gold
I noticed an article the other day that things appear to be coming to a head regarding whether Northern Dynasty will be able to proceed with their Pebble gold (and copper, I think) deposit in Alaska.
I have long felt it is not going to be able to get permits to proceed. It is a massive deposit, something like 70 million ounces of gold, but extremely crappy grade, something like 1/2 gram per ton. You are looking at a massive amount of tearing up of the land to get at that resource. (I also wonder how economical it can be to mine such rotgut stuff but companies do seem to be able to succeed with low-grade gold mines so maybe the economics do work)
A big deposit like that actively mined over the next couple decades would boost the gold supply some and might have a bit of a depressive effect on gold prices. But I think Pebble will not go forward because of too much grassroots opposition. Even some of the big jewelry companies have promised not to buy gold from Pebble, which to me says that the opposition goes far beyond just the affected communities.
In the meantime, I continue to watch with bewilderment at how low Sabina has gotten. Have we hit bottom? Who knows. What I do believe is that the only long-term risk for Sabina of a probability that is not negligible is if Back River and/or Hackett failed to get permitted. But the nature of these deposits is about as conducive to having a very high probability of approval as any deposit anywhere in the world- favorable political jurisdiction, high grade (low impact), desire of Canada to strengthen its economic and national security muscle by developing the arctic, etc.