Reasons to smile. Workers at Amman Minerals Internasional’s Batu Hijau copper gold mine. Image: Amman Minerals
Iron ore, where the top diversified mining companies dig for most of their profits, has also held up remarkably well trading at $120 a tonne this week, little changed from end-June. Just how bad sentiment is across the board is evident from the best performer list for Q3, which includes for the first time three counters which lost ground over the period. The first Indonesian company to make it into MINING.COM’s ranking of world’s 50 most valuable mining companies, Amman Minerals Internasional, has surged 213% in US dollar terms since its July debut in Jakarta to reach a market capitalisation just shy of 450 trillion rupiah or more than $28 billion.
Indonesia’s other major mining IPO, Harita Nickel, is on a different trajectory altogether. Listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange in April Pilbara Minerals, which unlike its peers is clinging onto year-to-date gains, joined the Top 50 last quarter and brought the number of companies based in the Western Australia capital to five, surpassing the tally of Vancouver, BC as the top home base in the ranking.
A significant portion of the WNA’s upward growth adjustments can be attributed to the accelerated adoption of Small Modular Reactors or SMRs as part of decarbonisation efforts for a range of industries from shipping to data centres with powering remote mine sites near the top of the list for SMR potential.Canada’s Cameco makes the best performer list over the three months again in Q3 after spending much of the post-Fukushima period in the wilderness.
Former PGM high flyers Impala Platinum and Sibanye Stillwater, both valued around the $4 billion mark today, have lost sight of the Top 50 altogether. Source: MINING.COM, Mining Intelligence, Morningstar, GoogleFinance, company reports. Trading data from primary-listed exchange at Sep 29-Oct 5, 2023 where applicable, currency cross-rates Oct 7, 2023. As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious.