Unleashing the Power of AI in Mining to transform efficiency and assessing market uncertainty

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Hey – David here. In this edition of DRIFFT you’ll get:

💡What’s New: unprecedented demands matched with exceptional technologies.

🤔 Opinion: Metals investing: uncertainty on both sides of today’s market.

🛠️ Tips: Latest tools to help you level up your R&D.

🎓 Tutorial: AI’s place in mining explained.

Want to feature your service or product in DRIFFT? Grab an ad spot here.

💡What’s new

• ESRI has an impressive data collection available on mining and gas.

• Or you can Dig Deep with this mining podcast.

• It’s a good idea to use multiple data sources to qualify resources.

• Data hungry applications are the future of mine automation.

• More “discoveries” needed to meet demand..we’re fighting a trend.

• A shortage of copper on the London Metals Exchange?

• A global resource grab happening in Africa and the oceans.

• LIDAR mapping finds Mayan temples and abandoned mines.

• Some recent advances in mining–this one, this one, and this one.

• “mineral domaining” - generate models from drill hole samples

• A tech company draws $20M invest to make AI geologists.

• A series of mining courses from the Zimbabwe school of mines.

• Some key automation companies in mining you should know about.

• Demand for minerals so great that USGS + DARPA have teamed up with congress invoking national defense auth act.

• And soon mining could find itself busy with CO2 storage.

• Now you can monitor deepwater reservoirs from space.

• Chile raising mineral royalties..and the price of your electric car.

• MAXAR goes toe to toe with a pricey remake of Google Earth Engine.

🤔 Opinion

All investing is done under uncertainty. No matter how “sure” the business, something can always go wrong.

The opportunity in metals seems to be forming beautifully. There’s strong demand for battery electric materials. The government and media narratives support “energy transition.” And there’s significant growth in technology to easily find and exploit resources.

But investors must always remember there are obstacles to change. Three enormous ones today are:

1. regulation–rules make mining and processing cost prohibitive

2. lead time–setting up logistics and processing of materials takes a LONG time.

3. public opposition–e.g., for undersea mining, many major brands have refused to use the materials.

There are no easy answers to these challenges, yet. Ironically, as reported in a previous post, the Biden administration is working to reduce regulatory burden.

Why do I bring this up?

Investors who take the less popular position on a trade generally get paid for their risk. With both regulation and demand increasing, there’s tremendous opportunity forming in this market, both for shorts and longs.

I am asking myself: Does off-shore → off-short? Can I be bullish on just about any index fund? What short-term plays are forming that make sense from a macro perspective?

I’ll be watching closely.

🛠️ Tools and Data

to speed your R&D

1. GeoStats.jl - geostats library for data scientists written in Julia, https://juliaearth.github.io/GeoStats.jl/stable/

2. GEODEX - data from mining drillholes in Western AUS, https://www.geodex.com.au/latest-release.html

3. Mine Waste Data - comprehensive AUS mine tailings dataset, https://portal.ga.gov.au/persona/minewaste 

4. GeoTorchAI - spatiotemporal deep learning framework, https://github.com/wherobots/GeoTorchAI

5. OpenGeos Segment Anything - use Meta’s segment anything model on your satellite data, https://github.com/opengeos/segment-geospatial

🎓 See What’s Possible

One thing every day for 365 days makes you unstoppable.

Learn about AI’s place in future mining operations.

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Know someone looking to level-up their AI and opensource game in mining? Just copy and paste this link: https://drifft.beehiiv.com 

Thanks for reading! I am here for you. Want me to look into a particular topic? Email your suggestions.

David