The Drill Down
Monday 31 August 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
Takeovers Panel Rebukes Forrestania Over Disclosures in Zenith Pursuit
The Takeovers Panel declared unacceptable circumstances on 27 August over Forrestania's disclosure of its interest in Zenith Minerals, on joint applications from Harvest Lane Asset Management and Ida Metal, holder of 11.1% of Zenith. Interim orders dated 30 August bar Forrestania from processing acceptances or declaring the offer free of defeating conditions, and hold the bid open until 14 September.
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Our Take
Forrestania is already through the 50.1% minimum acceptance at roughly 56.3%, so control is effectively settled and what the Panel still has to decide is whether the acceptances that got it there survive final orders. Consideration is scrip at one Forrestania share for every 4.3 Zenith shares, so each extension leaves the implied value moving with Forrestania's own price while Zenith holders wait.
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Commodity Prices
Precious Metals (USD/toz)
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Gold
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$4,439
-0.36%
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Silver
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$67
+0.39%
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Platinum
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$1,809
-0.70%
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Palladium
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$1,397
-1.61%
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Base Metals & Commodities
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Copper USD/t
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$14728.63
+0.58%
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Nickel USD/t
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$16739.50
-0.61%
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Zinc USD/t
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$3870.68
+0.29%
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Lead USD/t
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$1896.60
-0.27%
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WTI Crude USD/bbl
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$85.71
+2.77%
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Prices updated as of 31 Aug 2026, 3:48 pm AEST
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Market Movers
Winners & Losers - Australian Markets
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Invert Graphite Limited
No specific catalyst identified. InVert completed the acquisition of RapidGraphite on 20 August, taking an exclusive royalty free worldwide licence over Curtin University's RapidPulse catalytic graphitisation process alongside a A$2.5 million placement. The process sits at TRL 4 and lifted 97.5% TGC Morogoro material to 99% purity in laboratory testing, against a maiden 32.2Mt at 8.0% TGC inferred resource at Kumba in Tanzania.
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Canadian Phosphate Limited
No specific catalyst identified, with thin volume the likely driver. The first eight holes of the 2026 diamond program at Wapiti in British Columbia, totalling 1,051m, all intersected the Phosphate Main Zone on visual logging and extended known strike more than 3km south of the nearest historical hole. Those holes are about a third of the planned 3,000m, with AGAT Laboratories assays due in the September quarter and an updated resource targeted for Q4 CY2026.
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Coronado Global Resources Inc.
No specific catalyst identified, with met coal momentum the likely driver. The H1 2026 result on 11 August carried revenue of US$981.3 million, a net loss of US$418.0 million including a US$177.5 million non-cash Logan impairment, and net debt of US$606.1 million against available liquidity near US$98 million. June quarter adjusted EBITDA turned positive at US$6.8 million from a US$89.3 million March quarter loss, with saleable production up 37% and Glencore prepayments of up to US$75 million at 14% executed 7 August.
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Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited
No specific catalyst identified. Rimfire confirmed 14 day bottle roll scandium recoveries at Murga of 11.3% for saprolite and 10.5% for laterite, and that the 60% to 90% range came from a linear extrapolation over 200 days. Murga at Fifield in NSW holds an inferred estimate of 11,900t scandium oxide, with Golden Plains Resources able to earn 50.1% on $3.6 million of expenditure.
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Euro Manganese Inc
No specific catalyst identified, with profit taking after a run the likely driver. The 29 July update covered a 23 July site visit to Chvaletice by US Ambassador to the Czech Republic Nicholas Merrick, the resignation of Dr David Dreisinger from the board and an AGM extension to no later than 15 November. Chvaletice reprocesses historic tailings for high purity manganese metal and sulphate, with the IEA's Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 putting the Czech Republic at roughly 5% of global high purity manganese capacity by 2035.
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RareX Limited
Non-executive director Danny Goeman resigned effective immediately on 31 August, staying on in a consulting capacity, with chairman Jeremy Robinson citing continuity across key projects and stakeholder engagement. RareX is exploring the Khaleesi gallium and niobium complex in the East Yilgarn and the Piper anomaly in the Northern Territory, with engineering effort on Cummins Range metallurgy and a consortium proposal with Iluka for Mrima Hill in Kenya.
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Market data as of 31 August 2026, 4:10 PM AEST
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Presented By
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Sierra Nevada Gold
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ASX: SNX
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Emerging Saudi Arabian Developer & Explorer
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Sierra Nevada Gold is advancing As Safra, a large copper-gold system extending over more than 5.5km of strike in the Arabian Shield. Initial drilling has confirmed broad, continuous zones of mineralisation including high-grade intervals, with a major follow-up program now in preparation.
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Find Out More
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In-Country Operating Subsidiary
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Today's Stories
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Mysteel
China Lithium Inventory Alert
Concern over 2027 lithium supply stability has intensified with forward supply contraction now in view, while strong August and September LFP order books validate peak-season demand. Mysteel expects firm but volatile pricing and a month on month inventory drawdown through the second half.
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Our Take
The three variables Mysteel names, the Jianxiawo restart, overseas shipment arrivals and whether peak season actually lands, are the sequence that decides if the drawdown holds past October. A 2027 scarcity trade built on order books rather than shipped tonnes stays one restart announcement away from repricing.
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Mining.com.au
Copper's Supply Squeeze Spreads, Market Needs More Metal
Shanghai Metals Market's imported copper concentrate index sat at minus US$182.14 per dry metric tonne on 21 August, with negative treatment charges pushing smelters toward scrap that is itself scarce across China, Japan and South Korea.
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Our Take
MinEx's Richard Schodde ties the halving in discovery rates to a 60% fall in grassroots funding, yet global resources still grew 946Mt against 296Mt mined between 2010 and 2024, which puts the bottleneck at the point where ounces in the ground become tonnes through a smelter. Treatment charges this deep in negative territory mean smelter margin gives way well before mine supply does.
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Bloomberg
Silver's Solar Demand Boom Starts to Fade as High Prices Bite
Solar panel makers are pressing on with cutting silver out of their products, and BloombergNEF estimates global solar silver demand falls in 2026 for a second straight year. Silver now runs about a fifth of a module's production cost, down from a January spike but well above the 3% to 5% that prevailed before 2024.
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Our Take
Thrifting at a fifth of module cost is a permanent design response, so the demand that carried silver to records gets engineered out on the next module generation whether or not prices ease. Two consecutive annual declines in the largest industrial leg is the test the silver case now has to pass on its own numbers.
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Bloomberg
Gold Extends Decline as Warsh Speech Raises Fed Rate-Hike Bets
Bullion slid as much as 1.2% to around $4,400 an ounce after falling more than 3% on Friday, its steepest session since early June, with Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh restating a firm 2% inflation target at Jackson Hole. Traders now price better than a 50% chance of a hike at the September meeting.
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Our Take
A better than even chance of a hike changes the carry maths under the gold bid, and September now decides whether real rates rise into a market positioned all year for cuts. Australian producers hold a currency buffer through it, since a firmer US dollar cushions the AUD received price against the USD fall.
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Double Steel
Double Steel Weekly Report, Week 36 2026
The coking coal benchmark jumped 15.14% on the week to US$270/t and China's third round of coke price rises took effect 31 August, lifting Tangshan Q235 billet to CNY 3,030/t. China's social inventories of five major steel products ended two weeks of destocking at 11.8343Mt, with rebar and wire rod building while flat products drew down.
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Our Take
Coking coal at US$270/t after a 15.14% weekly move, with a fourth round of coke increases already being discussed, is a cost push the mills wear while the rebar to billet spread sits near CNY 39.4/t. Australian low-vol hard coking coal at FOB US$228.6/t reads against Coronado's US$168.0/t realised across the first half, so a benchmark holding here reprices Bowen Basin tonnes through the September quarter.
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