Norilsk Nickel Urges Output Cuts From Other Miners – by Alex MacDonald (Wall Street Journal – May 17, 2016)

http://www.wsj.com/

LONDON– Norilsk Nickel Mining & Metallurgical Co. (NILSY), the world’s largest nickel producer, is urging other nickel miners to consider cutting production in response to the low price environment, but said it won’t contribute to those cuts.

The Russian nickel producer, which also produces palladium, platinum and copper, estimates that about 70% of the world’s nickel production capacity is currently loss-making, but only 17% is at risk of shutting down even though the nickel price hit a 12-year low in February and is still down 37% over the past year.

“We do hope that…this year there will be serious discussions at management and boardroom [levels] as to how they should react to the market, because for us there should be some response from the industry” to the price drop, said Sergey Dubovitskiy, Norilsk’s head of strategy. But “given our lowest cost position on the cost curve, this shouldn’t be us,” he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Tuesday.

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Top Palladium Miner Rebuffs Risk of Tesla Electric Car Boom – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – May 16, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The rise of Tesla Motors Inc.’s electric cars won’t be enough to change the market for conventional vehicles or dent demand for the precious metals used to filter exhaust fumes, according to GMK Norilsk Nickel PJSC.

The lack of infrastructure to charge them and the pressure on power grids means that in the long term, the vehicles may comprise just 15 percent of the total auto market, according to Anton Berlin, head of analysis and market development for Norilsk. In the next five years, the market’s size will be limited to about 2 percent.

Norilsk is the world’s biggest producer of palladium, which are used along with platinum in catalytic converters that reduce car pollution. While the company would lose some business if electric cars, which don’t produce toxic emissions, becomes a significant part of the auto industry, it would benefit from more demand for nickel, which is used in the batteries.

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[Diamond miner Alrosa] Privatising Russian state companies – by Anna Kuchma (Russia and India Report – May 16, 2016)

http://in.rbth.com/

The Russian government said at the beginning of this year that it had “a large privatization plan”, within the framework of which it intends to get one trillion rubles ($12.6 billion) in two years. The plan for 2016 includes the sale of shares in two oil companies, Rosneft and Bashneft, a share package in one of the largest state banks, BTV, and the Alrosa diamond company.

At the end of April 2016, the privatization format of the list’s first company was determined. The government decided to sell 10.9 percent of Alrosa, Russia’s largest diamond mining company, in the Moscow Stock Exchange, writes the Vedomosti newspaper.

The schedule for the sale is not specified. Earlier, the government considered selling the package to a strategic partner. However, the company itself requested public privatization.

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Finnish government plans $113 mln funding for nickel mine – sources – by Jussi Rosendahl (Daily Mail – May 13, 2016)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

HELSINKI, May 13 (Reuters) – The Finnish government is planning to inject around 100 million euros ($113 million) into Terrafame Mining, the state-owned company that runs Talvivaara’s former nickel mine, but may eventually still have to close the operation, sources said.

The government is planning to propose this month that parliament approve the funding, which would keep the mine running until the end of the year, two sources who declined to be named told Reuters.

“A closure of the mine is an option that will be considered,” a government source said. The government took control of the mine last year, aiming to avert a closure at the site in northern Finland where around 950 people including contractors worked as of the end of March.

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Cornwall tin: Rivival of the fittest – by Laura Fusher and Jamie Keech (Mining.com – May 3, 2016)

http://www.mining.com/

There are few English dishes more satisfying than a Cornish pasty. A crescent shaped pastry filled with steaming beef and swede, the pasty somehow manages to be simultaneously sweet and savoury, dainty yet robust. Perfected by Cornish wives in the 17th century, they were designed to be the perfect companion for the legendary Cornish miner.

Held by the thick crimped crust in a grimy hand, pasties were (and still are) a hearty meal that could be devoured quickly whilst one was covered in dust in the depths of a tin mine. To this day there are few main streets throughout Cornwall’s seaside towns that don’t proudly boast a pasty shop, and they remain one of the lasting legacies of a once booming tin industry.

However pasty’s may once again grace the hands of Cornish miners because tin mining in the UK appears to be seeing something of a revival. Australia’s Wolf Minerals proved it was possible to bring British metal mining out of the grave with commissioning of their Drakelands Tungsten and Tin Mine in 2015 – the first producing metal mine in the UK in forty years.

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Climate protesters invade UK’s largest opencast coalmine – by Steve Morris (The Guardian – May 3, 2016)

http://www.theguardian.com/

Hundreds of environmental activists have invaded the UK’s largest opencast coalmine and halted operations across the vast site.

Dressed in red boiler suits, groups of protesters crossed barbed wire fences to gain access to Ffos-y-fran mine near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. Some chained themselves to machinery, others lay across access roads. Dozens of protesters, joined by local people, also blockaded the entrance to the mine’s headquarters.

The action in Wales marks the start of a global wave of direct action coordinated by the group Reclaim the Power supporting a transition away from fossil fuels in 13 countries including Germany, South Africa, Indonesia and North America over the next two weeks.

Following a weekend of planning, protesters entered the site shortly after dawn on Tuesday.

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In Ukraine’s ‘Klondike,’ a Rush for Stolen Gems – by Ladka Mortkowitz Bauerova and Kateryna Choursina (Bloomberg News – April 29, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Despite a ban on mining, an illegal trade in amber is flourishing.

Just outside the western Ukrainian village of Kukhitska Volya, the dense forest turns into a moonscape of mud-filled craters and mutilated trees. The locals call the place a “Klondike,” an illegal mine where hundreds of men and women dig amber—the fossilized resin of trees that died 40 million years ago—out of the swampy soil.

Using gas-powered pumps, the miners inject water 10 to 20 feet into the ground, dislodging dirt and the occasional load of honey-hued gems. As word spreads of the approach of an unfamiliar car, the workers hastily load their equipment onto trucks and speed off. In less than five minutes, everyone is gone.

The site is one of scores of Ukrainian amber fields where wildcat prospectors dig up the stones. The State Geology Committee estimates the country has as much as 15,000 tons of amber buried in its western forests, and with virtually no law enforcement—and what participants say are corrupt local officials—illegal mining has supplanted more expensive legal methods of extracting amber.

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Delay, delay for KGHM’s Sudbury Victoria mine project – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – April 29, 2016)

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Sudbury’s next great base metals mine is “advancing,” but at a “reduced pace.” That’s the word coming from Polish mining giant KGHM International on its Victoria Mine project, lauded by many in the Sudbury camp as the next great nickel and base metals mine.

After some layoffs in March, the company issued an April 29 news release with a reassuring tone amid ongoing rumours in the community that the company might be mothballing the project.

“Although the anticipated date of commencement of construction of Victoria has been delayed, this does not impact other necessary and essential activities at Victoria,” said the release. “Development activities will continue to progress to ensure that the project is ready to commence construction when the market conditions for base metals improve.”

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How a Canadian tech magnate plans to save Britain’s steel industry – by Paul Waldie (Globe and Mail – April 27, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Sir Terry Matthews made a fortune in the technology sector with a string of companies including Mitel Corp., Corel Corp. and Newbridge Networks, which he sold in 2000 for $7-billlion (U.S.) in stock. Now, Sir Terry is returning to his roots in Wales for what may be his greatest challenge yet: trying to revive Britain’s largest steel plant.

Sir Terry has created Excalibur Steel UK Ltd., and he’s rounding up investors to buy the troubled Tata steel mill in Port Talbot near Swansea. Tata put its British operations up for sale in March, saying the division, which includes three steel-making facilities, was inefficient. The Port Talbot plant is the largest, employing roughly 15,000 people directly and indirectly.

The challenge for any buyer is daunting. The integrated plant, which makes strip steel used in auto manufacturing, construction and appliances, is outdated and losing about $2-million a day. Energy costs are twice as high as elsewhere in Europe and steel prices have plummeted because of oversupply from China.

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France to lend $340 mln to New Caledonia nickel group – media (Reuters U.S. – April 26, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

France is set to provide 300 million euros ($340 million) in loans to New Caledonia nickel producer Societe Le Nickel (SLN) as it struggles with weak prices for the metal, a French weekly newspaper reported.

Le Journal du Dimanche reported the move on Sunday, citing unidentified sources. It comes as French Prime Minister Manual Valls is due to visit the French territory in the Pacific later this week.

Nickel output accounts for about a fifth of New Caledonia’s economy. But a slump in prices is pressuring its three smelters, owned by Glencore, Vale and SLN, a unit of French conglomerate Eramet.

New Caledonia holds around a quarter of the world’s reserves of nickel, used in everything from stainless steel to batteries.

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Mining in the United Kingdom – by Paul Boughton (Engineer Live – April 22, 2016)

http://www.engineerlive.com/

Jon Lawson reports on the latest from an historically significant location for mining: the UK

Mining has had a long history in Britain, and greatly influenced its economic development. One of the earliest known mines is at Grime’s Graves in Norfolk, Eastern England, where Neolithic people excavated high quality flint over 5,000 years ago. They dug some 400 pits using tools made from deer antler.

In more modern times, the abundance of coal underpinned the industrial revolution, and at one time before WW1, one million men were employed underground and there were 200 pits in Wales alone. However the industry has declined, with many unprofitable pits closing during the Thatcher administration in the 1980s.

The last deep pit, Kellingley colliery in North Yorkshire, closed at the end of 2015. With the closure was the loss of over 400 jobs. The remaining mines produce around 12 million tonnes per year.

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Copper King Turns Money Pit as Serbs Wind Down State Economy – by Gordana Filipovic and Michael Winfrey (Bloomberg News – April 19, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Miners at Serbia’s state-owned RTB Bor copper pit are worried. Their equipment is crumbling, the workforce has been diminished and it costs them more to produce the metal than they can sell it for.

“Some of our machines are older than our oldest workers,” Vlada Stefanovic, a union leader, said Thursday from his office near the huge canyon’s rose-colored terraces, carved by years of mining the mountains four hours from the capital, Belgrade. “If we had five new trucks, one dredge and a drill, there would be more work for all of us.”

That’s probably not going to happen. Bor, once the pride of Socialist Yugoslavia, is at the center of a struggle to retool a $38 billion economy that missed out on the transformation that has lifted living standards in much of former communist eastern Europe.

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Ajax mine opponents challenge economics of project – by Derrick Penner (Vancouver Sun – April 18, 2016)

http://vancouversun.com/

Environmental opponents to the KGHM Ajax Mining Inc. proposal for an open pit mine near Kamloops are questioning whether the project will wind up being a marginal operation subject to early closure, according to a recent report.

The Kamloops Area Preservation Association, with the group Mining Watch, added an economic component to their case against the mine, arguing that company estimates for long-term prices of its key products are too high and costs too low, which could affect its long-term viability.

Those groups made their case in a report, characterized as an economic risk analysis, which was in their filings to the B.C. environmental assessment process.  “Copper is in trouble and this (mine proposal) isn’t different from others,” said Joan Kuyek, the analyst who prepared the report, who is the founding national co-ordinator for Mining Watch Canada.

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Poland feels the pain of its love affair with coal – by Agnieszka Barteczko and Barbara Lewis (Reuters – April 15, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

WARSAW/BRUSSELS – For generations, the region of Silesia has been at the heart of Poland’s love affair with coal as a source of pride and heroism.

Election to Poland’s top job has depended on maintaining coal’s special national status and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, a coal miner’s daughter from Silesia, swept to office in October on a promise she would ring-fence the industry’s 100,000 jobs.

It is a pledge she is now under almost as much pressure to break as to keep. The energy ministry has said the nation’s biggest mining firm, headquartered in Silesia, risks running out of cash at the end of the month. It is a familiar cry, and in the past, funds somehow appeared.

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France considering capital increase for Eramet – newsletter (Reuters U.S. – April 4, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

The French government is looking at a comprehensive solution to revive Eramet which could include a capital increase of the ailing mining group, newsletter Lettre de l’Expansion said on Monday.

The company posted a full-year loss of 714 million euros ($812 million) in February, mainly hit by a downturn at its nickel division that has been battered by 12-year price lows linked to global oversupply and slowing Chinese demand.

Discussions took place last week between the French Investment Agency (APE), part of the economy ministry, and the Duval family, the largest shareholder of Eramet, La Lettre de l’Expansion said.

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