News & Insights
Align Man, Machine,…& the Moon
Did you see the movie First Man about NASA’s mission to land a man on the moon? It relates the tumultuous journey that starts with JFK declaring his goal of “landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to Earth,” and ends with Neil Armstrong taking that first...
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Turning Thermal Coal to Copper? Why the Metrics Matter
There would seem to be a good number of reasons not to do this. Firstly, in a diversified mining company everyone who doesn’t work in the copper division suddenly feels slightly subjacent - especially those divisions that contribute more to the Group than copper. I’ve done the calculations for one...
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The Commodity Business in Food and Agriculture is Over
the era of the commodity business is over. (more…)
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A Prescriptive Punt: how a risky decision on fourth-and-4 changed my thinking
How risk aware was that football forecast? For those of you who didn’t watch the game (or have since blocked it from your memory), let me catch you up: the Colts made the decision to go for it on fourth-and-4 at their own 43-yard line...with 24 seconds left in...
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Cost Curves and Curve Balls
Cost curves are a staple of the mining industry, similar in shape to a traditional supply curve, ranking mines/smelters/mills by their total cost of production. The theory goes that when the demand curve shifts to the left, as it inevitably will with the business cycle, those with the highest costs will be...
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