Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining – Page 117

Glencore kicks off $2bn takeover race for Syrah Resources – by Amanda Saunders (Sydney Morning Herald – July 10, 2014)

May 13, 2016July 10, 2014

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

Swiss commodities giant Glencore is understood to have made an informal approach to Syrah Resources that could value the graphite and vanadium junior at as much as to $2 billion.

Melbourne-based Syrah’s prized asset is the mammoth Balama graphite and vanadium deposit in northern Mozambique.

After the Fairfax Media revealed Glencore’s interest on Thursday, the company’s shares surged as much as 25 per cent before it dived into a trading halt before noon. When shares were halted, Syrah’s shares were up 19 per cent at $5.09. The shares have more than doubled in value since touching a 52-week low of $2 on July 10 last year.

Syrah responded promptly to the report and a share price query from the market operator on Thursday afternoon, saying, “From time to time Syrah receives informal,confidential and non-binding enquiries from various parties regarding Syrah’s interest in entering takeover discussions”.

“None of these enquiries have progressed to formal discussions or resulted in any indicative offers being received by Syrah.”

Sources say Ivan Glasenberg’s Glencore, one of the largest producers of primary vanadium in the world, is keen to exert control over the wider vanadium market. Pouncing on Syrah and securing its Balama project would be an early strategic play to shut out fresh competition.

Australia’s big three miners look to tighten their iron grip – by Jamie Smyth (Financial Times – July 8, 2014)

July 9, 2014

http://www.ft.com/intl/companies/mining

Port Hedland – The man who made a US$10bn bet on the global iron ore market is predicting Australia’s big three miners will tighten their grip on the global industry over the next few years as higher cost producers fall victim to lower iron ore prices.

Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, founder and chairman of Fortescue Metals Group, says the sharp fall in iron ore prices since the start of the year is causing some smaller Australian producers and overseas competitors to exit the industry.

“Because you have incredibly low operating costs with the big Australian producers we are seeing more substitution take place from China and India as competitors switch off production,” says Mr Forrest, who owns one-third of Fortescue shares.

“The wholesale shutting down of iron ore production industries basically happens in other countries. The Pilbara [in Western Australia] has always been historically the big player.”

BHP nickel sale hits hurdle – by Nick Evan (The West Australian – July 9, 2014)

July 9, 2014

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

A native title ruling could throw a shadow over BHP Billiton’s attempts to sell its Nickel West assets, after the Federal Court ruling last week paved the way for native title claims over BHP’s Kambalda nickel concentrator and Gold Fields’ St Ives mine.

In a decision released last week, the Federal Court ruled that the transfer of mining tenements from State Agreements between 2004 and 2007 should have triggered negotiations for a land use agreement with the Ngadju people, who claim native title over the region around Norseman and Kambalda.

The ruling covers more than 200 mining leases transferred from State agreements originally held by Western Mining Corporation.

They include leases over BHP’s Kambalda nickel concentrator and Gold Fields’ 400,000 ounce-a-year St Ives mine, the fourth largest gold producer in Australia last year.

Gold Fields said in January the action could force the closure of St Ives if the native title claimants sought an injunction to do so.

But the company softened its rhetoric this week, saying in a statement the decision “does not affect the grant of mining tenure to St Ives”. It added operations would continue as usual pending the outcome of the process.

Australian nickel projects on sale – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – July 7, 2014)

July 8, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Western Australian nickel assets owned by two of the world’s largest producers of the metal have been sold or are currently up for sale and attracting much interest.

LONDON (MINEWEB) – Australian nickel projects, presumably deemed non-core businesses, by mining majors BHP Billiton, and Norilsk Nickel are either reportedly up for sale, or sales have been agreed, which will see some of the country’s nickel production, or potential output move into the hands of new ownership. Australia was the world’s fourth largest nickel producer (after the Philippines, Indonesia and Russia) in 2012.

BHP Billiton, which had previously sold off its Ravensthorpe nickel mine and metallurgical plant to First Quantum back in December 2009 for $340 million – having cost over $2 billion to build – is now looking to sell the rest of its Western Australian nickel operations which come under its Nickel West banner, comprising the Mount Keith Nickel mine, Leinster Nickel mine, Kambalda Nickel concentrator, Kalgoorlie Nickel rmelter and Kwinana Nickel refinery.

There are reportedly six major potential suitors for the package, including Mick Davis’ X2 Resources. BHP inherited its nickel mining operations through the take-over of Western Mining in 2005.

Simultaneously, Norilsk Nickel the world’s largest nickel producer, has announced that through its Australian subsidiaries, MPI Nickel and Black Swan Nickel it has agreed to sell its Black Swan/Silver Swan assets, also located in Western Australia and currently under care and maintenance, to Poseidon Nickel. Norilsk had been reported as planning to sell all of its Australian assets back in May.

BHP Billiton looks to catch up to Rio Tinto in ironman contest – by Amanda Saunders (The Age – July 7, 2014)

July 7, 2014

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

Miner BHP Billiton is confident it can ”close the gap” with iron ore arch-rival Rio Tinto on margin per tonne within a few years.

And it is likely to develop the $20 billion outer-harbour project at Port Hedland rather than expand its inner-harbour operation if it moves to produce beyond its current annual run rate target of 270 million tonnes. BHP president of iron ore Jimmy Wilson says the miner is trailing Rio on margin per tonne, and ”our desire absolutely is to close that gap”.

He said the miner would never be in a competition with Rio on volumes but stressed ”where we would like to compete is on the cost of production side, more importantly, the margin per tonne that we make”.

”While we are marginally behind Rio at the moment, we’ve got to back the fact that we are going to eliminate that gap in the foreseeable future,” he says.

”What is the foreseeable future? I’d be disappointed if it took more than a couple of years. ”I do respect our competitors – Rio, Fortescue, Vale – [and] none of them is standing still either. So, I think, at the end of the day, you are going to see an improvement come through for all of those businesses.”

Trafigura Among Six to Enter BHP Nickel Sale, Review Says – by Ben Sharples (Bloomberg News – July 06, 2014)

July 7, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

Trafigura Beheer BV and Sherritt International Corp. (S) are among six companies to enter the sale process for BHP Billiton Ltd.’s Australian nickel unit, according to a report from the Australian Financial Review.

Glencore Plc, X2 Resources, Jinchuan Group Co. and MMG Ltd., a unit of China Minmetals Corp., are also among bidders that have started due diligence on BHP’s Nickel West business, the newspaper reported today, without saying where it got the information. Emily Perry, a Melbourne-based spokeswoman for BHP, declined to comment in an e-mailed response.

BHP said in May it’s considering selling all or part of its Australian nickel unit as prices surge amid an Indonesian export ban on the steel hardening agent. The due diligence process may take months and BHP is keen to finalize a deal by the end of the year, the newspaper said. The business may be worth more than A$800 million ($749 million), according to the newspaper.

Michael Oke, a spokesman for London-based X2 Resources, Francis de Rosa, a Sydney-based spokesman for Glencore, and Kathleen Kawecki, a Melbourne-based spokeswoman for MMG, didn’t immediately respond to e-mails sent outside of normal business hours seeking comment on the sale process. Three calls to Gao Tianpeng, the general manager of Jinchuan’s asset operation department, went unanswered.

Amsterdam-based Trafigura and Toronto-based Sherritt didn’t immediately respond to e-mails seeking comment.

NEWS RELEASE: BHP BILLITON SHIPS ONE BILLION TONNES OF IRON ORE TO JAPAN – July 2, 2014

July 7, 2014

BHP Billiton today celebrated the shipment of its one billionth tonne of iron ore to Japan with customers, joint venture participants and employees in Port Hedland, Western Australia.

BHP Billiton President Iron Ore Jimmy Wilson and BHP Billiton President HSE, Marketing and Technology Mike Henry were joined by joint venture participants ITOCHU Corporation (ITOCHU) and Mitsui & Co., Ltd (Mitsui) to mark the milestone in front of the Saiko bound for Japan.

Mr Henry acknowledged Japan’s industrial transformation and the importance of two-way trade in driving economic growth.

“In the late 1960s and through the 1970s, Japan grew to become an economic powerhouse through its expertise in steel manufacturing, heavy industry, technology and electronics,” he said.

Glencore slams Australian report that it paid zero tax in three years – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – July 3, 2014)

July 4, 2014

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Global diversified mining giant and commodity trader Glencore has condemned a recent report by Australian media company Fairfax Media, claiming that through aggressive tax structuring, Glencore had paid zero tax over the past three years, despite earning income of A$15-billion.

Business and technology news website Business Insider had published an internal email to staff by Glencore’s coal CE, Peter Freyberg, in which he dispelled the media speculation surrounding its tax payments, saying that the firm had paid A$400-million in corporate income tax since 2011.

He also said Glencore had paid A$8-billion in royalties and taxes, including A$2-billion related to corporate income tax, in Australia since 2007.

“As you will be acutely aware, for much of this period the resource industries in which we participate have faced significant challenges including low commodity prices, high input costs and a robust Australian dollar.

“Profitability is significantly lower than during the preceding four years – the reality is that a significant proportion of Australia’s coal mines are currently operating at a loss and although we run an efficient business, we are not immune to the market conditions.

COLUMN-Copper is unexpected victim of Indonesian export ban – by Andy Home (Reuters India – July 3, 2014)

July 3, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

(Reuters) – When Indonesia banned the export of unprocessed minerals in January of this year, the consensus view was that the most significant impact would be on the nickel and aluminium raw material markets in that order.

Copper barely warranted a mention.

Analysts at Macquarie Bank, for example, issued a research note on January 14, two days after the ban came into effect, examining the implications in a question-and-answer format. The only reference to copper came in the 19th bullet point under the telling heading: “Have copper producers been let entirely off the hook?”

Six months on, though, and one of the country’s two giant copper mines is on care and maintenance and the other has cut production by half. There have been no concentrate exports since January.

Not only is this the single biggest hit to copper mine supply this year but it is acting to accelerate a fracturing of the copper concentrates pricing model.

Both Freeport McMoRan, which owns and operates the Grasberg mine, and Newmont Mining, major stakeholder in and operator of the Batu Hijau mine, appear to have been blind-sided by the January rule changes.

NEW CALEDONIA: Is a Vast Marine Sanctuary Any Use if You Can’t Police It? – by Ian Lloyd Neubauer (Time Magazine – June 29, 2014)

July 2, 2014

http://time.com/

Tiny New Caledonia relies on a handful of French ships to patrol a marine reserve twice the size of Texas

For the first half of June — until the U.S. declared an even bigger one — the tiny, French semiautonomous territory of New Caledonia boasted the largest nature reserve on earth.

Covering a vast 1.3 million-sq-km region of the South Pacific, the Natural Park of the Coral Sea was established on May 28 to protect the world’s second largest coral reef and its attendant lagoon. Already safeguarded in parts by a UNESCO World Heritage listing, this wonderland is a nursery for 25 kinds of marine mammals (including sea cows and humpback whales), 48 species of shark and five different marine turtles. It also spawns vast numbers of pelagic fish, 3,000 tons of which make it into the Pacific every year – an important food source for tens of millions, and a source of employment for thousands of people living in the region.

But before most people had even heard of the creation of the Natural Park of the Coral Sea, U.S. President Barack Obama went one better by using his executive powers to create an even larger marine park in the south-central Pacific on June 17. Known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, it protects 2 million sq km of ocean and a smattering of islands and atolls between Hawaii and American Samoa from commercial fishing.

Obama’s announcement made world news, while New Caledonia’s barely received a mention. Perhaps that’s because the U.S., while sketchy on the details, has the hardware and manpower to enforce the no-take rule at the core of any national park.

Nautilus Minerals Inc says it’s poised to begin undersea mining following dispute settlement – by Peter Koven (National Post – June 26, 2014)

June 26, 2014

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

A lot of investors won’t believe it until they see it. But Nautilus Minerals Inc. maintains it is back on track to become the world’s first company to mine metals under the sea.

“It’s been a very exciting year,” chairman Geoffrey Loudon said at the company’s annual meeting in Toronto on Wednesday. “A lot of things have happened that we’ve waited an awful long time for.”

Most significantly, the company settled a two-year dispute with the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) over ownership of its Solwara 1 copper-gold project in April. The dispute was a giant black cloud over the company.

But there are significant hurdles ahead. For one thing, Toronto-based Nautilus still needs to secure a ship, something it has been talking about for many years. At the meeting, chief executive Mike Johnston said that should be a done deal by November, with Nautilus either chartering a ship or buying one.

Following that event, he laid out a path that could bring the company into first production as soon as 2017. And once Solwara 1 is mined out, Nautilus can theoretically move its ship and seafloor mining equipment over to the next deposit.

UPDATE 2-Australia cuts 2015 iron ore, met coal price forecasts – by James Regan (Reuters India – June 25, 2014)

June 25, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SYDNEY, June 25 (Reuters) – Australia revised down its 2015 iron ore and metallurgical coal price forecasts as rising output of two of the country’s biggest export earners outstrips demand, raising concerns for mining companies already struggling with shrinking profit margins.

Robust growth in export tonnages meant Australia would still post an 11 percent rise in total export earnings for mineral and energy comodities in 2013-14, the Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics (BREE) said in a quarterly update.

Analysts warn, though, that Australia’s powerful mining industry is facing a prolonged stretch where commodities will fetch prices well below those of the now-defunct mining boom years. BREE lowered its price forecast for iron ore to an average $94.60 a tonne in 2015 from a previous forecast of $100.80, citing growing competition to sell into China’s steel market.

Although steel production in China is forecast to increase in 2015, competition among iron ore exporters to sell their additional production is expected to intensify, it said, while a strong Australian dollar would also drag on local miners.

“This will draw a sharp focus towards managing costs and enhancing productivity in the sector,” said Wayne Calder, deputy executive director of BREE.

BHP looks to cut thousands of jobs from its iron ore division in WA – by Graeme Powell (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – June 24, 2014)

June 24, 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/

Mining company BHP Billiton is looking at cutting thousands of jobs from its iron ore operations in WA. The miner has already announced the loss of 500 jobs in recent months, including 100 at its headquarters in Perth.

The ABC understands up to 3,000 jobs could go from BHP’s iron ore division, which currently employs 16,000 people. A BHP spokeswoman said external consultants have been employed to conduct a review in order to cut costs.

The ABC understands many of the jobs losses will involve contractors whose positions are coming to an end and their contracts will not be renewed.

BHP says it has been open about the review and holds regular meeting with workers to keep them updated. The spokeswoman says the job cuts are necessary to ensure BHP Billiton remains a competitive, world-class operation.

In a statement released to the ABC this morning, BHP defended the proposed job cuts. “BHP Billiton Iron Ore regularly undertakes improvement initiatives and organisational reviews. We have engaged external consultants to assist with this process.

Rinehart family feud risks iron ore project, says daughter Bianca – by Andrew Burrell (The Australian – June 24, 2014)

June 24, 2014

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

GINA Rinehart and her warring children risk losing control of their most valuable asset a $10 billion stake in the Hope Downs iron ore project to mining giant Rio Tinto as part of the long-running legal battle that has engulfed the family.

In a hearing to begin today, Mrs Rinehart’s eldest daughter Bianca, 37, will attempt to convince NSW Supreme Court judge Paul Brereton that she is the best choice to replace her mother as trustee of the family trust, which holds 23.4 per cent of the family company Hancock Prospecting.

The Australian understands she will also argue that Mrs Rinehart’s bid to install a corporate trustee, rather than allowing Bianca to manage the trust, could jeopardise Hancock Prospecting’s ownership of its 50 per cent stake in the Hope Downs mine in the Pilbara.

This is because such a move might trigger a change-of-control provision in an agreement between Hancock Prospecting and Rio Tinto, which stipulates that the family company must be owned and controlled by direct descendants of Mrs Rinehart.

It is understood that lawyers for Bianca will argue that Rio Tinto could contend that change of control could occur, which would lead to complex litigation or the forced sale of the Hope Downs asset.

UPDATE 1-“King Coal” in Australia faces rising investment backlash – by James Regan (Reuters India – June 24, 2014)

June 24, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

MAULES CREEK, Australia, June 24 (Reuters) – A farmer’s habit of rising before dawn finds Cliff Wallace alone most mornings while a rag-tag army of anti-coal activists camped in tents and tee-pees on his land catch a few more hours sleep.

When the protest camp finally awakens, talk around a makeshift mess hall over coal’s impact on global warming competes with analysis of plunging coal prices or the latest bank to come out against investing in fossil fuel extraction.

“It’s a diverse group we’ve got here and in their own way they all want to save our trees from the coal companies,” says Wallace, 62, who grows wheat on land bordering the Leard State Forest, where bulldozing of endangered Box-Gum Woodland trees to develop an open pit coal mine has drawn national attention.

Wallace is happy to host the anti-coal protesters as he is concerned about the impact the mine will have on his farm’s groundwater and says he is “deeply saddened” by the disruption to the region’s animal habitats.

Taking on Australia’s powerful coal sector was once left to environmentalists like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, but now the anti-coal movement is attracting wider support, from farmers to banks and investment funds striving to be seen as ethical investors and not contributing to global pollution.