London court backs Deripaska in battle of Russian tycoons – by Barbara Lewis and Polina Devitt (Reuters U.S. – June 27, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska got a boost on Wednesday in a long-running battle for control of Norilsk Nickel when a high court judge ruled fellow investor Roman Abramovich did not have the right to sell shares in the miner to a third businessman.

Deripaska, who controls aluminum giant Rusal (0486.HK), wants to stop Abramovich from selling Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) (GMKN.MM) shares to Russian businessman Vladimir Potanin, saying that would violate a 2012 shareholder agreement.

At London’s High Court, Judge Stephen Phillips ruled such a sale by Abramovich, the owner of England’s Chelsea soccer club, breached the terms of that shareholder pact.

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German experts meet to discuss country’s exit from coal use (Tampa Bay Times – June 26, 2018)

http://www.tampabay.com/

Associated Press – BERLIN (AP) — Representatives from German industry, environmental groups and unions met Tuesday in Berlin to discuss how and when the country can stop using coal to generate electricity.

Climate scientists have called for Germany to do more to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, which have stagnated for about a decade. This month, the government was forced to admit it will miss its short-term climate goal by a wide mark .

Coal-fired power plants are a major source of carbon emissions that drive climate change. While Germany has ramped up production of renewable energy, it still depends on coal for over a third of its electricity.

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England built an empire out of coal. Now it’s giving it up. Why can’t the US? – by Carolyn Beeler (PRI.org – June 18, 2018)

https://www.pri.org/

England, perhaps more than any other country in the world, was built on coal. The first successful steam engine was invented to pump water out of British coal mines. Coal powered the railroads and ships that built Britain’s empire. It helped the country survive two world wars, and at its height between those wars, coal mines employed 1.2 million people.

So this winter, when the United Kingdom announced its plan to stop burning coal for electricity by 2025, the shift was seismic. The announcement signaled the dethroning of King Coal in a country where it had reigned for more than a century, and where just six years prior it provided more than 40 percent of the nation’s energy.

How did this happen in Britain at a time when leaders in the US were moving in the opposite direction by promising to end the “war on coal”? The answer lies not in technological innovation, but in a profound cultural shift that began decades ago in coal field communities across England.

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Romania says Gabriel Resources $4.4bn lawsuit over halted project can’t be heard by arbitrators – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – June 14, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Gabriel Resources (TSX-V:GBU) lawsuit against Romania for $4.4 billion in alleged losses related to the company’s stalled Rosia Montana gold and silver project, suffered a setback this week as the country told international arbitrators they can’t hear the Canadian miner’s claim.

Romania’s government said a recent, ground-breaking court decision had slammed the door on certain investment arbitration cases involving European Union members, so Gabriel’s case can’t be solved that way any longer, legal news site Law360.com reported, without elaborating further on the verdict.

Earlier this month, Gabriel Resources said it expected the hearing on the merits of its suit, filed last year at a World Bank’s tribunal, to take place in December 2019. The new development, however, may mean the company will have to wait longer than anticipated to find out whether Romania will pay the demanded figure or anything at all.

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On the gemstone trail: A tour of Antwerp’s diamond district – by John Malathronas (CNN – June 12, 2018)

https://www.cnn.com/

(CNN) — With its flat-fronted 1960s buildings and plain color scheme, Hoveniersstraat might be dismissed as one of the most drab streets in the pretty baroque Belgian city of Antwerp.

In fact, it’s one of the most fascinating, and there are several high security clues that give the game away. The street is protected by a police station, dozens of CCTV cameras and several armed soldiers. The reason: Hoveniersstraat is the center of Antwerp’s — and the world’s — diamond industry.

About 84% of all rough diamonds and 50% of all cut diamonds on the planet are traded in this destination today. Located less than an hour from Brussels by train, the Belgian city, has been a major diamond center since medieval times.

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Cobalt Hunt Takes Aussie Explorer to Forest on BMW’s Doorstep – by Elisabeth Behrmann (Bloomberg News – June 13, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The search for cobalt, a key component of the battery-powered auto fleets of the future, has arrived on BMW AG’s doorstep with a discovery of an ore deposit not far from the plant where the German manufacturer makes its i3 electric city car.

The cobalt find in a forested section of Saxony’s Eichigt municipality, Germany’s first detection of the metal in modern times, could revive mining in an area that last saw activity during the Renaissance, and help diversify raw-materials supply, exploration company Lithium Australia NL said.

Some 60 percent of the world’s cobalt is concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where concerns over working practices and political strife have sparked a global hunt for alternatives sources.

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EU will act against U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum: Merkel – by Michael Nienaber (Reuters U.S. – June 10, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

BERLIN (Reuters) – Europe will implement counter-measures against U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum just like Canada, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday, voicing regret about President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw support for a G7 communique.

Trump’s announcement on Twitter, after leaving the Group of Seven summit in Canada early, that he was backing out of the joint communique torpedoed what appeared to be a fragile consensus on a trade dispute between Washington and its top allies.

“The withdrawal, so to speak, via tweet is of course … sobering and a bit depressing,” Merkel said in an ARD television interview following the G7 summit.

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Russian diamond miner announces auctions and award of high Sustainability ranking – by Rebecca Campbell (MiningWeekly.com – June 7, 2018)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

Russian diamond mining major Alrosa announced on Thursday that it would hold auctions in Hong Kong and Vladivostok for large rough diamonds. The Hong Kong auction will start on June 13 and will run until June 27. The Vladivostok auction would start on June 18 and conclude on June 29. In both cases, the rough stones being auctioned will each weigh more than 10.8 ct.

Both auctions are of gem quality stones. In Hong Kong, the corporation would auction 105 lots with a total weight of 1 620 ct. In Vladivostok, it would auction 130 lots, with a total weight of 2 149 ct.

The diamonds would come from Alrosa itself and two of its subsidiaries: Alrosa-Nyurba and Severalmaz. The group had invited 150 companies, from Belgium, China, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and the US to attend the auctions.

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Russia’s Polyus big step closer to building world’s largest new gold mine – by Frik Els (Mining.com – June 7, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Russian gold miner Polyus on Thursday provided an update on its Sukhoi Log project, one of the world’s largest untapped gold deposits. The news sent units of the company trading over the counter in the US up 3% for a market value of some $8.5 billion.

Polyus in May completed the scoping study and verification drilling programme at Sukhoi Log, located in the Irkutsk region of eastern Siberia, and is now entering the pre-feasibility stage with a study out early 2021.

The Moscow-based company, the world’s 7th largest listed gold producer, said it planned to make a final investment decision on Sukhoi Log, by 2020-2021 with a target for production start-up around 2026.

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Here are the super-wealthy billionaires’ assets on Kola Peninsula – by Thomas Nilsen (The Barents Observer – June 5, 2018)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

Take a closer look at these eight people. They have two things in common; all are on Forbes list of the world’s billionaires and they are all making big money from industry on the Kola Peninsula.

Alexey Mordashov tops the list, with a private fortune of $18,7 billion. An hour drive south of Murmansk, he runs the iron-ore mines in Olenegorsk. Number two on the list, Leonid Mikhelson is about to create thousands of new jobs just north of Murmansk where the construction of Kola Yard currently is the largest industrial development project anywhere north of the Arctic Circle in Europe.

Other well known oligarchs on the list includes Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin. Forbes list includes 42 Russians with a private fortune of more than $1 billion. Here, we only include those with big businesses in the Murmansk region.

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Key shareholder urges Canadian miner Nevsun to engage with suitors – by Nicole Mordant (Reuters U.S. – June 6, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Nevsun Resources, a Canadian miner which has been approached regarding a takeover, should enter “good-faith negotiations with any suitor,” Adrian Day Asset Management, one of Nevsun’s top 10 shareholders, said in an open letter to the company’s board on Wednesday.

“We would urge the company to use all efforts to maximize value for shareholders… even if it does mean breaking up the company,” the asset management firm’s chairman Adrian Day said in the letter seen by Reuters.

The firm owns 3.1 million shares of Nevsun, making it the seventh-biggest shareholder based on public filings, Day said.

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Reliance on Congo Cobalt Grows Despite European Discoveries – by Jason Deign (Green Tech Media – June 5, 2018)

https://www.greentechmedia.com/

“Ultimately, there will be no lithium-ion industry without DRC cobalt.”

The lithium-ion battery industry’s dependence on cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo will rise despite ore discoveries in Europe, analysts believe.

Caspar Rawles, an analyst with Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said the percentage of global cobalt supply coming from the DRC was set to go up from 66 percent in 2017 to more than 73 percent by 2023, even though mining firms are rushing to uncover deposits elsewhere.

Last month, for example, the Australian production and processing company Lithium Australia announced the discovery of cobalt mineralization at mines in Eichigt, in the state of Saxony in Germany.

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A piece of Britain lost in Mexico – by Lauren Cocking (BBC.com – May 21, 2018)

http://www.bbc.com/

To understand how a bit of British legacy can be found in Hidalgo, Mexico, we must look back two centuries to the heyday of Cornwall’s mining industry.

As I squeezed my way through the crowd, Marion Symonds was busy crimping one side of a 4.5m-long pasty in the central plaza. All eyes were on this Cornish baker as she held the still-malleable pastry shell in her hands, delicately crimping the edges of the dough with her fingertips to seal in the beef, potato and onion.

Looking at the sloping red roofs and manicured gardens around us, you’d have thought Symonds and I were somewhere in our native England. In fact, we were in the tiny town of Real del Monte in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo. At the other end of the oversized snack, a local chef was crimping the Mexican way, slapping the pastry shut with the side of a hand atop a table.

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Britain yet to renew visa of Russian billionaire Abramovich: sources – by Polina Devitt (Reuters U.S. – May 20, 2018)

https://ca.reuters.com/

MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) – British authorities, whose relations with Moscow have been strained, are yet to renew Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s visa after it expired last month, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Abramovich, best known in Britain as the owner of Premier League soccer club Chelsea, is in the process of renewing his visa as part of a standard procedure, one of the sources said.

It is taking longer than usual but there is no indication that the visa will not be renewed as there is no refusal or negative feedback, he added. Millhouse, the company that manages Abramovich’s assets, declined to comment. Britain’s Home Office could not be reached for comment.

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Eritrea ‘poison pill’ complicates miner Lundin’s aspirations: sources – by Nicole Mordant and Susan Taylor (Reuters U.S. – May 17, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

VANCOUVER/TORONTO (Reuters) – The weak human rights record of one of Africa’s poorest countries is coming between Lundin Mining Corp and its pursuit of a prized European copper and gold asset. Cash-rich Lundin’s latest run at fellow Canadian miner Nevsun Resources Ltd is designed to bag the Timok project in Serbia, but it had to bring on a partner to pick up Nevsun’s Bisha mine in Eritrea.

That is because Lundin Mining’s board of directors, chaired by billionaire resources tycoon Lukas Lundin, refuses to invest in Eritrea, according to four people familiar with, but not able to speak publicly on, the matter.

They will not own the Eritrean mine “for even one second,” one of the people said. That stance is not necessarily a deal breaker, said an investor who declined to be named.

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