State of the Mining Market Q1 2017
Activity in the mining industry reflects the global economy generally and industrial production in particular. After encouraging price increases last year, there was a mixed performance for mined commodities during the first three months of 2017. The March quarter overall saw a healthy increase in the price of aluminum and steady improvements for gold, zinc and copper, but flat performances for nickel and iron ore. This reflects the uncertain political and economic environment, but, fortunately, China has started the New Year with its strongest performance in six quarters.
An area of apparent encouragement in the first quarter was the number of initial resource announcements, which rose by one to 14. However, the total value of these new resources slumped from $62.3 billion in the December quarter to an all-time low of $5.9 billion. Base and other metals bore the brunt of this decline, falling from $52.1 billion to under $1.9 billion, with 11 of the 14 new resources being for gold projects.
