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Africa Mining

Zimbabwe: Chrome Ore Ban – Industry Collapses – by Master Mushonga (The Daily Maverick – October 25, 2012)

The Daily Maverick is a unique blend of news, information, analysis and opinion delivered from our newsroom in Johannesburg, South Africa.

According to Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe (CMZ), there are over 4 000 registered chromite claims currently of which 46 percent are held by indigenous Zimbabweans while the remainder is held by five large scale mining companies.

ZIMASCO, Zimbabwe Alloys, Maranatha and Monawood as big players do have synergies with small scale operators, have smelting facilities and in most instances enter into tribute agreements for the chrome ore production on claims owned by large operators.

Last year in April, the Government banned the export of raw chrome to encourage the local beneficiation of chrome ore into ferrochrome before exporting.

This change in policy was effected without considering the existing smelting capacity, investment needed to increase capacity, any guarantee to cheap and uninterrupted power supply as well as lack of chrome reserves that can last for 10 to 15 years to justify the establishment of a smelter.

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South Africa: Anglo American – a Giant Corporation Between a Big Rock and a Very Hard Place – by J Brooks Spector (The Daily Maverick – October 29, 2012)

The Daily Maverick is a unique blend of news, information, analysis and opinion delivered from our newsroom in Johannesburg, South Africa.

ANALYSIS

Stuck between worker demands for a decent living wage and insistence for broader ownership rights (or even nationalisation) and the market’s implacable demands for profits, Anglo American may have to give up its place as an iconic South African institution and be content as one more middling mining company among many.

At one of those archetypal South African dinner parties the other night, the news that Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll had just resigned got more than a mention. One guest recalled that for decades, the hard men ensconced on the top floors of Anglo American’s 44 Main Street headquarters – the one with those magnificent friezes of African animals on the walls – controlled nearly 40% of Africa’s total GDP and that, in turn, meant something like 60% of the share value of the entire the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

It was an empire almost without parallel – as if General Motors, Ford, DuPont, RCA and a half dozen other Fortune 500 stalwarts from America’s industrial Golden Age were one interlocking conglomerate. At its peak, Anglo’s organizational chart looked more like a complete depiction of the chemical relationships of the body’s Krebs metabolic cycle than a tightly structured industrial behemoth.

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In the Congo, Canada puts too much faith in mining companies – by Gerald Caplan (Globe and Mail – October 26, 2012)

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.

While he was attending the recent summit of La Francophonie in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Stephen Harper also met with human rights activists. Here’s what he told them:

“We’re concerned about many things in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including … violations of human rights… unfairness in some of the electoral process, but also we’re particularly concerned about the worsening situation in the eastern part of country. Canada will be supporting additional initiatives to combat the barbarous acts of sexual violence against women that are occurring all too frequently.”

These comments were both reasonable and trite. They’re exactly what all western governments say repeatedly about the Congo, yet little changes. There are far more important things he might have said.

He might, for example, have acknowledged that his government had already funded a campaign against sexual violence against women in eastern Congo that had received a negative assessment by his own government. The campaign was judged to have been poorly thought out and failed to achieve its objectives. This internal evaluation was revealed in The Globe and Mail by Geoffrey York, the Africa correspondent, who also interviewed Congolese civil society activists and found them to be equally critical of the Canadian project.

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Under pressure, Anglo CEO Cynthia Carroll quits – by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Sinead Cruise (Reuters – October 26, 2012)

http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Anglo American’s (AAL.L) Chief Executive Cynthia Carroll has quit after more than five years in the job, under pressure from investors over the miner’s lagging share price and continued dependence on troubled South Africa.

A geologist by training, New Jersey-born Carroll ruffled feathers when, fresh from the aluminum industry, she became the first non-South African, the first woman and the first outsider to take the top job at Anglo in 2007.

Brushing aside suggestions she was pushed to leave, Carroll and Chairman John Parker, her long-standing supporter, said on Friday there had been “differences of opinion” with shareholders but the decision to step down was her own, as she approached a seventh year in a “very grueling and demanding role”.

Carroll’s efforts to streamline a miner with colonial roots that became a sprawling conglomerate, her campaign to cut billions in costs and efforts to shift Anglo’s centre of gravity away from South Africa have won her support among investors. A campaign to improve ties with South Africa’s government has also garnered plaudits.

But her relationship with investors became more troubled after big-ticket acquisitions like the Minas Rio iron ore project in Brazil – an early bid to diversify Anglo’s portfolio – which became mired in cost overruns and delays.

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Cynthia Carroll exits as Anglo American CEO – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – October 26, 2012)

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.

Rome — And then there were three. The surprise resignation Friday of Cynthia Carroll, the Alcan-trained CEO of global mining group Anglo American PLC, comes as a blow to female corporate advancement.

Ms. Carroll, 55, was one of only the four women CEOs among FTSE-100 companies. She was the first woman to take the top job at Anglo when she joined the company in 2007, as well as the first non-South African and the first non-insider. Founded in Johannesburg in 1917 by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, Anglo had always picked its bosses from its own ranks.

Her departure, however, does not come as a blow to shareholder advancement. Anglo shares rose more almost 3 per cent Friday morning on the news that the search has begun for a new CEO. Ms. Carroll will not leave the company until her replacement is named, likely some time in the first half of 2013.

Ms. Carroll, an American who graduated from Skidmore College with a geology degree, worked for Alcan in Montreal from 1989 until she joined Anglo in March, 2007. Her last job at Alcan was head of its primary metals group, one of aluminium maker’s top jobs.

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South Africa miners’ strike: Labour hero Cyril Ramaphosa urged crackdown, emails show – by Pascal Fletcher and Jon Herskovitz (Reuters/Toronto Star – October 25, 2012)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

JOHANNESBURG—South African millionaire businessman and one-time anti-apartheid hero Cyril Ramaphosa urged ministers to crack down on a violent platinum miners’ strike the day before 34 miners were killed by police, according to emails revealed this week.

The emails cited on Tuesday by a lawyer for miners arrested over the Aug. 16 “Marikana Massacre” are the latest evidence of a reversal of historical roles for the 59-year-old, who himself led a historic miners’ pay strike under apartheid in 1987.

As a respected and influential member of the National Executive Committee of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Ramaphosa has long been touted as a possible presidential contender.

Hailed with Nelson Mandela as a champion of anti-apartheid struggle, the man who was once called “South Africa’s Lech Walesa” now finds himself pilloried as a cold-hearted capitalist in his role of shareholder and board member of Lonmin, the company at the heart of the Marikana dispute.

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Gold Fields set to fire 11,000 strikers in South Africa – Reuters (Globe and Mail – October 18, 2012)

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 — Reuters – Striking miners at one of Gold Fields Ltd.’s South African operations returned to work on Thursday, but the bullion producer still looked set to fire more than 11,000 others taking part in the worst wildcat walkout since the end of apartheid.

More than 80,000 miners have downed tools in the country since August in often violent strikes that are hitting growth and investor confidence in Africa’s biggest economy, and raising questions about President Jacob Zuma’s leadership.

Gold Fields, the world’s fourth-largest bullion producer and second-biggest in Africa, said all of the 9,000 workers at its Beatrix mine were now back at work after responding to a dismissal ultimatum.

Eleven thousand strikers at its KDC West operations in Carletonville, 40 km west of Johannesburg, have until 1200 GMT to return to work or face immediate dismissal. Gold Fields has said it may issue a similar ultimatum to those striking at KDC East.

More and more mines in South Africa have resorted to mass dismissals to tackle the strikes gripping the sector. Around 15,000 workers have been sacked in the last two weeks, although experts say it is more a hard-ball negotiating tactic than outright dismissal.

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Tanzania’s president says critics misrepresent impact of development – by Michael Posner (Globe and Mail – October 11, 2012)

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.

“There is so much distortion,” complains Jakaya Kikwete. “It’s ridiculous. You see important newspapers writing nonsense.” In an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail last week, the 62-year-old Tanzanian President – in Canada on an official state visit – says critics are misrepresenting a planned, 480-kilometre highway that will partly traverse Serengeti National Park.

Environmentalists allege the road is designed to bring oil from landlocked Uganda to Tanzanian ports and will imperil the habitats and migratory patterns of wildebeest, zebra and other wildlife. Not so, maintains Mr. Kikwete, holding court at Rideau Hall, residence of Canada’s Governor-General.

“We are building 11,000 kilometres of new roads,” he explains. “The only people left out are the people living in these remote communities. So it’s a development need, not a need to bring oil from Uganda. Second, we are not building a tarmac road through the Serengeti. [And] these people live 80 kilometres away from the Serengeti, I don’t see a risk to wildlife when you build 80 kilometres [away].”

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South African platinum and gold mine mechanisation – no simple path – by Lawrence (Mineweb.com – October 11, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

South Africa’s platinum and gold mining companies are being told to cut their workforces and introduce more mechanisation – but this is not as easy as it sounds

LONDON (MINEWEB) – With the focus over the past couple of months first on South Africa’s platinum mines, and subsequently its gold mines as labour problems have appeared to intensify we find the international mining community, for the most part, totally baffled by the sizes of the huge labour workforces working at some of these properties.

As an example – although this is going back a bit – after working on a South African gold mine where perhaps you would find a gang of 20-30 miners working on a single 3m x 3m development tunnel, the writer went to work on a Canadian underground mine where a similar sized development drive would be staffed by a gang of just two people.

The part answer to this, of course, was mechanisation, whereby the drilling itself would be undertaken by an early stage single boom drill jumbo rather than by four or five rock drill operators plus their attendants, working off and under a drill platform in the South African case.

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Harper to talk ‘blood minerals’ conflict, trade in DRC – by Colin Horgan (iPolitics.com – October 9, 2012)

http://www.ipolitics.ca/

The prime minister hopes to discuss the worsening security situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during his trip there for the Francophonie summit later this week, but the economy will still be on his mind.

Canada is looking to strengthen commercial relations with other members of the Francophonie in order to “benefit Canadian businesses,” the prime minister’s press secretary, Andrew MacDougall, told reporters during a briefing Monday. “For instance, Canada is currently negotiating a free trade agreement with 22 Francophonie member countries or observers.”

In an accompanying release, the government outlines one of its objectives within the Francophonie is “to promote the principles of sound economic management and policies aimed at ensuring greater transparency in public administration.” To that end, it says, Canada will call for the Francophonie “to focus on elaborating on an economic strategy as part of its next ten-year plan.”

Part of Canada’s focus will be on natural resources and environmental issues. “Canada believes it is in the interest of all partners (governments, civil society and the private sector) that the extractive industries operate in a responsible manner,” the government said in its release.

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South Africa’s ruling party paralyzed as strikes choke off economy – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – October 8, 2012)

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 — Fuel and food supplies are beginning to run out as labour violence escalates in South Africa, leaving its ruling party facing a mounting national economic crisis while it is paralyzed by a leadership struggle.

The wildcat strikes are inflicting heavy damage on some of the world’s biggest gold and platinum producers in a country that remains Africa’s economic powerhouse. South Africa is the world’s biggest platinum producer and the fifth-biggest gold producer.

Two more people were reported murdered on the weekend in Marikana, the platinum mining town where 34 protesters were gunned down by police in August.

The labour unrest could become more chaotic this week as rail and port workers threaten to join 28,000 truckers whose strike has already disrupted fuel and food deliveries across South Africa, leaving some gas stations out of supplies, bank machines running out of cash and supermarkets suffering shortages of some products.

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12,000 striking South African miners fired as unrest deepens – by Rodney Muhumuza (Globe and Mail – October 6, 2012)

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 — The Associated Press – Anglo American Platinum has fired 12,000 striking miners for staging an unlawful strike that is one of several that are slowly paralyzing South Africa’s crucial mining sector.

About 80,000 miners, representing 16 per cent of the country’s mine work force, are currently striking in a wave of wildcat work stoppages that have serious economic and political implications for South Africa.

Strike leader Gaddafi Mdoda, a mine worker at Anglo American Platinum, or Amplats, said he was one of the workers who received e-mails or SMS messages telling them they had been dismissed. “Things are bad here,” Mr. Mdoda said. The strike leader said he was shocked by the decision to dismiss striking workers, even though “it is nothing to be afraid of.”

“Approximately 12,000 striking employees chose not to make representations, nor attend the hearings, and have therefore been dismissed in their absence,” a statement from Amplats said, according to the South African Press Agency.

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Platinum producer fires 12,000 striking South African miners as unrest deepens – by Agnieszka Flak (Globe and Mail – October 5, 2012)

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 — Reuters – Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) fired 12,000 wildcat strikers on Friday, a high-stakes attempt by the world’s biggest platinum producer to push back at a wave of illegal stoppages sweeping through South Africa’s mining sector and beyond.

The rand fell sharply after the announcement, suggesting investors fear the sackings could worsen what is shaping up to be the most damaging period of labour unrest in Africa’s biggest economy since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Police shot dead one striking miner overnight, bringing the death toll in two months of unrest to 48. Strikes have spread beyond the mining sector, with Shell declaring on Friday that it would not be able to honour contracts to deliver fuel near Johannesburg because of a trucking strike.

The unrest is causing political trouble for President Jacob Zuma and his ruling African National Congress (ANC), the veteran liberation movement with long-standing ties to labour unions. “You fire 12,000 people, and it’s like ‘Oh my god, what happens now?’” one Johannesburg-based currency strategist said.

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Platinum, gold, coal, diamonds, iron ore. No end in sight for SA mine strikes – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – October 4, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

The South African mine strikes, and associated intimidation of any who wish to return to work, appear to be continuing to spread – from platinum, to gold and now to other mining sectors as well.

LONDON (MINEWEB) – Writing here on Mineweb in mid-August (Platinum mine violence impact – could it spread to gold mines too?) we commented thus on the prospect of the strikes and associated violence then being experienced on the platinum mines spreading to the country’s gold mining sector: “But, the issues which have led to the platinum mining violence are potentially mirrored in South Africa’s gold mines – an even bigger sector (just) – and the government will be hugely worried about the potential spread of mine unrest given the potentially major impact on the South African economy of a mining meltdown.

South Africa may no longer be the world’s largest gold producer – a position it held for nigh on a century, but it still remains one of the world’s biggest and disruption here could have a very negative impact on global mine supply – and again lead to the permanent closure of some of the more marginal operations, which are struggling to stay afloat even at current gold prices. The platinum and gold mines operate in a very similar manner and employ huge workforces by western standards. If the AMCU starts to move into the gold mines in a similar manner the impact could be equally destabilising.”

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Ex-Implats CEO speaks out on strikes, mine conditions – by Christy Filen (Mineweb.com – October 1, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

In his first interview with Mineweb since leaving Impala Platinum, David Brown, hits back at critics accusing the company of starting the wave of strikes.

JOHANNESBURG (MINEWEB) – The former CEO of Impala Platinum, David Brown, has said that accusations that the miner had, while he was at the helm, kicked off the recent spate of wild-cat strikes by negotiating and settling with illegally striking workers is misplaced.

Brown said that the accusations are not accurate as nothing extra was given to striking workers until they had returned to work and there was normality.

In the CEO’s first interview since announcing his resignation from the platinum miner, Brown said “Well you can go back to Adam beget Cain, as to who started it, I think that they are missing the point. The point is that we all pay subtly different wages and benefits and that has been one of the issues”.

We saw Implats hurry up an annual increase to workers earlier on in the year after a violent six week strike in which three people died and then Lonmin agreeing to a 11% to 22% increase across the categories after a lengthy strike resulted in the deaths of 46 people and scores injured.

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