Good moorning
strange day today - all the larger Australian gold miners are down quite heavily today, despite a great Australian gold price.
Just after market closed, China imposed a ban on Australian coking coal, leading to a 1% fall of the A$, within minutes. The ban has believed to have been imposed as a warning sign to Australia, which is almost blindely following the US is many regards. Australia ahs recently blocked some Chinese, planned aquisitions for example, as well as 5G - infratsructure participation by Huawei. But I just cannot see, how China will cope without buying high quality, Australian coking coal in the medium term! The CEO of BHP believes, that the measures have nothing to do with Australian politics, but with general coal market management by China.
The FED minutes have cast some doubt as to just how dovish the FED really is….perhaps we do in fact have more rate hikes this year coming? I very much doubt it…In any case - gold is down a fw$ so far, while base metals are holding.
PMI´s in Europe positive today - but driven by services. manufacturing still very lacklustre.
But it´s only morning here - I will have to finish this report early today, because of our Australian Resources Conference in Zurich tomorrow. Dont´t forget it….8.50 am in the Baur au Lac!
The above mentioned coal story was making headlines today…the US/Chinese trade war impacting more countries now?? Also, a fatal accident at the Moranbah coal mine in Queensland, owned by Anglo, made it necessary to temporary cease production.
Acacia/Barrick look like having come to an agreement with the Tanzanian government. Tanzania will get 16% of the mine, plus tax, royalties etc to end up with about 50% of the profits from it´s mining operation. This agreement is seen as a major positive from miners/would-be miners in the country, as the Acacia-problem was the one, which all started the very negative eprception ( and rightly so! ) of the country.
Mineral Resources - very messy, and rather negative result today. Much higehr capex than expected, lower shipments of spodumene etc…New spodumene operations coming later than expected into production…a few month. BUT the company continues to guide for 280-320 mill A$ in EBITDA, implying a 35:65% split between 1st Half and 2.Half, which is quite a big call, using forecast prices as of the last guidance in Nov. This was before the massive hike in iron ore prices, hence Macquarie for example are expecting 300 mill A$ in EBITDA, citing stronger than expected prices, resulting from the Brazilian desaster. I really like MIN, as you know - but I have to say, that operationally, the company had a few unusual hick-ups lately. But I am continuing to hold a reasonably large position in the stock, trusting into a great current half, and the medium-to longer term value of their massive lithium operation. Also, guidance for the Mining Services dision has been maintained, which is good news.
Prairie Mining - very large turnover in Poland the last few days…the CEO of JSW has talked to the press and confirmed, that they are still talking to Prairie re potential corporate deal, despite PDZ having instigated necessary steps to take Poland to international arbitration.
Have a nice day and see many of you tomorrow
WS