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Asia Mining

Uranium jumps to 15-year high as top miner flags shortfall – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – January 12, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Uranium prices jumped on Friday to an almost 15-year high after the world’s largest producer, Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom (LON: KAP), warned it’s likely to fall short of its output targets over the next two years.

The miner cited shortages of sulfuric acid and construction delays at newly developed deposits as the main factors behind ongoing production challenges, which it said could persist into 2025. A detailed assessment of the potential impacts on output will be released in a trading update by Feb. 1, it added.

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Chinese investment in Canada’s critical minerals sector ramps up as Zijin Mining aims to take 15% stake in Solaris Resources – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – January 12, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

China-based resource giants are once again making inroads into the Canadian critical minerals sector, despite a crackdown by Ottawa over national security concerns that had made it almost impossible for such transactions to occur.

Solaris Resources Inc. SLS-T on Thursday said that Zijin Mining Group of China plans to take a 15-per-cent stake worth $130-million in the Vancouver-based copper development company.

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This billionaire used Indonesia’s nickel to squeeze out Australia – by Emma Connors (Australian Financial Review – January 9, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

Indonesia’s ban on unrefined ore exports is loathed by competing producers and in breach of trade rules, but it is popular at home where international investors have built massive production centres.

They call him the Nickel King. Xiang Guangda, founder and chairman of Chinese giant Tsingshan Holdings, has invested billions of dollars in nickel processing in Indonesia, boosting exports and making it harder for higher-cost Australian miners to compete.

Indonesia’s exports of ferro nickel alloy, which is used to make stainless steel, climbed 38 per cent by volume in the first five months of last year after notching up a 42 per cent increase in the previous two years.

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Why India Is Buying 5 Argentine Lithium Mines – by Nitin Kumar (Rediff.com – January 2, 2024)

https://m.rediff.com/

India is close to striking a deal to acquire five lithium blocks for exploration and development in Argentina with the negotiations entering “final stages”, a senior official said, even as the country is engaged in talks with other nations rich in critical minerals.

The agreement will be signed between the Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL) — a joint venture company focused on identifying, acquiring, developing, processing and making commercial use of strategic minerals in overseas locations for supply in India — and Catamarca Minera Y Energética Sociedad Del Estado (CAMYEN), a State-owned mining and energy company in the Argentine province of Catamarca.

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China uranium grab poses threat to western energy supply, warns Yellow Cake – by Harry Dempsey (Financial Times – December 9, 2023)

https://www.ft.com/

Prices of nuclear commodity at 15-year high as governments scramble to secure sources of fuel for power stations

China is making an aggressive push to tie up global uranium supply amid a worldwide rush to secure nuclear fuel, warned the boss of Yellow Cake, a London-listed investment vehicle for the radioactive commodity.

André Liebenberg, chief executive of the Aim-traded company, said the west was lagging behind in securing uranium after prices hit a 15-year high and as Chinese firms purchase supplies on the open market, sign long-term contracts and buy up mines.

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Thermal coal prices diverge as Japan, South Korea buy more, China, India less – by Clyde Russell (Reuters – December 11, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Dec 11 (Reuters) – The prices of differing grades of seaborne thermal coal in Asia are diverging as strong demand for high-quality fuel coal by Japan and South Korea drives a rally, but lacklustre imports by China and India mean lower grades stagnate.

Japan and South Korea are the main buyers of thermal coal linked to the Newcastle Index, which assesses coal with an energy content of 6,000 kilocalories per kilogram (kcal/kg) from Australia, the world’s second-largest exporter of the power station fuel.

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Canadian miners seek to evade Ottawa’s crackdown on Chinese investment in critical minerals – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – December 8, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A Canadian miner is proposing moving its headquarters outside of Canada in an attempt to skirt a national security review that would have allowed the federal government to block its financing deal with an opaque China-based critical minerals company.

Montreal-based SRG Mining Inc. in July announced a tentative deal worth $16.9-million to sell a 19.4-per-cent stake to Carbon ONE New Energy Group Co. Ltd. (C-ONE), even though Ottawa last year announced a virtual ban on the acquisition of Canadian mining companies by China-based enterprises, because of national security concerns over the superpower’s dominance in critical minerals.

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Arrests and attacks: tracking China’s illegal mining in African countries – by Smruthi Nadig (Mining Technology – December 6, 2023)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

While Africa makes billions from Chinese investment in its mineral-rich countries, exploitation and illegal mining activities have become part of the deal.

China’s massive metals industry can only maintain its size using imported minerals, frequently from limited suppliers. As part of its Belt and Road Initiative, the country has actively invested in mining assets in Africa and Latin America, and is beginning to engage in overseas refining and downstream facilities.

Many countries have welcomed this with open arms. Africa’s mining and mineral extraction industries, especially in countries like Nigeria, Namibia and Ghana, have attracted billions of dollars from China, one of the continent’s biggest participants. The vast reserves of cobalt, lithium, copper, and other minerals essential to modern technology production have attracted investment and operations in several African countries.

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Mining Giant Vale Says China Can’t Control the Price of Iron Ore – by Mariana Durao and Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – December 5, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — China may be the world’s biggest buyer of iron ore, but even that powerful position doesn’t mean that Beijing can succeed in dictating prices for the steelmaking ingredient, said the head of No. 2 producer Vale SA.

The comments by Vale Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Bartolomeo come as China has appeared to ramp up its decades-long struggle to wrest more power over the iron ore market from Vale and its two Australian rivals, BHP Group and Rio Tinto Group, which together dominate global production.

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Insight: Western start-ups seek to break China’s grip on rare earths refining – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters – December 4, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

ALEXANDRIA, Louisiana, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Start-up tech firms are racing to transform the way rare earths are refined for the clean energy transition, a push aimed at turbocharging the West’s expansion into the niche sector that underpins billions of electronic devices.

The existing standard to refine these strategic minerals, known as solvent extraction, is an expensive and dirty process that China has spent the past 30 years mastering. MP Materials (MP.N), Lynas Rare Earths (LYC.AX) and other Western rare earths companies have struggled at times to deploy it due to technical complexities and pollution concerns.

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41 rescued workers emerge dazed and smiling after 17 days trapped in collapsed road tunnel in India (Associated Press – November 28, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

UTTARKASHI, India (AP) — Forty-one construction workers emerged dazed and smiling late Tuesday from a collapsed tunnel where they had been stranded the last 17 days — a happy ending to an ordeal that had gripped India and involved a massive rescue operation that overcame several setbacks.

Locals, relatives and government officials erupted in joy, set off firecrackers and shouted “Bharat Mata ki Jai” — Hindi for “Long live mother India” — as happy workers walked out after receiving a brief checkup by doctors. Officials hung garlands around their necks as the crowd cheered.

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Rethinking Indonesia’s nickel policies to power economic growth – by Cullen Hendrix (East Asia Forum – November 20, 2023)

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/

Calling Indonesia ‘the Saudi Arabia of nickel’, one of the metals underpinning global steel production and ambitions to decarbonise energy and transport systems, would be an insult to Indonesia’s market dominance.

Indonesia’s mines accounted for nearly half of global nickel production in 2022. It has banned raw nickel exports since 2020 as the country pushes to move up global value chains for renewable energy. Indonesia is a G20 member, a developing democracy and has an enormous potential home market for both steel and electric vehicles (EV).

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Indonesia’s American EV dreams shunted into the slow lane – by Andy Home (Reuters – November 20, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo has made no secret of his ambition to leverage the country’s vast nickel resources to become an Asian hub for manufacturing electric vehicles (EV). He has been wooing Tesla (TSLA.O) for the last two years, offering the U.S. car maker incentives ranging from tax breaks to nickel mining concessions.

Now Widodo also needs a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States for Indonesian materials to qualify for the generous EV subsidies available under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

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China’s controls on graphite exports “a loud wakeup call” for the US, says Graphex CEO – by Amanda Stutt (Mining.com – November 16, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

China announced last month it will require export permits for some graphite products in another bid to control critical mineral supply in response to challenges over its global manufacturing dominance.

China is the world’s top graphite producer and exporter. It also refines more than 90% of the world’s graphite into the material that is used in virtually all EV battery anodes. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence sees demand for graphite over the next decade growing at an annual compound rate of 10.5% but supply will lag, it says, expanding at only 5.7% per year.

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Indonesia to Trace Nickel in Bid for US Critical Minerals Deal – by Eko Listiyorini (Bloomberg News – November 16, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Indonesia plans to introduce nickel tracing and push local producers to reach global mining standards to help the country move closer to securing a critical minerals deal with the US.

Each ton of nickel ore sales will be tracked using the SIMBARA portal starting next quarter, Septian Hario Seto, a deputy at the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment, said in an interview.

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