This research explores gold's safe-haven properties amid oil price instability, focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines how gold hedges against oil price swings in the context of the pandemic's exceptional market circumstances. A VAR (Vector Autoregressive) model analyzes gold and oil prices from 2006 through 2021. The VAR model reflects the dynamic interactions and interdependencies between these two essential commodities in the context of oil price volatility and the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis shows that gold protects against oil price volatility and the COVID-19 pandemic-gold buffers against oil price swings due to its strong inverse association with oil prices. Gold offers investors security and asset preservation during significant oil price volatility. In light of oil price volatility and the COVID-19 pandemic, the study helps explain gold's importance as a diversification tool and haven asset. Investors, policymakers, and market players should consider gold as a hedge against oil price volatility and economic instability.

In 2020, many countries endorsed lockdown measures, closed their borders, and practiced social distancing in a bid to contain COVID-19. These moves, however, disrupted global production and supply chains; no economic sector remained fully intact. The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of supply chains in a globalized world, perhaps none more so than those linked to the distribution of essential raw materials. Minerals are considered raw materials, the extraction of which has important implications for a country's sovereignty and economic autonomy. They are found in abundance in consumer goods such as smartphones, cell phone batteries, computer monitors, cards, and other electrical and electronic products whose useful life has ended. In response to the health and economic problems arising from the current crisis, several countries have moved ahead and outlined post-COVID-19 strategies for the supply of critical metals, over the medium and long term, to reduce their dependence on other states for these commodities. This paper reflects critically on the positioning of the world's large economies, in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, on strategic minerals.

This paper provides an assessment of COVID-19 occurrences in the Brazilian Amazon, with special emphasis on municipalities where mining activity is prevalent. It does so with a view to exploring how mining may be influencing the spread of coronavirus, not only within municipalities where the sector is widespread but also other areas of the Amazon. The analysis draws on findings from qualitative research and case studies of selected mining municipalities in Brazil. The results were analyzed by population range, and cases reported from the onset of the pandemic were mapped and evaluated. It is revealed that: (1) within the 772 municipalities in the Amazon, incidence of COVID-19 is relatively higher in the 33 largest mining localities; (2) there have been a higher proportion of COVID-19 cases in the selected municipalities than in other municipalities which have a similar population range; and (3) between 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, among the Amazon's mining municipalities, those containing gold experienced the most significant growth as well as had highest rates of infection. Overall, the results suggest that in the Brazilian Amazon, COVID-19 has spread fastest in major mining municipalities. These results and continuation of this research will provide support for decision-makers and local governments.

The aim of this paper is to present a brief historical analysis of the Australian mining industry and the development of its social licence to operate. Commencing with the discovery of coal in the 18th century, to gold and copper and base metals in the 19th century, to the world class iron ore, mineral sands and diamond mines of the 20th century to the current day, the paper will attempt to determine how and why an industry, formerly well-respected by the public, is considered to be a pariah in the eyes of many sections of society. The theory of social licence and its use in the Australian minerals industry is briefly described and a working definition of "an honest, transparent engagement resulting in a beneficial outcome to all parties before, during and after mining" is adopted throughout the paper. Case studies illustrating examples where mining operations were, and continue to be sustained for decades, provide clear evidence of having a social licence to operate. On the other hand, examples are provided illustrating where poor environmental management practices, tailings dam failures, disputes with landowners, and/or government intervention have resulted in the loss of the social licence and early, unplanned closure. The paradox is that despite the industry's acknowledged contribution to the Australian economy, particularly in times of global ructions such as the GFC and the current coronavirus pandemic, there is considerable antipathy towards the industry by the public. Furthermore, the Australian mining industry's approach to environmental management and sustainable development is regularly used as a model for emerging mining economies. The industry has pioneered remediation and rehabilitation on challenging sites, including prime agricultural land, forests, riverine and beach environments. Successes are rarely acknowledged however but failures are highlighted, by the media, opponents of the industry, and governments. Clearly, the business as usual approach is not enough. Mining industry leaders need to take strong measures to ensure the industry is sustainable and maintains its social licence including eliminating all fatalities and serious injuries, ensuring the safety and stability of tailings storage facilities, accelerating progressive rehabilitation particularly on open cut coal mines, successfully closing mines, and lifting the environmental performance of all mines, not just a few.

The Social License to Operate (SLO) and the Value Chain business model are basic elements that need to be considered both at the planning and operation stages of mining operations and in particular in coal mining projects. If a coal mining enterprise loses its SLO, it may face risks in operations, which may lead to value chain risks. One of the causes of enterprise failure as related to coal mining operations is the inability to reliably assess/manage risk holistically and the inability to understand that lack of SLO is a critical risk. Although financial risks are typically assessed for mining projects, lack of SLO risk should also be taken into account starting as early as the bankable feasibility study. Furthermore, as it is difficult to establish a proactive decision-making policy for SLO risk in coal mining operations, the Operational Risk Management (ORM) methodology is probably a good tool to apply towards that goal. For this reason, a Mining Operational Risk Management Model (MORMM) was developed to incorporate risk probabilities and risk severities evaluated by experts. The final risk assessment is coded using Risk Assessment Codes (RACs). A hypothetical scenario was developed utilizing the MORMM model in order to illustrate how risks can be managed during the SLO granting process. This scenario describes a hypothetical coal mining project evaluated by virtual risk evaluators under specific hazard categories. Risk evaluation involves the assessment of risk probability and risk severity. Through this scenario this paper presents ways: (i) to establish a baseline ORM process that will be applicable to any coal mining operation environment, and (ii) to provide a theoretical example to demonstrate how the method can be applied to coal mining operations. The resulting RACs can provide critical information to decision makers regarding the rejection, acceptance or re-engineering of the mining business plan.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposes both conflict and cooperation in artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon. Reporting on the experiences of artisanal and small-scale gold miners (, in Brazilian Portuguese), we show how, on the one hand, the pandemic challenges an already precarious working system that could lead , often invisible to public policies, to positions of further vulnerability; and, on the other hand, highlights the capacity of to self-organize and navigate the difficulties by finding alternative solutions to cope with the crisis. This leads us to argue that emerging strategies of cooperation, related to self-organization and communication channels have the potential to provide experiences useful for processes of conflict transformation in the post-crisis. We acknowledge that much depends on the severity of the crisis and its manifestations in the region; nevertheless, the potential for constructive outcomes from the crisis should not be disregarded.

California has set ambitious climate policies, including economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2045. Yet levels of oil production and consumption remain high in the state. This gap between California's oil politics and its climate ambitions is deepened by decentralized decision-making processes. County officials are tasked with extractive planning decisions that have wide-ranging implications. In this Viewpoint article, we analyze proposals for enhanced extraction at the Cat Canyon oilfield in Santa Barbara County. After two of three proposals were withdrawn in recent months, we highlight how it has been oil industry volatility and public opposition - rather than state regulations - that have brought county development plans into closer alignment with state climate goals. As California pursues a goal of 'managing the decline' of domestic oil production, we identify strategies for bridging such gaps between local decision-making and state-level climate action, including: a comprehensive state-wide ban on new enhanced oil extraction projects; a 2,500 ft buffer zone around extraction sites; and revenue generation schemes that support a just transition. As Covid-19 forces an oil surplus and lowered production, there are opportunities to enact such changes - particularly by redirecting oil industry labor toward the growing problem of well decommissioning.

Our recent research reveals enormous discrepancies in oil spill data disclosed by regulatory institutions and corporate sources in Nigeria. Federal agencies as well as major international oil corporations publish inconsistent and sometimes contradictory figures, often employing different spatial or regional categorizations. Uncertainties pertaining to data veracity in the Niger Delta, alongside the thin scientific record inflect deeply contentious debates regarding the country's oil industry. For advocacy organizations, the result is that those seeking to monitor oil spills may spend hours trying to square and cross-reference uneven information, time that could otherwise be spent assessing the scale of impacts and analyzing the complex structural causes surrounding them. Scholarly work in other jurisdictions indicates that the staging of non-transparent, incoherent and/or intentionally misleading data on oil spill risks is not unique to Nigeria, leading to a kind of epistemological vertigo in studying this sector.

The Covid-19 pandemic is reshaping the world economy. Headline news stories depict mining companies as a stabilising force: supporting the flow of resources to keep the economy moving, and contributing to local welfare initiatives for communities in crisis. We argue that this narrative masks important details about the local conditions where mining companies operate. The issues at the company-community interface are typically invisible to distant audiences. While travel restrictions are necessary to limit community-spread, these constraints push interfaces in mining communities further into the unknown. The effects of the global pandemic will be far reaching. Scholarship is needed to understand the dynamics of mining in the time of Covid-19 and to place present impacts, actions, and decisions in their proper historical context.

As the economic ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to unfold, it is becoming increasingly apparent that this crisis will have significant and lasting implications for the relationship between extractive industries and Indigenous communities. Using a case study from Canada, this paper examines how the political dynamics of industry-Indigenous relations have changed and speculates about how these dynamics might continue to change in the future. The economic crisis has already intensified political conflicts and struggles between Indigenous peoples and mining, oil, and gas companies. We identify and discuss four points of conflict between Indigenous communities and extractive industries that have become more acute as a result of the current economic crisis. It is important for researchers to pay close attention to how these conflicts are affected by the pandemic, in order to help Indigenous communities develop strategies to cope with changes in industry-Indigenous relations.

It is a fundamental objective to transition towards a low-carbon economy worldwide which is supported by an international legal agreement - the 2015 Paris Agreement. In order to achieve this ambition, there is a need for new and more mineral extraction which is necessary for the technology for this low-carbon transition. These minerals are known as critical minerals and this article examines the role of justice needed in their development. The literature to-date lacks any holistic yet focused examination of the key elements of justice in the development of this industry. This conceptual article makes an original contribution that utilises an interdisciplinary perspective, legal geography, and explores key issues of justice that include distributive, procedural, restorative, recognition and cosmopolitan. The research identifies the key questions that need to be resolved under each element of justice and the unfortunate limited timeframes for action. Critical justice areas include taxation, environmental impact assessments, waste management, social license to operate, and cross-border actions. Resolving these issues will directly address societal issues of inequality and ensure a just transition to a low-carbon economy. Already there is a global race for critical minerals, and justice needs a stronger role in its development based on evidence to-date.

Since the 1970s, environmentalists have warned that overconsumption, especially of minerals and fossil fuels, will lead to resource depletion. But there are compelling reasons to question the assertion that we are running out. On the one hand, new technologies and discoveries have increased the supply of petroleum and natural gas. On the other, concerns about global climate change and the competitiveness of renewable energy are turning coal into a sunset industry and threaten to transform oil reserves into stranded assets. In contrast to fossil fuels, which are consumed in the process of generating energy, virtually all of the metals excavated in the past remain available even after they have been put to use. Even though the average size and degree of mineralization of recently-discovered ore bodies is on the decline, there has never been as much copper, silver, and gold available for human consumption as there is today. Whether incorporated into digital technology or infrastructure, the majority of metals remain available for recycling, which is generally less expensive, uses less energy, and has fewer environmental impacts than extracting minerals from the earth. The threat posed by climate change from continued use of fossil fuels, and the impacts of environmental degradation caused by resource extraction, demand greater attention than the misleading specter of peak oil or running out of metals.

This special section examines the relationship between international transparency discourse in the extractive sector, and the persistent association of unaccountable government, socioeconomic injustice and ongoing environmental hazards associated with extractive firms and their operations. Our critical analyses of transparency- situate the discourse and practice within the overall turn-of-millennium regulatory capture of states in the global North - including Canada, the US and the UK - by oil and mining industry interests. Contributors probe how transparency regimes have been applied to oil and extractive sector 'host states' in the global South, in particular Nigeria, while the rent-seeking practices that these regimes seek to expose are rarely tied to corporate malfeasance in the North. We employ this introduction to consider global transparency discourse and regulatory regimes in the light of the Since the turn of the millennium, we argue, attention to extraction's full costs have been largely overshadowed in policy discourse via global transparency regimes, notably the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

Canada's Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA) is the culmination of a series of proposals and consultations with government, industry and civil society organizations to address conflict over Canadian extractive industry. Created in the context of a global call for extractive industry accountability, as well as increasing scrutiny of Canadian mining activities for alleged human rights and environmental abuses, the ESTMA aims to deter corruption via financial reporting requirements for Canadian extractive firms operating in Canada and abroad. By mandating that firms publicly disclose payments to various levels of government, however, the ESTMA is constructed atop global corruption discourse that identifies host states in the Global South as the source of social pathologies that facilitate corruption, largely excluding a critical analysis of extractive firms in the Global North. Drawing on interviews, document analysis of material related to the ESTMA and case studies of extractive firm financial reporting, this paper argues that under the ESTMA's financial reporting processes, corporate risk management trumps meaningful social regulation. While the Act does mandate disclosures useful to the advocacy community, limited oversight, a lack of standardized reporting and excluded activities under the Act mean that the ESTMA offers limited leverage to substantively address the human and ecological cost of Canada's extractive industry. As has resulted from transparency policies more broadly, however, the ESTMA provides firms a means to counter broader critique and, in complying with audit culture, promotes investment security.

The Coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) global pandemic has not only caused infections and deaths, but it has also wreaked havoc with the global economy on a scale not seen since at least the Great Depression. Covid-19 has the potential to destroy individual livelihoods, businesses, industries and entire economies. The mining sector is not immune to these impacts, and the crisis has the potential to have severe consequences in the short, medium and long-term for the industry. Understanding these impacts, and analysing their significance for the industry, and the role it plays in wider economic development is a crucial task for academic research.

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria is widely recognized as a complex and contentious space for oil exploration and production. Over the past few decades, the Niger Delta has witnessed large-scale mass peaceful mobilizations and rebellion-like conditions from violent militia groups. Oil companies have been implicated in violence perpetrated by Nigerian security forces. Local host communities have suffered greatly from corruption, political instability, violence and the environmental devastation of their farmlands and fishing grounds. Oil companies have increasingly turned to corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to attempt to build or repair relations with oil-producing communities. There are also governmental and non-governmental humanitarian actors supporting various initiatives in the oil-producing areas. This article highlights the challenges that one long running micro-scale development project has faced due to the COVID 19 disease outbreak and the closure of all schools in Rivers State, Nigeria in March 2020. The school closures have halted some initiatives, but our weekly nutritional program has continued in new, socially distanced forms.

Countries blessed with natural resources have generally struggled to achieve sustainable economic development and prosperity. Population growth, the depletion of natural resources coupled with mismanagement, and sharp fluctuations in prices of those resources are among the main reasons for sub-optimal economic performance. Some resource-rich countries have been expending effort and money in an attempt to change this inverse relationship (a.k.a. "the resource curse") by designing policies to diversify their economies with high value-added industries and sectors. Qatar is a such country and point of the interest in this article. Qatar's political and economic structure, its efforts to diversify its economy, and the potential for improved entrepreneurial outcomes with high value-added products, services, businesses, and industries are analyzed. The country has been very effective in maximizing the benefits of its oil resources and especially its large natural gas reserves, becoming the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world. Revenues from oil and gas sales have been invested in the domestic economy and global assets. Thus far, however, it has not shown the in-house capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship critical for sustainable economic diversification going forward. This publication was made possible in part by NPRP grant #10-1203-160007 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation).

The degree to which host regions benefit from resource extraction is a major issue for research and policy. In Australia and Canada, the dominant narrative of resource extraction is that most of the benefits flow away from host regions. This paper draws on evolutionary economic geography, presenting a case study of the Limestone Coast in South Australia, which previously extracted and distributed gas locally to food and fibre manufacturing industries. New policies seeking to renew the gas industry in the region, provide subsidies for exploration. Scenarios were developed to help inform decisions about the role of gas within this region. Qualitative analysis of the scenarios emphasised that gas needs to be affordable and locally accessible. Quantitative modelling showed that using the gas locally by manufacturing industries as part of broader industrial expansion would lead to greater benefits compared with exporting all gas outside the region. We conclude that policy settings have gone some way towards realising increased benefits for the region. Regional stakeholders clearly favoured the local use scenario but saw it as unlikely in the context of current infrastructure limitations. Stakeholders sought policy support for infrastructure to enable the preferred scenario to be realised.

This paper applies Douglas' cultural theory of risk to understand perceptions of risk associated with oil and gas development in eastern Montana. Based on the analysis of interviews with 36 rural residents, findings show the dominant perception of risk is most closely aligned with an Individualist worldview. Despite direct experience with oil or wastewater spills, most interviewees described spills as "no big deal", viewed nature as resilient, and felt that the economic benefits outweigh negative impacts. Cultural theory was a useful heuristic for understanding this dominant worldview, as well as identifying points of deviation. For example, interviewees discussed the benefits of landowner associations - a more Egalitarian approach to dealing with oil companies. Some landowners relied on external authorities (e.g., sheriff) when dealing with oil companies, revealing a Hierarchical approach to issues they face. Interviewees expressed frustration with the lack of enforcement of existing regulations, which can be interpreted as either support for - or indictment of - Hierarchical solutions. While the Individualist worldview is dominant, our qualitative analysis reveals the complex tensions at work among rural residents. The results suggest areas where policymakers, advocacy groups, and residents may find common ground to address potential environmental and health risks.