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(Kitco News) - New momentum throughout the commodity sector is creating some excitement among investors, which could lead to record attendance this year at this year’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference.
In less than two weeks, from March 5 to March 8, investors, mining executives and resource industry leaders will once again converge on Toronto for the biggest mining conference in North America.
In an interview with Kitco News, Glenn Mullan, president of the PDAC, said that compared to last year’s cautious optimism, sentiment within the resource sector has improved significantly.
“I think for a lot of investors and a lot of companies looking for capital, it is clear the game is on again,” he said. “It just shows at how resilient the sector is. After years of struggling, sentiment has shifted in a relatively short time frame.”
Generally considered a down year, attendance at last year’s convention was around 22,000 people. Looking ahead, Mullan said that there are expectations this year’s conference could easily surprise last year’s attendance, with the potential to reach new records. Two conferences held before PDAC -- the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia held in January earlier this month the INDABA in South Africa -- both saw significant increases in attendance, he said.
“AMEBC saw their attendance increase 10% from last year and that was a significant increase. Same thing for INDABA; their attendance was up 15%,” he said. “These are two good barometers for what might be looming for PDAC. Our record is 30,000, so we will just have to wait and see what happens.”
Helping improve investor sentiment is the fact that gold prices, having managed to bounce off last year’s lows, are now at their highest level in more than three months. While gold is always the headliner at the conference, Mullan noted that the entire commodity sector is seeing broad-based gains. The Bloomberg Commodity Index showed broad-based prices are holding just below seven month highs.
As an example of the shifting sentiment, Mullan noted that the TSX Venture Index has hit new highs in the amount of money listed companies have raised.
“We can see that with a little bit of stability, more money is flowing back into the market place,” he said.
However, with positive sentiment on the rise, Mullan also issued a word of caution. He said the message he hopes investors take to PDAC this is to “tread carefully and learn from the past.” He explained that with so much excitement, it is easy to get carried away and make hasty decisions.
This year PDAC will host 103 countries with some of the workshops highlighting the growing technical advances in the sector, including the development of wearable technology and the use of virtual reality.