If China Killed Commodity Super Cycle, Fed to Bury It – by Kevin Crowley (Bloomberg News – November 25, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

For commodities, it’s like the 21st century never happened.

The last time the Bloomberg Commodity Index of investor returns was this low, Apple Inc.’s best-selling product was a desktop computer, and you could pay for it with francs and deutsche marks.

The gauge tracking the performance of 22 natural resources has plunged two-thirds from its peak, to the lowest level since 1999. That shows it’s back to square one for the so-called commodity super cycle, a hunger for coal, oil and metals from Chinese manufacturers that powered a bull market for about a decade until 2011.

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Elliott Confirms Alcoa Stake, Supports Plans to Split Company – by Sonja Elmquist and Joe Deaux (Bloomberg News – November 23, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Normally when an activist investor shows up on a shareholder register it comes with a set of ultimatums. Not with Alcoa Inc., where the arrival of Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. was seen as an endorsement.

Alcoa was the best performer among major metal and mining shares on Monday as Elliott disclosed a 6.4 percent shareholding, saying Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld’s plan to split the company in two would “create value substantially above the current share price.”

Elliott, which has sought changes at major companies including Hess Corp. and Samsung Group, built up the Alcoa stake on the assumption that the market was undervaluing its manufacturing business because of the metal price rout, according to people familiar with the transaction, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public information.

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Coal communities see bleak future as Obama agenda speeds industry decline – by Ben Wolfgang (Washington Times – November 24, 2015)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio — Frank Stupak got his start in the coal business just as it was beginning its steep decline, and while there’s little chance the industry will ever return to its glory days, the 27-year-old safety manager isn’t giving up hope.

“We know what our industry did for this country. Hopefully someday we’ll get back there,” he said while deep inside an Ohio County Coal Company mine along the Ohio-West Virginia border, coal dust filling the air around him and the sound of machinery nearly drowning out his voice.

Mr. Stupak came to work for the Ohio County Coal Company — a subsidiary of Murray Energy Corp., the nation’s largest coal-mining operation — after briefly attending college but deciding “it wasn’t really my thing.”

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From worst polluter to climate leader, Australia’s Greens have plausible plan – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – November 23, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

Nov 23 – How do you go from being the worst per capita polluter to among the lowest in just 15 years? The Australian Greens believe they have the answer, and surprisingly it could actually work, as long as it’s tweaked to find some role for coal and natural gas.

At the outset, it’s worth noting that the Greens’ vision has virtually no chance of becoming government policy, given the party holds only one seat in Australia’s lower house of parliament and just 10 of the 76 in the upper house Senate.

But in releasing their policy on Nov. 22, just ahead of next month’s Paris Climate Conference – known as COP21, the Greens are certainly putting the issue of what actions a top polluter such as Australia should take on the agenda.

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Copper Miners’ Pain Doesn’t Stop Buildup – by Tatyana Shumsky (Wall Street Journal – November 23, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

Mining companies are digging up record amounts of copper even as prices plumb new lows, a strategy that threatens to deepen a four-year bust.

Global copper production is on track to hit an all-time high of 18.7 million metric tons this year, according to BMO Capital Markets, and many analysts predict it will expand until at least 2019.

The reason: Companies such as Freeport McMoRan Inc., MMG Ltd. and Southern Copper Co. that have sunk billions of dollars into new projects are pushing them to completion in a bet that the larger, lower-cost ventures will help them weather the rout.

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Myanmar Continues Search After Deadly Landslide at Jade Mine – by Thomas Fuller (New York Times – November 23, 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/

BANGKOK — It was known locally as Plastic Village, a sprawling encampment made from tarps and scraps of trash and inhabited by workers who scavenged for jade in the rugged hills of northern Myanmar.

Rescue workers on Monday continued to dig through the remnants of the encampment after a landslide over the weekend buried it along with at least 120 people.

The landslide was Myanmar’s worst jade mining disaster in recent years, highlighting the primitive conditions of an industry that is highly lucrative but notorious for its secrecy and hazardous working conditions.

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India opposes deal to phase out fossil fuels by 2100 at climate summit – by Tommy Wilkes (Reuters India – November 24, 2015)

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI – India would reject a deal to combat climate change that includes a pledge for the world to wean itself off fossil fuels this century, a senior official said, underlying the difficulties countries face in agreeing how to slow global warming.

Almost 200 nations will meet in the French capital on Nov. 30 to try and seal a deal to prevent the planet from warming more than the 2 degrees Celsius that scientists say is vital if the world is to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change.

To keep warming in check, some countries want the Paris agreement to include a commitment to decarbonise — to reduce and ultimately phase out the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas that is blamed for climate change — this century.

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Platinum market deficit set to evaporate in 2016: WPIC – by Jan Harvey (Reuters Africa – November 24, 2015)

http://af.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The platinum market deficit will shrink this year, before moving into a small surplus in 2016 as supply from mining and recycling rises and investment falls, the World Platinum Investment Council said in a report on Tuesday.

While the WPIC does not forecast prices, a move back to near-balance could further pressure platinum, which has suffered a 30 percent drop this year, putting it on track for its biggest annual retreat since 2008.

Mine supply, which rose 20 percent this year as output from major producer South Africa normalised after last year’s five-month miners’ strike, is expected to increase another 2 percent in 2016, largely on the back of gains in Zimbabwe, the WPIC said in its Platinum Quarterly report.

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Is the curtain coming down on U.S. aluminum smelting? – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – November 24, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – At the end of the last century the United States was home to 22 aluminum smelters, all but one of them operating.

By the end of this year there will be just eight, of which only four will be producing metal, two of them at reduced rates.

The latest round of closures, led by Alcoa, is happening just as the metal’s usage in the United States is set to experience another quantum leap forward.

Aluminum has made steady inroads against steel in the automotive sector, a process that is going to markedly accelerate with the roll-out of the mass-market F-150 pick-up truck.

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In Diamond City, slowdown is not forever – by Melvyn Reggie Thomas (The Times of India – November 21, 2015)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Surat: The world’s biggest diamond polishing center – Surat – can hope for the much-needed recovery from the slowdown it is reeling under since almost 18 months.

The Diamond Producers Association (DPA), a consortium of world’s leading diamond mining companies, is set to launch a $6 million global marketing blitzkrieg to boost the sale of diamonds.

DPA has hired Mother, a leading advertising agency in New York, for the campaign that would mainly target the millennial or ‘young adult’ population across the globe.

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Tough road ahead for LME’s new steel, aluminum contracts – by Maytaal Angel and Eric Onstad (Reuters U.S. – November 20, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – New steel and aluminum contracts to be launched next week by the London Metal Exchange (LME) are expected to attract initial interest from customers, but building up strong liquidity in the current bear market may be challenging.

The launch on Monday is a key element of a strategy by the LME’s owner, Hong Kong Exchanges and Cleaning (HKEx), to boost profitability at the 138-year-old exchange.

Three new contracts in steel rebar, steel scrap and aluminum premiums will go live nearly three years after HKEx bought the LME for $2.2 billion, pledging to widen the scope of the exchange from its core business in key industrial metals.

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World’s Top Miners Risk $10 Billion of Earnings on Carbon Cost – by Jesse Riseborough (Blolomberg News – November 23, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s biggest mining companies face a combined $10 billion risk to their earnings if carbon pricing tightens in the wake of crucial global climate talks in Paris starting next week, according to a report from U.K. non-profit organization CDP.

CDP, which says it advises institutional investors with assets of $95 trillion, ranked 11 companies on climate change-related metrics including disclosure of emission-reduction targets, conducting water stress-test studies and preparing for an expected tightening of carbon regulation to emerge from the United Nations climate summit.

The estimate of earnings at risk, representing about 15 percent of the total for the group, assumes the introduction of a carbon price of $50 a metric ton, a level already accounted for by some companies, it said.

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Botswana explores a future without sparklers – by Alex Vines (Business Day Live – November 23, 2015)

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

BOTSWANA is world-renowned for two things: awe-inspiring game parks and diamonds. But unlike its timeless natural beauty, the diamonds are not forever. Botswana needs to prepare for an economic future without them.

For years, the government has talked about economic diversification, but in practice little has been done. That’s not to say Botswana has mismanaged its diamond inheritance. It is rightly held up as an example of what can be achieved when natural resources are harnessed responsibly.

I feel this keenly because I spent much of the past decade working as a United Nations (UN) sanctions inspector in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Angola, trying to stop rebel-controlled “blood diamonds” from contaminating global supply chains.

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Editorial: Bill would push mining jobs to other countries – by Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board (Albuquerque Journal – November 22nd, 2015)

http://www.abqjournal.com/

U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich are digging into familiar territory with a proposal to reform the General Mining Act of 1872, which governs mining on federal lands. But the New Mexico Democrats’ plan to charge royalties on new mines to help fund the cleanup of thousands of old ones gives those mining companies, other extractive industries and the public the shaft.

The problems of using a 143-year-old law to regulate an industry with a historically checkered environmental responsibility record are well known.

From Gov. Bill Richardson in 2008 to U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman in 2009, New Mexico politicians have tried to come up with new rules that would balance taxpayers’ interests, environmental concerns and the economic importance of mining to New Mexico and to the United States.

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Rio Tinto’s fight with Vale over massive iron ore mine falls at first hurdle – by Matthew Stevens (Australian Financial Review – November 23, 2015)

http://www.afr.com/

How apt that a failed racketeering case by World Wrestling Entertainment sets a critical benchmark in a New York court’s refusal to allow Rio Tinto to continue its case for criminal damages against fellow iron ore major Vale and its allies in Guinean grubbiness.

Others tarred by Rio’s sensational racketeering allegations against its Brazilian competitor number an Israeli billionaire, Benny Steinmetz, a former mines minister of Guinea, the third wife of one of its deceased presidents and a bloke who is currently in a Florida jail as a result of bribes paid to her in the US.

The nub of the Rio case was (and will be again given the likelihood of appeal) that Vale “secretly” worked with a Steinmetz company called BSGR to steal rights to two iron ore mining tenements in Guinea.

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