Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining – Page 26

Ripples from Juukan: WA traditional owners back Arizona tribe fighting Rio Tinto – by Hamish Hastie (Sydney Morning Herald – March 8, 2021)

March 9, 2021

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

The Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people have thrown their support behind a North American first nations tribe locked in a battle with a Rio Tinto-owned copper miner.

San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona have fought Resolution Copper’s plans to build one of the world’s biggest copper mines on sacred land known as Oak Flat for a decade, but regulators have supported the land swap necessary for the mine to go ahead.

Resolution Copper is a joint subsidiary of Australian miners BHP and Rio Tinto, with the latter company drawing international condemnation in May 2020 after destroying the Juukan Gorge rock shelters to expand its Brockman 4 mine. The rock shelters contained evidence of 46,000 years of human habitation.

Tesla partners with nickel mine amid shortage fears (BBC News – March 5, 2021)

March 5, 2021

https://www.bbc.com/

Tesla has decided to become a technical partner in a nickel mine – which is needed for lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars.

Elon Musk’s car firm will also buy nickel from the Goro mine on the small Pacific island of New Caledonia to secure its long-term supply. The move comes amid growing concerns about future supplies of nickel.

New Caledonia is the world’s fourth largest nickel producer, which has seen a 26% rally in prices in the past year.

Vale returns to profit, eyes ‘dramatic opportunity’ for nickel – by Staff (Mining Journal – March 2, 2021)

March 3, 2021

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

Adjusted EDITDA rose 20% to $4.2 billion, after $4.8 billion in expenses of which $3.9 billion was related to the R37.7 billion (US$7 billion) Brumadinho settlement reached in January.

Vale’s ferrous minerals division achieved its second largest adjusted EBITDA of $8.8 billion, thanks to a 17% rise in realised prices and 26% higher sales volumes compared with the third quarter.

It put its iron ore fines and pellets C1 cash cost ex-third party purchases up slightly, quarter-on-quarter, at $12.70/t, while the cash cost (ex-ROM, ex-royalties) FOB was $15.30/t.

Traditional owners go mining, bypass iron ore giants – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – February 12, 2021)

February 12, 2021

https://www.afr.com/

The newest player in the lucrative Pilbara iron ore industry also happens to be the region’s oldest.

Fed up with mining companies that don’t adequately care for their country and cultural heritage, the traditional owners of Australia’s busiest iron ore mining district are taking matters, and drill rigs, into their own hands.

In a stark illustration of the changing relationship between Australia’s biggest export industry and the nation’s original inhabitants, the Eastern Guruma people have established their own mining company and applied for nine exploration permits within their native title area.

Northern Territory sinks seabed mining plans (Australian Mining – February 8, 2021)

February 8, 2021

Home

The Northern Territory Government has decided not to lift a ban on seabed mining in its waters following a public consultation last October.

The territory has kept a moratorium on seabed mining activities since 2012, which was due to expire on March 5, but will now be extended for up to another six months.

There are very few seabed mining projects globally and the mining activity has never been undertaken in the Northern Territory.

Explainer: How the New Caledonia government collapse may affect the nickel market – by Mai Nguyen (Yahoo Finance – February 4, 2021)

February 4, 2021

https://finance.yahoo.com/

HANOI – The coalition government in New Caledonia, a French territory in the Pacific that is the world’s fourth-largest nickel ore producer, collapsed on Tuesday after pro-independence politicians resigned.

Riots broke out in December sparked by protests led by pro-independence political parties over the sale of Vale SA’s nickel business in the country.

Here is what that means for the global market for the metal used to make stainless steel and batteries for electric vehicles.

HOW BIG A NICKEL PRODUCER IS NEW CALEDONIA?

Friday essay: masters of the future or heirs of the past? Mining, history and Indigenous ownership – by Clare Wright (The Conversation – January 2021)

January 29, 2021

https://theconversation.com/

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.

In May 2020, the international mining giant Rio Tinto made a calculated and informed decision to drill 382 blast holes in an area of its Brockman 4 mining lease that encompassed the ancient rock shelter formations at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

In a matter of minutes, eight million tonnes of ore were ripped from the earth, and with them, 46,000 years of cultural heritage destroyed.

The Puutu Kunti Kurrama Pinikura people, who are the traditional owners of that land, lost their material connection to sacred sites of ceremonial, clan and family life, the basis for their political and social organisation. The Australian people lost a significant chunk of their national estate. For this hefty price we all paid, Rio Tinto lawfully gained access to $135 million dollars of high-grade iron ore.

Lithium miner back in the driving seat on electric vehicle rebound – by Nick Toscano (Sydney Morning Post – January 25, 2021)

January 25, 2021

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

For Australia’s miners of lithium, one of the critical metals to make electric batteries, last year started out like the one before it: with the same weakness in demand and pricing that has been forcing operators into survival mode.

The markets for battery ingredients lithium and cobalt, which soared from 2016-18, went from boom to bust after a rush of new projects tipped the industry into oversupply, and reductions in Chinese subsidy programs put a pause on the electric vehicle revolution.

The price of hard-rock lithium concentrate known as spodumene had crashed by nearly half already and the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to drive car sales even lower.

Rio Tinto, Fortescue hit pay dirt as prices surge – by Sarah Turner and Jenny Wiggins (Australian Financial Review – January 18, 2021)

January 19, 2021

https://www.afr.com/

Another stunning rally in iron ore prices is set to put a rocket under profits for the major iron ore producers, showering shareholders with dividends, shoring up the sharemarket and helping the government restore its pandemic-ravaged finances.

Last week, the spot iron ore price reached $US172.36 a tonne, up 1.3 per cent on the previous session according to Fastmarkets MB. Iron ore futures on the Singapore exchange traded at $US170.15 a tonne at the end of the week – the highest since their inception in 2013 – after rallying nearly 10 per cent since the start of the year.

William Curtayne, portfolio manager at Milford Asset Management, said that if iron ore prices were held at about $US165 a tonne there would be large-scale upgrades to the earnings expectations of the iron ore miners.

[Rio Tinto] The blast felt around the world – by Lynn Greiner and Carolyn Gruske (CIM Magazine – January 11, 2021)

January 12, 2021

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

Rio Tinto’s destruction of 46,000-year-old rock shelters sacred to the local Indigenous population in Australia’s Juukan Gorge during mine expansion, although legal, not only tarnished the company’s reputation and cost senior executives, including the CEO, their jobs, it triggered an inquiry in the Australian parliament and renewed focus on the nature of free, prior and informed consent.

The initial blasting and the reaction sent shockwaves through the international mining community, especially since there seemed to be a discrepancy between what the mining company considered to be consent to go ahead with the project and what the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people understood.

“We have operated on PKKP country under a comprehensive and mutually agreed Participation Agreement since 2011,” Rio Tinto wrote in a statement after the caves’ destruction. “At Juukan, in partnership with the PKKP, we followed a heritage approval process for more than 10 years.”

Eramet faces continued challenges in New Caledonia, despite rescue plan success – by Simone Liedtke (MiningWeekly.com – Janaury 12, 2021)

January 12, 2021

https://www.miningweekly.com/

Global mining and metallurgical group Eramet’s rescue plan, which aims to ensure the sustainable recovery of the group’s New Caledonian subsidiary, is achieving the expected impact under normal operating conditions, the company confirmed on January 12.

It noted that the subsidiary, Société Le Nickel (SLN), had, in particular, managed to achieve an improvement in production costs.

SLN’s rescue plan is based on three levers, which include implementing a new business model based on plant ferronickel production and low-grade ore exports, improving productivity and reducing energy prices.

Deep dive to new resources – by Graham Lloyd (The Australian – January 1, 2021)

January 8, 2021

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Gerard Barron wants to secure a battery-powered future — from the sea floor.

In the global race to remake the world for a low emissions future, Gerard Barron just may be Australia’s Elon Musk.

Where Musk is obsessed with electric cars and deep space, Barron is focused on the abyssal plains located 4500m below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Barron is leading a gathering push to exploit a base metals resource that has been known about a long time but has been too difficult to exploit for political, environmental and logistic reasons.

Junior miners bring abandoned iron ore projects back to life – by Jamie Smyth and Neil Hume (Financial Times – January 5, 2021)

January 8, 2021

https://www.ft.com/

Six years after a once-in-a-generation commodities crash forced Noble Group to close the Frances Creek iron ore mine in remote northern Australia, its new owners are restarting it.

Darwin-based NT Bullion is among a host of junior miners from Australia to Canada that are resuscitating operations abandoned by larger producers of the steelmaking ingredient.

Their bets made at the bottom of the mining cycle could prove lucrative. The price of iron ore surged 65 per cent last year to a nine-year high of $166 a tonne on the back of sustained strong demand in China and supply constraints in Brazil, the world’s second-biggest producer.

Rio Tinto’s new CEO pledges to ‘restore trust’ after destruction of sacred Indigenous site – by Michelle Toh (CNN Business – December 17, 2020)

December 17, 2020

https://www.cnn.com/

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Rio Tinto (RIO) has found a new chief after a crisis this year led to the ouster of its top executive.

On Thursday, the mining giant named Chief Financial Officer Jakob Stausholm as CEO. Stausholm will assume the role on January 1, the same day outgoing CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques is slated to step down.

Jacques resigned under pressure from investors in September over the company’s destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred Indigenous site in Australia. It demolished the Juukan Gorge caves in Western Australia in May to expand an iron ore mine.

New Caledonia’s triple opportunity – by Nic Maclellan (Inside Story – December 10, 2020)

December 15, 2020

Front Page

The young people gathered early in Noumea, preparing for action. Soon they had blocked the main road along the waterfront in New Caledonia’s capital with barricades, burning tires and rocks.

Riot police moved in, firing rounds of tear gas and flash balls to disperse the demonstrators, and hours of running battles between Kanak activists and police began.

The clash on 7 December followed a month of roadblocks and demonstrations across the French Pacific dependency of New Caledonia. The protests were called by the “Usine du Sud = Usine Pays” collective, which unites customary chiefs, environment groups, trade unionists and members of the independence coalition Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste, or FLNKS.