Kazakhstan's Copper Cathode Output Down 9.1% YoY in Jan-Feb 2026, Feb Production Drops 7.8% MoM

HBIS Resources (000923) announced on March 17 that the Limpopo Province of South Africa, where its subsidiary Palabora Copper (Pty) Ltd. is located, and the neighboring Mpumalanga Province had been hit by the most severe flooding disaster since 2000. As runoff from the open pit and surrounding catchment areas surged into the company’s mine workings, some tunnels in Phase I and Phase II of the copper project were flooded, causing some critical facilities to be submerged (with no casualties). As the operating area of Copper Phase II is located at a deeper level, dewatering has progressed relatively slowly, and dewatering operations are still underway, with completion expected in early April.

Kevin Hassett, Director of the White House National Economic Council in the US, said that oil tankers had "already begun to pass sporadically" through the Strait of Hormuz, and that if necessary, the scale of a globally coordinated release of strategic petroleum reserves could be expanded. Speaking on CNBC, he said the White House had formulated response plans for every stage of supply chain disruptions, and said he was "very confident that the current situation is under control and will end soon."

A senior Iranian official said on the 17th that Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vetoed a proposal to “de-escalate tensions or achieve peace” with the US at a foreign affairs meeting, rejecting an offer relayed to Iran’s Foreign Ministry by two intermediary countries. The senior Iranian official said that Mojtaba stated at the foreign affairs meeting that “now is not the time for peace,” and said that the US and Israel must be defeated and made to pay compensation.