Behind Tin's 2026 Record High

In January 2026, the London Metal Exchange three-month tin contract closed at US$53,462 a tonne, a nominal all-time high that surpassed the March 2022 peak, and it has traded near those levels since. The puzzle is that there is no shortage of tin today: exchange inventories actually rose as the price climbed, rather than being drawn down. Two very different things are holding the price up. The first is short-term: a wave of investor buying, which the industry says drove the January jump. The second is long-term: on current forecasts, the world will not mine enough tin to meet demand later this decade, a gap already projected before the rally began and expected to persist after it fades. The lasting story is that forecast shortfall, not the spike.

September 8, 2026

1 min

The Age of Giants: How Mining Shovels Grew, Peaked, and Deliberately Shrank

For four decades, the American coalfields hosted an engineering arms race measured in cubic metres of bucket. It ended not with a bigger machine, but with a deliberate retreat. The single largest mobile land machine ever built, the Marion 6360 "Captain," was commissioned in 1965 and destroyed by fire in 1991. No shovel has approached its scale since, and the machines that replaced it were smaller by design.

August 12, 2026

1 min

Where Indium Goes: The Metal Behind Screens, Chips, and Solar

Indium is one of the metals you never see but use constantly. As indium tin oxide, it forms the transparent conductive coating on nearly every LCD and touchscreen, and that single application still accounts for most global consumption, according to the USGS. But the metal's role is broadening. Its compounds now sit inside the high-speed optical chips that route data through AI data centers, a shift that has turned a quiet, display-driven material into one buyers watch closely, especially as China refines about 70% of it and has begun tightening the flow.

August 11, 2026

1 min

Rare Earths and the F-35: The Defense Supply-Chain Bottleneck Behind America's Most Advanced Fighter Jet

In September 2022, the Pentagon quietly stopped taking delivery of new F-35 fighter jets. The reason was not a design flaw or a manufacturing defect. A single small magnet inside the plane's engine had been made using an alloy from China, which is banned under U.S. defense procurement law.

August 6, 2026

2 min

Apple Outweighs Every Listed Miner on Earth, and It Is Not Even the Biggest Company

One consumer-electronics company is now worth more than every publicly traded mining company on Earth combined. The graphic above captures the June 5 snapshot, when the 317 publicly traded miners tracked by CompaniesMarketCap were worth about $3.48 trillion

July 13, 2026

1 min

Three Weeks Public, SpaceX Already Approaches the Value of Every Listed Miner on Earth

For 24 years SpaceX stayed private. Then, on June 12, 2026, it began trading on the Nasdaq in the largest IPO in history, priced at a $1.77 trillion valuation. Barely three weeks later the rocket and satellite maker is worth even more. As of early July, SpaceX carried a market capitalization of about $2.1 trillion, the seventh-highest of any public company on Earth, and it joins the Nasdaq-100 on July 7

July 7, 2026

1 min

Mapped: Zinc's Use Across Five Industries and the 2030 Demand Outlook

We've covered zinc's role in energy, health, and sustainability before, alongside the supply base concentrated in a handful of mega-mines and the production map that has shifted toward Asia since the mid-1990s. The story of 2025 is what changed on the demand side. In November, the U.S. Geological Survey retained zinc on its final 2025 List of Critical Minerals.

June 9, 2026

2 min

Lithium Use Cases: Batteries Now Consume 88% of Global Supply

In February 2026, the U.S. Geological Survey put a fresh number on a transformation that has been building for a decade: batteries now account for 88% of global lithium end-use, up from 87% a year earlier. The metal that once quietly toughened ceramics and thickened industrial greases has been almost entirely repurposed by the battery economy. As covered in our reporting on the shift from surplus to deficit, the supply side of this story is tightening.

May 28, 2026

1 min

Sort First, Grind Later: The sensor technology reshaping polymetallic processing

Sensor-based sorting lets miners reject barren rock before it's ever crushed, saving energy, water, and tailings volume at industrial scale. Polymetallic deposits, the orebodies that carry multiple economically valuable metals in a single rock, present a distinctive processing challenge: the valuable minerals are locked together with each other and with vast volumes of barren rock, demanding both heavy grinding and complex multi-stage separation.

May 25, 2026

2 min

CATL's 6-Minute Charge Closes the Gap with Gas — Without Cobalt or Nickel

On April 21, 2026, at its "Beyond the Pole" Tech Day in Beijing, CATL unveiled the third generation of its Shenxing battery, claiming a 10%-to-98% charge in 6 minutes 27 seconds. The launch came six weeks after BYD unveiled its second-generation Blade Battery with a 10%-to-97% charge in around 9 minutes.

May 20, 2026

2 min

Helium: The Irreplaceable Element Caught in a Geopolitical Squeeze

The global helium market is currently buckling under an unprecedented crisis. Following recent geopolitical conflicts, a massive production halt at Qatar's LNG facilities has effectively removed roughly 30% of the world's helium supply from the market.

March 30, 2026

1 min

2025 Global Exploration Budget by Commodity

With gold prices smashing through $4,600 an ounce in early 2026 amidst escalating geopolitical tensions and relentless central bank buying, the global mining sector's exploration priorities have shifted decisively toward safe havens. According to the recently released World Exploration Trends 2026 report from S&P Global Market Intelligence, global nonferrous exploration budgets experienced a slight 0.6% year-over-year dip to $12.40 billion in 2025. However, this top-line number masks a dramatic rotation beneath the surface.

March 24, 2026

1 min

Lithium Market Balance: Visualizing the Shift from Surplus to Deficit by 2026

The global lithium market is undergoing a severe structural reversal. After a multi-year glut that crushed spot prices, the critical battery metal is careening toward a steep supply deficit by 2026. This shift isn't just a cyclical anomaly; it is a policy-driven correction. As Reuters recently reported in early 2026, an unprecedented energy storage boom is rapidly strengthening the demand outlook for the beaten-down metal.

March 23, 2026

2 min

Commodities

Behind Tin's 2026 Record High

The Age of Giants: How Mining Shovels Grew, Peaked, and Deliberately Shrank

Where Indium Goes: The Metal Behind Screens, Chips, and Solar

Rare Earths and the F-35: The Defense Supply-Chain Bottleneck Behind America's Most Advanced Fighter Jet

Apple Outweighs Every Listed Miner on Earth, and It Is Not Even the Biggest Company

Three Weeks Public, SpaceX Already Approaches the Value of Every Listed Miner on Earth

Mapped: Zinc's Use Across Five Industries and the 2030 Demand Outlook

Lithium Use Cases: Batteries Now Consume 88% of Global Supply

Sort First, Grind Later: The sensor technology reshaping polymetallic processing

CATL's 6-Minute Charge Closes the Gap with Gas — Without Cobalt or Nickel

Helium: The Irreplaceable Element Caught in a Geopolitical Squeeze

2025 Global Exploration Budget by Commodity

Lithium Market Balance: Visualizing the Shift from Surplus to Deficit by 2026