Summary

(Kitco News) - Mining companies are heading into this year's investor conference season with an all-time-high aggregate market capitalization, even as executives grapple with an energy cost shock that has undercut margins and forced dealmakers to rework their playbooks. Kitco Mining will be recording CEO interviews at the 2026 Precious Metals Summit (PMS) Sept. 22-25 and at Mining Forum Americas (MFA) Sept. 27-30. MFA is expected to see its biggest attendance ever, with projections for more than 1,300 participants, split between investors and issuers, with a record 205 Denver Gold Group (DGG) member companies attending and another 10 non-member mining company representatives. “They have an aggregate market capitalization of US$1.2T,” said Tim Wood, executive director of the DGG, almost double the US$675B in 2025. Australian companies are now a firm fixture, with 50 ASX-listed companies comprising about 25% of the participating companies. 2026 has been an eventful year for the metals sector. Precious metals entered the year hot, with gold topping at US$5,600/oz and silver at US$120/oz in March before the outbreak of the conflict with Iran dinged confidence. The impact of higher long-term interest rates and a stronger U.S. dollar sent the gold price below US$4,000/oz, a level it has held, trading sideways since then and only recently starting a climb above US$4,500/oz again. “The rally has lost steam since the spring. Even after gold and silver prices had already pulled back from earlier highs, market mood remained upbeat until the outbreak of the Iran war disrupted sentiment across the board. Energy input costs became a critical swing factor, eroding margins that companies had spent months rebuilding,” said Wood. Higher energy prices and costs for other inputs impacted by the Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz shipping lanes saw all-in sustaining costs (AISC) jump in the quarter to June 30. AISC jumped 9.5% to US$1,876/oz from 1Q26 and 22.5% from 2Q25 for the majors, but just 2% from 1Q26 and 13% from 2Q25 to US$1,934/oz for the mid-tier producers. This new energy shock has caused countries and companies to rethink energy security and source diversification. China’s recent five-year plan for oil and gas includes a target to expand domestic oil and gas supply that includes adding 20,000km of new long-distance pipelines by 2030 and raising natural gas reserves to the equivalent of more than 13% of national consumption. Australia and Australian miners have also been planning to increase alternatives. “This episode has reframed the industry's energy conversation away from net-zero targets and toward diversification. Companies can no longer concentrate reliance on a single category of power generation, and nuclear needs to be part of the broader energy mix,” said Wood. While sector profits remain high, the Iran conflict's energy impact has knocked the wind out of its sails and introduced doubt into long-term capital decisions. Future energy price uncertainty sees companies redrafting cost and profitability models for development projects and acquisition targets. “This volatility follows two years of an unbridled run that had taken gold from US$2,000/oz to US$5,500/oz before stalling. Many companies' internal deal books, assembled during the earlier bull run, were upended by the combination of higher energy costs and softer metals prices, forcing management teams to rebuild return assumptions from scratch,” said Wood. Returns Costs may be increasing and prices may have come down, but gold producers still enjoyed margins of about US$2,400-US$2,500/oz in the June quarter. This cash bonanza saw senior gold producers grow their cash on the balance sheet to US$29B and US$10.5B for the mid-tiers; at the same time, long-term debt was reduced to US$16.9B for the majors and US$5B for the mid-tiers. With balance sheets in perhaps the best condition they have ever been, returns to shareholders remain a strong part of company policy. So far in 2026, companies in the sector have returned more than US$14.8B to shareholders, with US$7.8B in buybacks and US$6.9B in dividends. Increasing shareholder returns is a concern for some, given that aggregate gold production remains flat at 5.8Moz for the majors and 2.3Moz for the mid-tiers. “Institutional investors are pushing established producers to redirect capital into the ground, new exploration and project improvement, rather than financial engineering like share buybacks,” said Wood. Wood acknowledges that mining companies compete for capital against technology companies that generate outsized returns across multiple metrics, even while they do not generate profits. In this context, reducing the number of shares outstanding to juice per-share performance metrics, even when de facto performance has not improved, has a logic to it. 2026 has seen a number of significant mining initial public offerings (IPOs), including Ross Beaty’s Lumina Metals, Tom Kaplan’s Sunshine Mining and Sinda Silver, with Barrick Mining’s North American asset IPO to come before year-end. These were a big deal in the mining space, yet pale compared to Elon Musk's SpaceX, which raised US$75B in June and gave it a market capitalization of over US$2T, i.e., more than the combined market cap of all the companies attending MFA! Encouragingly, Wood said mining companies have largely avoided reckless capital allocation this cycle. “They are steady at the tiller rather than chasing wild bids, which is building investor confidence that capital is being stewarded responsibly,” he said. Diversification MFA has evolved beyond its precious metals roots to reflect the broader spectrum of minerals that mining investors are interested in. White House policy to secure domestic supply chains, combined with federal government investment in the mining sector and efforts to unclog permitting pipelines, is resulting in a broader spread of minerals getting attention, particularly as the price for critical minerals, such as tungsten, has rocketed. “We now have 19 unique minerals represented among attending companies, reflecting investor appetite for diversified mining exposure rather than a narrow bet on precious metals. Copper alone now accounts for 21 companies worth a combined US$50B. It is no longer an afterthought on the agenda,” said Wood. High metals prices opened a relatively buoyant financing market for juniors, which means the Precious Metals Summit continues to have an extended waiting list of companies keen to participate, with 220 companies chasing 170 presentation slots. Attendance is also broadening, with PMS seeing more investors across every category, including new corporate development groups and larger delegations from senior mining companies as more newcomers enter the space. “The majors are chasing resources while they are trading at higher multiples and hold strong cash positions, making now a logical time to act before share prices climb further,” said Leventhal. PMS expects to beat the 800 investors it hosted in 2025 by 10-15% this year, which includes corporate development representatives from larger companies, with the event having reached its venue capacity of 1,700 attendees. Leventhal said feedback consistently shows investors come to Beaver Creek specifically for gold, silver and broader precious metals companies. The interest in silver will see those companies have a dedicated session, although gold-focused names continue to make up the majority of presenters. “Investor priorities haven't shifted dramatically this year. Attendees are mainly looking to discover new opportunities and get face time with management teams for updates. Investors are acutely aware that the pullback following the irrational price surge represents a buying opportunity,” said Leventhal. Keynotes With a growing number of generalist investors participating in the event, Wood has again programmed Neil Adshead and Nicole Adshead-Bell of Cupel Advisory to conduct a basic principles of mining investment short course before the event begins to highlight key aspects of the mining sector and natural resource investing. This will be followed by McKinsey presenting the results of a C-suite survey of mining companies with North American operations on where they think the industry stands and what needs to change. Incrementum’s Ronald-Peter Stoeferle will talk on gold's creeping remonetisation and the U.S. dollar's loss of global primacy, while former U.S. State Department and Treasury official Edward Fishman will talk about how the U.S. and West have used economic warfare as a parallel track to conventional conflict and the unintended consequences of sanctions on capital markets. This draws on his 2025 book, American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. Keynote speakers at PMS include Florian Grümmer on technical stock analysis, Ronald-Peter Stoeferle on macro trends in conversation with Sprott’s John Hathaway, Frank Giustra on markets and mining, and author and big-picture thinker Grant Williams. Kitco’s Paul Harris will also host a young leaders panel.