Copper – Page 58 – Republic of Mining

Copper output to spike in world’s top producer Chile – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 19, 2018)

November 20, 2018

http://www.mining.com/

Copper output in Chile, the world’s top producer of the metal, is expected to increase 2% by the end of the year and continue to grow steadily during 2019 due to stronger performance from major mines, upgrades to existing operations, and lower risk of labour strikes.

According to the latest report by Fitch Solutions Macro Research, the main possible obstacle to the forecast production growth in Chile is the fact that grades continue to fall. Mining companies operating in the country have seen production costs rise as they need to dig deeper and process larger amounts of rock to obtain the same amount of copper they used to a decade ago.

“Mines who saw production decreases over recent quarters cited declining ore grades as one of the main contributing factors,” the report says. “This issue presents an attractive opportunity for miners to invest in new technology or upgrade equipment to improve operational efficiency,” Fitch notes.

Roxby Downs, the town built to service BHP’s Olympic Dam mine, celebrates 30 years – by Sarah Tomlinson and Patrick Martin (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – November 18, 2018)

November 19, 2018

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

The town of Roxby Downs in South Australia’s far north is so young, it has never buried a single local resident. Nestled on hot red sand 563 kilometres from the creature comforts of Adelaide, Roxby Downs officially opened on November 5, 1988 to service BHP’s Olympic Dam mine — one of the largest of its kind in the world.

Now 30 years old, the town boasts a pool, numerous sporting facilities, a supermarket, jewellery store, theatre and gallery, community radio station, and even an old video chain store that has been converted into a community hub for the many young families who occupy the town.

It also has its own rugby team, The Barbarians, whose success is only hampered by distance and the availability of having other teams to play. The young town even has a cemetery, but as Roxby Downs residents come from far and wide, they are laid to rest elsewhere — only pets inhabit this cemetery.

Winning Teck’s Copper Mine Prize May Come Down to More Than Cash – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg – November 19, 2018)

November 19, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

With the second round of bids to secure a piece of Teck Resources Ltd.’s $4.7 billion copper expansion expected in the coming weeks, victory may come down to more than price.

Teck, which owns 90 percent of Quebrada Blanca in northern Chile, would like to sell a 30 to 40 percent stake to an outside investor. With the copper market widely forecast to go into deficit as soon as this year and the number of attractive new mine projects limited worldwide, interest in the sale is expected to be high, especially among Asian trading houses and existing mining companies.

“You either want someone with mining experience or potential off-take agreements,” Jeremy Sussman, an analyst at Clarksons Platou Securities Inc., said in a phone interview. “I think the good news for Teck is they’ll have both of those types heavily involved in bidding.”

Barrick Gold eyes assets, exploration as it plots new phase – by Susan Taylor and Zandi Shabalala (Reuters/Yahoo – November 16, 2018)

November 19, 2018

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

TORONTO/LONDON (Reuters) – Barrick Gold Corp, soon to become the world’s largest bullion miner, is interested in adding more copper assets as long as the red metal is accompanied by bullion, executives said on Friday.

Barrick, which expects to complete its $6.1 billion takeover of Randgold Resources Jan. 1, outlined plans for exploration, expansion, streamlining and asset sales at an investor presentation in London.

Structured under regions in North America, South America and Africa and the Middle East, Barrick spent the last four days focusing on where to take the merged company, said Randgold Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow, who will be Barrick’s new CEO.

Rio Tinto joins race for Teck’s copper project stake: sources – by Clara Denina (Reuters U.S. – November 14, 2018)

November 14, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Rio Tinto is among parties making a final offer for a minority stake in Teck Resources Ltd’s Quebrada Blanca copper mine expansion in northern Chile, a development worth $4.8 billion, two sources close to the matter said.

The world’s second largest mining company is eager to boost its copper assets, with the metal viewed in the industry as having one of strongest outlooks. Existing reserves are dwindling and increased electrification means demand is likely to be strong.

Canada’s Teck (TECKb.TO) (TECK.N) has said a development partner could contribute $2 billion for a 30 percent to 40 percent stake in the copper project, an investment deal it expects to close in the fourth quarter.

On the Iron Range, new hopes and new anxieties – by Matt McKinney and Josephine Marcotty (Minneapolis Star Tribune – November 11, 2018)

November 12, 2018

http://www.startribune.com/

Permit approvals for PolyMet open a new chapter in an old struggle.

HOYT LAKES, Minn. – For years, residents of this struggling mining town have clung to the hope that their old way of life would return. But even so, when state regulators finally approved permits late last month for Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine, the news hit like a thunderbolt.

“You could feel it,” said Toni Thuringer, co-owner of the Haven Bar and Grill, who described a buzz that ran through patrons dining in the restaurant and elbowing up to the bar. “It’s just so cool because it’s been so long since we’ve had that feeling around here.”

In Iron Range towns left for dead by the mining industry’s last bust in the 1980s, the sudden realization that, after years of contentious debate, PolyMet Mining Corp. might actually open its $1 billion mine has fueled rousing talk.

Montana generous in sharing men, women and treasures to hasten end of WWI – by Kim Briggeman (Helena Independent Record – November 10, 2018)

November 12, 2018

https://helenair.com/

“I’ve got a quote in my book that every American bullet fired in
the war was encased in Butte copper,” said Robison, who’ll be
part of Sunday’s program at Fort Missoula.

They’re not forget-me-nots, but they could be called that. The scientific name for the tiny blue flowers that grow in France’s Forest of Verdun is Sisyrinchium montanum. “They call it the blue-eyed grass of Montana,” a national forest official in Douamont told the American Foreign Press in 2016.

Douamont is lined with graves of 80,000 of the 300,000 French and German soldiers who died in the 300-day Battle of Verdun in 1916, the year before the United States entered World War I. The flowers aren’t native, Patrice Hirbec told the news service. They were introduced to Verdun as seeds on the hooves of United States Army horses.

It wasn’t a good war to be a horse. It’s said that on one day during the Battle of Verdun, 7,000 were killed in the shelling. Estimates vary but somewhere between 6 million and 8 million horses, mules and donkeys died during the four years of conflict.

Cheers, tears as historic smelter from Magma Mine demolished in Superior – by Ryan Randazzo (Arizona Republic – November 10, 2018)

November 12, 2018

https://www.azcentral.com/

Cheers erupted at 8:46 a.m. Saturday in Superior after the historic copper smelter stack from the Magma Mine crashed to the ground. But the cheers only came because the controlled demolition offered such a spectacle. Many of the people lined up along the streets watching the destruction were sad to see the 293-foot brick stack fall.

Even though smoke hasn’t wafted from the top of the stack since 1971, the 94-year-old smelter about 60 miles east of downtown Phoenix was a symbol of the region’s mining heritage, and had sentimental value for those who lived and worked in Superior.

That includes Larry Palacio, a Gilbert retiree who spent more than 21 years working at the Magma Mine after he graduated from Superior High School in 1955. “I did just about everything,” he said, standing along Main Street waiting for the warning sirens before explosions that caused the stack to topple. “I was a mucker, mechanic, worked the cage.”

BHP’s ‘measured creep’ of risk appetite – by Matthew Stevens (Australian Financial Review – November 11, 2018)

November 12, 2018

https://www.afr.com/

Ivan Glasenberg wondered recently how it was the BHP had moved into mining frontier of Ecuador when management at Australia’s Smart Thinking resources house was supposedly content to sustain and grow its business around its existing sites. This bemusement is well founded.

Among the themes consistent through Andrew Mackenzie’s evolving reformation of BHP are that it has little or no appetite for investment in frontier opportunities and that the company’s growth aspirations will be best afforded through a laser focus on the Global Australian’s existing six-strong fleet of mega-resource basins.

But that message is in the process of being massaged into something more nuanced, and not just because BHP’s two-stream play to possibly shape Ecuador’s future in copper stands an obvious test of the past house line in emerging mining sovereignties.

Environmental groups ask for suspension of PolyMet permits – by Jimmy Lovrien (Duluth News Tribune – November 8, 2018)

November 9, 2018

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Several Minnesota environmental groups asked state agencies to suspend permits for the contentious PolyMet copper-nickel mine in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, WaterLegacy and Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness submitted a request for stay, or suspension, of permits issued by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources last week and pending permits from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency until the Minnesota Court of Appeals rules on whether an additional environment review of the project is needed.

Before the groups can ask the Court of Appeals for a stay on the permits, they’re required to first request a stay of permits from the agencies themselves, WaterLegacy counsel and advocacy director Paula Maccabee told the News Tribune on Thursday. “It’s not like this is the endgame, but it is a preliminary step,” Maccabee said.

Glencore to go deeper at Sudbury operations – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – November 7, 2018)

November 7, 2018

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

“We have still, I believe, a lot of untapped potential in the Sudbury
basin, especially at depth,” said Xavier. A series of deep copper
deposits dubbed Norman West is particularly intriguing to the company.

Xavier also highlighted the strides the company has taken to reduce its emissions,
which have dropped 90 per cent over the past 30 years, while production has climbed.
And he noted Glencore has spent $272 million on a Process Gas Project at its smelter,
which will further reduce sulphur dioxide emissions.

“We’re committed to a long, stable future in Sudbury,” he said.
(Peter Xavier, VP of Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations – Glencore)

Cleaner. And deeper. That’s the direction Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations (Glencore) is heading with its existing properties, a new nickel mine in the Onaping area and copper deposits it hopes to develop north of Capreol.

“Deep mining is where the future lies for us,” said Glencore VP Peter Xavier during an address to a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce audience Tuesday. “After 100 years of mining in the Sudbury basin, you can imagine a lot of the close-to-the-surface operations are getting depleted, and we’re having to go deeper.”

How Electric Vehicles Should Give a Jolt to Copper Miners – by Simon Constable (Barrons.com – November 2, 2018)

November 5, 2018

https://www.barrons.com/

Copper prices have dropped 18% in recent weeks, creating a long-term opportunity to get in on some cheap copper-mining giants with generous dividend payouts. Their prospects will depend on a major technological transition: the move from gasoline-powered to electric vehicles.

“If you’re bullish on global growth over the next 18 to 24 months, you have to own copper-related assets, especially since current prices aren’t high enough to fund new-mine development,” says Adam Johnson, founder and author of the Bullseye Brief financial newsletter. “Longer term, and this is key, rising electric-vehicle production will shift the entire demand curve since EVs require multiple times the copper content of internal-combustion engines.”

Investors should consider buying shares of a handful of European-based miners: Rio Tinto (ticker: RIO), Glencore (GLEN.UK), and Anglo American (AAL.UK). All are diversified, but they’re also among the largest copper miners. Better yet, they have hefty dividends of 5%, 5.1%, and 4.7%, respectively.

Saudi miner Ma’aden actively looking for overseas investments – CEO – by Marwa Rashad (Reuters U.K. – October 25, 2018)

October 29, 2018

https://uk.reuters.com/

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabian Mining Co (1211.SE) (Ma’aden), the Gulf’s largest miner, is actively looking for investment opportunities overseas that would complement and strengthen its business inside the kingdom, the company’s chief executive said on Thursday.

Ma’aden, which mines gold and copper and has in recent years expanded into the production of aluminium and phosphates, is key to Saudi Arabia’s plan to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons. The government aims to more than triple mining’s contribution to the nation’s economic output by 2030.

The company, which is 65 percent owned by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, is looking for joint ventures and acquisitions in Latin America, India and other countries to boost its operations in phosphate fertilisers and base metals.

Glencore posts rise in copper, cobalt output on Katanga restart (Reuters U.S. – October 26, 2018)

October 29, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Glencore Plc on Friday reported a 12 percent rise in copper production so far this year, while cobalt production rose 44 percent, boosted by the restart of Katanga’s processing operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The London-listed miner and commodities trader, which posted record half-year earnings in August, said then it had been facing higher costs and weak prices for cobalt and other byproducts.

Glencore’s copper production rose by 116,600 tonnes to 1,063,100 tonnes from the start of this year and cobalt output jumped 8,700 tonnes to 28,500 tonnes.

Papuans want Filipino miner out of their ancestral land – by Jarius Bondoc (The Philippine Star – October 29, 2018)

October 29, 2018

https://www.philstar.com/

A Filipino miner is causing social unrest in the Pacific island of Bougainville, the same way he stirred up Mindanao tribesmen against his mining. Tens of thousands of Bougainville natives are livid that SR Metals Inc., owned by Eric Gutierrez, is to log and consequently extract copper.

Central authorities in Papua New Guinea are being asked why an outsider has been allowed into the Panguna forest. Foreign mining in Panguna had triggered a ten-year civil war, 1988-1998, that claimed the lives of 20,000 people. Since then Panguna has been declared a “no-go zone.”

Gutierrez’s SRMI up to recently was extracting nickel in the mountains of Tubay, Agusan del Norte. Dispossessed Lumad had opposed his 20 years of supposed small-scale mining that actually exceeded legal limits. It also denuded forests in and beyond its 128-hectare concession.