Mining executives have talked for years about how an energy transition “supercycle” was about to reshape the industry — changing it from a bet on China’s rapacious demand for raw materials into something decidedly more global and strategic.
It hasn’t happened. The sector remains a China proxy. The last week has crystallised how closely tied the sector’s fortunes remain to the prospects of the world’s second-largest economy.
Shares in the “big four” diversified miners — BHP, Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Glencore — are up about 10 per cent in the past month after China announced efforts to boost its flagging economy including measures to support the property industry. Previously, they had tracked China’s downward trend.