The gold market is on its quest to hit $3000 an ounce after making another record high price yesterday on top of that we’re starting to see huge demand for physical gold and reports that the Comex exchange is having to secure more supplies to satisfy massive gold deliveries on top of that the silver market seems to be finally breaking out as the gold silver ratio is starting to tried to correct its historic dislocation. And intestinal metals are starting to turn up with copper’s starting to look like it’s breaking up to the upside as the global trade war may have only lasted 24 hours. There is a growing sense that Chinese sanctions on US products will not have that much of an impact on the price of aluminum and other metals,the demand may exceed the supply and so China is going to probably import any metals they can get their hands on, and the users of metals may be happy to pay a little bit of a premium…The Gold Rush is on. Kitco News reported that “ After weeks of reports that London’s gold stocks are being withdrawn and moved to the United States, new reports indicate that the unprecedented flows of physical bullion may be a worldwide phenomenon. “Global bullion banks are flying gold into the United States from trading hubs catering to Asian consumers, including Dubai and Hong Kong, to capitalize on the unusually high premium that U.S. gold futures are enjoying over spot prices,” Reuters reporter Rajendra Jadhav wrote on Monday. Jadhav said that these bullion banks have traditionally facilitated the flow of gold Eastward to serve China and India, which accounts for nearly half of global gold consumption. “But alarm about U.S. import tariffs planned by President Donald Trump has driven Comex futures prices substantially above spot prices in recent months, creating a lucrative arbitrage opportunity,” he said. Reuters spoke with a Singapore-based precious metals dealer at a leading bullion supplying bank. “Gold prices are skyrocketing, and in Asia, demand has pretty much disappeared,” the dealer said. “Meanwhile, a sweet opportunity has popped up in the U.S., and naturally, almost every bank is jumping on it — moving gold over for Comex delivery to cash in on the arbitrage.” COMEX gold inventories have increased by nearly 80% – or 13.8 million troy ounces – since late November, representing over $38 billion at current prices, with supplies pouring in from London and Switzerland… and now Asian gold hubs.Copper is moving and believe it or not and Saudi Arabia.Semafor reported that Saudi Arabia’s state mining giant is ramping up its domestic search for copper — a key ingredient for the energy transition — soon after announcing plans to explore the country for lithium, the company’s chief executive told Semafor.Ma’aden, officially known as the Saudi Arabian Mining Co., plans to spend $2.5 billion a year for the next five to six years to expand its phosphate and gold mining operations and to develop new mines, but will pivot its metals exploration at home from gold to copper, spending 72% of its budget on copper, Bob Wilt said in an interview. “We’ve already got a huge exploration effort going on and we’re expanding it rapidly,” he said.Wilt described Ma’aden’s search for copper as “the world’s largest single-jurisdiction exploration program,” and said he was looking to partner with other firms to help the Saudi giant cover the “vast amount of real estate” required. Wilt’s remarks underscore Riyadh’s strategy of building up its mining sector across the value chain: Mining has taken on increased prominence as the kingdom has sought to diversify its economy away from oil, gas, and petrochemicals in the short term, while girding itself against the impact the global energy transition will have on its role as a fossil fuel powerhouse.Copper in particular is a necessary component of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electricity transmission cables, and Ma’aden’s focus on it — in tandem with its joint venture with state oil giant Aramco to mine for lithium — points to the country’s growing focus on the materials necessary for the transition. It’s not just the energy transition that will drive demand for copper: Morgan Stanley economists said in a report last week that copper and aluminum had shown the highest correlation with a basket of artificial intelligence-related stocks over the past two years, again driven by the increased electricity demands of AI. Alongside those domestic exploration efforts, another Ma’aden joint venture — Manara Minerals, founded in partnership with the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF — is looking abroad, with Wilt telling Reuters in October that the JV was in advanced discussions to buy a stake in a Zambian copper mine. Asked about that deal and others, Wilt said Manara was “still funneling ideas through for copper, lithium, iron ore.”As Saudi Arabia’s deputy mining minister told me a year ago: “To be an industrial [power], we need minerals. To build projects, we need minerals. Therefore, mining of Saudi Arabia [is] the first step, bringing minerals from outside is the second step, third step is to build Saudi Arabia as a hub.”Wilt said the company’s exploration partnerships would take a variety of forms, ranging from joint ventures of the type Ma’aden has already agreed with Aramco, as well as separate ones with Canadian miners Ivanhoe and Barrick Gold, to instances where it will contract with specialist providers or service companies. The examples hold parallels with how oil and gas companies approach major projects, in some cases partnering with firms regarded as rivals and in others signing deals with service companies such as Halliburton and Schlumberger. “I want to… get all the early-stage exploration done,” Wilt said, “and turn these projects and prospective regions into development a lot sooner. Our 2040 strategy is to grow the company 10 times, and we are well on pace for that. But I don’t want to wait until 2040 to get there. I want to accelerate that.” Though Saudi Arabia has huge ambitions for its mining sector — the kingdom claims to have around $2.5 trillion worth of extractable metals and minerals — investors are increasingly expressing skepticism, telling Bloomberg that they’d rather court Saudi cash than deploy their own capital into the country for now.More By This Author:Explosive Metals – Manic Metals ReportThe Silver Lining Playbook – Manic Metals ReportArtificial Copper – Manic Metals Report
