The Top 50 most valuable mining companies added $80.2 billion in market capitalization over the three months to end September, thanks to surging gold and silver prices, iron ore prices firmly in triple digits, and a copper price flirting with two-year highs.
Mining’s majors looked poised to join the trillion dollar club at the outset of 2020, but the pandemic torpedoed the early stages of a cyclical upswing for the industry, delaying the milestone by nine months.
Measured from the height of the pandemic in March-April, the index has recovered by nearly $330 billion.
Primary gold producers and precious metals royalty companies now make up more than a third of the value of the top 50 and contributed $130 billion of the gains since the Q1 slump.
Nine out of ten of the best performers over the quarter are gold producers. No. 2 on the winners’ list is copper giant Freeport McMoRan, which, thanks to its Grasberg mine also ranks as one of the world’s largest gold producers…CLICK for complete article
