Attendance at the just completed SME annual convention held in Phoenix may have been lower than some of the vendors hoped for, but local consultants and service company reps that I talked to were saying that they are getting as busy as they were in 2008 before the downturn. Lots of deal-making going on all around us.
There seems to be guarded optimism that the mining sector spending is real and growing. The record price of gold and the dramatic recovery of copper in the past year were a common topic of discussion in the aisles of the exhibit hall. [
right, joint AZGS- State Land Dept exhibit booth]
