Who is going to stop using #tin?
I have tin in a 8% deficit be the end of the year. Visible inventories stand at about 14 days of consumption, and I expect them to be totally depleted by Q3 if the current supply disruptions continue. Let’s say there is 2g of tin in an iPhone. This is 7c of input cost. Is there even a tin price where iPhone consumption is discouraged??

Below is a thread on the required discovery rate of new mineral resources and reserves in order to maintain current production + demand growth. I have done this for #tin as an example, but is equally true for any metal. Assumptions: #tin market is 400,000 tpa, growing at 2.5% per annum. It is widely quoted that it takes on average 15 years from mineral discovery to first production for a mining project. (I actually think this is closer to 18 years)

#Tin – the long term build up to the mother of all bull markets

(Thread #2) Indonesia has since the mid 1980’s been the World’s largest supplier of mined #tin – peaking at 145,000 tpa and doing 78,000t in 2023. A massive fraud investigation is underway, looking at an estimated $13bn pilfered form state owned mining company PT Timah.

#Tin – the long term build up to the mother of all bull markets

(Thread # 1) In 1945 the cold war started. The USA was competing with the USSR is every way they could – economically, the space race, technology, political influence in Africa and SE Asia, and in a war of ideologies. #tin

#copper market is very interesting at the moment. It is clear to expert metal market participants that a major bull market is almost inevitable from a supply side, but the copper price is yet to react. What is going on? I think there are so few funds left trading #copper (who know what they are doing) and there is a massive multiple of this money that is algorithm based - trading basis global macro and FX data

If you go back over my ancient tweets on #copper market dynamics, I talk about hidden deficits. This is where smelters consume their concentrate stockpiles but still push out cathode. This is one of those rare points right now. #copper Treatment charges are the allowance that miners pay to smelters to turn concentrates into metal. Break even for a smelter is around $60 per tonne treatment charge + 6c / lb refining charge (TC/RC)

I want to hammer one thing home on #tin demand - and that is the answer to “Why has solder demand been static for ten years or so?”This is because linear miniaturisation needed less tin per circuit board, and this offset exponential unit growth. We have now passed the inflection point where exponential is beating linear, and demand growth for #tin is accelerating.
The World has committed $600bn to new semiconductor factories - but <$100m to new tin mines.

#Golf and the #LME
I was once told a story about Ernie Els’s caddy. Ernie is one of the best golfers ever and had a superb caddy. Ernie was injured for a tournament so a rookie professional on the tour asked if his caddy could work for him that week. So on the first tee the caddy hands the young man a 3 iron and tells him to hit it 250 yds down the right-hand side.

I've been looking at the #Nickel trade data for Tuesday morning and the cancelled #LME trades.
The numbers are quite staggering: 9,064 lots traded
VWAP of $71,743
Contract value = $3.9bn !!!!
#LME has cancelled all of these #Nickel trades.
By moving the price back to $48,078 they have wiped out $1.3bn of PnL on these trades.

Some thoughts on #tungsten below:
2020 market size was about 106,000 tonnes
80% of this comes from China
7% was consumed in defence, of which 80% goes into ammunition
7% was consumed in a depressed Oil and Gas sector
24% was consumed in a depressed mining sector One of the likely fallouts from the Russia / Ukraine invasion are Free World policy shifts towards energy and raw material independence becoming strategic priorities.

Some thoughts on the current markets below. There are once in a generation (or even once in a lifetime) opportunities right now. 1. There was not enough "stuff" today before Ukraine and Russian sanctions with most commodities in major deficits
2. There is even less "stuff" in the future due to a decade of underinvestment in new capacity and exploration and a demand shock from the Green Energy Revolution

This thread is loosely about Rudyard Kipling and his poem “If”.

WE ARE AT AN ‘If” MOMENT

- “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.” -

Will you be a rabbit in the headlights or have the right portfolio and make the right investment decisions? What is the big picture?
- 40 year bull market in bonds
- 40 year bear market in interest rates
- 13 years of ultra-easy monetary policy
- Paradigm shift in where energy is sourced
- 13 years of underinvestment in mineral exploration

#Peru #copper # tin #zinc #lead
So I tweeted a thread a couple of months back on how the election of a Communist President of Peru would seriously deter future mining investment, and put at risk existing production levels. I have quietly watched developments since, including the burning of mining camps, road blockades and this week's uncertainty on maybe cancelling some mine permits. Sadly for the long-term prosperity of the Peruvian people my fears are playing out.

Thread on Curve Structure for LME Metals

This is complicated, so do feel free to tweet any questions!

First up some terms:
Contango: when the forward price is above the current spot price
Backwardation: when the forward price is below the current spot price When a market is well supplied or in surplus it tends to be in contango. The normal state of metal markets is to be in contango from the cash date, but with the contango becoming less as you go further forward.

Everything that is happening to the #tin price would have happened 8 years ago if Myanmar had not come along and gone from 2kt to 60kt of production overnight. Market demand is 30% higher today, and Myanmar production in terminal decline as all the rich pickings are depleted.

#copper $MNO.v
So a quick thread on why VMS type copper deposits are so much more valuable than porphyries.
(I am talking in the generic here, and each project has its own specifics so please do not message me saying I am wrong about such and such project!) VMS = Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide are “black smokers” emplaced on the sea floor and then moved to surface via tectonic activity. They are almost always polymetallic and contain copper, zinc, gold, silver, zinc and lead.

#copper #tin
This thread will talk about the huge issues facing consumers from a finance perspective. This is a bigger problem than availability of metal or the price being paid. Exponential price rises are creating huge headaches for consumers - both in terms of price paid, availability of metal and in finance. Of these finance is probably the biggest issue.

#mining #copper #tin
I have been asked by several people now about how to evaluate the management team for a project and what to look for and what to avoid. This thread hopefully will provide some good pointers. Truth Number One:
A mediocre project with good management is a better investment than a great project with mediocre management.

#copper
“The world’s top copper producer Chile saw output of the red metal fall for the tenth consecutive month in March, government statistics agency INE said on Friday.
Copper output fell 1.3% in March, to 491,720 tonnes, the agency said.” #copper
Chile also introducing new restrictions on movement and commerce following the Southern Hemisphere’s summer holidays. I expect their already bad Covid situation to get worse as they move into their Winter / European Summer.

#zinc
The global zinc market is, give or take, 13 million tonnes. China is far and away the largest producer with over a third of mine production and smelter capacity. Supply growth in China is static though with new mines barely replacing old mine capacity. #zinc
Zinc’s main use is as a anti-corrosion coating on steel in the construction and automotive industries. This is called galvanization. Other uses include alloy (brass mainly) die-casting precision components and as a fertiliser additive.

#tin
Tin is the 49th most abundant element within the Earth and has the chemical symbol Sn, which is derived from the Latin word “Stannum”. Crustal abundance is only 2 parts per million (“ppm”) compared with 75 ppm for zinc, 50 ppm for copper, and 14 ppm for lead. #tin Tin mining dates back at least 4000 years to the Bronze Age, when tin was alloyed with copper to make bronze. Tin does not occur as the native element but must be extracted from oxide ores. Cassiterite (SnO2) is the only commercially important source of tin.