The Drill Down
Thursday 16 July 2026
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Developing High-Grade Gold & Copper in a Tier-One Belt
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670Koz
Au Eq Resource
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700km²
Serbian Landholding
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7,000m
Drilling Underway
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MinRex Resources is advancing a high-grade gold, silver and copper portfolio across 700km² of Serbian landholding in the West Tethyan Belt, anchored by a 670Koz @ 2.9g/t Au Eq resource at its advanced Tlamino gold-silver project.
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Lead Insight
BHP Reaches Record Iron Ore Production Ahead of Landmark Port Hedland Strike
BHP posted a record annual iron ore result just as a landmark strike at Port Hedland looms. The industrial action follows months of failed bargaining between the miner and unions.
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Our Take
Record annual output means nothing if tugboats stop at Port Hedland. Months of failed bargaining just handed unions the timing. BHP's shipments are the pressure point now.
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Commodity Prices
Precious Metals (USD/toz)
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Gold
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$4,032
-0.71%
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Silver
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$57
-0.89%
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Platinum
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$1,665
-0.54%
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Palladium
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$1,309
-0.28%
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Base Metals & Commodities
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Copper USD/t
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$14193.48
+0.47%
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Nickel USD/t
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$16798.00
+0.54%
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Zinc USD/t
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$3575.74
+1.41%
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Lead USD/t
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$1863.90
+0.90%
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WTI Crude USD/bbl
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$79.33
-0.34%
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Prices updated as of 16 July 2026, 3:48 pm AEST
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Market Movers
Winners & Losers - ASX Markets
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GBM Resources Limited
No announcement accompanied the jump at the gold explorer, which holds about 1.84Moz across Twin Hills, Yandan and Mt Coolon in Queensland's Drummond Basin, with Twin Hills the flagship at roughly 1Moz and granted mining leases across the package. At under two cents a share, small moves translate into large percentages on an epithermal district play leveraged to the gold price.
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Patagonia Lithium Limited
No announcement drove the move at the lithium brine developer, whose Formentera and Cilon project covers roughly 19,500 hectares in Jujuy Province in Argentina's lithium triangle, with a drainable resource of 551,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent and a direct lithium extraction pathway. Drilling at Cilon returned encouraging packer results earlier this month, and the stock has more than doubled over the past year.
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Altair Minerals Limited
Altair unveiled a fully funded 75,000m drill program across Greater Oko in Guyana, split between 40,000m of diamond and 35,000m of reverse circulation across South Oko, North Peters and three new regional districts, backed by a pro-forma cash position of about $38 million following Endeavour Mining's investment. The 590 square kilometre package sits 1.5km from a 5.9Moz discovery in a belt where G2 Goldfields and Reunion Gold both drew billion-dollar takeovers.
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AIC Mines Limited
AIC met FY26 guidance at Eloise in Queensland for a third consecutive year with 13,064t of copper, but the June quarter told the story the market cared about, with all-in sustaining costs jumping to $6.15/lb from $4.18/lb and clearing the guidance range on elevated diesel and rain-hit concentrate sales. FY27 guidance is due pre-open Monday, and holders sold rather than wait for it.
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Desoto Resources Ltd
No announcement accompanied the fall at the explorer, which holds 1,887 square kilometres across the Northern Territory's Pine Creek Orogen spanning the Fenton gold, Fenix lithium-gold and Spectrum rare earths projects, alongside ground in Guinea. With drilling the only catalyst and none reported, the pullback reads as profit-taking after a run that has outpaced the local metals and mining index.
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Brazilian Critical Minerals Limited
No announcement drove the fall, which leaves the stock below the 5.3 cent institutional placement struck barely a week ago to fund the Ema rare earths project towards a final investment decision. The Amazonas ionic clay project carries 1,071Mt at 732ppm total rare earth oxides and a bankable feasibility study showing a US$1.47 billion post-tax net present value on US$74 million of pre-production capital, with the second placement tranche still needing shareholder approval next month.
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Market data as of 16 July 2026, 4:10 PM AEST
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This Week's Poll
Which Best Describes You?
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○ High-net-worth investor
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○ Government / Institution
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Today's Stories
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Mining.com
Congo Ebola Outbreak Disrupts US-Backed Minerals Talks, Sources Say
An Ebola outbreak in Congo has disrupted US-backed minerals talks, according to sources. The US and China have separately expanded minerals partnerships with Kinshasa to boost investment and secure access to its deposits.
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Our Take
With Washington and Beijing both racing to lock up Congolese supply, a health crisis stalling US talks hands China a timing advantage in the same window. Investors chasing critical minerals exposure should factor a geopolitical discount, not just an ESG one, into DRC assets.
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Miningmx
Ghana President's Brother Embroiled in $250m Gold Row
Ibaera Capital managing partner James Wallbank alleges that Ghanaian directors of Azumah Resources, along with the company's own legal adviser, waged a campaign of industrial espionage to seize the Black Volta gold project, an investment he values at about $250 million, citing leaked emails reviewed by Miningmx. Engineers and Planners, owned by Ibrahim Mahama, brother of President John Mahama, rejected the allegations and denied any wrongdoing, while Ghana's Minerals Commission conceded the government had made mistakes and pledged to rebuild investor confidence ahead of a London arbitration hearing expected in September.
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Our Take
Whatever September's arbitration finds, the same company winning the Damang tender after Gold Fields' exit and now contesting West Africa's best undeveloped gold project reprices country risk for everyone holding Ghanaian ground. A Minerals Commission openly conceding mistakes is the more useful signal, since the international capital that local participation policies depend on is watching exactly how this resolves.
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Impakter
Rare Earths Are the New Oil
An opinion piece argues rare earths now hold the strategic position oil occupied last century, with China's dominance mirroring the leverage OPEC and Saudi Arabia once wielded through spare capacity. It notes untapped resources across Australia, Canada, Brazil, Greenland, Africa, Southeast Asia and Central Asia, citing Washington's approval of preliminary applications for up to $1.6 billion in federal financing for Kaz Resources' Kazakhstan tungsten project, and calls for a cooperative mechanism before dependence bites.
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Our Take
The OPEC analogy cuts both ways. Cartels hold because the geology is scarce, whereas the rare earth chokepoint sits in refining, which capital and time can replicate. For Australian developers that means ground alone confers no moat, and a $1.6 billion cheque for a Kazakh tungsten project shows how far from home Washington will go to secure the rest of the chain.
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Mining Weekly
Australia's Export Finance Agency Boosts Jobs by 21% Amid Critical Minerals Push
Export Finance Australia added 40 staff in the year to June, taking headcount to 228, as it builds critical minerals expertise ahead of the rollout of the A$1.2 billion strategic reserve later this year. The agency also manages Australia's A$5 billion critical minerals facility and was a core backer of Alcoa's gallium plant at its Wagerup refinery in Western Australia, greenlit this week and sized at roughly 10% of global demand.
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Our Take
Hiring is the tell that the reserve is moving from announcement to deployment, and EFA is where the mandate and the chequebook now sit. Developers of niche commodities that cannot clear a commercial bank's hurdle should be in that room already, because Wagerup shows the agency will underwrite first-of-kind processing rather than just dig-and-ship.
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AFR
Mining Services Companies Soar After Near-Death Experiences
Macmahon Holdings and NRW have staged a comeback from the brink of collapse nearly a decade ago, with their shares up 201% and 123% respectively over the past 12 months on the back of Australia's strong resources sector. Materials has been the best-performing sector on the ASX over the same period, rising 41%, driven by demand for the resources feeding the artificial intelligence build-out and the energy transition.
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Our Take
Contractors are the highest-beta way to own a capex cycle without owning an orebody, and a 201% re-rate says the recovery is already in the price. The question is whether that strength converts to margin or merely volume, because every dollar of pricing power the contractors win back lands as cost inflation on the miners' side of the ledger.
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Kamoa Capital
kamoacap.com
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This newsletter is for general information, education & entertainment. Kamoa Capital is not licensed and does not know your circumstances. Nothing here is financial, legal or tax advice. Seek professional advice and read any PDS before acting. We aim for accuracy but make no guarantees and accept no liability. Views are opinions only and may include forward-looking statements that may not occur.
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