Asia Mining – Page 118 – Republic of Mining

China’s $3.6 Billion PNG Copper Mine Faces 2-Year Approval Wait – by David Stringer(Bloomberg News – May 19, 2016)

May 19, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

China-owned PanAust Ltd. estimates it may take as long as two years to win approvals for its expanded $3.6 billion copper project in Papua New Guinea as bigger rivals forecast a deficit of the metal by the decade’s end.

A revised development plan for the Frieda River project by state-owned Guangdong Rising Assets Management Co.’s Australian unit more than doubled an earlier cost estimate following a better understanding of the earthworks required, PanAust General Manager of Corporate Development Joe Walsh said Thursday in a phone interview.

The new study also raised forecasts for copper output about 40 percent to 175,000 metric tons a year.“Commodity prices are, in our view, going through a cyclical low and we do envisage that in the fullness of time we will see prices recover,” Walsh said.

Kyrgyzstan denounces Centerra directors, withholds votes again – by Peter Koven (Financial Post – May 18, 2016)

May 18, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

TORONTO — One of Centerra Gold Inc.’s Kyrgyz directors denounced the company at its annual meeting on Tuesday, saying there is “urgent need” for change at the management and board level.

“There are fundamental breaches of trust between Centerra and the government of the Kyrgyz Republic, which has led to instability of the Kumtor project,” Bektur Sagynov, deputy chairman at Kyrgyzaltyn JSC, told shareholders at the meeting in Toronto.

State-owned Kyrgyzaltyn, which controls 32 per cent of Centerra shares, also withheld votes for all of the gold miner’s non-Kyrgyz directors for the second straight year. It withheld votes on some directors in prior years.

More Chinese resource acquisitions on the way – by Lara Smith (Mineweb.com – May 17, 2016)

May 18, 2016

http://www.mineweb.com/

Lara Smith is the Founder and Managing Director of Core Consultants in June 2009. Core Consultants are committed to supplying high-quality commodity market research, analysis and valuations to global institutions.

China Molybdenum (CMOC) has long earned its reputation as a highly acquisitive company. In 2015, it made its intentions known that it would pump around $2bn into acquiring mining assets outside of China. Traditionally a molybdenum and tungsten producer, CMOC has targeted copper in recent years, paying $820m for Rio Tinto’s Northparkes copper mine in New South Wales in 2013 and bidding for Barrick’s Zadivar mine in 2015.

Earlier this year the company revealed that it had earmarked $4bn to acquire assets following its agreement to purchase Anglo’s Brazilian niobium and phosphate operations, which is regarded as a diversification from the more volatile metals market.

China admits overcapacity not yet falling in bloated steel sector – by Ruby Lian and David Stanway (Reuters U.S. – May 16, 2016)

May 17, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING – Massive overcapacity in China’s steel industry is not yet falling, a vice minister said on Monday, as the country’s leading steel companies conceded that current output was unsustainable and blamed the restart of mills previously shut.

China is facing anger and calls for trade penalties to block its exports by global rivals, who say it is dumping cheap exports after a slowdown in demand at home.

The world’s biggest steel producer has vowed to cut production capacity by 100 to 150 million tonnes over five years from around 1.1 billion tonnes, although its efforts have been complicated by a recovery in domestic steel prices.

[Philippines] Duterte urged to nationalize mining – by Thom F. Picana (The Manila Times – May 17, 2016)

May 17, 2016

http://www.manilatimes.net/

BAGUIO CITY: Environmentalists and indigenous people in Northern Luzon are pushing presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte to nationalize the mining industry “that prioritizes people over profit.”

Amianan Salakniban (Defend The North), through spokesperson Igorot leader Fernando Mangili, said Duterte could also work for the junking of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 that severely affected the environment and the people for over two decades.

Indigenous peoples in the North believe that, “Land is Life… Nobody can own what can outlive us,” hence, “it is our responsibility to the future generations that they can still breathe the same fresh air we breathe today.”

Exotic Isle – Graphite in Sri Lanka – by Christopher Ecclestone (InvestorIntel.com – June 17, 2014)

May 13, 2016

http://investorintel.com/

Please note this is a June/2014 article.

To most mining mavens, Sri Lanka was a land of mystery, onerous state intervention and certainly not one of mining. Sri Lankan graphite deposits are some of the richest on the planet. Under British colonial rule in the early 1900s, the nation was a significant graphite producer and exporter. Independence came in the 1950s and then there was a distinct socialistic trend in governments in the following decades culminating in the nationalization of the graphite sector in 1971.

The private sector was allowed back into Sri Lanka’s graphite industry in the early 1990s, but by that time, problems with the civil war were preventing development on a large scale. Additionally many of the State owned mines had been over-exploited, allowed to deteriorate and had not been subject to meaningful exploration to find new reserves.

The opening of the mining sector in recent years presents an opportunity for foreign companies to pursue Sri Lankan graphite on a significant scale.

Battling India’s Sand Barons – by Sibi Arasu (Mongabay.com – May 11, 2016)

May 12, 2016

https://news.mongabay.com/

Environmental activist S. Mugilan confronts the sand-mining mafia in India’s Tamil Nadu state, even as other activists lose their lives attempting to save the state’s natural resources.

In November 2008, a gang of around 70 assailants attacked S. Mugilan and his nine comrades with kadaparais (crowbars) and aruvals (curved machetes). The attack took place at around three in the morning, as they were returning home from sticking posters up across the town of Namakkal in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The posters called on state authorities to shut down a paper factory that had polluted 10,000 acres of land in the district— a factory owned by a well-connected functionary of a leading political party. Mugilan and others had organised numerous protests against the factory.

Iran Seeks Partners for $10 Billion Expansion in Aluminum – by Ladane Nasseri and Hashem Kalantari(Bloomberg News – May 11, 2016)

May 12, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Iranian miners are seeking $10 billion to develop a domestic aluminum industry that could serve to export 60 percent of production to meet growing demand for the metal used in cars to jets and beverage cans. The raw material bauxite needed to achieve that goal is proving hard to find.

Iran’s aluminum production of 350,000 metric tons a year is below capacity of 470,000 tons because of a shortage of bauxite and insufficient electricity generation, Mehdi Karbasian, managing director of state-owned Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization, said at a conference in Tehran Wednesday. With additional investment, Iran could boost output to 1.5 million tons by 2025, he said.

Unlike Iran’s oil industry which was crippled because of international sanctions, the domestic aluminum business was held back because a 25-year effort to develop a bauxite mine in the West African nation of Guinea still hasn’t produced.

COLUMN-Restrained copper is the sensible commodity in China – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – May 10, 2016)

May 10, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

May 10 Copper is probably the best reality check right now for China’s commodity markets, with the industrial metal showing why the recent surge in commodity prices was unjustified, but also why a collapse is not warranted.

China’s imports of unwrought copper fell sharply in April to 450,000 tonnes, down 21.1 percent from March’s 570,000 tonnes, and only up a modest 4.7 percent from the same month a year earlier, according to customs data.

It wasn’t just refined metal that showed a marked pullback from March’s exuberance, with imports of ores and concentrates slipping 8 percent in April from the prior month to 1.26 million tonnes. There are some fundamental factors that help explain the drop in April’s copper imports, such as the closing of the arbitrage window between London and Shanghai prices and bulging domestic inventories.

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.

[Commodities] The World’s Most Extreme Speculative Mania Unravels in China (Bloomberg News – May 10, 2016)

May 10, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

From the Dutch tulip craze of 1637 to America’s dot-com bubble at the turn of the century, history is littered with speculative frenzies that ended badly for investors.

But rarely has a mania escalated so rapidly, and spurred such fevered trading, as the great China commodities boom of 2016. Over the span of just two wild months, daily turnover on the nation’s futures markets has jumped by the equivalent of $183 billion, outpacing the headiest days of last year’s Chinese stock bubble and making volumes on the Nasdaq exchange in 2000 look tame.

What started as a logical bet — that China’s economic stimulus and industrial reforms would lead to shortages of construction materials — quickly morphed into a full-blown commodities frenzy with little bearing on reality. As the nation’s army of individual investors piled in, they traded enough cotton in a single day last month to make one pair of jeans for everyone on Earth and shuffled around enough soybeans for 56 billion servings of tofu.

Rio’s $5.3 billion go-ahead fuels hopes of end to Mongolia’s hangover – by Terrence Edwards (Reuters U.S. – May 9, 2016)

May 9, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

ULAANBAATAR – Rio Tinto’s long-awaited approval of a $5.3 billion extension for its giant Oyu Tolgoi copper mine is fuelling hopes of a revival at last for Mongolia, battered by a slowdown in neighboring China that has left it deep in debt.

Oyu Tolgoi, one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper projects, has been a bellwether for Mongolia since its discovery more than a decade ago. But as discussions with the government stalled in 2013 and prices collapsed, Rio put the flagship project on the backburner – and confidence in Mongolia crumbled.

Rio’s decision to go ahead with the costly and complex expansion is a bet on copper’s recovery for a miner that badly needs to recalibrate its iron ore-heavy portfolio. Mining executives, government officials, diplomats and analysts say it is also a potentially game-changing boost for Mongolia that could spark the unblocking of other projects and restore investor trust, key steps for the country to meet debt repayments due from 2017.

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.

From ‘Minegolia’ to a country in crisis: Mongolia looks to reverse its fortunes – by Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – May 9, 2016)

May 9, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

ULAN BATOR — Chimgee remembers the days people crowded in front of her meat market stall, waiting to buy from her storage locker jammed to the ceiling with beef, goat, sheep, camel and horse carcasses. “It was full, and people would line up here to buy from me,” she said. “People would say, ‘Buy from Chimgee! Buy from Chimgee!’”

After they finished buying meat, they might head downtown to pick up a condo, or a new Rolls-Royce. After all, they lived in “Minegolia,” a country about the size of Quebec and so jammed with mineral resources that respectable people talked about a future as the next Qatar or Brunei, with fabulous wealth shared among a population of just three million.

Theirs was a Canadian story, too: Canadian miners made up a large percentage of the foreign investors prepared to pour in capital. Growth of 17.5 per cent in 2011 made a gilded future look inevitable. The International Monetary Fund expected the country’s gross domestic product growth to keep roaring at 14 per cent through 2016. It wasn’t hard to find people who thought it could double that performance.

Former Centerra Gold Inc CEO concerned about employees’ well-being as Kyrgyz dispute intensifies – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 4, 2016)

May 4, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Centerra Gold Inc.’s political crisis in Kyrgyzstan is escalating, prompting the gold miner’s former chief executive to raise concerns about the situation.

Len Homeniuk, who left Centerra in 2008, is worried the Toronto-based firm is not doing enough to protect the well-being of employees who are caught in the middle of the company’s dispute with the government. He said there is a “real animosity” brewing between the two sides.

Homeniuk himself became a victim of this dispute last year, as he was detained in Bulgaria for nearly three months after Kyrgyzstan issued an Interpol “Red Notice” calling for his arrest and extradition. He said he did nothing wrong. “I’m concerned employees from Centerra, many of whom I know, aren’t getting any type of protection,” the 69-year-old said in an interview.