A commodities expert says its unclear what China can do to put the brakes on lithium prices with EV sales continuing to grow, after Pilbara Minerals set yet another record price for lithium raw materials (reports Stockhead).

Analysts tip Sandfire to be a big winner, especially if BHP takes over OZ, leaving Sandfire as the biggest ASX copper producer. Plus, there’s leverage galore in $22m Labyrinth with maiden JORC Resource imminent at its Canadian gold project.

Yawning gaps in asset-value estimates have emerged as a key measure of the uncertainty gripping global markets as central banks tighten the interest-rate screws.

By the law of things what goes up must come down, but we seem to be waiting a long time for that to happen when it comes to lithium prices after Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) smashed another record with its latest spodumene auction (reports Stockhead).

The US$1.8 billion acquisition of the MATSA copper complex in Spain gave Sandfire Resources a dominant position in one of the world’s most prolific mineral belts (reports MiningNews).

The owners of three of the best metal discoveries in recent times have been doing it hard on the market – along with the rest of the mining sector (reports Barry FitzGerald on MiningNews).

Trigg Minerals (ASX: TMG) is advancing a program of aircore drilling as part of a pre-feasibility study (PFS) at its wholly-owned Lake Throssell sulphate of potash (SOP) project in Western Australia (reports Smallcaps).

Kin Mining has boosted its resources outside Leonora, Western Australia, with a 10% increase in gold putting it just short of the minimum 1.5 million ounces it wants before it turns its attention towards development options for the Cardinia project (reports MiningNews).

The already attractive economics of RareX’s Cummins Range project could be improved further after drilling outlined an emerging, extensive phosphate and rare earths system.

At the heart of Rio Tinto’s pursuit of Turquose Hill and BHP’s offer for OZ Minerals is a simple fact: the world needs more copper than ever before (reports The Australian Financial Review).

The ATMs of the mining sector look set to continue spitting out cash for at least another three years. This bumper outlook is flowing through to juniors like Kairos, as shown by the big jump in its share price his week. Plus, Rex earns a big tick from Goldmans in its copper report and the word is FMG may have a copper find in South Australia.

The calm after the storm is one way of describing Thursday’s stock market recovery after Wednesday’s rout.

Shares in Bellevue Gold were higher after the aspiring gold miner said its namesake $252 million project near Leinster remained on time and budget with record development rates last month (reports The West Australian).

The maverick in former Northern Star Resources boss Bill Beament made the choice of location for last week’s release of a five year strategy for his new mining vehicle Develop Global a natural one(reports Barry FitzGerald on MiningNews).

Shares in Pilbara Minerals are continuing their run higher into uncharted territory as the lithium miner rides market optimism about the future outlook for the battery metal (reports The West Australian).

Gascoyne Resources says the latest core recovered from its second deep diamond drill hole within the emerging 79,600 ounce Never Never Lode discovery contains abundant visible gold over more than 40 metres from 390m (reports MiningNews).

Analysts at Goldman Sachs have sounded the alarm at the dearth of shovel-ready copper mines poised to hit the market at current price in the face of an extraordinary uptick in demand due to come from the green energy transition (reports Stockhead).

Junior explorer Nimy Resources (ASX: NIM) has completed a maiden diamond drilling campaign at the Mons nickel project in Western Australia (reports Small Caps).

Scoping work has pointed to RareX’s Cummins Range rare earths project in Western Australia costing in the order of A$430 million to develop and having an NPV of $633 million (reports MiningNews).

After a worse than-expected US inflation reading, there was one asset class which did better than most this week by largely holding its ground – gold (reports Tim Treadgold on Small Caps).