Gold bugs have been riding a scorching rally in 2025. With a gain of over 50%, gold is one of the best-performing assets year to date, buoyed by strong buying pressure from central banks and retail investors.
Gold shot up to a record high close to $4,400 an ounce last month before succumbing to profit taking. After spending time below the $4,000 level, expected US interest rate cuts and persistent fears about inflation saw bullion climb again this month.
With rising costs and lead times for new mines continuing to lengthen, many question whether gold companies can sufficiently increase production to meet the rising demand.
While some of the 20 largest properties ranked by measured and indicated gold resources face an uphill battle to go into production and many greenfield properties have been stalled for years, the pipeline of potential projects continues to swell as gold prices stay on the boil.
Climate talks turn to risks of extracting critical minerals
Nations are edging closer to sounding the alarm about the perils of extracting and processing critical minerals, as they seek to emphasize the transition away from fossil fuels shouldn’t be replaced by an adoption of dirty materials instead.
For the first time, countries have included language on critical minerals — and the risks associated with their extraction and processing — in a draft-decision text at the annual United Nations climate negotiations.
While there’s no guarantee the provision will be adopted when talks continue next week, the development underscores mounting concern about supply chains for copper, cobalt, nickel, lithium and other minerals that are essential ingredients in solar panels, batteries and other clean energy technology.
The issue is no longer a “side show,” said Melissa Marengo, senior policy officer at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, which focuses on the energy transition in the Global South.
Central to the climate talks in Belém, Brazil, is countries’ 2023 commitment to shift away from using oil, gas and coal. But the world needs to recognize the embrace of low- and zero-emission energy is driving demand for minerals, “and the way these are extracted so often creates impacts that are very expensive to remediate, if it’s even possible,” Marengo said.
Under the “just transition” draft language being considered by negotiators, countries would recognize “the social and environmental risks associated with scaling up supply chains for clean-energy technologies, including risks arising from the extraction and processing of critical minerals.”
BHP liable for 2015 Brazil dam collapse, UK court rules in mammoth lawsuit
Rupture of Samarco’s Fundao dam in 2015
BHP is liable for the 2015 collapse of a dam in southeastern Brazil, London’s High Court ruled on Friday, in a lawsuit the claimants’ lawyers previously valued at up to £36 billion ($48 billion).
Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians, dozens of local governments and around 2,000 businesses sued BHP over the collapse of the Fundao dam in Mariana, southeastern Brazil, which was owned and operated by BHP and Vale’s Samarco joint venture.
Brazil’s worst environmental disaster unleashed a wave of toxic sludge that killed 19 people, left thousands homeless, flooded forests and polluted the length of the Doce River.
A separate claim against Vale was filed in Dutch courts in 2024 on behalf of nearly 1,000 businesses and more than 77,000 individuals hit by the dam break.
Judge Finola O’Farrell said in her ruling that continuing to raise the height of the dam when it was not safe to do so was the “direct and immediate cause” of the dam’s collapse, meaning BHP was liable under Brazilian law.
BHP said it would appeal against the ruling and continue to fight the lawsuit.
BHP’s president of Minerals Americas Brandon Craig said in a statement that 240,000 claimants in the London lawsuit “have already been paid compensation in Brazil”.
Swiss gold refiners interested in setting up in US, says official
Swiss gold refiners are interested in setting up shop in the United States in the future, said a senior Swiss economic affairs official on Friday at a press conference after a tariff agreement was reached with Washington.
Switzerland exported nearly 53 billion Swiss francs’ ($66.83 billion) worth of gold to the United States in 2024, a major contributor towards the European country’s overall trade surplus of 39 billion francs with the US.
However, gold is not very profitable for Switzerland, with a “very, very small” margin of perhaps 1% or less, said Helene Budliger Artieda, director of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
“But I believe it’s important for them. For the US, it’s crucial to strengthen its gold market,” Budliger added.
The precious metal, which is imported to Switzerland from elsewhere and then resized for the US market, remains exempt from US tariffs.
The United States will reduce its tariffs on goods from Switzerland to 15% from a crippling 39% under a new framework trade agreement that includes a pledge by Swiss companies to invest $200 billion into the US by the end of 2028, the Swiss government said on Friday.
Around 30 people killed in Congo copper mine incident, officials say
Around 30 people were killed at a semi-industrial copper mine in southeastern Congo on Saturday after a bridge collapsed, the country’s artisanal mining agency said.
An agency official told Reuters there were 49 deaths and 20 people had been taken to hospital in a critical condition as a result of the incident, which occurred on Saturday at the Kalando mining site in Lualaba province.
Artisanal mining employs an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people in Congo and supports more than 10 million indirectly.
The collapse was “caused by panic, reportedly triggered by gunfire from military personnel securing the site,” said Congo’s Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Support and Guidance Service, known by its French acronym SAEMAPE.
Miners then “piled on top of each other, causing injuries and death”, SAEMAPE added in a statement on Sunday.
The Initiative for the Protection of Human Rights called for an independent investigation into the military’s role in the deaths, citing reports of clashes between miners and soldiers.
A military spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Roy Kaumba, the provincial interior minister, said in a televised statement that 32 people had been confirmed dead.
Zimbabwe’s exports of spodumene concentrate, a lithium-bearing mineral essential for battery production, jumped 27% in the nine months to September despite weak global lithium prices, official statistics showed.
Africa’s top lithium producer exported 1 million metric tons of spodumene concentrate between January and September, compared to 784,746 tons during the same period last year, according to statistics from the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) obtained by Reuters on Friday.
Prices for lithium — a key component in batteries powering renewable-energy technologies — remain well below their 2022 peaks due to oversupply. Spot prices for lithium carbonate recently slid to around $11,000 per ton, from highs near $70,000 per ton in early 2023.
“Despite the rise in tonnage, export value declined by 11%, from $432.4 million in 2024 to $386.9 million in 2025, largely due to lower international spodumene prices,” the MMCZ statement said.
Chinese firms in the lead
China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine, Chengxin Lithium Group, Yahua Group and the Tsingshan Group mine and produce lithium concentrates in Zimbabwe and export them to China.
According to the MMCZ, these firms have collectively invested more than $1.4 billion since 2021 to purchase and develop lithium assets in the country.
Zimbabwe will ban the export of lithium concentrates starting in 2027 to encourage more local processing.
