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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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2017 Global Natural Diamond Production Forecasted at 142M Carats Worth $15.6B – by By Paul Zimnisky (Paul Zimnisky.com – May 3, 2017)

http://www.paulzimnisky.com/

Mined diamond production in 2017 is estimated to be 142.3 million carats worth $15.6B (see appendix below), which would be an 11.5% increase in carat volume produced over 2016 and an 9.9% increase in total value produced.

The top 10 largest mines in the world by value produced are estimated to represent 58% of global production. De Beers’ Jwaneng mine in Botswana is ranked number one, and is estimated to independently produce 15% of the world’s diamonds in value. Russia is estimated to be the largest producing nation by value at 35%, followed by Botswana at 22%, Canada at 14%, Angola at 8%, South Africa at 7%, Namibia at 5%, and Australia at 3%.

Russian diamond production is dominated by ALROSA (RTS: ALRS) which is 58% owned by Russian national and regional governments. The company’s prized Jubilee mine is estimated to produce 9.2M carats worth $1.4B in 2017, which by itself represents 9% of global diamond output by value. Company-wide, ALROSA’s portfolio includes 11 mines and 5 alluvial operations, producing 27% of global diamond production by volume and 33% by value (see Figure 1 for complete company-wide production figures of major producers).

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Memorial to hundreds killed in England’s biggest mining disaster (Yorkshire Post – May 7, 2017)

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/

THE explosion made the ground shake for miles around, and flames erupted from 300 yards below. All around Barnsley – it was just before Christmas – “black snow” and burning wood fell out of the sky.

The apocalyptic scenes of December 1866 claimed 361 lives in England’s worst coal-mining disaster. The Oaks Colliery Disaster, which wrought so much devastation, was remembered yesterday as over a thousand people joined a huge procession, which bought the town to a standstill, for the unveiling of a new memorial.

In a poignant connection with the past, a steam buzzer, used to alert people of a disaster, was sounded before 20 descendants – including a Texan Sir William Jeffock, who bought his family across from the US – stepped forward to unveil the sculpture.  Its centrepiece is “Kitty” whose eyes are fixed directly on the colliery, as her child clings terrified to her shawl.

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[Norilsk, Russia] Global Lenses: Diverse political films tackle war, energy and the impact of history – by Daniel Glassman (Point Of View Magazine – April 26, 2017)

http://povmagazine.com/

Three new Canadian films take on contemporary global issues through radically different lenses. Stopping off in an Arctic Russian mining city, the ruins of Basra, Iraq and a massive thermonuclear reactor in Southern France, François Jacob’s A Moon of Nickel and Ice, Ann Shin’s My Enemy, My Brother and Mila Aung-Thwin and Van Royko’s Let There Be Light investigate the entangled issues of history, war, energy and ecology from the bottom up, through intense focuses on individuals and their stories.

Quebecois director Jacob makes his feature debut with A Moon of Nickel and Ice, a multi-faceted portrait of the Siberian nickelmining city of Norilsk. Three facts about Norilsk: It’s the world’s northernmost city with over 100,000 inhabitants; it’s one of the most polluted places in the world; and it’s a “closed city”—foreigners have been banned since 2001, and it was closed to most Russians as well during the Soviet era. Norilsk Nickel’s on-site smelting facility gives the gifts of acid rain, smog and fully 1% of the world’s sulfur dioxide emissions.

You may be wondering how they got 100,000 people to move there. Answer: they forced them. Yes, Norilsk was the site of a Soviet Gulag.

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NORILSK NICKEL WANTS BOTSWANA TO FORK OUT P2,5BN FOR DISHONOURED DEAL – by Staff (Sunday Standard – May 2, 2017)

http://www.sundaystandard.info/

Norilsk Nickel is seeking its “pound of flesh” to the tune of US$270 million (about P2,5 million) from the Botswana government over a botched deal by BCL to buy a 50-percent stake of its Nkomati Mine in South Africa last year.

The Russian mining giant on Thursday served notice to sue on the Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security, Sadique Kebonang, and the Minister of Finance and Development Planning Kenneth Matambo and the Attorney General.

Norilsk Nickel announced on its website on Friday that it intends to sue the government of Botswana “in respect of its involvement in the reckless trading of BCL Limited and BCL Investments Proprietary Limited (together “BCL”), with a view of recovering $271 million plus damages and other costs that are owed to Norilsk Nickel in relation to the sale of a 50 percent interest in the Nkomati Mine in South Africa and $6.4 million that are owed to Norilsk Nickel in relation to the sale of the Tati Mine in Botswana.

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UPDATE 1-Russia’s Nornickel says could miss 2017 output forecast by 3 pct (Reuters U.S. – April 27, 2017)

http://www.reuters.com/

Russia’s Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) could miss its 2017 production forecast for nickel and platinum group metals (PGMs) by up to 3 percent after first-quarter output fell, it said on Thursday.

Nornickel, one of the world’s largest nickel and palladium producers, added its management was looking at ways to mitigate this risk and confirmed its previous 2017 production guidance.

This year Nornickel, part-owned by Russian tycoon Vladimir Potanin and aluminium giant Rusal, plans to produce from Russian feedstock 206,000-211,000 tonnes of nickel, 377,000-387,000 tonnes of copper, 2.6-2.7 million troy ounces of palladium and 581,000-645,000 ounces of platinum.

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Russian Mining Tycoons Eyeing Return to London Stock Market – by Yuliya Fedorinova and Jack Farchy (Bloomberg News – April 26, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

For three years, Russian companies retreated from the London stock market. Now, a pair of oil and mining billionaires is hoping to break the drought.

En+ Group Ltd., owned by aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, and Polyus PJSC, a gold producer controlled by the family of Suleiman Kerimov, are planning to sell shares in May or June. If successful, they could raise as much as $3 billion in London and Moscow.

The deals will test investor appetite for Russian assets after a rally in share prices, driven by the commodities recovery and expectations of receding tensions between Moscow and the U.S. While there have been some secondary share sales in London, including by Novolipetsk Steel PJSC in December, En+ and Polyus would be the first Russian companies to join the London exchange since 2014, according to London Stock Exchange data.

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Strongbow’s South Crofty to revive age-old tin mining tradition in Cornwall – by Henry Lazenby – April 21, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VAANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Bolstered by strengthening tin prices and improving fundamental support in the long term, Canadian mineral exploration firm Strongbow Exploration is set to revive a mining tradition in England’s county of Cornwall, that reaches back thousands of years to the early Bronze Age.

The company’s flagship asset, the South Crofty project, is a past-producing underground tin/copper mine, located in the town of Pool, in the historic Cornwall tin mining district of south-west England. The project is located 390 km west-southwest of London, and is about 4.5 km south of the Celtic sea coast.

The Cornish mining industry, which started about 2150 BCE, reached its peak in the nineteenth century, when thousands of workers were employed in up to 2 000 mines, before the industry collapsed when ores began to be produced more cheaply abroad in Malaysia and Indonesia, among others, Strongbow president and CEO Richard Williams tells Mining Weekly Online in an interview.

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Galantas Gold plummets as it halts Irish mine expansion on terrorism fears – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 24, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

Shares in Galantas Gold (TSX, LON:GAL) collapsed in London Monday after the Canadian miner announced it had halted expansion work at its Omagh gold mine as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it was unable to guarantee it the necessary “anti-terrorism cover” for its blasting operations.

The Toronto-based company, which had has begun underground development at Omagh last month, was going to create 130 new jobs due to the expansion, but it now says it was reviewing potential redundancies with recently hired mine staff, and any new recruitment or ongoing investment had been “deferred”.

The stock plummeted on the news and it was down almost 33% to 4.65p at 1:41PM GMT, while it was trading 20% lower in Toronto at 9:38AM. PSNI told the company that due to resource constraints and competing priorities, it was currently only prepared to provide anti-terrorism cover for a maximum of a two-hour period, two days a week.

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For First Time Since 1800s, Britain Goes a Day Without Burning Coal for Electricity – by Katrin Bennhold (New York Times – April 21, 2017)

https://www.nytimes.com/

LONDON — Friday was the first full day since the height of the Industrial Revolution that Britain did not burn coal to generate electricity, a development that officials and climate change activists celebrated as a watershed moment.

The accomplishment became official just before 11 p.m., when the 24-hour period ended.
Coal powered Britain into the industrial age and into the 21st century, contributing greatly to the “pea souper” fogs that were thought for decades to be a natural phenomenon of the British climate.

For many living in the mining towns up and down the country, it was not just the backbone of the economy but a way of life. But the industry has been in decline for some time. The last deep coal mine closed in December 2015, though open cast mining has continued.

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Indigenous law banishes a giant B.C. mine – by Elizabeth McSheffrey (National Observer – April 21, 2017)

http://www.nationalobserver.com/

The moment you step onto Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwépemc land in southern British Columbia, according to Chief Ron Ignace, you are a beggar. As an outsider, you have no rights and you’ve strayed away from your home and family. You are considered a poor person, he tells National Observer, and you are beholden to the First Nations on whose territory you stand.

His message takes aim at anyone who wants to do business or travel on his nation’s land, be they tourists, government, companies, fishers, or boaters.

“The days of colonial authoritarianism are over,” he says. “It’s time for Canada to recognize that we are nations, as nations we have rights to our land, and if we are approached honourably, we can sit down and come to a fair and just conclusion.”

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