The EU has confirmed it’s going to strike Russia’s diamond industry in upcoming sanctions, spelling trouble for mining giant Alrosa and dozens of other companies.
“We are in the process of preparing the 12th round [of sanctions] … in particular how to cut the revenues Russia draws from exports of diamonds to Europe and its partners,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Friday (29 October).
Cornish Metals (LON, TSX-V: CUSN) has kicked off work to dewater a past-producing tin mine at its South Crofty project in southwest England.
The Canadian miner said that water pumped from the old mine will be treated at its newly-built $8.5 million plant, at a rate of up to 25,000 cubic metres per day. It will then be released into the Red River, which meets the sea at Godrevy in St Ives Bay.
https://www.investigate-europe.eu/
A global rush for minerals is underway. Europe wants to revive its mining industry to secure the lithium, nickel, copper and rare earth elements needed for a green future. Investigate Europe sieves fact from fiction in the hunt for critical raw materials.
“This has been 130 years of encroachment on our nature and abuse of us Sámi in this area,” says Karin Kvarfordt Niia. The ground is slowly caving in around Kiruna in northern Sweden, where Europe’s largest iron ore mine has operated since the late 19th century.
Excessive excavation has left Kiruna buckling under the strain of its mineral riches. There are fears that part of the town, with around 20,000 people, will literally sink into the ground. To avoid this, authorities are moving the whole city centre to new land, a mega operation paid for by the state-owned mining company LKAB.
https://www.miningreview.com/
For over a century, starting with colonial domination, and persisting via its political and economic network, France viewed most of Africa as its geopolitical sphere of influence.
African governments were installed and deposed upon instruction from Paris, whether by the actions of the intelligence services or military intervention. Meanwhile, French companies controlled extensive domains in African economies, often dedicated to the extraction and transport of natural resources for Western industries.
On Thursday, Orano’s board approved a 30% production capacity increase for its Tricastin factory, in Southern France – Europe’s largest nuclear technology site. The project and its consequent financing will allow France to move away from its reliance on Russia.
“In the current geopolitical context, the purpose of this increase in enrichment capacities is to strengthen Western energy sovereignty in France,” said Claude Imauven, Orano’s board of directors chairman, in a statement.
Russia is often sidelined in discussions of colonialism in the Arctic, most often due to a lack of linguistic and/or physical access. However, Russia also has a colonial legacy, with many parallels to colonialism in other Arctic contexts, for which it deserves to be included in the conversation. Since the sixteenth century, the Russian state has been trying to secure a(n ethnically) Russian presence across the Eurasian landmass.
The first period of expansion occurred during the Russian Empire1) as an imperialist colonialist endeavor.2) The second period occurred during the Soviet era. The central leadership began a new wave of colonialism within the borders of the USSR, in the form of internal colonization.
PLEASE NOTE – This article was published in 1994. However, it is ASTONISHING that nuclear bombs were used in mining and infrastructure projects and I had to post.
MOSCOW — The Soviet Union, consumed by a mania for gigantic development, routinely used nuclear blasts in construction and mining projects from 1965 to 1988, never bothering to calculate the cost to people or environment. “They never studied the long-term effects,” said Boris N. Golubov, a Russian scientist leading an inquiry into the explosions. “And we’re only starting to feel them now.”
And in its haste to develop its vast resources at all costs, Dr. Golubov said, the Soviet Union set off 116 nuclear explosions for technical purposes. The most modest of them was equivalent to the explosion at Hiroshima. A large number were five to 10 times more powerful, and one was 165 times more powerful.
PARIS, Oct 12 (Reuters) – France signed a deal with Mongolia to search for lithium on Thursday and moved a step closer to mine uranium in the Asian country, as Paris steps up its hunt for critical metals needed for its clean energy shift.
The deals are one of the highlights of Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh’s visit to Paris, which comes less than six months after President Emmanuel Macron stopped off in Ulaanbaatar on his way back from a G7 summit in Japan.
Companies scrambling to increase supplies of critical materials are finding some luck in reopening sites
Billions of dollars are being poured into new mining projects across the globe as the energy transition drives a wave of exploration, but getting those new sites open is proving to be a challenge. In the U.S. and beyond, some are jumping ahead by targeting a new but also old source—closed mines, also known as brownfield sites.
In recent years, governments and companies have been bolstering critical-mineral projects to meet rising demand for batteries, electric vehicles, renewables and electrification infrastructure. But opening new mines takes years—particularly when faced with strong local opposition—and delays might hamper policy makers’ efforts to diversify these supply chains. Even with recent investment announcements, analysts are forecasting supply shortfalls.
https://www.greencarcongress.com/
Nornickel, Russia’s leading metals and mining company, has begun extraction at the Glubokaya (Deep) shaft of the Skalisty (Rocky) mine, reaching depths of 2 kilometers. This move will enable Nornickel to substantially boost extraction of the most valuable and rich ore.
To initiate the extraction, the company connected two independent vertical shafts—the ventilation and skip-hoist. The connection was achieved at a depth of 1,943 meters. This integration facilitated the mine’s essential infrastructure and initiated its primary ventilation system. No one in the Eurasian mining industry has ventured this deep before, Nornickel said.
Following Prigozhin’s death, business school grad Dmitry Sytii is working to preserve the group’s multibillion-dollar African operations
T-shirts have appeared on the streets of the Central African Republic’s capital recently picturing a bearded man with flowing hair and an almost saintly look. The image, reminiscent of a revolutionary Che Guevara, is of 34-year-old Dmitry Sytii, the current frontman of the Wagner paramilitary group in Africa.
Since his boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in an apparent assassination last month, Sytii has been thrust to the center of an emerging battle over the fate of Wagner’s sprawling multibillion-dollar African empire of mercenaries, gold, lumber and diamonds. With his intimate knowledge of Wagner’s front companies and smuggling networks, the polyglot, Western-educated Sytii is likely to play a pivotal role.
Alrosa has canceled its next two sales and urged caution from buyers and suppliers amid a steep downturn in the diamond market. The Russian miner informed India’s Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) of the decision in the past few days, citing low demand. The move follows the GJEPC’s recent call for rough producers to act responsibly.
“Alrosa has decided to temporarily halt the allocation of rough diamonds in September and October 2023,” the company said in a note to the GJEPC, seen by Rapaport News. “We believe that this approach is going to have a stabilizing impact by strengthening the market’s supply-and-demand balance. This will aid the prevention of overstocking, especially with manufacturers closed for Diwali.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a major reversal of his government’s environmental policies while promising that Britain will still meet its target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In a speech Wednesday in Downing Street, Mr. Sunak said Britain had come further than most countries in addressing climate change but a more pragmatic approach is now needed.
“We seem to have defaulted to an approach which will impose unacceptable costs on hard-working British families – costs that no one was ever really told about and which may not actually be necessary to deliver the emissions reduction that we need,” he said.
BRUSSELS, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Poland proposed on Monday that new European Union sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine should include a ban on Russian diamonds and Liquid Petroleum Gas and called for aligning sanctions against Belarus with those against Moscow.
In a proposal seen by Reuters, Poland is calling for banning imports of Russian diamonds, the sales of which brought the Russian budget $4.5 billion in 2021, it said, and putting individual sanctions on the Russian Alrosa (ALRS.MM) diamond company.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/
BRUSSELS/LONDON, Sept 15 (Reuters) – The Group of Seven (G7) countries is expected to announce an import ban on Russian diamonds in the next 2-3 weeks, Belgian officials told reporters on Friday, in a bid to tighten a squeeze on Russia’s capacity to finance the war in Ukraine.
The plan could transform the global diamond supply chain, but implementation will depend heavily on India, whose diamond industry employs millions of people who cut and polish 90% of the world’s diamonds.
