Brent Cook - What happens the year after?

Brent Cook again making the case for quality development and exploration in the next bull.

With mining earnings getting started, Cook doesn’t expect any big surprises as companies have reigned in costs, to a degree. But he cautioned that the types of cutbacks miners undertook may hurt in the not-so-distant future.

“I think we’ll see earnings more or less in-line with expectations,” Cook said. “Input costs have come down some, there has been some high-grading and remodeling of mine plans that will help costs and they certainly cut way back on exploration and development, so we should see some sort of improvement.

“But what happens next year, or the year after? That’s the real question,” he continued. “If they’ve high-graded their deposit, they’ve gutted it and have lower grades, they laid off their exploration and development teams so there’s nothing new coming in – that’s when it gets interesting.”