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Commentary: Govt needs to maximize benefits from Freeport – by Riyadi Suparno (Jakarta Post – June 22, 2015)

http://www.thejakartapost.com/

Timika, Papua – History is often forgotten when people discuss the fate of US-based Freeport McMoran’s copper, gold and silver mining operation in Papua. People tend to use the current situation to judge what happened in the late 1960s.

People critical of Freeport are quick to point out that the company has plundered Indonesia’s mining wealth in Papua since 1967 (or 1973, when its mines began production). They forget, however, to mention the situation at the time when Freeport entered Papua.

We need to consider at least three things about the situation when Freeport was given its mining contract of work (CoW) from the government of then newly-installed president Soeharto.

The first thing is that Indonesia was in a dire economic situation following the fall of strongman Sukarno, who brought Indonesia to its knees at the end of his two-decade-long rule.

In that context, Soeharto drafted a foreign-direct-investment law to attract badly needed investment. Freeport was the first foreign player to commit to large-scale investment in Indonesia, and the CoW it signed was the first of its kind.

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Happy days here again for NM mine industry – by Kevin Robinson-Avila (Abuquerque Journal – June 22, 2015)

http://www.abqjournal.com/

The Great Recession cut the bottom out of most mining operations in New Mexico but, in general, the industry is now back on a steady growth path and one sector – potash production in southeast New Mexico – is downright booming.

Overall, total income from mining operations statewide reached a record high in 2013 at $2.8 billion. That’s up from a low of $1.7 billion reported in 2009 during the throes of recession and it’s 27 percent higher than the state’s previous record of $2.2 billion before the economy crashed.

That’s good news for the New Mexico economy, particularly in rural areas, where mining now directly employs about 7,100 people. That represents a nearly 40 percent growth in jobs since 2009, when layoffs in copper production hit the Silver City area, contributing to a 28 percent statewide plummet in mining employment.

And some major new projects could be coming online in the next few years. That includes a huge new potash mine in Lea County, a copper operation near Hillsboro, and the state’s first magnesium mining and processing complex near Deming.

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New Mexico Supreme Court asked to review ‘copper rule’ – by Associated Press (Washington Times – June 14, 2015)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) – New Mexico’s attorney general and environmentalists want the state’s highest court to review an appellate court’s upholding of regulations that govern groundwater pollution by copper mines.

Attorney General Hector Balderas and several watchdog groups have filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to weigh in on a previous ruling maintaining the “copper rule.” The regulations, which were approved in September 2013, allow mining companies to exceed water-quality standards at mining sites. This includes new engineering requirements for handling leftover rock, leach piles, tanks and pipelines.

The Supreme Court could decide any day whether to hear the case or dismiss the petition. If the panel reviews the case, a final decision could take years.

Clean-water advocates say the regulations give copper-producing companies too much leeway to pollute groundwater.

“The copper rule flies in the face of the Water Quality Act,” said Douglas Meiklejohn, a New Mexico Environmental Law Center attorney representing the advocacy groups.

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Mining Investments in Chile to Soar Over the Next Decade – by Anne Lu (International Business Times – June 11 2015)

http://www.ibtimes.com.au/

Chile will continue to be the most attractive Latin American country to foreign mining investors, as mining investments in the country are expected to reach a value of about US$64 billion [$82 billion] by 2025, said state copper commission Cochilco.

Cochilco head Alex Matute Johns noted that Chile’s copper output is expected to jump up to around eight million tons per year by 2025. He also predicted that foreign investments would soar from US$23 billion last year to about US$28 billion by 2017. State-owned copper giant Codelco is expected to carry out 47 percent of Chile’s portfolio of planned mining investments.

But aside from copper, Chile is also a top producer of titanium, with the likes of White Mountain Titanium Corporation (OTCQB: WMTM) operating in northern Chile’s Atacama region. Its flagship Cerro Blanco project currently consists of 41 registered mining exploitation concessions and 34 mining exploration concessions over approximately 17,041 hectares of mineral sand. As of March 2015, nine prospects have been identified along a four-kilometre strike length, with an estimated rutile resource of 112 million tonnes at 1.73 percent titanium dioxide and 69 million tonnes at 1.37 percent titanium dioxide.

Another Chilean mining company, Mineria Activa, aims to develop Chile’s rare earth minerals market based on a recent survey that showed that there are major concentrations of neodymium and dysprosium south of Chile’s capital, Santiago.

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PolyMet environmental review decision still months away – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – June 9, 2015)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

State and federal regulators did not meet their goal to have a revised environmental review document on the proposed PolyMet copper mine near Hoyt Lakes completed by early spring, but it should be ready this summer.

A final decision on whether the environmental review, now underway for nearly a decade, is “adequate” is now expected by the end of 2015.

That was the word this week from Tom Landwehr, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, who said state and federal regulatory agencies are “very close” to making the document available to other agencies and, under open records laws, to the public.

The DNR, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Forest Service have been poring over 58,000 public comments made on the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement that went public in 2013.

It was by far the most comments ever received on a project in Minnesota, and in some cases the issues raised required the agencies, consultants and PolyMet to rerun computer models and make other technical changes in the proposal.

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The Cornish Mines – by Graham Jaehnig (The Daily Mining Gazette – May 30, 2015)

http://www.mininggazette.com/

From the very beginning of the mineral rush in 1843, miners from other countries worked Copper Country lodes. John Hays, in working the area around Copper Harbor, worked teams of German coal miners he had retained from Pennsylvania. Colonel Charles Gratiot, working for the Lake Superior Copper Company, had brought with him a crew of some fourteen Cornish miners from the lead district of Wisconsin.

Cornwall is a small peninsula on the southwest portion of England that juts into the Atlantic Ocean, and enjoys a remarkable mining history. Mining in Cornwall had begun as early as the Bronze Age (2100-1500 BCE) and by the beginning of the 17th century CE, the Cornish had earned the reputation as experts and world leaders in mining and mineral dressing.

At the time when Cornish mines were becoming too deep to be profitably mined, large copper deposits were discovered in England’s North Wales. To compete with these new, shallow mines, Cornish engineers made great advancements in mining technology, such as pumping engines and mineral processing.

By the mid-1840s, as the Cornish copper industry was in major decline, the mineral lands of Lake Superior were just beginning to make world news for their finds of huge masses of pure copper.

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Selling Off Apache Holy Land – by Lydia Millet (New York Times Opinion Pages – May 29, 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/

Tucson – ABOUT an hour east of Phoenix, near a mining town called Superior, men, women and children of the San Carlos Apache tribe have been camped out at a place called Oak Flat for more than three months, protesting the latest assault on their culture.

Three hundred people, mostly Apache, marched 44 miles from tribal headquarters to begin this occupation on Feb. 9. The campground lies at the core of an ancient Apache holy place, where coming-of-age ceremonies, especially for girls, have been performed for many generations, along with traditional acorn gathering.

It belongs to the public, under the multiple-use mandate of the Forest Service, and has had special protections since 1955, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower decreed the area closed to mining — which, like cattle grazing, is otherwise common in national forests — because of its cultural and natural value. President Richard M. Nixon’s Interior Department in 1971 renewed this ban.

Despite these protections, in December 2014, Congress promised to hand the title for Oak Flat over to a private, Australian-British mining concern. A fine-print rider trading away the Indian holy land was added at the last minute to the must-pass military spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act.

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Industry Warns Copper Boom at Risk – by John Quigley (Bloomberg News – May 26, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Peru tightened security and closed schools in the country’s south as unions began a 48-hour protest as part of the biggest wave of mining opposition in three years.

A contingent of riot police guarded the main square of Arequipa, the biggest southern city, and shop windows were partially shuttered, Radio Programas reported. Police and army officers patrolled the Tambo Valley, the site of Southern Copper Corp.’s Tia Maria copper project.

Peru’s goal of becoming a copper powerhouse is being threatened by violent protests against Tia Maria in the past two months, according to Carlos Galvez, president of Peru’s National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy. The upheaval could reduce mining investment to “very close to zero” by 2018, down from a record $9.7 billion in 2013, unless the government defends new projects, he said in an interview in Lima Tuesday.

Peru, the world’s third-biggest copper producer, is poised to increase output of the metal 73 percent in the next three years on new capacity from Freeport-McMoRan Inc. and MMG Ltd. Investment needed to sustain the expansion is on hold because of protests by local groups opposed to mining, Galvez said.

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The 1959 Copper Strike: Local Event has National Ramifications – by John Hernandez (Copper Area.com – May 26, 2015)

http://www.copperarea.com/pages/

The Voice of the Copper Corridor. [Arizona]

In 1959, Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the last year of his presidency. The dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba as communist revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro took control of the island nation 90 miles from the United States. Alaska and Hawaii would become states. A little known actor, Clint Eastwood appeared on a new television series, Rawhide. Teenagers were saddened by “The Day the Music Died” when Buddy Holley, Richie Valens and the “Big Bopper” J.P. Richardson were killed in a plane crash in Iowa.

In the prospering mining town of San Manuel the contracts with the unions and the San Manuel Copper Corporation were set to expire June 30. Competing unions, the United Steelworkers of America and the International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers, were still battling each other to represent the workers.

Early in the year, smelter workers petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and asked that their union, the United Steelworkers of America, be recognized as the bargaining agent for San Manuel rather than Mine Mill. Mine Mill had defeated the Steelworkers in the 1956 elections. The election was challenged by the Steelworkers but their protest was denied by the NLRB.

Another unit of San Manuel Copper Corporation, the heavy equipment operators, joined with the smelter workers and asked that elections be held to determine which union would be the collective bargaining agent for the workers.

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Peru Declares 2-Month Martial Law in Area of Disputed Copper Mine – by Robert Kozak (Wall Street Journal – May 23, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

Residents have protested Southern Copper’s plans to set up Tia Maria mine

LIMA, Peru—The government of President Ollanta Humala on Saturday started a two-month period of martial law in the southern state of Arequipa, where local residents are protesting against a plan by Southern Copper Corp. to set up a copper mine known as Tia Maria.

Under the state of emergency, police can enter houses without search warrants, while meetings and marches can be broken up, as the government aims to end almost two months of often-violent protests in the region about 650 miles south of Lima.

Local residents have blocked roads and clashed with police since late March, saying the $1.4 billion Tia Maria project will contaminate water and the air. The government last year approved the company’s environmental study, and the company says it can operate a clean mine.

“In line with what is established in the constitution and the decree declaring a state of emergency, the national police with the backing of the armed forces will be charged with maintaining public order,” Prime Minister Pedro Cateriano said late Friday.

Jose Ramos Carrera, mayor of the municipality of Punta de Bombón, said many local residents will continue to oppose the Tia Maria project.

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Mongolia to be transformed by giant Rio Tinto copper mine – by Andrew Critchlow (The Telegraph – May 23, 2015)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Land of Genghis Khan to become global copper superpower after mega deal to build giant underground Oyu Tolgoi mine

On the face of it, Mongolia – a landlocked and wild land – hasn’t changed much since Genghis Khan and his Golden Horde pillaged their way across Asia in the 13th century. The country’s population is still predominantly made up of nomadic herders living in yurts and drinking airag – fermented mare’s milk.

But this is all about to change after an agreement was reached between the government and Rio Tinto last week to develop one of the world’s largest copper and gold mines at Oyu Tolgoi, which literally means Turquoise Hill. The development of the mine is expected to trigger a rush to exploit $1  trillion (£638bn) worth of mineral resources that are thought to exist in the country and drag its mainly agrarian society into the modern age.

Signs of this transformation are already apparent on the streets of the capital Ulan Bator where around 40pc of the country’s 2.8m population now live. Skyscrapers and new office developments across the city are confronting signs of the impending change that the arrival of the mining industry will bring. Oyu Tolgoi is at the forefront of this new era, which according to the Chimediin Saikhanbileg, the prime minister, will “benefit Mongolian citizens for generations to come”.

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Gloomy Mining Chiefs See Copper-Tinted Light at End of Tunnel – by Firat Kayakiran, Jesse Riseborough and Agnieszka De Sousa (Bloomberg News – May 21, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s biggest mining companies haven’t agreed on much lately as they argue about how to deal with a glut of iron ore and coal. When the subject turns to copper, however, they’re on the same wavelength.

Executives of BHP Billiton Ltd., Antofagasta Plc, Rio Tinto Group, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. and Glencore Plc all pointed to copper in comments this month as the one commodity not dogged by oversupply. Demand is proving resilient, according to analysts who cite China’s response to a slowdown in economic growth by sanctioning a number of previously delayed infrastructure projects.

“If you’re looking for a single structural long-term bullish argument for owning a commodity, just look at copper,” said Clive Burstow, who helps manage $44 billion at Baring Asset Management in London.

In an interview last week, the head of the world’s largest mining company painted a gloomy picture for the industry. BHP’s Andrew Mackenzie said that in all the minerals markets in which it operates, any demand increase can too “easily” be met by expanding existing mines. One exception he sees is copper.

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Protests Force Mining Billionaire German Larrea To Halt $1.4 Billion Copper Project In Peru – by Dolia Estevez (Forbes Magazine – May 20, 2015)

http://www.forbes.com/

Fifty days of protests against the $1.4 billion Tía María copper mining project in southern Peru forced Grupo Mexico , owned by Mexican mining billionaire German Larrea Mota Velasco, to call for a two-month truce, Peruvian and Mexican media reported.

Oscar Gonzalez Rocha, CEO and President of Southern Copper, a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico, announced Friday a 60-day “pause” on the Tía María project to allow the parties involved to present “their concerns and fears, identify solutions, agree on a path to move forward and define responsibilities that all must assume in a reasonable time,” EFE reported from Lima.

Carlos Galvez, president of Peru’s National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy (SNMPE), a non-profit business association, supported the truce. “No project can be imposed by force; a truce would be the most appropriate,” said Galvez, according to Mexico’s El Economista.

But the announcement did not stop community and civil groups in seven regions in Southern Peru, the world’s third-biggest copper producer, from calling for a 48-hour stoppage on May 27 and 28 to demand the total annulment of the mining project.

Protests against the Tía María project, controlled by Southern Copper, a Grupo Mexico affiliate, took a turn for the worse in late March when communities in the Arequipa region, not far from Peru’s southern border with Chile, expressed fears that the yearly production of 120,000 tons of copper cathodes will pollute their land and water.

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UPDATE 4-Rio Tinto, Mongolia end stand-off to build huge copper mine – by Terrence Edwards and Sonali Paul (Reuters U.S. – May 19, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

ULAN BATOR/MELBOURNE, May 19 (Reuters) – Mongolia and Rio Tinto have reached an agreement paving the way for work to resume on a stalled $5 billion underground copper mine that is expected to drive growth for both the country and the global miner.

The Oyu Tolgoi project, which started producing from an open pit mine two years ago, is the biggest single foreign investment in Mongolia, and resolution of the disputes over the second phase has revived hopes for a string of other stalled mining projects.

Rio Tinto’s Turquoise Hill Resources arm owns 66 percent of Oyu Tolgoi, while the Mongolian government owns the remainder. Rio is operator of the project, located in the Gobi desert near Mongolia’s border with China.

Vancouver-based Turqoise Hill shares leapt by as much as 11 percent to C$5.80 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday after Rio Tinto announced the agreement on Monday which it said was signed by itself, Turquoise Hill and the government of Mongolia.

Turqoise Hill shares were last trading at $5.49, 4.8 percent higher on the day. “There is no doubt that moving forward with the Oyu Tolgoi project will improve the investment climate in Mongolia,” Prime Minister Chimediin Saikhanbileg said in a statement.

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Peru Sends 2,000 Police as Copper Project Protests Spread – by John Quigley (Bloomberg News – April 8, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Peru sent police reinforcements to the Islay province as protests against Southern Copper Corp.’s Tia Maria mine project spread to more towns.

About 2,000 officers are being transferred to the coastal province in southern Peru as street protests against the project entered a 47th day, Interior Minister Jose Perez told reporters.

Southern Copper’s plans to build the $1.4 billion mine in the mountains above Islay’s Tambo Valley, about 780 kilometers (485 miles) south of Lima, are opposed by local farmers concerned that water and air pollution will damage their crops. One person died and four police officers were injured in clashes this week as the unrest spread to the seaside town of Mollendo.

President Ollanta Humala weighed options for declaring a state of emergency in Islay at a meeting Thursday. “We don’t rule out any decision that needs to be taken,” Perez said. “We’re prepared for this decision. More police are arriving at this moment.”

Police used a loader to clear boulders and rocks strewn across the highway between the port town of Matarani and Mollendo, where demonstrators set fire to buses Thursday, according to Canal N. Images broadcast by the Lima-based television station showed protesters blockading a highway Friday as tires burned along the side of the road.

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