States Are Ripping Up Mining Rules, and Precious Metal Stocks Could Be the Biggest Winners
What voters buried in the ’90s may finally get dug up. With gold and silver at historic highs and Washington pushing to secure more onshore minerals, US states are rolling back decades-old mining restrictions. That includes the likes of Montana and Minnesota, as they move to repeal cyanide mining bans, and even reopen protected regions — with miners set to reap the benefits.
- HeclaHL owns Rock Creek and Montanore in northwestern Montana — two of the largest undeveloped silver and copper deposits in the US, sitting idle for decades.
- Sibanye StillwaterSBSW operates the Stillwater and East Boulder mines in the same state — making it the only primary producer of platinum group metals in the US.
The ground is shifting: Coeur MiningCDE, a major US precious metals producer, is another name watching this closely. The policy backdrop has rarely been more favorable, as Derf Johnson of the Montana Environmental Information Center called the White House “the most generous federal administration in terms of the mining industry...in the modern era.” He also cautions that communities want any new projects “done correctly,” given the legacy of contamination. For US-focused miners, that tension defines a once-in-a-generation window... so long as they don’t create any regrets.