Electric robots will soon be crawling along the sea floor and sucking up precious metals through a giant straw in a controversial trial to mine some of the ocean’s deepest, most pristine environments.
Deep-sea mining operator The Metals Company has been granted approval by the International Seabed Authority to begin testing its collection system in Pacific waters. It will be the first time since the 1970s that this has been allowed to occur.
Shares of Australian coal producer Whitehaven has risen 200% this year. The share price of the Australian-listed miner has risen about 150% since the Russia-Ukraine crisis started in late February, and hit a record high of 7.90 Australian dollars ($5.47) on Wednesday.
In other words, an investor who purchased Whitehaven shares late last year would have seen his or her investment increase more than three times. Chatter among stockwatchers on the popular online Australian stock market forum HotCopper has also increased.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
BHP Group Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company by market value, appears willing to walk away from its latest major takeover proposal. After the release of the miner’s quarterly earnings Tuesday, BHP chief executive Mike Henry said in a call with media that OZ Minerals Ltd. would be “nice to have” but is not a “must have.”
Earlier this month, Melbourne-based BHP proposed a US$5.8-billion takeover of its fellow Australian copper and nickel producer. While the offer was 30 per cent above OZ’s market price, it was well below its peak share price, reflecting the sharp sell-off across the mining sector over the past few months. OZ Minerals rejected the offer, calling it “highly opportunistic.”
Mining companies in Australia are racing to find the next big reserve of one of the world’s most in-demand metals. Nickel is a critical metal in batteries, and as the world keeps moving toward renewables, more batteries are needed to store energy.
In fact, there’s a strong case that much more of it is needed than lithium — a commodity many people know of, because it is in the name of lithium batteries. But there are a variety of batteries made with different metal compositions and, as Elon Musk puts it, batteries need a sprinkle of lithium compared to nickel.
As the dark clouds of war gathered over north-east Asia in 1938, a curious battle took place at home which forever tainted the memory of Liberal Party founder Sir Robert Menzies and that could be a portend of what lies ahead.
Then-Attorney General in the Lyons government, Menzies became embroiled in a fight with waterfront unions in Port Kembla over the loading of a British steamer, the SS Dalfram, with BHP produced pig-iron bound for Japan.
LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 11 (Reuters) – One of the refrains of the environmental lobby is that Australia is extremely well-placed to become a renewable energy superpower, and that this will replace the loss of revenue from coal and natural gas exports.
The problem is that only one of the two above assertions is accurate, namely that Australia is in pole position when it comes to many of the minerals that will be critical to the energy transition. These include lithium, where Australia is already the world’s top producer, as well as copper, nickel, zinc and other metals.
EVs are here to stay, and the world’s biggest miner says it’s going to spur a run for nickel demand well beyond anything seen before.
Following on from IEA figures last week, which show we could need a ludicrous 60 new nickel mines by 2030 to achieve announced carbon reduction pledges, BHP’s Nickel West boss Jessica Farrell told delegates at the Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum in Kalgoorlie demand for nickel to 2050 would increase 200-300% on the previous three decades.
Mind-boggling. No wonder BHP has decided to reinvigorate the division which almost closed down a few years ago when stainless steel demand fell off a cliff and tanked prices.
Gold has long dominated the Western Australian city of Kalgoorlie, born in a late 19th Century prospecting rush and home to one of the world’s largest open pit mines, nestled right next to residential streets. Blasts to dislodge precious-metal laced rock from the more than two-mile-long Super Pit still frequently rattle the main street.
As about 2,700 executives, investment bankers, and industry stalwarts gathered in the precious metals hub last week for Australia’s key annual mining forum it was clear where the industry’s focus lies. All attention is on the frantic hunt for battery metals to deliver the world’s shift to electric vehicles.
Aug 8 (Reuters) – BHP Group (BHP.AX) was rebuffed in its A$8.34 billion ($5.8 billion) takeover bid for OZ Minerals (OZL.AX) on Monday, in a setback as it pushes to secure copper and nickel assets for a shift into clean energy and the electric vehicles (EVs) market.
Australia’s OZ Minerals said the A$25 per share unsolicited, conditional and non-binding indicative offer undervalued the nickel and copper miner and was “opportunistic” as it comes when copper prices and its stock price have fallen from recent peaks.
(Bloomberg) — In the rocky deserts of Western Australia, a handful of little-known and once-shunned miners are suddenly in vogue as the electric vehicle industry clamors for a metal it can’t do without.
Executives from Australia’s lithium industry were inundated by bankers and brokers at the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum in the outback town of Kalgoorlie this week, talking up deals to secure some of the estimated $42 billion worth of investment needed for metal producers to meet their goals.
Plundering the Pacific for its rich natural resources has a long pedigree. Think of the European companies strip-mining Nauru for its phosphate and leaving behind a moonscape.
There are worrying signs history may be about to repeat, as global demand soars for minerals critical to the clean energy transition. This demand is creating pressure to extract more minerals from the sensitive lands and seabeds across the Pacific. Pacific leaders may be attracted by the prospect of royalties and economic development – but there will be a price to pay in environmental damage.
Glencore Plc is expanding a coal mine that scientists have estimated leaks so much planet-wrecking methane each year it has the same warming impact as the annual emissions from millions of cars.
New activity at the Hail Creek Mine involves digging up coal from gas-rich seams through surface mining — an approach for which the company has said there’s no reliable way to halt fugitive methane from escaping during operation.
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australia has joined the Minerals Security Partnership in its quest to develop and secure global supply chains for critical minerals that are crucial to clean energy technology and the global transition to clean energy.
Australia joins the US, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, the UK and the European Commission on this mission.
https://www.mining-technology.com/
Boasting around 830 million tonnes of nickel, the Kalgoorlie Nickel Project is one of the most exciting in Australia.
In March, the Australian Government awarded the Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP), located in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, ”major project status”, streamlining potential government approval for one of the country’s most exciting nickel projects.
The new status will make it easier for Ardea Resources, the Perth-based mining company behind the project, to get permits approved and to access additional sources of funding.
China dominates the global supply chain for lithium-ion batteries. Now rival countries are scrambling for more control over “white oil.”
THE INDUSTRIAL PORT of Kwinana on Australia’s western coast is a microcosm of the global energy industry. From 1955, it was home to one of the largest oil refineries in the region, owned by British Petroleum when it was still the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
It once provided 70 percent of Western Australia’s fuel supplies, and the metal husks of old tanks still dominate the shoreline, slowly turning to rust in the salt air.
