Twitter

Copper

Chile royalty regime changes may jeopardise future investments – Woodmac (Mining Weekly.com – July 5, 2021)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

Although proposed changes to Chile’s mining royalty regime are not expected to have a drastic impact on the copper-producing nation’s production landscape in the near term, amendments do risk compromising continued appetite for large-scale, long-term investments.

This is according to resources consultancy Wood Mackenzie analyst William Tankard, who stresses that Chile has to careful consider the implementation of its royalty regime reform.

“It is unhelpfully alarmist to place primary focus on the proposed amendments [impact] on producers’ value loss under current spot prices, which are at record highs,” he cautions.

Read more

CHART: Study predicts over 400% increase in copper, lithium, nickel battery demand – by Editor (Mining.com – June 30, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

BloombergNEF has upped its predictions for annual demand for lithium-ion batteries by more than a third from its previous forecast on the back of expectations for rapid growth in the passenger vehicle segment.

BNEF predicts annual demand for lithium-ion batteries will pass 2.7 terawatt-hours per year by 2030 – a 35% increase from the analytics company’s forecast made last year. Passenger vehicles will represent 72% of the overall market as sales race to 14 million by 2025 from just over 3 million last year.

BNEF expects China to extend its lead in the battery supply chain — particularly processing and refining. The country accounts for almost half of new lithium hydroxide projects coming online this year and has 55% of the world’s nickel sulfate market and 80% of the global market for cobalt sulfate, according to the report.

Read more

Peru’s indigenous hope for a voice, at last, under new president – by Stefanie Eschenbacher and Angela Ponce (Reuters – July 5, 2021)

https://www.reuters.com/

CARATA, Peru, July 5 (Reuters) – Maxima Ccalla, 60, an indigenous Quechua woman, has spent her life tilling the harsh soil in Peru’s Andean highlands, resigned to a fate far removed from the vast riches buried deep beneath her feet in seams of copper, zinc and gold.

The Andean communities in Ccalla’s home region of Puno and beyond have long clashed with the mining companies that dig mineral wealth out from the ground.

In recent interviews, many said they felt discriminated against and marginalized, and accused mining companies of polluting their water and soil.

Read more

How Ivanhoe’s giant new Congo mine stacks up against copper mining’s top tier – by Frik Els (Mining.com – June 24, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

When Ivanhoe Mines’ Kamoa-Kakula project in the Democratic Republic of Congo went into production a month ago it was the biggest new mine to do so since Escondida in Chile in November 1990.

Escondida hit its stride eight years later, producing 867,000 tonnes on its way to a peak of more than 1.4m tonnes a decade later. With more than 50 years left, the BHP-Rio Tinto owned operation may remain unsurpassed over its life in terms of sheer size.

A new report by BMO Capital Markets analyst Andrew Mikitchook outlines a similarly rapid growth path for Kamoa-Kakula, with the DRC mine entering peak production of 841,000 tonnes by 2028.

Read more

The U.S. has grand ambitions to conquer the global EV market — it can’t win without Canada – – by Ryan Castilloux (Financial Post – June 16, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Ryan Castilloux is managing director of Adamas Intelligence, which provides research on strategic materials and minerals.

A US$174-billion U.S. plan to spur domestic production and sales of U.S.-made electric vehicles while bolstering domestic supply chains, from raw materials to parts, dovetails with allies Canada and Australia’s ambitions to become leading suppliers of raw materials to parts.

The plan is part of the massive US$2-trillion spending plan unveiled by U.S. President Joe Biden in March, that aims at creating millions of “good jobs,” rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, and positioning the U.S. to “out-compete China.”

From a raw materials perspective, there are four main facets of interest for the Canadian auto sector in the U.S.’s grand ambition to win the EV market.

Read more

Teck on track to double copper output by 2023, Don Lindsay says – by Henry Lazenby (Northern Miner – June 14, 2021)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/TECK-B; NYSE: TECK) is preparing to double its copper output by 2023 to take advantage of accelerated metal demand from global economic growth and the transition to a lower-carbon economy, president and CEO Don Lindsay tells The Northern Miner.

The mining executive says Teck is well-positioned to benefit from the anticipated growth in global copper demand of 2.3 times by 2050. The company has a growth initiative in place at each of its core copper operations comprising four operating mines — Highland Valley in Canada, Antamina in Peru, Carmen de Andacollo in Chile and Quebrada Blanca, also in Chile.

“These mines have a ten-year average gross profit margin of 47% and place us amongst the lowest carbon intensity copper producers,” he says in an interview.

Read more

Andrew Forrest’s $100b Congo power play – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – June 13, 2021)

https://www.afr.com/

“Fortescue will not work with those who intend to ship in thousands of workers
and ship them out once the project is completed,” he said. “We intend to upskill
the economies that we enter.”

Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest has secured the inside running on developing the world’s largest hydro power project – which alone carries a $US80 billion ($103.8 billion) price tag – and associated port, green hydrogen and green ammonia capability in the troubled Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dr Forrest said Fortescue’s green energy and green hydrogen projects in Africa were not confined to the DRC and included projects in Kenya and Ethiopia, with investors and financiers already indicating a willingness to commit more than $US100 billion.

He put Fortescue’s weight behind the Grand Inga dam project on the Congo on Sunday as part of his ambition to diversify the iron ore miner into a global force in green energy and green hydrogen.

Read more

Copper Is The New Gold For U.S. Ammo Makers And The Chinese Companies They’re Competing With For Scarce Supplies – by Aaron Smith (Forbes Magazine – June 10, 2021)

https://www.forbes.com/

U.S. ammunition makers are competing with Chinese companies for copper, a metal that is essential for building construction and the manufacture of electronics.

Gun sales are continuing to accelerate to record heights during the coronavirus pandemic, as Americans arm themselves for self-protection against an increasingly scary world with civil unrest and rising crime. Guns need ammunition, and making it requires raw materials like gunpowder, brass for the shells and copper for the bullets.

“Copper is very big for us,” said Vista Outdoor Chief Executive Officer Chris Metz in a recent interview. Copper is part of a soft zinc alloy that jackets the lead bullet to protect the inside of the gun barrel when firing. But copper is also an important ingredient in keeping the lights on around the world, and in running our computers and phones.

Read more

Copper Riches Are in Cross-Hairs of Chile Presidential Hopeful – by Valentina Fuentes and Eduardo Thomson (Bloomberg News – June 10, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The man who early polling suggests will be Chile’s next president plans to raise mining taxes in coordination with neighboring nations and take equity stakes in copper mines in a bid to retain more mineral wealth.

Daniel Jadue, the current front-runner in polls for November’s elections in Chile, wants to align mining rules with Peru, Argentina and Bolivia so they don’t compete for investments, he said in an interview Wednesday.

Like Indonesia has done, he also plans to renegotiate with foreign companies to take stakes in their assets in what would be the industry’s biggest disruption since U.S.-owned mines were nationalized to form Codelco in the 1970s.

Read more

World needs Congo copper to kick fossil fuels, Friedland says – by James Attwood, Erik Schatzker and Michael J. Kavanagh (Bloomberg News – June 8, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

An African nation emerging from decades of conflict and corruption holds the key to greening the global economy.

That’s the view of mining magnate Robert Friedland, whose Kamoa-Kakula venture just started producing copper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

After scouring 59 countries over more than three decades, the Canadian billionaire says Congo has the world’s best deposits of the metal used in everything from electric cars to solar panels and power grids.

Read more

Glencore preparing to go deeper than deep at Timmins’ Kidd Mine – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – June 8, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Feasibility study to be start on another expansion to world’s deepest base metal operation

After 55 years, the world’s deepest base metal mine looks to still have some life yet.

Glencore Canada is spending US$44 million on drilling and a feasibility study in preparing for another deep mine expansion at Kidd Mine near Timmins Kidd’s current life of mine runs out at the end of 2023 but Glencore management and technical staff have been working to extend it.

Known as Mine 5, Glencore said they’ve put 89,000 metres of drilling into the ore body and have queued up a new round of 87,000 metres once safety protocols are put in place.

Read more

Copper boom: how clean energy is driving a commodities supercycle – by Neil Hume and Henry Sanderson (Financial Times – June 8, 2021)

https://www.ft.com/

Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a rare commodity in the modern resources industry: a high-grade copper mine that one day could produce enough metal to satisfy more than 5 per cent of China’s annual demand.

Surrounded by small villages, the mine employs around 7,000 workers and has its own road for trucks to carry rock to a nearby smelter. The company is also upgrading a 40-year-old hydropower station on the Congo River to provide electricity to run the mine.

The first phase of the $2bn project began operating in May, more than four years after the last big copper mine of similar scale, MMG’s Las Bambas, in Peru, came online.

Read more

120 year chart shows copper price supercycle only starting – by Frik Els (Mining.com – June 2, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

While hedge funds have gone soft on copper, the metal continues to trade within striking distance of all-time highs, but whether this is as good as it gets or just the beginning of a supercycle for the bellwether metal is far from settled.

The uberbull camp – led by Goldman Sachs – has seen its ranks grow and the predictions of inveterate contrarians like Goehring & Rozencwajg Associates of $30,000 copper no longer seem outlandish.

Copper and mining’s central role in the green energy transition has been well documented and as BMO’s Colin Hamilton put it with exquisite understatement in a recent report:

Read more

Glencore approves further drilling in hopes of extending Kidd mine life – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – June 4, 2021)

https://www.timminspress.com/

$50M feasibility study to be completed by end of 2022

Glencore Canada is investing more than $50 million on a drilling and feasibility program aimed at extending mine life at Kidd Operations. The mine is currently projected to wind down by end of 2023. However, hopes remain alive that operations may extend beyond that.

Last week, the company advised staff that the next phase of drilling and feasibility was approved for what has been dubbed the Mine 5 project, Alexis Segal, Glencore’s head of corporate communications told The Daily Press Thursday night.

Read more

Copper roars past $4.60 as resource nationalism grips market – by Richard (Rick) Mills – Kitco News – June 1, 2021)

https://www.kitco.com/

A number of happenings in the copper market conspired to elevate the spot price beyond $4.60 a pound on Thursday, confirming Ahead of the Herd’s suspicions that a new wave of resource nationalism in some of the largest copper-producing nations is washing over the sector.

Resource nationalism is the tendency of governments to assert control, for strategic and economic reasons, over natural resources located on their territories. It has been identified as one of the key risks for investors in the natural resources space.

With the copper price soaring on tight supply and heavy demand, as the world’s biggest economies revive following a year of coronavirus-related restrictions, the temptation for producer nations to cash in on more valuable copper reserves to pay for social programs is proving hard to resist.

Read more