Twitter

Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining

Papua New Guinea snatches Barrick Gold’s Porgera mine – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 24, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Papua New Guinea is set to take control of Barrick Gold’s (TSX: ABX) (NYSE: GOLD) Porgera mine after refusing to extend the company’s lease on environmental and social grounds, Prime Minister James Marape said on Friday.

“In the best interests of the state, especially in lieu of the environmental damages, claims and resettlements issues, the Special Mining Lease will not be renewed,” Marape said.

The decision comes nine months after the mining lease expired. During that time, the world’s second largest gold miner has faced backlash from landowners and residents over what they claim are negative social, environmental and economic impacts from the mine.

Read more

The muddied waters of mining in Papua New Guinea – by Scarlett Evans (Mining Technology – April 20, 2020)

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

Just north of Australia, the island split into Papua and Papua New Guinea is famously underexplored, though over the years inroads have been made and tantalising glimmers of hidden mineral wealth have been quickly followed by some of the world’s biggest miners. Scarlett Evans look at the state of mining in the area, and just what the future holds.

Papua New Guinea plays host to a wealth of mineral deposits – from copper, gold and nickel to liquid natural gas. Yet despite its vast mining potential, the country’s resources sector has a history dented by environmental and social turmoil.

Its largest mines, Ok Tedi and Porgera, were disrupted by a devastating earthquake in 2018, and mining tensions even led to a civil war between 1988 and 1998 – a conflict that saw the loss of 20,000 lives.

Read more

Rights group calls on Rio Tinto to fix damage from old Papua New Guinea mine – by Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – April 1, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – An Australian human rights group has called on Rio Tinto Ltd to fund a review of health and safety issues it says plagues people near a huge copper mine in Papua New Guinea that the company ran for nearly two decades.

The review would be a starting point for talks around compensation and rehabilitation of the Panguna site that was run by Rio Tinto unit Bougainville Copper (BCL) from the early 1970s to 1990, the Human Rights Law Centre in Melbourne said.

Rio Tinto said it acknowledged the concerns of some civil society groups alleging past and current environmental and human rights issues. It said it had not had access to the mine since 1990 after it called back staff due to rising civil unrest and that it had complied with regulations up to that time.

Read more

The future of FIFO mines is residential – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – April 6, 2020)

https://www.afr.com/

The coronavirus crisis will prompt mining and energy companies to permanently reduce their reliance on fly-in fly-out (FIFO) workers in favour of those that live close to mines, says federal Resources minister Keith Pitt.

Australia’s biggest export industries, including iron ore and liquefied natural gas, rely on more than 50,000 workers who regularly fly from cities to work on remote sites, But that employment model has been thrown into chaos over the past fortnight as states limited cross-border travel to curb the spread of the virus.

The disruption forced hundreds of FIFO workers from south-eastern states to relocate their families to Western Australia and Queensland in a bid to keep their jobs, while the duration of shifts worked by FIFO workers has doubled and some cases tripled to reduce the amount of travel amid the pandemic.

Read more

Gold’s winning streak forgives local miners’ many sins – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – March 31, 2020)

https://www.afr.com/

Gold prices in Australian dollar terms have charged above $2700 for the first time, letting Newcrest Mining and three other big gold miners escape without major punishment from a raft of production downgrades in the past three months.

At $US1679 per ounce on Monday, the gold price was not far below the seven-year highs set in the past month on the back of interest rate cuts and quantitative easing in many nations, including the US.

Fears of a global recession have only fuelled the rush to buy gold, which is the traditional safe haven for investors. The local price exceeded $2000 per ounce for the first time in June 2019, and on Monday was above $2700 per ounce.

Read more

Coal mining allowed under Sydney water reservoir for first time in 20 years – by Peter Hannam (Sydney Morning Herald – March 29, 2020)

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

The Berejiklian government has given the nod for the extension of coal mining under one of Greater Sydney’s reservoirs, the first such approval in two decades.

The Planning Department earlier this month told Peabody Energy it could proceed with the extraction of coal from three new longwalls, two of which will go beneath Woronora reservoir.

Planning Department official Mike Young says in a letter dated March 16 to Metropolitan mine that as the longwall will be the first to go under the reservoir it was important the extraction plan was “sufficiently robust” with “an appropriate adaptive management regime” to limit the impact of subsidence on water supply.

Read more

Mincor crowns Kambalda district projects as highest grade nickel sites – by Salomae Haselgrove (Australian Mining – March 25, 2020)

Home

Mincor Resources has confirmed a 132 per cent increase to its nickel sulphide reserves in the Kambalda district, Western Australia.

Its reserves are now sitting at 65,400 nickel tonnes, which announcement was concurrent to the completion of Mincor’s definitive feasibility study (DFS) for its nickel restart plan.

The DFS confirmed the potential of Mincor nickel operations to become a five-year operation, producing 63,000 tonnes of recovered nickel-in-concentrate.

Read more

Gold discovery, potentially the largest ever, may herald new era in north-west WA – by James Liveris (Australian Broadcasting Corp. – March 18, 2020)

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

A West Australian gold mining company claims it has struck the potentially largest discovery ever in the state’s iron ore-rich Pilbara region. But analysts are divided on whether it will spark a new gold rush, as other miners try their luck in the region.

De Grey Mining technical director and operations manager Andy Beckwith said the scale of the discovery had never been seen before in the Pilbara.

While gold stocks have been somewhat dampened by fears over the coronavirus pandemic, investors have celebrated De Grey Mining’s discovery, sending its stocks 411 per cent higher over a month since the drilling results were released in February.

Read more

Australian mine contractor moves into Hemlo – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – March 9, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Western Australian mining interests have been steadily scooping up gold exploration properties in northwestern Ontario. One company is mobilizing to run an underground gold mine in the region. Perth-headquartered Barminco has signed a letter of intent with Barrick to provide underground contract mining at its Hemlo Mine, near Marathon.

Barminco bills itself as one of the world’s largest hard rock underground mining services companies in the world with operations in Australia, Asia and Africa. This would be the company’s first foray into Canada, starting in April.

Under the three-year, $200-million mining services contract, Barminco’s scope of work would involve mine development, production and haulage, and using mine equipment provided by Barrick.

Read more

COLUMN-The best places to mine are still in the developed world, and that’s a problem – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – March 5, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, March 5 (Reuters) – The latest list of the top places to invest in mining is dominated by developed countries with long histories of success in the industry, but this probably isn’t a good thing.

The Fraser Institute’s annual survey of mining companies ranked Western Australia state as the most attractive jurisdiction for investment, as it moves up from the number two spot previously, replacing the U.S. state of Nevada, which slipped to third spot.

The 2019 survey, released on Feb. 25, placed Finland in second spot, Alaska in fourth and Portugal in fifth.

Read more

Australian state turns to crowdsourcing to uncover mineral riches (Reuters U.S. – February 25, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, Feb 25 (Reuters) – South Australia is putting A$250,000 ($166,000) up for grabs in a crowdsourcing competition to uncover more mineral reserves, as the industry taps expertise from a wide array of disciplines to find new large mineral lodes.

The five-month challenge will make available the state’s historic data sets for a region home to BHP Group’s huge Olympic Dam copper mine, the government of the Australian state said in a statement. The competition will kick off on March 2 and run until July 31, it added.

“The competition offers the chance to combine geological expertise with new mathematical, machine learning and artificial intelligence to accelerate mineral discovery in the mineral-rich Gawler Craton,” said Justin Strharsky of program facilitators Unearthed.

Read more

Kirkland Lake Gold’s Tony Makuch our Mining Person of the Year for 2019 – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – February 20, 2020)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Tony Makuch, president and CEO of Kirkland Lake Gold, is The Northern Miner’s Mining Person of the Year for 2019. Under his leadership, Kirkland Lake Gold has outperformed its peers in the last 24 months. The company’s shares rose by 60% last year, it raised its dividend twice and more than doubled its cash position, ending 2019 with US$707 million in cash and equivalents.

Kirkland Lake Gold operates two of the highest grade gold mines in the world and produced a record 974,615 ounces of gold in 2019, a 35% year-on-year increase, anchored by its Macassa mine in Ontario, Canada and its Fosterville mine in the state of Victoria, Australia. It also produces gold at its Holt complex – a trio of mines (Holt, Taylor and Holloway) in Ontario.

Consolidated operating cash costs fell 22% year-on-year to US$284 per oz. sold, while all-in sustaining costs declined 18% to US$564 per oz. sold. Net earnings jumped 104% year-on-year to US$560 million or $2.67 per share, and free cash flow totalled US$463 million, an 81% increase over 2018.

Read more

Jabiluka mine call slammed by traditional owners – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – February 11, 2020)

https://www.afr.com/

Traditional land owners have rejected suggestions the Jabiluka uranium deposit should be developed and say they do not believe Rio Tinto has a ”secret agenda” to eventually mine the deposit.

The rare comments from the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) counter Zentree Investments founder Richard Magides’ belief that Jabiluka’s uranium will be valuable in future amid rising demand for carbon-free electricity from nuclear power stations.

Zentree is the second biggest shareholder in ASX listed Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) and has accused the biggest shareholder, Rio, of deliberately structuring a $476 million equity raising to enable it to take 100 per cent ownership of ERA.

Read more

Barrick Gold denies Freeport-McMoran tie-up in the works – by Helen Reid (Reuters U.S. – February 6, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Barrick Gold is not looking to merge with copper miner Freeport-McMoran, CEO Mark Bristow said on Thursday, although he is interested in the company’s Grasberg mine in Indonesia, and indicated he wants to expand in the Pacific Rim.

Rumors the world’s second-largest gold miner planned to combine with Freeport are “completely wrong”, Bristow told Reuters on the sidelines of the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town.

But he said he was interested in Freeport’s Grasberg mine in Indonesia – the world’s largest gold mine, and second-largest copper mine. “People say, are you interested in Grasberg? I say I have to be, it’s a tier one asset,” he said. Tier one assets refer to high-grade, long-life mines.

Read more

Australia’s lithium producers see tough market conditions persisting well into 2020 – by Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – Janaury 30, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Australia’s Orocobre Ltd and Pilbara Minerals Ltd on Thursday gave bearish outlooks for lithium demand, as weak orders from electric vehicle makers in China look set to extend a prolonged downturn.

Orocobre Ltd flagged a tepid market for the first half of 2020 and said it had cut costs at its flagship Olaroz lithium project in Argentina. Its shares sank 3.7%.

Pilbara Minerals said it was continuing to moderate production to “match customer demand” after scaling back mining at its Pilgangoora operations in Western Australia in September. Its shares slid 12%. Lithium miners faced severe pressure last year as prices plummeted after a cut in EV subsidies by China, the world’s biggest electric vehicle market.

Read more