Africa Mining – Page 131 – Republic of Mining

Canadian miner Lucara finds 1,111-carat diamond — believed to be second-largest ever – by Peter Koven (National Post – November 19, 2015)

November 19, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

A Canadian mining company has recovered a diamond for the ages. The astounding stone has no precedent in the past century and will command a massive price at auction. The only question is how high it will go.

Lucara Diamond Corp. said it recovered a gigantic 1,111-carat, gem-quality diamond from its Karowe mine in Botswana this week. To put that in perspective, it is believed to be the second-largest gem-quality stone ever found. The only one known to be bigger is the legendary Cullinan diamond, which was recovered in South Africa in 1905 and weighed 3,106.75 carats.

Tanzania gold miners trapped for 41 days rescued (BBC.com – November 17, 2015)

November 17, 2015

http://www.bbc.com/

Five gold miners have been rescued in western Tanzania after being trapped underground for 41 days, while 12 others are still missing, police say.

The artisanal miners survived by eating roots, soil, frogs and cockroaches and are receiving treatment at hospital.

The group had gone underground to rescue 11 other miners when they became trapped, police said. Many people search for gold in unregulated mines in remote areas of Tanzania in the hope of becoming rich.

This is one of the longest periods that miners have remained trapped underground. In Chile, 33 were rescued after 69 days in 2010 in an operation which gained worldwide attention.

Efforts by local people to rescue the Tanzanian miners were abandoned last month after about a week, as hopes of finding them faded, reports the BBC’s Alice Muthengi from the main city, Dar es Salaam.

Buying diamonds this festive season? Bigger is better – by Prinesha Naidoo (Mineweb.com – November 12, 2015)

November 13, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Industry’s woes have all but wiped out the value of large diamonds.

JOHANNESBURG – The global diamond industry appears to be in a precarious position with weak consumer demand, a supply overhang and a credit crunch among rough diamond traders weighing on prices.

According to various reports, rough diamond prices have decreased more than 12% this year alone. The RapNet Diamond Index (see table above) reveals prices for polished stones between 0.3 carats (ct.) and 3 ct. and reveal how prices have plummeted between January 1 and November 1 this year.

Similarly, data from PriceScope (see chart below) shows the average price of stones between 0 and 0.5 ct. are now lower than at any point during the financial crisis.

As with industrial commodities, much of the decline in diamond prices has been blamed on slowing economic growth in China, the world’s second largest consumer of diamonds after the United States.

Virtual reality technologies gaining traction in South African mining sector – by Ilan Solomons (MiningWeekly.com – November 13, 2015)

November 13, 2015

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The use of virtual reality (VR) technologies in the South African mining industry has grown considerably over the last year, particularly on the back of the University of Pretoria (UP) opening its R50-million Kumba Iron Ore Virtual Reality Centre for Mine Design.

Local software developer NxGN CEO Gary Lane is hopeful that VR will become more widely used in South Africa over the next three years, suggesting that UP’s VR centre, which opened in August, is “undoubtedly [the] catalyst for VR in the country”.

UP Mining Engineering Department head Professor Ronny Webber-Youngman postulates that, although people might be tempted to think that immersive VR technology is a bit superficial or simply a “cool” way of displaying information, “VR can, through either three-dimensional (3D) stereoscopic and/or immersive applications, provide first-hand experience of mining scenarios without any of the associated negative consequences”.

Flawless 12 carat Blue Moon Diamond sells for world record $48.4m in Geneva (Reuters/The Guardian – November 11, 2015)

November 12, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/

The rare and flawless Blue Moon Diamond sold for $48.4m on Wednesday, setting a world record for a gemstone at auction, Sotheby’s said.

The cushion-shaped diamond, mounted on a ring, has the top grading of fancy vivid blue and weighs 12.03 carats. It had a pre-sale estimate of $35m to $55m.

“It is a new record price for any gemstone and per carat,” David Bennett, worldwide chairman of Sotheby’s international jewellery division, told a packed showroom in Geneva that erupted into applause.

Was Billionaire Steinmetz Betrayed by CEO Over Diamond Mine? – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – November 12, 2015)

November 12, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The prize is a chunk of African earth that yields some of the most valuable diamonds on the planet for premium jeweler Tiffany & Co.

The fight for the Koidu mine in Sierra Leone pits embattled Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz and his BSG Resources Ltd. against a government struggling to revive an economy crippled by the global commodities slump and Ebola’s deadliest outbreak ever.

But waiting in the wings are two high-profile bankers and a star of “The Hunger Games” movie franchise who are keen to buy the asset. Add to the plot a secret recording of Steinmetz’s now-former point man for the project and what appears is a story of betrayal that offers a rare glimpse into the ways natural resources companies operate in some of the world’s poorest countries.

“I’m taking off my BSGR hat here,” the chief executive officer of Steinmetz’s BSGR, Brett Richards, told an August meeting of officials in Freetown, including Mines and Mineral Resources Minister Minkailu Mansaray.

Mining skills not keeping up with technology – by Sungula Nkabinde (Mineweb.com – November 10, 2015)

November 12, 2015November 11, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

No room for unskilled labour in Nick Holland’s gold mine of the future.

Mining education is not keeping up with technology, says professor Fred Cawood, director of the Wits School of Mining Institute. He was responding to Moneyweb questions relating to Gold Fields’ CEO Nick Holland’s suggestion that in the mine of the future mechanisation was not only necessary for the industry’s survival, but inevitable.

This, Holland said, was particularly true for the gold sector, where the total contribution to geological inflation is driving double-digit cost inflation, and the average grade of gold mined has fallen by 3% per annum, since the year 2000.

As Lonmin fights for survival, miners move to cash in and quit – by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo (Reuters U.S. – November 11, 2015)

November 11, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

MARIKANA, South Africa, Nov 11 (Reuters) – As loss-making platinum producer Lonmin appeals for cash from shareholders and slashes costs, many of its mine workers are eager to grab redundancy deals and leave a company battling to stay afloat.

Battered by strikes, rising costs and weak platinum prices, Lonmin is seeking to raise $407 million in a share issue – priced at a 94 percent discount this week – and another $370 million in loans. It says the money is crucial for its survival.

The company, which operates in South Africa, is also closing or mothballing several mine shafts and cutting 6,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce. The cuts, announced in July, were expected to be a hard sell in a country where the jobless rate is over 25 percent and unions have reacted to lay-offs with wildcat strikes in the past.

But so far more than 3,000 staff have left of their own volition, keen to snap up the voluntary redundancy and early retirement packages on offer, and others are seeking to follow.

Lonmin stock discount signals trouble in South African platinum industry – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – November 10, 2015)

November 10, 2015

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

JOHANNESBURG — For the world’s third-biggest platinum producer, it was a stunning admission of its precarious condition. Desperately needing money to stave off collapse, Lonmin PLC announced on Monday that it will issue its latest stock offering at a 94-per-cent discount.

The huge discount, allowing Lonmin to raise the $407-million (U.S.) that it needs to survive, is the latest sign of a major shakeout in South Africa’s troubled platinum sector. But two Canadian platinum companies are still pushing ahead with their South African investments, convinced they can find profits with lower-cost projects.

The platinum industry has been stumbling from crisis to crisis for the past several years. Global platinum prices have dropped by more than 50 per cent since 2011. The industry has been plagued by rising costs and labour unrest in its South African heartland, including a heavily damaging five-month strike in 2014 and the notorious police shooting of 34 protesters at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in 2012.

[South African] Platinum mines may run short of water in 2016 – by Tina Weavind (MiningMx.com – November 6, 2015)

November 6, 2015

http://www.miningmx.com/

[miningmx.com] – WHILE the mining industry is so far coping with the effects of the ‘Godzilla’ el Nino event causing a drought in large parts of South Africa, the potential for forced cuts still looms large.

Peter Shepherd, principal hydrologist at consulting agency SRK, said he anticipated that platinum mines in the country’s North West province would “… begin to run short [of water] in the next year”.

It’s a potential nightmare for already stressed companies whose operations would face a further setback. Mining is notoriously water intensive and imposed cuts would immediately limit production. Shepherd said that while much of the water used in the processes was recycled, the evaporation from the tailings dams meant this closed cycle system would become less efficient.

In its 2015 annual report released last month, Impala Platinum (Implats) flagged water shortages as one of the most critical issues the company faces and where interventions were needed.

Merge or die, major gold miners told – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Business Day/Bloomberg News – November 6, 2015)

November 6, 2015

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

LONDON — The biggest gold miners, weighed down by record debt and with prices near a five-year low, will have to merge with others to survive, according to Randgold Resources, the best-performing producer of the metal in the past 10 years.

“The big producers have the biggest challenges of all,” Randgold CEO Mark Bristow said on Thursday. “Eventually, you’re going to see survival mergers.”

Gold’s 42% price slump from a record set four years ago is cutting profits and stressing balance sheets for mining companies, with the largest producers weighed down by debt totalling almost $35bn.

In September, the benchmark 30-member Philadelphia Stock Exchange gold and silver index, which includes Barrick Gold and Newmont Mining, fell to the lowest level since 2000.

[Lonmin Plc] The Rise and Fall of a Mining Company That Tried to Buy Harrods – by Rodney Jefferson and Kevin Crowley(Bloomberg News – November 5, 2015)

November 5, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

From Cecil Rhodes’s legacy in southern Africa to takeover battles gripping the British public and a massacre at one of its mines, the 106-year-old epic that’s Lonmin Plc risks entering its final act.

The company, whose businesses spanned gold mining, hotels, textiles and newspapers in the 1980s, later focused its efforts on platinum and is the world’s third-largest producer of the metal. Management warned on Wednesday that it might have to shut down should shareholders reject a $400 million stock sale as it succumbs to the slump in commodity prices.

Should investors decide not to cough up the money, one of Britain’s most prominent companies of the 20th century and a symbol of the country’s blend of imperialism and capitalism would be consigned to history less than two decades after the death of the man who built it.

“It’s gone from darling of the stock market to completely distraught,” said Bernard Swanepoel, who has been in the mining industry for 30 years and was chief executive officer of Harmony Gold Mining Co.

Diamonds Aren’t Forever for Botswana as Mining Boom Fades – by Michael Cohen (Bloomberg News – November 5, 2015)

November 5, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The honeymoon is over in Botswana, where the diamond industry that led the world has fallen on hard times.
The discovery of the gems nearly half a century ago transformed the southern African nation from a dusty farming backwater into one of the continent’s wealthiest societies.

Thousands of miles of dirt roads were paved and schools and clinics built in every town. The capital, Gaborone, once a rural village, is now dotted with office blocks and malls occupied by South African chains like Shoprite Holdings Ltd. The country’s finances were in such good shape that Botswana earned the highest credit rating in Africa.

Now the diamond mining industry is floundering as jewelry sales stagnate amid a slowdown in China. An index of rough diamond prices hit a five-year low last month. With most diamonds near the surface having been extracted from Botswana’s mines, the gems are also becoming increasingly inaccessible.

Last year Botswana was overtaken by Russia as the world’s top producer.

Coal isn’t going away anytime soon – by Nastassia Arendse (Mineweb.com – November 4, 2015)

November 5, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Its a problematic trade-off between climate change and economic development.

Even as coal prices remain depressed, weighed down by oversupply, coal in South Africa isn’t going away. As more countries phase out their coal-fired power stations to decrease carbon emissions, South Africa may not find that easy to achieve.

The country is a big player in the production of coal although not as significant as countries such as China, the USA and India, who are much larger producers. Coal mining is a major employer and has helped power giant industrial companies like Eskom, Sasol, ArcelorMittal SA and the mining industry. The country has large coal reserves and is also a major consumer of coal; mainly for electricity production.

The outright replacement of coal-fired power plants will come at a great cost and the reduction of coal-fired generation capacity is expected to be minimal. “We have to acknowledge that we do have very significant coal reserves in South Africa, and we also have a huge fleet of coal-fired power stations and its not like we can just suddenly scrap them,” says Chris Yelland, managing director at EE Publishers.

How a BlackRock Bet on African Gold Lost Its Luster – by Justin Scheck and Scott Patterson (Wall Street Journal – November 3, 2015)

November 4, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/

Fund manager Evy Hambro wagered on Congo gold, a play conservative investors once avoided

Luhwindja, Congo and London – Evy Hambro came to the 2013 Mining Jamboree hunting for more gold.

At the conference, featuring lingerie models strutting before a South African sunset, the BlackRock Inc. fund manager scouted for a mining company needing financing. His search led him to double down on an earlier bet—a gold miner named Banro Corp. he knew had troubled operations in a troubled African country.

Mr. Hambro is discovering just how troubled.

Falling gold prices have battered Banro, as have operational setbacks. It has faced sometimes-violent unrest around its mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and questions about payments it made to entities controlled by a government official. Local residents blame it for several deaths.