2012 Mining Predictions

Any predictions for 2012 are premised on interpretation of the past and hope stemming from the present.  So let me try to set out my predictions for this coming year in mining.  We will look back at the end of the year and judge.  For now take what I write with a grain of salt, add your own pepper, and act according to your best judgement.

The easiest prediction to make regarding 2012 mining is that we will continue to be bombarded by facile articles telling us of the shortage of people to work in the mining industry.  My advise is to avoid these articles or at least ignore them.  There are plenty of people of skill out there just waiting for a chance to get into the mining industry.  At the very least, old men like me will continue to be available. At the best, all those whose industries will continue to decline are ready and willing if given the chance.

The next easiest prediction is that we will continue to be bombarded by articles about the price of gold.  It will go up; it will go down; it will remain steady.  Indian demand will fall as the price goes too high; substitutes will be used; governments will confiscate the stuff to settle debts; rich executives will buy in bulk and hoard it on their private vaults.   My prediction is that gold will hover where it is until the U.S. Presidential elections are over, and then fall once it is clear who will attempt to run the country for the next four years.

The price of oil and hence the value of our oil sands stock will stay around $100 a barrel, until it is clear whether or not we are going to bomb Iran for closing a strategic waterway.  I cannot believe that anybody will be foolish enough to let that happen, so I bet on oil at $110 by the end of the year.

There will be more spectacular mining accidents.  That is inevitable.  Let us hope they do not involve the massive failure of one of those large tailings impoundments being built in South America.  For that would put a damper on all mining.  Maybe ICMM should send a delegation to those large facilities to help keep the mining industry viable.

More governments will want to tax more and expropriate mining assets.  If the economy booms, the governments will get greedy for a bigger share.  If the economy tanks, the governments will see mining as a way to raise money.  Maybe the United Nations should set up a committee to preserve mining assets in vacillating countries.

Take-over bids will abound as will the continued penetration of the Chinese into world mining and mines.  Vale, Rio Tinto, and BHP will continue in the news as they lock out workers, promise miracles at Pebble and Potash, and seek to negotiate deals for diamonds.

The things we cannot predict that will affect mining include the name of the new Canadian NDP leader, the Iowa Republican presidential pick (I rather hope it is Ron Paul with whom one can agree fifty percent of the time and despair the rest), the Australian political and economic drift, and the fate of the Euro.  I suspect U.S. house prices will continue to fall and the economy to drift.  I cannot see how unemployment is going to be decreased to any substantial extent.  I fear the Chinese property bubble will burst.  And Iran will continue to make the atomic bomb.  Nothing in North Korea will happen that will affect mining.  Cuba may change, but nickel will still flow from it mines and prop up a basically crazy situation.

Conference will come and go and sanctimonious pronounce will be made in dull keynote speeches.  I suspect we will continue to see an increasing drift to easier availability of papers on the web, although I fear for those sites that charge for old papers.  There are always equivalents available at no cost.

So as the sun shines out there and my bike beckons, let me leave you with a request to comment below on your predictions for 2012 in mining.

And a final photo to remind you that predictions are a joke regardless of whether they are  up or down.