Perth Mint says predicted Reddit raid will fail ‘quite dismally’ Ben O'Shea March 31, 2021 https://www.perthnow.com.au/technol...-raid-will-fail-quite-dismally-ng-b881835992z There could be a raid on the Perth Mint’s silver vault today, but the precious metal refinery’s chief executive has already predicted it’ll fail “quite dismally”. Now, this isn’t some dramatic Italian Job-esque heist we’re talking about, where a Michael Caine-led crew blows “the bloody doors off” the mint. The raid in this instance is being driven by Reddit users in online forums, hoping to artificially inflate the price of silver for their own short-term gains. Perth Mint chief executive Richard Hayes told The West Live these “keyboard warriors” had gone to great lengths in pursuit of their goal. “The keyboard warriors have been circulating a variety of information over the past couple of weeks that the Perth Mint doesn’t have silver, Perth Mint has run out of silver, Perth Mint doesn’t have enough silver to sell to its customers — none of which is true,” Mr Hayes said. The increasingly frenetic online campaign, which has links to the same investor forum that fuelled a global short squeeze on US video game chain GameStop last month, has included claims that the State Government-owned refiner does not have enough physical silver to cover clients wanting to take possession of the metal they have bought. Earlier this year, a Reddit investor forum helped drive up the share price of GameStop by 1700 per cent, prompting fears on Wall Street that the stock market could be increasingly subjected to manipulation by online players who treated their activity as a source of fun. “One way they try to prove the market is short of silver is to have a raid day here in Australia, a raid on the Perth Mint, presumably people will be calling us, queueing up at the gates, to buy silver, and their hope is we won’t have it,” Mr Hayes revealed. Far from urging people not to descend on the mint to buy silver, Mr Hayes welcomed it — as long as the people who turn up are prepared to pay the going rate for a 1000oz silver ingot, which is roughly $24,000. “We have 60 tons of silver (in the vault),” Mr Hayes said. “We’re a major refiner of gold and silver, and we refine about 350 tons of gold, and a similar amount of silver, each year ... so, as we sell it, there’s more that comes though. “We have more than adequate silver to fulfil whatever orders are out there.” Perth Mint’s general manager of refining, Alex Gowland, with 1000oz silver bars at the mint’s refinery on Friday. Credit: Ross Swanborough/The West Australian The mint’s chief executive said the Reddit investors would “fail quite dismally” in their attempts to corner the silver market. “Silver is a very, very deep market, there are billions of dollars traded every day, so to try and corner the silver market is virtually impossible,” Hayes said. “In fact, even as we look at it this morning, silver prices are down.”
China determined to build iron ore hub in Africa as Australia goes Quad World's largest untapped reserve could be online by 2025, expert says https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Ma...iron-ore-hub-in-Africa-as-Australia-goes-Quad The freighter Shinas Max carrying 400,000 tons of iron ore is berthed at Zhoushan Port in China's Zhejiang Province. China currently relies on Australia for more than 60% of its iron ore imports. © Getty Images KEN MORIYASU, Nikkei Asia chief desk editor March 31, 2021 NEW YORK -- There was a time when Japan, like China today, was the rising power in the East that kept military planners in the West awake at night. "It is very certain that no other nation at the present time is spending so large a part of its revenue on naval preparations," military author Hector Bywater wrote in the 1921 book "Sea-Power in the Pacific -- A Study of the American-Japanese Naval Problem." But Japan had a critical weakness: a lack of steel. "Since the close of the Great War, shipbuilding in Japan has been seriously hampered by the difficulty of obtaining steel," Bywater observed in his book, which accurately predicted a naval conflict between Imperial Japan and the U.S. two decades later. Japan had imported large quantities of American steel under a special agreement between the two governments prior to 1917, when the U.S. imposed a steel embargo that stemmed the flow to the Asian country. "So serious has the shortage become of late that the output of tonnage in Japan during 1920 was 25% short of the forecast of 800,000 tons which had been made in January of that year," Bywater wrote. "This scarcity of steel reacted on the naval program, delaying the launch and completion of ships." The armored cruiser Izumo, flagship of the Third Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, is seen in Shanghai in 1937. Japan struggled to procure steel after the U.S. enacted an embargo in 1917. © Getty Images Chinese state planners looking to learn from history would quickly notice that the glaring vulnerability for Beijing today is its dependence on iron ore from Australia. While Beijing has tried to squeeze and punish Canberra for proposing an international investigation into the roots of COVID-19, it has been unable to wrestle itself away from Australian iron ore, which accounts for over 60% of China's imports. As Australia deepens its connection to the Quad grouping with the U.S., Japan and India, forming a de facto anti-China tag team in the Indo-Pacific, Beijing has found it increasingly uncomfortable to depend so much on Canberra for iron ore -- the basic material behind its own military buildup. But that dependence may very well change by 2025, says Peter O'Connor, senior analyst of metals and mining at Australian investment firm Shaw and Partners. "They are very serious" about diversifying supply and flattening the cost curve of iron ore, O'Connor told Nikkei Asia. The top focus for China's diversification push is Guinea, an impoverished but mineral rich country in West Africa, O'Connor said. A 110 km range of hills called Simandou is said to hold the world's largest reserve of untapped high-quality iron ore. Commodity watchers have known of Guinea's potential for many years, but the lack of infrastructure has hamstrung such development efforts. A roughly 650 km railroad would need to be built from scratch, as well as a modern port from which the iron ore would be shipped. Cost calculations have always discouraged potential entrants, such as Rio Tinto. But Beijing has more incentive to carry out the project than mere return on investment calculations, as China needs to avoid the fate of Japan in the early 20th century. "Infrastructure is a function of time, money, the willingness to invest and, more importantly, the capability," O'Connor said. China is building railroads around the globe through its Belt and Road Initiative and has no shortage of experience. Engineering machines from China's Sany wait to be exported to Guinea at a seaport in Yantai in east China's Shandong province on March 19. (FeatureChina via AP Images) But what about the funding? China currently buys 1 billion to 1.1 billion tons of iron ore yearly from third parties, O'Connor said. "For every $1 the Chinese can lower the long-term iron ore price ... that's $1 per ton times a billion, so a billion dollars of saving per year," he said. "It's not just about diversity, it's about lowering the price. It's not about the return on equity or return on capital of the actual investment, it's more about the benefit of the longer-term structure of the price." The long-term trajectory envisions the price of iron ore dropping to around $60 per ton from around $160 currently, according to market views. The project to develop Simandou has been split into four blocks, and China holds either a direct or indirect stake in every one of them. The area holds an estimated 2.4 billion tons of ore graded at over 65.5%. "Extraction of Simandou's iron ore reserves would transform the global market and catapult Guinea into an iron ore export powerhouse alongside Australia and Brazil," Lauren Johnston, a research associate at the SOAS China Institute of the University of London, told Nikkei. If China unlocks Simandou's reserves and drives a drop in international iron ore prices, "it could see selective commodity markets increasingly driven by intra-developing country dynamics," Johnston said. China would find such waters easier to navigate than having to do business with Quad member Australia. Guinea is this year's chair of the "Group of 77 plus China" at the United Nations, a grouping of 134 developing countries that form a large voting bloc China can depend on. Guinea has actively made statements on behalf of the group since assuming the chairmanship in January. Johnston predicted that China would be pleased if progress on Simandou were achieved ahead of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to be held in neighboring Senegal this year, the first time the Beijing-led gathering -- held every three years -- will be hosted by a West African country. Guinean President Alpha Conde attends a 2018 dinner at the Orsay Museum in Paris. China was quick to congratulate him after his reelection in October 2020, despite accusations from the opposition of fraud. © Reuters As if to reflect Beijing's determination to see this project through, China was quick to congratulate Guinean President Alpha Conde on his reelection in October, despite accusations from the opposition of fraud. The election came after Conde altered the constitution, letting him run for a third term. On March 4, the first batch of China-donated COVID-19 inoculations arrived in Conakry, Guinea's capital, making the nation one of the first to receive vaccine assistance from China. Foreign Minister Ibrahima Khalil Kaba was at the airport to receive the gift, with Chinese Ambassador Huang Wei by his side. "I believe that with the support of China, Guinea will surely overcome the epidemic," Kaba said, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The website of the Chinese Embassy in Conakry shows that Huang is a regular visitor to Kaba's office. "It's not a coincidence," O'Connor said. China is "preparing the pathway" to develop Simandou, with an expeditious 2025 timetable, he said. "That would seem stretched if you're talking about a Western producer in Australia or Brazil, but it's entirely plausible that China could be producing in that time frame."
Markets Singapore Dealer Prepares Vault for 15,000 Tons of Silver By Ranjeetha Pakiam and Yvonne Yue Li 12 April 2021 Warehouses from U.S. to Asia are being set up to meet demand Analysts see silver outperforming gold on retail, solar buying Silver Bullion stores silver at its new facility in Singapore. Photographer: Wei Leng Tay/Bloomberg Inside a six-story high warehouse near Singapore’s Changi airport, a vast hangar-like space is waiting to be filled with a precious metal that usually plays second fiddle to its more lustrous sibling. The vault that’s being built by Silver Bullion Pte will -- when completed in the first half of next year --- be able to store 15,000 tons of silver. It’s only holding around 400 tons of the metal at the moment, but the vacant space is an indication that silver appears to be on the cusp of a promising few years. Demand for coins and bars is booming, fueled in part by a Reddit-induced buying frenzy in February that drove prices to an eight-year high. While the fervor has abated, retail interest is still elevated, valuations are relatively cheap and measures are being taken to meet the surge in demand. The amount of silver stored in vaults in London rose 11% in March to a record, according to the London Bullion Market Association. As well as the Singapore vault, JM Bullion, one of the biggest precious metals retailers in the U.S., plans to open a 25,000-square-foot-warehouse in Dallas in June that will be used for storing silver and other precious metals. The metal’s crucial role in the energy transition -- it’s a key component in solar panels -- also looks set to buoy consumption over the longer-term. All this has analysts excited about silver’s potential, with some seeing it outperforming gold this year. “The outlook for demand growth for silver over the next few years looks very positive, especially across a wide range of industrial applications, including solar, 5G and automotive,” said Philip Klapwijk, managing director of Hong Kong-based consultant Precious Metals Insights Ltd. “That, coupled with ongoing high levels of investment is likely to create the need for more dedicated storage space for silver in bullion and also intermediate forms.” Gregor Gregersen, founder of Silver Bullion, said he started searching for a bigger warehouse two or three years ago and that decision was vindicated last year when demand for the metal surged during the coronavirus pandemic. “The idea is to make this into a really iconic building,” he said during a tour of the vault that will be known as The Reserve. “There isn’t really a facility built specifically to store large quantities of silver securely.” .....more..... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...00-tons-of-silver-amid-boom?srnd=premium-asia
Hey Mick.... I was trying to find an off the radar backdoor U.S. infrastructure play. Whether the bill passes or not, money will be spent. Personally I don't think it will pass but that's neither here nor there. These guys are a world leader in lime. No lime no concrete right? Closest I could come to a pure-play in lime. And they are pretty far from that really. But as miners go... how do they stack up from a fundy view? Sleepy low volume stock. Lots of debt but they pay the bills. Small divy. All institutional ownership. But its obviously been discovered, its near a multi-year high. More room to run? For a long term type play? ...$MTX
Hi Vanzy, interesting stock. Earns plenty of revenue, PE reasonable, net margin 7% reasonable but not spectacular and a debt of $623 mil but without reading the news on how the Co. is expanding can't comment really atm. The way I prefer to do things, find the best stocks in various sectors and keep them in a special watchlist/database. After a mkt hammering they are the ones to target. Atm mkt has already run hard, so unless there is a superduper bargain/surprise emerging, just don't buy. Right now is either hold or sell time, not buy time imo. Mkt has run hard last 12 months and we're coming into "May and go away". For day traders not a problem, but longer term traders it may be difficult to make buck going forward and keeping it. I would suggest sit on hands but (begin to) compile watchlist for the day SHTF and there's a nice dumping going on. Maybe not long to wait if Russia are looking for a fight in Ukraine and China use that diversion opportunity to fuck around with Taiwan.
Mining boss warns China stokes risk in Africa https://www.afr.com/companies/minin...eign-risk-in-developing-world-20210414-p57j5j Peter Ker Resources reporter Apr 14, 2021 Evolution Mining chairman Jake Klein says sovereign risk in Africa and developing nations will continue to rise in lockstep with growing Chinese influence as rival miner Resolute won a reprieve from Ghana’s plan to strip it of a gold mine. Mr Klein said Evolution would not consider buying assets outside of Australia and North America in the belief that mineral-rich developing nations were becoming harder to work in. Evolution Mining boss Jake Klein is staying out of Africa. Ryan Stuart Evolution mines gold in Australia and Canada, and Mr Klein said China was stoking sovereign risk in many developing nations. “I see geopolitical risk rising in developing countries and that is why we are going to stick to places like Canada and Australia ... we want to be in countries where the rule of law can be relied on,” he said on Wednesday. “I do see this going back to the China influence. China is looking for new areas and places and destinations for raw materials supply, so it now owns about 20 per cent of all debt to Africa. “[Africa] is clearly a place that [China] wants to be and feels it can own commodity assets in a way that it can’t own those assets in places like Australia and Canada.” The comments come after three small Australian companies, including Sundance Resources, were stripped of iron ore tenements in the Republic of Congo in December. Unconfirmed reports have suggested those projects have since been awarded to companies with Chinese links at a time when China is trying to reduce its reliance on Australian iron ore amid severe diplomatic tensions with the Morrison government. Chinese aluminium giants like Shandong Weiqiao have driven a boom in bauxite mining in Guinea that has accelerated at such a pace that human rights groups have lodged complaints about the impact on nearby towns and the environment. ASX-listed Resolute Gold felt the impact of sovereign risk on March 23 when the Ghanaian government suddenly advised that it was terminating the company’s lease over the Bibiani gold mine. That termination appears to be linked to Resolute’s plan to sell the mine to Chinese company Chifeng Jilong. Resolute received some good news on Wednesday when the Ghanaian government agreed to restore the lease on the proviso that Resolute provided an update on the mine’s operation and plans for expansion within seven days. The Ghanaian government also said it did not recognise the sale to Chifeng Jilong and the asset could not be sold without government approval. The news sparked a rally of more than 14 per cent in Resolute shares and interim chief executive Stuart Gale thanked Chifeng Jilong for their patience. Long term the gold price is going up as fiat currencies decline and more and more money is printed. — Jake Klein, chairman, Evolution Mining It remains unclear whether a sale to the Chinese company would be approved by the Ghanaian government in future. Speaking at an event hosted by one of the world’s biggest gold investors, VanEck, Mr Klein said central banks such as the Reserve Bank of Australia would be wise to buy gold as they print money to revive economies from the turbulence of the coronavirus pandemic. While central bank purchases of gold are common in many nations, the topic is controversial in Australia after the Reserve Bank sold the majority of its gold holdings in 1997 when prices for the precious metal were $US335 per ounce. Australia has traditionally been the world’s second biggest gold producer by volume, behind China, and the 1997 decision to reduce the RBA’s gold holdings from 247 tonnes to 80 tonnes hit confidence in the Australian gold mining industry. The RBA’s decision to dump gold does not look good in hindsight; gold prices were more than five times higher at $US1745 per ounce on Wednesday and were above $US2050 in August last year. “They probably regret that because they sold at a much lower price than it is today,” said Mr Klein. “Long term the gold price is going up as fiat currencies decline and more and more money is printed. “If the Reserve Bank wants a store of value that it can’t print, gold is that.” The RBA’s gold holdings remain unchanged from that 1997 dump at 80 tonnes, according to the bank’s most recent annual report. The RBA makes several million dollars each year by lending its gold. The department of industry believes Australia may overtake China as the world’s biggest gold-producing nation this year. Mr Klein conceded that many investors were now viewing bitcoin as a rival to gold when seeking a store of value amid mass money printing. But he said bitcoin would struggle to win regulatory approval. “The challenge I have with bitcoin is how are governments going to allow an alternative medium of exchange or currency to be allowed to be used in their countries that could substitute for the currency that they have control over, because that then removes one of the key policy tools which the Reserve Bank of Australia has to manage its currency,” he said. RBA governor Philip Lowe has previously described bitcoin’s price volatility as speculative mania and said it would be popular among criminals.