People: Charles Wyatt

The death of Charles Wyatt has deprived followers of the world mining scene of one of its most knowledgeable and trenchant observers. Founder of the Minesite and Oilbarrel websites, whose praise or remorseless criticism kept many a mining company boss awake at night, he carved out an almost unique position for himself in the global village
of natural resources.

A former Financial Times columnist and contributor to that newspaper’s ‘Lex’ column in the days when it wielded significant City authority, ‘Charlie’ Wyatt eventually found the limits then imposed on a journalist’s financial activities too constraining for his entrepreneurial instincts. He went into public relations and other operations before at last launching Minesite just when online business journalism and analysis were coming into their own.

Charlie combined an encyclopaedic knowledge of the people and technical operations involved in mining around the world with a pithy and erudite writing style, giving praise where he felt it was due but taking no prisoners where he felt it was not. In particular, those who refused to advertise on his website often found that he could be devastatingly acerbic and unforgiving.

Always a congenial drinking companion and gossip, Charles Wyatt was one of a breed of financial commentators who sadly have become rarer in these grey and austere times.