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Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining

Severe Cyclone Makes Landfall Near Australia’s Iron Ore Hub – by Keira Wright and Paul-Alain Hunt (Bloomberg News/Financial Post – February 13, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

Severe Cyclone Zelia has made landfall near Australia’s iron ore export hub, bringing heavy rainfall and damaging wind gusts, with the system threatening big mines and crucial rail links as it tracks inland.

(Bloomberg) — Severe Cyclone Zelia has made landfall near Australia’s iron ore export hub, bringing heavy rainfall and damaging wind gusts, with the system threatening big mines and crucial rail links as it tracks inland.

The powerful cyclone crossed the coast to the east of Port Hedland, the nation’s biggest iron ore export harbor, packing very destructive wind gusts of up to 290 kilometers (180 miles) per hour near its center, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Winds that strong flatten structures and buckle power lines.

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Nickel Industries CEO Justin Werner warns of ‘challenging’ future for Australian mining – by Duncan Evans (News.com.au – February 9, 2025)

https://www.news.com.au/

The man behind a booming mining company in Indonesia has issued a stark warning about 10,000 Aussie jobs.

The shock collapse of Australia’s nickel mining sector has threatened 10,000 high-paying jobs as a leading ASX-listed nickel miner warns bluntly those jobs are probably never coming back. That’s the view of Nickel Industries managing director Justin Werner, who leads the rising $3.3bn company with vast mining and refining operations in Indonesia.

“It is certainly challenging (for Australia) in the foreseeable future,” he told NewsWire from his home in Bali in a wide-ranging interview this week. “Even if the nickel price goes up, it’s about having a sustained nickel price above $20,000 (per tonne).

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Australia close to breaking China’s critical mineral stranglehold – by Simon Johanson (Sydney Morning Post – February 9, 2025)

https://www.smh.com.au/

Australian firms are edging closer to breaking China’s production stranglehold on the rare minerals used in the world’s critical defence systems, electric vehicles and clean energy transition.

Companies like Iluka Resources, Lynas Rare Earths, and several lithium miners are already refining, or close to producing, the minerals needed for the batteries, electric circuitry and high-strength magnets that underpin the globe’s green energy transition.

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Two bids made for Glencore stake in New Caledonia’s Koniambo Nickel (Reuters – January 8, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

Two potential buyers for Glencore’s stake in mothballed New Caledonian nickel producer Koniambo Nickel SAS (KNS) have submitted offers following site visits late last year, KNS said.

Part of a loss-making nickel industry in French-controlled New Caledonia, KNS halted its operations in March after commodity group Glencore decided to sell its 49% interest.

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Women take on mining giants in sexual harassment class action cases – by Hilary Whiteman (CNN.com – December 12, 2024)

https://www.cnn.com/

Brisbane, Australia (CNN) — Lawyers for women who claim they’ve been sexually harassed while working for global mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto say they’ve been inundated with emails since filing two class action cases in an Australian court.

The separate lawsuits, which were filed in the Federal Court in Sydney and revealed Wednesday by law firm JGA Saddler, alleges widespread and systematic sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the two companies’ worksites over the last two decades.

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Rio’s Abandoned Panguna Copper Mine Still a Threat, Report Says – by Paul-Alain Hunt (Bloomberg News – December 05, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Rio Tinto Group contributed to widespread damage due to waste left at an abandoned copper mine in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, and risks to local communities are ongoing, a report has found.

Panguna, which was operated by Rio subsidiary Bougainville Copper, was once one of the world’s largest copper mines. It was shut in 1989 after local protests over the disbursement of revenue from the mine degenerated into a civil war that killed as many as 20,000 people.

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The History Of The Argyle Pink Diamond Mines – by Prue Bell (Paul Bram.com – September 3, 2021)

https://paulbram.com.au/

Pink Diamonds are amongst the rarest precious items on earth. That is why they are the most collectible stones right now. To own a pink diamond is to own a piece of Australian and world history.

“Buying a Pink Diamond is like buying a Pablo Picasso while he was alive… In another decade, the Argyle Pink Diamond will emerge as the new Faberge egg, the thing myths are made of. The value of rarity is the most priceless factor” – THE AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS REVIEW.90% of the world’s pink diamonds have been discovered in the mines of North Western Australia in the Argyle diamond mines. “The Argyle pink diamond story has enthralled throughout the years following the remarkable discovery of the Argyle mine in 1979.

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WA’s nickel industry has collapsed but multi-billion-dollar projects still in development with eye on future – by Jarrod Lucas and Tara de Landgrafft (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – December 1, 2024)

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

Is Western Australia’s once-booming nickel industry dead or just a sleeping giant? Thousands of job losses this year marked the bleakest period in the local industry’s history, which dates back to the 1960s.

In those days, the discovery of nickel literally put the Goldfields town of Kambalda on the map, leading to the development of the country’s first nickel mine while the Vietnam War drove demand for this key ingredient of stainless steel.

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The Weekend Essay: [New Caledonia] The Island Where Environmentalism Implodes – by Ben Crair (The New Yorker – November 23, 2024)

https://www.newyorker.com/

New Caledonia is home to thousands of species found nowhere else—and to nickel that companies like Tesla

This story was produced with support from the Rainforest Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

In September, 2020, Elon Musk and a Tesla executive named Drew Baglino put on matching T-shirts and took the stage in a California parking lot. To mark what the company called Battery Day, Tesla had gathered an audience of shareholders, who were social distancing by sitting separately in gleaming electric cars.

Some of the company’s new batteries, Musk and Baglino announced, contained far more nickel than previous models; as a result, they could travel farther, and at far less cost, on a single charge. “Increasing nickel is a goal of ours and, really, everybody’s in the battery industry,” Baglino said.

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Prony Resources gears up for nickel production restart at Goro mine (Mining Technology – November 19, 2024)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

The Goro mine in southern New Caledonia produces 57,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of nickel and 5,000tpa of cobalt.

Nickel miner Prony Resources New Caledonia will recommence operations at its Goro mine and battery-grade nickel production plant, located in the south of New Caledonia, after a six-month suspension caused by local riots in the French territory, reported Bloomberg.

The return of the workforce marks a significant step for Prony Resources, one of the three major nickel producers in New Caledonia.

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Troubled Mineral Resources Halts Lithium Mine as Woes Mount – by Paul-Alain Hunt (Bloomberg News – November 12, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Embattled Australian miner Mineral Resources Ltd. will immediately shut its Bald Hill lithium project, citing the crash in prices of the key battery material.

The Western Australia mine, capable of producing 150,000 tons of spodumene concentrate a year, was acquired by Mineral Resources last year. The announcement of its closure comes after the company said earlier this month that founder billionaire Chris Ellison will step down as managing director after an internal probe into undeclared payments found he had engaged in “profoundly disappointing” conduct.

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Paladin Energy’s Fission deal in limbo as Ottawa probes national security implications of China influence – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – November 11, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Investors are unsure whether Australia-based Paladin Energy Ltd.’s proposed acquisition of Fission Uranium Corp. will succeed, as Ottawa conducts a make-or-break national security review on the transaction, with Chinese influence under scrutiny on both sides of the deal.

In June, Paladin reached a friendly agreement to buy Kelowna, B.C.-based Fission in an all-stock transaction worth $1.14-billion. Fission is developing the Patterson Lake South (PLS) uranium project in the Athabasca Basin region of Saskatchewan, which is projected to eventually account for about 5 per cent of global supply.

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Global Lithium raises alarm over potential foreign takeover – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 8, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Australia’s Global Lithium Resources (ASX: GL1) is seeking to postpone its upcoming annual shareholder meeting until March next year due to concerns over a potential breach of foreign ownership rules.

The West Perth-based developer fears that Chinese national and minority shareholder Liaoliang “Leon” Zhu is attempting to gain control of the firm and its assets located near Kalgoorlie by joining the board and reducing the number of directors.

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Rio Tinto to take over Ranger uranium mine cleanup – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – October 15, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto will carry out the rehabilitation of the closed Ranger uranium mine in Australia’s Northern Territory, a government body has ruled.

The Takeovers Panel’s decision ends a long-running dispute over whether Rio Tinto or its majority owned uranium producer Energy Resources of Australia (ASX: ERA) would assume the site restoration’s costs. It also clears the way for Rio to assume full control of the uranium producer via the company’s capital raising, announced in August.

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Lithium stocks ‘one deal away’ from going on a tear: E&P – by Alex Gluyas (Australian Financial Review – October 15, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

Australian lithium stocks are just one deal away from a resurgence as investors face a shrinking pool of miners to invest in after Rio Tinto’s $9.9 billion takeover of Arcadium, according to E&P Financial.

The broker said Rio’s landmark deal, which capitalised on the collapse in lithium prices, could trigger a wave of institutional money into the stocks as investors speculate on the next takeover target. “Rio’s acquisition of Arcadium feels like bottom of the cycle M&A,” wrote E&P analyst Adam Martin in a report to clients.

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