Investors fail to jump on zinc bandwagon, page-2

Yes - I think the article highlights the main problem for Australian investors now, even now with the undeniable evidence of price recovery and demand > supply there is almost no bandwagon or way for them invest in Zinc as nearly everything except for RVR's Thalanga project is years or even decades away from production and often stranded under deep cover/deep rocks/inconveniently located away from roads rail and power and often don't have permits or granted mining leases or have marginally low grades plus the fact that we have lost all our major to mid sized Zinc miners to overseas interests, fallen into private ownership or have fallen down with the extended period of low prices.


RVR - plant being refurbed, drilling proving up more ore, seems closest to commercial production


then daylight to everyone else:


AMI - have existing polymetallic mine but small and high cost of mining, at least they are producing

MZN - their WA projects are ok but grades are a bit on the low side

IBG - with granted ML still subject to uncertainties of Chinese funding and years away from production

MCT - Admiral Bay incredibly deep and high initial expenditure to access the orebody

CZL - small but high grade deposit in Mexico - needs more work to get into production

PEX - some good results near Cobar NSW but probably years away from production

ENR - great ground but again years away from a producing mine


All the others - if you are prepared to wait for 5-15 years and expect that the Zn price and exchange rates and input costs are still permissive for the project are more "long term" investments and many will miss the next price cycle opportunity. Many of these juniors are also tied up with other weird specialty flavour of the month metals such as Lithium Cobolt or Uranium so there is the added complication of expenditure and work to develop these projects rather than the Zinc part of the business.


Of course the production from Glencore, Teck, Vedanta, MMG and Boliden all have exposure to higher Zn prices but a bit more difficult for Australian investors to get into.