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Africa Mining

Five mineral value-chains prioritised in South Africa’s draft beneficiation plan – by Terence Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – November 21, 2014)

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

The Mineral Beneficiation Action Plan (MBAP), which is currently in draft form, should be finalised by the end of March 2015, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has confirmed. The department is leading the drafting process, which also involves the National Treasury, the Economic Development Department, the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and the Department of Science and Technology.

The Economic Sectors, Employment and Infrastructure Development Cluster announced this week that the MBAP would seek to advance “local value-addition across five mineral value-chains, namely, iron-ore and steel, platinum-group metals, polymers, titanium and mining inputs”.

In response to questions posed by Engineering News Online, DTI deputy DG Garth Strachan reported that the main objective of the MBAP was to break down the objectives of the ‘Beneficiation Strategy’ into incremental and achievable targets.

It would also seek to identify specific policies and projects to enable South Africa to leverage its “comparative resource advantage to build a dynamic industrial economy”.

Some elements of the plan would be incorporated into the mineral beneficiation section of the 2015/16 version of the rolling Industrial Policy Action Plan (Ipap), which is overseen by the DTI. But the other departments would also play a role in implementation, with the Ipap mainly focusing on the project components.

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There are many good reasons for takeover interest in Nevsun — and one really big downside – by Peter Koven (National Post – November 21, 2014)

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

Canadian miner Nevsun Resouces Ltd. has emerged as a potential takeover target, but any bidder is going to have to overcome a major deterrent: Eritrea.

The Vancouver-based miner revealed Thursday it recently received inquiries from “various parties” about a potential transaction. The announcement came after Bloomberg News reported that a Qatar-backed private equity fund called QKR Corp. is eyeing a US$1-billion bid for the company. Nevsun shares jumped 11%, giving the firm a market value of $942-million.

There are good reasons for the interest. Nevsun’s Bisha mine is extremely rich, with high-grade copper output that will transition into high-grade zinc output in a couple of years, when many analysts are forecasting shortages in the zinc market. The company has promising exploration ground in the area that could yield more mines. It also has close to US$400-million of cash, which means a takeover would largely pay for itself.

But the downside is that Bisha is in Eritrea, which is ruled by one of the world’s most repressive governments. The country is facing international sanctions, and Western governments may not look kindly at any company looking to do business there.

The Eritrean government has caused major problems for Nevsun.

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Miners unite to market platinum – by Allan Seccombe (Business Day – November 19, 2014)

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

SA’s platinum miners have set up an international council to drive investment in the metal as prices remain stagnant, despite the five-month blow to supply earlier this year and recycling being a competitive source of metal.

Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), Aquarius Platinum, Impala Platinum, Lonmin, Northam Platinum and Royal Bafokeng Platinum will each fund the council in a formula based on their refined platinum production, and have representatives on the council’s board.

The London-based World Platinum Investment Council, funded by SA’s six largest platinum miners, will set up offices in Asia and the US to encourage platinum investment by financial institutions, wealthy individuals and retail investors.

“If we see gaps in countries or regions that don’t have exchange-traded funds of the right kind or don’t have enough inventory of bars and coins to stimulate the market and satisfy demand, we will encourage financial services companies to fill those gaps and we’ll work with them to understand what those needs are that haven’t been satisfied,” said Paul Wilson, the council’s CEO.

The council would also talk to central banks about holding platinum in the same way they held gold, as a source of value in their countries’ reserves, he said.

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West African Mining Projects Take Hit From Ebola Crisis – by Patrick McGroarty, David Gauthier-Villars and Alex MacDonald (Wall Street Journal – November 18, 2014)

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

Epidemic Delays Rollout of Jobs Meant for Residents of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone

Liberia, Guinea, London – When Guinea’s government pledged to open its vast iron-ore reserves this year after countless delays, Moïse Foulah prepared for a boom. His business, after all, is selling explosives to mining companies—and they were piling into Guinea and its neighbors.

Instead, a promising corner of the global economic frontier is pocked with stalled mining projects. The Ebola epidemic has scared off ships and planes; prompted expatriates to abandon their posts; and delayed the rollout of thousands of jobs meant for residents of the three poor West African countries hardest hit by the virus: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“All the projects are at a standstill,” Mr. Foulah, chief executive of the mining-explosives firm ECP Guinée.

Steel giant ArcelorMittal SA has delayed a $1.7 billion expansion at its iron-ore mine in Liberia. One of Sierra Leone’s biggest investors, London Mining PLC, filed for bankruptcy last month after falling iron-ore prices and Ebola concerns hampered its ability to attract financing to address long-standing woes. And in Guinea, Rio Tinto PLC has stopped work on a $20 billion iron-ore mine deep in territory hard hit by the virus.

As a result, the sector that officials in the region were counting on to pull their poor nations out of poverty has become a victim of the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

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Media Statement: Dealing With Occupational Lung Disease – A Collaborative Initiative By SA Mining Companies

Five companies to seek comprehensive solution on occupational lung disease

Johannesburg, 18 November 2014: Anglo American South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony and Sibanye (“the companies”) announce that they have formed an industry working group to address issues relating to compensation and medical care for occupational lung disease (OLD) in the gold mining industry in South Africa.

The companies intend to engage all stakeholders in order to work together to design and implement a comprehensive solution that is both fair to past, present and future gold mining employees, and also sustainable for the sector.

To this end, the companies are arranging initial meetings with the departments of health, labour and mineral resources, organised labour, legal representatives of claimants and other mining companies. It is intended that this will lead to an intensive engagement process during 2015 intended to lead to a comprehensive solution.

The companies believe that fairness and sustainability are necessary to any comprehensive solution. The solution needs to be a product of the engagement process that has been initiated.

The companies are among respondent companies in a number of lawsuits related to occupational lung disease. These companies do not believe that they are liable in respect of the claims brought, and they are defending these.

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Central African Republic new ‘blood diamond’ hub – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – November 18, 2014)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The dysfunctional Central African Republic (CAR) has taken over as the country where “blood diamond” activity is again rife.

Diamonds worth $24-million have been smuggled out of CAR since the suspension of the Kimberley Process last year and Seleka rebels and “anti-balaka” militia are providing security to local diamond traders, who initially pay the warring groups for safe access to diamond fields and then for ongoing protection during mining.

“It’s a classical case of blood diamonds,” International Crisis Group project director Thierry Vircoulon told Mining Weekly Online in the attached video.

Belgian authorities earlier this year confiscated diamonds ostensibly smuggled through the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Dubai to Europe from the ungoverned CAR, which is currently hobbling along as an impoverished failed State.

The chairperson of the Kimberley Process has put in a written request to the United Nations Security Council to alert neighbouring countries to the presence of diamond contraband.

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Botswana: Diamonds Cannot Solely Sustain Botswana – by (All Africa.com – November 16, 2014)

http://allafrica.com/

Gaborone — President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama says diamonds alone cannot carry Botswana forward.

Delivering his 2014 State-of-the Nation Address on Thursday, November 13, President Khama said to achieve greater economic diversification, the country should continue promoting further beneficiation within the minerals sector.

He said growing global demand for gem diamonds had dovetailed with upward estimates of domestic production based on both the ongoing and anticipated opening of new mines and an extension in the life spans of existing mines through new recovery methods.

Together, he said these developments should ensure that “we will remain a leading global producer over the next three decades until at least 2050.”

With the successful migration of the De Beers Global Sight-holder Sales from London to Gaborone, which was completed ahead of schedule, he said Botswana was already realising its goal of becoming a global ‘mines to market’ hub in the case of diamonds.

To date, he said ten sight-holder sales had been successfully held in Botswana, after the first round of local Diamond Trading Company (DTC) sales that took place in November 2013.

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Marikana: The end of a bitter road promises little closure – by Niren Tolsi (Mail & Guardian – November 14, 2014)

http://mg.co.za/ [South Africa]

COMMENT

Andile Yawa’s bus leaves Queenstown in the Eastern Cape at 8pm. It reaches Johannesburg’s hustle and grime at six the next morning, and Pretoria by seven.

When the Farlam commission of inquiry starts in Centurion two hours later, Yawa is there, as he has been for almost every day it has sat over the past two years. He wants to find out who was responsible for the fatal shooting of his son Cebisile on August 16 2012 at Marikana.

Yawa’s wife Nosipho says that the time they now get to spend together at home in rural Cala is similar to when her husband worked as a miner.

There is repetition, too, in the journey into South Africa’s mineral-rich hinterland that Yawa first undertook by train in the 1970s, and since the 1980s, by bus.

The route is that of the “conscripted” that Hugh Masekela laments in Stimela, and which Cebisile followed when he succeeded his father after he was medically boarded with lung disease in 2008.

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Vedanta to build R8.7bn Gamsberg zinc project – by David McKay (Miningmx.com – November 13, 2014)

 http://www.miningmx.com/

[miningmx.com] – UK-listed mining group Vedanta Resources said it had approved an in principle investment of $782m (R8.7bn) in the Gamsberg zinc deposit in South Africa’s Northern Cape province with a view to producing first zinc during the group’s 2017/18 financial year.

In terms of the proposed investment, Vedanta will establish an open pit mine producing 250,000 tonnes/year of zinc and a refinery at the site of Skorpion, a mine first developed by Anglo American, producing 150,000 tonne/year of zinc concentrate. The Skorpion mine produced 13% less refined zinc, or 60,000 tonnes, in the first half of Vedanta’s financial year.

“The detailed feasibility study for the mining project was placed at the board meeting, while the work for setting up pilot plant for refinery conversion is underway,” said Vedanta today as part of its interim results presentation. “Preliminary work on financing options have also been commenced,” it said.

Vedanta has a positive view on the internationally traded zinc market saying in its interim results that it expected a supply deficit to remain in place until 2018. London Metal Exchange zinc prices averaged $2,196 per tonne compared to $1,850/t in the same period in 2013, it said.

The Gamsberg deposit and Skorpion mine were sold to Vedanta in 2010 as part of a package of zinc assets for about $1.3bn by Anglo American, then led by Cynthia Carroll who had embarked on a wave of non-core asset sales.

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Russia and SA aim to boost PGMs – by ANDRE JANSE VAN VUUREN AND YULIYA FEDORINOVA (Bloomberg/Business Day Live – November 13, 2014)

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

RUSSIA and SA will next year invite platinum group metal producers and users for talks as the countries seek ways to support falling prices.

The two nations, holding about 80% of the world’s reserves of the metals, met last Thursday in Pretoria “to collaborate on technology development and jointly exploring new applications for the metal” to grow demand, Phuti Mabelebele, a spokeswoman for SA’s mines ministry, said on Wednesday in an e-mailed response to questions.

The parties agreed to arrange a conference in the second half of next year to which they would invite mining companies, traders and consumers to “jointly consider appropriate options to achieve stability and sustainable growth”.

Platinum prices have tumbled more than 20% since Russia and SA said in March last year that they were looking for ways to buoy the market. Palladium gained about 8% in that period. SA mines about 70% of the world’s platinum and Russia 40% of its palladium.

The countries would meet for separate talks about the issue in the first quarter of next year in Russia, Ms Mabelebele said.

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Canadian platinum firms unbowed by South African labour unrest – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – November 11, 2014)

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 — Even as one Canadian mining company is abandoning South Africa’s troubled platinum sector, two other Canadian miners are plunging ahead with ambitious plans here.

Vancouver-based Eastern Platinum Ltd. announced the sale of its South African assets to a little-known Chinese company for $225-million (U.S.) in cash, provoking surprise and skepticism from some analysts.

Last year, the company suspended its Crocodile River platinum project in South Africa because of what it called a “perfect storm” of labour unrest, rising costs and stagnant markets.

Eastplats announced on Friday that it is selling Crocodile River and all of its other South African assets to Hebei Zhongbo Platinum, a company that seems almost unknown. The Chinese company “has never been mentioned in the press or online (as far as we can tell) prior to this announcement,” said an analyst’s report from Raymond James Ltd. on Monday.

Chinese companies have been dramatically raising their stakes in South Africa’s platinum sector with several acquisitions as other companies give up.

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‘Mining bill shows us where we stand’ – by Chris Barron (Business Day Live – November 9, 2014)

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

HOW ironic that the executive director of Anglo American South Africa, who is also the vice president of the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, Khanyisile Kweyama, should be declared Africa’s most influential woman in mining — at a time when her firm’s South African interests are dwindling and the local mining industry is becoming less influential by the day.

The accolade was bestowed on her by CEO Communications, which owns CEO Magazine. Kweyama, 49, is not sure she agrees about the decline in mining. But the industry she leads contributes just 4.9% of South Africa’s GDP, down from 21% in 1970 and 6% just three years ago. It is 64th out of 112 global mining jurisdictions.

“Even if it is declining in South Africa, relative to the rest of the continent South Africa is still a large mining jurisdiction,” she says.

But South Africa’s prestige and influence as a mining destination in Africa is slipping. It is now only the eighth most important mining country on the continent, out of 16. “That is worrying,” Kweyama says.

To what extent does the local industry have itself to blame for this, and to what extent is it the result of government policy?

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Friedland’s Ivanhoe Gets South Africa Platinum Mine Go-Ahead – by Franz Wild (Bloomberg News – November 5, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Billionaire Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (IVN) gained the most in 17 months after overcoming local opposition to get final approval to build one of the world’s biggest platinum mines in South Africa.

The country’s Department of Mineral Resources signed off on the license to produce platinum-group and base metals at the $1.6 billion Platreef project in the northern Limpopo province for a renewable 30-year period, the Vancouver-based company said in a statement today.

The authorization “signals the South African government’s determination to grow our country’s economy,” Mines Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi said, according to the statement. “The Platreef Project will attract foreign capital, create much needed jobs and contribute significantly to socio-economic development in areas surrounding the project.”

The approval means Ivanhoe’s local unit, Ivanplats, will scrap a plan to cut jobs at Platreef, it said. The company had initiated the process because it said it didn’t have a definite date to start mining.

Ivanhoe jumped the most intraday since May last year, climbing 15 percent to trade at 93 Canadian cents by 10:29 a.m. in Toronto.

Local Prosperity

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Technology slashes power use at Glencore’s huge S African chrome smelter – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – November 5, 2014)

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

STEELPOORT, Limpopo (miningweekly.com) – The Lion ferrochrome smelter owned and operated by the Glencore Merafe Chrome Venture, uses 37% less electricity than conventional ferrochrome processes to produce the equivalent volume of ferrochrome.

In addition, the smelter needs far less coke than conventional smelters as well as using significant amounts of locally produced, lower cost anthracite and char. (Also see attached video).

Had the Lion operation not installed Premus technology, it would have needed an additional 1 776 MWh to produce the same volume of ferrochrome. Instead, all four furnaces collectively utilise some 4 800 MWh a day. (Also see attached video)

The efficient use of energy – significantly enhanced through pelletising to cope with increasing volumes of fine chrome ore, in-house training programmes to overcome skills shortages, the proximity of the Port of Maputo, the use of more cost-effective upper group two (UG2) chromite ore recovered from platinum tailings, as well as radically reduced use of expensive coke – are the key sources of competitive advantage that place both phases of Lion – known as Lion I and Lion II – in a cost-leadership position.

The UG2 ore is sourced from the nearby Mototolo mine, a platinum joint venture between the London-, Hong Kong- and now also Johannesburg-listed Glencore, black economic-empowerment (BEE) partner Kagiso Tiso and Anglo American Platinum.

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CORRECTED-Gold, diamonds fuelling conflict in Central African Republic- U.N. panel – by Daniel Flynn (Reuters India – November 5, 2014)

 http://in.reuters.com/

DAKAR, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Gold and diamond sales are being used to finance conflict in Central African Republic and United Nations peacekeepers should monitor mining sites to clamp down on illicit trade, a U.N. panel of experts said.

In a report, the panel also said the peacekeeping mission (MINUSCA) should deploy troops to the remote north of the country and use drones to monitor the rebel-controlled region to put an end to simmering violence there.

The mission, which launched in September, is operating at only two-thirds of its planned 12,000-strong capacity.

Central African Republic was plunged into chaos when northern, mostly Muslim Seleka rebels seized control of the majority Christian country in March 2013, prompting a vicious backlash by the largely Christian ‘anti-balaka’ militia.

The panel said that some 3,000 people had been killed between December 2013 – when the U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo – and August this year. The number of civilian deaths was falling, however, the panel said.

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