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- Majors Shake Up Leadership as New Era Looms
Majors Shake Up Leadership as New Era Looms
Twiggy gets told 'his peers don't like him' while Catalyst upsize raising to $150m
The Pre-Start
Rio Tinto announced CEO Jakob Stausholm will step down later this year at the conclusion of a succession process (RIO)
Fortescue announced several leadership changes, including Dino Otranto assuming an expanded role covering global electrification, decarb and hydrogen, Gus Pichot appointed as CEO Growth and Energy, retirement of both Mark Hutchinson as CEO Energy and Shelley Robertson as COO (FMG)
Aldoro shared assays on a couple more holes, confirming continuation to the SW, with a hit of 293m @ 3.67% TREO Eq from 3m (ARN)
Great Boulder reported RC drilling results from Side Well South, including 14m at 1.64g/t Au from 83m (GBR)
Dateline shared an update to its Colosseum gold project scoping study (adjusting gold price assumption from US$2,200/oz to US$2,900/oz only) (DTR)
Voluntary administrators have been appointed for Lucapa Diamond Company (LOM)
Greencape increased its stake in Lynas to ~6.1% (LYC)
BlackRock emerged as a ~5.1% shareholder of West African (WAF)
Paragon emerged as a ~5.8% shareholder of Savannah Goldfields (SVG)
Jim Askew is retiring as chair of Syrah (SYR)
Patriot Battery Metals & Catalyst released new presentations
High Grade It
“His peers don’t like him either”: Ex-Resources minister Ian Macfarlane lashesd Twiggy, who’s team fired back that Macfarlane had “lost his marbles” (AFR) We’d of paid to have these 2 on the same panel!
Rio boss Jakob Stausholm will step down later this year after a successor is appointed (AFR, CB)
BHP is sanguine about the emerging Africa iron ore sector, saying the overall market is far larger than production tonnages being mooted (MNN)
Mining advocates & native title protectors have reached a historic heritage protection reform agreement, 5 years on from Juukan Gorge (Australian)
Fortescue’s $6.2b Iron Bridge project has been hit with delays - again (AFR)
Lithium bosses flew the flag for hard rock over brine, with claims made that costs are closer than many may realise (MNN)
Rio Tinto's Chile deals bet on unproven technology and lithium price bounce (Reuters)
Ghana expects to rake in US$12B a year from small-scale gold production if output doubles as planned (Bloomberg) Not exactly early-cycle behaviour, hey?
Trump is set to slap massive tariffs on Chinese graphite anode imports (MNN)
Copper miner Freeport said its US$3.7B Manyar smelter has resumed operations earlier than anticipated after a fire took it offline last year (Reuters)
Wheelin’ n Dealin’
Newmont is tipped to trim its Greatland Gold stake in the upcoming ASX debut, with the latter expected to raise less than $80m. Wyloo has first dibs over any sell-down (AFR)
Gorilla Gold completed its acquisition of the Comet Vale project (GG8)
Hastings is in trading halt pending a material acquisition (HAS)
Aston Minerals shareholders approved the scheme relating to its tie up with Torque Metals yesterday (ASO)
Rattlin’ the Tin
CATL shares sell like hot cakes in Hong Kong, with trade war fears not diminishing interest in the battery giant's IPO (MNN)
Catalyst completed an upsized $150m raising (CYL)
EQ Resources received firm commitments to raise ~$19m via a placement (EQR)
American West Metals is raising $4-6m to fund its drilling activities, in trading halt pre-open today (AFR, AW1)
Lion Selection invested $1m in Koonenberry’s recent $5m placement, taking their stake to ~6.8% (LSX)
Barton Gold is in halt to raise capital (BGD)
Terramin upsized a financing facility to $5m while extending the maturity (TZN)
Word on the Decline
With Fosterville’s heyday now in the rearview mirror, we think a mid-tier could make a compelling offer for the asset from Agnico in the current market, and the major would accept it
Do you have some Word on the Decline? Reply to this email or shoot a message to [email protected] directly. We will always take your privacy seriously.
In the Weeds
The big question behind the big changes at the top of FMG & Rio (AFR’s Chanticleer)
Ore Deposits 101 Intro (Sprott YouTube) For the non-technical folks (ourselves), this is part 1 in a super insightful geology 101 series
The Hidden Revival of Platinum & Palladium (Goehring & Rozencwajg) Hybrids rising, increased loadings, mine closures & cheap equities
Today’s Top Tweet
When the TMET analyst gets shuffled across to Metals & Mining..
If you’re an analyst and talk about revenue multiple on commodities producers, I’ll stop listening
— Jordi (@JordiEngineerd)
3:17 PM • May 22, 2025
Devil’s in the Detail
It’s a grim time to be in the diamond mining game:
Lucapa this morning revealed that it has appointed voluntary administrators to run a dual-track sale and recapitalisation process
Petra Diamonds doesn’t look too far behind them as its net debt increased to $258m and share price hit all-time lows
Burgundy has hit new lows itself this month
Do we even need to start on De Beers?
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