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Asia Mining

Exclusive: Indonesian president pledges nickel mining clean up amid EV-led boom – by Gayatri Suroyo (Reuters – March 30, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

SOROWAKO, Indonesia, March 30 (Reuters) – Indonesia will improve monitoring of environmental standards for nickel mining, amid concerns over production of the metal which is increasingly used in electric vehicle batteries, the country’s President Joko Widodo told Reuters on Thursday.

The Southeast Asian country, which has the largest nickel reserves in the world, will step up scrutiny of mining and order companies to manage nurseries to reforest depleted mines, said the president, who is widely known as Jokowi.

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Nickel Revolution Has Indonesia Chasing Battery Riches Tinged With Risk – by Yudith Ho and Eko Listiyorini (Bloomberg News – March 28, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Obi, among hundreds of scattered spice islands in the Maluku archipelago, is an unlikely spot for a metal market convulsion. Only the northern part of this island gets power from the state utility. It’s home mostly to fishermen and coconut farmers.

Harita Nickel’s sprawling complex of processing machinery and conveyor belts tells a different story. One of a new breed of nickel producers, backed by Chinese know-how and cash, it’s using the latest generation of a method known as high-pressure acid leaching, or HPAL, to turn Indonesia’s low-grade ore into metal fit to power a Tesla car.

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China’s ironic reticence on land grab in Ukraine – by Jeff Pao (Asia Times – February 25, 2023)

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Reviving map use of old Chinese names for Russian-conquered territory, Beijing won’t call out Moscow over Donbas

China’s newly-released plan to promote peace talks between Ukraine and Russia conspicuously fails to say clearly whether Moscow should withdraw its troops from the Donbas region now.

China’s foreign ministry released a 12-point statement on Friday, the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling on both sides to cease fire and open a dialogue to resolve their conflicts politically. The statement does not go beyond saying in generalized language that the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries should be protected in accordance with international laws, including the UN Charter.

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US, Japan Strike Deal on Supply of Minerals for EV Batteries – by Shoko Oda and Eric Martin (Bloomberg News – Mar 27, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The US agreed to boost cooperation with Japan on critical mineral supply chains and to expand access to tax breaks as President Joe Biden aims to counter China’s dominance of the electric vehicle battery sector.

Following the pact, EVs that use materials that have been collected or processed in Japan will be eligible for incentives under the US Inflation Reduction Act, Japanese Trade Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said Tuesday in Tokyo.

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Electric Vehicle Battery Makers Test a Future Without Lithium – by Yayoi Sekine (Bloomberg News – March 21, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A year and a half ago, China’s CATL put on a flashy event to make an announcement significant enough that Zeng Yuqun, the founder and chairman of the world’s biggest battery maker, served as emcee.

Zeng, who had just passed up Alibaba’s Jack Ma in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, revealed that CATL was working on battery packs that would use lithium-ion and sodium-ion cells. While sodium is more abundant and offers potential safety benefits over lithium, the latter is dominant in EV batteries. Lithium-ion chemistries offer superior energy density, enabling drivers to travel further between charges.

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Glencore Set to Lose Crown as Top Cobalt Miner to China’s CMOC – by Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – March 21, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A Chinese miner is set to overtake Glencore Plc as the world’s top cobalt producer this year, as the rush for critical green-energy metals intensifies.

The challenger to Glencore’s dominant position is CMOC Group, which first became a major player in the cobalt market when it acquired the Tenke Fungurume mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016. The company aims to double production this year, as it brings another massive Congolese mine online in the second quarter. That will propel it past Glencore, company filings show.

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China to step up deep sea mining efforts – by Frik Els (Mining.com – March 14, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

China Daily reports that the country will make renewed efforts to join the race to mine the deep sea for critical minerals. The English language government-run paper says China lags behind the West in terms of research, technology and hardware for seabed mining which it calls “a new frontier for international competition.”

Ye Cong of Wuxi-based China Ship Scientific Research Center, a subsidiary of the China State Shipbuilding Corp, said mining the metals found in nodules on the seafloor – mainly nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese – will “help us reduce the heavy reliance on foreign suppliers”.

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Philippine Miners Not Keen on Indonesia Nickel Alliance Plan – by Manolo Serapio Jr. and Ditas Lopez (Bloomberg News – March 14, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A plan by top nickel miner Indonesia to create an OPEC-like group to coordinate supply would not benefit the Philippines, the No. 2 producer, according to an industry group.

The Philippines mined a 10th of the in-demand metal that’s used in electric vehicle batteries last year, according to the US Geological Survey, and mainly exports nickel ore to China. That’s well behind Indonesia, which accounted for almost half of global output, and floated the idea of a producer alliance late last year.

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China’s Lithium Probe Puts Spotlight on Reserves and ESG Risks – by Annie Lee (Bloomberg News – March 9, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — If it’s grown, drilled or dug up, chances are there’s not enough of it in China. Beijing’s ability to manage the mismatch between its scarce natural resources and vast industrial output is now playing out in the market for lithium, a mineral crucial to the world’s transition away from fossil fuels.

It’s an effort complicated by skyrocketing prices, geopolitical tensions and the environmental devastation that can be wrought by a pell-mell approach to extraction. China is the world’s biggest producer of new energy vehicles but holds only a modest slice of global reserves of lithium, used in the batteries that power electric cars.

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Indonesian farmers fight for their land in nickel mining boom (France24.com – March 13, 2023)

https://www.france24.com/en/

Wawonii (Indonesia) (AFP) – Three women with machetes stood guard at their farm hilltop on Indonesia’s Wawonii Island, directing their blades towards the nickel miners working in the forest clearing below. “I pointed the machete at their faces. I told them: ‘If you scratch this land, heads will fly, we will defend this land to the death’,” said 42-year-old villager Royani, recounting a recent encounter with some of the miners.

The dig site is part of a huge rush to Indonesia, the world’s largest nickel producer, by domestic and foreign enterprises to mine the critical component used in electric vehicle batteries.

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China Copper Exports to Jump in Rare Deliveries to LME Depots (Bloomberg News – March 8, 2023)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

China is poised to export a significant volume of copper in coming weeks, a relatively infrequent occurrence that underscores a tepid demand recovery in the biggest market.

At least four major smelters are planning to deliver between 23,000 and 45,000 tons of refined copper in total to London Metal Exchange depots in Asia, according to people with knowledge of the sales, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private.

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Iran says it’s discovered what could be the world’s second-largest lithium deposit – by Natasha Turak (CNBC.com – March 6, 2023)

https://www.cnbc.com/

Iran says it’s discovered a massive deposit of lithium — a key element in batteries for devices and electric vehicles — in one of its western provinces.

“For the first time in Iran, a lithium reserve has been discovered in Hamedan,” a mountainous province in the country’s west, Mohammad Hadi Ahmadi, an official at Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade, was quoted as saying on Iranian state television Saturday.

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Gov’t urged to incentivize downstream nickel processing – by Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat (Manila Bulletin – March 5, 2023)

https://mb.com.ph/

Imposing a ban or tax on the export of raw ore is not the solution to attract middle to downstream nickel processing in the country, but the granting additional incentives to investors, according to a top industry player.

Martin Antonio G. Zamora, president and CEO of Nickel Asia Corp. (NAC), the country’s lone nickel mining company with a processing operation of its raw ore, said during a media round table that incentives may be granted in the form of additional tax breaks on top of what has been given to manufacturing firms at present to attract more downstream processing operations.

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Analysis: Lithium price slide deepens as China battery giant bets on cheaper inputs – by Siyi Liu and Melanie Burton (Reuters – February 28, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING/MELBOURNE, Feb 28 (Reuters) – Rare discounts offered by Chinese battery giant CATL (300750.SZ) to automakers have accelerated a plunge in lithium prices, and the market is set to drop a further 25% with supply growth outpacing demand, analysts and traders say.

After a frenzied rush by electric vehicle makers to secure raw materials over the past two years, which drove prices for lithium carbonate up more than six-fold and spodumene up nearly ten-fold, the bubble has burst.

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Commodity markets brace for return of China environmental crackdowns – by Alex Gluyas (Australian Financial Review – February 28, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

Signs that China is re-focusing its attention on environmental regulation have injected fresh volatility into commodity markets, as traders position for the potential return of intermittent crackdowns amid the economy’s reopening.

Ore-processing operations in China’s top lithium production hub, Yichun, were ordered to halt output as investigators probed alleged environmental infringements at lithium mines, Bloomberg reported.

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