The mining world was pulled in all directions in 2023: the collapse of lithium prices, furious M&A activity, a bad year for cobalt and nickel, Chinese critical mineral moves, gold’s new record, and state intervention in mining on a scale not seen in decades.
A year where the gold price sets an all-time record should be unalloyed good news for the mining and exploration industry, which despite all the buzz surrounding battery metals and the energy transition Metal and mineral markets are volatile at the best of times – the nickel, cobalt and lithium price collapse in 2023 was extreme but not entirely unprecedented. Rare earth producers, platinum group metal watchers, iron ore followers, and gold and silver bugs for that matter, have been through worse. Mining companies have become better at navigating choppy waters, but the forced closure of one of the biggest copper mines to come into production in recent decades served as a stark reminder of the outsized risks miners face over and above market swings