Mining companies in asset-disposal mode have been at pains to assure shareholders that fire sales of mining assets will not be countenanced. But, as conditions worsen, there are early signs that some are edging towards concluding that getting low prices may be better than not getting anything at all. Last week, CNN Money said that “there’s a mining fire sale going on around the world” and postulated that many mining assets were destined to go at bargain basement prices. It spoke of America’s largest mining company, Freeport-McMoRan, “trying to quiet bankruptcy fears even as it drowns in $20-billion of debt”.