The March MER and the Mineral Squeeze

The EVE Online Monthly Economic Report for March 2020 arrived last week, so it is probably time for another peek into how the mineral starvation plan is changing things.

EVE Online nerds harder

Last month I looked at mining because February was the first month where the first phase of the mineral starvation plan had any impact.

Now, with the full month of March under our belt, we can look to see how things have moved along.  The first thing is the price of minerals.  Scarcity should drive that up, and it looks like that has gone as expected.

March 2020 – Economic Indices

The slope of the mineral prices line maintained a steep upward angle from February to March.  Mineral pricing will hit a three year high if it maintains that slope.  The pricing is even significant on the long term picture.

March 2020 – Economic Indices – All Time

We’re still well shy of an all time high, but it is within the realm of possibility I suppose.

As for where the mining is happening, in February overall mining totaled 28.6 trillion ISK in value and the top regions were:

1. Delve – 2.40 trillion
2. Domain – 1.68 trillion
3. Oasa – 1.44 trillion
4. Esoteria – 1.13 trillion
5. The Forge – 1.11 trillion
6. Feythabolis – 861 billion
7. Sinq Laison – 821 billion
8. Lonetrek – 791 billion
9. Malpais – 748 billion
10. Fountain – 729 billion

With March the total amount mined added up to 35 trillion is in value, with the top ten regions as:

1. Delve – 2.92 trillion
2. Domain – 1.60 trillion
3. The Forge – 1.55 trillion
4. Oasa – 1.27 trillion
5. Esoteria – 1.17 trillion
6. Fountain – 1.17 trillion
7. Sinq Laison – 1.14 trillion
8. Lonetrek – 1.05 trillion
9. Metropolis – 971 billion
10. Feythabolis – 958 billion

That is almost the same ten region (Metropolis replacing Malpais) and up for totals on average.  But with prices up even it the value of the amount mined was up that might still mean that the actual cubic meters of ore mined was lower, since every bit is worth more.

Delve was up the most, along with Fountain, which are both null sec regions that are heavily mined, especially when it comes to moon mining, which did not get its nerf until the end of the month when most basic ores and minerals were removed from moons.

In the run up to that I know that the Imperium set all moon extractions to a seven day cycle to get the most chunks harvested as possible before the big nerf hit.

And now that it has, there is no reason to think that a further shortfall in minerals will make the prices go anywhere save up.  So we shall see what the numbers look like in April when the starvation plan will be in full effect.

Likewise, with the nerfs to titans and super carriers that hit in early April, next month might be a prime time to take a look at NPC bounty numbers again in order to do some before and after comparisons.

But that will be next month.  Until then all the charts and data for the report are available from CCP.