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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.
Mining news this week is being shaped by a common question across commodities: which projects are moving from strategic narrative to measurable execution? For operators, investors…
WASHINGTON : Federal acquisition officials and defense prime contractors are confronting an increasingly narrow operational window as the statutory January 1, 2027 deadline approaches. Under federal…
The global energy transition is hitting a massive structural wall, and it has nothing to do with whether miners can pull ore out of the ground.…
Battery storage and chemical conversion capacity are becoming as important to lithium markets as mine output. Battery metals are entering a more complicated phase of the…
Tailings infrastructure is moving from a specialist engineering concern to a board-level disclosure issue. A tailings failure near Brits, South Africa, has brought a practical question…
Japan’s manufacturers can currently secure only about two-thirds of required rare-earth supply after Chinese dysprosium and terbium exports fell to zero in the first half of…
Gold bullion and the Treasury market are now moving in the same macro conversation: liquidity, debt and confidence in the dollar. Gold has broken above US$4,600…
Copper mine and concentrator infrastructure in the Chilean Andes. Copper has moved within striking distance of US$7 per pound, pushing the 2026 market debate beyond a…
Lithium brine ponds and processing infrastructure in the high Andes. Calgary-based Lithium Chile is challenging a Canadian national-security review of its planned US$175 million sale of…
An artisanal gold mining site in a remote, rain-soaked Central African landscape. The Central African Republic has shut down the Zamboye gold mining site after its…
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