(Bloomberg) — A proposed new mining contract between Panama’s government and Canada’s First Quantum Minerals Ltd. would protect the company against a drop in copper prices, while giving the nation a boost in revenue from its mineral wealth, according to the government.
The deal is a “win-win” for both sides, and will serve as the standard for future mining contracts in the country, Panama’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Federico Alfaro Boyd said Friday, in a phone interview.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
First Quantum Minerals Ltd. has reached a tentative agreement with Panama that would end a bitter tax dispute and head off a shutdown of the company’s biggest copper mine.
The Vancouver-based miner announced on Wednesday it would pay a minimum of US$375-million in taxes a year to Panama, with built-in downside protection that would reduce the payments if there were a steep fall in the price of copper.
China is poised to export a significant volume of copper in coming weeks, a relatively infrequent occurrence that underscores a tepid demand recovery in the biggest market.
At least four major smelters are planning to deliver between 23,000 and 45,000 tons of refined copper in total to London Metal Exchange depots in Asia, according to people with knowledge of the sales, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private.
HOUSTON, March 7 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto Plc (RIO.AX)(RIO.L) said it remains committed to building more support from an Indigenous group that opposes its Resolution mine project in Arizona, which could supply a quarter of America’s copper needs depending on the outcome of a court case.
Resolution is key to the Anglo-Australian mining giant’s future as the project would produce more than 40 billion pounds of copper for the green energy transition. But that copper sits below the federally owned Oak Flat Campground, a place some Apache consider home to deities.
Canada’s First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) says it’s experiencing losses of up to $8 million a day due to the suspension of ore processing and port loading affecting its giant copper mine in Panama.
In a letter sent this week to the country’s Maritime Authority (AMP), the chief executive of First Quantum’s local unit, Minera Panama, said the halt ordered last week has had a domino effect.
BHP (ASX: BHP), the world’s largest miner, is hoping to expand its investments in Argentina’s copper sector, where it already has a presence through its 9.9% stake Canada’s Filo Mining (TSX: FIL), the junior developing the Filo del Sol copper-gold-silver project straddling the border with Chile.
Company representatives met with the San Juan’s governor on Tuesday to discuss possible investments in the minerals-rich province, which is recognized a safe mining destination due to the support to mining activities by both authorities and locals.
McEwen Copper, a subsidiary of McEwen Mining, on Monday announced two separate transactions that provide a significant financial boost for its Los Azules project, in Argentina.
The company announced that automaker and mobility group Stellantis had invested 30-billion Argentine peso (about $150-million) to acquire shares of McEwen Copper in a two-part transaction that closed last week.
The remote Ambler Mining District contains massive lodes of minerals essential to cleantech, but extracting them will likely make an ecological mess.
Coldfoot, Alaska, is a lone truck stop-cafe-bar-motel 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It’s the last spot for northbound semis to gas up on their way to Prudhoe Bay and a place where camo-clad hunters smelling to high hell eat stacks of burgers and swap stories while dead moose lie in pickups parked outside.
On one of Coldfoot’s brisk September mornings, a rumble grows into steady thunder. Man-made wind sends grit whipping across the dirt driveway where someone, a few weeks earlier, placed a wooden sign with red-stenciled letters: “Helicopter Parking Only.”
Mount Isa, one of Queensland’s longest-running mining towns, has this week turned 100. Founded on the land of the Kalkadoon people, it is renowned for mine stacks that rise from red-dirt country at the foothills of the Selwyn Ranges. But as locals celebrate a rich and varied past, many look toward a future where the town’s lifeblood is sustained by more than mining.
A chance discovery
On February 22, 1923, John Campbell Miles and his horses stopped to camp during a journey through the arid Queensland outback to the Northern Territory. Curiosity led the prospector to a particularly large outcrop where he knapped off a piece of rock that, according to his writings, he instantly recognised “contained mineral from its weight”.
Canada’s First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) said on Thursday it had halted ore processing operations at its giant Cobre Panama copper mine, in the latest escalation of a dispute with Panama’s government over tax and royalty payments.
Negotiations between the Toronto-based miner and the country’s government over a new contract for the mine turned sour in December, when the President announced a plan to halt the operation.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Teck Resources Ltd. launched a sweeping restructuring on Tuesday by announcing plans to spin off its coal business and end the founding Keevil family’s six-decade run at the helm of the country’s largest base metals miner.
Vancouver-based Teck is asking shareholders to approve hiving off its steelmaking coal mines in British Columbia into a new company called Elk Valley Resources Ltd. Teck valued its offspring at $11.5-billion and will list Elk Valley on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The parent will focus on increasing copper production at mines in North and South America, and be renamed Teck Metals Corp.
(Bloomberg) — Newcrest Mining Ltd. rejected an initial $17 billion takeover bid by US rival Newmont Corp., with the Australian miner’s interim CEO saying the company was “worth a lot more.”
It did offer some hope to its suitor, however, by indicating it’s prepared to provide access to its books on a non-exclusive basis. The all-shares deal would have been the largest globally this year and created the world’s biggest gold miner.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Clean Air Metals’ Current deposit may be off as much as 50 per cent, company retracts preliminary economic assessment report
Clean Air Metals has suffered a major setback in its plans to develop a mine north of Thunder Bay.
The local junior miner reports there’s been a miscalculation in the mineral resource estimate of one of its two platinum group metal and copper deposits at its Thunder Bay North Project. And the reduction in the amount of metal in the ground could be in the range of 20 to 50 per cent lower than what was originally reported in 2021.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/
A proposed mine project in Alaska may have been dealt its final blow. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) effectively vetoed the project, citing its potential harm to salmon fisheries in the state’s Bristol Bay watershed.
Called Pebble Mine, the proposed development included a mile-wide open-pit mine, a power plant, a gas pipeline, access roads and a port to take advantage of gold and copper deposits thought to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Analysts expect disruption to world’s second-largest producer to boost prices of the metal
Widespread anti-government protests are disrupting copper output in Peru, the world’s second-biggest producer, triggering predictions of a further surge in prices for the metal which has already rocketed in recent months as China’s resource-hungry economy reopens.
Demonstrators demanding early elections and the resignation of President Dina Boluarte have thrown up roadblocks across the country and attacked mines, causing production slowdowns and closures in the Latin American nation’s copper operations, which account for about 10 per cent of global supply.
