So where does a simple homo sapiens begin their reflections of the first day of the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum 2025 – probably best through the lens of a homo industrialis.
D&D is now in its 34th year, as chairman Jim Walker regaled a fullish crowd in the Goldfields Arts Centre to kick off proceedings.
But it is fair to say that never before in the history of this illustrious, rather famous mining and capital markets talkfest has the homo industrialis made an appearance.
Until yesterday.
A spirited panel conversation between Chris Keefer, a Canadian emergency physician, host of the Decouple podcast and president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, the Centre for Independent Studies’ director of energy research Aidan Morrison and the Centre for Independent Studies executive director Tom Switzer changed all that.
“We are homo industrialis tied to fossil fuels,” Dr Keefer, a self-proclaimed champion of nuclear energy, said.
“This whole concept of the energy transition is a mythology.”
Now this takes some unpacking though probably proved too deep for conversations among delegates last night at the Palace Hotel, the Exchange, the York Hotel or Kalgoorlie’s best Thai restaurant.
Suffice to say the panel presented a well-articulated – albeit one-sided – view of a world where capital has been misallocated to renewable energy projects that will not sufficiently address climate change, and certainly not deliver net zero by 2050.
Suffice to add that most of the audience was enthusiastic in its response to an entertaining though bias dissection of the decarbonisation story and the important role nuclear energy can play.
For the record, Dr Keefer referenced his Canadian home province of Ontario where nuclear power supplies 60 per cent of the baseload electricity to the grid, which in turn is connected to mining hubs such as Sudbury.
It prompted some audience members to ponder the feasibility of building a nuclear power plant in Port Hedland to supply the Pilbara iron ore industry.
Overheard
- “It’s like the have’s and the have not’s, and if you are in lithium f*@#ed if I know what you can do.”
- A veteran of D&D summing up the atmosphere over coffee in the Arts Centre courtyard. He has a point.
But one digresses for a second day in a row.
With the nuclear debate and some attempted reputational recovery of uranium stocks taking care of most of yesterday’s pre-lunch entertainment, it was left to the enlarged Ramelius Resources (ASX: RMS) to return delegates’ focus to gold.
D&D rarely has dual presenting hosts, which is why the double act of Ramelius boss Mark Zeptner and Simon Lawson, outgoing boss of Ramelius’ takeover prey Spartan Resources, was quite entertaining.
The Spartan story is remarkable when you consider its origins as the rushed-into-production Gascoyne Resources, which floundered a few times before a change of management, strategy and gold price transformed the story.
As chief Spartan Lawson reminded delegates of the injection of “sizzle” into the company, the company went from a resource of 100,000 ounces 2½ years ago to almost 2.9 million ounces when Ramelius pounced.
Interestingly, what the Ramelius-Spartan tie-up so amply demonstrated was the sector’s push to consolidate as a way of growing while moving down the cost curve.
Good to see that Spartan is sharing the cost of this year’s rickshaw service with Topdrill.
Costs are proving ridiculously sticky and pretty much every gold company that addressed D&D yesterday talked up cost-control measures.
There was also a lot of talk about hedging strategies and efforts to fast-track the close-out of hedge books.
And there will surely be more M&A in the gold sector.
A lot has been whispered about the sizeable presence of Agnico Eagle (TSX: AEM) executives in the D&D marquee and its interest in struggling and for-sale Bellevue Gold (ASX: BGL). Bellevue presents today and Agnico tomorrow, so presumably those questions will be asked.
As an aside, the D&D team rang the bell – remotely – to signal the start of trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange last night. As one does in Kalgoorlie.
Vault Minerals (ASX: VAU) and Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD) is the other obvious tie-up to consolidate the Leonora-Laverton belt. It has all the hallmarks of Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) taking over Saracen Mineral Holdings a few years back to consolidate KCGM. We shall see.
Speaking of seeing, Sunday night delivered some much-needed relief for West Coast Eagles fans. Kalgoorlie product and 2018 premiership hero Dom Sheed was spotted out and about with his fellow retiree mate Jeremy McGovern. There were repeats last night.
Blast from the past
- There was a time when D&D was a politician-free zone. Those boundaries were breached a long time ago, so it was little surprising to see WA Liberals and Nationals Sandra Brewer, Neil Thomson and Shane Love roaming the marquee yesterday.
- Today it is the turn of WA Mines Minister David Michael to take the grand tour, likely accompanied by his Federal counterpart, Madeleine King.
Observed in the D&D marquee yesterday was a double-dose of S diplomacy.
In one corner was the Invest Sweden stand – apparently the Swedish ambassador was in town – while in the other was the Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources. There was a fair amount of activity in the Saudi tent, too.
Not observed, in a real break with tradition, was the traditional WesTrac yellow kit out the front of the Arts Centre. It is unusual to see a subdued presence by one of D&D’s biggest sponsors.
Last night was, typically, the busiest of D&D and a calendar-clash challenge for the most popular among the delegates. Every broker and law firm known to D&D held a shindig.
But perhaps the nicest event was the Women in Mining WA function at the Kalgoorlie Town Hall. It felt like visiting an oasis in a desert of beer-swirling.
WIMWA again attracted a large – and excellent – crowd in one of the most historic buildings in Australia’s gold capital.
See you at the Gold Industry Group breakfast this morning – in the Town Hall, naturally.
