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International Media Resource Articles

How Sahel states ditched Western mining interests – by Antonio Cascais (DW.com – February 14, 2025)

https://www.dw.com/en/

Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso no longer orient themselves towards France or Western business interests. As demand for raw materials grows, this pivot may have significant consequences for Europe’s mineral supply.

Despite their citizens being among Africa’s poorest, Mali, Niger,and Burkina Faso boast mineral riches beyond the dreams of most nations. All three Sahel countries have sizable gold deposits, and minerals increasingly important for renewable energy production.

Mali has gold, oil, and gas, and recently opened two lithium mines. Niger’s natural resources include uranium, tin, oil, phosphates, and gold. Burkina Faso is one of Africa’s largest gold producers, but also has copper, zinc, manganese, and phosphates.

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[Evalyn Walsh McLean/Hope Diamond] The Lady and the Diamond – by Gary Cohen (Vanity Fair – August 1997)

https://archive.vanityfair.com/

On Saturday, April 26, 1947, the temperature in Washington, D.C., crept toward 70 degrees, and the magnolias and azaleas were in bloom. Taking little pleasure in the gorgeous weather, however, were those in a somber parade of the city’s most prominent citizens, which included a senator, a newspaper publisher, and even a Supreme Court justice.

They were paying a last visit to their friend Evalyn Walsh McLean, for almost 50 years one of the most exuberant and eccentric figures of Washington society. A stunning figure even into old age, with her tiny waist and chic dresses from Paris couture houses, Evalyn had also been the city’s most extravagant hostess. Her parties had sometimes featured three orchestras and as many as 2,000 guests, among whom were the president, Cabinet members, and diplomats.

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In Ukraine, a potential arms-for-minerals deal inspires hope and skepticism – by Samya Kullab and Hanna Arhirova (Associated Press – February 16, 2025)

https://apnews.com/

KIROVOHRAD REGION, Ukraine (AP) — The mineral ilmenite is extracted from mounds of sand deep in the earth and refined using a method that summons the force of gravity, resulting in a substance that glimmers like a moonlit sky.

Ukraine boasts vast reserves of ilmenite — a key element used to produce titanium — in the heavy mineral sands that stretch for miles along the country’s embattled east. Much of it, as with all of Ukraine’s critical minerals industry, is underdeveloped because of war as well as onerous state policies.

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Column: Tariff threat opens up transatlantic rift in copper pricing – by Andy Home (Reuters – February 12, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

US President Donald Trump hasn’t yet imposed import tariffs on copper but the market is already pricing in the likelihood that the red metal will be next on the list after aluminum and steel.

The arbitrage between the CME and the London Metal Exchange (LME) contracts has blown wider in recent days, with the CME premium exceeding $1,000 per metric ton earlier this week. Given that LME three-month copper is currently trading around $9,400 per ton, the transatlantic gap implies the market is expecting a 10% tariff at the very least.

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Are critical minerals trump card in US-China chip showdown? – by Francesca Price (S&P Global – February 13, 2025)

https://www.spglobal.com/

On Dec. 3, 2024, China’s Ministry of Commerce implemented export bans on key semiconductor materials, including gallium and germanium, to the US. While these minerals had already been subject to existing export restrictions introduced in July 2023, this is the first time China has specifically targeted the US.

To date, US legislation has focused on strengthening the downstream part of the semiconductor supply chain, leaving US technologies vulnerable to upstream supply chain disruption.US-China tensions centered on semiconductors and critical minerals are apt to continue rising as each government deploys the levers at its disposal, including restrictions on the upstream supply of materials key to the chip sector.

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Proposed bill would bar state permitting of copper-nickel mines near Boundary Waters – by Jimmy Lovrien (Duluth News Tribune – February 13, 2025)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Past federal protections against mining in the BWCAW watershed face challenges.

ST. PAUL — Minnesota legislators have introduced a bill to bar copper-nickel mines from developing within the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The bill seeks to ban mining on state-owned land within the Rainy River Watershed and bar the state from permitting any mining or mineral exploration in that watershed.

Mining is banned in the BWCAW, but environmentalists fear, and a federal government study released under President Joe Biden said, that tainted runoff from mining activities outside the wilderness’ boundaries but within the same watershed could harm the downstream wilderness area.

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[Critical Minerals] Ukraine’s Best Hope for Creating Lasting Security – by Oleksandr Kubrakov (Time Magazine – February 13, 2025)

https://time.com/

U.S. access to Ukraine’s vast and largely untapped rare earths and other critical minerals in exchange for a “security shield” is the latest twist in the potential peace plan for the war in Ukraine. And it is picking up steam with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv and President Donald Trump stunning Europe by revealing he has already begun talks with Vladimir Putin.

But while U.S. investment in this underdeveloped sector would be an important positive development for both Ukraine’s economy and immediate security, it’s only one element in an absent economic strategy that Ukraine needs to create a lasting security guarantee from future Russian aggression.

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Trump’s order to end minting of pennies will save taxpayers millions without much impact on Arizona copper mines – by Matthew DeWees (Cronkite News/AZPM.org – February 13, 2025)

https://news.azpm.org/

The cost of producing a penny has far exceeded the value of each coin for the past 19 years.

Most copper mined in the U.S. comes from Arizona. But President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he will halt production of pennies won’t make a dent in the state’s mining industry. The U.S. Mint produced 3.2 billion pennies last year. But since 1982, nearly all of the metal used has been zinc.

So the copper industry can shrug off Trump’s move, which economists have long called a no-brainer because each penny costs more to make than it’s worth – 3.69 cents as of last year – and most end up in jars, piggy banks, and sofa cushions.

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Exclusive: China’s BYD holds mining rights in Brazil’s Lithium Valley, documents show – by Fabio Teixeira (Reuters – February 14, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO-Chinese electric carmaker BYD acquired mineral rights for two plots of land in a lithium-rich part of Brazil in 2023, entering the mining business in its biggest market outside of China, according to public records reviewed by Reuters.

The EV producer’s acquisition of mineral rights in Brazil is its most concrete step so far toward mining strategic minerals in the Western Hemisphere. The previously unreported acquisition of the mineral rights in late 2023 was made by BYD subsidiary Exploracao Mineral do Brasil, which was created in May of that year, documents showed.

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US Should Stop Closure of Coal-Fired Power Plants, Wright Says – by Ari Natter (Bloomberg News – February 11, 2025)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The US should stop the closure of coal-fired power plants, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, adding the fuel source would be essential to the nation’s power system for decades to come.

“We are on a path to continually shrink the electricity we generate from coal,” Wright said Tuesday on Bloomberg Television. “That has made electricity more expensive and our grid less stable.” Wright’s remarks come as demand for electricity is surging to feed power-thirsty data centers needed for artificial intelligence, new factories and the overall electrification of the economy.

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A Reminder on Valentine’s Day: That Diamond Might Not Be Conflict-Free – by Alex Cuadros (New York Times – February 13, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

In the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, people across the world rush to buy diamond engagement rings. By now most will know that in the past, many diamonds were mined in African war zones where rebel groups used the proceeds to fund their violent insurgencies. To assuage any guilt that may taint the romantic gesture, the diamond industry tells us that today, 99 percent of diamonds are now “conflict-free.”

It’s true there has been progress. A generation ago, as much as 15 percent of global diamond production was believed to be linked to conflict. But in 2003, thanks to public pressure and awareness campaigns by organizations like Global Witness, a certificate system known as the Kimberley Process was born.

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Congo-Kinshasa: Why Conflict Mineral Narratives Don’t Explain the M23 Rebellion in DR Congo – by Judith Verweijen and Christoph Vogel (All Africa – February 2025)

https://allafrica.com/

Utrecht and Dakar — “Most reporting on the conflict is using questionable framings, suggesting it is purely driven by a desire to plunder the region’s rich mineral resources.” The capture of North Kivu’s provincial capital, Goma, by the M23 armed group last month has multiplied international coverage of the forgotten crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet most reporting on the conflict is using mistaken framings, suggesting it is purely driven by a desire to plunder the region’s rich mineral resources.

The conflict minerals narrative contains several tropes: Proponents claim that the M23 and its Rwandan allies launched the insurgency to loot large quantities of minerals from neighbouring DRC; that Western electronics or tech corporations buy violently exploited minerals and thus become complicit in the conflict; and that the war is driven by competition for so-called critical minerals required by the energy transition.

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Uranium ban repeal in Greenland could revive massive rare earth project, licence holder says – by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen (Reuters – February 11, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

NUUK, Greenland – The mining company that owns the licence to Greenland’s Kvanefjeld deposit is hopeful that a new government will repeal a ban on uranium mining after next month’s election, potentially rejuvenating one of the world’s largest rare earth projects.

U.S President Donald Trump last month voiced renewed interest in acquiring the strategically important Arctic island. In response to Trump’s comments, CEO Daniel Mamadou of Kvanefjeld licence holder Energy Transition Minerals said: “I think it certainly puts everything related to minerals back on the map.”

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Trump Orders Treasury Secretary to Stop Minting Pennies – by Yan Zhuang and Erica L. Green (New York Times – February 10, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Can he do that? It’s not clear. But President Trump is right when he says that pennies “literally cost us more than 2 cents.”

Since taking office, President Trump has set his sights on big targets, like Greenland. But he has also taken aim at small ones, like paper straws. And pennies. On Sunday night, Mr. Trump said he had ordered the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending.

“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said in a post on Truth Social, adding that pennies “literally cost us more than 2 cents.” It is unclear whether Mr. Trump has the power to do this. It is Congress, not the Treasury or the Federal Reserve, that authorizes the manufacture of the nation’s coins, according to the U.S. Mint.

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‘Unclear’ US Diamond Rules Signal Move to Traceability – by Joshua Freedman (Rapaport Magazine – February 4, 2025)

New Home

New requirements to state “country of mining” leave a lot of unanswered questions.

The diamond industry was in mild shock when news came through of the latest US import requirements. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it would be obliging companies to state the “country of mining” when importing diamonds from April 2025. This puts a burden on the trade to step up its traceability efforts.

The new rules emerged quietly in stages. On October 22, 2024, CBP gave 60 days’ notice about the plan and requested comments by December 23. Few in the industry even saw this. Then the federal agency published a Trade User Information Notice, labeled “Last updated: January 14, 2025.” It distributed this in a bulletin on January 23. Shipping company Malca-Amit sent a letter to customers about the update around a week ago. It seems that it was this letter that got the trade’s attention.

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