The comeback kid was Chalice Mining, a copper/nickel/palladium hopeful which saw its shares fly above $10 in late ’21 before crashing back to 95c last year as technical and marketing issues dogged its Gonneville polymetallic project on the outskirts of Perth.

First hint of a sustainable revival came on Monday when Chalice reported an ore processing improvement which should deliver two saleable, smelter-grade concentrates, which will slash costs, triggering a 25c (20%) share price rise to $1.45 (after hitting a peak of $1.60 early in the week).

Bell Potter led renewed interest in Chalice with a note describing the technical development as a breakthrough which could deliver a profitable Gonneville mine “cheaper, simpler and sooner.” The broker tipped a share price target of $5.75, an eye-catching 296% up on that last sale price of $1.45.

The falling star was all too familiar. It was Mineral Resources, hammered for delivering a lousy half-year report which included a loss of $807 million, another increase in group debt, and more repair work required on the crash-prone iron ore haul road at its Onslow project.

Banks and brokers cut deeper into their already-depressed price forecasts for MinRes, which dropped by $8.65 (25%) over the week to trade around $25.76, a dismal level for a company which touched $92 just 18 months ago.

Unfortunately for investors, the outlook for MinRes is opaque with the bank closest to the firm, Morgan Stanley, sticking with a $50 price target and the bank which has been the most critical, Jarden, sticking with a $20 target.

Lower prices for lithium and iron ore have done most of the damage at MinRes but a compounding factor was a management decision to dive deeper into debt just as two of its three key business units were under pressure with a rock crushing unit saving the company.

Pilbara Minerals, another lithium favorite, dished up an unpalatable loss of $69.3 million for the December half year and duly saw its share price marked down by 25c (11%) to $2.04, up slightly on a 12-month low of $2 reached early yesterday (Thursday).

IGO joined the long list of lithium losers with a half-year loss of $782 million which led to a 10% share price fall to $4.45, up fractionally on the 12-month low of $4.30 reached in early trade.

Some good news in the critical metals sector could be found among the rare earth stocks which are building a following as China tightens its grip on supply. Lynas this week rose by 3c to $7.01. Arafura crept 0.5c higher to 15c while Hastings led the way with a rise of 5.5c (18%) to 37c.

Off market, but in a development which could have dire repercussions, was a decision of the South Australian Government to take control of the historic Whyalla steel works, claiming it has a plan to produce “green” steel, using renewable energy from wind and solar farms which are yet to work as promised.

Older investors looked on in horror as a State Government embarked on a high-risk attempt to rescue a failed steel mill using taxpayers’ money in what reeks of rescues attempted in the 1980s which ended with high-cost bail-outs and near State bankruptcies.

History has a horrible way of repeating with the only difference this time is that some people in government believe that if you call something green often enough and loud enough it must be good even if it’s not profitable.

Meanwhile back on Planet Sensible, gold survived the hiccup reported in this column last week when it was suggested that Peak Gold is approaching, which it still is, a point picked up by big name investment bank Morgan Stanley which echoed the price warning.

The bank is particularly concerned about the potential for the effect on gold from an end of the war in Ukraine. It is also wary of the current price because of the impossible task of matching today’s gold price of US$2939 an ounce with any traditional pricing models, including comparisons with inflation-protected U.S. bonds (TIPS), the U.S. dollar index, central bank reserves, ETF holdings and the global risk index.

When all of those measures are applied to gold, the best Morgan Stanley could come up with was a high of US$2000/oz — ouch!

Despite its own sobering assessment, Morgan Stanley still believes gold will edge closer to US$3000/oz before correcting towards the end of the year, probably down to US$2750/oz, but perhaps as low as US$2400/oz.

UBS disagrees, aligning itself with the gold bulls by tipping an end-of-year price of US$3100/oz with buy tips on most of the leading producers, including Northern Star, which pulled back this week after a strong run to close at $17.77 yesterday, down 47c for the week.

Other gold moves included De Grey, down 7c to $2.05. Perseus, up 5c to $2.89. Gold Road, up 3c to 2.62. Evolution, up 3.5c to $6.34, and Genesis, down 11c to $3.12 despite reporting a 161% increase in half-year profit to $59.8 million.

At the smaller end of the gold and silver sector, Adriatic Metals was the best performer with a rise of 6c to $4.29 after announcing an $80 million capital raising to expand its Vares silver project in Serbia.

Southern Cross Gold was also in the news as it expands its very high-grade Sunday Creek gold and antimony project in Victoria, scoring a buy tip from RBC Capital Markets which sees the stock rising to $4.20, even as it sank by 19c this week to $3.56.

The antimony at Sunday Creek is causing as much interest in Southern Cross as the gold thanks to the soaring price of the metal which has risen more than four-fold from US$10,000 a tonne to US$45,000/t in the past 12-months thanks to tight Chinese control of supply.

Most of the big boys of mining reported this week, including BHP which disappointed with a 23% fall in underlying profit for the December half, duly suffering a share price fall of $1.49 to $39.83.

Rio Tinto also went backwards in its full year with profit down 8% at US$10.9 billion, followed by a share price fall of $4.20 (4%) to $118.27, and Fortescue, which saw its shares retreat by $1.70 (8.5%) to $18.10 after reporting a 38% fall in its December half profit to $3.6 billion.

Copper returned as a favoured metal making a major contribution to the profits of BHP and Rio Tinto as well driving Sandfire back into profit which reached US$49.7 million in the December half compared with a loss of US$53.8 million in the previous corresponding period. On the market, Sandfire slipped 38c (3.4%) lower to $10.64.

Overall, it was a tough week for investors as the Reserve Bank made its first interest rate cut in four years which rattled confidence in the major banks, which also reported lacklustre results. The net result was a 15% fall by National, 11% by Westpac, and 7.5% by ANZ, all feeding into a 3.3% drop in the all ordinaries index.

Other news and market moves this week included:

  • Sheffield Resources added 1.5c to 18c after releasing an upbeat report on operations at its Thunderbird zircon and titanium minerals mine in the north of WA.
  • Iluka Resources, the world’s leading zircon producer, slipped 16c lower to $4.60 after reporting an 18% fall in net profit for calendar 2014 to $499 million.
  • QMines was half-a-cent weaker at 5.2c after announcing a $6 million capital raising to fund work at its Mt Chambers and Develin Creek copper projects in Queensland, and
  • Energy Transition Minerals, once known as Greenland Minerals, had a few days in the sun thanks to interest in its critical minerals projects in Greenland, rising on Wednesday to 7.5c before easing back to 6.9c for a gain of 0.02c.