Editor’s Note IN DECLINE?

On the other hand, it is true that reserves are declining and people like Norman B. Keevil, Jr., chairman of the Mining Association of Canada, were right in sounding the alarm. (Keevil’s public warnings last year over Canada’s dwindling base metal reserves were given wide coverage here and abroad.) Between 1981 and 1988 copper reserves in this country dropped by 23%. They currently stand at roughly 13 million tonnes of copper in proven and probable ore. In all the years from 1975 to 1985, reserves were never below 16 million tonnes.

The decline will continue if copper prices plummet to recession lows and don’t budge for several years. Primary copper miners would quit the game and exploration would cease. But now with speculative investors wary of gold exploration stocks and the base metals (as commodities) still fetching reasonable prices, exploration for copper and its kind might finally draw investor interest. (The pace is quickening already.) It comes down to this: Our future reserve picture largely is a function of the amount of capital pumped into exploration. As long as the money flows, new deposits will be found.

Fading Royalty? I don’t think so.

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