China’s shifting taste for metals

In April the global economic report of the International Monetary Fund said that China’s hunger for commodities is far from being satisfied any time soon.  Most importantly it said that demand is likely to switch from and emphasis on iron ore and copper toward higher value commodities such as zinc.  Maybe this is because zinc … Read more

Is the Present the Key to the Future?

“If the present tries to sit in judgement of the past, it will lose the future.” – Winston Churchill Several western zinc mines have recently closed or are running out of ore quickly. Glencore recently announced that its zinc production fell 18 per cent to 306,000 tonnes as two of its mines have reached the … Read more

We love zinc

According to the prospectus for its $10bn initial public offering in May 2011, Glencore supplied 60 per cent of the international third-party market in zinc metal and 50 per cent of the international third-party zinc concentrates market.  This was before Glencore’s takeover of Xstrata was completed in May 2013.  To meet antitrust approval for the … Read more

What has the gold price got to do with the zinc price?

Zinc now accounts for only 30 percent of revenue from “Zinc” mines, that is zinc mines in the broadest sense, as polymetallic deposits become proportionally a more important source of zinc and contributor to zinc production.  In some of many of these precious metal dominant polymetallic mines zinc is often not much more than a by-product and will be produced … Read more