Will underground metal mining weather the under-investment storm?

By Gregory Rodwell | 26 July 2017


Despite fluctuations in the mining market over the past 12 years, the tonnage of ore and waste moved in underground mining operations has changed relatively little. This has provided certainty to underground suppliers generally, and to equipment manufacturers in particular. In recent years, however, severe cuts in development capital expenditure and a limited project pipeline has threatened the underground tonnage likely to be moved beyond 2020.

Since 2005, the amount of material moved from underground base and precious metals mines has grown steadily, averaging a compound annual growth rate of 1.2% in the 11 years to 2016. This suggests that the decline in most commodity prices over the past five years has had very little effect on the reality of underground mining.

S&P Global Market Intelligence expects an important increase in underground tonnage over the next two years. Detailed Mine Economics operating-cost models for 280 underground base and precious metal mines — fully underground or surface/underground operations — in the SNL Metals & Mining database indicate that underground tonnage moved will experience a significant increase in 2017 and 2018.

To gain essential insight into the future trends of underground mining, download the full report.

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