Investing
What is a Mineral Resource Estimate and How is it Calculated?
Every headline resource figure in a mining press release — “2 million ounces of gold” or “500 million pounds of copper” — is the output of a specific technical process called mineral resource estimation. Understanding how that number is actually produced, and why it can change significantly between updates, is one of the more technical…
What is Flotation Processing in Mining?
Froth flotation is one of the most important and widely used technologies in the entire mining industry, and it is the primary reason modern copper, zinc, lead, and molybdenum mining is economically viable at all. Introduced more than a century ago and continuously refined ever since, flotation is the method that allows companies to profitably…
What is Zinc Used For and Where is it Mined?
Zinc rarely generates the same headlines as gold, copper, or lithium, but it is the world’s fourth most widely consumed base metal, quietly underpinning global construction and infrastructure through a single dominant application: protecting steel from rust. Understanding zinc’s supply and demand picture rounds out a complete view of the base metals landscape covered elsewhere…
What is Tungsten Used For and Why is it Strategic?
Tungsten is a small commodity by overall market size, but it has become one of the most closely watched critical minerals in global policy circles — described by one industry expert as “a strategic choke point in the critical minerals supply chain.” China’s export restrictions, imposed in stages since February 2025, sent prices up an…
What is Silver Used For? Beyond Jewelry and Coins
Silver has a dual identity that makes it fundamentally different from gold as an investment: alongside its long history as a monetary and jewelry metal, silver is now, first and foremost, an industrial commodity. Industrial applications account for roughly 60% of total silver consumption, up from 50% just a decade ago, and this shift has…
What Are Flow-Through Shares and How Do They Work?
Scroll through almost any private placement announcement from a Canadian junior mining company and you will likely see a reference to “flow-through shares” or “FT Shares” alongside the standard hard-dollar units. This is a financing structure unique to Canada — one baked directly into the country’s tax law specifically to encourage investment in mineral exploration.…
What is a Feasibility Study in Mining?
Before any company breaks ground on a new mine, it must pass through a sequence of increasingly detailed and expensive economic studies designed to answer one fundamental question: will this project actually make money? These studies — the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS), and the Feasibility Study (FS) — appear constantly in…
What is Cobalt Used For and Where Does it Come From?
Cobalt is one of the most geographically concentrated commodities in the entire mining sector — a single country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, produces more than 70% of the world’s supply, giving Kinshasa a degree of market power over cobalt comparable to what OPEC has historically held over oil. Recent DRC policy decisions have sent…
What is Graphite Used For and Why is it a Critical Mineral?
Lithium gets its name attached to the batteries that power electric vehicles, but graphite quietly makes up a far larger share of every battery cell by weight. Despite being less discussed than lithium, cobalt, or nickel, graphite carries the highest supply-risk score of any battery mineral according to recent policy analysis — and China’s dominance…
What is a Gold Royalty Company and How Do They Work?
Not every way to invest in gold mining involves owning shares in a company that actually digs ore out of the ground. Gold royalty and streaming companies — a category that includes some of the largest and most consistently profitable names in the entire precious metals sector — offer investors exposure to gold price movements…
