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Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining

A brutal war and rivers poisoned with every rainfall: how one mine destroyed an island – by Matthew G. Allen (The Conversation – September 30, 2020)

https://theconversation.com/

Matthew G. Allen is a Professor of Development Studies at The University of the South Pacific.

This week, 156 people from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea, petitioned the Australian government to investigate Rio Tinto over a copper mine that devastated their homeland.

In 1988, disputes around the notorious Panguna mine sparked a lengthy civil war in Bougainville, leading to the deaths of up to 20,000 people. The war is long over and the mine has been closed for 30 years, but its brutal legacy continues.

When I conducted research in Bougainville in 2015, I estimated the deposit of the mine’s waste rock (tailings) downstream from the mine to be at least a kilometre wide at its greatest point. Local residents informed me it was tens of metres deep in places.

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China’s shadow looms as New Caledonia decides whether to leave France – by Joshua Mcdonald (South China Morning Post – September 2020)

https://www.scmp.com/

The Pacific island of New Caledonia, home to 270,000 people, is slated to hold its second referendum on independence from France this weekend, amid bids for self-government in a region that has become a focus of geopolitical rivalry among the United States, China and Australia and has been late to the decolonisation process.

The former penal colony, which is reliant on Paris for about US$1.5 billion in funding annually, has an agreement with France for up to three referendums – each held two years apart – on the question of independence. In the first poll in 2018, close to 57 per cent of voters chose to stay with France.

New Caledonia gets most of the rest of its funding from the sale of nickel deposits to China, which is one of its strongest trading partners. In 2018, New Caledonia’s exports to China totalled US$1.06 billion, more than its combined exports to all other countries.

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Australia’s Jervois to buy cobalt, nickel refinery in Brazil – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – September 29, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Australia’s Jervois Mining (ASX: JVR) is buying a nickel and cobalt refinery in Brazil from Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio for 125 million reais ($22.1 million) in an effort to transform the company into a producer and refiner of battery metals.

The miner said the São Miguel Paulista refinery, in São Paulo, had a production capacity of 25,000 metric tonnes per annum (mtpa) of nickel and 2,000 mtpa of cobalt before it was placed on care and maintenance in 2016.

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Rio Tinto hit with human rights claims over Bougainville mine (Agence France-Presse/Jakarta Post – September 29, 2020)

https://www.thejakartapost.com/

Rio Tinto is facing accusations it “side-stepped” responsibility to clean up poisonous waste from a closed mine on Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville island in a complaint filed Tuesday in Australia.

The complaint, lodged with Australian authorities by the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre on behalf of more than 150 Bougainvilleans, heaps more pressure on the mining giant already under public attack for blowing up sacred Aboriginal sites.

It alleges the former Panguna copper and gold mine, which was at the center of a decade-long civil war in PNG, continues to leak waste into rivers more than three decades after it was shuttered.

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Rio Needs More Than a Safe Pair Of Hands – by Clara Ferreira Marques (Bloomberg/Financial Post – September 28, 2020)

https://financialpost.com/

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Rio Tinto Group may choose to play it safe in its next choice of chief executive officer. With Jean-Sebastien Jacques heading for the exit after the destruction of a sacred Aboriginal site, Australian politicians are also piling on pressure for a local to be given the role.

The mining giant should resist the temptation of an old-school solution. Jacques’s successor will certainly have to rebuild Rio’s credibility after the spectacular failure at Juukan Gorge.

Repairing frayed community and government relations will be among the first tasks. It won’t be enough to pick a veteran technocrat for CEO, though, as miners did after the mistakes of the last boom.

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Moving forward in a risky environment – by Nickolas Zakharia (Australian Mining – September 21, 2020)

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It would be an understatement to say that Australia’s mining sector has faced numerous challenges in 2020. From natural disasters, to COVID-19 and economic strain, the nation’s battle-hardened mining sector has continued to operate.

When mining’s risk trajectory is considered, COVID-19 is the obvious elephant in the room. A multitude of risks and challenges – both related and unrelated to the pandemic – are on the minds of the industry’s executives and the bodies that represent it.

In February, multinational firm KPMG highlighted several risks that industry was facing in its survey, KPMG Global Risks and Opportunities in Mining – 2020 Outlook. The survey was released months before the impact of COVID-19 was realised.

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Rio Tinto promised to respect indigenous people. It has a chance to in the U.S. – by Lauren Redniss (Washington Post – September 22, 2020)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Earlier this month, the Anglo-Australian mining conglomerate Rio Tinto announced its chief executive, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, and two other top executives would step down as the company reckons with its decision last May to bulldoze ancient rock shelters in Australia’s Juukan Gorge to gain access to iron ore.

For the Indigenous Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people, the rock shelters were sacred sites. Archaeologists have found evidence of 46,000 years of human presence at the gorge.

In June, Rio Tinto issued an apology. But pressure from Indigenous groups and Rio Tinto’s shareholders pushed the company to take a stronger stand.

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BHP expands nickel search with SensOre – by Vanessa Zhou (Australian Mining – September 22, 2020)

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BHP has hired SensOre to target mineral deposits in support of its Nickel West operations in Western Australia. SensOre will apply its data cube and discriminant predictive targeting (DPT) technology on commodity-specific deposits as part of resource exploration with the major miner.

BHP chief executive Mike Henry has often reiterated the company’s intention to develop its growth options, particularly in future-facing commodities such as copper and nickel.

“… In the case of nickel and copper we would like more resource, although another thing that (BHP chief financial officer Peter Beaven) often talks passionately about is the potential for us to unlock more options within the resource that we already have, though a focus on innovation,” he told investors during BHP’s financial year results release in August.

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BHP nears completion of Nickel West plant – by Salomae Haselgrove (Australian Mining – September 16, 2020)

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BHP has confirmed that it will open its Nickel West sulphate plant in Western Australia this financial year after the development was delayed.

The delay means the first product from the plant is now expected in the second half of the 2021 financial year, a year behind the original schedule.

The facility that is located at the Kwinana nickel refinery is expected to produce 100,000 tonnes of nickel sulphate per annum during its stage one development.

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BHP says traditional owners free to weigh in on cultural heritage inquiry – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – September 16, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Mining giant BHP (ASX, LON, NYSE: BHP) has told Australian Aboriginal groups to freely speak their mind about the way it manages cultural heritage as the miner readies to appear before a federal inquiry launched following rival Rio Tinto’s (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) destruction of two 46,000-year-old sacred shelters.

Both companies have been criticized for having gag clauses in land agreements preventing traditional owners from publicly objecting to developments.

“BHP has confirmed to traditional owners that it does not regard any term of its agreements with them as preventing them from making public statements about cultural heritage concerns,” it said in the statement.

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Executives to Step Down After Rio Tinto Destroys Sacred Australian Sites – by Livia Albeck-Ripka (New York Times – September 11, 2020)

https://www.nytimes.com/

DARWIN, Australia — The caves, set deep in a desert gorge, had yielded a treasure trove of artifacts tracing Aboriginal people’s long history in Australia: a 28,000-year-old kangaroo bone sharpened into a blade; a 4,000-year-old plait of human hair believed to have been worn as a belt.

Underneath the caverns sat millions of dollars’ worth of high-grade iron ore, in a country where mining is king.

In May, the minerals giant Rio Tinto decided to blow up the caves to get at the riches below. But on Friday, it became clear that Australia’s most powerful export industry had met a force it could not bulldoze: the global movement for racial justice.

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Rio Tinto CEO, iron ore boss step down over Juukan Gorge cave scandal – by Gerard Cockburn and Rebecca Le May (News.com.au – September 11, 2020)

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

Rio Tinto has succumbed to the pressures of a shareholder revolt over its scandalous decision to destroy ancient Indigenous heritage sites in Western Australia, with its chief executive and two other top corporates stepping down.

In an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday, Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques said he would leave “by mutual agreement” but remain in the top job until a successor was found or March 31, whichever was earlier.

Iron ore chief Chris Salisbury has stepped down immediately but will be paid until December 31 when the head of corporate relations Simone Niven will depart after “completing an orderly transition of her responsibilities”.

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Papua New Guinea opposition grows to dumping mine waste at sea (New Zealand Herald – September 9, 2020)

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/

Opposition to the disposal of mining waste in the ocean is growing in Papua New Guinea’s Morobe province.

Companies behind the proposed Wafi-Golpu gold and copper mine near Lae plan to pump mine tailings into the Huon Gulf, a process they call Deep Sea Tailings Displacement (DSTD).

The former governor of Papua New Guinea’s Morobe province, Keely Naru, is the latest to wade into the debate, telling the Post Courier the mining companies behind the Wafi-Golpu Joint Venture, Harmony of South Africa and Newcrest from Australia, should be required to ship the tailings back to their countries of origin.

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Vale’s Divestment Collapse Underscores Nickel-Mining Challenges – by James Attwood and Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – September 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — In the clearest sign yet of the challenges to nickel mining in New Caledonia, a would-be buyer failed to put together a deal that would have seen it paid to acquire a major asset.

New Century Resources Ltd. said Tuesday it was unable to generate a funding package and equity structure that “adequately accommodates a suitable risk/reward scenario” to acquire the Goro operations from Vale SA.

Vale’s response was equally telling. The Rio de Janeiro-based said it would prepare to mothball Goro while exploring other options, all of which would “contemplate Vale’s exit.”

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Rio Board to Debate CEO’s Future as Pressure Mounts Over Blasts – by David Stringer and Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – September 9, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Rio Tinto Group’s board will debate the future of Chief Executive Officer Jean-Sebastien Jacques as it faces pressure to respond more strongly to the destruction of ancient Aboriginal heritage sites in Australia, according to people familiar with the matter.

Recent talks with shareholders, traditional landowners and legislators indicated the company needs to take further action to restore relations with key decision makers in Western Australia, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

The Australian state is crucial for the world’s second-largest miner, hosting iron ore operations that accounted for more than 90% of its first-half profits.

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