Another clue. It was made by Barrick Gold almost exactly three years ago, before the start of the global financial crisis, and will keep on going round and round for the next 10 years.

By now some clever reader will have used the clues to come up with the correct answer: tyres.

It was on January 30, 2008, that former Barrick chief executive, Greg Wilkins, announced a funding deal with Japan’s Yokohama Rubber to ensure a near-perpetual supply of off-road tyres for Barrick’s truck fleet.

In exchange for a $US35 million loan from Barrick, Yokohama expanded its Onomichi tyre plant near Hiroshima, with Barrick also agreeing to buy 1300 giant tyres a year for its open-pit mining fleet.

At the time it was a revolutionary deal, and one not copied by other big miners who could perhaps smell trouble brewing as the first waves of the GFC washed up on the shores of New York and opted out of similar supply deals.

Today, with the boom back and miners scrambling to make up for three lost years, the Barrick deal has ensured that it will be one company able to keep rubber on the road, and at an affordable price.

The one sad note from Barrick’s tyre deal is that Wilkins did not live long enough to see the wisdom of what he had done. Three months after signing off with Yokohama he lost his battle with cancer, passing away at 53.

If he had lived, Wilkins would be amused to see how the wheel of fortune has turned full circle, with the return of boom conditions triggering near-panic in the management ranks of big miners which did not follow his example and lock in critical equipment supply deals.

Tyres, just as they stopped some companies in their tracks three years ago, have emerged as the show-stoppers again – and it’s probably going to be even tougher this time around, and will happen quicker than most mine executives think.

In Thailand and Malaysia, the homes of natural rubber, plantation owners are celebrating the best price rises for decades. Over the past two months the price of benchmark rubber, known as ribbed smoked sheet 3 (RRS3), has jumped by 25% to hit a record $US5 a kilogram.

The price is likely to continue rising because rubber production is entering a seasonal go-slow known as the leaf-shedding season, an event which has combined this year with the worst floods for decades in Thailand.

Like most readers, Dryblower had never heard of RRS3 until he started to dig into the looming rubber tyre crisis, mark 2.

But, when he got a grasp of what’s happening it brought back memories of the mark 1 boom, when companies had staff scurrying around the world trying to source equipment and consumables because they had forgotten to place orders when prices were low.

China, naturally, has been one step ahead of the game, just as it was during the GFC, buying assets at low prices in order to sell them back at a high price.

According to reports from Beijing, imports of rubber into China over the past six months have soared by 60% as Chinese tyre makers have spotted an opportunity to buy low and sell high.

Tyres, of course, will be just the start of “the scramble, mark 2” which will once again see mining companies caught short because management failed to look beyond the immediate question of drilling, blasting and trucking.

Consumables of every imaginable shape and size will be in short supply as the Chinese growth engine charges ahead at its breakneck 8-to-10% and India chimes in with growth to match.

High commodity prices mean that the miners will be able to pay the prices demanded for tyres and other stuff, for now. The real problems start when supply of some products is simply not available, at any price.

Natural rubber will be one of the “unavailable” products because you can’t rush rubber trees. They grow at their own pace.

Substitutes, such as synthetic rubber, will make up some of the natural rubber shortfall, but as the stampede for tyres becomes more frantic it would be wise to remember what Greg Wilkins did three years ago and ask why more companies didn’t copy his lead.

*Dryblower is a weekly column on ILN’s sister publication MiningNews.net.