The conference registered over 2000 delegates from 38 countries, making it the premier mining-finance networking opportunity in Asia. The exhibition also trebled in size from the previous year, with more that 160 companies, a three-fold increase on 2010, showcasing mining projects and investment opportunities.

• Where are we in the economic cycle? Predictions for growth i2n0 11

• Working with China to drive growth in the industry
• Key risk factors facing the industry and strategies to overcome them

• Engaging with local communities to build a sustainable future

for the mining industry

Andrew Forrest, CEO, FORTESCUE METALS GROUP

Mines and Money Hong Kong 2011 – Growth opportunities and market challenges in 2011 -Andrew Forrest, CEO, FORTESCUE METALS GROUP from Aspermont UK on Vimeo.

Metals prices overview and commodity outlooks - What’s hot and what’s not?

• Analysing the minerals sector multi-commodity outlooks: Is most leverage in base, precious or bulks?

• Where are the best opportunities amongst the minor and boutique metals: tungsten, uranium and rare earths?

• Is the ‘stronger for longer’ hypothesis back for good?

• Where are the next market hot-spots – by commodity and by geography?

Dr Allan Trench, Regional Director, Australasia, CRU STRATEGIES

Mines and Money Hong Kong 2011 – Metals prices overview and commodity outlooks – What’s hot and what’s not? – Dr. Allan Tren from Aspermont UK on Vimeo.

Where next for gold?

• How high will gold go and how fast? Implications for gold mining investment

• Who’s buying gold and why? Central banks, China, India, private investors?

• Where’s the supply? Exploring new gold projects coming on stream

• Opportunities for the gold mining sector and the mining investor

Rob McEwen, Founder, GOLDCORP and Chairman & CEO, MINERA ANDES INCORPORATED & US GOLD CORPORATION

Mines and Money Hong Kong 2011 – Where next for gold? – Rob McEwen, Chairman & CEO, MINERA ANDES from Aspermont UK on Vimeo.

Creating China’s first private mining investment fund

• Background to the creation of the China Mining United Fund

• Investment portfolio and future growth plans

• Exploring the growth of Chinese private investment funds in the mining sector

Zheng Zhi, Chairman, CHINA MINING UNITED FUND

Mines and Money Hong Kong 2011 – Creating China’s first private mining investment fund – Zheng Zhi, Chairman, CHINA MINING UNI from Aspermont UK on Vimeo.

The emphasis was unsurprisingly on mining opportunities in Asia and, apart from the excellent networking opportunities and above-average catering, two aspects interested your correspondent.

The first was the high level of attendance achieved at two separate workshops, on Mongolia and Indonesia. Workshop sessions are usually regarded as hard work but, in Hong Kong, over 500 delegates participated. This is one of the largest interactive audiences I have seen assembled to discuss the resource sector’s involvement in these two mineral-rich emerging regions.

The high proportion of Chinese nationals and overseas Chinese in attendance was a clear signal to the Western companies with historic involvement in Asia that complacency is not an option as the new wave gathers momentum.

However, the second aspect made an even more vivid impression. The main draw card of this Mines and Money conference, for most attendees, was that the ‘venerable’ Mining Journal was able to showcase, in one morning, the three most important people in today’s mining industry. The speakers were Robert Friedland, followed by Andrew Forrest and then Rob McEwen.

As a long-term spectator at mining events, I have witnessed the impact these three men have made on the mining sector over recent decades. All three were on fine form for this conference, and merits a few reflections on the contrasts between the three speakers and their impact.

Friedland

Robert Friedland is commonly regarded by conference organisers as the number-one draw card, and he can pick and chose where he presents. A Chinese audience, with many Mongolian representatives, obviously had appeal. His inspirational opening speech focused on the significance of the Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia, which is the world’s largest undeveloped copper-gold project, located only 80km north of the Chinese border.

Mr Friedland is a leonine individual and a naturally-gifted communicator. Given the way he gets his key points across, he could have been a movie actor. He still presents Oyu Tolgoi as a dream, albeit his visual presentation now focuses on the enormous scale of this project in development and of its huge importance to both China and Mongolia.

We can expect initial production in 2013 with a likely 100-year mine life. As the take away, ‘sound bites’, we heard that the mine would be equivalent to the areal extent of Manhattan, that the No 2 shaft was the largest single shaft in the world, and that Rio Tinto, Ivanhoe’s strategic partner, was opposed to Robert adding a revolving restaurant at the top of the 39-storey head frame (a comment delivered with a grin).

Robert has been one of the most opportunistic entrepreneurs the mining world has seen in the past 40 years. But, with the discovery and development of Oyu Tolgoi, his impact on the Asian and world mining scene has been transformational. To such an extent that one can envisage a symbiotic relationship developing between Mongolia and China this century similar to that which evolved over the previous century between Canada and the US.

Robert kindly pointed out that the world needed another five ‘Oyu Tolgoi’-scale projects to maintain supply and demand for copper near a balance. No rest for the wicked then.

Mines and Money Hong Kong 2011 – Robert Friedland, Executive Chairman, IVANHOE MINES from Aspermont UK on Vimeo.

Find out about the next Mines and Money Hong Kong event…

Forrest

Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, the next speaker, came across like a middle-weight boxer, punching through his presentation without notes but with passion; more the Aussie warrior than the film star.

Twiggy stresses that the remarkable achievement of Fortescue Metals in developing major new iron-ore projects around three hubs in the Pilbara region of Western Australia against the odds and in the face of the nay-saying establishment could have been done as readily by BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto if they had the vision and ability to think outside the box.

In less than a decade, Twiggy put together an impressive team to create the world’s fourth-largest iron-ore producer in the world with the largest iron-ore tenement position (60% of the Pilbara, the world’s richest iron-ore region) with scope for major expansion.

Fortunately with iron ore, all your product is readily saleable and the world steel industry has trust in the CRABS countries as suppliers (Canada, Russia, Australia, Brazil and South Africa). Twiggy has been a trans­formational influence for the State of Western Australia and for the world of iron ore. While a tough negotiator, he still comes across as a man of the people, and one should note that he is also well-known for his charitable work. Twiggy the maverick is now becoming an accepted figure with the more liberal elements of the mining establishment.

Mines and Money Hong Kong 2011 – Growth opportunities and market challenges in 2011 -Andrew Forrest, CEO, FORTESCUE METALS GROUP from Aspermont UK on Vimeo.

Find out about the next Mines and Money Hong Kong event…

McEwen

The third keynote speaker on an exciting morning was Rob McEwen, who has a more intense style of presentation, with hints of a missionary zeal. Rob is the scion of a Canadian mining-finance family, and, before committing himself to his entrepreneurial activities, had an in-depth apprenticeship as a mining analyst and then financier in the 1980s.

Rob has accumulated great expertise in the gold sector, developing projects and building companies, albeit not on the scale of the other two speakers. His key message is that gold is money where currency, particularly the US dollar, is not.

Rob has been correct in his fundamental assumptions for over ten years, having built up Goldcorp and moving on to develop US Gold for gold and silver (Nevada and Mexico) and LexamVG in the Timmins Camp of Canada.

Rob does not claim to be transformational, and his increasingly strident call for a much higher asset allocation to gold, and now also silver, is designed to unsettle. Rob has the credibility to forecast gold hitting US$5,000/oz.

Where he provokes, is his comparison of the present US situation to that of pre-Weimar republic Germany, and his prediction that a financial tsunami will soon hit US financial markets.

His controlled delivery contains a subliminal message: buy shares in my companies (all being regional plays with significant exploration and the development potential to become majors). Rob has bought gold in the ground, which suggests that his Noah’s Ark may float when the tsunami arrives to wash away the more improvident entrepreneurs with paper canoes.

Rob manages to come across as the nice guy, and, given the important charitable foundations that he has established, he has many friends at all levels in the mining industry.

At the close of the first day, this spectator was privileged to witness at close quarters Robert Friedland and Twiggy Forrest in animated and earnest conversation. I suspect that one of the Rio Tinto executives present would have donated a few million dollars to one of Twiggy’s charities to be a fly on the wall at their dinner that evening.

Mines and Money Hong Kong 2011 – Where next for gold? – Rob McEwen, Chairman & CEO, MINERA ANDES from Aspermont UK on Vimeo.

Find out about the next Mines and Money Hong Kong event…