Africa Mining – Page 121 – Republic of Mining

Sherritt International CEO confident that debt issues will be fixed without painful restructuring – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 11, 2016)

May 11, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

TORONTO — The chief executive of Sherritt International Corp. said Tuesday he is confident the company will avert a painful restructuring despite its big debt load and woeful nickel prices.

“I expect we’ll be able to do something that works for all stakeholders,” David Pathe said in an interview at the company’s annual meeting in Toronto. He did acknowledge that the situation is highly dependent on what happens in the nickel market.

Toronto-based Sherritt is a victim of timing. The company and its partners spent a staggering US$5.3 billion to develop the Ambatovy mine in Madagascar over the past several years, and nickel prices plummeted just as production was ramping up. As a result, the mine is not generating the cash its owners expected.

Kinross upbeat on turnaround of Tasiast project in West Africa – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – May 11, 2016)

May 11, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Kinross Gold Corp., one of the hottest companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange this year, says it is on track with its plan to turn around its problem-plagued Tasiast project in West Africa.

The Toronto-based miner announced on Tuesday that it has completed a prefeasibility study for the second phase of an expansion that it says has the potential to transform the project into the company’s largest mine.

In March, Kinross committed to an initial phase of the project. The goal is to revive the fortunes of Tasiast, which has been a steady money loser since Kinross’s previous management bought the mine in Mauritania near the height of the mining boom in 2010 for $7.1-billion (U.S.).

Kinross’s share price has soared more than 180 per cent since the start of January.

Debt reduction high on priority list of major miners Freeport, Vale – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – May 10, 2016)

May 11, 2016

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Managing and reducing debt levels can be a balancing act, but it is high on the priority lists of major diversified miners Freeport McMoRan and Vale, the companies confirmed on Tuesday.

Addressing the Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s 2016 Global Metals, Mining and Steel Conference, in Florida, Freeport president and CEO Richard Adkerson advised that the company would aim at getting its debt level down to around $10-billion in the next two to three years, “if the market opens the door for us”.

“We clearly could do this with asset sales. It all boils down to reduce debt, reduce debt, reduce debt. We want to retain value and raise some capital. We’re having a series of discussions about further asset transactions and are open to discussions on all of our assets,” he said, declining to reveal more.

Tesla Battery Drive Lures China Molybdenum Into Cobalt – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – May 9, 2016)

May 10, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

China Molybdenum Co. is the latest company to bet on the future of electric cars with its plans to acquire cobalt assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On Monday, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. agreed to sell its controlling stake in the Tenke Fungurume copper-cobalt mine to CMOC, as the Luoyang, China-based company is known, for $2.65 billion. CMOC is also negotiating to buy Freeport’s interests in other cobalt assets.

The deal marks the Chinese company’s entry into cobalt, one of the specialty metals used in rechargeable batteries. The battery market is expanding as more consumers turn to electric cars made by companies such as Tesla Motors Inc. and look to store renewable energy to power appliances when there’s little wind or sunshine.

[Potash Corp. and Western Sahara] Companies need to do due diligence on human rights abroad – by Fred Pinto and Peter Chapman (Globe and Mail – May 10, 2016)

May 10, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The sale of Canadian military vehicles to Saudi Arabia has once again raised the age-old debate over whether Canada should do business with countries that have dubious human-rights records or in conflict-torn regions.

But it’s not just a question for governments to address. Companies also need to understand the human-rights risks they face in overseas operations and supply chains. And, increasingly, their investors do, too.

New international instruments such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as well as new reporting requirements under securities regulations are increasingly emphasizing the need for global businesses to assess their own human-rights risks, and to take steps to ensure that they are not contributing to rights violations.

[South Africa] Search for gems gets deeper as industry adapts (Business Day – May 9, 2016)

May 9, 2016

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

PROOF that diamonds are getting harder to find can be seen in the South African bush, where one of the world’s biggest mining companies is spending $2-billion tunnelling under an open-pit mine.

De Beers spent 25 years digging a 450m deep by 1km wide hole to access diamond-rich rock from the surface at the Venetia mine, close to the border with Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Now a new underground mine is being constructed underneath the hole to reach diamonds more than 1,000m below ground — a big bet by De Beers that their investment will reap decades of profit. “We are in very challenging times,” Ludwig Von Maltitz, the mine’s GM, says. “Worldwide, the easier diamond sources have probably been found, but with this resource here, we hope we have something that can extend well into the future.”

Freeport Selling DRC Mine to China Moly for $2.65 Billion – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – May 9, 2016)

May 9, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. agreed to sell its Democratic Republic of Congo copper mine to China Molybdenum Co. for $2.65 billion as the Phoenix-based company reduces debt racked up in the commodities boom.

China Molybdenum will acquire Freeport’s indirect 56 percent stake in the Tenke Fungurume mine, which also produces cobalt, via a 70 percent interest in TF Holdings Ltd., Freeport said in statement Monday. The two companies also agreed to negotiate the sale of its interests in other cobalt assets.

Freeport, which plunged 71 percent last year as commodity prices collapsed, has been seeking to offload assets and reduce a debt load that stood at $20 billion at the end of 2015. Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson said last month he expected to sell more mines and the Tenke deal brings the total to more than $4 billion this year.

In praise of small miners: A boom in artisanal mining offers lessons in development (The Economist – May 7, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.economist.com/

ON THE outskirts of the western Ivorian town of Angovia, Joseph Bado hunches over a pile of gold-laced stone, pulverising it with a hammer. Mr Bado, who is in his mid-30s, was born in a farming village in central Ivory Coast.

Frustrated by his meagre earnings in the cocoa fields, he left in 2003 to become a miner. His travels took him to neighbouring Ghana and Mali before he returned to Ivory Coast in 2013, drawn by its own nascent gold boom. “You can work for years in cocoa and not get anything. You won’t even have food,” says Mr Bado.

Informal mining settlements like Angovia’s, a series of hills dotted with tattered tarpaulin-covered shelters and pockmarked by deep pits, have been unexpectedly popping up in recent years across the west African country. For many years Ivory Coast’s economic fortunes were tied to agriculture. After independence in 1960 it became the world’s largest producer of cocoa. Few gave much thought to what treasures might lie deeper in its ochre-red soil.

Diamond the size of a tennis ball found in Canadian-owned mine could fetch C$90M – by Diana Mehta (Canadian Business Magazine – May 4, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/

The Canadian Press – A three-billion-year-old diamond the size of a tennis ball could fetch more than C$90 million when the Canadian mining company that unearthed it puts the rock up for auction this summer.

But the first person to lay eyes on the whopping gem barely gave it a glance, the CEO of Vancouver-based Lucara Diamond Corp. recalled Wednesday, as the eye-popping estimate for the precious stone was issued by auctioneer Sotheby’s.

“He’d only been working for us for two weeks, so he sees the thousand carats and goes ‘oh, this must be normal,’” William Lamb told The Canadian Press. “He didn’t tell anybody. It was only when the chief saw it that there was this huge commotion on site.” The diamond was unearthed in November, at the Karowe mine in Botswana that’s owned by Lucara (TSX:LUC).

Copper proves a rocky road for Zambia – by John Filitz (Global Risk Insights – April 25, 2016)

May 4, 2016

http://globalriskinsights.com/

The town of Luanshya, situated on Zambia’s copperbelt, serves as a bellwether for the country’s economy. However, political developments in Zambia are causing significant uncertainties in the copper industry.

With a sustained annual GDP growth rate above 6%, driven primarily by copper, the past decade has been tumultuous for Luanshya. Founded as a service town for the country’s first copper mine, Roan Antelope Copper Mines Ltd in 1927, the town in the northwest of the country has through the years seen significant episodes of copper prices driving booms and busts.

The first such episode occurred in the early 1930s, reducing an initial workforce of 31 941 at the peak of the 1930 boom to just 6 677 by the end of 1932. The second and possibly the most protracted collapse occurred during the post-liberation period of state ownership.

Mountain of Tin Draws Investors to World’s Biggest Untapped Site – by Thomas Wilson (Bloomberg News – May 3, 2016)

May 4, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Alphamin braves armed groups and remote location in Democratic Republic of Congo.

As a chartered helicopter lifts off from the edge of Lake Kivu in Democratic Republic of Congo, villages and farmland quickly turn to verdant hills that stretch out as far as the eye can see. An hour of flying over dense jungle ends at a small tented camp perched on a hillside. “Welcome home,” reads a hand-painted sign.

It’s one of the few indications of the $119 million tin mine that Alphamin Resources Corp. plans to build at this site, called Bisie, on what the company says is the largest untapped deposit in the world.

“We will be the first industrial tin mine in Congo,” said Richard Robinson, managing director of Alphamin Congo, over the hum of helicopter blades. “We will double national output and can be a catalyst for economic development and stability in the whole region.”

The Blood Rubies of Montepuez [Mozambique]- by Estaio Valoi (Foreign Policy – May 3, 2016)

May 4, 2016

http://foreignpolicy.com/

Some 40 percent of the world’s rubies lie in one mining concession in Mozambique, where a troubling pattern of violence and death contradicts the claim of “responsibly sourced.”

MONTEPUEZ, Mozambique — Mila Kunis embodies just the kind of woman that Gemfields, the world’s leading supplier of rare colored gemstones, wishes to entice: young, sensual, enigmatic — and affluent.

The 32-year-old Hollywood actress, best known for her roles in Black Swan and Oz the Great and Powerful, is the star of Gemfields’s promotional short film, showcasing jewelry made by top designers with stones mined at Montepuez, the world’s largest ruby concession and one of Gemfields’s latest acquisitions.

Located in northern Mozambique, Montepuez is thought to hold 40 percent of the world’s known supply of a precious stone that, since antiquity, has been associated with wealth and royalty.

Japanese duo bid for Anglo asset stake – by Brett Foley ad Ichiro Suzuki (Business Day/Bloomberg – May 3, 2016)

May 3, 2016

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

MELBOURNE/TOKYO — Japanese trading houses Itochu and Mitsui have separately bid for a stake in Anglo American’s manganese assets in Australia and SA as the diversified mining house shrinks its business to weather the commodity-price rout, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Anglo was considering the offers for its 40% holding in a manganese joint venture with South32, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Perth-based South32 had an option to buy the stake, which may fetch as much as $700m, and might pre-empt an agreement with another party, one of the people said.

Anglo is seeking to raise about $4bn from selling mines including those that produce iron ore and coal, to cut debt after commodity prices slid. The London-based company, which is focusing on assets that produce diamonds, platinum and copper, agreed last week to sell its Brazilian niobium and phosphate businesses to China Molybdenum Company for $1.5bn in cash.

Brazilian sale a coup for debt-laden Anglo – by Allan Seccombe (Business Day – April 29, 2016)

April 29, 2016

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

ANGLO American made significant inroads into reaching its asset sales target this year by agreeing to sell its niobium and phosphate mining business in Brazil for $1.5bn in cash to China Molybdenum Company, as part of an intense asset sales process to cut debt and return the company to profit.

The sale is the single largest disposal by Anglo since it told the market in December and February of a major restructuring to raise $3bn-$4bn from asset disposals this year to cut net debt of $12.9bn to more manageable levels. Last year, Anglo raised $2.1bn in asset sales and it intends lifting that number as it narrows its focus to diamonds, platinum, and copper.

Anglo said on Thursday the sale of the profitable, yet low-key niobium and phosphate business in Brazil had been agreed and the final payment was subject to a number of closing and post-closing adjustments in the second half of this year.

Egypt Explorers Hunt Gold in the Desert, Following Ancients (New York Times – April 28, 2016)

April 28, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS – EASTERN DESERT, Egypt — Off the off-road tracks deep in Egypt’s eastern desert, prospectors are ramping up the hunt for the treasure once revered by the Pharaohs as the “skin of the gods” — gold.

Essential for ancient artifacts like the famed burial mask of Tutankhamun and still highly desired in Middle Eastern culture today, gold has been mined in Egypt for millennia. But experts say the country is heavily underexplored and that modern technology now allows much deeper excavation of the ancient sites shown on Pharaonic treasure maps.

If developed, gold and mineral mining could prove a boon to the country at a time it is desperate for foreign currency, and provide jobs for its burgeoning population of 90 million. But miners and experts say current legislation is out of step with global practices and doesn’t give enough incentives to bring in foreign investment.