Gold and silver suffered their biggest slide in years on Friday, with gold falling 12% to back below US$5k, and silver plunging 36% (AFR)

The Indonesian Coal Miners Association said drastic cuts in production quotas granted by the gov’t may force some operations to shutdown (Bloomberg)

Money managers slashed their bullish silver wagers to the lowest in nearly 2 years (Bloomberg)

More than 200 people were killed this week in a collapse at the Rubaya coltan mine in Eastern DRC (Reuters)

PLS joined the race among WA miners to bring production out of hibernation (West) Spod vs carbonate gap closed with prices down 10.6% & 2.9% respectively

A Chilean court authorised authorities to use force to remove striking workers from a desalination plant serving Capstone Copper's Mantoverde (Reuters)

Market speculation swirls around Northern Star boss Stuart Tonkin’s future after a decade at the helm of Australia’s largest listed gold miner (Australian)

China’s Baowu has taken operatorship of Guinea's Simandou Blocks 1 and 2 after raising its stake in the Winning Consortium to 51% from 49% (Reuters)

Merger talks between miners Rio Tinto and Glencore over a mooted $300B deal look set to be extended beyond this week’s deadline (AFR)

Forrestania will acquire 100% of the Mt Palmer project and 100% of Aurumin’s Johnson Range and Mt Dimer assets, issuing 37.9m and 13m shares (deemed $18m and $6.2m) (FRS)

IMDEX has completed the acquisition of the remaining equity in Datarock, taking ownership to 100% after paying ~$31m (IMD)

Alicanto shareholders approved acquisition of the Mt Henry gold project (915koz), with Westgold to become a 19.9% holder, completion expected mid-Feb and Jeff Sansom appointed CEO (AQI)

Bellavista has agreed with FireFly to acquire 80% of Pickle Crow, issuing 60m BVR shares as upfront consideration, plus a further 50m performance rights as contingent consideration (BVR)

Austral entered an agreement with Glencore to acquire the Lady Loretta mine, with Glencore paying US$40m to Austral, receiving a 2.5% NSR royalty on the copper and continuing to operate all zinc activities (AR1)

A SPAC dubbed M Evo Global Acquisition Corp II, associated with Matt Latimore, has raised US$270m, with an eye to acquire a late-stage development or expansion-ready critical minerals project (AFR)

Brightstar raised $175m via a placement at $0.50 and launched a $5m SPP (BTR)

Hot Chili is in a trading halt pending a proposed capital raising (HCH)

Bellavista is seeking to raise $25m via a two-tranche placement at 75c (BVR)

First Au completed a $5.6m raising to further its Gimlet gold project (FAU)

Much of the focus is on West Australian gold companies, but we have been taking an interest in Northern Territory recently.

Agnico inherited a sizeable package from Kirkland Lake 5yrs ago. Between their Union Reefs, Cosmo Deeps and Maud Creek, there’s 17.8 Mt at 2.4 g/t gold where they have continued a decent exploration spend.

But more importantly, Agnico has an idled 2.2Mtpa mill at Union Reefs. The opportunity for a regional hub is clear. But it’s certainly not an Agnico scale opportunity yet and we doubt they have the appetite for the legacy environmental issues.

PC Gold’s Spring Hill sits ~20 km down the road from the mill with 821koz at 1g/t is likely the best poised to capitalise on any restart plan of the mill. They have been trying for years to get access to use it.

Eyes on Agnico.

Closer to Darwin, Hong-Kong listed Hanking Gold has raised ~US$244m in the last 3 months to put towards bringing Mt Bundy into production

And back towards Alice Springs, Tenant Creek’s commissioning has been rosy according to new owners, Pan African.

We think NT is worth keeping tabs on.

Bikies, drugs and heists: Why miners love the WA police ‘Gold Squad’ (AFR)

Vitol With Nukes (Capital Gains) Learning from the USSR's brass-knuckled commodities trading coups

Matt Geiger Overweight Copper, Issues Silver Warning (Goldfinger YouTube) US natural resources fundie; worth watching for precious bulls

Commodity Meme Top? - Part II (Le Shrub) Copper billionaires on the rise; rotating into uranium & energy

This fundie struck gold last year. Now he’s after the next 10-bagger (AFR) Lowell’s John Forwood

When You Feel Pain, Remember to Reflect (Campbell Ramble) Reflections & play-by-play on silver’s drawdown

The question hanging over Rio and Glencore’s copper merger (AFR) Can GLEN’s copper growth goals be achieved?

Xi Jinping has called for the renminbi to become a global reserve currency, in some of his clearest comments on his ambitions for China’s currency (FT)