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Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining

Swiss coal miner Glencore warns NSW against ‘revenue grab’ – by Elouise Fowler (Australian Financial Review – August 2, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

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.

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IGO’s battery chemical plant fizzes – by Elouise Fowler (Australian Financial Review – July 31, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

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.

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DFD Rhodes stakes claim on Gina Rinehart’s fortune as court hears Lang Hancock exaggerated personal role in iron ore discovery – by Nicolas Perpitch (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – July 31, 2023)

https://www.abc.net.au/

Billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s father Lang Hancock exaggerated his personal role in the discovery of rich Pilbara iron ore reserves and downplayed the role of others, the West Australian Supreme Court has been told. That was the assessment of lawyer Jeremy Stoljar SC, who recounted to the court a business meeting in May 1972 between Mr Hancock and his associates at the time, including prominent businessman Don Rhodes.

Mr Stoljar is representing the Rhodes family company DFD Rhodes, which has joined the mammoth legal battle between Ms Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Mr Hancock’s late former business partner Peter Wright’s family and their company Wright Prospecting.

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Juukan Gorge owners PKKP and Fortescue negotiate land use deal – by David Prestipino (National Indigenous Times – July 13, 2023)

https://nit.com.au/

Fortescue Metals and PKKP Aboriginal Corporation have signed a memorandum of understanding they hope will lead to join management of current and future projects on Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura lands. The PKKP holds native title over nearly 11,000sqm of sparsely populated land west of Karijini National Park, including FMG’s Eliwana mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

The corporation was highly critical of Rio Tinto after the miner destroyed 46,000-year-old heritage-listed rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in May 2020, against the wishes of the PKKP people, who were unaware of the company’s intentions until it was too late.

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Rio hunts in the outback for lithium – by Elouise Fowler and Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – July 11, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

Rio Tinto will redouble efforts to find hard rock lithium in the Western Australian outback, after confirming it would extend an exploration partnership near the town of Sandstone for the third time in two years. Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm has made no secret of the miner’s desire to increase exposure to the battery material.

Rio finalised the $US825 million ($1.2 billion) acquisition of the Rincon project – near Orocobre’s flagship Olaroz operations – in Argentina last year. The Ango-Australian mining major already produces lithium from waste rock at a Californian mine, and last year entered into partnership with Canadian spodumene producers in the Canadian province of Quebec.

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What’s in a name? With Argyle diamonds, quite a lot – by Stuart Kells (The Mandarin – February 20, 2023)

The Mandarin

‘Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got. I’m still, I’m still Jenny from the block.’ As with J.Lo, in the history of Australian diamonds, labels are important. Today, ‘Argyle diamonds’ and ‘Argyle pinks’ are iconic brands. The story of those brands, along with related ones such as ‘champagne’ and ‘cognac’ diamonds, is a tale of coincidences, twists and incredible flukes.

The etymology of ‘diamond’ is Greek, and is all about hardness and adamance. ‘Argyle’, however, comes from the British Isles, and specifically from Argyll in western Scotland. The Old Gaelic phrase Airer Goídel means, more or less, ‘border region of the Gaels’.

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Australia forecasts brutal lithium price correction as output surges – by Frik Els (Mining.com – July 4, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

The lithium market has been in turmoil with dramatic price swings over the last five years as demand from electric cars take off and global supply growth struggles to keep up.

In its quarterly report released on Monday, the Australian government said it expects spodumene prices to decline slightly from an average of $4,368 a tonne in 2022 to average $4,357 a tonne in 2023 as the precipitous decline from record spot prices in the second half of last year take time to feed into long-term supply contracts.

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Forrest makes a ‘whatever it takes’ bet on clean nickel – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – July 5, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

Billionaire Andrew Forrest is rewriting history in nickel-rich Western Australia, returning to the scene of his biggest career heartbreak as the owner of Mincor Resources. He is willing to invest “whatever it takes” to become a global force in nickel via his private investment vehicle, Wyloo Metals, in a sector where BHP leads the way in terms of Australian output.

Dr Forrest famously backed Anaconda Nickel in the late 1990s, building it up from nothing before things went badly wrong at the Murrin Murrin mine out in bush near Leonora. He lost some skin and reputation before exiting as chief executive in 2001.

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‘Dare to say mining is ok’ and dig in for global change – by Marion Rae (Canberra Times – June 27, 2023)

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/

Companies and governments are vying for enough critical minerals to accelerate the world’s energy transformation but community trust is stuck in the slow lane. The industry is at a defining moment, Minerals Council of Australia CEO Tania Constable told an international forum in Brisbane.

Electric vehicles will need six times more minerals than conventional vehicles. Combined with surging demand for energy storage, solar panels and wind turbines, global mining investment to supply manufacturers will need to increase by $US100 billion per year.

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Miners must limit environmental impacts – King – by Esmarie Iannucci (MiningWeekly.com – June 26, 2023)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australia’s mining and downstream processing companies will need to move to a more sustainable footing in order to benefit from the future demand for critical minerals, federal Resources Minister Madeleine King said on Monday.

“We know the road to net zero runs through Australia’s resources sector. But we must do more to help Australians understand that the resources sector provides significant economic benefits to our country, as well as opportunities to share the benefits with First Nations communities and regional communities,” King said in a speech to the World Mining Congress in Brisbane.

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Albemarle to buy Lithium Power’s Australian unit – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – June 19, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

Lithium Power International (ASX: LPI) has scrapped the demerger of its Western Australian lithium assets in favour of a $21 million (A$30m) sale of the three projects to US giant Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB).

The cash transaction would see Albemarle acquire full ownership of Greenbushes, Pilgangoora and Tabba Tabba projects, which Lithium Power was attempting to spin off into a separate company — Western Lithium — that would have listed on the ASX.

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Australia taps global partners in landmark critical minerals strategy (Reuters – June 19, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, June 20 (Reuters) – Australia, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of raw minerals, unfurled a landmark strategy on Tuesday that outlines how it will work with investors and international partners to build a critical minerals processing industry for the energy transition.

The Labor government strategy aims to see Australia as a significant producer by 2030 of raw and processed critical minerals that are key to the energy transition, on its path to becoming a renewable superpower.

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Critical minerals stocks are now worth more than gold – by Peter Ker and Vesna Poljak (Australian Financial Review – June 13, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

Tony Rovira was about to board a plane from Perth to Melbourne when laboratory tests of eight lithium drill holes sent shares in his company, Azure Minerals, soaring more than 40 per cent. “I will definitely have a glass of champagne on the plane to celebrate the great work of our exploration teams,” he told The Australian Financial Review from Perth Airport on Tuesday.

They can afford the expensive champagne in Perth these days; the city is at the epicentre of a boom that has lifted the value of major, ASX-listed critical minerals companies to $86.2 billion from $8.6 billion in the past decade.

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Queensland Budget built on the back of coal – by Timothy Bond (Australian Mining – June 14, 2023)

Home

The Queensland Government’s controversial coal royalty system has contributed to an enormous $12.3 billion in revenue and a record surplus, giving the State’s budget the vitality it needs to tackle a range of cost of living issues.

Delivering his fourth budget to parliament, Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick announced an $8.2 billion cost of living relief program, including $550 electricity rebates for households (more for vulnerable households); $650 electricity rebates for small businesses; as well as an additional investment of $645 million over four years for free kindergarten for all four-year-olds.

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Ground Breakers: Iron ore squillionaire Gina Rinehart wants to sell our lithium to India – by Josh Chiat (Stockhead.com – June 14, 2023)

https://stockhead.com.au/

Gina Rinehart is worth approximately a totopatrillion bucks these days, a quantum we’ve invented because Hancock’s Roy Hill royalties are so iron-clad these days it really doesn’t matter what Australia’s richest person is worth. She’s minted.

And while iron ore has been the bread and butter of Hancock going back to the Lang days, Gina’s interests have become more varied and adventurous over time. Gas, cattle stations and coal are some obvious ones.

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