Perhaps we should call this article, "PDAC Revisited". While meeting with mining company executives at the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in Toronto in March, we wanted to know what was coming up in Q2, 2012? For some companies, it was business as usual, but a number of... Read more »

There is always a sector among the raw materials on the verge of a period of "euphoria". On the chart below, each resource is represented by a company, because the indexes do not exist for all of the individual resources. Notice that, for 10 years, there is always a sector that is in a phase of "boom",... Read more »

After meeting with mining companies for the past two days at the annual PDAC convention in Toronto, we're pleased to present a list of upcoming mining milestones in March. Or shall we say, March/early April as prefaced by many of the executives in attendance at this year's convention. In alphabetical order, here's... Read more »

2012 is upon us and it was a good opening week for the both the markets and mining companies alike. On the heels of intense tax-loss selling in December despite positive economic data hitting the headlines as 2011 came to a close, nothing seemed to stem the tide of December tax-loss selling as many mining issuers set... Read more »

Rick Mills - Ahead of the Herd. Major mining companies are looking to enter the potash business, or expand existing operations, as they look for increased demand from developing nations such as China, India and Brazil. "This is a solid business and the big mining... Read more »

Higher crop yields are needed in order to feed today’s global population of seven billion so strong fertilizer prices are sustainable. Over the next fifty years, as we add another 4.5 billion people to the world’s population, global demand for food will increase almost 70% if population growth predictions are correct. The... Read more »

Here are your "Movers and Shakers" for the week ending September 16th, 2011 on the TSX and TSX-V Exchanges. In no particular... Read more »

After buying your morning double-double at Tim Horton's, do you ever wonder where the coins came from? Long before they were turned into the money that we all carry around with us in our pockets, they were raw metals hidden in the earth. How do mining companies know where to drill to find metal deposits? Once they find... Read more »

The World Meteorological Organization predicts global food output may be impacted as climate change brings more extreme weather over the next decade. China, the organization says, is... Read more »

Blink and you may have missed it. If the recent downturn in commodities is coming to an end, as some suggest, it was a brief correction. While the recent slump actually contained the worst week for commodities since the recession of late 2008, many believe it's a mere blip. Hussein Allidina, head of commodity research... Read more »

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Not all alkali metals are created equally. All of the alkali metals share similar properties: they are highly reactive metals under standard conditions and are thus never found in their elemental form in nature. The two alkali metals that are of particular value to investors are lithium, due to its high electrochemical... Read more »

Unlike lithium, potash is not scarce. The resource, however, is concentrated in a few privileged places on the globe, such as Canada, Russia and Belarus. This fact, in effect, turns the idea of abundance on its ear. Potash is extremely rare if you live in a “have not” country. The concentration of supply, combined... Read more »

3. IC Potash (TSXV:ICP) All Potash is not created equal. The most common form, called Muriate of Potash, or MOP, accounts for about 95% of all potash fertilizers used worldwide. Toronto’s IC Potash, however, is concerned with the more rare and expensive Sulphate of Potash, or SOP. SOP is slightly... Read more »

The Danakil Depression is a geological depression in the Horn of Africa that includes three areas: the Afar Triple Junction; part of the Great Rift Valley where it overlaps Eritrea; and, the Afar Region of Ethiopia and Djibouti. About 1200 km² (463 sq... Read more »

Food, these days, is headline news. The 2007 Mexican tortilla riots, which came after a sudden and sharp rise in the price of corn, seemed an isolated incident at the time, but were actually the beginning of something much larger. From Algeria... Read more »