On Monday 11 May, on MiningNews.net (http://www.miningnewspremium.net/) Dryblower was musing on whether there was a whiff of recovery in the air. He used a "weight of evidence" approach whereby he observed that there appeared to be more commentators forecasting that we were at the bottom of the market and could now look forward to an upward trend; albeit a bumpy one (as perhaps evidenced by the drop in the iron ore price over the last few days), than there were commentators who were prepared to forecast that the market would fall further.
Naturally all of us with a vested interest in the industry are keen for Dryblower's reading of the tea leaves to be correct, however I think that it takes more than a trend among forecasters to provide "evidence" that the worst is now behind us, but I do think we are starting to see the first pieces of this evidence emerging.
I was speaking with a contact in the UK yesterday and he told me that their laboratory had seen a significant increase in workload over the past three or four months. Certainly a positive sign.
Another contact who has a number of relationships with investors both here and overseas, reports that a number of groups have approached him seeking to acquire quality assets. Again, a promising sign.
However, in my opinion, the proof that the green tips emerging are not going to result in a failed crop, will only come when those projects with samples going through the lab in the UK, feed through to a positive feasibility study for a project that gets funded. It will come when those investors looking for assets, actually put their money down, acquire the asset and start the process of developing it. Then we will know that the recovery has started.
Naturally all of us with a vested interest in the industry are keen for Dryblower's reading of the tea leaves to be correct, however I think that it takes more than a trend among forecasters to provide "evidence" that the worst is now behind us, but I do think we are starting to see the first pieces of this evidence emerging.
I was speaking with a contact in the UK yesterday and he told me that their laboratory had seen a significant increase in workload over the past three or four months. Certainly a positive sign.
Another contact who has a number of relationships with investors both here and overseas, reports that a number of groups have approached him seeking to acquire quality assets. Again, a promising sign.
However, in my opinion, the proof that the green tips emerging are not going to result in a failed crop, will only come when those projects with samples going through the lab in the UK, feed through to a positive feasibility study for a project that gets funded. It will come when those investors looking for assets, actually put their money down, acquire the asset and start the process of developing it. Then we will know that the recovery has started.