International Media Resource Articles – Page 710

Mining M&A activity subdued despite strong deal pipeline – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – August 12, 2014)

August 12, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

M&A in the global mining and metals sector is likely to remain subdued for the remainder of 2014, despite a strong deal pipeline and a private capital funds war chest, says EY.

LONDON (MINEWEB) – Multinational professional services group, Ernst & Young, which nowadays likes to be known as EY, has just produced its latest quarterly Mergers and Acquisitions analysis for the mining sector. This shows that there were around 112 deals in the sector during Q2 this year totaling US$9.5b. Deal volume was down 21% on the previous quarter and down 41% on the same quarter in 2013.

Total deal value was up 33% on the previous quarter, primarily due to the US$3.6 billion acquisition of Osisko Mining Corp. by Yamana Gold and Agnico Eagle. Similarly, H1 comparisons show total deal values down 69% year-on-year to US$16.7 billion from US$53.8 billion in H1 2013, the fourth consecutive year of decline

Commenting on the latest analysis, EY’s Global Mining and Metals Transactions Leader, Lee Downham, said “Deal making in the sector continues to be cautious, partly due to the continuing commitment to capital discipline, but also due to a lack of urgency over investment given the lack of competition for assets. ome standout deals and hostile bids during Q2, combined with a strong deal pipeline and substantial capital waiting toS be deployed by mining-focused funds, suggest that momentum is building.

Nickel’s 56% Rally Spurs Mine Restarts Amid Ore Ban – by Phoebe Sedgman and Ben Sharples (Bloomberg News – August 12, 2014)

August 12, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

Indonesia’s ban on nickel ore exports is resonating globally as prices climb to the highest since 2012, prompting companies from Avebury Nickel Mines Ltd. to Poseidon Nickel Ltd. to restart operations at idled mines.

Avebury, based in Perth, plans to reopen a deposit in Tasmania six years after it was mothballed. Poseidon is preparing to resume production at a mine in Western Australia, while Panoramic Resources Ltd. may restart mining at its Copernicus deposit in the same state. More producers globally may reactivate facilities as prices extend gains, according to OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest supplier.

Nickel, used to make stainless steel, rallied as much as 56 percent this year to $21,625 a metric ton after Indonesia halted ore exports in January to compel investment in local processing plants. While the restarted mines such as Avebury’s will add to supplies, the additional production won’t be enough to prevent the global market from dropping into a deficit, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to BNP Paribas SA forecasting higher prices.

“Australia is certainly at the forefront of the potential for restarts,” said Stephen Briggs, a metal strategist at BNP Paribas in London, the second most-accurate nickel price forecaster in the eight quarters to June, according to rankings compiled by Bloomberg. “Nickel is one of my top picks,” he said in an Aug. 4 interview, describing $25,000 as plausible.

Steel consortium undecided on size of Afghan iron ore investment – by Krishna N Das (Reuters India – August 11, 2014)

August 12, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI – (Reuters) – A consortium led by the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) (SAIL.NS) has yet to decide how much it will commit to an iron ore project in Afghanistan that was originally supposed to be a $10.8 billion investment, SAIL’s chairman said on Monday.

The steel ministry said in December that the group had proposed new terms and planned to invest about $2 billion in three iron ore mines and a steel plant.

But SAIL Chairman C.S. Verma said the consortium had not signed a final deal and total investments could only be decided after having a detailed project report.

“Conditions are quite difficult,” he said, referring to security problems and a lack of infrastructure in the area. “We are keeping all our options open.” “Only time will tell how we are able to take up this proposal,” he said after announcing SAIL’s April-June quarter results.

The consortium also includes Indian companies such as NMDC (NMDC.NS), Rashtriya Ispat Nigam, JSW Steel (JSTL.NS), Jindal Steel & Power (JNSP.NS) and Monnet Ispat & Energy (MNET.NS). As part of its investment, it could spend $75 million to $100 million on the initial exploration of the mines, Verma said.

Vanadium: The metal that may soon be powering your neighbourhood – by Laurence Knight (BBC World Service – June 13, 2014)

August 12, 2014

http://www.bbc.com/news/

Hawaii has a problem, one that the whole world is likely to face in the next 10 years. And the solution could be a metal that you’ve probably never heard of – vanadium.

Hawaii’s problem is too much sunshine – or rather, too much solar power feeding into its electricity grid. Generating electricity in the remote US state has always been painful. With no fossil fuel deposits of its own, it has to get oil and coal shipped half-way across the Pacific.

That makes electricity in Hawaii very, very expensive – more than three times the US average – and it is the reason why 10% and counting of the islands’ residents have decided to stick solar panels on their roof.

The problem is that all this new sun-powered electricity is coming at the wrong place and at the wrong time of day.

Hawaii’s electricity monopoly, Heco, fears parts of the grid could become dangerously swamped by a glut of mid-day power, and so last year it began refusing to hook up the newly-purchased panels of residents in some areas.

And it isn’t just Hawaii.

UPDATE 1-Protesters disrupt “massacre” evidence by South Africa’s Ramaphosa – by Joe Brock (Reuters India – August 11, 2014)

August 11, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 11 (Reuters) – Protesters chanting “Blood on his hands” briefly halted South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s evidence on Monday at an inquiry into the police shooting of 34 striking mine workers two years ago.

Ramaphosa was a non-executive director at Lonmin when negotiations to halt a violent wildcat strike at its Marikana platinum mine ended in police shooting the strikers dead on Aug. 16, 2012. The killings, the deadliest security action since the end of apartheid in 1994, have become known as the “Marikana massacre”.

Trade unionist-turned-billionaire Ramaphosa, seen as the likely eventual successor to President Jacob Zuma, is the most prominent witness to be called by the investigation that began in October 2012 and was supposed to last four months.

As well as investigating the shootings, the commission of inquiry has a remit to look into labour relations, pay and accommodation in South Africa’s mines – issues seen as spurring the strike that preceded the killings and that have lingered through months of strikes again this year.

Ramaphosa, who led a historic strike for fairer pay for black miners under apartheid in 1987, has faced accusations of putting political pressure on the police to use force against striking miners before the shooting.

Check your optimism at the door – by Robin Bromby (The Australian – August 11, 2014)

August 11, 2014

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

WALL Street finished the week on a surge of optimism that Ukraine was looking more benign.

Yeah, sure. But, even in the unlikely event that Vladimir Putin will now pull back, there are the small matters of Gaza, Iraq and, for our miners in West Africa, the Ebola breakout. Add to that headlines wondering whether the bull run is exhausted and signs of increasing volatility among mineral commodities, and perhaps we might conclude that Wall St is clutching at straws.

Deutsche Bank doesn’t see Russia backing down, noting that even with sanctions Moscow continued to build troop numbers near the border, has signed a big oil co-operation deal with Iran and has ordered retaliatory measures against the West.

In addition, says Deutsche, there has been excessive leverage during the recent equities run-up. Weak hands have been driving prices, and now these have been forced to sell.

Zinc, the supposed star at present, has shed 5 per cent since late July and copper is down 4.9 per cent on the year. BNP Paribas reports that mine capacity growth for copper is expected to rise by 31 per cent by 2017.

Goldman Sachs weighed in with a forecast of iron ore averaging $US80 a tonne in 2015, Bloomberg describing it as a potential “rout”.

Indonesia ban on nickel ore, bauxite exports to stay – officials – by Fergus Jensen (Reuters India – August 11, 2014)

August 11, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, Aug 11 (Reuters) – Indonesia has no plans to wind back a seven-month old ban on exports of unprocessed nickel ore and bauxite that has led to billions of dollars in planned investments in smelters, top government officials said.

Indonesia – previously the world’s top exporter of nickel ore and a major bauxite producer – effectively halted all but processed metal shipments in January in an effort to force miners to build smelters, winning the country bigger returns from exports of its mineral resources.

Last month the government allowed a handful of firms producing partially processed minerals such as copper concentrate, including Freeport McMoRan Inc, to resume exports.

However, Indonesia’s chief economic minister Chairul Tanjung said the same rationale does not apply to unprocessed exports of nickel ore and bauxite.

“Nickel is different because if you are smelting in Indonesia the added value is much higher than copper,” Tanjung
told Reuters in a recent interview. “Because of that it’s a separate issue.”

More than manure stinks here [Fertilizer minerals] – by Trent Loos (High Plains Journal – August 11, 2014)

August 11, 2014

http://www.hpj.com/

In the past two weeks I have been fortunate to be a part of two different meetings on the subject of soil health. One of them was on the East Coast and the other was a celebration of manure in Nebraska at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s (UNL) Manure Demonstration Day. They both made me think that we need to do a much better job of singing the praises of that plant food excreted by the 9 billion animals we produce every year.

On the eastern shore of Maryland at the Maryland Commodity Classic, Dean Cowherd with the National Resources Conservation Service of Maryland made a statement that truly sticks with me: “There are more microbes in one teaspoon of healthy soil than there are people on the planet.”

Wow! I think that is a mouthful when you think about healthy living things and how we manage them. Far too often we allow people to fall prey to the notion that “sterile” is better, and nothing could be further than the truth.

Then I headed to Lexington, Nebraska, where the folks at UNL put on a tremendous display of the benefits of applying the greatest source of plant food on the planet: animal manure. In a radio conversation with Amy Schmidt and Charles Shapiro, the comment was made, “And where would plants be without animal manure?”

That is a true story. Let’s just take quick look at the plant food requirements of U.S. agriculture.

Miners battle to keep Ebola at bay in West Africa – by Karen Rebelo (Reuters U.S. – August 8, 2014)

August 11, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Contractors at ArcelorMittal SA’s iron ore mine in Liberia are evacuating the country and other miners are sending staff home to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

Mining companies in West Africa are acting swiftly to keep Ebola at bay, screening employees and restricting access to remote mining camps while keeping production of iron ore and gold ticking.

A prolonged outbreak, however, will threaten mineral production in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea if essential supplies are disrupted and employees stay away from work too long.

Or worse: should a miner or family member contract the virus. “I think everyone is mindful that it’s something that has the potential to impact businesses,” said Mark Bristow, chief executive of Randgold Resources Ltd, which mines gold in Mali, across the border from Guinea.

Though it has no mines in countries affected thus far, Randgold is among several miners in West Africa to have launched preventive measures against an outbreak that has killed more than 900 people in four countries.

The World Health Organization has called the epidemic an “extraordinary event” that constitutes an international health risk. There is no known cure for Ebola, which is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids.

Canadian mine disaster raises tough questions about Minnesota nonferrous mines – by Aaron Brown (Minneapolis Star Tribune – August 7, 2014)

August 11, 2014

http://www.startribune.com/

Sometime in the middle of the night on Monday, Aug. 4, the dam holding together a tailings basin at a British Columbian copper and gold mine gave way, sending 1.3 billion gallons of tainted, sludgy water into local streams and lakes.

Officials tell residents in the closest town, Likely, B.C., not to use the water from several lakes and rivers near the Mount Polley Mine, including a precautionary ban stretching all the way to the well-known Fraser River. (And no, “Likely” is not a made-up name from a ham-handed eco-novel. It’s a real town named for an old mining boss named John A. Likely). Mount Polley is operated by Imperial Metals of Vancouver.

The CBC reports that Canadian and provincial officials now assess the full extent of the damage and how something like this even happened. Global News is reporting that Mount Polley Mine employees are saying that tailings pond breaches have happened before, just never to this extent. Meantime, the breach compromises the town’s drinking water and sidelines its tourism economy, which had co-existed with mining, for an indeterminate amount of time. Possibly a very long time.

Already, copper mining critics cite this disaster as Exhibit A that these mines threaten local ecosystems. Many here in Minnesota wonder: if this tailings pond breach can happen at an active mine in Canada, where regulations are similarly stringent to U.S. law, how on earth can we be confident in a tailings pond at a proposed nonferrous mine in northern Minnesota? After all, those tailings basins are supposed to last 500 years, according to PolyMet’s own Environmental Impact Statement estimates.

Hambro’s Dream of Russian Gold Runs Into Mountain of Debt – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – August 8, 2014)

August 8, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Peter Hambro dared to go where few others would, in search of gold in 1990s Russia. Investors who followed him reaped tenfold returns over eight years through 2010.

A repeat of that rich success now looks far away as Petropavlovsk Plc (POG), the company Hambro co-founded, confronts a mountain of debt.

The company was on the cusp of a place among the blue-ribbon names on London’s stock exchange until it borrowed more than $1 billion to expand production at its mines in far-eastern Siberia, six time zones from Moscow. The strategy unraveled when a dozen years of gains for bullion prices ended abruptly in 2013.

“The worst position you ever want to be in a falling commodity environment is having a half-built mine,” said Cailey Barker, an analyst at Numis Securities Ltd. in London. “It’s very hard to turn the Titanic around. It may be difficult to come back from here.”

In 2010, Petropavlovsk’s market value exceeded $3 billion and it was mentioned as a future member of the benchmark FTSE 100 Index. That’s shrunk to $111 million, dwarfed by about $819 million owed to banks that the company says now effectively control cash flow from its mines.

BHP Billiton’s thirst triggers an outback water fight – by Sarah Martin (The Australian – August 9, 2014)

August 8, 2014

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

SHANE Oldfield kicks the red rocks on his vast, dry pastoral lease north of Marree where he raises organic Angus beef for export.

The outback Clayton Station in northern South Australia has always been marginal farming land. With an average of 10cm of rain a year the property is dependent on water from the Great Artesian Basin in dry years.

“We are living in a desert, and without the basin we are non-existent,” Mr Oldfield says. “We haven’t had a decent rainfall since February 2012, so without the Great Artesian Basin we wouldn’t be here.”

But while accustomed to battling drought, the Oldfields now have another fight on their hands. The water level of the basin is dropping dramatically, raising fears that the pastoral land will become unviable.

The culprit, they say, is BHP Billiton, which pumps all of its water from the basin to its Olympic Dam mine and the Roxby Downs township 250km away. “BHP aren’t going to own up to the fact that they are sucking the guts out of the basin,’’ he tells The Weekend Australian.

“But they are. They want the water from this country because without the water they can’t mine, and the GAB water is the cheapest water they are ever going to get.”

New Caledonia cancels vast Eramet, Vale nickel project – by AFP (August 8, 2014)

August 8, 2014

http://www.afp.com/en

New Caledonia on Friday cancelled a deal with Brazilian mining giant Vale and France’s Eramet to allow the exploration of one of the last major untapped nickel deposits in the world.

President of the southern province, Philippe Michel, said the agreement signed in April was illegal on five different counts, “each of which is enough to cancel the allocation of the resources”.

New Caledonia, off northeastern Australia, has a quarter of the world’s deposits of nickel, a key ingredient for manufacturing stainless steel.

The French overseas territory has been reviewing its mineral laws after a change of leadership and a surge in nickel prices, which have jumped a third this year after top miner Indonesia banned ore exports.

New Caledonia President Cynthia Ligeard told AFP that she “did not want to react at the moment” on the decision. Eramet also declined to comment.

The government estimates the Pernod and Prony deposits in question are estimated to hold between four million and seven million tonnes, but Michel said the amount had been understated in the deal with the miners.

Now Showing: Pebble Mine’s Disastrous Future at BC’s Mount Polley Mine – by Joel Reynolds (Huffington Post – August 7, 2014)

August 8, 2014

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

Joel Reynolds is the Western Director and a senior attorney in the Los Angeles office of NRDC.

In the early morning of August 4, 2014, a major breach occurred in an earthen dam built to contain millions of tons of mining waste — called “tailings” — at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine in central British Columbia. Now, three days later, an estimated 1.3 billion gallons of contaminated tailings have spilled from the breached pond, sweeping untold volumes of waste and debris into the salmon stream and lake systems in the region and potentially threatening the Fraser River system to the west.

Previously pristine fishing, swimming, and summer vacation destinations like Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek, and Quesnel Lake — including drinking water sources for the surrounding communities and residents — are now ground zero for toxicity, government health warnings, and “clean-up” – if indeed such a thing is actually possible.

Right now, before our very eyes through horrifying YouTube video, we are witnessing the mine disaster that the communities of Bristol Bay have feared — their “worst nightmare” — from the massive Pebble Mine. It is the toxic time bomb explosion that all of us who’ve fought the Pebble Mine have predicted could happen.

It is the catastrophic impact that, in its Bristol Bay watershed assessment, the EPA described as foreseeable in the event of a “tailings storage facility failure” — in layman’s terms, a dam breach — a finding the Pebble Limited Partnership (and its sole remaining company Northern Dynasty Minerals) have resoundingly and repeatedly challenged as groundless, as bad science, as a violation of their “right to due process.”

Company behind Mt. Polley disaster to open mine near Southeast Alaska Fishermen, Native groups concerned – by Anna Bisaro (The Juneau Empire – August 8, 2014)

August 8, 2014

http://juneauempire.com/

After the tailings pond dam breach at Mount Polley on Monday morning, Southeast Alaskans are worried about another Imperial Metals Corporation mine already being constructed at the headwaters of the Stikine watershed, one of the largest salmon producers in the Tongass National Forest.

The Red Chris Project, an open-pit copper and gold mine, is being constructed in northwest British Columbia near the Iskut River, a major tributary of the Stikine River. The Red Chris is predicted to process almost 30,000 tons of ore per day for 28 years, according to the Imperial Metals Corporation website.

“In Southeast Alaska, we will absorb nothing but risk,” Brian Lynch of the Petersburg Vessel Owner’s Association said. “We have everything to lose and nothing to gain.”

Lynch said that, after Monday’s incident, the fact that the Imperial Mines Corporation is also at the helm of the Red Chris Project increases concern for the Stikine watershed. The Stikine is an important salmon-producing river for the Tongass National Forest.

“A breach like this would be a disaster,” Lynch said of the Red Chris Project. “These systems produce a lot of salmon for our billion-dollar-a-year industry.”