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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.
The narrative that defined the lithium market throughout 2024 and 2025: one of a persistent, structural glut: is beginning to show significant fractures. As we move…
The global mining industry is entering a new supercycle, but unlike the commodity booms of the early 2000s, this era is defined as much by digital…
As the global energy transition accelerates into the second half of the decade, the geopolitical battle over critical minerals has shifted from mere exploration to the…
The prevailing market sentiment that defined 2024 and 2025: a narrative of a multi-year lithium "glut" that would depress prices indefinitely: is showing visible signs of…
The global uranium market has entered a phase of structural transition that many veteran operators are calling the "great decoupling." While the spot market continues to…
As of May 2026, the global antimony market is navigating a fragile equilibrium that few industry analysts could have predicted two years ago. After the historic…
As the second quarter of 2026 draws to a close, the global gold market has undergone a structural transformation. What was once considered an ambitious psychological…
The global nickel market enters 2026 in the midst of a fundamental structural realignment. What was once a relatively straightforward commodity market: split between high-purity metal…
The mining sector in 2026 is no longer defined merely by extraction volume, but by a "policy-driven" business cycle where geopolitics, industrial strategy, and energy transition…
The finalization of the $1.6 billion federal investment package for USA Rare Earth in early 2026 has fundamentally altered the trajectory of the global critical minerals…
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