Years of soft commodity prices have depressed demand for mining equipment as miners cut costs and shutter unprofitable sites.

Freeport McMoRan Inc. is considering selling a minority stake in its portfolio of copper mines, sources familiar with the matter said, one of the options on the table as the company scrambles to slash its $20-billion (U.S.) debt load.

In a further indication of the uranium slump, Cameco (NYSE:CCJ, TSX:CCO) is suspending production at its Rabbit Lake operation in northern Saskatchewan and curtailing production at its US operations.

A resource-dependent economy has its price, and in Canada's case, it means a poor report card for protecting the environment.

In recent weeks readers and followers of various gold centric websites have been bombarded with bearish commentaries from pundits and analysts forecasting a correction.

"It is not clear at this time that the current prices are either sustainable or sufficient".

It was just over a year ago that Tony Simon, President of Seguro Consulting, brought to our attention the initial problem of the zombie miners (definition referred to mining exploration companies that had negative working capital and therefore did not meet the Continuous Listing Requirements (CLR) for the TSX and TSX-V stock exchanges).

Mick Davis's private equity firm not on shortlist featuring Vale, Mosaic and Eurochem for $1.5 billion phosphate and niobium operations in South America.

Speculators and investors alike are returning as awareness spreads of how radically undervalued silver is compared to prevailing gold prices.