Skillings Mining Review September 2024: Our cover examines why steelmakers’ demand for higher-grade iron ore is rising—quality premiums, energy intensity, and tighter Scope-3 targets are rewriting cost curves and trade flows.
Around the theme, we track signals across the value chain: a $20M U.S. DoD grant to Electra Battery Materials, copper’s 2024 surge yet record surplus risk, and policy shifts from China’s antimony export controls to nickel premium changes. Operations focus on zero-harm safety (3C approach), corrosion-fighting tech, and power-quality challenges as steel plants electrify.
Capital and projects stay active—De Grey’s $150M NAIF loan, Botswana’s major diamond finds, and Lucara Karowe developments—while the U.S.–Philippines nuclear tech pact and U.S.–Canada critical-minerals cooperation reshape strategy. We also confront the hard edges: illegal mining in the Amazon, Australia’s talent shortage, and the stubborn injury-rate gap. The through-line: quality, reliability, and safer, smarter production will define winners into 2025.
