Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining – Page 8

Mining tycoons battle over lithium’s ‘corridor of power’ in Australia – by Nic Fildes and Harry Dempsey (Financial Times – November 26, 2023)

November 27, 2023

https://www.ft.com/

Local billionaires disrupt consolidation as industry positions itself for boom in mineral vital to electric cars

The vast tracts of desert in Western Australia, which have yielded gold, nickel and iron ore to prospectors in decades past, have now become a major battleground for miners of lithium, a key raw material for batteries as the world transitions to greener energy.

A struggle for control of the resource has been ignited this year as multinational companies have clashed with Australian mining billionaires over a series of takeover attempts in two of the remotest parts of the state.

The Australian wave – by Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco (CIM Magazine – November 20, 2023)

November 20, 2023

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

Canada’s rich mineral deposits and generous critical minerals incentives are attracting Australia-based companies, fostering collaboration between the two nations to secure a reliable supply of commodities needed for the energy transition

Over the last five years, Australian mining companies have been flocking to Canada. Between 2018 and 2022, direct Australian investment in Canada’s mining and quarrying industry grew exponentially from $1.7 billion to $9.8 billion, according to Statistics Canada. In just two years from 2020 to 2022, the investment more than doubled. While the figures for 2023 are not yet available, anecdotally, it seems the Australian mining wave in Canada continues to grow.

How Rio Tinto changed Australia – by Andrew Clark (Australian Financial Review – November 19, 2023)

November 20, 2023

https://www.afr.com/

The group’s pioneering role in the Pilbara helped transform the nation through engagement with Asia. A new book reveals the full story for the first time.

Back in the early 50s, Clem Walton, a taxi driver and amateur prospector, set out with three of his sons, a local station hand and a Geiger Counter on a dry creek bed about 50 kilometres east of the Mt Isa copper mine.

As the party trod warily “the counter went off the scale”, indicating rich uranium reserves. The group pegged two mining leases, named the area Mary Kathleen after Walton’s recently deceased wife, and initiated talks with interested mining companies.

Allkem and Livent bosses face down criticism of $16b lithium merger – by Brad Thompson and Anthony Macdonald (Australian Financial Review – November 12, 2023)

November 14, 2023

https://www.afr.com/

Senior executives at Allkem and Livent say investors are supportive of the $US10 billion ($16 billion) merger between the two mining groups despite increasing concerns that volatility in the lithium price is making the deal, struck in May, increasingly unattractive to the former’s shareholders.

Allkem managing director Martín Pérez de Solay and his Livent counterpart, Paul Graves, are in Australia to meet investors this week before a shareholder vote on the deal on December 19. There have been – so far limited, but growing – calls for the deal to be reconsidered, and it has been described by Jefferies analysts as a “cheap reverse acquisition of Allkem”.

Solidifying Mount Isa’s mining future – by Tom Parker (Australian Resources and Investment – November 9, 2023)

November 10, 2023

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With Glencore set to downsize Mount Isa in 2025, what is the way forward for the North West Minerals Province?

Glencore’s recent announcement that its Mount Isa copper operations and Lady Loretta zinc mine would close in 2025 sent shockwaves through the Queensland mining industry.It signalled the end of two of Australia’s most iconic mining operations, which have supported the world with a sustainable supply of copper, lead, zinc and silver for up to 60 years.

In the wake of Glencore’s announcement, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced a $50 million support package for the Mount Isa region and those affected by the impending closure.

Newmont Prepares to Sell Mines as Newcrest Acquisition Closes – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – November 6, 2023)

November 6, 2023

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Newmont Corp., the world’s top gold producer, will forge ahead on a plan to find $2 billion in cash including through mine sales and project divestments after closing the largest takeover in the mining industry this year.

Denver-based Newmont closed its roughly $15 billion acquisition of Newcrest Mining Ltd. on Monday, ending a nearly year-long effort to buy the Australian gold miner.

Lithium producers stay bullish on EVs despite growing headwinds – by Ernest Scheyder and Melanie Burton (Reuters – November 2, 2023)

November 3, 2023

https://www.reuters.com/

Nov 2 (Reuters) – The world’s largest lithium producers say they remain bullish on long-term demand for the battery material in the midst of recent price drops fueled by growing worries that the global pace of electric vehicle adoption is slowing.

LG Energy Solution (373220.KS), General Motors (GM.N), Honda (7267.T) and other auto and battery makers have trimmed EV expansion plans in recent weeks, partly due to rising interest rates, which in turn has stoked concerns of a supply glut for the battery metal. A basket of prices for lithium – which vary by region and by type – tracked by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has dropped more than 60% this year.

Mining faces gulf between ambition and reality on energy transition, China – by Clyde Russell (Reuters – November 1, 2023)

November 2, 2023

https://www.reuters.com/

Mining companies in the West are facing two overarching challenges in trying to produce enough metals to enable the energy transition, and at the same time build alternative supply chains to lessen their dependence on China.

The problem is that there is a vast gulf between the scale of the ambition and the reality of what’s actually happening, and what’s likely to happen in the next few years.

The world’s iron ore powerhouse is preparing to reinvent itself – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – October 28, 2023)

October 31, 2023

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Vast heaps of crushed brown rock hem the Indian Ocean at Western Australia’s Parker Point port — each a stockpile of 200,000 tons of iron ore, ready to be poured into a procession of bulk carriers bound for Asia’s steel mills.

Rio Tinto Group, the world’s largest iron ore producer, shipped its first cargo of the steelmaking ingredient from this spot in 1966, at the dawn of a boom that minted billionaires and lifted the Australian economy, generating A$1.3 trillion ($820 billion) in earnings in the past two decades alone. Last year, iron ore shipments accounted for about 5% of the country’s gross domestic product.

Wyloo, Chalice, BHP sound alarm over Biden’s Jakarta nickel deal – Brad Thompson (Australian Financail Review – October 30, 2023)

October 30, 2023

https://www.afr.com/

Some of Australia’s largest nickel producers are increasingly concerned that the Biden administration will allow their big Indonesian rivals access to incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act – a huge subsidy to encourage the transition to clean energy – as early as next month.

Luca Giacovazzi, the chief executive of the Forrest family’s Wyloo Metals, has warned that any agreement that made Indonesian nickel companies eligible for the funding package would make it hard to justify investment in Australia and Canada because of the higher costs of production.

Race to break China’s lithium stranglehold heats up – by Michael Smith (Australian Financial Review – October 30, 2023)

October 30, 2023

https://www.afr.com/

China’s dominance of the EV supply chain has raised global fears of a new trade war, as tensions between Beijing and Washington intensify over critical minerals.

Rows of multicoloured electric vehicles built by China’s BYD are the star attraction in Singapore’s Suntec City shopping mall. The glitzy showroom featuring discounted “Surf Blue” or “Parkour Red” Atto 3 model cars is often packed with customers – a reminder of China’s dominance of the electric vehicle market in Asia, and increasingly the world.

Further upstream, national champion CATL has quickly become the global leader in battery-making for EVs, powering one in three on the road worldwide today. The company and Shenzhen-based BYD have raced ahead of rivals in South Korea and Japan, leaving the US and Europe contemplating how to stoke an electric car industry without relying on China for the most important and costly piece of the puzzle.

History repeats? Lithium deals fervour in the Pilbara has all the hallmarks of another bubble – by Adrian Rauso (The West Australian – October 27, 2023)

October 27, 2023

https://thewest.com.au/

The iron ore boom in the 2000s ushered in a new class of mining millionaires and billionaires. While vast iron ore fortunes were amassed in the Pilbara, a graveyard of broken hopes and dreams also littered the region’s harsh landscape.

And there’s danger of history potentially repeating itself via the latest Pilbara-focused lithium frenzy. The lithium industry is no stranger to a bubble. The first bubble well and truly burst by 2020, with Alita Resources and Altura Mining two notable victims.

Gina Rinehart takes second strategic stake in Australian lithium sector – by Harry Dempsey (Financial Times – October 27, 2023)

October 27, 2023

https://www.ft.com/

Billionaire acquires 18% of Azure Minerals after Chile’s SQM announces planned buyout

Billionaire Gina Rinehart has built up a strategic stake in Australian lithium developer Azure Minerals, threatening to scupper a second takeover involving the battery metal in a matter of weeks.

Chilean miner SQM said this week it had agreed to buy out Azure at an equity valuation of about $1bn. SQM, the world’s second-largest lithium producer, had bought a stake of almost 20 per cent in Azure in January to diversify beyond its home market.

Red-dirt billionaires in race for ‘white gold’ – by Colin Kruger and Simon Johanson (Sydney Morning Herald – October 27, 2023)

October 27, 2023

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

Gina Rinehart might be known as a climate sceptic, but Australia’s richest person knows when there is “green” dollars to be made from digging things out of the ground. She is just one of the West Australian mining billionaires who are in a mad scramble for the state’s vast deposits of lithium – the metal dubbed “white gold” due to its market value and silver colour.

Its value lies not in its scarcity, but in the booming demand for the lightest of metals. It is essential for powering the batteries, which are the driving force behind the global electric vehicle wave. Batteries are also the most expensive component of these cars.

Lithium Rush Heats Up With SQM’s $1 Billion Australia Buy – by Sybilla Gross (Bloomberg News – October 26, 2023)

October 26, 2023

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Lithium mining giant SQM has won over Perth-based Azure Minerals Ltd. with a sweetened A$1.6 billion ($1 billion) cash offer, the latest deal as large battery-metal producers race to secure supply in Australia, home to some of the world’s richest deposits.

Azure’s board will back the new binding bid from SQM, which increased its cash offer by 52% to A$3.52 per share, the Australian producer said Thursday. That’s a 44% premium over Azure’s closing price on Oct. 20, and follows a previously rejected non-binding offer of A$2.31 made in August. The company’s shares jumped as much as 44% on Thursday to A$3.52, their highest price since June 2008.