International Media Resource Articles – Page 638

Century Iron Mines sells eggs as Australia moves from mining to dining – by Andy Hoffman (Australian Financial Review – August 19, 2015)

August 19, 2015

http://www.afr.com/

The iron-ore business is so lousy that one Canadian mining company is shelving its biggest project and starting a new venture: selling Australian eggs to China.

The abrupt shift at Century Iron Mines was prompted by a global iron-ore surplus that sent prices plunging 68 per cent in four years. Chief executive officer Sandy Chim does not expect a recovery until 2018, so he’s taken a cue from Australian mining billionaires Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest, who are expanding into food production as demand rises across Asia.

“Australia is going from mining to dining,” Chim said by phone from Toronto, where the company created a unit called Century Food. The plan is to distribute eggs produced by Sunny Queen, a chicken-farmer cooperative in Queensland, to consumers in Hong Kong and Macau.

With the backing of Wuhan Iron & Steel and China Minmetals, the government-owned companies that own 30 per cent of Century Iron Mines, Chim is investing $C2 million ($2.04 million) in the egg venture. He’s drawing on capital originally intended for Century’s flagship Joyce Lake mine project straddling the Canadian provinces of Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Canada’s Mines Could Harm Alaska’s Salmon — and Its Economy – by Sarah Berman (Vice News – August 18, 2015)

August 19, 2015

https://news.vice.com/

By volume it was one of the biggest mining waste spills ever recorded, and it happened just over a year ago in central British Columbia.

The earthen walls of a massive tailings pond collapsed at Imperial Metals’s Mount Polley copper and gold mine, dumping 25 million cubic meters of sludge and wastewater containing arsenic, mercury, and selenium into salmon-bearing waterways. An 12.8 million cubic meter deposit of mining waste remains at the bottom of Quesnel Lake, where about one million sockeye salmon spawn each year. The long-term biological impacts on those salmon are still unknown.

On the one year anniversary of that environmental disaster — more than 1,000 kilometers northwest of the spill site — Alaskans marched in the streets of a small fishing town to protest a recently-opened copper and gold mine from the same BC company. Fishing, wilderness, and indigenous rights advocates on both sides of the border say Imperial Metals’s Red Chris mine is too similar to Mount Polley and far too close to valuable Stikine River salmon stocks.

“It was really alarming,” Paula Dobbyn, communications director of Trout Unlimited in Alaska, said of the Mount Polley spill. “It didn’t flow into a transboundary river, but for us it showed how lax BC mining law and regulation is.”

Australia Aims to Shield Mining Projects From Green Groups – by Rob Taylor (Wall Street Journal – August 18, 2015)

August 18, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/

Push to amend environmental laws comes after court decision overturning approval for Adani mine

CANBERRA, Australia—Australia’s conservative government plans to amend environmental laws to prevent green groups from challenging mining projects in which they have no direct involvement.

Opening another front in a long-running battle with the environmental movement, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane told Parliament on Tuesday that “there is a strategy to destroy jobs” and that activists were blocking resource projects “regardless of the economic impact on the community.”

The push to amend environmental laws comes after a court earlier this month overturned approval for Indian conglomerate Adani Group to build one of the world’s biggest new coal mines on scrubland near the Great Barrier Reef.

Environmental groups went to court to try to stop the Carmichael coal mine project amid concerns the mine and associated infrastructure in the Galilee Basin of tropical Queensland state could endanger a rare lizard known as the yakka skink and another vulnerable species, the ornamental snake.

Essar Steel places big bet on US iron ore – by Aaron Stanley (Financial Times – August 18, 2015)

August 18, 2015

http://www.ft.com/intl/

Hibbing, Minnesota – On an abandoned iron ore deposit just outside of Hibbing, Minnesota — the boyhood home of Bob Dylan — India’s Essar Steel is ramping up construction on a $1.9bn mining and processing facility.

On planned completion in the second quarter of 2016 it hopes to produce 7m tonnes annually of high-grade iron ore pellets for 70-80 years.

After being delayed several times by financing problems during the recession, the project — one of the largest greenfield construction projects in North America by capital expenditure — will be the first new facility in 40 years on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. The 150km stretch of the richest iron ore deposits in North America has powered the Great Lakes steel mills and US industrialisation for more than a century.

But the massive construction project comes as other US iron and steel companies cut production in the face of low global iron ore prices and cheap steel imports.

Essar, a $39bn conglomerate whose Canadian steelmaking operation recently emerged from bankruptcy protection, is placing a large bet on a new boom in US manufacturing that will create more demand for high-grade, domestically produced steel.

Major South African gold producers fly into the danger zone – by Lawrie Williams (Mineweb.com – August 18, 2015)

August 18, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Many of South Africa’s major gold mines will be making losses on an AISC basis at current gold prices and it is hard to see the industry recovering much failing a major bullion price increase.

LONDON -A few months ago, Mineweb published a thought-provoking article suggesting the South African Gold Mining industry as we know it might not survive beyond the end of the decade (See: Could SA’s gold mining industry be gone by 2020?).

In it Patrick Cairns reported on a talk by Peter Major, mining specialist at Cadiz Corporate Solutions, to JSE’s Power Hour in Cape Town, where he laid bare the serious problems facing the industry which have almost brought it to its knees. The current gold price is now around, or below, many of the miners’ latest AISC guidance levels and if the forecasts of most mainstream analysts are to be believed – the future of the industry looks bleak.

Major’s talk pointed to numerous political and union-related changes that have already seen the industry reduce to a fraction of the size it was only a decade or so ago. And unless there is a major pick-up in the gold price there would seem to be little prospect of any recovery.

Nickel woes push South32 shares to fresh low point – by Michael Roddan (The Australian – August 18, 2015)

August 18, 2015

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

BHP Billiton spin-off South32, which launched on the sharemarket with high hopes in May, tumbled to a new low on the ASX today amid a global commodity crunch, with shares down more than 30 per cent from their high point shortly after listing.

The diversified miner (S32), which holds BHP’s former non-core coal and base metal assets, has been hit by weak commodity prices and soft global demand amid a rising US dollar.

The shares, which hit a peak of $2.37 after listing, fell as much as 3.4 per cent to $1.56 in today’s trade, taking the total decline from the posting-listing high to 34 per cent.

South32, a miner of metals such as nickel, coal, silver, aluminium and zinc, has seen commodity prices crash during its short life. Bloomberg’s commodities index slumped to its lowest point in 13 years recently.

The prices of nickel, copper and zinc are all hitting their lowest points since 2009, as concerns about slowing economic growth in China are pushing industrial metals down.

Glencore swoops on Sirius’ nickel – by Peter Ker (Sydney Morning Herald – August 18, 2015)

August 18, 2015

http://www.smh.com.au/

Glencore’s financial troubles have not prevented the Swiss giant from swooping on the remaining offtake from Sirius Resources’ Nova mine in WA. In a deal that completes the offtake process for Sirius for the time being, Glencore will buy half of the nickel and copper concentrate produced at Nova for the first three years of the mine.

The agreement comes after BHP Billiton agreed in March to buy half of the first three years’ concentrate from Nova, and Trafigura agreed to buy copper concentrate from the mine.

Both BHP and Glencore have nickel operations within a few hundred kilometres of the Nova mine but while the concentrate bound for BHP will go into its Nickel West smelter at Kalgoorlie, Sirius said the concentrate bought by Glencore would be shipped overseas out of either Esperance or Geraldton ports.

Nova is not expected to come into production until late 2016, and the fact that 100 per cent of production for the first three years has already been sold amid a weak nickel market is a tribute to the expected high quality of the Sirius concentrate.

COLUMN-Chinese gold demand limbers up for bull-bear tussle – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – August 17, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/article

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Gold investors are trying to work out whether the yuan’s depreciation and the recent turmoil in Chinese equity markets is good, bad or indifferent for demand for the precious metal in the world’s biggest buyer.

It’s possible to construct plausible-sounding arguments why the recent drama in China’s financial markets could be both bullish and bearish for gold.

At the heart of most of the arguments is a view on how Chinese consumers will respond to the recent developments but it seems this is largely guesswork on the part of analysts, as there are few precedents to serve as a guide to future behaviour.

One big question is whether the yuan’s sudden 3 percent decline against the U.S. dollar last week and the swings in equity valuations are likely to be important drivers of Chinese gold demand, or whether other factors with a lower media profile are at work.

Looking at the yuan depreciation first, and the important thing seems to be that the authorities are signalling the drop last week was a one-off move, not part of any sustained weakening.

Colorado Spill Heightens Debate Over Future of Old Mines – by Julie Turkewitz (New York Times – August 16, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

SILVERTON, Colo. — When the mine here opened in the early 1890s amid a frenzy of frontier gold exploration, its founders gave it a lofty name: the Gold King, reflecting their great hopes for finding riches in its depths. Over the next decade, the Gold King went on to become one of the most productive mines in Colorado’s San Juan County, with three shifts of men working 24 hours a day in its dark corridors.

But the mine’s prosperity proved short-lived. When the economy hit a recession in the early 1920s, its operators abandoned it, with open tunnels that filled with snowmelt and rainwater that eventually turned to acid, leaving behind a toxic legacy that this region has struggled to clean up for decades.

Then, on Aug. 5, the Gold King split open while a team contracted by the Environmental Protection Agency was investigating the source of a leak. The accident sent a yellow plume south into the Animas River and turned Western waterways into a mustard ribbon, causing three states and the Navajo Nation to declare states of emergency.

The accident heightened a debate here over the future of this region’s old mines, and served as a reminder, some critics say, that the Gold King’s toxic demise could be repeated at any of thousands of abandoned mines around the country.

[U.S. Coal] ET TU, TRIBE? – by Andrew Rice (New York Magazine – July 28, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://nymag.com/

LAURENCE TRIBE, the president’s longtime confidant, is fighting the White House climate plan on behalf of Big Coal. His friends are furious at him, which breaks his heart.

Just after noon on June 18, Laurence H. Tribe, the nation’s foremost scholar of constitutional law, fired off an angry and anguished self-defense. “I just finished my roughly half-hour interview on WNYC with Brian Lehrer,” he wrote in an email to the publishers of his most recent book about the Supreme Court, Uncertain Justice. “I suppose I did well enough, but the interview was a complete disaster. Please let the Brian Lehrer Show know that I felt totally sandbagged.”

The appearance had begun innocuously, with a discussion of the most recent Supreme Court decisions — what the Harvard Law professor later called June’s “series of thunderclaps.” Tribe’s credentials as a liberal legal activist are the stuff of legend — counsel in Bush v. Gore, slayer of archconservative Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork — and he is as informed about the Court’s opaque inner workings as any outsider can be.

He taught Elena Kagan and John Roberts at Harvard and played an unusually involved role in Barack Obama’s education in the law; for a brief time during Obama’s first term, he served at the Justice Department.

Polish Black-Hole Mining Risks Labor Unrest Before Election – by Maciej Martewicz and Dorota Bartyzel (Bloomberg News – August 16, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Poland’s struggle to help Kompania Weglowa SA, the European Union’s biggest coal producer, return to profitability risks unleashing union-led protests before October’s general election.

A threatened eruption of street demonstrations next month may seal Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz’s fate, with the ruling party already trailing the opposition in opinion polls. The cabinet extinguished demonstrations in January by scaling back its plans to shut unprofitable mines and agreeing to revamp Kompania with the aid of state-controlled utilities.

The government has missed two self-imposed deadlines for the overhaul and has a third looming on Aug. 31 as it seeks to stem the coal industry’s 1.4 billion-zloty ($372 million) loss in the first half of 2015.

Power producers are reluctant to invest in an industry they regard as a black hole, especially as this month’s heatwave triggered electricity supply curbs which, according to UBS AG analyst Michal Potyra, may raise calls for further investment in infrastructure by utilities.

South African nuclear power plan stirs fears of secrecy and graft – by Joe Brock (Reuters U.S. – August 14, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 14 (Reuters) – Fears are growing in South Africa that agreements to build nuclear power plants that could be the most expensive procurement in the country’s history will be made behind closed doors, without the necessary public scrutiny.

Among those voicing concern, two government sources say the Treasury is not being included in procurement discussions, despite the massive budgetary implications of a project that experts say may cost as much as $100 billion.

Construction on the first plant is due to start next year, breakneck speed compared with the years of regulatory and environmental checks for nuclear projects in countries such as Britain and the United States.

The Democratic Alliance, the main opposition party, believes the pace of the deal will prevent proper analysis before contracts are signed and huge sums of money change hands.

The Gold Bull of the Great White North Is Ready to Mine More – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – August 17, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Ian Telfer is the proud father of a spanking new $2 billion gold mine named Eleonore. Perched near the rocky shore of James Bay, 500 miles north of Montreal, Eleonore might seem like a problem child given the collapse in world gold prices.

But in this unhappy season for gold bugs, Telfer, chairman of Goldcorp Inc., scoffs at suggestions that gold is somehow falling out of fashion. “Yeah right. Just like Tiffany’s,” he says. “For thousands of years people have wanted to own gold.”

For the moment, the market is far less enthusiastic. Since 2011, gold has generally headed in one direction: down. The price has fallen from a high of more than $1,900 an ounce to around $1,100 and, in the process, lost at least some of its vaunted status as the ultimate safe haven investment.

On an inaugural visit to Eleonore, Telfer is unbowed. While other miners respond to the downturn by selling assets and seeking partners to offset risk, Goldcorp is presiding over a major expansion that includes this mine north of Canada’s 52nd parallel, another in Mexico and one in Argentina — three multibillion-dollar projects in five years.

Alaskans concerned with Canadian mining plans – by Becky Bohrer (Associated Press/Durango Herald – August 16, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://www.durangoherald.com/

JUNEAU, Alaska – A provincial map showing the planned or potential mining activity in British Columbia is so pocked that Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott says it looks like it has the measles. It’s the cluster of dots in northwest British Columbia – including a prospect billed as one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in the world – that has many residents across the border in southeast Alaska on edge.

While it’s not clear how many of the projects ultimately may become mines – many are only in exploration – last year’s failure of a mine-waste storage facility in another part of British Columbia heightened fears about how development near Alaska’s shared border with the province could impact salmon-bearing rivers and streams that flow into southeast Alaska.

Currently seven major projects have potential trans-boundary implications. One is the Red Chris copper and gold mine, upstream from the Alaska towns of Wrangell and Petersburg, which received final permits in June.

It’s owned by Imperial Metals, which also owns Mount Polley Mine, the site of last August’s tailings dam breach that sent water and mine-related materials into waters near the mine. Activists in Alaska said the incident showed that dams can fail.

US activist builds Glencore stake – by John Ficenec (The Telegraph – August 16, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Activist investor Harris Associates builds stake in FTSE 100 commodity and mining giant Glencore as it grapples with commodity rout and tumbling profits

One of America’s most influential activist investors has secretly amassed a stake in FTSE 100 mining giant Glencore as it attempts to wrestle with the dramatic fallout from tumbling commodity prices.

Harris Associates has built a £250m position in the world’s largest commodities trader in a move likely to pile further pressure on Glencore chief Ivan Glasenberg who faces a barrage of problems.

David Herro, the investment chief at the Chigaco based fund with $135bn under management, has an impressive track record against ambitious bosses, and could prove a formidable taskmaster for the combatitive Mr Glasenberg as he formulates a plan to turn around Glencore’s declining fortunes.