The link below is to a presentation from Lowell resources a listed LIC (LRT) focused on small resource companies chiefly exploration.
Slides 18 and later focus on the macro picture and are a very good summary - they focus more on copper and gold.
While all slides are are interesting those I found of most interest were slides 18 and 20 with slides 23 and 24 of interest to gold bugs.
The slides (not just 18 and 20) point to a possible big boom in miners especially select junior miners which have are will make major discoveries (slide 8 shows junior explorers were responsible for 60-70% of all Australian discoveries). IMO STM is one of those explorers.
It is important to note that the charts shown from slide 18 are sourced from various organisations ie Lowell did not do the analysis.
Slide 18 - is an analysis I have not seen before - it’s shows the level of capital expenditure in the old (ie commodities) vs new economy (ie tech) over the last 40 years - in 2001 cap ex for commodities was at an historical low vs a historical high for the new economy and in the following 10 years commodities outperformed the new economy shares by a huge amount as commodity cap ex increased by multiple times. In 2011 after a huge increase in commodity cap ex from 2011 they became a sell as the level of cap ex reduced from 2012.
slide 20 complements slide 18 and one I have not seen any analysis on - it shows that commodity capital ex is at a multi year low being a third of the level in 2012 (it is split by commodity - NI, CU, AU, Zn, etc). What is amazing is the extent to which cap ex needs to grow over the next few years to satisfy demand (ie for EVs and the new energy). In 2023 it needs to at least increase by 50% over 2022 (using the ETA a level) and more than 30% over 2021, in 2024 it needs to be double 2021 and be 2.5 times 2022 levels of cap ex. 2025 and 2026 are at similar levels to 2024 before required cap ex starts to fall.
The % increases in cap ex in the next few years are greater than the increases form 2001.
https://wcsecure.weblink.com.au/pdf/LRT/02568039.pdf
(20min delay)