Monsters of Rock: Da bears send iron ore shares down but some joy in the gold space

Iron ore fell into a bear market this week, albeit a very rich one.

The signs for the big producers continue to be bearish with the most active Dalian Iron Ore Futures contract dropping ~5% below the 1000 Yuan mark to its lowest level since May 27.

That saw September delivery prices hover around the US$155/t level against the current 62% fines price around US$184/t, itself down ~20% over the past fortnight.

Analysts have attributed the negative sentiment on the iron ore price to promises of production cuts in China due to pollution controls.

Whether China can actually force production back to 2020 levels remains a matter drawing some skepticism.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley think steel output from China will still close the year up around 4-5% after an almost 12% jump in production through the first half of the year.

Big falls from the iron ore miners weighed down the materials sector, but a handful of gold stocks had a bright day.

RESOLUTE MINING (ASX:RSG)

Resolute has finally cashed in on its shuttered Bibiani gold mine in Ghana, seven years after picking the bones of the asset up from the collapse of Noble Mineral Resources.

The company acquired Bibiani back in 2014 after its previous owner Noble went into administration.

After placing the mine on care and maintenance it was never able to bring the mine into production despite releasing a DFS in 2016 and updating it in 2018.

The study showed the mine, which has a resource base of 2.5Moz, could have produced 100,000ozpa of gold for 10 years.

Resolute, which operates the Syama gold mine in Mali and the Mako mine in Senegal, will bank $US90 million from the sale of Bibiani to the Asante Gold Corporation in three instalments over 12 months.

It comes after a deal to sell the project to China’s Chifeng Jilong Gold collapsed in April.

Resolute Mining share price today:

SSR MINING (ASX:SSR)

TSX, NASDAQ and ASX listed SSR posted its June Quarter results, and they were pretty tidy.

It was up 3-4% on the North American exchanges over night, after selling 201,504 at just US$961/oz in the three months to June 30.

SSR was a much milder beast this time last year, but bulked up with its $5 billion merger with Alacer Gold Corp in September 2020.

Alacer, which used to operate the South Kalgoorlie operations that now make up part of Northern Star Resources’ (ASX:NST) sprawling Kalgoorlie business, owned the Copler mine in Turkey.