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Europe Mining

Germany’s Blood Coal – by Andreas Macho (Handelsblatt Global – July 13, 2017)

https://global.handelsblatt.com/

Activists say that demand for cheap Colombian coal from German utilities such as Uniper and RWE is leading to systematic killings and evictions in the country.

It’s not often that the subject of murder is raised at a shareholder meeting. So it’s fair to say that the comments made by Maina van der Zwan at the otherwise uneventful AGM of German energy company Uniper were unexpected.

Holding up a grainy picture of a Colombian man, the activist at Dutch NGO Pax announced: “He was the spokesman for a community which had opposed the expansion plans of a mining company in the Colombian region of Cesar. On September 11, he was murdered in cold blood.”

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Rusal resumes Taishet aluminum project, sees deeper global deficit – by Anastasia Lyrchikova(Reuters U.S. – July 12, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Rusal has resumed construction of its long-stalled Taishet aluminum smelter project in Siberia in expectation of a widening global aluminum deficit, the company said on Wednesday.

The world’s second-largest aluminum producer behind China’s Hongqiao needs a further $700 million to complete the project, having invested about $800 million in Taishet before it was halted because of falling aluminum prices.

Aluminum prices have jumped by 12 percent to $1,887 a tonne since the start of January and Rusal expects them to climb above $1,900 by the end of the year, said Deputy Chief Executive Oleg Mukhamedshin, citing the company’s belief that the global deficit will reach 1.8 million tonnes in 2018, up 500,000 tonnes this year.

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Life In Norilsk, A Frozen Gulag Turned Mining Town – by Emmanuel Grynszpan (World Crunch.com – January 11, 2017)

https://www.worldcrunch.com/

NORILSK — The belly of Mother Russia is most fertile 1,000 meters underground and 300 kilometers north of the polar circle. Outside, the temperature can drop as low as -60 degrees Fahrenheit. But down below, it’s warm and moist. And the walls shine. The blocks that detach themselves as bulldozers strike the stone are loaded with precious and semi-precious metals: nickel, copper, palladium and platinum.

In the “Skalista” mine, in Norilsk, monstrous machines stride along a maze of tunnels that will soon reach 2,000 meters below ground level. The sound of the machines shaving off the walls is terrible. Danger is omnipresent. “The worst thing is the fires,” explains Ivan Grinchuk, lead engineer at the mining group Komsomolsky, an affiliate of Norilsk Nickel.

This year, at least four miners have lost their lives in accidents. “What can I say? That’s how mining is. It’s the same all over the world,” says Grinchuk, who’s been working in Norilsk for 20 years. “It was a lot worse in the 1960s,” he adds. Grinchuk says the accidents are often caused by drunk workers. “When that’s the case,” he explains, “their families don’t get any compensation payments.”

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Eldorado finishes Integra Gold acquisition, expands operations in Canada – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – July 10, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

Canada’s miner Eldorado Gold (TSX:ELD) (NYSE:EGO) has taken over Integra Gold (TSX-V:ICG) in a move that helps it strengthen its position in the home country, particularly around the gold-rich Eastern Abitibi region, in Quebec.

The deal, worth about Cdn$590 million (US$457 at today’s rates), was approved by Integra shareholders and the Supreme Court of British Columbia last week.

The transaction gives Integra shareholders about Cdn$129 million cash and 77 million common shares of Eldorado, for all the issued common shares of Integra that the company did not already own. That represents roughly 10% of the total issued common shares of Eldorado, post-completion of the arrangement, the company said in the statement.

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A Gold Rush Revival in Italy, With Nuggets the Size of Bread Crumbs – by Elisabetta Povoledo (New York Times – June 28, 2017)

https://www.nytimes.com/

VERMOGNO DI ZUBIENA, Italy — Italy may not be the first place that leaps to mind when you hear the words gold rush. But for thousands of years this neck of the northern Piedmont region, what some call Italy’s Klondike, has attracted prospectors seeking gold flowing down the Elvo River from deposits left eons ago by receding Alpine glaciers.

Gold rushes in the area have ebbed and flowed over the centuries, but they have seen a revival in recent, recession-hit years. Increasing numbers of people have been contacting local gold-seeking associations hoping to get rich quick.

Last weekend, panners from around the world even descended on a clearing for the Italian Goldpanning Championship. Under a hot sun, they stooped knee deep in mucky water, swishing sand and gravel around a flat grooved pan in search of gold specks.

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Canada’s Gabriel Resources sues Romania for a record C$5.7bn – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – June 29, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian project developer Gabriel Resources is suing Romania for a record C$5.7-billion before the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the TSX-listed company revealed on Thursday.

The company hopes to tie up a drawn out dispute with the country’s fluid government, based on what it argues boils down to the effective expropriation, without compensation, of its flagship Roşia Montană gold/silver project – the largest undeveloped gold deposit in Europe and among the top 20 undeveloped gold projects globally.

“The ICSID arbitration seeks compensation for the loss and damage resulting from the Romanian State’s wrongful conduct and its breaches of protections against expropriation as set out under bilateral treaties, as well as its unfair and inequitable treatment and discrimination of the project and related licences,” Gabriel president and CEO Jonathan Henry told Mining Weekly Online.

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Russia’s Nornickel in talks to supply materials for BASF’s battery plans (Reuters U.S. – June 27, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

Russia’s mining giant Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) (GMKN.MM) is in talks with German chemicals firm BASF (BASFn.DE) to supply raw materials needed in the process for making lithium-ion batteries in Europe in the future, they said on Tuesday.

The talks between BASF and Nornickel, the world’s second largest nickel producer and a major cobalt producer, highlight the burgeoning market for metals needed for lithium-ion batteries production as the car industry’s push towards electric vehicles gathers pace.

Nornickel and BASF said in a joint statement the talks covered “cooperation to set the foundation to supply battery cell producers for electric vehicles in Europe with regionally produced cathode materials.”

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Peter Hambro ousted from his gold mining company Petropavlovsk – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.K. – June 22, 2017)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON – Shareholders voted for four new board members at Russian-focused gold miner Petropavlovsk (POG.L) on Thursday, ousting Peter Hambro who has run the company since he founded it in 1994. Rebel shareholders, holding around 40 percent of the company, backed nominees to replace four out of six of the board at Petropavlovsk, including Hambro, Hambro said.

The new appointments include Bruce Buck, who is chairman of Chelsea Football Club, and Vladislav Egorov, who works for Renova, Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg’s conglomerate. Speaking after the annual general meeting at a city lawyers’ offices on the banks of the Thames in London, Peter Hambro said he could not disguise his disappointment.

But he hoped “with all my heart” the new board would build on progress he said the company had made. “I will enjoy my new role as an ordinary shareholder and in it I shall advocate for a continuation of the same transparency, diligence and good corporate governance that I believe we achieved at Petropavlovsk,” he said.

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Bringing Gold Back to Germany – by Moa Fromm (Handelsblatt Global – June 12, 2017)

https://global.handelsblatt.com/

The German central bank is currently repatriating much of its overseas gold, but part of the reserves is going to stay abroad. It was a scare from Germany’s Federal Audit Office that the public actually paid attention to. In 2012 financial controllers said they were unsure whether the gold reserves of Germany’s Bundesbank actually physically existed.

The Federal Audit Office demanded the central bank make regularly spot checks so that gold reserves abroad should be “physically counted and their authenticity and weight” confirmed. We’re not talking peanuts here. Following the United States, Germany has the world’s largest gold reserve, constituting two-thirds of German currency reserves. And in 2012, around 70 percent of the total of 3,378 tons of the precious metal (total value around €119 billion or $132.98 billion) was in the vaults of foreign central banks.

The Bundesbank took the suggestion to heart and discretely transferred 300 tons of gold stored in the vaults of the US Federal Reserve to Frankfurt over the past years. Over 100 tons were brought home in 2016 alone.

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Miners eye Europe’s largest lithium deposit in Czech Republic – by Robert Muller (Reuters U.S. – June 7, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

CINOVEC, CZECH REPUBLIC – Mining for lithium could start in the Czech Republic in two years, exploiting Europe’s largest resource of the metal that is used in batteries for electric vehicles and home power storage.

The deposits lie around Cinovec, a village with a tradition of mining since the 14th century and situated near the border with Germany, the industrial powerhouse at the heart of Europe’s bid to build electric cars and develop battery technology.

The resource, a term used for a deposit whose extent has yet to be proven by exploration, could amount to 1.3 million tonnes, or about 3 percent of the global lithium stock, according to the Czech Geological Survey.

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UN climate conference 2018 heads to heartland of Polish coal – by Karl Mathiesen (Climate Change News – June 1, 2017)

http://www.climatechangenews.com/

The pivotal 2018 UN climate conference will be held in the heart of Poland’s coal mining industry, in a move that has angered some campaigners but offered others hope that it symbolises transition away from fossil fuels. The town of Katowice – founded on coal mining – is in the heart of the Upper Silesian coal basin and plays host to one of the European mining industry’s biggest trade fairs.

The choice of town was announced by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the day US president Donald Trump was expected to leave the Paris climate agreement.Poland has long been a reluctant participant in the UN process, dragged into an ambitious EU negotiating bloc but influenced by the powerful domestic coal industry.

Climate Home revealed this week that the country is now part of a concerted effort by eastern European countries to water down the EU laws that would help keep the promises made under the accord.

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UK takes step closer to national electric battery hub – by Costas Pitas (Reuters U.S. – May 31, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

COVENTRY, ENGLAND – Britain is moving towards creating a new national development hub for electric car batteries with officials setting out plans for companies to work together to improve the technology, possibly paving the way for large-scale local production.

Representatives from politics, academia and business in the central English city of Coventry, the historic heart of the British car industry, have pitched plans for a “National Battery Prototyping Centre” which would focus on research and development and testing.

Local government officials set out their plans to create the center, with state help, at an event on Tuesday attended by the business minister and by Ralf Speth, the chief executive of Britain’s biggest carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover, who has said he wants to build electric models in the country.

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Turkey’s mining sector to outperform most European peers, but risks persist – by Mariaan Webb (MiningWeekly.com – May 31, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Turkey’s mining sector is forecast to be one of the fastest growing in Europe, with the country boasting a “healthy” project pipeline of up to ten new projects, but ongoing political and social unrest has been flagged as a threat to the positive outlook.

Research firm BMI is forecasting average growth of 6.8% a year in Turkey’s mining sector over the next five years, with the country set to outperform all other European countries, except for Finland.

In an ‘Industry Trend Analysis’ report, published on Tuesday, BMI identifies gold and copper as the “clear growth bright spots”, forecasting gold production growth of 4.8% year-on-year between 2017 and 2021.

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Exclusive – Chinese company confirms huge UK fertiliser deal – by Alasdair Pal and Adam Jourdan (Reuters U.K. – May 17, 2017)

http://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON/SHANGHAI – A small Chinese company that is key to plans by Sirius Minerals to build a huge fertilizer mine under a national park in the north of England has confirmed it has a binding agreement with the UK firm.

DianHuang CEO Wang Xiaotian reiterated the agreement in a letter to Reuters on May 15, saying it had been signed on May 27 last year. DianHuang would buy 150,000 tonnes of the mineral polyhalite a year from first extraction in 2021, scaling up to a million tonnes a year over five years as part of plans to grow peony flowers and extract edible oil from their seeds, he said.

The reassurance from Wang followed a May 8 telephone interview with Reuters in which he said the two firms were still negotiating. The DianHuang deal is the biggest take-or-pay agreement Sirius has inked so far with a named customer. By demonstrating confirmed demand for its product, it helped Sirius raise $1.2 billion in financing for the mine and win planning permission from the North York Moors national park.

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These were the top producing diamond mines in 2016 – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 9, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

While diamond industry experts warn that demand is expected to outstrip supply as early as 2019, the largest mines keep producing the coveted rocks at full steam. Here are last year’s top 10 diamond mines in terms of output and value, based on data compiled by expert Paul Zimnisky.

1. Jwaneng, Botswana: Produced 11,975,000 carats, worth $2,347 million

Jwaneng, the richest diamond mine in the world, is located in south-central Botswana in the Naledi river valley of the Kalahari. It’s 2 kilometres across at its widest point and patrolled by colossal 300-tonne trucks that labour up the terraced slopes.

Nicknamed “the Prince of Mines”, Jwaneng was opened in 1982, as the diamond trade helped Botswana go from being one of the world’s poorest countries to one of Africa’s wealthiest.

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