Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining – Page 110

Xi’s visit to Tasmania positive, but exposes mining to dining myth – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – November 19, 2014)

November 19, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

HOBART, Australia – Why would arguably the world’s second-most powerful person bother to visit an island at the bottom of the world most famous for a cartoon character that bears little resemblance to the real animal?

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit on Tuesday to Hobart was a series of photo opportunities with real Tasmanian devils, school children and very eager to impress political leaders in Australia’s southern island state.

But while Xi was busy showing his softer side, the real business was happening across town where Australian and Chinese business leaders were attending a forum on investment opportunities in Tasmania.

Tasmania is hoping to leverage its clean, green environment into booming Chinese demand for quality agricultural produce such as beef, lamb, salmon and seafood like rock lobster and abalone.

Tourism was also a key component, with Xi’s visit sparking hopes of increased Chinese interest in the natural beauty of Tasmania, which is roughly the size of Sri Lanka but has a population of only around 500,000 people. The forum also highlighted the mining opportunities in the state, particularly those for copper and nickel as well as minor metals such as tungsten.

Japan’s nuclear restart to boost Australian uranium industry – by Vicky Validakis (Australian Mining – November 18, 2014)

November 18, 2014

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/home

The Minerals Council of Australia says Australia’s uranium industry is set for a boost as Japan moves to restart nuclear reactors for the first time since the Fukushima meltdown.

Two reactors at Japan’s Sendai nuclear plant in the south west of the country are due to restart next year after receiving approval from local governor Yuichiro Ito.

This is the first time a reactor will restart since an earthquake triggered a tsunami in 2011, causing a meltdown at the Fukushima facility.

All of Japan’s 48 nuclear plants were shut down in response, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been pushing for their reopening as the cost of importing oil and gas hurts the Japanese economy, BBC reported.

Before the meltdown nuclear energy produced around 30 per cent of Japan’s power. “I have decided that it is unavoidable to restart the No. 1 and No. 2 Sendai nuclear reactors,” Ito said. “I have said that assuring safety is a prerequisite and that the government must ensure safety and publicly explain it thoroughly to residents.”

Executive director for uranium at the Minerals Council of Australia Daniel Zavattiero said the move was good news for the local uranium industry and its 4000 workers.

NEWS RELEASE: French President Hollande inaugurates Koniambo Nickel

November 17, 2014

Baar, Switzerland / Kone, New Caledonia

17 November, 2014 – Glencore is pleased to announce that today French President, François Hollande officially inaugurated the Koniambo Nickel Project (Koniambo) in New Caledonia, a joint venture between Société Minière du Sud Pacifique (SMSP) and Glencore.

President Hollande was joined by Paul Néaoutyine, President of the North Province, Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Glencore, André Dang, President of SMSP, Peter Hancock, President of Koniambo Nickel, and Vincent Bouvier, French High Commissioner in New Caledonia.

The construction of Koniambo Nickel commenced in 2007 and represents a $7 billion investment in New Caledonia, majority financed by Glencore. Its state-of-the-art infrastructure and proven nickel smelting technology, along with a world-class ore body, makes Koniambo a leading player in the global nickel market and is transformative for New Caledonia’s nickel industry. At peak production, the mine will provide steady employment for approximately 950 workers, with a focus on local employment, and indirect employment for thousands of others.

Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Glencore, commented:

“We are honoured that the French President has recognized Glencore’s ongoing commitment to and investment in New Caledonia by officially opening Koniambo Nickel. This inauguration marks a milestone for our New Caledonian operations and for the country’s nickel industry. We look forward to continuing our well established collaborations with the local community, government and our joint venture partners as we continue the ramp up period to nameplate capacity of 60ktpa.”

UPDATE 6-Australia, China deepen ties with landmark free trade deal – by Matt Siegel (Reuters India – November 17, 2014)

November 17, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

Nov 17 (Reuters) – China and Australia on Monday sealed a landmark free trade agreement more than a decade in the making, significantly expanding ties between the world’s second largest economy and one of Washington’s closest allies in Asia.

The deal, which Australia called the best ever between Beijing and a Western country, will open up Chinese markets to Australian farm exporters and the services sector while easing curbs on Chinese investment in resource-rich Australia.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a memorandum of understanding clinching the agreement during a ceremony in parliament in Canberra.

“This has been a 10-year journey, but we have finally made it,” Abbott said. Xi praised the deal in an address to parliament, pledging to deepen cooperation with Australia while reaffirming China’s willingness to resolve territorial disputes with its neighbours through diplomatic means.

“As long as we have our long-term and the larger interests in mind, increase positive factors and remove obstacles we will certainly forge a closer and more comprehensive strategic partnership between us,” he said.

China is already Australia’s top trading partner, with two-way trade of around A$150 billion ($130 billion) in 2013. On Monday they witnessed 14 commercial agreements between companies worth potentially more than A$20 billion ($17.56 billion).

Australia looks to ‘dining boom’ and trade deal with China – by Jane Wardell (Reuters India – November 13, 2014)

November 13, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SYDNEY – Nov 13 (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping’s upcoming visit to the remote island state of Tasmania underscores Australia’s push to ramp up agricultural exports, with the two countries on the verge of signing a free trade agreement.

Australia is attempting to transition from a reliance on exports of minerals such as coal and iron ore to expanding its food and agricultural exports to a growing Asian middle class, moving from a “mining boom” to a “dining boom”.

A free trade agreement with China would be a huge boost for that aim and Tasmania, the only Australian state with a ban on genetically modified food crops and animal feed, is at the heart of the country’s high-end production.

China is already Australia’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade of about $150 billion in 2013. But China has been concerned about opening its markets to Australian food and unhappy with strict Australian limits on investment by China’s state-owned enterprises.

In Australia, meanwhile, ownership of farmland by foreign investors is a sensitive issue, but Prime Minister Tony Abbott has made reaching an agreement with China a priority.

Expectations are high that a deal will be announced after Xi’s visit for the Group of 20 summit in Brisbane.

BHP pulls sale of Nickel West as it finds no buyer – by Barry FitzGerald (The Australian – November 13, 2014)

November 12, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business

BHP Billiton’s simplification drive under chief executive Andrew Mackenzie has hit a snag as it decided to pull the sale of the loss-making Nickel West after failing to secure an acceptable price.

Nickel West, which BHP most wanted to sell off, is the collection of Western Australian nickel assets picked up by BHP with its 2005 acquisition of WMC Resources.

That BHP has not been able to find a buyer is not a complete surprise as the assets were pointedly not good enough to be included in BHP’s spin-off of NewCo, announced in August.

NewCo is a $20 billion company that would join the stock exchange lists next year holding BHP’s other unwanted assets (South American nickel, aluminium, South African coal and manganese) outside of its “four pillars’’ of iron ore, copper, petroleum and coal.

“We believe that Nickel West is neither a good fit with BHP Billiton nor with NewCo,’’ Mr Macknezie said in August. He cited the maturity and complexity of the business as the reasons for not including it in NewCo, or BHP itself.

Glencore writes off $6bn more on Aussie assets as mining weakens – by Matt Chambers (The Australian – November 13, 2014)

November 12, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business

TRADING and mining giant Glencore has been forced into an extra $6 billion of 2013 writedowns on its Australian subsidiary beyond those already booked by the Swiss-based parent company, because of a weak economic environment since taking over Xstrata last year.

On top of this, the company has revealed it has made a $780 million provision for Australian take-or-pay coal mining contracts as coal prices fell.

A hefty $16bn of writedowns, on Australian and overseas assets, reflects the worsening commodities environment in 2013 and current mine plans — factors Glencore was not required to take into account in its London reports filed eight months ago.

In its 2013 accounts filed with the Australian Securities & and Investments Commission this week, Glencore said it had booked the $16bn of impairments on goodwill and other unspecified mining property, plant and equipment.

“The calculations reflect the prevailing economic environment and also the latest mine plans,” Glencore said in the accounts, which were signed this month by the company and its auditors. In its 2013 results, released in March, the Glencore parent company recorded a still significant $US9.1bn of impairments, most of which was on goodwill.

Nickel’s Waning Price Boom Leaves BHP With Unwanted Mines – by David Stringer (November 12, 2014)

November 12, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The failure to find a buyer for its Australian nickel business has left BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) with unwanted smelters and pits after the collapse of a price boom.

The metal reached a two-year high on May 13, a day before the world’s biggest miner outlined a plan to sell all or part of the unit. Since then, the price has declined 27 percent. Nickel West, which includes mines, concentrators, the Kalgoorlie smelter and Kwinana refinery, didn’t attract a suitable bid, the company said today in a statement.

While Glencore Plc (GLEN) Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg said earlier his company planned to examine Nickel West and would be “kicking its tires,” no acceptable offers were made, BHP said.

The biggest miners have found some units more difficult to divest as they trim portfolios amid lower commodity prices. Rio Tinto Group (RIO), the second-largest, halted work last year to try and sell its diamond unit after failing to find a buyer.

BHP said the nickel unit will remain within the company’s main portfolio, after CEO Andrew Mackenzie signaled it wouldn’t be included in a planned spinoff next year of smaller assets. The division doesn’t fit with either BHP’s core businesses, or operations, which will form the proposed new company, he said in August.

Nickel West bids fail to find magic number – by Nick Evans (The West Australian – November 12, 2014)

November 11, 2014

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

BHP Billiton has shelved the $800 million sale of Nickel West after bids for the struggling unit failed to meet its price expectations.

It remains unclear what the mining giant now plans to do with a business that employs about 1800 people across its mines, concentrators, nickel smelter and refinery.

BHP would not comment yesterday. Chief executive Andrew Mac- kenzie has made clear he does not want to keep the unit, which is part of the proposed NewCo spin-off that will house second-tier assets, including Worsley alumina.

Mr Mackenzie said three months ago that Nickel West was “neither a good fit with BHP Billiton nor with NewCo” and the best outcome was for it to be owned by an operator “much more committed to the nickel business”.

Industry sources said no final bids received over the past fortnight came close to the $500 million to $800 million valuation BHP is said to have initially put on Nickel West.

The failure of suitors to see sufficient value in the business came despite talk that BHP had dramatically revised its price expectations as the sales process dragged on.

Iron ore and the dangers of living by the sword – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – November 11, 2014)

November 11, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – (Reuters) – The price of spot iron ore has sunk to $75.50 per ton this week, its lowest level since 2009. The scale of the price collapse has been breath-taking. Iron ore has dropped by over 35 percent since the start of the year, a significantly worse performance than any other industrial metal.

But what’s really shocking is that the price is now at a level that until recently was collectively deemed impossibly low. It was only in April that José Carlos Martins, executive officer of ferrous and strategy at Vale, the world’s largest producer of iron ore, told analysts that “one thing is for sure, the price will not go below $110 on a sustainable basis”.

This was not irrational producer exuberance. Martins was only voicing the prevailing consensus view when he went on to argue that “we have many times seen the price going below this level but recovering very fast”. Well, here we are with the price trading not just below $110 but a lot lower still. And sustainably so.

That tells you that something has gone very wrong with the iron ore narrative. This market is in a place it was not supposed to be.

And while big producers such as Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton are sticking to that narrative, they are now facing the unpredictable consequences of a pricing war they collectively started.

Gina Rinehart children seek profits from iron ore projects including Roy Hill and Hope Downs – by Louise Hall (Sydney Morning Herald – November 11, 2014)

November 11, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/

Gina Rinehart’s two estranged children are seeking to claw back profits from the mining magnate’s major iron ore projects which they say are rightfully theirs.

But lawyers for Mrs Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, claim John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart’s latest legal action in their long-running family feud should not be allowed to go ahead because it is an abuse of process.

In an urgent hearing in the Federal Court on Tuesday, lawyers for Mrs Rinehart and her flagship company, Hancock Prospecting, asked Justice Peter Jacobson to suppress details of the childrens’ allegations of fraudulent concealment and deceptive conduct because any publicity could affect the US$10 billion ($11.6 billion) Roy Hill iron ore mining project.

The barrister for Mr Hancock and Bianca Rinehart, Christopher Withers, told the court his clients were seeking a constructive trust and an account of profits of four mining tenements, including Roy Hill and Hope Downs.

John Sheahan QC, for Hancock Prospecting, asked the court to suppress the case until he could apply for a stay on the grounds it was an abuse of process.

Miners reveal a poverty of thinking on coal – by Richard Denniss (The Age – November 8, 2014)

November 7, 2014

http://www.theage.com.au/

Richard Denniss is the Australia Institute executive director.

In a world in which war is waged for humanitarian reasons but sending doctors and nurses to prevent an outbreak of Ebola is considered too risky, almost any spin seems possible. But surely the mining industry’s claim that the best way to tackle global energy poverty is to build more coal mines takes the biscuit.

Coal companies have been very vocal in recent times about the billions of people around the world without access to energy or safe cooking facilities. The CEO of coal mining company Peabody Energy went as far as to say that tackling energy poverty is “the world’s number one human and environmental crisis”.

Now, after a century of making a fortune selling coal to those who could afford it and ignoring those who couldn’t, the mining industry has had an epiphany. Poor people in poor countries lack many of the necessities that Australians take for granted. And, according to their PR firms at least, the miners really want to do something about it.

The world’s greatest hearts and minds have long wrestled with the issue of how to lift people out of poverty. Mahatma Gandi, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates – they’ve all spent years pondering where best to start and how best to help. Is it by educating the masses, preventing aids and malaria, providing micro finance, or just cutting taxes and letting the market rip?

Antarctic mining ban to be indefinite – by Cole Latimer (Australian Mining – November 3, 2014)

November 4, 2014

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/home

A symposium on polar law has heard that mining will indefinitely be banned in the Antarctic region. The event, held in Hobart, saw the former head of the Australian Antarctic Division claim that the Antarctic Treaty – which bans mining in the region – will not be revised later this century, according to the ABC.

It comes as polar ice both in the Arctic and Antarctic regions begins to recede, opening up new regions for resources companies. While the Antarctic appears barren on the surface, below it stores an abundance of highly sought resources, including coal, iron ore, manganese, copper, lead, uranium and billions of barrels of oil reserves.

The resources are plentiful but they have been largely untouched as a result of an international peacekeeping agreement – the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS).

Established in 1961, the Treaty includes 12 original signatories, consisting of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Argentina, Belgium, Chile, France, Norway, South Africa, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus 28 other states that have ‘consultative party’ status, which allows them to vote on decisions concerning Antarctic administration.

Australia claims the majority of Antarctica, with the Australian Antarctic Territory covering 42 per cent of the continent. In 1991, nations of the Treaty agreed to ban the exploitation of minerals by signing a comprehensive Protocol on Environmental Protection (the Madrid Protocol).

Australia coal mining marks challenge for U.N. green push – by James Regan (Reuters U.S. – November 3, 2014)

November 3, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY, Nov 3 (Reuters) – U.N. calls to curb greenhouse gas emissions by ending most electricity generation using coal will face some tough challenges, with coal mining going through a growth spurt in countries such as Australia.

The U.N on Sunday released a report saying governments could keep climate change in check at manageable costs but would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2100 to limit risks of irreversible damage.

Although coal is blamed for contributing to climate change and causing large amounts of harmful pollution, it remains by far the most important fuel for power generation at a global share of around 40 percent.

Australian production of thermal coal is forecast to rise by 8 percent over the next two years to 270 million tonnes, according to government figures, confirming the nation as the world’s second’s biggest-exporter after Indonesia.

By fiscal 2018/19, production will reach 290 million tonnes, says the Australian Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics, the government’s forecaster.

Australian growth is expected to continue as companies including Rio Tinto , BHP Billiton and Glencore earmark capital to dig and acquire new mines.

BHP offers little hope of revisiting giant copper mine expansion – by James Regan (Reuters U.K. – October 31, 2014)

November 3, 2014

http://uk.reuters.com/

SYDNEY – (Reuters) – Expansion by BHP Billiton’s giant Olympic Dam mine in Australia, once considered among its prized growth assets, is off the agenda due to low metals prices and productivity inefficiencies, the company said on Friday.

BHP shelved plans for a multi-billion-dollar expansion of the copper, gold and uranium mine in 2012 after a year-long study, citing a need to reign in spending as the Australian mining boom started to fade.

Since then business leaders and politicians, including Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, have implored BHP to reconsider its decision, hoping to alleviate job losses caused by the exit of car manufacturing in Australia.

But BHP has stood firm and on Friday reiterated its mothballing of expansion plans for Olympic Dam.

“Our immediate challenge is how we self-fund the required investment by being prudent and creative with our capital and engaging our workforce to not only reduce costs but also accelerate the initiatives that will reduce our costs,” Darryl Cuzzubbo, Olympic Dam assetpresident, said in a business speech emailed to Reuters.