The decline of India’s crude oil imports from Russia could be only temporary as Russia plans to boost supply and evade Western sanctions, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday as India prepares to welcome Vladimir Putin on an official visit later this week.
“There can be, for a very brief period of time, insignificant decreases in the volume of oil trade,” Peskov told Indian reporters today, ahead of Putin’s visit to India that begins on Thursday.
Before the latest sanctions on Russian oil trade, India bought from Russia around one-third of all the crude it imported, as it sought cheaper oil.
Amid tense trade negotiations with the United States, India earlier this year was singled out by U.S. President Donald Trump as the main financier of the Kremlin’s oil revenues. At the time, India remained adamant that it would buy the cheapest oil available regardless if it comes from Russia or elsewhere.
However, the U.S. sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil upended all previous plans by Indian refiners, who hastened to withdraw from the spot market for Russian crude in December.
All but two Indian refiners have skipped placing orders for Russian crude for December, apparently not willing to test how serious the U.S. Treasury would be with potential secondary sanctions.
Earlier this week, a former foreign minister in New Delhi told local media that India could reduce its imports of Russian crude oil by 50%, noting that both India and Russia would nevertheless look for ways to go around U.S. sanctions to keep some oil flowing.
“We will be gradually reducing oil purchases from Russia…Already there is a reduction, and there’ll be more reduction. It will be more like a 50 per cent reduction. But some oil will still come,” Kanwal Sibal said, as quoted by Business Today.
Russia’s Peskov claimed today Russia manages to find ways to prevent the decline of its oil trade volume amid the sanctions against its energy sector.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
Europe is paying the price for misguided energy policymaking, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) told Euractiv in an interview in Brussels just hours after the EU finally agreed to ban all imports of Russian gas.
From 30 September, Moscow gas flows will be turned off step-wise, ending a six-decade trade relationship that saw the EU slip “into a very bad situation” as Fatih Birol, who heads the Paris-based intergovernmental agency, put it.
“Europe made three major historical mistakes that prepared the framework conditions we were in as of February 2022,” the Turkish economist said, referring to the month when the Kremlin launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Overreliance on a single country for energy … turning its back on nuclear power … dropping the ball on solar PV manufacturing,” Birol said, listing what he saw as strategic mistakes by European leaders.
All three have a common denominator: Germany. The the EU’s biggest consumer of Russian gas, which concluded its decade-long nuclear phase-out at the peak of the energy crisis – contrary to Birol’s advice – and once hosted numerous producers of solar panels.
“One of the weakest policy domains of Europe has been energy policy,” the IEA chief added. “It was lazy, too laid-back, and did not take into account energy security and affordability as much as it should have over previous decades.”
“We are paying for that now.”
https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-iea-chief-slams-europes-lazy-too-laid-back-energy-policy/
Zijin Mining Group Co.’s founder Chen Jinghe will step down as chairman after steering the company to the upper echelon of global metals miners following a decades-long run of growth.
The 68-year-old will become honorary chairman and senior consultant for the company after deciding to not accept nomination as a candidate for the board due to age and family reasons, according to an exchange filing on Saturday. The Fujian-based group didn’t name a successor.
Chen JinghePhotographer: Lam Yik/Bloomberg
Zijin’s market value ballooned to more than $100 billion this year for the first time, underpinned by surging prices for its key commodities, especially copper and gold. The company started with a small gold mine in China in the 1980s, and its value is now only surpassed by Rio Tinto Group and BHP Group.
Zijin’s competitiveness is “systematic and structural” and the company’s “successful growth story will continue,” Citigroup Inc. analysts including Jack Shang wrote in a note. The bank maintained the miner as a top pick, saying that its copper and lithium assets are undervalued.
A company with enduring success should transit from being “founder-driven” to “institution-driven,” and the management team is mature, making it the best time to transition to a new leadership, Chen said in the statement.
Zijin shares rose as much as 6.9% in Hong Kong on Monday alongside other producers of copper after the metal advanced to a record.
On the Wire
China’s manufacturing activity contracted in November, according to official and private surveys, as stronger demand overseas after a trade truce with the US failed to reverse a deepening slowdown in the economy.
China is seeking to establish an ecological policing mechanism by 2027 to crack down on ecological crimes, according to a government statement jointly issued by the Ministry of Public Security and other agencies.
Taiwan plans to buy its first weapons for a major air-defense system announced less than two months ago, underscoring Taipei’s urgency to get the program online as China escalates its military intimidation.
This Week’s Diary
(All times Beijing)
Monday, Dec. 1:
Tuesday, Dec. 2:
Wednesday, Dec. 3:
Thursday, Dec. 4:
Friday, Dec. 5:
Saturday, Dec. 6:
Sunday, Dec. 7:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zijin-founder-built-100-billion-035622296.html
People visit a section sponsored by Barrick Mining Corporation at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 7, 2023. (REUTERS/File)
BENGALURU: Barrick Mining said on Monday it was exploring an initial public offering of a subsidiary that would hold its North American gold assets amid a record rally in bullion prices.
US-listed shares of the Canadian miner rose 3.7 percent in premarket trading.
A split would reverse Barrick’s 2019 merger with Randgold Resources, and comes as investors pressure the miner to use a historic rally in gold prices to boost returns, while shedding riskier assets in Africa, Papa New Guinea and Pakistan’s Reko Diq.
Gold has hit record highs this year on expectations of lower interest rates and safe-haven flows.
The new entity would comprise of Barrick’s joint venture interests in Nevada Gold Mines (NGM) and Pueblo Viejo in Dominican Republic, and the Fourmile gold discovery.
Barrick jointly owns NGM, the world’s largest gold-producing complex, with rival Newmont and is also looking to develop the Fourmile gold mine in Nevada.
“This plan essentially packages up the parts of Barrick the market is currently most excited about into a vehicle that is likely to become an acquisition target for Newmont,” said Shane Nagle, an analyst at National Bank of Canada Financial Markets.
The Canadian miner said it plans to offer a small minority interest, while retaining a significant controlling majority interest.
The company was considering splitting into Africa-and-North America-focused entities, Reuters reported last month citing sources.
Barrick said it would provide an update on the IPO evaluation in February.
The company has had a volatile year, marked by a long-drawn dispute over its gold mine in Mali, which led to a $1 billion write-off of the asset, and the sudden exit of Mark Bristow as its CEO.
Last month, Barrick reached an agreement with Mali’s government to resolve all their disputes over the Loulo-Gounkoto gold mining complex after two years of negotiations.
Besides Nevada and Mali, its working facilities include copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, gold in Tanzania, the Dominican Republic, and Papua New Guinea.
The prospect of interest rate cuts by the US central bank Fed and a tighter physical supply situation are currently providing tailwinds for gold and silver. A recent market report from the precious metals firm Heraeus demonstrates how significantly the prices of both precious metals are influenced by shifting interest rate expectations and dwindling inventories.
Gold in Focus of Fed Interest Rate Expectations
The market-implied probability of an interest rate cut at the Fed meeting on December 10 has significantly increased over the past two weeks. This is driven by statements from individual central bank representatives regarding potentially lower interest rates, as well as weaker sentiment data, even though employment and inflation have not yet signaled clear pressure for action.
Heraeus notes that the upper bound of the Fed’s interest rate range is currently only about 50 basis points above the yield of two-year US Treasury bonds. Consequently, many market participants see scope for an initial rate cut. In this environment, the gold price climbed last week above the $4,200 per ounce mark, which had been considered resistance at the beginning of November. Gold has remained above this level at the start of the week; the spot price was recently around $4,214 per ounce.
Silver: Inventories Decline, Prices Rise
Silver is also benefiting from the improved sentiment in the precious metals sector, but is increasingly driven by physical scarcity. According to Heraeus, inventories at the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) have fallen to approximately 559 tonnes, shrinking by 61% since the beginning of the year. Since early October, around 644 tonnes of silver have been withdrawn.
This has resulted in a backwardation of the silver curve in China: spot prices are now above later delivery dates, a typical signal of scarce available supply in the spot market. Concurrently, inventories at the US futures exchange COMEX have decreased to an eight-month low of approximately 457 million ounces, about 14% below the record level of 532 million ounces in October.
ETF Inflows Reinforce Silver Trend
Silver receives additional impetus from robust ETF inflows. Last week, according to Heraeus, silver ETFs registered purchases totaling 9.5 million ounces, with 7.5 million ounces occurring on a single day – marking the highest daily inflow since 2021. This brings the net inflow for November to 16 million ounces, more than offsetting the 13 million ounces of outflows recorded in October.
Silver retreated from a record high, with a key technical indicator showing that a six-day rally has taken the white metal into overbought territory. Gold also edged down.
Silver traded at around $57.45 an ounce, more than a dollar below the all-time peak reached in the previous session. Traders have been betting on continued supply tightness and expectations for another interest-rate cut in the US, a tailwind for non-yielding precious metals.
The 14-day relative strength index, however, shows that this recent speculative fervor may have gone too far, too fast. A reading of above 70 shows that the momentum is overheated.
“We have now moved on beyond rational momentum,” Daniel Ghali, senior commodity strategist at TD Securities, said in a note. “Demand expectations have declined across all categories, leaving investment demand as the primary driver today,” he said, citing weak physical trading in London’s over-the-counter market.
The rally in silver – which rose more than 8% over the previous two sessions – has been fueled by bets on prolonged supply tightness. Since record amounts of the metal flowed into London to ease a historic squeeze in October, other trading hubs have come under pressure. Inventories linked to Shanghai Futures Exchange’s warehouses recently hit their lowest in a decade.
Silver and gold have also been supported by rising expectations that the Federal Reserve will deliver another interest-rate cut next week. Markets have priced in a near-certainty of a quarter-point reduction at the Fed’s final meeting of the year.
Silver fell 1% to $57.4245 an ounce as of 8:28 a.m. in Singapore. Gold edged down 0.2%. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was up marginally, while palladium and platinum traded lower.
(By Yihui Xie)
https://www.mining.com/web/silver-retreats-from-record-high-on-concerns-of-overheating/
An update from Ivanhoe Mines (TSE:IVN) is now available.
Ivanhoe Mines has commenced the heat-up of Africa’s largest and greenest copper smelter at its Kamoa-Kakula site, marking a significant milestone for the company and the Congolese mining industry. The smelter, which is expected to begin processing concentrate by the end of the year, represents a transformative step in sustainable copper production, with implications for the local community and the broader African continent.
The most recent analyst rating on (TSE:IVN) stock is a Buy with a C$23.00 price target.
Spark’s Take on TSE:IVN Stock
According to Spark, TipRanks’ AI Analyst, TSE:IVN is a Neutral.
Ivanhoe Mines demonstrates strong operational performance with significant revenue and production growth, supported by strategic expansions and a robust balance sheet. However, challenges such as negative cash flow and high P/E ratio pose significant risks. Technical indicators signal a bearish trend, tempering short-term optimism. Positive earnings call insights and corporate events provide balance, but caution is advised due to financial and regional risks.
More about Ivanhoe Mines
Ivanhoe Mines is a mining company operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, focusing on the production of copper. The company is known for its Kamoa-Kakula project, which is a significant player in the Congolese mining industry, emphasizing clean and sustainable copper production.
YTD Price Performance: -15.15%
Average Trading Volume: 3,852,628
Technical Sentiment Signal: Buy
Current Market Cap: C$20.75B
Glencore’s ferrochrome unit in South Africa will idle two plants and cut jobs because of soaring electricity prices, the latest blow to the country’s declining smelting industry.
The Swiss commodity trader’s joint venture with Merafe Resources issued retrenchment notices and voluntary severance packages to employees effective Monday, it said in a statement.
The company also announced it will mothball the Boshoek and Wonderkop smelters — where operations were suspended earlier this year — from the start of 2026.
South Africa is the world’s largest producer of chrome ore — a key ingredient in stainless steel — but its processing industry has been hammered in recent years by skyrocketing electricity prices and fierce competition from China, the top ferrochrome supplier.
Glencore-Merafe has held talks with state-owned Eskom about power tariffs, but the utility’s proposal only supports continued operations at the more modern Lion smelter, the joint venture said. That would leave just one of the venture’s five smelting complexes running.
Approval of the notices and severance packages is conditional for one week. “In the absence of a viable solution from the South African government” within that period, they will become binding from 9 December, the company said. Glencore-Merafe didn’t say how many jobs may be affected, but it employs nearly 3,000 people in the smelting business.
The country’s other major ferrochrome producer — Samancor Chrome — said in late November that it may cut almost 2,500 jobs as it considers closing or scaling down operations because of high energy costs, according to labor union Solidarity, citing the company.
The South African government has acknowledged the pressures on ferrochrome smelters. The cabinet approved a plan in June to support the industry by negotiating revised electricity tariffs and introducing potential controls and taxes on chrome-ore exports. Those reforms have yet to be finalized.
On Monday, lobby groups representing South Africa’s mining and smelting sectors jointly rejected the need for export taxes or restrictions.
Instead, they urged the government to prioritize “globally competitive electricity prices as the primary intervention required to restart idled smelters.”
https://dailyinvestor.com/mining/113194/another-jobs-bloodbath-for-south-africa/
Eight Nations, Including Korea and Japan, Join U.S. Initiative
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an AI-related executive order after signing it at the AI Competition Victory Summit on July 23 (local time). Reuters
The United States has decided to strengthen supply chains for semiconductors and critical minerals needed for artificial intelligence (AI) technology with eight countries, including Korea and Japan. This is to increase the density of cooperation with allies and friendly countries, as China is excluded from the supply chains.
Jacob Helberg, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment, revealed this in an interview with Bloomberg on Dec. 2 (local time).
The United States plans to reduce dependence on China, and the first meeting will be held at the White House on Dec. 12 with officials from Korea, Japan, Singapore, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Israel, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Australia.
Under Secretary Helberg said the meeting will focus on reaching agreements in various fields including energy, critical minerals, advanced semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics transportation.
He said, “Currently, the AI market is a bipolar structure between the United States and China,” adding, “We want to maintain stable relations with China, but we are also prepared to compete. We want our companies to continue developing innovative technologies without suffering from coercive dependence.”
The U.S. administration has been working for years to reduce dependence on China and build critical mineral supply chains.
The first Trump administration launched the Energy Resource Governance Initiative to secure supply chains for critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt. The former Biden government created the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) to attract foreign investment and Western expertise in developing country minerals.
However, China still virtually monopolizes the global rare earth supply, and announced rare earth export control measures in October during the trade war phase with the United States. The two countries agreed to a one-year grace period at the summit held in Gyeongju at the end of October.
Helberg emphasized that the current administration’s initiative differs from previous government plans in that it focuses on all technologies and mineral-producing countries related to AI.
He also explained that cooperating with trusted allies for the AI initiative is not a response to China but a U.S.-centered strategy.
“Participating countries already understand the transformative impact of AI on both national economic scale and military power,” he said, adding, “They want to be part of the ‘AI boom.’”
In a cable sent to State Department staff on the same day, Helberg also emphasized, “After the failure of globalization that for decades neither supported domestic industry nor preserved key supply chains, the United States must utilize enormous wealth and technological advantage to secure leadership.”
He said he is working to rebuild the U.S. industrial economy through the construction of new factories and manufacturing, and to help stabilize conflict zones and end wars using economic means.
Helberg, 36 years old this year, served as senior advisor to Alex Karp, CEO of AI-based data analytics software company Palantir, and is close to Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel.
He is grouped with these two people and David Sacks, who currently serves as the czar of AI and cryptocurrency policy at the White House, as part of Silicon Valley’s right-wing technology expert group.
Helberg also co-founded the Hill and Valley Forum, a gathering of technology leaders and U.S. lawmakers on national security issues.
Staff Writer | December 2, 2025 | 3:16 pm Markets Asia China Europe Tin
In its latest market report, Fitch Solutions’ BMI has raised its tin price forecast for 2026 to $35,000 a tonne from $32,000 previously, as continued supply issues keep markets on edge in the face of steady demand from the semiconductor industry.
Supply is dominated by Indonesia, where production and exports are being affected by delays in approving annual work permits. The Southeast Asian nation has long been the world’s largest exporter and the flow of metal to world markets has been interrupted several times in the past when the government tightened production and export rules.
Tin’s supply chain is not just beholden to Indonesia’s resource nationalism but also to that of the Wa State in Myanmar. In July, the International Tin Association announced that shipments from Wa State will resume in the coming months, as several operators at Man Maw — the region’s major tin mine that is currently undergoing a controlled restart — have reportedly secured three-year mining permits.
With no further update at the time of BMI’s report in late November, Fitch analysts have adopted a “wait and see approach”, as news of a resumption of tin mining in Wa State have circulated markets for months without actually materializing.
Historically, Myanmar is the world’s third largest tin producer, and, according to USGS data. It is estimated to have the third largest reserves in the world, at 700,000 tonnes or 15% of total global reserves, after China and Indonesia (800,000 and 720,000 tonnes respectively).
Supply & demand
Three-month futures prices on the LME were hovering around $36,787/t on November 14, and BMI expects prices to remain supported by continued supply issues in the face of steady demand from the semiconductor industry.
China’s tin smelter production remains constrained by the lack of sufficient concentrates, while the resilience in economic activity amid easing trade tensions have boosted demand from the semiconductor industry, analysts note.
On the supply side, a thin pipeline of mining projects will tighten the tin concentrate market, leading to increased competition among smelters and constrained ore feed for refined output growth, BMI forecasts.
On the demand side, the Fitch unit predicts that global use of tin will increase rapidly through the metal’s use in electronics (especially as electric vehicles increasingly contain greater amounts of electronics in their body) and solar panels (in photovoltaic cells), cementing tin’s status as a commodity of the future.
Ultimately, this will allow the market to tighten, and the firm expects a market deficit to tighten.
https://www.mining.com/tin-market-deficit-to-tighten-report/
The offer for the current week is $920 per short ton
American steel producer Nucor has raised its spot price for hot-rolled coil (HRC) for the sixth week in a row.
On December 1, the company announced a $5 per short ton increase in its weekly spot price for HRC, bringing it to $920/t. Thus, the total increase over six weeks amounted to $45/t.
At the same time, Nucor’s joint venture on the West Coast, California Steel Industries (CSI), increased its HRC price to $970/mt, which is $5/mt more than the previous week.
Spot order delivery times remain at 3-5 weeks, the company said.
As of November 25, the average price for hot-rolled coil in the United States, according to SMU estimates, was $870 per short ton FOB, an increase of $10/t from the previous week.
It should be recalled that since the beginning of November, the global hot-rolled coil market has shown a predominantly upward trend. The EU and the US saw price increases amid more stable demand and reduced supply, while China, on the contrary, remained under pressure from seasonal decline and competition in export markets.
As for Europe, prices in the region are expected to strengthen moderately by the end of the year, within the range of €10–20/t, mainly due to negotiations with the automotive industry and the gradual depletion of import stocks. However, without an improvement in final demand, no significant increase in HRC prices is forecast yet.
In the US, prices are likely to remain close to current levels until the end of 2025, fluctuating within the range of $10–20/t. Further dynamics will depend on whether producers manage to maintain supply discipline in early 2026.
https://gmk.center/en/news/nucor-raises-hot-rolled-coil-prices-for-sixth-consecutive-week/
