Takeovers, financings, listings and country risk in mining, dated and sourced. Each item says why it matters and links to the course module that explains it. New items are added every Monday.
Royal Gold will pay about $3.5bn in shares for Sandstorm, 0.0625 of its shares per Sandstorm share, and $196m in cash for Horizon. The deals add 40 producing royalties and streams and lift Royal Gold’s expected 2025 output by about 26%. Royal Gold holders will own about 77% of the combined company.
Zijin’s unit Zijin Gold International agreed to buy the companies that own and run Raygorodok, one of Kazakhstan’s largest gold mines, from Verny Capital and its partner Resource Capital Funds. It was Zijin’s first major entry into Kazakhstan.
Niger said it would nationalise Somaïr, in which France’s Orano holds 63% and the state company Sopamin the rest. The government accused Orano of taking 86.3% of output between 1971 and 2024. Orano had already lost operational control of the mine in late 2024.
The Bamako commercial court named a former health minister as provisional administrator of the gold complex for six months. Barrick said it would appeal. The complex had accounted for 14% of the company’s gold output.
Adriatic holders will receive 93 pence in cash and 0.1590 new Dundee shares, worth 268 pence a share and a 50.5% premium to the undisturbed price. The prize is the Vareš silver-zinc-lead mine in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dundee holders will own about 75.3% of the combined company.
The state miner SOPAMIB took over the Wahgnion and Boungou gold mines and three exploration licences held by subsidiaries of Endeavour Mining and Lilium. A planned sale of the Endeavour assets to Lilium had stalled. Burkina Faso revised its mining code in 2024 to raise state control.
Anglo American Platinum began trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange under its new name, Valterra Platinum, as Anglo completed its demerger. Anglo kept a stake of about 19.9% and listed the shares in London as well.
Franco-Nevada agreed to buy, from a private holder, a 7.5% gross margin royalty covering all reserves and almost all resources at Côté in Ontario. The mine is run by IAMGOLD, which owns 70%, with Sumitomo Metal Mining holding 30%. The two owners can buy back up to half of the royalty.
Harmony offered $12.25 a share in cash, a 20.7% premium, for MAC Copper, whose only asset is the CSA copper mine in New South Wales. CSA is one of Australia’s highest-grade copper mines and, at 1.9 km, one of its deepest.
Seismic activity forced Ivanhoe to suspend underground mining at Kakula, part of Africa’s largest copper complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company withdrew its 2025 target of 520,000 to 580,000 tonnes of copper, and its shares fell 16% in Toronto.
Rio Tinto will take 49.99% of the company holding Codelco’s Salar de Maricunga licences in Chile. It will fund $350m of studies, $500m of construction costs after a go-ahead decision and a further $50m if first lithium arrives by the end of 2030.
MAG holders will receive the equivalent of $20.54 a share, paid as $500m of cash in total plus 0.755 Pan American shares per MAG share. The prize is MAG’s 44% stake in Juanicipio in Mexico, a high-grade silver mine operated by Fresnillo. Pan American shares fell sharply on the news.
Gold Road holders will receive A$3.40 a share in cash, made of A$2.52 fixed and a variable amount linked to Gold Road’s stake in Northern Star. The offer is a 43% premium to the undisturbed price and follows weeks of talks after a rejected first proposal. Gold Fields gains full ownership of the Gruyere mine, which it already operates with Gold Road.
Northern Star took ownership of the Hemi gold project in the Pilbara, and De Grey was removed from the ASX the next day. De Grey shareholders had approved the scheme in April with 99.64% of votes cast.
Barrick agreed to sell its 50% of the Donlin Gold project in Alaska for $1bn in cash. Paulson Advisory takes 80% of the stake and NovaGold 20%, leaving NovaGold with 60% of the project and Paulson with 40%.
Production stopped at one of Queensland’s largest underground coal mines after high carbon monoxide levels were detected, and all workers were brought out safely. The mine was a key part of the coal portfolio Anglo had agreed to sell to Peabody.
Ramelius offered A$0.25 in cash and 0.6957 new shares for each Spartan share, worth A$1.78 and a 27.5% premium to the 30-day average price. The prize is the Dalgaranga gold project in Western Australia. Ramelius aims to produce 500,000 ounces a year by its 2030 financial year.
Spot gold hit a record $3,004.71 an ounce as investors sought cover from the uncertainty caused by US tariffs. Gold had passed $2,000 during the covid pandemic.
Arcadium holders received $5.85 a share in cash, and the business became Rio Tinto Lithium. The new unit aims to lift capacity to more than 200,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent a year by 2028. It was Rio’s largest deal in more than a decade.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, which produces about three-quarters of the world’s cobalt, halted exports to rein in a glut. The ban was later extended and replaced by export quotas.
Calibre holders were offered 0.31 Equinox shares per share, an all-share deal worth about C$2.6bn ($1.8bn). The combination creates Canada’s second-largest gold producer, with Greenstone in Ontario and Valentine in Newfoundland. The ratio was later raised to 0.35.
MMG agreed to pay up to $500m: $350m at completion, up to $100m in a price-linked earn-out and $50m tied to an investment decision on two growth projects. The business includes the Barro Alto and Codemin ferronickel operations. The sale later faced long reviews by competition authorities in Brazil and the European Union.
The tailings dam of Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, majority owned by state-owned China Nonferrous Metals, collapsed at Chambishi. An engineering investigation found that about 50 million litres of acidic waste and heavy metals reached streams feeding the Kafue, Zambia’s most important river.
SilverCrest holders received 1.6022 Coeur shares for each share, and Coeur issued about 239.3 million new shares. The deal adds the Las Chispas mine in Sonora, Mexico, to Coeur’s Rochester and Palmarejo operations.
Discovery agreed to pay $200m in cash, $75m in its own shares and $150m in deferred cash for the Porcupine gold operation in Ontario. Newmont said it now had agreements to sell all its non-core operations, for up to $4.3bn in gross proceeds.
Bloomberg reported that the two companies discussed combining their businesses as recently as late 2024, but that the talks were no longer active. Rio was worth about $103bn and Glencore about $55bn. A merger would have created a rival to BHP.
Zijin offered 13.7bn yuan, about $1.87bn, for a stake of nearly 25% that gives it control of Zangge, a potash and salt-lake lithium producer in Qinghai. The deal also consolidates Zijin’s hold on the Julong copper project in Tibet, which the two companies own together.
The two companies paid about C$4.0bn for the Filo shares they did not own and formed Vicuña, a 50:50 joint venture holding the Filo del Sol and Josemaria copper projects in Argentina and Chile. BHP also paid Lundin $690m for half of Josemaria.
Barrick halted operations at its Mali complex after the government flew gold stocks to a state-owned bank in Bamako. Reuters estimated the gold at about $245m. Barrick’s shares had fallen more than 20% since Mali’s first threats in October.
Boliden agreed to pay up to $1.52bn: $1.37bn in cash at closing, based on an enterprise value of $1.3bn at an August 2024 lock-box date, and up to $150m linked to metal prices. Lundin said the proceeds would support its growth in the Vicuña copper district in Argentina and Chile.