing production growth above everything else. After are the costs of wresting that gold from the bowels of the earth in per-ounce terms, both cash costs and all-in sustaining costs. The latter help illuminate miners’ profitability.

That’s followed by a bunch of hard accounting data reported to securities regulators, quarterly revenues, earnings, operating cash flows, and resulting cash treasuries. Blank data fields mean companies hadn’t disclosed that particular data as of the middle of this week. The annual changes aren’t included if they would be misleading, like comparing negative numbers or data shifting from positive to negative or vice-versa.

Five weeks ago before this latest earnings season got underway, I wrote a Q4’23 earnings preview essay. Based on major gold miners’ latest cost guidance and Q4’s lofty prevailing gold prices, it looked like they would be reporting blockbuster results. While the actuals have been coming in quite good on some key fronts, they aren’t fantastic. Unfortunately there’s still too much deadweight among major gold miners.

Production growth trumps everything else as the primary mission for gold miners. Higher outputs boost operating cash flows which help fund mine expansions, builds, and purchases, fueling virtuous circles of growth. Mining more gold also boosts profitability, lowering unit costs by spreading big fixed operational expenses across more ounces. Yet the GDX top 25’s collective output in Q4 fell 4.6% YoY to 8,845k ounces.

That was worse than overall global-gold-mining output according to the World Gold Council, which only slipped 1.7% YoY to 29,925k in Q4. Fully 14 of these GDX-top-25 miners suffered declining production last quarter. And disappointingly plenty of them didn’t expound on the reasons, focusing their analyses on full-year-2023 results with Q4 just lumped in. That’s likely done intentionally to obscure any Q4 challenges.

But the biggest reason the GDX top 25’s collective output shrunk last quarter was another gold-miner mega-merger. The world’s largest super-major gold miner Newmont bought out Australian super-major Newcrest Mining last year for $16.8b. That deal closed in early November, so NEM’s Q4 output should include roughly 2/3rds of NCM’s. A year ago in Q4’22, NEM mined 1,630k ounces while NCM produced 512k.

The latter’s November and December production should’ve run near 340k, adding onto Newmont’s to push it up near 1,970k. Yet this merged company’s Q4 output merely climbed 6.7% YoY to 1,740k. Large gold miners have to gobble up smaller ones in order to overcome relentless depletion. But gold-stock mega-mergers have proven bad for this sector, leading to lower overall production and higher mining costs.

A year ago in Q4’22, Newcrest was the best-looking super-major fundamentally with really-profitable all-in sustaining costs of just $1,082 per ounce. Newmont’s ran $1,215 back then. A higher-cost gold miner buying a portfolio of lower-cost gold mines should reduce overall costs, right? A combined NEM and NCM’s AISCs should be somewhere in the middle. Yet Newmont’s still soared 22.2% YoY to $1,485 in Q4’23!

Unfortunately these mega-mergers ultimately destroying value for shareholders are nothing new in this sector. Newmont and Barrick Gold have been doing this for years, assimilating smaller great majors like Star Trek’s Borg. Those smaller majors including Newcrest and Goldcorp had far-superior fundamentals, growing production with much-lower more-profitable mining costs. But when acquired those advantages vanish.

Together these acquisition-happy super-majors NEM and GOLD have always dominated GDX, now with a combined 21.0% weighting. But for long years their fundamentals have usually looked worse than many of their major peers’. Outside of the four quarters after mega-mergers, their production has been declining while costs have been rising. Newmont and Barrick have often been deadweight restraining sector gains.

Had Newcrest not been devoured by Newmont, the GDX top 25’s collective production would’ve likely been flat. And average AISCs would’ve been pulled lower. In the previous four quarters, NCM’s were averaging just $1,172 compared to NEM’s $1,372! GDX would leverage gold considerably better if NEM and GOLD weightings shrunk relative to other majors. Their market caps are too high for their fundamentals.

A year ago Newmont guided 2023 to midpoints of 6,000k ozs of gold mined near $1,200 AISCs. Yet last year this company only produced 5,550k ozs at way-worse $1,444 AISCs! A big chunk of this miss was due to a major mine strike in Mexico, which I analyzed in my previous GDX-top-25 Q3’23 results essay. But the super-majors’ ongoing misfires have really tanked institutional investors’ enthusiasm for this sector.

While GDX is this sector’s benchmark of choice, it is dominated by huge but often-floundering miners that aren’t representative of gold stocks as a whole. Smaller fundamentally-superior majors, and even-better mid-tiers and juniors, are crushing it on the fundamentals front. They are consistently growing their outputs largely through organic expansions, and often driving down mining costs fueling increasingly-fat earnings.

Even other super-majors are way outperforming Newmont and Barrick. Agnico Eagle Mines is the third-largest gold miner, rivaling Barrick with 903k ounces produced last quarter. Yet that surged 13.0% YoY, partially due to AEM acquiring some of Yamana Gold’s mines when Pan American Silver bought it out. And AEM’s AISCs slipped 0.3% YoY to $1,227, much more profitable than any of its super-major peers.

The point here is settling for GDX is a suboptimal way to deploy capital in gold stocks, guaranteeing underperformance. This sector requires researched stock picking, staying with the best fundamentally-superior gold miners while avoiding all the deadweight. That’s not just NEM and GOLD, but also royalty company Franco-Nevada which has a radically-inflated market cap far in excess of the meager gold it “produces”.

Unit gold-mining costs are generally inversely proportional to gold-production levels. That’s because gold mines’ total operating costs are largely fixed during pre-construction planning stages, when designed throughputs are determined for plants processing gold-bearing ores. Their nameplate capacities don’t change quarter to quarter, requiring similar levels of infrastructure, equipment, and employees to keep running.

So the only real variable driving quarterly gold production is the ore grades fed into these plants. Those vary widely even within individual gold deposits. Richer ores yield more ounces to spread mining’s big fixed expenses across, lowering unit costs and boosting profitability. But while fixed costs are the lion’s share of gold mining, there are also sizable variable costs. That’s where recent years’ raging inflation hit hard.

Cash costs are the classic measure of gold-mining costs, including all cash expenses necessary to mine each ounce of gold. But they are misleading as a true cost measure, excluding the big capital needed to explore for gold deposits and build mines. So cash costs are best viewed as survivability acid-test levels for the major gold miners. They illuminate the minimum gold prices necessary to keep the mines running.

The GDX top 25 reporting cash costs as of mid-week averaged $993 per ounce in Q4, surging 5.1% YoY. That was just under Q3’22’s record high of $996. Like usual, outliers dragged that higher. Perpetually-high-cost Hecla Mining was last quarter’s main culprit, sporting ugly $1,702 cash costs. Exclude those, and the rest of these major gold miners averaged a better $946. Cash costs’ relevance has long been fading.

All-in sustaining costs are far superior than cash costs, and were introduced by the World Gold Council in June 2013. They add on to cash costs everything else that is necessary to maintain and replenish gold-mining operations at current output tempos. AISCs give a much-better understanding of what it really costs to maintain gold mines as ongoing concerns, and reveal the major gold miners’ true operating profitability.

Again back in early February, I was looking for the GDX top 25’s Q4’23 AISCs to climb a slight 0.6% YoY to $1,275. That was conservative based on their Q3 year-to-date AISCs and their full-year guidances. But the actuals came in somewhat worse, with average AISCs climbing 3.9% YoY to $1,317. Hecla again skewed that high with its embarrassing $1,969 AISCs, which amazingly still improved a sizable 7.6% YoY!

Kicking out Hecla alone, the rest of the GDX top 25 averaged $1,276 AISCs last quarter right in line with my forecast. And that still includes Newmont’s record-high-for-it $1,485 despite Newcrest’s lower-cost mines. Had NEM behaved, that would’ve made for a second quarter of annual unit-cost declines. These elite gold majors aren’t particularly optimistic about 2024 AISCs either, with midpoint guidances averaging $1,334.

For reference, the 31-quarter range of GDX-top-25 AISCs has run from $825 to $1,405, with Q4’23’s $1,317 being 85% up in. But while lower would be better, the major gold miners were still plenty profitable with last quarter’s near-record average gold prices. Those surged 14.2% YoY in Q4 to $1,976, just shy of Q2’23’s record high of $1,978. Despite the major gold miners’ challenges, they are earning fat profits.

Subtracting these quarterly-average GDX-top-25 AISCs from quarterly-average gold prices yields a great proxy for sector unit earnings. Those ran $659 per ounce in Q4, soaring 42.3% YoY! That followed Q3’s colossal 93.8%-YoY jump to $622, and ran 60% up into the 31-quarter range from $321 to $884. Such impressive earnings yield rich profit margins of 33%, high levels most companies would sell their souls for.

Yet the major gold stocks remain unloved despite these strong fundamentals. Mid-week GDX closed at just $30.29 despite gold running a near-record $2,172. During its first full month of trading way back in June 2006, GDX averaged $35.80 while gold averaged only $596! Make no mistake, today’s gold-stock levels are exceedingly undervalued and utterly absurd. And that gaping disconnect is continuing to mount.

In this current almost-over Q1’24, average gold prices are clocking in at a big new record $2,049 which is up another 8.3% YoY! Assuming GDX-top-25 average AISCs shake out around their full-year guidances of $1,334, that implies Q1 unit profits surging another 23.6% YoY to an even-fatter $715 per ounce! As Warren Buffett’s renowned mentor Benjamin Graham famously said, markets are ultimately weighing machines.

While swirling winds of sentiment bully around stock prices over the short term, eventually they will reflect some reasonable multiple of underlying corporate earnings. Gold stocks remain overdue for a massive mean reversion higher to start normalizing their stock prices with profits. Valuations should overshoot to the upside too, as those gains fuel increasingly-bullish sentiment that ultimately climaxes in euphoric greed.

The major gold miners’ hard Q4 accounting results under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles sure didn’t look as good as their unit earnings. The GDX top 25’s total revenues climbed just 4.6% YoY to $17,546m last quarter. That is worse than 4.6%-lower total production combined with 14.2%-higher average gold prices would suggest. But thankfully that is due to one major gold miner oddly pushing back Q4 reporting.

British major Endeavour Mining isn’t releasing its Q4 and full-year-2023 results until March 27th. That is considerably later than last year’s March 9th, and there’s no indication why results are being delayed. If EDV’s Q4’22 sales are excluded to make these quarters more comparable, the rest of the GDX top 25 saw better 8.6%-YoY revenues growth. That’s right where it ought to be given production and gold prices.

Circling back to AISCs briefly, EDV’s could drag the GDX top 25’s Q4 ones lower. Over the last four reported quarters, EDV’s AISCs averaged a great $1,020! They won’t be that good in Q4’23 because its output plunged 21.1% YoY. But even at $1,100, that would drag down GDX-top-25 AISCs to $1,305 including Hecla or just $1,266 without! Endeavour has already guided full-year-2024 AISCs to a $995 midpoint.

The ugliest fly in the ointment of major gold miners’ Q4 results were their colossal accounting losses of $3,484m. Such dismal negative profits certainly aren’t helping gold stocks’ cause among institutional investors. But the reason wasn’t operational problems, but huge impairment charges led by Newmont of course. It wrote down goodwill at three acquired mines totaling $1,881m last quarter, colossal noncash losses!

Newmont also ran though a separate $1,219m reclamation-adjustment charge at another mine due to increased water-management costs. Franco-Nevada reported its own huge $1,169m impairment charge on the government of Panama shuttering a gigantic copper mine FNV was getting gold streams from, due to political protests. Barrick Gold and even Agnico Eagle reported their own $289m and $667m impairments.

And that list isn’t exhaustive, with a few more smaller-but-still-considerable impairment charges. Adding up all those in Q4 totaled a jaw-dropping $5,645m! Without those, the GDX top 25’s operating profits were closer to $2,161m. A year ago in the comparable Q4’22, deadweight super-majors NEM and GOLD again reported horrible losses with $1,317m and $830m impairments and another Newmont $620m reclamation!

Q4’22 earnings without those and some smaller non-cash charges were about $2,098m. So GDX-top-25 bottom-line net profits were closer to 3.0% growth last quarter. And that is likely lowballed since it doesn’t include Endeavour’s Q4 results yet. So major gold miners’ hard accounting earnings are nowhere near as bad as Newmont’s and Barrick’s ongoing huge writeoffs for overpaying in past buyouts are making them look.

The GDX top 25’s cashflows generated from operations slipped 0.3% YoY in Q4’23 to $5,307m. That is right in the middle of their 31-quarter range. But again EDV hasn’t reported yet, so exclude it from Q4’22 and OCFs grew a better 5.9% YoY. That’s still lower than it ought to be with gold prices so high, but it isn’t bad. These elite majors’ total cash treasuries fell 14.7% YoY to $13,653m, which is probably a good sign.

While acquisitions at high premiums often aren’t an optimal use for cash, organically growing production with mine expansions and new mine-builds is fantastic. A good GDX-top-25 chunk invested substantially in boosting their outputs last year, some of which will start bearing fruit this year. Plenty of majors still have good growth potential, outside of those merger-happy super-majors. Traders will reward growing miners.

So the major gold miners’ Q4 results proved mixed, below blockbuster status but generally good. But the smaller mid-tiers’ and juniors’ should be much better. Next I’m working on the GDXJ top 25’s results, with an essay analyzing them coming next week. Smaller gold miners are better able to consistently grow their outputs from lower bases, while better controlling mining costs by targeting lower-cost deposits to tap.

The bottom line is the major gold miners’ latest Q4 results were mixed. They generally suffered lower production and higher mining costs, despite another expensive super-major mega-merger. Yet near-record average gold prices still fueled fat unit earnings that soared dramatically. But huge impairments led by super-major writedowns hammered accounting profits far into the red, dampening sector enthusiasm.

Nevertheless the major gold stocks remain deeply undervalued relative to the metal they mine. Their stock prices need to mean revert then overshoot far higher. That will increasingly happen as gold’s upleg continues powering higher, shifting sector sentiment back to bullish. Higher prevailing gold prices will also drive improving fundamentals. That should help attract institutional investors to this high-potential sector.

(By Adam Hamilton)

In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the authors demonstrated the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of the nanoparticles on the teeth and wounded skin of rats and mice, eliminating the biofilms in as little as one minute and outperforming common antimicrobials.

“With this platform, you can bust biofilms without surgically debriding infections, which can be necessary when using antibiotics,” Luisa Russell, a program director in the Division of Discovery Science & Technology at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), said in a media statement. “Plus, this method could treat patients if they are allergic to antibiotics or are infected by strains that are resistant to medication. The fact that this method is antibiotic-free is a huge strength.”

Oral biofilms, also known as plaques, formed by bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans can cause significant tooth decay. Wound infections, which are commonly caused by Staphylococcus bacteria, can greatly delay the healing process. In either case, the densely packed network of proteins and carbohydrates within biofilms can prevent antibiotics from reaching microbes throughout the affected area.

But that isn’t the extent of the issue posed by biofilms. Not only are they difficult to remove, but they are troublesome to discern in the first place.

Gold to the rescue

This new research identified a solution to knock out both problems with one stone: gold.

Gold is nontoxic and readily converts energy from light sources into heat, making it a prime candidate for photothermal therapy, a strategy that utilizes the heat from nanoparticles to kill nearby pathogens.

In addition to generating heat, the nanoparticles emit detectable ultrasound waves in response to light, meaning that gold particles can be visualized using a technique called photoacoustic imaging.

In the new study, the authors encapsulated gold spheres within larger golden cage-shaped nanoparticles to optimize their response to light for both therapeutic and imaging purposes. To make the particles appealing to bacteria, they coated them in dextran, a carbohydrate that is a common building block of biofilms.

The researchers assessed their strategy by applying the gold nanoparticles atop S. mutans-infected teeth from ex vivo rat jaws.

In a photoacoustic imaging test on the teeth, the nanoparticles emitted signals that came through loud and clear, allowing the team to see precisely where biofilms had taken up the dextran-coated particles on the teeth.

Then, to evaluate the particles’ therapeutic effect, they irradiated the teeth with a laser. For comparison, they treated other infected teeth samples with the topical antiseptic chlorhexidine.

One hundred per cent effective

The team observed that the photothermal therapy was nearly 100% effective at killing biofilms, while chlorhexidine did not significantly diminish the viability of bacteria.

“The treatment method is especially fast for the oral infection. We applied the laser for one minute, but really in about 30 seconds we’re killing basically all of the bacteria,” Maryam Hajfathalian, a professor of biomedical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the study’s first author, said.

Evaluations conducted on mice with open wounds in their skin, infected with Staphylococcus aureus, were similarly successful, as heat generated by nanoparticles greatly outperformed another antimicrobial agent called gentamicin. Here, the researchers also measured and noted a rise in temperature of 20°C localized to the biofilm, not causing any apparent damage to surrounding tissue.

The authors indicate that with further tests they aim to show whether the strategy can prevent cavities or speed up healing.

“I think it’s important to see how inexpensive, straightforward, and fast this process is. Since we are limited in using antibiotics, we need novel treatments like this as a replacement,” Hajfathalian said.

Weighing as little as one gram, the beans — and other forms of gold jewelry — are increasingly viewed as the safest investment bet for young Chinese in an era of economic uncertainty. It’s part of a larger consumer trend for all things gold — from bullion to beans and bracelets — that has gripped the mainland.

“It’s basically impossible to lose money from buying gold,” reasoned Hong, a college freshman studying computer science in Fujian province who in January began buying gold beans because of their relatively low cost of about 600 yuan ($83) per gram. She has more than two grams of the beans and will continue buying them as long as costs are lower than international gold prices, she said.

Branded as an investment entry point for young consumers, the beans, which come in glass jars, are the latest hot-selling items in Chinese jewelry stores. Generation Z consumers — buffeted by high youth unemployment and the nation’s slide into deflation — are now among the top consumers of gold accessories in the world’s second-largest economy, according to the 2023 China Jewelry Consumer Trends Report by Chow Tai Fook Jewelery Group Ltd. The attraction of gold comes as people pull back on shopping amid months of disappointing growth.

China gold rush

A lack of faith in traditional investments has fueled this new China gold rush.

The nation’s stock market has seen declines after reopening from the pandemic, with one of its key benchmarks dropping to levels last seen in 2018. The country’s middle class is bearing the brunt of a property downturn — while the central bank has lowered a key interest rate four times since December 2021, eating into the return on wealth management products.

Young people are skipping “pleasurable consumption” and instead purchasing “asset-style jewelry” such as gold beans for adornment and investments, said Nikos Kavalis, managing director at the London-based consultancy Metals Focus Ltd.

However, he cautions that it makes no sense to invest in gold beans — or other gold items — because their price is often 10% to 30% higher than the commodity’s spot price. Investors would be better served by parking money in gold ETFs, he said.

Still, the fascination with gold is sweeping across social media. On Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of X, formerly Twitter, the hashtag “Why Are Young People Getting into Buying Gold” garnered 91 million hits. A lively discussion about the enduring value of gold dominates the social media site, with one popular post stating that “buying gold keeps troubles at bay.”

Three-quarters of gold consumers are now estimated to be between 25 and 35 years old and many believe investing in gold is low-risk, according to a 2021 report from the World Gold Council. That belief is reinforced as gold prices have hit multiple historic highs since December. Gold bullion passed the $2,100 per ounce threshold for the first time this month.

Sales of gold, silver and jewelery reached a six-year high in December, a 29.4% year-on-year jump, according to government data. Precious metals now represent one of the fastest-growing consumer markets in China.

Buying gold beans for gifting and investments also reached a peak during China’s lunar new year, says a spokesperson from Chinese jeweler Luk Fook Holdings International Ltd.

Even banks have joined traditional gold retailers to sell gold beans. China Merchants Bank Co., for example, introduced its line of gold bean sets in July 2023.

“Despite the recent surge in China’s gold price, consumers are still demonstrating a strong preference for gold,” said Cindy Yeung, chairwoman and managing director of Emperor Watch & Jewellery Ltd. Like other major jewelry retailers, Emperor is talking up gold on social media and e-commerce platforms.

Impure beans

There are perils for consumers of gold beans and other gold objects who aren’t knowledgeable about the difference between authentic gold and fakes, experts say.

Lily Chen, a 26-year-old Shanghai office worker, discovered almost all of the gold beans she had purchased were mixed with iron, zinc and copper when she recently tried to exchange them for a gold bracelet.

“I never tried cutting corners by buying gold at ultra-cheap prices, and I made sure to buy from star-rated web stores. But this could still happen,” she said.

Nonetheless, the craze for anything gold continues to play out on social media. College students are posting diary-like entries on gold purchases, couples share how they repaired strained relationships with gold gifts — and metal resellers and collectors offer gold investing advice.

“If we were playing a card game, our country would have five winning cards: reserves and geology to develop projects; a promising demand in the international market; leading actors; a stable macroeconomic environment over the last decades, and people prepared to make these projects a reality,” Heeren said. “We have the winning hand, but civil society, the private sector and the government must work together.”

According to the state news agency Andina, the executive noted that Peru has proven to the world that it is possible to advance mining projects in the country as it has maintained ‘proper’ macroeconomic levels and miners operating there have shown to be resilient in the past few decades. This is despite the challenges that still need to be addressed when it comes to administrative and permit procedures, as well as infrastructure.  

“This situation is very similar in other countries. The main difference lies in the ability to work as a team to overcome challenges. This is where some countries rebound and others stall,” Heeren said.

The CEO of Anglo American Peru emphasized that in addition to all the prior, investors are paying close attention to countries’ and companies’ sustainability indicators. Therefore, he stressed that miners should have a clear course of action when it comes to their environmental, social, and governance strategies. 

As an example, he mentioned that the use of autonomous trucks as part of an automation process not only increases efficiency, sustainability and safety but also fosters the creation of new companies within the mining sphere.

Tumbling metal prices account for more than half all of impairment charges, declared when fixed assets fall below market values, the study of 105 TSX-listed mining companies found. They incurred $68 billion in charges from 2002 to 2015. Using unfamiliar technology and locating in developing countries also contributed, data show.

Metal price drops accounted for 143 of 268 cases and $25.2 billion in impairment charges, according to the study published last month in Resources Policy, an international journal on mineral rules and economics with editors in the United States, Australia and China. The research appears appropriate at a time when nickel and lithium prices have crashed from 2022 highs as gold has set new records.

“While impairments have been shown to be a common occurrence across mining companies, they also are a major contributor to the industry’s low average returns,” said the authors led by Andrew Gillis of Edmonton-based Aurora Hydrogen.

“The degree of impairments is higher at mines in developing countries and at mines where the geographic location and mining processes are new to the company operating the mine,” said the authors, which included John Steen and W. Scott Dunbar of the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and Andrew von Nordenflycht of the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC.

Get lucky

Forecasting by its nature is uncertain. But some firms get lucky and only face a few impairments, while others get unlucky and suffer many or large impairments, the authors said. Their targeted years of research coincided with the rise of the commodity super-cycle 20 years ago followed by the financial crisis and declining metals prices from 2012.

The group recommended mining companies should improve their forecasting of mineral reserves, capital costs, production costs and commodity prices, which all impact future cash flows. It noted how C-suites might blame falling metal prices for impairments because other slips in capital or operating costs could be directly attributed to their own forecasting. The flip side is that rising metal prices can hide some other forecasting errors. And forecasting in foreign lands is simply more difficult, the authors said.

“Higher impairments in developing countries stem from lower information availability about market conditions and/or more volatile local market prices and conditions,” the authors said. “The sources of uncertainty are just greater, making forecasts harder and forecast errors easier, even for experienced forecasters.”

In the end, the researchers recommended more studies on forecasting. They could try to pinpoint the root causes of forecasting errors through personal interviews with project participants, detailed comparisons of feasibility studies and actual outcomes as well as assessing their methods of error prevention.

“Asset impairments have been identified as a primary determinant of long-term shareholder returns across Canadian mining firms,” the authors said. “Our findings suggest looking more closely into price forecasting procedures at mining companies to see if certain techniques or circumstances lead to more or fewer price-driven impairments.”

The first, and main focus of Northern Dynasty’s legal actions, was filed with Alaska’s federal district court, seeking to vacate the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) veto of a development at Pebble.

The proposed mine would have become the largest copper, gold and molybdenum extraction site in North America. However, for the better part of two decades, the project was met with strong resistance due to its potential environmental impact. The Bristol Bay area, where the mine would be located, is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fisheries.

In January 2023, the EPA made its decision to block Northern Dynasty’s US-based subsidiary from storing mine waste in the Bristol Bay watershed, essentially killing the project.

In its complaint, the company alleges that the EPA veto was issued in violation of various federal statutes regarding Alaska’s statehood rights and a land exchange approved by Congress.

Specifically, it claims that the veto decision was based on an “overly broad legal interpretation” of EPA’s jurisdiction, which has since been overruled by the Supreme Court, its geographic scope exceeds that allowed by the statute, and it was based on information previously developed by EPA in what it calls “an illegal pre-emptive veto process” that was designed to reach a predetermined result.

The company also says the factual basis stated to support the veto is directly contradicted by the July 2020 environmental impact statement published by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which is an important part of the administrative record.

“The EPA has not demonstrated that either the development of the Pebble deposit will have unacceptable adverse effects under Section 404(c), or that there are any impacts to Bristol Bay fisheries that would justify the extreme measures in the final determination (veto),” Northern Dynasty said in a news release.

“Whatever authority the EPA may have under section 404(c), the general provision in the Clean Water Act cannot authorize the EPA to take action to block the specific economic activity that was Congress’s express purpose for granting these lands to the State of Alaska under the Cook Inlet Land Exchange,” Northern Dynasty CEO Ron Thiessen said.

The other legal action was filed with the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington, DC, claiming that the actions by the EPA represent an unconstitutional “taking” of Northern Dynasty’s property. To that extent, the company is asking the court to defer considering this action until the above-mentioned EPA veto case is resolved.

“Our permitting strategy is focused entirely on winning the EPA veto case and permitting the Pebble project. We have filed a takings case against the federal government to preserve our ability to seek compensation for a violation of our rights in line with the protections under the Fifth Amendment,” the company said.

Still, according to Thiessen, the company’s priority is to advance the district federal court complaint, because “overturning the illegal veto removes a major impediment from the path of getting the permit to build the proposed mine.”

Over an estimated 20-year mine life, Pebble is expected to churn out 6.4 billion lb. of copper; 7.4 million oz. of gold and 300 million lb. of molybdenum, plus 37 million oz. of silver and 200,000 kg of rhenium.

Northern Dynasty’s shares rose by 1.1% to C$0.44 by 10:45 a.m. ET, trading between a 52-week range of C$0.28-C$0.58. The company has a market capitalization of C$239.6 million ($177.3m).

Drill hole NFGC-23-1820 cut 16.7 metres grading 36.2 grams gold per tonne from 45.3 metres depth, while 45 metres away hole NFGC-23-1827 returned 14.7 metres at 33.7 grams from 87.5 metres down-hole, New Found Gold said on Wednesday.

The holes were drilled from the west to the east to better test how a secondary set of gold veins and associated structures intersect at Iceberg on the Keats-Baseline fault zone, the company said.

“Infill and definition drilling at Iceberg and Iceberg East have provided us with a comprehensive picture of the near-surface expression of this portion of the fault,” Melissa Render, vice-president of exploration, said in a release. “The fault has demonstrated several times over that it is a very important structure.”

New Found is expanding the drill program at Iceberg and Iceberg East, using seismic data to help target more gold mineralization in the fault. The company started drilling on the project five years ago, completing 500,000 metres by last year and added another 150,000 to the planned total. There’s been no resource declared yet.

The Queensway project has consistently reported strong drill results, topping The Northern Miner’s weekly Drill Down rankings several times since it burst onto the scene in 2019 with a hole at the Keats target returning 19 metres grading 92.9 grams from 96 metres downhole.

Gold region

Queensway, on a 1,662-sq.-km area accessible via the Trans-Canada Highway 15 km west of Gander, is part of a region that has drawn investor Sprott Asset Management, Labrador Gold (TSXV: LAB; US-OTC: NKOSF) and Exploits Discovery (TSXV: NFLD) among others. MarathonGold was acquired in a $345-million all-stock deal in January by Calibre Mining (TSX: CXB) for its Valentine project now under construction about 200 km west of Gander.

Also from Iceberg on Wednesday, drill-hole NFGC-231838 cut 5.9 metres grading 40.5 grams gold from 14.1 metres depth and hole NFGC-23-1914 returned 12.8 metres at 13.9 grams gold from 29 metres. Drill hole NFGC-23-1323 intercepted 7.35 metres of 42.8 grams gold from 109 metres depth.

The near-surface Iceberg-Iceberg East high-grade segment of the Keats-Baseline fault has a strike length of 655 metres. When combined with the 400-metre high-grade segment of Keats Main, this near-surface, high-grade corridor covers over 1 km of strike. Iceberg-Iceberg East is 300 metres northeast of the Keats target along the Appleton fault zone.

The fault runs southwest to northeast with targets such as Monte Carlo, Keats West and K2 on its west side. The east side holds the Keats, Keats North, Iceberg, Iceberg East, Golden Joint, Lotto, Jackpot and Everest discoveries.

Disclosure: The Northern Miner Group is owned by Earthlabs, which has been an investor in New Found Gold.

“We are excited to partner with Kinross on our PWC project. Their global proven track record speaks for itself as well as specific regional expertise that includes ownership and operations of two gold mines in Nevada (Round Mountain and Bald Mountain),” Riley Gold CEO Todd Hilditch said in a news release.

Under a venture option agreement signed Thursday, Kinross will assume operatorship of the PWC project and can earn an initial 60% interest in PWC by incurring a minimum of $10 million in qualifying work expenditures.

The Canadian gold major can earn an additional 15% interest (for a total 75% interest) by incurring at least another $10 million in qualifying work expenditures within two years of exercising the initial earn-in option.

Upon exercise of the initial earn-in option, a Nevada-registered joint venture company will be established for Kinross and Riley to hold their respective interests in PWC. Upon exercise or termination of the second earn-in option, the parties will fund ongoing operations of the JV based on their proportionate interests.

There is a dilution provision stating that should Riley’s interest in the JV company be reduced to 10% or less, the company’s interest will then be converted to a 2% net smelter return royalty.

In addition to the earn-in, Kinross will also take a 9.9% equity interest (on a partially diluted basis) in Riley through a private placement. In total, the placement consists of 8 million units priced at C$0.15 each for total proceeds of C$1.2 million.

Shares of Riley Gold surged 30% to C$0.20 on the TSX Venture Exchange by 11:20 a.m. ET, within the upper range of its 52-week range of C$0.09-C$0.24. The gold junior has a market capitalization of C$6.3 million.

PWC project

Located in Lander county, Nevada, PWC consists of approximately 24.7 km² in the heart of the gold-producing Cortez District, also known as the Battle Mountain-Eureka trend. The property adjoins Nevada Gold Mines complex, a joint venture between Barrick Gold and Newmont.

Drilling on the PWC project was first conducted in 1992, but since 1994, other operators such as Agnico-Eagle and Barrick Gold (Placer Dome) generally focused on offsetting early drilling that intersected gold mineralization in the lower plate of the Roberts Mountain thrust. 

Results from the historical drilling include 4.6 metres grading 2.594 grams gold per tonne at 324 metres, including a high value of 3.84 g/t gold at 283 metres.

Emergency crews were called to the Ballarat gold mine in Mount Clear, about 100 km (62 miles) west of Melbourne, on Wednesday evening after reports of a rockfall. The incident happened about 3 km from the underground mine’s entry, Victoria police said in a statement.

Paramedics were able to rescue one miner, who was treated for lower body injuries and airlifted to hospital in a serious condition. The miners who took refuge in a safety pod were winched to safety, police said.

A workers’ union said the death and serious injury of the workers could have been avoided because they were performing a task called “airleg mining” – a manual handheld type of drilling into rocks – on unsupported ground when it collapsed.

“The information that we’re getting back was that this was a quick, cheap and easy way to chase gold,” Ronnie Hayden, Australian Workers Union’s Victoria secretary, told reporters.

Hayden said the union members at the mine had been raising concerns “about this style of mining and it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.”

Victory Minerals, which owns the Ballarat gold mine, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The site has been closed down for police and Victoria’s workplace safety regulator to conduct their investigations, authorities said.

Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King told ABC Radio that all safety processes at the mine will be checked thoroughly, adding it was “too early to really go into any speculation” about the accident.

In 2007, 27 miners were trapped underground at the same mine for several hours before being rescued, according to reports in Australian media.

(By Renju Jose; Editing by Jamie Freed)

The Vancouver-based BMC, owned by private, UK-based firm BMC Ltd., is developing the critical minerals project located 115 km southeast of Ross River. KZK was paused last year when the Kaska Nation said the federal and Yukon governments didn’t address their concerns over wildlife and the environment at the mine’s proposed site.

“The decision document reapproves the project to proceed through the regulatory phase of permitting,”Allan Nixon, vice president of external relations told The Northern Miner on Wednesday. “This is very positive news and we are pleased to have a new decision document. We are just in the process of reviewing it in detail as there have been some changes in a few of the terms and conditions.”

“We will continue to engage with Kaska to ensure we address any remaining concerns they may have and to ensure we are maximizing opportunities for their participation in and benefit from the project.”

The document, issued on Friday, represents a green light on BMC’s path towards developing KZK, one of the few pre-production critical minerals projects in the Far North to advance past the feasibility study stage and into permitting. BMC first submitted its proposal for mine in 2017.

Kudz Ze Kayah, or ‘caribou country’ in the Kaska language, will cost $376 million to develop, and the open pit operation would have a nine-year life. According to a 2020 feasibility study, KZK has an after-tax net present value (at a 7% discount rate) of $617 million, and an internal rate of return of 45.9%. The mine would produce 7.8 million oz. of silver, 56,500 oz. of gold, 235 million lb. of zinc, 32 million lb. of copper and 56 million lb. of lead in concentrate annually during steady-state operations.

The decision document presents the outcome of talks held in February between the Yukon and federal governments, the Ross River Dena Council (RRDC), Liard First Nation (LFN) and community members. Those consultations were ordered by Yukon Supreme Court chief Justice Suzanne Duncan, who found last January that the Crown failed in its duty to consult and accommodate Kaska’s environmental concerns.

New conditions on KZK

Government authorities concluded in the document that KZK should go ahead without review but under a new terms and conditions.

Regulators must consult with the Kaska on KZK’s technical details and its potential impacts on Indigenous rights; the Kaska will play a key role in the review of mine closure plans and land use; and Kaska will be consulted about reviewing environmental monitoring and financial security.

“(Governments) are committed to working closely with Kaska in the regulatory process to determine if the Kudz Ze Kayah project can proceed to licensing,” reads the document issued by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board.

The Yukon government will also set up an independent Finlayson caribou herd oversight committee composed of territorial officials, LFN and RRDC members. That body will monitor protection measures, such as temporary pauses of rock blasting and transportation routes to minimize disturbances to caribou.

Scott Donaldson, CEO of BMC, told The Northern Miner at PDAC last week that he looks forward to sitting down with the Kaska and working through the decision document.

“I’m confident we’ve worked very hard to adopt as many of the Kaska requests as we possibly could,” he said.

Donaldson said BMC’s next steps are its permitting issues and consultations, with a final investment decision on the project expected in the first half of next year.

The Kaska Nation chief did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kaska sought review

The dispute over KZK began in June 2022, when the federal and territorial governments approved it following an environmental and socio-economic assessment.

But weeks later, the Kaska, on behalf of the RRDC announced a civil lawsuit against the governments, alleging it wasn’t properly consulted over the mine’s potential environmental impacts, including on caribou herds.

The RRDC petitioned the court to review how regulatory authorities had approved KZK, which led to a judicial hearing in Whitehorse last April, where lawyers for the Kaska, BMC, the Attorney General of Canada and Yukon presented arguments for their respective positions.

Duncan reserved her position at the time until January, when she found that the federal and territorial governments partially fulfilled their duties to consult.

KZK mainly consists of the ABM open pit mine, with smaller resources in the Krakatoa open pit and underground mines. ABM hosts probable reserves of 15.7 million tonnes grading 5.8% zinc, 1.7% lead, 0.9% copper, 138 grams silver per tonne and 1.3 grams gold for contained metal of 135,800 tonnes copper, 265,700 tonnes lead, 915,000 tonnes zinc, 665,800 gold and 69.5 million oz. silver.

Cominco began exploring around the KZK deposit in 1977. Drilling in 1994 revealed copper, lead and zinc mineralization. BMC purchased the project from Teck Resources’ (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) in 2015.

Northwest Expo holds 40.3 million indicated tonnes grading 0.1% copper and 0.7 gram gold per tonne for 100 million lb. copper and 871,000 oz. of gold, Northisle said on Wednesday. The deposit holds 30.6 million inferred tonnes at 0.1% copper and 0.6 gram gold for 62.8 million lb. copper and 558,000 oz. gold, the company said.

“Today’s new resource estimate at Northwest Expo has exceeded our expectations of defining a 40-to-50-million-tonne resource within the gold enriched Zone 1,” Northisle president and CEO Sam Lee said in a release. “This sets a strong basis for the rapid advancement of a potential high margin, near surface deposit.”

Shares in Northisle rose more than 11% to C$0.44 apiece in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon, valuing the company at C$99.2 million. They’ve ranged from C$0.12 to C$0.49 over the past 52 weeks.

Northisle is working on a prefeasibility study for North Island and is considering a staged approach with lower capital spending than the C$1.4 billion estimate in a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in 2021. The project, near BHP’s (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) former Island copper mine in Vancouver Island’s far north, holds about 8 million oz. gold in resources.

The entire project holds 567.7 million indicated tonnes grading 0.2% copper, 0.3 gram gold per tonne and 0.007% molybdenum for 2.4 billion lb. copper, 4.9 million oz. gold and 88.2 million lb. molybdenum. It has 447.9 million inferred tonnes at 0.2% copper, 0.2 gram gold and 0.006% molybdenum for 1.4 billion lb. copper, 3 million oz. gold and 54.9 million lb. molybdenum.

Higher-grade areas

A staged development would prioritize the higher-grade areas of the Northwest Expo, Red Dog and Hushamu targets. Studying the concept is expected to be completed by July and form the basis for advanced economic and technical studies, it said.

Northisle is planning to drill after March to increase the indicated resource and to step out south of Zone 1 in Northwest Expo and at the West Goodspeed discovery.

The Northwest Expo target has a net smelter revenue value of C$55 per tonne for the indicated resource as a whole and C$67 per tonne for a higher-grade zone in it, which is more than twice the net smelter value in the project’s PEA, the company said. The project also has 88% gold and 76% copper recoveries and a strip ratio of 2.5:1 waste vs ore, it said.

North Island has an after-tax net present value of C$1.1 billion with an 8% discount rate and a 19% internal rate of return, according to the PEA. The study assumed metal prices of $3.25 per lb. copper, $1,650 per oz. gold and $10 per lb. molybdenum.

The project lies on a 340-sq.-km property stretching 50 km northwest from the now closed Island copper mine. BHP produced copper and molybdenum concentrates there, as well as gold, silver and rhenium as by–products, from 1971 to 1995.