The Vox Markets Podcast · Vox Markets Podcast

Mining Matters: This commodity cycle will be bigger than 2002-2007

·30 min

Mark Thompson comes in off some sharp overnight moves in oil and other commodities. He sounds bullish, but in a fairly measured way. He says the current commodity bull cycle may already be on track to outgrow 0207. His case rests on structural long-term forces. The discussion stays grounded. Tin, oil, tungsten, silver, and even gallium all come up as examples of what may or may not matter to investors. He draws a line between exciting price action and investable opportunity. Some commodities can swing hard and still be too niche to build a real thesis around. Tungsten gets treated as a possible big mover. Silver does too. The conversation then turns to Tamar Minerals and the practical side of getting a project moving. Thompson says the team is ready to go. He says reactivation planning permissions are in place. Drilling is expected this year. Best case, the rig arrives in the second quarter. Worst case, it slips to the end of the third quarter. The planned work is a single deep hole with several daughter holes. He uses that to explain how exploration sampling works and why one hole can mislead. A daughter hole lets a team step off the first hole and test the same ore body from a nearby angle. That gives a better read on grade and geometry. He notes the need to account for nugget effect and the way a lode can pinch or swell. Those details decide whether a result means anything or just adds noise. The show keeps returning to the logic of modern exploration. Thompson points to places that have been mined out, and to areas that have been underexplored for years. The point is simple. Old ground can still hold value if it is looked at again with better tools and better assumptions. The final stretch goes back to the market as a whole. He is still prepared for a range of outcomes. Even so, he clearly thinks the opportunity set in commodities is bigger than the market usually admits. That is the thread running through the whole conversation. By the end, the show has moved from macro conviction to drill-bit mechanics without losing its skeptical edge. It leaves you with the sense that the commodity story is not just about prices, but about where the next real discoveries might come from.

As heard by us

A brisk commodity briefing that turns big-cycle talk into drill-bit reality.

This episode takes a miner's-eye view of where commodities may be headed, with Mark Thompson arguing that the current bull cycle could be even bigger than 0207.

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Why you'd press play

You want a straight take on why this commodity bull cycle could be bigger than 2002-2007.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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