When you are in a hole, stop digging. Miners are surely in a hole, and have slashed capital spending. Plans to dig the biggest hole in the world – at Olympic Dam in Australia – are on hold, and talk of “peak everything” has given way to muttering about the end of the commodity supercycle, the decade-long rise in prices.
Falling iron ore prices are closing in on $90 a tonne, having reached nearly $200 last year. Other industrial metals are also suffering badly, down almost a third on average; thermal coal, an important raw material, has fallen more.
This matters hugely to investors in mining stocks, which closely track industrial commodities. It also matters for what it tells us about China, the biggest consumer, and Australia, the big country most reliant on production.