Asia Mining – Page 169 – Republic of Mining

UPDATE 3-Indonesia’s mining ministry looks to ease mineral export ban – by Wilda Asmarini and Fergus Jensen (Reuters U.S. – January 8, 2014)

January 8, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

Jan 8 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s mining ministry sought to ease a controversial mineral export ban before its Sunday deadline, but still looked set to prohibit more than $2 billion worth of annual nickel ore and bauxite shipments.

Indonesian government officials are scrambling to pass regulations to ease a ban on unprocessed mineral ore exports from Jan. 12.

The ban aims to boost Indonesia’s long-term return from its mineral wealth, but officials fear a short-term cut in foreign revenue could widen the current account deficit, which has undermined investor confidence and battered the rupiah.

“The (mining) ministry proposed that miners will be given flexibility to export concentrate or processed minerals until 2017,” Sukhyar, director general of coal and minerals at the ministry, told reporters.

“After 2017, they will only be allowed to export metal or refined mineral,” he said. The mineral ban is one of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s biggest economic policy moves in his nearly 10 years in office.

China approves massive new coal capacity despite pollution fears – by David Stanway (Reuters U.S. – January 7, 2014)

January 8, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING, Jan 8 (Reuters) – China approved the construction of more than 100 million tonnes of new coal production capacity in 2013 – six times more than a year earlier and equal to 10 percent of U.S. annual usage – flying in the face of plans to tackle choking air pollution.

The scale of the increase, which only includes major mines, reflects Beijing’s aim to put 860 million tonnes of new coal production capacity into operation over the five years to 2015, more than the entire annual output of India.

While efforts to curb pollution mean coal’s share of the country’s energy mix is set to dip, the total amount of the cheap and plentiful fuel burned will still rise.

According to data compiled by Reuters, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top planning authority, approved the construction of 15 new large-scale coal mines with 101.3 million tonnes of annual capacity in 2013.

“Given that China’s total energy consumption is still growing along with the economy, then coal production will continue to grow,” said Helen Lau, senior commodities analyst with UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong.

UPDATE 2-Indonesia mineral export ban uncertainty starts to bite – by Fergus Jensen and Wilda Asmarini (Reuters U.S. – January 7, 2014)

January 7, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

Jan 7 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s planned mineral export ban – a policy designed to force miners to process their ores domestically – is sending shudders through the economy, with a Singapore-owned nickel miner suspending operations ahead of the Jan. 12 ban.

Indonesia is the world’s top exporter of nickel ore, thermal coal and refined tin, but also has significant exports of iron ore and bauxite, both of which are likely to be stopped after Sunday.

An increase in shipments of processed minerals would bolster the country’s foreign revenue and help narrow a current account deficit, which has undermined investor confidence and battered the rupiah.

However, the move has drawn protests from small mining companies, which say they can’t afford to build smelters, as well as from international majors, including U.S. giants Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and Newmont Mining Corp .

The plan has also raised fears that export earnings could be slashed in the short term as miners scramble to meet the new regulation. Mining contributes about 12 percent of gross domestic product to Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

‘Confiscate wealth of mining mafia’ (The Times of India – January 6, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/international-home

BHUBANESWAR: Reiterating his demand for a CBI probe into the multi-thousand crore mining scam, senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik on Sunday said the inquiry must go beyond the Justice M B Shah Commission report and sought an ordinance to confiscate wealth of the mining mafia.

The former state Congress president, in a press statement, said CBI investigation must go beyond leaseholders.

“The leaseholders are known legal entities and irregularities committed by them can be computed and accountability fixed, as has been rightly done by the Shah Commission,” he said. The Shah panel has recommended recovery of around Rs 60,000 crore from miners for illegalities committed by them.

On mining outside leasehold areas and abandoned mines, Niranjan said, “All entities involved in such illegal mining, as juxtaposed to irregular mining by known legal leaseholders, are remaining nameless and faceless. They have neither paid any royalty nor any income tax and there is no way they can be held accountable.”

S. Korea’s Former Miners Dig Up Nation-Building Past – by Agence France-Presse/Jakarta Globe (January 3, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/

Fifty years ago, several hundred South Koreans went to work in German mines in the first wave of a flood of Korean migrants whose remittances helped jumpstart one of the great economic transformations of the modern age.

The experience was often lonely, and for some their contribution was tainted on their return by the social stigma attached to a job that was tough, filthy and dangerous in a society that looked down on manual labour.

As a result, they feel their role in South Korean history has been largely overlooked, despite helping to seed South Korea’s economic growth and rapid industrialisation by sending funds home.

Mostly in their 20s, the miners — the first South Koreans to work overseas since the peninsula split into the capitalist South and a communist North in 1945 — were part of Seoul’s strategy to solve a high jobless rate and earn hard foreign currency. Bae Jung-Hwan left his homeland in 1970 to work at a German mine before returning a few years later. He says he only recently told his wife and children about his past.

Paucity Amidst Plenty [India Mining Problems] – by N. Madhavan, K.R. Balasubramanyam and Anilesh S. Mahajan (Business Today – December 22, 2013)

January 6, 2014

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/ [India]

Why a country flush with natural resources finds itself grappling with their shortage.

Billionaire Lakshmi Niwas Mittal has the uncanny ability to work successfully with governments of all kinds across the globe. That, and his unbridled ambition, have enabled him to set up or acquire steel factories in 20 countries. But the man who created the world’s largest steel empire from scratch tasted the bitter fruit of failure when he decided to invest in his country of birth – India.

In a bid to capitalise on India’s huge iron ore deposits and rising steel consumption, Mittal in 2005 announced plans to set up a steel project in Jharkhand that year and in Orissa the next. Later, he proposed another mill in Karnataka. The total intended investment was $30 billion.

In July this year, ArcelorMittal, Mittal’s company, scrapped its $12-billion mill in Orissa after having failed to acquire land and iron ore mines for seven years. Its other projects have not yet been called off, but are also facing delays. Mittal’s decision came just a day after South Korean steelmaker Posco, the world’s fifth-largest, abandoned a $5.3-billion project in Karnataka for similar reasons.

[India] Bullion smuggling outstrips narcotics to feed gold habit – by A. ANANTHALAKSHMI AND SIDDESH MAYENKAR (Reuters India – December 4, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE/MUMBAI – (Reuters) – Indian gold smugglers are adopting the methods of drug couriers to sidestep a government crackdown on imports of the precious metal, stashing gold in imported vehicles and even using mules who swallow nuggets to try to get them past airport security.

Stung by rules imposed this year to cut a high trade deficit and a record duty on imports, dealers and individual customers are fanning out across Asia to buy gold and sneak it back into the country.

Sri Lanka, Thailand and Singapore are the latest hotspots as authorities crack down on travellers from Dubai, the traditional source of smuggled gold. In a sign of the times, whistleblowers who help bust illegal gold shipments can get a bigger reward in India than those who help catch cocaine and heroin smugglers.

“Gold and narcotics operate as two different syndicates but gold smuggling has become more profitable and fashionable,” said Kiran Kumar Karlapu, an official at Mumbai’s Air Intelligence Unit.

[Indonesian] Ore Export Ban Is Definitive, Official Says – by Muhammad Al Azhari (Jakarta Globe – January 2, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/

Indonesia will be consistent in banning mineral-ore exports this year, as mandated by the 2009 Mining Law, and the government regulation would set processing and purification requirements before companies can export, a senior government official said.

R. Sukhyar, the newly appointed director general of coal and mineral resources at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry talked with the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday, almost two weeks before the Jan. 12 deadline, to clarify the government’s stance about the mineral-ore export ban.

Reports last month said the government would set exemptions, but that is not the case, according to Sukhyar. “The law says mineral ore mined from Indonesian soil must be processed [domestically] and be purified. That’s clear, that means no more mineral-ore exports. That’s non-negotiable,” said Sukhyar, a veteran bureaucrat, who officially started his new position on Dec. 20.

The government regulation, he said, will regulate technicalities about the smelting and purification level for metals including copper, nickel, bauxite, tin, iron ore, manganese, gold, copper. It will also regulate the adding of value to non-metals, such as limestone, quartz and marble, before they can be exported.

Small-Scale Gold Mining Pollutes Indonesian Lands – by Joe Cochrane (New York Times – January 3, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/

CISITU, Indonesia — In the remote mountains of West Java, workers like 15-year-old David Mario Chandra are an integral part of Indonesia’s gold industry.

A workshop next to his family’s house in Cisitu, in Banten Province, contains machinery that turns gold ore into usable nuggets. The procedure seems simple enough: The crushed ore is tumbled with other ingredients in cylinders called balls until the valuable stuff is amalgamated. But there is a crucial material — and a final step — that alarms environmental and health experts around the world.

“We put 15 kilograms of gold ore and water into each ball, and we use 100 grams of mercury per ball,” or 3.5 ounces for 33 pounds of ore, said David, who runs the family’s workshop. Workers then purify the nuggets using an open flame, burning off the mercury in sites among residential areas throughout the village.

Yuyun Ismawati, an environmental campaigner based in Britain, says the scope of the problem is evident in the amount of mercury being exported from around the world to Indonesia, her home country. Most of it, she says, is brought in illegally.

According to the Indonesian Ministry of Trade, the country imported slightly less than one metric ton of mercury in 2012 through two local companies, primarily for commercial manufacturing, including the production of light bulbs and batteries, and for use in hospital equipment.

Steel consortium slashes Afghan ore plant plan – by Krishna N Das and Jessica Donati (Reuters India – December 31, 2013)

January 3, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI/KABUL – (Reuters) – An Indian consortium has slashed a planned $10.8 billion iron ore investment in Afghanistan by 80 percent because it has been unable to get funding for the project.

The consortium has proposed new terms which would see just 130.57 billion rupees invested, according to figures released on Tuesday in India’s steel ministry year-end report.

Led by state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) (SAIL.NS), the group was forced to renegotiate the terms of the deal with the Afghan government after India’s finance ministry refused to fund the project.

The original proposal called for investment in three iron ore blocks at Hajigak in Afghanistan and in a 6 million-tonne-per-year (MTPA) steel plant.

But the finance ministry told the consortium, according to an official involved, to draw up a fresh viability study. Under the new proposed terms, the size of the plant would fall to 1.2 MTPA.

US mining giant faces fight with Indonesia – by Olivia Rondonuwu (The West Australian – December 23, 2013)

December 23, 2013

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/

High in the snow-capped mountains, the sight of tribesmen roaming in loincloths contrasts sharply with that of miners using hi-tech machinery to extract gold and copper ore at a huge US-owned facility in remote Indonesia.

The heavily-guarded complex is the resource-rich Indonesia’s biggest mine and has been a controversial presence for more than five decades — accused of environmental devastation and extracting huge wealth while giving too little back to a poverty-wracked area.

On a rare visit by the foreign media to Freeport McMoRan’s Grasberg complex in Papua province, AFP saw first-hand the challenge of mining at one of the world’s biggest gold and copper mines, where thin oxygen makes it difficult for workers to breathe.

Now, the company faces a fight with the state as it looks to extend its contract at a time when emboldened politicians are taking aim at foreign miners with measures forcing them to leave more of their profits in the country.

Indonesia is transforming into a freewheeling democracy and booming economy, with mining firms among foreign companies under scrutiny in what critics say is a climate of rising economic nationalism.

Turkey imposes restriction on its biggest ferrochrome producer – by Charlotte Mathews (Business Day – December 20, 2013)

December 20, 2013

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

TURKEY has imposed power restrictions on the country’s biggest ferrochrome producer, Eti Krom, which some analysts hope will help to support prices for one of South Africa’s biggest industries. In 2012, South Africa was the world’s second-largest ferrochrome producer, having lost first place to China largely because of rising Eskom electricity tariffs and power shortages.

South Africa’s biggest ferrochrome producers are Glencore Xstrata in a joint venture with Merafe Resources; International Ferro Metals, which is listed in London; Samancor Chrome; Hernic Ferrochrome; ASA Metals; and Mogale Alloys, owned by Afarak Group (formerly Ruukki Group).

Turkey ranks among the world’s top 10 producers. Ferrochrome is mostly used in stainless steel, whose production is forecast to rise about 5.5% a year for the next few years, as it is closely correlated with global gross domestic product growth. However, ferrochrome prices have been weak recently because of a slowdown in the Chinese economy coupled with growing Chinese production.

COLUMN-China’s 2014 commodity demand subject to policy influences – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.K. – December 19, 2013)

December 19, 2013

http://uk.reuters.com/

Clyde Russell is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Dec 19 (Reuters) – China’s commodity demand has been lumpy this year, with weakness in crude oil and copper being offset by robust gains in iron ore and coal, and this pattern is likely to continue into next year.

However, the relative winners may change. Much will depend on the track of economic reforms and how much success the world’s largest commodity user has in rotating its economy to be more consumer-led.

China’s official target for gross domestic product growth was 7.5 percent for 2013, and while the target for next year has not yet been announced, it’s likely to be maintained or perhaps lowered slightly. But more important than the overall target for GDP is how the growth is achieved.

The pattern for the past two years has been that China’s economy has seen momentum losses in the key industrial sector, followed by a re-acceleration in growth as policies are implemented to boost infrastructure and construction investment.

Indonesia to Study Rules for Miners With Smelters as Ban Looms – by Yoga Rusmana and Agus Suhana (Bloomberg News – December 19, 2013)

December 19, 2013

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Indonesia, the world’s largest mined nickel producer, will study rules for mining companies operating smelters as a ban on mineral-ore shipments nears, said Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa.

The government will seek legal advice on the regulations as interpretations differ, Rajasa said today. The law that bans shipments must be fully implemented and companies that don’t have smelters will have to comply, he said.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX), owner of the world’s second-biggest copper mine at Grasberg, said last week it intends to abide by the terms of its contract of work, which allow it to operate the mine and export concentrate. Indonesia is seeking to boost the value of shipments by promoting local processing and is set to prohibit all ore exports after Jan. 12.

“We will look at regulations but they cannot contradict the law,” Rajasa told reporters in Jakarta. “We must pay attention to business concerns.”

Three-month nickel advanced 0.2 percent to $14,165 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange at 8:39 p.m. in Singapore.

Flake graphite price could spike as China orders production halt – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – December 18, 2013)

December 18, 2013

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – One of China’s primary flake graphite producing regions had been ordered to halt production on environmental grounds, which would take about 10% of the world’s flake graphite supply off the market, the equivalent of 60 000 t/y, UK-based market research firm Industrial Minerals Data said this week.

Given that China produces almost 75% of the world’s graphite and that ‘flake’ is the most sought-after form of natural graphite for value-added, high-technology carbon products, this was a significant development.

The last time a supply shortage close to this magnitude happened in China, was in 2009, which was seen as the catalyst for flake graphite prices reaching over $2 500/t in a year.

Industrial Minerals Data manager Simon Moores said in a report published on Monday that up to 55 miners and processors of graphite in the town of Pingdu, located in the east-coast province of Shandong, had been ordered by the local government to stop production after failing to improve wastewater, dust and gas emissions.