Precious metals and copper prices plunged on Friday after the US Fed chair nomination triggered profit-taking, with April gold futures crashing 11.4% to $4,745/oz and silver suffering a record 35.9% drop to $78.53/oz, while March copper briefly fell 9.5% to $5.76/lb before closing 4.5% lower at $5.92/lb. The sell-off wiped billions from miners: Newmont fell 11.5% to a $122bn valuation, Barrick 19%, and silver-focused Pan American Silver 13.7% to $23bn. Diversified and copper majors were hit less severely, with BHP down 4.8%, Rio Tinto 4.3%, Glencore 3.4% and Southern Copper 8.5%, yet most leading miners remain strongly positive year-on-year.

MAX Power Mining has defined a new natural hydrogen drilling target at the Bracken prospect on the Saskatchewan–Montana border, complementing its confirmed Lawson discovery on the 475 km-long Genesis Trend. The Bracken well, planned to spud in February pending licensing, sits within the 75 km-wide Grasslands project and was sited using 34.3 line-km of proprietary 2D seismic integrated with legacy seismic to map basement architecture, structural pathways and migration corridors. MAX Power aims to use Bracken as a calibration point to test basin-scale continuity and repeatable, scalable natural hydrogen systems that may also host helium.

The Government of Liberia and ArcelorMittal have signed an amended Mineral Development Agreement extending the company’s iron ore mining rights to 2050, with an option to renew for a further 25 years. The ratified deal secures long-term access to Liberia’s existing rail and port export corridor, critical for moving high-volume ore from inland operations to the Port of Buchanan. For mine planners and infrastructure engineers, the extended tenure supports justification of major brownfield upgrades to rail capacity, load-out facilities and materials handling systems over multi-decade horizons.