Metals & Minerals Marketing, Offtake & Price Risk Training Course

Course Overview

Learning Objectives

• Explain how metals and minerals markets are structured and where smelters, refiners, traders, and industrial users fit.
• Compare direct sales, traders, tenders, and spot and long-term selling arrangements for a producer.
• Develop a marketing strategy that allocates volume across customers, regions, and terms.
• Interpret benchmark prices, price reporting agencies, premiums, and discounts for a given product.
• Calculate netback value for concentrates and refined products from a sales contract and logistics costs.
• Negotiate the main commercial terms of an offtake agreement including tenor, volume, and take-or-pay.
• Assess pricing formulas, quotational periods, and provisional and final pricing arrangements in contracts.
• Explain treatment and refining charges, payable metals, and deleterious element terms and their effect on revenue.
• Manage sampling, assay, and quality dispute arrangements with counterparties and umpire laboratories.
• Assess counterparty, credit, logistics, and Incoterms risk in export sales and shipping arrangements.
• Identify price exposure and select suitable hedging instruments under an approved mandate with defined dealing authority.
• Review buyer responsible sourcing expectations and how they affect market access for new producers.
• Prepare a board-level marketing and price risk policy with limits, authorities, and regular reporting.

Who Should Attend

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
• Describe how a chosen metal or mineral is priced and traded in its main markets.
• Choose suitable sales channels for a product and producer profile, with reasons.
• Prepare a marketing plan with customers, volumes, and contract terms.
• Calculate netback value from a sales contract and logistics costs for a specific shipment.
• Review an offtake term sheet and identify its commercial risks and missing protections.
• Assess pricing formulas, quotational periods, and final pricing exposure on open shipments.
• Explain how treatment charges and deleterious elements affect the revenue a producer receives.
• Handle sampling, assay, and quality disputes through the contract's exchange and umpire steps.
• Map price, currency, and counterparty exposures in a sales book.
• Select appropriate hedging responses and explain their cost, limits, and governance needs.
• Draft a marketing and price risk policy for board approval.
• Report realized prices against benchmarks to senior management.

Course Outline