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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.
Power infrastructure linking an AI data center campus with the wider electricity grid. Copper’s 2026 outlook is being shaped by two forces moving at different speeds.…
The United States is backing Kenya’s ambition to build a domestic critical-minerals processing industry, turning a preliminary minerals framework into a test of whether African producers…
Large-scale gold operations are generating unusually wide margins as prices outpace cost inflation. Gold producers entered 2026 with an unusually powerful financial advantage: the price of…
Large-scale lithium brine operations are central to the supply outlook, but production data and inventory estimates remain difficult to compare across markets. Lithium prices entered early…
An engineered mining pile with drainage and geotechnical monitoring infrastructure in Brazil. Brazil is moving toward a dedicated national framework for the safety management of mining…
Battery-electric haulage is moving from pilot fleets into larger commercial mining operations. Autonomous mining technology is moving from controlled pilot projects into commercial fleet planning. EACON…
Copper processing infrastructure at a large-scale industrial complex. Copper is trading near $14,800 per metric ton, close to its recent record, as traders balance three competing…
Chinese regulators have withdrawn the environmental assessment acceptance notice for Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.’s Jianxiawo lithium mine in Jiangxi province, sending the project back into…
The United States says it will help Kenya build a domestic critical minerals processing industry, a pledge that lands right as Washington and Beijing jockey for…
Rare-earth separation and refining equipment at an industrial processing facility. Chinese rare earth suppliers are delaying or declining some shipments to U.S. and Japanese buyers even…
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