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Charles Pitts is the publisher of Skillings Mining Review, the trade journal that has covered mining since 1912. He writes on the macro forces behind metal prices: commodity cycles, sovereign capital and the shifting sources of demand. His current work argues that hyperscale AI, and the gigawatt-scale power its data centres need, is becoming a buyer of lithium and copper in its own right, competing with the automotive supply chain for tier-one reserves.
Copper heap-leach pads, solution ponds and processing infrastructure in the Arizona desert. Freeport-McMoRan is weighing a roughly $4.5 billion expansion of its Bagdad copper mine in…
Indonesia’s laterite nickel mines sit at the center of the 2026 supply debate. Indonesia has cut its 2026 nickel ore quota to 260–270 million wet metric…
Stacked silver bars beside photovoltaic wafers and industrial electrical contacts. Silver closed at US$64.15 an ounce on Sept. 16, up 0.45% on the day, while gold…
Autonomous battery-electric haul trucks operate on a terraced open-pit mine. The commercial question around autonomous mining technology is changing. Operators are no longer asking only whether…
China’s rare-earth export-control suspension is approaching a decision point that could reshape procurement plans across the Western automotive, defense, electronics and energy industries. The suspension covering…
Hemlo Mining’s underground electrical substation outage shows how quickly a relatively small power-system failure can become a production problem. The Sept. 4 outage affected the Alimak…
Large-scale mining infrastructure illustrates why buyers are placing a premium on operating districts, processing access and logistics networks. Mining M&A is increasingly moving beyond the purchase…
For mining companies, ESG compliance is moving from a reporting exercise into a condition of access: access to permits, financing, insurance, strategic government support and, increasingly,…
Lithium brine evaporation ponds beside processing infrastructure in a high-altitude basin. Chinese battery-grade lithium carbonate prices have retreated toward 130,000–143,000 yuan per tonne after a major…
Weekly intelligence briefing for mining executives, investors, analysts and policymakers. By Charles Pitts Copper near US$14,780 per tonne is signaling more than strong demand. It reflects…
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