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Africa Mining

SA platinum industry could shed 145 500 jobs by 2015 – by Idéle Esterhuizen (MiningWeekly.com – June 18, 2013)

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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South Africa’s embattled platinum industry is at risk of losing 145 500 jobs by 2015, an analyst from Nomura said on Tuesday.

Assuming a breakeven platinum price of $1 500/oz for 2014 and 2015, Peter Attard-Montalto said in a report that about 24 000 jobs would be at risk next year, growing to 121 500 in 2015.

He stated that the number of job losses was linked to about 64-million ounces of production in 2014, or 14% of South Africa’s total supply, and about 277-million ounces, or 59% of the country’s output, the following year.

“We can therefore see that the necessity and effects of restructuring will spread widely beyond Amplats [Anglo American Platinum],” Attard-Montalto said in a statement, adding that the political clampdown on Amplats that banned restructuring job losses was only postponing the inevitable.

“Put simply, we do not believe that platinum mines will produce at a loss for more than two years…the jobs at risk could be shed after the election, when the mines will be under greater pain and the government will not be in the same place in the electoral cycle,” he put forward.

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Insecurity in Congo copper province a “serious concern” -UN – by Jonny Hogg (Reuters India – June 17, 2013)

http://in.reuters.com/

Rebels attack Congo Katanga mining province

KINSHASA, June 17 (Reuters) – Security in Congo’s copper-mining heartland of Katanga is a “very serious concern” that must be tackled politically and militarily, the outgoing head of the U.N. peackeeping mission said on Monday. The province, which sits on some of the world’s largest copper reserves, last year exported 600,000 tonnes. Miners including Freeport McMoRan and Glencore already operate there.

In March, hundreds of rebel fighters attacked the Katangan capital of Lubumbashi and then surrendered following bloody clashes with security forces. On Sunday, a soldier was killed during fighting between the army and insurgents 20 km (12 miles) from the city.

“It’s a quite significant problem, and I think it has all the prospects of becoming worse,” Roger Meece, the head of the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, said.

“One can do what is possible militarily and or with a police force but … the real solutions have to be found in these political factors,” Meece, who is leaving his post later this month, said in an interview.

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Tempers flare at mine as leaders dither – by Loni Prinsloo (South Africa Business Day Live – June 16, 2013)

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

AS HIGH-level leaders of government, business and labour met on Friday to stabilise the troubled mining environment, tempers flared at one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines in Rustenburg.

Chris Griffiths, CEO of Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), met Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and other senior stakeholders while about 2,400 workers were prevented by other employees from exiting underground operations at Amplats’ Thembalani mine near Rustenburg by shop stewards of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).

Amplats said this followed the suspension of four shop stewards “for inappropriate behaviour that is against our behavioural procedure”.

The battle between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Amcu that boiled over in August 2012 has not died. Tensions are running high with the first round of wage negotiations due in about two weeks. Amcu is determined to gain majority recognition at the platinum mines.

“While it is a positive move for leaders from different spheres to come together to address the issues, it will ultimately be the buy-in from workers that determines whether such a framework will make any difference. Therein lies the real challenge,” said Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis.

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UPDATE 2-S.Africa’s Zuma talks tough against mining unrest – by Wendell Roelf (Reuters India – June 12, 2013)

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World’s top platinum producer rocked by unrest

CAPE TOWN, June 12 (Reuters) – South African President Jacob Zuma vowed on Wednesday to take a hard line against labour unrest in the mining sector, which has been rocked by 18 months of killings and wildcat strikes that have threatened to destabilise Africa’s biggest economy.

Zuma’s decisive comments helped lift the rand about 8 cents to 9.94 per dollar, a stark contrast to last month, when the currency sank to four-year lows after he held a news conference to try and stem its slide.

“Our law enforcement agencies have been instructed not to tolerate those who commit crime in the name of labour relations. They will face the full might of the law,” he told parliament.

He also said his government would remain impartial in a turf war between the upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the National Union of Mineworkers, a long-standing ally of the ruling ANC.

“Government does not take sides and does not favour any labour union over others in the mining industry. Our interest is in finding solutions,” he said.

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The Worldwide Ramifications of South Africa’s Labor Disputes – by Uven Chong (Slate.com – June 12, 2013)

http://www.slate.com/

The country is the best source for metals critical for making lower-emission vehicles.

In May, security officials confronted 500 protesters at a chromium mine in Rustenburg, South Africa. Rubber bullets were fired, and 10 people were hospitalized. This is just the latest in a series of wildcat strikes turned violent in South African mines. Most notably, 34 miners died during a confrontation between miners and police in August at a platinum mine in Marikana.

These strikes are the result of rapidly deteriorating labor relations in the South African mining industry. Mining companies are facing increased financial pressure from rising costs and low global metal prices. They must also contend with rolling blackouts, which is crucial in the energy-intensive mining industry. This harms routine mining production and profits. As a result of these difficulties, companies are considering downsizing and laying off workers in an attempt to return to profitability.

Understandably, mine workers are not happy about the possibility of losing their jobs. They are also demanding higher wages because their salaries are not keeping up with the rapidly rising cost of living. To top this all off, rival labor unions are attempting to win workers’ support by making seemingly impossible-to-meet demands of mining companies. For instance, the National Union of Mineworkers wants to increase wages for gold and coal miners up to 60 percent.

The rival Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union—which has successfully poached enough members from the NUM to represent a majority of platinum miners—is expected to put in similarly ambitious wage demands.

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Allana Says Concerns for Potash Supply Glut Overblown – by Christopher Donville (Bloomberg News – June 10, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/

Allana Potash Corp. (AAA), the Canadian developer of a $642 million potash mine in Ethiopia, says predictions of a global oversupply of the crop nutrient are overblown because competing projects are being put on hold.

World potash production capacity will rise 38 percent to 96.5 million metric tons by 2017, while demand will increase 26 percent to 66 million tons, according to Green Markets, a fertilizer industry information provider.

Supply forecasts include mines that aren’t yet in production and may be shelved or canceled because of rising construction costs, said Farhad Abasov, Toronto-based Allana’s chief executive officer.

“On paper it seems like there is quite a bit of supply coming on line,” Abasov said in a May 28 telephone interview from London. “In reality only a handful of them will hit production.”

Soaring expenses are beginning to exact a toll on proposed potash mines around the world. Vale SA, the third-largest mining company, in March suspended its Rio Colorado project in Argentina after the estimated cost almost doubled to about $11 billion.

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Allana in Ethiopia Snubs Potash Supply Concern: Corporate Canada – by Christopher Donville (Bloomberg News – June 10, 2013)

http://www.businessweek.com/

Allana Potash Corp. (AAA), the Canadian developer of a $642 million potash mine in Ethiopia, says predictions of a global oversupply of the crop nutrient are overblown because competing projects are being put on hold.

World potash production capacity will rise 38 percent to 96.5 million metric tons by 2017, while demand will increase 26 percent to 66 million tons, according to Green Markets, a fertilizer industry information provider.

Supply forecasts include mines that aren’t yet in production and may be shelved or canceled because of rising construction costs, said Farhad Abasov, Toronto-based Allana’s chief executive officer.

“On paper it seems like there is quite a bit of supply coming on line,” Abasov said in a May 28 telephone interview from London. “In reality only a handful of them will hit production.”

Soaring expenses are beginning to exact a toll on proposed potash mines around the world. Vale SA, the third-largest mining company, in March suspended its Rio Colorado project in Argentina after the estimated cost almost doubled to about $11 billion.

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Chinese gold miners’ hope for riches shattered by Ghana crackdown – by Kathrin Hille (Financial Times/Globe and Mail – June 9, 2013)

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.

SHANGLIN, GUANGXI PROVINCE — When Wen Haijian left home on May 20 last year to dig gold in Ghana, he promised to bring back a fortune. Those hopes were shattered when an urn with his ashes returned last month.

“A gang of armed robbers came to his mine on April 16,” says his wife, sobbing in front of two framed pictures of Wen, a serious-looking, tall man with a square mustachioed face. “When he got up at night to check on the machinery, they shot him right in the head.”

In Shanglin, a poor county in the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi with a population of 470,000 people, most of the inhabitants are old people, women or children because so many men have gone to Ghana. The county government estimates that 12,000 people from Shanglin are still in the west African country.

In Shuitai, Wen’s remote home village where almost everyone shares his surname, 100 of the 900 inhabitants are in Ghana. “On average, they go for three years,” says Wen Ruchun, a woman whose husband is in Ghana as well. “The first year, you build up the mine and earn your investment back, the second year you start making some money, and the third year you come home.”

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Copper Expansion: The Copperbelt: the pride of Zambia – by John Chadwick (Publisher International Mining – June 2013)

http://www.im-mining.com/

John Chadwick reports from Zambia’s buoyant copper mining centre, where he worked many years ago.

The first thing I noted when flying into Ndola at the eastern end of Zambia’s prolific Copperbelt was the town’s proud new football stadium. It appears as a symbol of the accomplishments of the Copperbelt this century and its re-establishment as one of the world’s top mining regions. Zambia is Africa’s largest copper producer and the fourth largest in the world – and growing fast. Copper production has rocketed from 257,000 t in 2000, to more than 700,000 t in 2011 and about 650,000 t in 2012. Zambia’s Chamber of Mines predicts output reaching 1.5 Mt by 2016 as a result of the many projects underway.

The road from Ndola to Kitwe (where I started my career in mining as a mining engineer) has been greatly improved and there are plans to improve it further all the way through Chingola and Chililabombwe to the Kasumbalesa border with the DRC as a two-lane highway. Kitwe is the heart of the Copperbelt and a vital centre for mining supplies and services with Zambia and into the DRC’s Katanga Province.

On that road to Kitwe from Ndola, one first passes north of CNMC Luanshya Copper Mines, 85% owned by China Nonferrous Metals Co Ltd (CNMC) and 15% by ZCCM-IH. Luanshya is one of the oldest mines in Southern Africa. It was shutdown in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis. CNMC reopened the mine in 2009 after extensive modernisation works.

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South Africa can’t get away with just ‘digging dirt’ – Paul Jourdan – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – June 5, 2013)

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CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – While Australia could get away with mining minerals and exporting them without paying attention to local value addition, South Africa could not, independent South African mineral policy analyst Paul Jourdan told the International Mining and Metals third African Iron Ore conference here.

With its far larger population and far fewer square kilometres, South Africa had no option but to concern itself with mineral beneficiation, which he defined as the total domestic value addition embodied in the final exports, excluding all imported inputs.

“Australia can dig dirt for the next 200 to 300 years, and they’ll be fine,” he said.

But South Africa, at one-sixth of Australia’s size and with nearly three times its population, was compelled to introduce ore beneficiation strategies for mineral value chains and resource-based industrialisation.

“Just digging dirt is not an option for us,” the former Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) deputy director-general, former Mintek head and coauthor of the African National Congress’s State Intervention in the Minerals Sector document said in response to Mining Weekly Online questions.

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Least-mined Bushveld SA’s biggest iron-ore resource: Paul Jourdan – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – June 4, 2013)

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CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – South Africa’s Bushveld Complex was the country’s largest but least-mined iron-ore resource, independent South African mineral policy analyst Paul Jourdan told the International Mining and Metals third African Iron Ore conference here on Tuesday.

While the Bushveld hosted between 25-billion tons and 27-billion ton of iron-ore, it was the Kalahari basin with 3-billion tons in the Northern Cape where most of the mining was under way.

“The future resources are very much in the Bushveld Complex,” said the former Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) deputy director-general and former Mintek head, who is currently working with the DTI, the Department of Mineral Resources, the Department of Science and Technology and the State-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) on mineral value chain development.

Kumba Iron Ore was by far the largest miner, followed by Assmang, Evraz Highveld Steel and Vanadium and smaller start-ups. South African production was now at some 55-million tons a year, with plans for expansion.

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Liberia wants neighbours to cooperate to boost mining hopes – by Clara Ferreira-Marques (Reuters India – June 4, 2013)

http://in.reuters.com/

LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) – West African neighbours Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia should work together to resolve a dire lack of rail, port and power infrastructure that has held back the region’s mining ambitions, a senior Liberian government official said.

Sam Russ, deputy minister of operations at the ministry of mines in Liberia, said the region should collaborate on export links to make the most of major iron ore deposits, pointing to potentially lucrative cooperation with Guinea to the north.

The billions of dollars required to build rail or road have frozen many West African iron ore projects and rendered others all but impossible in an environment of uncertain prices and tough access to cash. Russ told an investor conference in London that cooperation could help resolve that.

“Our economies are certainly too small to take on these massive investments. If we think about collaborating, we can do a lot,” Russ said, pointing to the proximity of some deposits.

Key for Liberia – an emerging iron ore producer but also one of the region’s least explored destinations – would be cooperation with Guinea. That could, he said, help unlock the potential of Guinea’s giant Simandou mine and benefit Liberia.

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Mining in Zimbabwe: Where to from here? – by Arthur Mutambara (New Zimbabew – May 23, 2013)

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/index.aspx

Deputy Prime Minister Prof. Arthur G.O. Mutambara’s address to the chamber of Mines AGM at Nyamga on Developing and Managing the Mineral Wealth of Zimbabwe for Tomorrow

May 17, 2013

THE mining sector in Africa constitutes one of the largest industries in the world. Africa is the second biggest continent, with 30 million km² of land, which implies large quantities of resources.

For many African countries, mineral exploration and production constitute significant parts of their economies and remain keys to economic growth. The continent is richly endowed with mineral reserves and ranks first or second in quantity of world reserves of bauxite, cobalt, industrial diamond, phosphate rock, platinum-group metals (PGM), vermiculite, and zirconium. Gold extraction is the key driver of Africa’s mining activities.

However, in spite of this rich mineralization, African countries are still walloping in poverty. The primary problem has been the racist and colonial natural resource laws in Africa which empower the investor at the expense of the citizenry who are the bona fide owners of the resource. Based on this flawed framework, most of the mining deals and activities on the continent have been opaque and detrimental to Africans.

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Glencore fires 1,000 workers over wildcat strikes in S.Africa – by by Agnieszka Flak (Reuters U.K. – June 3, 2013)

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JOHANNESBURG – (Reuters) – Glencore Xstrata Plc sacked 1,000 workers across three of its chrome mines in South Africa for going on illegal strike last week, bringing those operations to a standstill, the company said on Monday.

The dispute at the mines near Steelpoort, northeast of Johannesburg in Limpopo province, added to long-running friction in the mining industry that has caused production to slow, raised concerns about Africa’s largest economy and sent the rand to fresh four-year lows.

Chromium is a raw material used to produce ferrochrome, a key ingredient to make stainless steel. “About 1,000 of the employees who have participated in the unprotected (illegal) strike have been dismissed,” said Christopher Tsatsawane, a spokesman for the company’s chrome operations.

The strike, which started last Tuesday, was continuing, but supplies to customers were not yet affected, he added. The workers have until Tuesday to appeal the dismissals.

South Africa has well-defined processes for launching strikes and those who fail to get formal approval can be sacked.

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President Zuma draws the line on wildcat strikes – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – May 30, 2013)

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PRETORIA (miningweekly.com) – President Jacob Zuma on Thursday drew the line on wildcat strikes, implicitly declaring unequivocal zero tolerance on future industrial action that is outside of the law.

Announcing a new programme of action for the troubled South African mining sector, President Zuma said that Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and three Cabinet Ministers had been tasked with restoring stability and certainty to the mining sector, which he described as an essential “cornerstone of the South African economy”.

He was emphatic that all future strikes needed to be undertaken within what he described as South Africa’s “excellent” legal framework and the Constitution (see also attached video).

“You cannot allow the unions to engage in wildcat strikes,” he said in response to global news agency Reuters’ question on dealing with what was described as “the turf war” between the emerging Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the long-standing National Union of Mineworkers.

Leeway had recently been given to AMCU on the grounds of its inexperience.

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