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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.
Image: Copper-gold mining infrastructure in a mountainous Andean setting. Author: Charles Pitts Copper and gold assets are attracting capital through more than one route. Developers are…
Illustrative bauxite plateau landscape in Odisha. Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd (BALCO), a subsidiary of Vedanta Ltd, has been declared the preferred bidder for the Karlapat bauxite…
Copper and cobalt processing infrastructure at a large mining complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned exports of copper…
The global mining sector is navigating a defining inflection point. As capital expenditure cycles align with acute macroeconomic and geopolitical pressures, the industry is experiencing a…
Mining ESG compliance 2026 marks the definitive transition of environmental, social, and governance reporting from voluntary corporate social responsibility initiatives into rigorously audited, mandatory financial and…
The global nickel market stands at a critical juncture as regulatory intervention in Jakarta reshapes the industry's supply architecture. For the nickel market outlook 2026, the…
Global silver markets have entered a defining phase in 2026, holding a resilient trading range between $56 and $61.50 per troy ounce. Driven by persistent structural…
The global copper market in 2026 is navigating a complex intersection of structural supply deficits, unprecedented demand from artificial intelligence data centers, and aggressive power grid…
The nickel market outlook 2026 is defined by a high-stakes tug-of-war between dominant Indonesian supply engineering and a nascent Western movement toward sovereign critical mineral security.…
The global lithium market has entered a pivotal transition phase. After enduring a brutal multi-year correction that washed out high-cost marginal production and tested the balance…
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