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Hick, who was scooped up in November last year from oil and gas producer Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS), has been replaced by current chief operating officer for the iron ore division, Dino Otranto.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.
https://www.asiafinancial.com/
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.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
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.
Australia is in the race to develop alternative supplies to China’s dominance of the supply and processing of rare earths that are critical to the global economy and to national security. But the West is far behind. How quickly can this be done?
Rare earths aren’t actually that rare. Nor are the 17 rare earth elements in the periodic table worth much in isolation, with some of purely nominal value. Current estimates of the global market value for rare earths are somewhere between $US8 billion-$US10 billion ($12.4 billion-$15.5 billion).
Yet some of these rare earths are necessary for the production of everything from cell phones to advanced robots, electric vehicles to wind turbines, to a myriad of defence applications.
The head of Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s mining vehicle Wyloo Metals says carmakers are struggling to find nickel to stick in electric vehicles in a sign the sector is ripe for investment. It comes as BHP (ASX:BHP), a customer of Wyloo’s recently acquired Mincor Resources business in WA’s historic Kambalda nickel district, launches into one of the biggest investment splurges its once near dead nickel division has seen in 50 years.
Wyloo Metals CEO Luca Giacovazzi, who has spearheaded a dramatic expansion of Fortescue founder and iron ore billionaire Forrest’s private mining enterprise in recent years, told the Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum in Kalgoorlie last week contracts signed to date showed how short carmakers would be of the key cathode material.
WA’s Mines Minister Bill Johnston will officially open a new nickel mine at Kambalda today, more than 50 years after the town was put on the map by the discovery of Australia’s first nickel mine. The Cassini underground mine is Kambalda’s first new nickel development in two decades — since the Miitel mine began production in the year 2000.
More than 200 jobs have been created since September’s decision by Perth-based miner Mincor Resources to green light its $98 million restart plan for Kambalda’s once-booming nickel industry. The investment decision was long-awaited after a decade-long run of low nickel prices saw Mincor shut its Miitel and Mariners mines in 2016.
At a China-France dialogue in Beijing last month, Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng expressed hope that France “will stabilise the tone of friendly cooperation” with the European Union. This comes as French President Emmanuel Macron tries to promote Europe’s strategic autonomy amid the great power contest between the US and China.
Beijing’s promise of increased economic cooperation suggests it wants help from Paris to repair its deteriorating ties with the EU. But the manoeuvre could fail if China crosses the line in two geopolitical chessboards that France considers strategic and are currently in the spotlight – francophone Africa and the South Pacific.
Pilbara Minerals has catapulted itself into the position of holding one of the world’s largest lithium deposits after upgrading estimates for its West Australian mines. The upgrade comes as global demand for lithium – a key component of the batteries in electric cars – continued to rise.
The ASX-listed lithium player’s chief executive Dale Henderson said the miner’s estimate for Pilgangoora, near Port Hedland, had jumped 36 per cent to 413.8 million tonnes of measured, indicated and inferred resource, adding about 109 million tonnes from its previous outlook.
https://www.mining-technology.com/
The report analyses the long-term negative results of three of France’s major metals corporations operating in New Caledonia.
France’s nickel production sector is at risk of collapse and must be refinanced and restructured to meet EU critical raw materials independence goals, a new government report warns.
The report, published on Tuesday, analyses the long-term negative performance of three of France’s most significant metals corporations operating in New Caledonia, a French territory off the east coast of Australia that is home to approximately 10% of the world’s nickel supply. Société Le Nickel, majority state-owned Koniambo Nickel and Prony Resources Nouvelle-Calédonie are all at risk of falling further behind their Indonesian and Chinese competitors.
Glencore, one of the largest coal miners in NSW, is urging the state not to hike coal mining levies in a “revenue grab”, as the Minns government mulls following Queensland’s lead on higher coal royalties. The NSW government signalled a shake-up of coal royalty payments last week amid a broader consultation with the market on how to dent electricity prices after the coal price cap expires mid-next year.
The Switzerland-based miner and commodity trader, which reported 2022 full-year profits of $US34 billion ($51 billion) driven by soaring coal prices, warned the NSW government against changes to the royalty scheme.
West Australian nickel and lithium miner IGO confessed output at its troubled battery metal refining plant was “well below expectation”, casting doubts over Australia’s plans to dent mainland China’s dominance in battery chemical refining.
The Kwinana lithium hydroxide refinery, south of Perth, produced a mere 142 tonnes in the June quarter, an 85 per cent drop on the March quarter and significantly lower than the plant’s annual nameplate capacity of 24,000 tonnes.
