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Column: Hedge funds up the bear ante on Doctor Copper and friends – by Andy Home (Reuters – July 11, 2022)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, July 11 (Reuters) – Hedge funds are piling the pressure on Doctor Copper and his metallic friends. Money manager positioning on the CME copper contract is as bearish as it has been since the first quarter of 2020 when industrial metals prices collapsed as China, followed by just about everyone else, went into COVID-19 lockdown.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) copper price is still far above its March 2020 low of $4,371 per tonne. Currently trading at $7,700, it’s also a long way below its March 2022 peak of $10,845.

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Political changes boost risk for miners in Latin America – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – July 7, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

A rising demand to participate in the revenues from natural resources, tougher environmental protection rules and law changes are increasing risks for mining and energy companies across Latin America, even in countries once considered safe investment destinations, a new study shows.

According to the 2022 Latin America Mining Risk Index, published by consultancy Americas Market Intelligence (AMI), once investors’ darling Chile, is now the riskiest country in the region.

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Prove your mettle and stay put on copper – by David Berman (Globe and Mail – June 24, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The slumping price of copper is signalling trouble ahead for the economy. But investors in the base metal or related stocks should keep their eyes on the long-term case here: Copper’s importance to renewable energy should get it through this setback.

Things are grim right now, of course. The price of copper slipped below US$4 a pound this week, to an intraday low of US$3.64 early Friday, for the first time in more than 16 months. That marks a decline of more than 25 per cent from its recent high in March, and it underscores copper’s reputation for signalling economic trouble.

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Hudbay ends Flin Flon era with closure of 777 mine – by Jackson Chen (Canadian Mining Journal – June 22, 2022)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Hudbay Minerals (TSX: HBM; NYSE: HBM) has announced that mining activities at the 777 zinc-copper mine in Flin Flon, Man., have concluded after the reserves were depleted following 18 years of steady production. Closure activities at the mine have commenced, and employees and equipment are transitioning to the company’s operations in Snow Lake.

“777 was a state-of-the-art mine that represented the pinnacle of a century of shared success for Hudbay and Flin Flon,” stated Peter Kukielski, Hudbay’s president and CEO, in a news release. “Though the closure of 777 marks the end of a mining era in Flin Flon, we will continue with exploration activities in the region.

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Mining company promotes copper in public spaces to kill bacteria at PDAC (CBC News Sudbury – June 22, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Copper has properties that stops bacteria from reproducing

A Vancouver-based mining company wants to see copper in more public spaces due to its antimicrobial properties. Teck Resources Limited will make that pitch to delegates at the on-line portion of the Prospectors and Developers Association Conference in Toronto, June 28th and 29tt.

The company has started to work with hospitals, daycares and public transit authorities to install copper on surfaces that are touched frequently. Catherine Adair, the company’s manager of community development, said many studies have found copper kills 99.9 per cent of harmful bacteria within two hours.

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A commodity war is brewing; there is not enough copper to meet growing demand – Abrdn’s Minter – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – June 22, 2022)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – The world could be on the cusp of a commodity war as nations worldwide continue to grapple with growing demand and falling supply of important base metals and critical minerals.

In a recent interview with Kitco News, Robert Minter, Director of ETF Investment Strategy at abrdn, said that investors need to hold some gold as a core asset in their portfolios; however, he added that now is also the time to load up on other commodities, particularly base metals.

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Canadian explorer continues to advance project’s copper-nickel-cobalt plus PGM, clean energy potential (Mining Weekly – June 20, 2022)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

With significant demand and potential in Canada for high-grade palladium, platinum, rhodium, copper, nickel and cobalt, Canadian North Resources Inc. (CNRI) is at late-stage exploration and development of its mining property in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut, in Canada, namely the Ferguson Lake project.

The company, which owns 100% of the project, has a mandate to create shareholder value from the advancement of its Ferguson Lake project, which holds substantial resources of copper (0.46-billion indicated and 0.95-billion inferred pounds), nickel (0.32-billion indicated and 0.55-billion inferred pounds) and cobalt (37-million indicated and 62-million inferred pounds) plus palladium (1.08-million indicated and 2.12-million ounces) and platinum (0.18-million indicated and 0.38-million inferred ounces).

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Congo Sees Surge in Mining of Metals for Green-Energy Transition – by Michael J. Kavanagh (Financial Post/Bloomberg – June 3, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

(Bloomberg) — Democratic Republic of Congo could see about 10 new mines for metals key to powering the green-energy transition within four years, according to the director of the country’s mining registry.

About 500 of the nation’s mining permits are in advanced development and will soon lead to new projects for lithium and cobalt — battery metals driving the electric vehicle revolution — while mines for copper, tin, tantalum and tungsten will also be built, Jean Felix Mupande told a conference in the southeast city of Lubumbashi. Congo is already the world’s No. 1 cobalt producer and Africa’s biggest copper miner.

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Investors Are Rushing Back Into Africa’s Copper Country – by Thomas Biesheuvel, Felix Njini and Taonga Clifford Mitimingi (Bloomberg News – May 12, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Mining investors are stampeding back into a region many had seemed determined to leave. Straddling the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, a vast forested area roughly the size of Portugal contains one of the world’s richest caches of minerals: copper for wires and cables, and cobalt for rechargeable batteries.

At the intersection of the two African nations, trucks queue for about 53 kilometers (33 miles) along a cratered road snaking past giant mounds of mining residue and villagers selling stacks of watermelons — most of them carrying metals vital to the global energy transition.

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Two fires hit key copper projects in Peru amid protests -sources – by Marcelo Rochabrun (Reuters – June 1, 2022)

https://www.reuters.com/

LIMA, May 31 (Reuters) – Two fires broke out at key copper projects in Peru, sources told Reuters, hitting MMG Ltd’s (1208.HK) Las Bambas copper mine and Southern Copper Corp’s (SCCO.N) planned Los Chancas project, amid escalating local protests.

Peru, the world’s No. 2 copper producer, is suffering increasingly violent community protests against mines in recent months, as communities demand higher benefits from the industry and prices for the red metal remain high.

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Hudbay Minerals allowed to move Arizona copper project forward – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Canadian Mining Journal – May 25, 2022)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Hudbay Minerals (TSX, NYSE: HBM) has scored a small but key win in the United States after an Arizona judge ruled in favour of the company’s planned Copper World mine.

The ruling dismissed a pair of lawsuits filed by three Native American tribes and a coalition of environmental groups, which aimed to stop ongoing work on Copper World.

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Judge: Challenges to new Arizona copper mine ‘moot’ after Hudbay abandons Rosemont water permit – by Paul Ingram (Tucson Sentinel – May 24, 2022)

https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/

A federal judge dismissed a pair of lawsuits filed by three Native American tribes and a coalition of environmental groups over Rosemont Copper’s move to expand its mining operations on the western slopes of the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson.

In recent weeks, the Tohono O’odham Nation, Pascua Yaqui and Hopi tribes, along with the environmental groups led by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, challenged “Copper World,” a project to expand the controversial mining project to a nearby area across the western reaches of the Santa Ritas. In their filings, both groups argued Rosemont was violating the terms of a Section 404 permit granted under the Clean Water Act by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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Horizons ETF Management adds copper miners to its menu of investment funds – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – May 19, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

‘It’s now the metal that is allowing us to advance into a greener future’

Copper is central to electrification and therefore the energy transition, and Canadian investors now have a new way to gain exposure: This week, Toronto-based Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. launched the country’s first exchange-traded fund indexed to a bundle of copper miners.

Prices of the versatile base metal have more than doubled since March 2020, rising to about US$4.20 per pound from US$2.20 per pound, according to market research site Kitco.

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Chaotic Chile Convention Defies Odds on New Charter, Experts Say – by Eduardo Thomson and Valentina Fuentes (Bloomberg News – May 20, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — After months of 18-hour days, radical proposals and growing public disillusionment, Chile’s Constitutional Convention has managed something that some deemed nearly impossible: a “reasonable” document that embraces the nation’s new fervor for social rights without undermining its famously free-market economy, according to experts questioned by Bloomberg.

The Constitutional Convention presented its draft charter Monday, and will now spend the next month fine tuning the wording. “It’s kind of a miracle that it got this far,” Tom Ginsburg, a professor of international law at the University of Chicago, said in an interview with other constitutional experts.

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Chile rejects Anglo American’s $3 billion Los Bronces expansion – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 3, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Anglo American (LON: AAL) said on Tuesday a Chilean environmental regulator had formally rejected the company’s application for a $3 billion expansion of its flagship Los Bronces copper mine.

The 377-page decision follows last week’s recommendation by the same office, the Environmental Assessment Service of Chile (SEA), to deny the permit due to lack of information on the potential risk to public health.

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