Core Gold DMMIF

RE:RE:Rio Tinto Looks at Ecuador as OPEC Nation Seeks New Exports

[edx]

baystock1 wrote: The Ecuador minister is dreaming if he thinks Rio Tinto is coming to Ecuador anytime soon:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/anglo-american-shed-85-000-110932168.html

LONDON (AP) — Concerns over the global mining industry grew Tuesday after London-based Anglo American said it will shed 85,000 employees — or 63 percent of its workforce — in a radical restructuring meant to cope with tumbling commodity prices.

The global commodity rout both helps and hurts Ecuador. The way it helps Ecuador is it makes lower grade projects very unattractive. Companies are still depleting their reserves, so they still need new assets in the pipeline. Except now they're not looking at the 1 g/t gold projects in safe jurisdictions anymore. They need high quality, high grade assets. In traditionally "safe" jusdictions, those no longer exist.

It hurts Ecuador because of the general negative sentiment to spending as well as the stressed balance sheets. Depending on what happens with FDN, I could see some majors picking up some prospective properties and investing a bit of change into them. 

If Ecuador wants near-term benefit from mining then yeah, they're probably out of luck except to do what they can to help existing producers *ahem* ramp up production.