AISC
A way of adding up almost everything it costs to produce one unit of a metal — not just the day-to-day running costs but also the spending needed to keep the mine going into the future.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: All-In Sustaining Cost is a metric developed to give a fuller picture of the cash cost of production than simple cash-cost or C1-cost figures. It adds sustaining capital expenditure, corporate general and administrative costs, and often reclamation accruals to the direct operating cost, but excludes expansion capital and financing costs. AISC is most widely used in gold and silver reporting, where it was formalised by the World Gold Council, though the precise scope of inclusions varies between companies, which limits strict cross-company comparison.
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JORC
A set of rules used mainly in Australia that tells mining companies how they must measure and report what minerals they have found.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: The JORC Code (Joint Ore Reserves Committee Code) is the Australasian standard for public reporting of exploration results, mineral resources and ore reserves. It is a principles-based code requiring that all public statements be based on work done by or under the supervision of a qualified person. JORC is the mandatory reporting framework for companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and several other regional exchanges, and its resource and reserve categories are broadly equivalent to, though not identical with, those defined under NI 43-101 and other international codes.
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NI 43-101
A Canadian rulebook that sets out exactly how mining companies must tell the public what they have found in the ground.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: National Instrument 43-101 is a Canadian securities regulation that governs the disclosure of scientific and technical information about mineral projects to the public. It requires all technical disclosures to be prepared by or under the supervision of a qualified person as defined in the instrument, and it mandates specific report formats for resource and reserve estimates. Companies listed on Canadian exchanges must comply with NI 43-101; its definitions of resource and reserve categories are aligned in structure with JORC and the CRIRSCO family of codes, though procedural and disclosure requirements differ in detail.
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PEA
An early, rough-and-ready estimate of whether a mineral project might be worth developing, before anyone has done the detailed engineering work.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A Preliminary Economic Assessment is a study that includes an initial assessment of the potential viability of a mineral deposit, typically completed at an order-of-magnitude level of cost accuracy and before a pre-feasibility study. Uniquely among the study levels, a PEA is permitted under most reporting codes to incorporate inferred resources in its economic analysis, provided appropriate caveats are disclosed. Because of its lower engineering maturity and the inclusion of less-certain resource categories, a PEA cannot be used to support a reserve declaration or a production financing decision.
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apparent consumption
An estimate of how much of a material a country uses, calculated from production and trade figures rather than from measuring what each factory actually consumes.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: Apparent consumption is calculated as domestic primary production plus imports minus exports, with an adjustment for changes in reported inventory levels where such data are available. It is described as 'apparent' because it is derived from supply-side statistics rather than measured at the point of end use, meaning it includes any unrecorded stockbuilding or drawdown. Apparent consumption is the standard proxy for demand in national and global commodity balances and feeds directly into the calculation of net import reliance. It can diverge significantly from true consumption when stock changes are large, unreported, or estimated with low accuracy.
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assessed price
A price that a specialist reporting agency works out by collecting information about real deals and published offers, then publishing its best estimate of what the commodity is worth that day.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: An assessed price is produced by a price reporting agency (PRA) — such as Fastmarkets, Platts or Argus — using a defined methodology that aggregates transaction data, bids, offers and broker quotes over a fixed assessment window, typically the end of a trading day. Because many commodity markets are opaque and transactions infrequent, the assessment reflects the PRA's methodology as much as the raw market; different agencies applying different criteria to the same market can publish different numbers. Assessed prices are routinely embedded in physical supply contracts as the pricing reference, which makes the methodology and its governance commercially significant. They are distinct from exchange-settled prices, which derive from standardised, centrally cleared contracts.
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benchmark price
A price that big buyers and sellers agree on — often once a year — which then sets the standard that smaller deals in that market copy.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A benchmark price is a reference price negotiated between major producers and consumers, historically in annual or quarterly contracts, against which other transactions in the same commodity are priced, often with a small adjustment for grade or location. It is most associated with iron ore and metallurgical coal, where a handful of large counterparties once set annual prices that the rest of the market adopted. The benchmark system has largely given way to index-linked pricing in iron ore, but the term persists and is sometimes loosely applied to any widely followed reference price, which can cause confusion with assessed or exchange-settled prices.
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beneficiation requirement
A government rule that says a country must do some processing on its own raw materials before sending them out — so that more of the value-adding work stays at home.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A policy instrument that obliges producers to carry out a defined level of mineral processing within the producing country before export is permitted. The threshold may be expressed in terms of minimum product grade, processing stage (concentrate, smelted metal, refined product) or value added. Beneficiation requirements are often confused with export controls, but the distinction matters: an export control restricts or bans the movement of a product, while a beneficiation requirement conditions export on the product first reaching a specified state of transformation.
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capex
The large, upfront sums of money spent to build a mine or processing plant before it starts producing anything.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: Capital expenditure, universally abbreviated to capex in the mining industry, refers to spending on physical assets required to bring a project into production or to sustain and expand an existing operation. In project evaluation it is divided into initial capex, covering construction to first production, and sustaining capex, covering ongoing asset replacement and expansion over the mine life. The accuracy of capex estimates improves through the study hierarchy from PEA to feasibility study; overruns in capex relative to feasibility-study estimates are one of the most common causes of project economics deteriorating between sanction and commissioning.
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circularity
Designing systems so that materials keep being used again and again, rather than being thrown away after a single use — like a bottle that is refilled hundreds of times instead of discarded.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: An approach to material flows in which the useful life of materials is extended through reuse, remanufacturing and recycling, reducing dependence on primary extraction. In minerals and metals analysis, circularity is measured in terms of collection rates, recycling rates and the proportion of secondary material that re-enters productive use at equivalent quality to primary material. It is important to distinguish circularity from recycling alone: circularity is a broader concept that encompasses design for disassembly, product life extension and closed-loop industrial systems, of which recycling is one component.
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conflict mineral
A mineral that has been mined in a war zone and sold to help fund the fighting, in the same way that 'blood diamonds' became a well-known example.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A mineral extracted in a region of armed conflict where the proceeds of trade are reasonably understood to finance or benefit armed groups, whether state or non-state actors. The term carries a specific legal meaning under certain national legislations and due-diligence frameworks, which typically enumerate particular minerals and regions of concern rather than applying the category universally. It is important not to conflate the term with artisanal or small-scale mining in general, or with minerals produced in politically unstable regions that are not conflict-affected in the legal sense.
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cost curve
A chart that lines up all the world's mines for one commodity from cheapest to most expensive, so you can see which ones would shut down first if the price fell.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A cost curve ranks producing operations by their unit cost of production — typically C1 cash cost or AISC — plotted against their cumulative output, forming a step function that rises from left to right. The curve's shape reveals the industry's cost structure: a flat curve indicates producers are tightly clustered in cost, while a steep right-hand tail shows a small number of high-cost operations that are marginal at prevailing prices. The curve is widely used to assess where the price floor might settle in a downturn, on the assumption that producers to the right of the prevailing price are candidates for curtailment.
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demand destruction
When prices rise so high, or a material becomes so hard to get, that buyers permanently stop using it and find other ways to do without — the demand does not just pause, it disappears.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A sustained and typically irreversible reduction in demand for a material resulting from price levels or supply constraints that have induced permanent changes in technology, behaviour or product design. Demand destruction differs from demand suppression, which is a temporary fall in consumption that reverses when conditions normalise; destruction implies that consumers have switched technologies or production processes in ways that do not simply unwind when prices ease. The concept is particularly relevant in minerals markets where prolonged price spikes can accelerate substitution or efficiency improvements that structurally lower the material intensity of key end uses.
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due diligence
Checking carefully where a material came from and whether anything harmful happened along the way before it reached you — like inspecting something thoroughly before you accept it.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A structured process by which a company identifies, assesses and addresses actual or potential risks in its mineral supply chain, including risks relating to conflict financing, human rights abuses, environmental violations and sanctions exposure. In the minerals context, due diligence frameworks — such as those published by the OECD — specify documentation, traceability and audit requirements at each stage of the chain from mine to market. Due diligence describes the process of investigation and risk management, and should not be treated as equivalent to certification, which is the outcome that third-party audit programmes may confer once due diligence has been satisfactorily completed.
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export control
A rule that says a country must give permission before certain materials or products can be sent abroad, like a gate that only opens with the right key.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A government-imposed restriction on the export of specified goods, technologies or materials, typically administered through licensing requirements. In minerals supply chains, export controls are applied to raw ores, concentrates or refined products that a producing country wishes to retain for domestic processing or to limit access by foreign parties. They are distinct from export taxes, which permit trade but impose a cost, whereas export controls can prohibit trade outright or subject it to case-by-case approval.
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feasibility study
A detailed report that works out whether a mine can actually be built and make money, covering engineering, costs and environmental factors.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A feasibility study is a comprehensive technical and economic assessment of a mineral project at a level of detail sufficient to support a production decision and project financing. It applies modifying factors to resource estimates to produce reserve figures, and is expected to achieve a defined level of accuracy in capital and operating cost estimates. It sits above a pre-feasibility study in the hierarchy of studies and is distinguished from a preliminary economic assessment, which is permitted to include inferred resources and carries a lower standard of engineering rigour.
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indicated resource
A part of a deposit that geologists have a reasonable but not complete picture of, based on samples that are spread a bit further apart.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: An indicated resource is one for which quantity, grade or quality, densities, shape and physical characteristics can be estimated with sufficient confidence to allow a mine plan to be applied and for assumptions about technical and economic parameters to be made. Sample spacing is wider than for a measured resource, and geological continuity is assumed but not fully demonstrated. An indicated resource can support a pre-feasibility study and may convert to a probable reserve; it cannot directly support a proven reserve.
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inferred resource
A rough estimate of ore that might be in the ground, based on limited information and a lot of geological guesswork.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: An inferred resource is one for which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of limited geological evidence and sampling, sufficient only to imply but not verify geological and grade continuity. The level of confidence is too low to apply many technical or economic parameters with reliability. Inferred resources cannot be converted directly to reserves and are excluded from economic analysis in feasibility studies; they are sometimes included in scoping or preliminary economic assessments with explicit caveats.
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material intensity
How much of a particular material is needed to make one unit of something — for example, how many kilograms of copper go into one electric car.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: The quantity of a given material consumed per unit of output, product or economic activity, typically expressed in mass per unit (tonnes per megawatt of generating capacity, grams per vehicle and similar measures). Material intensity is used to link demand forecasts for end products to derived demand for the underlying mineral. It is distinct from material efficiency, which describes how much of the input material is successfully incorporated into the final product rather than lost as process waste; high material intensity and low material efficiency can coexist in the same production system.
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measured resource
The part of a deposit that geologists know about in the greatest detail, based on closely spaced samples and tests.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A measured resource is one for which quantity, grade or quality, densities, shape and physical characteristics are estimated with a high level of confidence, derived from closely spaced sampling and detailed geological interpretation. It is the highest-confidence category within the resource classification and is the only category that can convert to a proven reserve once economic and technical criteria are met. It is sometimes confused with a proven reserve, but until a feasibility study confirms economic viability the material remains a resource, not a reserve.
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net import reliance
A measure of how much of a country's supply of a material has to come from other countries because it does not produce enough at home to meet its own needs.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: Net import reliance (NIR) expresses a country's dependence on foreign sources for a commodity as imports minus exports, adjusted for changes in government and industry stock levels, divided by apparent consumption — typically reported as a percentage. A positive NIR indicates net import dependence; a value at or near the full percentage indicates the country produces virtually none domestically. The measure is used in supply-risk assessments to identify materials where a disruption to international trade flows would constrain domestic consumption. It is a structural indicator and does not distinguish between supply from allied and non-allied trading partners, which limits its use as a standalone risk metric.
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offtake agreement
A long-term promise by a buyer to purchase a set amount of a material from a mine or plant, often signed before the mine is even built, to give the producer confidence it will have a customer.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: An offtake agreement is a commercial contract in which a buyer commits to purchase a defined volume or share of a project's output over a specified period, typically at a price linked to a market reference at the time of delivery rather than fixed in advance. Such agreements are commonly used to underpin project financing, since the guaranteed revenue stream reduces lender risk. Key variables include the volume commitment (which may be a floor, a ceiling or a percentage of production), the pricing formula, the treatment and refining charges deducted for concentrates, and the conditions under which either party may terminate or renegotiate.
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opex
The money a mine or factory spends to keep running day to day — wages, fuel, chemicals and so on — as opposed to the big one-off costs of building it in the first place.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: Operating expenditure covers all costs incurred in the ongoing production process: labour, energy, reagents, maintenance consumables and site-level administration. It is distinguished from capital expenditure (capex), which funds assets with a working life extending beyond the accounting period. In mine-cost analysis, opex is often expressed per unit of output — per tonne milled or per pound of metal produced — making it the primary basis for comparing operational efficiency across sites.
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probable reserve
Ore that experts are fairly sure can be mined at a profit, though with a little less certainty than a proven reserve.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A probable reserve is derived from at least an indicated resource, with modifying factors applied and economic viability demonstrated through a pre-feasibility or feasibility study, but with somewhat less geological or technical certainty than a proven reserve. In practice, probable reserves often constitute the majority of a mine's declared reserves. The distinction from proven reserves matters in financing and reporting contexts, where lenders or regulators may weight the two categories differently.
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proven reserve
The most certain kind of minable ore: engineers have checked it very carefully and are confident it can be dug up and sold at a profit.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A proven reserve is the highest-confidence category of mineral reserve, derived from a measured resource after the application of modifying factors—including mining, metallurgical, economic, marketing, legal, environmental, social and governmental considerations—demonstrated through a feasibility study. Because it requires both high geological confidence and demonstrated economic viability, the proven category is typically smaller in tonnage than probable or inferred categories. It is the figure most directly relevant to mine life and financing decisions.
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reserves
The part of a mineral deposit that a mining company has confirmed it can dig up and sell at a profit, given today's technology and prices.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: Reserves are that portion of a mineral resource for which sufficient study has been completed to demonstrate that extraction is technically feasible and economically viable under stated assumptions. The category sits beneath resources in the classification hierarchy and requires a completed feasibility or pre-feasibility study to support it; a resource does not become a reserve simply by being well-drilled.
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resource nationalism
When a country's government decides it wants more control or a bigger share of the profits from the minerals found within its borders, sometimes taking over mines or changing the rules that foreign companies operate under.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: Resource nationalism describes a range of government actions through which a state asserts greater control over mineral resources or appropriates a larger share of the economic rents from their extraction. Measures include increased royalty or tax rates, mandatory local ownership or processing requirements, export restrictions on unprocessed ore, renegotiation or cancellation of existing concession agreements, and full or partial nationalisation. The term covers a spectrum of interventions rather than a single policy type, and its application to any specific government action often reflects the perspective of the party describing it. In supply-chain analysis it is treated as a category of political risk that can affect the availability and cost of supply from a given jurisdiction.
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resources
A mineral deposit that geologists have found and measured, but where no one has yet proved it can be mined at a profit.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A mineral resource is a concentration of material of potential economic interest in or on the Earth's crust, in a form and quantity that there are reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction. Resources are classified by the confidence of the geological estimate into measured, indicated and inferred categories. They are routinely confused with reserves, but the distinction is consequential: resources carry no guarantee of economic extractability, whereas reserves do.
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royalty
A payment — usually a share of the value of what is mined — made to whoever owns the ground or holds a financial interest, every time metal is produced and sold.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A mineral royalty is a periodic payment made to a rights holder — which may be a government, a landowner or a royalty finance company — calculated as a percentage of revenue, profit, or output value. Common structures include the net smelter return (NSR) royalty, which applies to the value of metal received at the smelter after deducting treatment and refining charges, and the gross overriding royalty, which applies to gross revenue before such deductions. Royalties differ from streaming agreements in that the royalty holder receives cash rather than metal, and differs from a working interest in that the royalty holder bears none of the operating costs. Governments typically impose statutory royalties separately from, and in addition to, any contractual royalties.
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scrap ratio
The share of total metal supply that comes from recycled scrap rather than freshly mined and refined metal — the higher it is, the more a market relies on old metal.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: The proportion of total metal supply, or of input to a smelting or refining process, that is derived from scrap rather than from primary concentrates or refined primary metal. The ratio can be calculated at the level of an individual facility, a country or a global market, and the denominator and numerator must be clearly specified to allow meaningful comparison. A high scrap ratio reduces primary ore requirements for a given output level but does not eliminate them, since scrap availability is bounded by the accumulated in-use stock of the metal and the collection efficiency of end-of-life systems.
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secondary supply
Metal or mineral material that comes from recycling old products rather than from digging new ore out of the ground.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: The portion of total material supply derived from the recovery and processing of end-of-life products, manufacturing scrap or process residues, as distinct from primary supply sourced from mined ore. Secondary supply is subdivided into old scrap, generated by post-consumer products reaching end of life, and new scrap, arising within manufacturing processes. The distinction from primary supply matters for environmental accounting, for assessing supply security (since secondary supply is less geographically concentrated than primary mining) and for understanding price dynamics, as secondary supply responds differently to price signals than mining output does.
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spot price
The price you would pay today to buy something and have it delivered very soon, rather than agreeing a price now for delivery much later.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: The spot price refers to the current market price for immediate or near-term delivery of a commodity, conventionally settlement within two business days for many exchange-traded metals. It contrasts with forward or futures prices, which are agreed now but apply to delivery at a specified future date. In practice, the term is applied loosely: for commodities without a liquid exchange, 'spot' may mean a short-term physical transaction concluded at an assessed or negotiated price rather than a standardised exchange contract, and the distinction from 'prompt' pricing is often context-dependent.
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stockpile
A stored reserve of a material held ready for later use, like a pantry stocked before a long winter.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: An accumulated physical inventory of a mineral or metal held by a government, producer, consumer or trader in anticipation of future demand, supply disruption or price movement. Stockpiles may be strategic, held by national authorities for security of supply purposes, or commercial, held by companies as working inventory or as a speculative position. The term is occasionally confused with in-ground resource, which describes material not yet extracted; a stockpile by definition refers to material already mined and available above ground.
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streaming
A deal where a company gives a mine money upfront and in return gets the right to buy a portion of what the mine produces — often silver or gold — at a fixed low price for years to come.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: A streaming agreement is a financing arrangement in which a streaming company provides an upfront payment to a mining operation in exchange for the contractual right to purchase a portion of future metal production, usually a precious metal produced as a by-product, at a predetermined price that is typically well below the prevailing spot price. The streaming company profits from the spread between its contracted purchase price and the market price; the mining operator gains capital without issuing equity or incurring conventional debt. Streaming is distinct from a royalty in that the streaming company takes physical delivery of metal rather than receiving a percentage of revenue or profit.
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substitution
Swapping one material for a different one that can do the same job well enough — the way stainless steel cutlery replaced silver cutlery for most people.
Về mặt kỹ thuật: The replacement of one material by another in a given application, driven by cost, availability, performance requirements or policy constraints. In supply-chain analysis, substitution potential is assessed along two dimensions: technical feasibility, meaning whether an alternative material can match the functional requirements of the incumbent, and economic feasibility, meaning whether the switch is competitive at prevailing or plausible future prices. Partial substitution, where a material is displaced from some end uses but not others, is more common than complete displacement, and the two should be distinguished when assessing the supply-demand implications for a specific mineral.
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