The Pre-Start

Evolution’s quarterly showed net mine cash flow of $366m, while producing 174koz Au & 18kt Cu at an AISC of $1,724/oz. Deleveraging continued with no debt repayments due until FY29, with $170m repaid during the quarter (EVN)
29Metal’s Golden Grove produced 5.8kt Cu and 2kt Zn following a seismic disruption at Xantho Extended, while ~$9m was spent at Capricorn Copper. Net drawn debt closed at $44m (29M) Down 17%
Leo Lithium returned $265m to shareholders today yesterday and continues to progress the sale of its royalty suggesting proceeds from that will be distributed to shareholders too (LLL)
West Wits reported that first underground ore from Qala Shallows has been mined & stockpiled (WWI)
Hillgrove has commenced production from Nugent ahead of schedule, with mining to hit ~1.7Mtpa by H1 2026 (HGO) Up 10%
Southern Cross ended the quarter with cash at C$141m, down 7% (SX2)
Astral shared assays from 29 infill RC holes, taken on a 12×12m density. The standout result returned 14m at 6.89g/t Au from 57m (AAR)
Santana released assays from its program at RAS North, intercepting 13.8m at 8.5g/t gold from 424m (SMI)
Prospect shared a hit of 20.9m at 0.70% Cu from 226m from Nyungu Central (PSC)
Beacon provided an update for quarterly activities with 6.8koz Au produced (-7%) and mined ore 79,941bcm (-32%) with cash on hand of $18m (BCN)
St George claimed its first diamond hole extended the Araxá resource to the west, with a hit of 98m at 3.07% TREO and 0.43% Nb₂O₅ (SGQ)
Maverick extended mineralisation by intercepting 110m at 65.9g/t Ag, 0.31g/t Au from 191m at Maverick Springs in Nevada (SS1)
Estrella extended its strike length by 100m with a best hit of 5.9m of 90% secondary supergene MnO₂(ESR)
Patronus completed its seven-hole diamond drilling with a best hit of 0.63m at 6.51% U₃O₈from 90m at Thunderball (PTN)
New presentations were shared by Regis, 29Metals, Paladin, Odyssey, GBM, Matsa

High Grade It

Fortescue will sack hundreds of workers as it walks away from ambitious green energy machinery & equipment manufacturing targets (West)
Freeport plans to break away from the benchmark pricing system for global sales of mined copper ores to protect the profitability of smelters (Bloomberg)
BHP considers reopening defunct US copper mines in response to Trump and changing policy (FT)
Rio said its iron ore business is back on track, but sees little hope of a turnaround in copper smelting, which it forecasts to continue losing money (Australian)
The trading arm of Saudi Aramco plans to hire copper traders as part of a push into metals, joining a wave of energy giants moving into the sector (Bloomberg)
Kenny Ives, COO at CMOC & CEO of its trading arm, sees benchmark copper prices on the LME likely ending the year close to $11-12k/t (Bloomberg)

Want to make the most of the $6,000+ gold price? Get in touch with the team at Blue Cap, who can look after everything from helping finance to managing your mine.

Wheelin’ n Dealin’

Former Mastermyne CEO Tony Caruso is leading a consortium dubbed 3DSI that’s agreed an in-principle deal to buy Tahmoor coal mine for US$300m from Gupta (AFR)
Barrenjoey & JP Morgan are advising on the potential $1B sale of Australia’s largest silver mine, Cannington (Australian) second sales process ad in a week… Oh it’s just to error-correct the right bankers on the ticket!
Tronox is investing $8.6m for 5% of Lion Rock Minerals and collaborating to progress Minta Est monazite and Minta rutile projects in Cameroon (LRM) “rare earth value chain opportunities” explicitly referenced
MinRes has added Standard Chartered to its advisory team as it explores selling stakes in its prized lithium assets to downstream operators (Australian)
Canadian explorer Loncor Gold agreed to be acquired by Chengtun for ~$261m cash in a deal that will hand control of a major gold project in the DRC to Chinese ownership (Mining.com)

Rattlin’ the Tin

Kairos has received firm commitments for A$27m at 4c a share (KAI)
Carnaby announced a $12.5m placement to Queensland Investment Corporation’s (QIC) critical minerals fund (CNB)
A busy day for QIC, the critical minerals fund is also investing $8m to Iltani to advance its silver-indium project (ILT)
Vital Metals expanded its tranche 2 financing for a raise announced in August, to take an additional $5.6m, subject to approval (VML) The stock closed yesterday at 38.5c, and mgmt thinks expanding a 10.5c raise is in shareholders’ best interest?
Majestic Gold's HKEX-listed subsidiary Persistence completed a HK$472m private placement (MJS.V)

Word on the Decline

US$2.4B United States Antimony Corp (UAMY) last week landed a five-year, US$245m contract with the US Defense Logistics Agency to supply antimony to the national stockpile. That’s a sixteen-fold jump on last year’s revenue.
The problem is UAMY doesn’t yet have enough feedstock to fill that contract... The company is very active with international procurement efforts to this end
With this in mind, the register of ASX-listed Larvotto is particularly curious:

Sleuthing shared via a reader

Denali Minerals LLC is a subsidiary of UAMY and has quietly taken a 2.8 % stake in Larvotto, one of the few near-term producers…

Got Word on the Decline? Simply reply or email [email protected]. We will always take your privacy seriously.

In the Weeds

China can only fire the big gun of refined metals restrictions once (Reuters oped)
Rio Tinto’s $14m Simandou lobbyist dies waiting for AFP corruption probe (AFR)
China’s BHP rejection is more than a price dispute (or a RMB internationalisation ambition) (WMN Substack)

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Our bull-market messiah Scamath Palispacitiya has re-emerged from the SPAC graveyard, victory-lapping his one deal from 2021 that didn’t asymptotically decline to zero in months. A miracle!