How to Attend: The seminar is complimentary. Please register for it by Tuesday, November 24, 2026 to secure your place. RSVP via Eventbrite (click HERE) if you are interested in attending it.
For its Wednesday, November 25, 2026, Discussion Group seminar, CIM’s Management and Economics Society is pleased to welcome:
Graham Davis, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Mineral Economics
Colorado School of Mines
who will deliver an online presentation on:
Incorporating Political Risk Adjustments Into Income Approach Valuations
Abstract:
Political risk is a type of project risk related to project delays, increased costs, or lost output due to adverse political decisions, events, or conditions. In an income approach to mine project valuation political risk will delay or reduce expected cash flows, lowering project value. The most common approach to dealing with political risk is not to adjust the cash flows, but to instead increase the project discount rate via a “country risk premium.” Host country sovereign spread is often used as the amount by which the discount rate is increased. Not only do finance textbooks advise against adders to the discount rate, but the sovereign spread is likely to have very little to do with the political risk faced by a specific mining project. Instead, cash flows should be probabilistically adjusted for the anticipated negative events, using political risk indicators such as market-based political risk insurance or other market indicators to gauge the probability of a political risk event.
About our presenter:
BIO: Graham Davis is is Professor Emeritus of Mineral Economics at the Colorado School of Mines, where he taught and researched mineral economics from 1993 to 2017. He holds a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from Queen’s University, an MBA from the University of Cape Town, and a Ph.D. in Mineral Economics from the Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining academia, Graham worked as a metallurgical engineer at mines in Canada and Namibia. His research and consulting practice focuses on the valuation of mineral and energy assets under uncertainty and on the impacts of mining on economic and human development. He serves on the editorial board of Resources Policy, an international journal devoted to minerals policy and economics, and is an Associate Editor at the Journal of Commodity Markets. Graham is a Registered member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. He is also a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy. In 2014, he received the annual Mineral Economics Award from SME/AIME.
Please join us!
Wednesday, November 25, 2026, at 3:30pm ET (12:30pm PT)
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