RE:ValuationThey say timing is everything, and with the very real prospect of half the world’s copper mines inoperative by the end of the decade, whatever value one might place upon domestic intracontinental reserves would be laughably low. Before then we will see a growing awareness that mother nature is pissed, and showing it with prolonged drought ravishing farming populations, or floods that wash away the topsoil, leaving only sand behind. These events are happening now, in Asia, Afica, and in South America. Unprecedented freeze claims hundreds of thousands of farm animals in Central Asia, ruining many thousands of families, while making prices for replacement livestock out of the reach of many. But those are the lucky ones that live where food is still available, although availability is often determined by the money in your pocket.
When will the majors start to catch on? What will it take? The 2017 floods in Peru that causes extensive damage didn’t wake them up, and fifteen-hundred weather emergencies in that country this last year didn’t either. There was one, I swear, of a “hill collapse”. How that is different from a landslide, I don’t know.
All the scientists that matter agree, things will only get worse, not better. Good mine management has always considered the source of further reserves, that much is not new. What is new is the changing weather and how that might impact their operations.