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International Media Resource Articles

B.C. mines get financial boost, one to open soon – by Ed Schoenfeld (CoastAlaska News – July 17, 2014)

http://www.krbd.org/

Canadian investors are putting millions of new dollars into mining projects near the Southeast Alaska border. They include the KSM and Tulsequah Chief prospects, which critics say could damage regional fisheries.

KSM is a multi-metal deposit about 150 miles northeast of Ketchikan. It’s near rivers or their tributaries that drain into the ocean northeast of Ketchikan and just south of the Alaska-B.C. border.

A group of Canadian financial firms are in the process of purchasing a million shares of Seabridge Gold, KSM’s parent company. They have an option to buy more, with the total new investment between $13 million and $15 million.

That’s not a lot for a large mine. So Seabridge, headquartered in Toronto, is negotiating to find much larger investors.

“We continue to seek partners and we have confidentiality agreements with several,” says Brent Murphy, vice president of environmental affairs for Seabridge Gold. Exploration continues at the KSM project, sometimes compared Western Alaska’s Pebble Prospect.

In an interview at a Vancouver, British Columbia, office, Murphy said the company has drilling rigs on site right now.Officials say the more-than-$5-billion project could be built and ready for operations by the end of the decade.

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Coal Fuels Brewpubs in Wyoming as Kentucky Mines Misery – by Mark Drajem (Bloomberg News – July 18, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Trying to find the boom in U.S. coal? Stop in the Gillette Brewing Company in Wyoming, which 38-year-old Tom Gorton opened using some of the $70,000 a year he earns mining coal.

“Things were iffy there for a little bit, but it’s picking up now,” Gorton said at his brewery in the center of town, where customers wash down brie baked in a wood-fired oven with gluten-free blue agave ale. “When people have a little extra money, that changes things.”

In the coal region of eastern Kentucky, about 1,300 miles away, extra money is hard to come by. Brandon Farley lost his job there when the James River Coal Co. (JRCCQ) mine closed. Months of looking turned up only one job lead: a minimum wage opportunity at the local Pizza Hut.

“They want coal to be done with,” Farley said. “I believe it’s coming to an end.”

The experience of these two mining communities reflect the conflicting views of coal itself. Environmentalists see signs of its demise in shrinking production and growing concerns over global warming. Boosters point to a surge in demand by developing countries hungry for cheap and plentiful energy. Germany and Japan, too, are burning more coal as they reconsider the risks of atomic power.

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Glencore’s Female Director Marks Mining Industry Progress – by Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – July 17, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Mining companies, long laggards in appointing women to their boards, are starting to catch up under pressure from corporate governance groups and activist shareholders.

The latest is Glencore Plc, the Swiss commodity trader, which on June 26 appointed mining executive Patrice Merrin. Prior to her arrival, Glencore was the last company left on the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index with an all-male board. At the start of last year, five of the seven corporations on the U.K.’s FTSE-100 Index without women board members were mining companies. Now all five have at least one woman director.

“If a board has open spots and open-minded men, finding outstanding women is the easy part,” said Beth Stewart, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banker and founder of executive search company Trewstar Corporate Board Services, which focuses on placing women directors.

Merrin’s appointment to the board of Glencore and her public endorsement of a goal of appointing women to a third of all board seats is a milestone for the $80 billion company run by billionaire Ivan Glasenberg and may open opportunities for more women directors.

Glasenberg’s company had been a lightening rod for criticism from activists, shareholders and U.K. business secretary Vince Cable for its all-male board.

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REFILE-Indonesia ends 6-month stoppage of metal concentrate exports – by Wilda Asmarini and Fergus Jensen (Reuters India – July 18, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

(Corrects company name in 5th paragraph to “Lumbung Mineral Sentosa” from “Lumbung Mineral Stocks”)

(Reuters) – Indonesia has resumed exports of metal ore concentrates, a mining ministy official said, ending a six-month stoppage resulting from a new policy to improve returns on resources shipped out of southeast Asia’s largest economy.

Indonesia in January banned unprocessed ore exports and levied an escalating tax on metal concentrate exports as part of the policy to force miners to build smelters and process minerals domestically.

Disputes and confusion over the rules halted about $500 million worth of monthly mineral ore and concentrate exports. Prior to the ban, Indonesia was the world’s top exporter of nickel or and a major supplier of iron ore and bauxite.

However, last week shipments of iron ore, lead and zinc concentrate left the country, after two firms agreed to pay a 20 percent export tax, coal and minerals director general Sukhyar told reporters late on Friday.

“There are two firms that have started to export; Sebuku Iron Lateritic Ores (SILO), and Lumbung Mineral Sentosa,” Sukhyar said, adding that SILO had sent two shipments or around 100,000 tonnes of iron ore concentrate and Lumbung had shipped around 8,000 tonnes of lead and zinc concentrate already.

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From Mining Magnates To Beef Barons, The New Focus For Two Australian Billionaires – by Tim Treadgold (Forbes Magazine – July 17, 2014)

http://www.forbes.com/

One billionaire adding beef cattle to their mining interests is a curiosity. Two is a stampede.

In Australia, that’s just what has happened with the country’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, spending an estimate $40 million to buy a half share in two cattle-breeding properties covering 1.1 million acres of the Kimberley region in the country’s north.

Rinehart is following in the footsteps of Andrew Forrest, one of her rivals in the iron ore business, who invested an estimated $30 million in May to buy Harvey Beef which has extensive farming and processing interests in the south of Western Australia.

Both billionaires (Rinehart is worth an estimated $18.2 billion and Forrest $4.4 billion) have most of their fortunes tied up in the production of iron ore, the price of which has been falling thanks to its heavy dependence on demand for steel in China where a construction boom is slowing.

Fading Iron Ore Demand, Rising Food Demand

Neither Rinehart nor Forrest has described their move into farming ventures as a way of trimming their future exposure to iron ore, but that’s a reasonable interpretation thanks to the flattening outlook for iron ore demand.

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As Rock Phosphate Runs Out, What is More Important – Food Crops or Fuel Crops? – by Professor Chris Rhodes (Oil Price.com – June 21, 2012)

http://oilprice.com/

(Please note that this article was published in June 2012)

World rock phosphate production is set to peak by 2030. Since the material provides fertilizer for agriculture, the consequences are likely to be severe, and worsened by the increased production of biofuels, including those from algae.

Introduction

The depletion of world rock phosphate reserves will restrict the amount of food that can be grown across the world, a situation that can only be compounded by the production of biofuels, including the potential large-scale generation of biodiesel from algae. The world population has risen to its present number of 7 billion in consequence of cheap fertilizers, pesticides and energy sources, particularly oil.

Almost all modern farming has been engineered to depend on phosphate fertilizers, and those made from natural gas, e.g. ammonium nitrate, and on oil to run farm machinery and to distribute the final produce. A peak in worldwide production of rock phosphate is expected by 2030, which lends fears over how much food the world will be able to grow in the future, against a rising number of mouths to feed. Consensus of opinion is that we are close to the peak in world oil production too.

Phosphorus is an essential element in all living things, along with nitrogen and potassium. These are known collectively as, P, N, K, to describe micronutrients that drive growth in all plants and animal species, including humans.

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UPDATE 3-Indonesia threatens to take over Newmont mine if output stays shut – by Wilda Asmarini and Fergus Jensen (Reuters India – July 18, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, July 17 (Reuters) – Newmont Mining Corp risks its Indonesian mining licence being taken over by a state-owned firm if the U.S. miner does not resume copper production, the Southeast Asian nation warned, escalating a six-month dispute over export rules.

The move represents a hardening of the stance of Indonesia’s outgoing government. The mining ministry earlier this week said it could terminate Newmont’s mining contract in response to the miner stopping production and filing legal arbitration over the export rules.

The developments mark the latest twist in the dispute between Indonesia and U.S. miners Newmont and Freeport-McMoRan Inc that has led to a halt in copper concentrate shipments from Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

Indonesia plans to soon send a letter to Newmont saying that the company has defaulted on its contract, said Sukhyar, director general of coal and minerals at the mining ministry. “The default is due to the stopping of production, so we can say they are negligent,” Sukhyar told reporters on Thursday.

A Newmont spokesman did not comment on the risk of the company losing its mining licence at its Batu Hijau copper mine but said in an email that the company is eager to resume production as soon as the government issues it an export permit.

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Congo copper output growth to slow in 2014 -mining chamber- by Peter Jones (Reuters India – July 17, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

Kinshasa – (Reuters) – Growth in copper production in Democratic Republic of Congo will slow in 2014 from its rapid pace the previous year due to insufficient energy supply and uncertainty over new mining laws, Congo’s mining chamber said.

Copper production leapt to a record 914,631 tonnes last year from 620,000 tonnes in 2012 as new mining projects and expansion plans came online.

In a report on the first quarter of this year, the mining chamber predicted that copper output in 2014 would inch up to 922,000 tonnes, annual growth of just 0.82 percent compared with the 47 percent leap the year before.

“(Congo) still has the potential to produce over a million tonnes in 2014 and even more in following years, if it controls the parameters that influence investment, notably electricity supply and the revision of the mining code,” the report said.

The mining sector helped drive economic growth of 8.5 percent in Congo in 2013, which is forecast to rise further to 8.7 percent this year.

Congo possesses enormous reserves of gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and tin, but the majority of its 65 million people live in poverty due to corruption, mismanagement and war.

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Goldman Forecasts Lower Commodity Prices as Cycle Ends – by Glenys Sim (Bloomberg News – July 16, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Commodities from iron ore to copper and Brent crude will drop over the next five years as global supplies climb, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which highlighted oil’s recent losses as a sign of increased output.

There will be substantial declines in some metals, energy and bulk commodities, analysts including Chief Currency Strategist Robin Brooks wrote in a report. The period of continued year-on-year price rises for most commodities is over, they said in the report, which was dated yesterday.

Banks from Citigroup Inc. to Deutsche Bank AG have called an end to the commodities super-cycle, when China’s surging demand combined with supply constraints to more than double prices in the 12 years through 2010. Raw materials rallied this year from three annual losses as a lack of rain in Brazil lifted coffee and a ban of ore exports from Indonesia spurred a rally in nickel. The drop in energy prices since last month showed the impact of higher global output, Goldman said in the report.

“A prolonged period of elevated commodity prices has catalysed a supply response,” the analysts wrote. “We do not expect a collapse in global commodity prices. But we do anticipate substantial declines.”

Copper was forecast to drop to $6,600 a metric ton over five years, while iron ore was seen at $80 a ton and Brent may be $100 a barrel, according to Goldman.

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How a Rogue Geologist Discovered a Diamond Trove in the Canadian Arctic [Chuck Fipke] – by Carl Hoffman (Wired Magazine – November 28, 2008)

http://www.wired.com/

(Please note this profile was originally published in November 2008)

Behind an unmarked door in a faded business park outside Kelowna, British Columbia, in a maze of rooms crowded with desks, computers, and floor-to-ceiling shelves, Chuck Fipke sifts through 20-pound bags of dirt.

“We take samples, hey, from gravel and streambeds all over the world,” Fipke says. He sieves the earth, runs it through magnetic drums and centrifuges and electromagnetic separators. Then his technicians, working with scanning electron microscopes, separate out grains and mount them on postage-stamp-sized squares of epoxy. It’s painstaking work but worth the trouble. Fipke has learned to understand those grains of dirt, and that understanding has led him to diamonds.

Eighteen years ago, there was no such thing as a Canadian diamond — as far as anyone knew. Diamonds came mostly from Australia, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, and Russia. De Beers mined 75 percent of the world’s output, much of it tainted by controversial “blood diamonds,” sold to fund African wars.

Today, Canada is the world’s third-largest producer, by value, of rough stones. In the Northwest Territories, BHP Billiton’s Ekati mine has been producing since 1998 and Rio Tinto’s Diavik mine since 2003. De Beers opened its first Canadian mine, at Snap Lake, in July — a confirmation that Canada is the new center of the world.

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Vale Canada – by John O’Hanlon (BE Mining – July 16, 2014)

http://www.bus-ex.com/mining

Nickel in demand

The Vale do Rio Doce in Brazil is doubtless an idyllic place beauty as its name, valley of the peaceful river, implies. However the now more prosaically named Vale is a global company with which readers of Business Excellence are very familiar, most recently in our coverage of Vale’s coal mining operations in Mozambique – and indeed, Wales.

However since its 2006 acquisition of Canadian nickel mining operator Inco Vale has been a major player in Canada, where it now has a dozen mines and operational sites. To give an idea of the scale of the Canadian operations, now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian major, its base metals headquarters in Toronto alone employs 850 people at three sites that administer Vale’s countrywide operations and house the company’s technology development department. Base metals in this context covers almost everything apart from gold, silver and platinum, and definitely includes nickel.

Also in Ontario, though about 400 kilometres to the north of Toronto, Sudbury has enough untapped nickel deposits to support mining for decades to come. In total, Vale has six mines, a mill, a smelter and a refinery in Sudbury, making this one of the largest integrated mining operations on the planet, employing approximately 4,000 people. Raw materials from Vale’s Sudbury operations are shipped to The Port Colborne nickel refinery, a vast 360-acre complex on the shore of Lake Erie in southern Ontario. The refinery dates back to the early days of Inco nearly 100 years ago and employs 170 people in processing nickel, electrocobalt and precious metals, exporting finished nickel products throughout the world.

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SA miners may be stung by BEE – by David McKay (Miningmx.com – July 16, 2014)

http://www.miningmx.com/

[miningmx.com] – SOMEBODY MUST HAVE put something in Peter Leon’s tea. Here he was, Webber Wentzel’s fiercely intellectual mining and energy leader, bestowing rare praise on the South African government’s 10-year regime of mining legislation.

“Let’s give credit where its due,” said Leon when asked to reflect on what had been achieved since the promulgation of the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) in 2004. “It’s created a junior mining sector that didn’t exist before 2004; it has stopped mining companies sterilising reserves, which is positive, and there’s much greater black ownership of the mining industry and in employment equity”.

“The industry has been deracialised. These are all positives,” he said, adding that he still remained critical of many other aspects of the legislative framework.

Certainly, there’s a view that without the MPRDA, the South African mining industry would have failed to respond as vigorously to the demands of the democratic era. Given the centrality of the sector to South Africa economically, this would have been lethargy of disastrous consequence.

Yet inevitably, with the finale of the mining charter around the corner, important questions are being asked as to the cost of the South African government’s efforts to engineer social and economic change by writ.

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The Queen of Diamonds Eira Thomas has turned her attention to gold – by Tryst Williams (Walesonline.com – July 13, 2014)

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/

Eira’s father Gren, born in wartime Swansea, formed the Aber Diamond Corporation (after his home of Abertawe) to make his big diamond finds

A millionaire Welsh miner’s daughter dubbed “The Queen of Diamonds” after her exploration work with her father made Canada one of the gem capitals of the world has now set her sights on gold.

Eira Thomas, 45, the only woman who can wear diamonds she discovered herself, is now chief executive of Vancouver based Kaminak Gold.

The company has just released a preliminary assessment showing desirable “high-margin low-risk” economics for its Coffee gold mine project in Canada’s legendary Yukon gold fields.

The report, by JDS Energy and Mining, says gold at Coffee is near-surface and importantly not too expensive to extract.

A statement from Kaminak said: “Total gold production over the life of the mine is expected at 1.86m ounces at a grade of 1.23 grams per tonne of gold, yielding operating cash flow of US $1.24bn and gross revenue of US $2.4bn.

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US lawmakers introduce Bill to reform 142-year-old mining law – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – July 11, 2014)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Twenty US legislators had this week introduced a Bill in the House of Representatives looking for reforms to the General Mining Act of 1872, proposing higher royalties for mining companies.

The Bill suggests that mining companies be charged a royalty of 8% on new mines and 4% on existing properties for mining on public land.

The Bill was introduced on Thursday by the US House of Representatives natural resources committee member Peter DeFazio and subcommittee on public lands and environmental regulation member Raul Grijalva.

For over 140 years, the federal government has allowed mining companies to extract hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of valuable publically owned minerals from public lands without paying American taxpayers a single dime.

The 1872 Mining Law was signed into law by President Ulysses Grant. Originally intended to spur the nation’s westward expansion, the nineteenth-century statute still governs the extraction of hard-rock minerals on over 350-million acres of public lands in the western US.

“Adding insult to injury, the current law has allowed these mining companies – many of them foreign owned – to carve up our lands and abandon the toxic, hazardous mess for taxpayers to clean up.

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India’s coal shortage a boon for Australian miners – by Vicky Validakis (Australian Mining – July 15, 2014)

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/home

In what could be good news for Australia’s coal industry, India’s power plants are running out of stock, forcing the country to increase its import levels.

India already imports 20 per cent of its coal requirements and shipped in 152 million tonnes of coal last year.

However rising electricity demands are putting an increasing strain on local production, with state-run Coal India Limited (CIL) asked to up its output by importing more of the commodity to mix with domestic supply.

A source told The Economic Times that India’s power plants were not running at optimum levels, with more coal required to help in a ramp-up.

There are currently 65,000 MW of power generation projects out of action. Although pooling will raise the cost of coal, it is seen as a way to help underperforming plants generate more electricity.

The demand for coal in India is expected to come in at 551.60 million mt in 2015, however supplies are predicted to amount to just 466.89 million mt, leaving an 84.71 million mt shortfall.

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