Oct 18 (Reuters) – Mining giant Glencore (GLEN.L) said on Wednesday it was set to close its copper operations at Mount Isa mines in Queensland, Australia by the second half of 2025.
The decision followed studies and reviews that it is not possible to further extend the life of the underground mines, the Swiss miner and trader said.
Barrick Gold (NYSE: GOLD) (TSX: ABX) has received the go-ahead from the government of Papua New Guinea to restart the Porgera mine, which has been placed on care and maintenance for three years.
On Friday, the gold miner announced that New Porgera Ltd. (NPL) was granted a special mining lease by the island country’s Governor General, clearing the way for the 700,000 oz./y operation to return to production.
MELBOURNE, Oct 3 (Reuters) – Damage caused to an Aboriginal rock shelter by mining giant Rio Tinto (RIO.AX) in August underscores the need for better heritage protection laws and a greater say for Indigenous groups promised in this month’s Voice referendum, advocates say.
Rio admitted on Sept. 21 to damaging a rock shelter on Aug. 6 in Western Australia’s Pilbara region while blasting at a nearby iron ore mine. Rio is now working with the Muntulgura Guruma people to assess what had happened, it said.
Australia’s Lithium Power International (ASX: LPI) confirmed on Friday it is engaged in talks with Chilean state-owned copper miner Codelco about a potential deal to jointly mine for the battery metal in the South American country.
Chile announced in April a new national lithium strategy, which calls for public-private partnerships for future lithium projects. Under the new model, the state takes a controlling stake in operations considered strategically significant, while private firms can retain control of projects in non-strategic areas.
Local industry extracting a key metal for electric car batteries is under pressure from rising production elsewhere
Mining and trading giant Glencore is to stop financing a lossmaking nickel mine in New Caledonia, as growing Indonesian production of a key metal in electric car batteries squeezes rivals.
Closure of the mine would be a blow to the French territory’s economy — mining accounts for 6 per cent of its GDP — and further concentrate global nickel production in Indonesia, where the supply chain is largely controlled by Chinese companies.
Ring of Fire Metals, Wyloo Metals and Mincor Resources and will unify under the brand name Wyloo after becoming the largest pure-play nickel company outside of Russia. Wyloo Metals’ acquisition of Mincor Resources, completed last month, makes Wyloo a producer of high-grade nickel sulphide from its newly acquired Cassini and Northern Operations mines in Kambalda, Western Australia.
The new name also applies to Wyloo’s Canadian subsidiary, formerly Ring of Fire Metals, which owns the high-grade Eagle’s Nest project and the only material chromite resource in North America, in the Ring of Fire region in northern Ontario, Canada.
Rio Tinto has quietly entered the lithium land grab unfolding in Western Australia as it looks to secure its future in battery minerals, racking up exploration tenements spanning more than 145,000 hectares in the red-hot jurisdiction that has minted billionaires and fanned takeover battles.
The Australian Financial Review can reveal that Rio has claims covering more than 61,000 hectares close to the Kathleen Valley lithium project being developed by $6.6 billion takeover target Liontown Resources.
Ask Wyloo Metals boss Luca Giacovazzi, 31, if he’s a bit young to be four years into running a pure-play nickel miner that wrestled control of Canada’s fabled “Ring of Fire” basin from resources giant BHP, and he quips: “Don’t hold it against me.”
As head of Wyloo, Giacovazzi has the ear of mining magnate Andrew Forrest. The $1.5 billion mining and exploration company he has been building with strategic and capital creating deals since 2019 sits alongside Squadron Energy as a prize asset in Forrest’s private investment vehicle Tattarang.
MELBOURNE, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths Ltd (LYC.AX) hiked construction cost estimates for its Kalgoorlie rare earths facility by more than a quarter and said it would boost the plant’s production capacity to tap growing demand.
Lynas has sped up construction at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia amid worries that a facility in Malaysia may have to be partly wound down after regulators there raised concerns about radiation levels from the process of cracking and leaching.
Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) announced on Monday the unexpected departure of its chief executive officer Fiona Hick, who held the post for less than six months and who attended a corporate party on Saturday to mark the iron ore miner’s 20-year anniversary.
Hick, who was scooped up in November last year from oil and gas producer Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS), has been replaced by current chief operating officer for the iron ore division, Dino Otranto. The 49-year-old female executive made her name by pushing the Western Australia’s resource sector to address its sexual harassment and bullying issues while serving as president of the state’s Chamber of Minerals and Energy.
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The deals mania comes as Australia undertakes a critical minerals strategy that envisages major collaborations with investors and global partners to become a renewables superpower
Emerging Australian lithium companies have seen a surge of buyouts from suitors seeking to secure cheaper supplies of electric-vehicle battery materials.
Companies such as Albemarle Corp, the biggest lithium producer, have been seeking buys in Australia, which makes the most lithium in the world and has more than 80 lithium-related companies listed on its main stock exchange. Their interest has been driven by falling prices for the commodity and a move by major producer Chile to nationalise its lithium industry earlier this year.
(Bloomberg) — Investors who bought Australian lithium stocks at the start of the year could have doubled their money or lost more than half of it — reflecting the extreme volatility of companies mining one of the world’s hottest commodities.
Lithium mining is dominated by small and mid-sized firms in Australia, the world’s No.1 producer of the critical electric vehicle battery ingredient. Previously unknown companies have soared in value after striking large deposits of lithium-bearing spodumene, mainly in Western Australia, while others have sputtered on uncertainty.
LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 22 (Reuters) – BHP Group reported its lowest annual profit in three years, but the decline isn’t the most worrying factor for the world’s biggest mining company. That prize goes to an increasingly uncertain outlook for its key commodities.
BHP (BHP.AX) said on Tuesday the company’s underlying attributable profit for the year ended June 30 dropped to $13.42 billion from $21.32 billion a year earlier. This was below a Refinitiv estimate of $13.89 billion, and the lower profit resulted in the divided being slashed to $0.80 a share from $1.75 the prior financial year.
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Underground aggregate extraction for Ring of Fire road will deliver both practical and environmental solutions
The proposed Eagle’s Nest mine will “set a new benchmark for what mining could look like” in the Ring of Fire, said its Australian developer.
Luca Giacovazzi, CEO of Wyloo Metals and a director with Ring of Fire Metals (formerly Noront Resources), revealed some of their innovative engineering solutions last week at the Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum, a leading industry bash held at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
Hancock Prospecting Executive Chairman Gina Rinehart committed “egregious fraud”, Perth Supreme Court heard on Monday, according to a Guardian report.
A lawyer for Rinehart’s children alleges there is clear evidence that mining licenses were unlawfully transferred to the company and a subsidiary after her father, Lang Hancock, died in 1992, the Guardian reported. “We don’t use the word fraud lightly,” lawyer Christopher Withers reportedly said during the trial over mining assets and royalties.
