The Pre-Start
Iluka has withdrawn guidance for synthetic rutile on the back of uncertainty arising from delays on a transaction between its offtake partner and a 3rd party. Customer purchase obligations may be spread into 2026 (ILU) Down 14%
Mt Gibson halted its Koolan Island operation after a rockfall overnight. No injuries were caused (MGX) Stock paused
K92 announced first commercial-grade gold-copper-silver concentrate from its 1.2Mtpa Stage 3 process plant (KNT.TO)
Vulcan awarded JordProxa the contract for design, fabrication, modularisation,
and delivery of the core process units for lithium production (VUL)
Ballard shared a Mt Ida update, with licence for bore fields and road access submitted, plus underlying tenure being purchased (BM1)
European Lithium sold a further US$50m of CRML shares (EUR)
Lode Resources hit antimony in its inaugural drilling campaign at Magwood, NSW, including a hit of 9.92% Sb over 4.8m from 82m (LDR) Up 33%
Jupiter AM was revealed as a 5.7% shareholder of GBM Resources (GBZ)
Lynas appointed Kathleen Bozanic as non-exec director (LYC)
High Grade It
Mining giants have launched a fierce attack on a proposed ‘world first’ cashflow tax, claiming the 5% levy would devastate Australia’s resources sector and future investments (Australian)
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers will promote his nation’s ability to be a crucial part of Washington’s efforts to diversify the rare earths supply chain in upcoming talks (Bloomberg)
Scott Bessent warned Beijing that its new sweeping export controls on rare earths & critical minerals would force the US and others to decouple from it (FT)
Gold hit a record high for the 4th straight session and soared past $4,300/oz as investors flocked to the safe-haven on brewing US-China tensions (Reuters)
The US DoD cancelled a tender to buy US$500m of cobalt, a sign of the challenges facing Western nations trying to bolster domestic supplies (Bloomberg)
Iron ore was steady, erasing an earlier decline as data showed Chinese steel demand rebounded after the Golden Week holidays (Bloomberg)
Wheelin’ n Dealin’
Global Lithium will spin-out its gold assets via an ASX IPO in a new entity dubbed MB Gold, which’ll raise $6m in its IPO at 20c (GL1)
Rattlin’ the Tin
Vale has agreed to repurchase all of its participating debentures (US$3.1B), a unique type of perpetual bond dating back to its 1997 privatisation (BB)
Standard Lithium is raising $US120m (SLI.NYSE)
NexGen closed its ~A$1B equity offering (NXG)
Andromeda completed a $13m placement (ADN)
Hawk Resources completed a $5m placement and secured an option over the Olympus scandium project in WA (HWK)
African Gold completed the sale of Montage shares, netting it $15m (A1G)
First Nordic closed an upsized C$80m placement (FNM.V)
Mako Mining announced a C$50m bought deal + placement (MKO.V)
Taseko Mines announced a US$150m bought deal financing (TKO.TO)
Australian Strategic Materials is raising $50m at $1.20 (ASM)
Word on the Decline
Wiluna is coming back to market imminently. We hear that capital raise preparations are very advanced
Last week they dropped 3 years worth of annual reports on their website all together
Peel into the balance sheet of the 2025 one and you’ll see there’s plenty of debt in the cap structure to clean up:
Headlined by Byrnecut with $55m secured debt;
$54m trade payables (mostly Creditors Trust that can only be repaid after Byrnecut is repaid in full via cash sweep)
$18m convertibles notes spread between Deutsche Balaton, Franco Nevada and Byrnecut
It’s the kind of gold market where even Wiluna will be able to get a reincarnation
We just hope the business ends up properly capitalised on its return: clean up the debt, raise plenty of cash, embark on the right mine plan even if it’s high upfront capital…
Got Word on the Decline? Simply reply or email [email protected]. We will always take your privacy seriously.
In the Weeds
Why Investors Can’t Seem to Get Enough of Gold (Bloomberg)
Obscure Commodity Trader’s Breakneck Rise Rattles a Global Market (Bloomberg) The rise of Radiant World
Worried about a crash in gold? Here’s what could lead to a correction (AFR)
Nuclear fusion: could China be the first to harness the energy that powers the sun? (SCMP)
Were you forwarded this email from someone else?
Today’s Top Tweet
Here is a little insight. Due to the opaque nature of the OTC commodity market, we have to rely on the semi-annual reporting of the Bank for International Settlements to gauge the level of exposures in the vast OTC market. Structured Products dominate this space.
BCOM OTC Swaps
— #Dirk (#@D1rk_G3ntly)
2:41 PM • Oct 16, 2025
The gold rally has to stop at some point,it can’t keep running like this
The gold rally
— #MONETARY MAYHEM™ (#@MONETARY_MAYHEM)
10:42 PM • Oct 14, 2025
Devil’s in the Detail
What if we told you this was the chart for posterchild of Bougainville Copper? We had to pinch ourselves. Is Panguna really a possibility to eventually reopen now?
We had (probably foolishly) put a line through BOC as “uninvestible.”
…Just like FML
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