Mining equities: the Mining.com TOP 50 ranking has lost 712 billion dollars in combined market value since the start of the Iran war, falling about 26 percent from a February peak of 2.75 trillion dollars, with October alone erasing about 226 billion dollars as higher United States rate expectations, war driven oil gains and the technology rout forced fund de-risking. Gold miners lost about 55 billion dollars in October as gold fell, and eleven copper producers lost about 69 billion dollars even though copper itself held up far better than their shares.
Canada crops: Statistics Canada’s Census of Environment release said field crop production totalled 109.3 million tonnes in 2025, 11 percent more than the previous year, and agricultural ecosystems supplied 146.6 million tonnes of biomass in 2025. The release frames the crop account as an ecosystem services measure rather than a market supply estimate, but the production total is a useful check on Canadian grain and oilseed availability.
Netherlands harvest: Statistics Netherlands put the 2026 ware potato harvest at 3.5 million tonnes, 17 percent lower than the record 2025 crop but in line with the ten year average, on a smaller planted area of 70.3 thousand hectares and yields of 49.5 tonnes a hectare. Seed onions are estimated at 1.5 million tonnes, 15 percent lower year on year, and sugar beet output at 6.0 million tonnes, almost 17 percent lower after area restrictions imposed to curb a European surplus. All figures are provisional.
Fusion milestone: engineers at the UK Atomic Energy Authority lifted a 12 tonne double beam box into place on the MAST Upgrade machine at Culham. The vessel will house two additional neutral beam injectors, doubling heating power from 4.4 megawatts to 8.8 megawatts and plasma temperatures from about 30 million to 60 million degrees Celsius. Hardware fitting runs to autumn 2027, with experiments due to begin in 2028, feeding the STEP prototype power plant programme.
Already covered, not repeated: Citi’s cut of about 40 percent to its lithium price forecasts, flagged in the gap check for both this beat and mining, was published on this site on November 2 as the Citi lithium reset story. TotalEnergies’ five year LNG supply deal with ADNOC Gas, reported by Investing.com on November 3, is a contracting headline without disclosed volumes in the pool and is being tracked for terms before any full story. Bloomberg also reported that India’s gold tax increase has driven illegal gold imports to a three year high; the item is single-sourced behind a paywall in this run and is held for corroboration rather than published as fact.