International Media Resource Articles – Page 740

NEW CALEDONIA: Is a Vast Marine Sanctuary Any Use if You Can’t Police It? – by Ian Lloyd Neubauer (Time Magazine – June 29, 2014)

July 2, 2014

Tiny New Caledonia relies on a handful of French ships to patrol a marine reserve twice the size of Texas

For the first half of June — until the U.S. declared an even bigger one — the tiny, French semiautonomous territory of New Caledonia boasted the largest nature reserve on earth.

Covering a vast 1.3 million-sq-km region of the South Pacific, the Natural Park of the Coral Sea was established on May 28 to protect the world’s second largest coral reef and its attendant lagoon. Already safeguarded in parts by a UNESCO World Heritage listing, this wonderland is a nursery for 25 kinds of marine mammals (including sea cows and humpback whales), 48 species of shark and five different marine turtles. It also spawns vast numbers of pelagic fish, 3,000 tons of which make it into the Pacific every year – an important food source for tens of millions, and a source of employment for thousands of people living in the region.

But before most people had even heard of the creation of the Natural Park of the Coral Sea, U.S. President Barack Obama went one better by using his executive powers to create an even larger marine park in the south-central Pacific on June 17. Known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, it protects 2 million sq km of ocean and a smattering of islands and atolls between Hawaii and American Samoa from commercial fishing.

Obama’s announcement made world news, while New Caledonia’s barely received a mention. Perhaps that’s because the U.S., while sketchy on the details, has the hardware and manpower to enforce the no-take rule at the core of any national park.

CA Aboriginal title judgment has serious mining implications – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – June 27, 2014)

June 27, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Canadian Supreme Court decision granting unprecedented authority to First Nations may mean trouble for mining on traditional lands.

RENO (MINEWEB) – Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44, a ground-breaking decision by the Canadian Supreme Court on a 20-year old dispute over Aboriginal communities land claims in British Columbia, has staggering implications for Canadian mining, especially for miners and explorationists who have failed to establish meaningful and positive working relationships with various First Nations groups.

The Tahltan Central Council of Dease Lake B.C. has already announced that it will prepare an Aboriginal title and rights claim against the Province of British Columbia and Fortune Minerals against the Arctos Anthracite Coal project for Mt. Klappan.

As of Mineweb’s deadline early Friday, Fortune Minerals had not published a comment regarding the Tahltan Nation’s decision to file an Aboriginal title and rights claim against the mining company.

The Supreme Court rendered its judgment on an appeal by Chief Roger William on behalf of the Tsilhqot’in Nation concerning 1990-1998 legal dispute which sought a declaration of Aboriginal title over 438,000 hectares in B.C.’s Cariboo-Chilcotin region after the BC government granted Carrier Lumber a license to cut trees in Tsilhqot’in territory. The trial on the matter convened in November 2012 and was heard over 339 trial days.

Glencore tax bill on $15b income: zip, zilch, zero – by Michael West (Sydney Morning Herald – June 27, 2014)

June 27, 2014

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

Australia’s largest coalminer, Glencore, paid almost zero tax over the past three years, despite income of $15 billion, as it radically reduced its tax exposure by taking large, unnecessarily expensive loans from its associates overseas.

At up to 9 per cent, the interest rates on these $3.4 billion in loans were double what the company would have had to pay had it simply borrowed the money from the bank.

As it was claiming tax breaks in Australia on these inflated interest payments, the secretive Swiss-based multinational actually increased its lending to other related parties interest free. This may include its executives. Nobody from Glencore, which used to be called Xstrata, was available for comment despite repeated requests.

The aggressive tax avoidance tactics of Glencore Coal International Australia Pty Ltd have been identified in an independent analysis of the company’s accounts for Fairfax Media by an expert in multinational financing.

Along with the blatant irregularities in its borrowing and lending, the study also found a hefty increase in Glencore’s coal sales to related companies (up from 27 per cent to 46 per cent of total sales, with no explanation), indicative of transfer pricing – also known as profit-shifting – and an activity that appears to breach Section IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act – the part that deals with schemes designed to comply technically with the law but whose ”dominant purpose” is really to avoid tax.

RPT-After 125 years, Alcoa looks beyond aluminum – by Allison Martell (Reuters India – June 27, 2014)

June 27, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Alcoa Inc, the company that helped create the aluminum industry more than a century ago, is reinventing itself as a manufacturer of specialized components for aerospace and automotive customers, including some that contain no aluminum at all.

The company’s deal for jet engine part maker Firth Rixson, which uses little aluminum, is its biggest move yet to escape the terrible primary aluminum market by crafting the parts its customers need, even if they are made of nickel or titanium.

It announced the proposed $2.85 billion deal to buy Firth Rixson earlier on Thursday. Alcoa talks constantly about expanding its downstream businesses, which sell truck wheels, aircraft parts and other goods. Now it is rebranding itself in ways that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago.

“We are really material-agnostic,” Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld said in an interview on Thursday. “We love, internally, that we have fights over what is the right material, in front of our customers, together with our customers.”

From an upstart, this would be one thing. But Alcoa has been synonymous with aluminum since 1888, and it has a role in every part of the sector: mining bauxite, refining it into alumina and smelting alumina to create aluminum.

Rio Tinto, Acron JV pushes ahead with Canadian potash project – by Silvia Antonioli and Karen Rebelo (Reuters U.K. – June 27, 2014)

June 27, 2014

http://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON/BANGALORE – (Reuters) – Global mining company Rio Tinto and Russian fertiliser producer Acron OAO are moving ahead with the development of the Albany potash prospect in Saskatchewan, Canada, Acron said on Friday.

In its first disclosure of the size of the discovery, Acron said the project area contained 1.4 billion tonnes of inferred resources within the mining caverns at an average grade of 31 percent potassium chloride (KCl). The company put the recoverable amount at 329 million tonnes of KCl.

“The next steps for the project include continuation of the environmental assessment and the pre-feasibility study,” Acron said in a statement.

Rio’s rival BHP Billiton has invested in a larger potash project in Canada, the $14 billion Jansen development, but has pushed back production until at least 2020, looking for the right time to enter the currently oversupplied market..

BHP’s Jansen has 5.3 billion tonnes of measured, or proven, resources with 25.7 percent potassium oxide and 1.3 billion tonnes of inferred, or assumed, resources.

UPDATE 1-Brazil court revokes license for Canadian gold mine in Amazon – by Anthony Boadle and Nicole Mordant (Reuters India – June 27, 2014)

June 26, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – A federal court has revoked the environmental license for a large gold mine planned by Belo Sun Mining Corp on the Xingu River in the Amazon, ruling that the company had failed to assess the impact on local indigenous communities.

The ruling published on Tuesday can be appealed. Belo Sun’s stock fell 7 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange to 19 Canadian cents.

“This is an important victory for justice. It can still go to an appeals court, but we think it will be difficult to overturn,” said Helena Palmquist, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutors office in the northern state of Para.

The Volta Grande, or Big Bend, open-pit project is slated to start operating in 2016 and become Brazil’s largest gold mine. It is next to another controversial project, Belo Monte, which is designed to become the worlds third largest hydroelectric dam and has also been the target of lawsuits by prosecutors.

Belo Sun could not immediately be reached for comment, but the Toronto-based company said in a news release that a federal judge in Para had ruled that the company needed to complete an indigenous study for its preliminary license to be valid.

China Finds $15 Billion of Loans Backed by Fake Gold Trades (Bloomberg News – June 26, 2014)

June 26, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

China’s chief auditor discovered 94.4 billion yuan ($15.2 billion) of loans backed by falsified gold transactions, adding to signs of possible fraud in commodities financing deals.

Twenty-five bullion processors in China, the biggest producer and consumer of gold, made a combined profit of more than 900 million yuan from the loans, according to a report on the National Audit Office’s website.

Public security authorities are also probing alleged fraud at Qingdao Port, where copper and aluminum stockpiles may have been pledged multiple times as collateral for loans. Steps by the Chinese government to rein in credit by raising borrowing costs in recent years created a surge in commodities financing deals that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates to be worth as much as $160 billion.

“This is the first official confirmation of what many people have suspected for a long time — that gold is widely used in Chinese commodity financing deals,” said Liu Xu, a senior analyst at Capital Futures Co. in Beijing. “Any scaling back by banks of gold-backed financing deals might lead to a short-term reduction in Chinese imports and also spur some sales by companies looking to repay lenders.”

As much as 1,000 metric tons of gold may have been used in lending and leasing deals in China, where commodities including metals and agricultural products are used to get credit amid lending restrictions, according to World Gold Council estimates.

Gold miners face increased wage risks following platinum deal – Fitch – by Natalie Greve (MiningWeekly.com – June 26, 2014)

June 26, 2014

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South African gold mining companies are most exposed to the risk of further upward pressure on wages following the agreement reached this week between striking workers and the country’s platinum miners, ratings agency Fitch Ratings said on Thursday.

The recent deal, which would see Anglo American Platinum lifting total wage costs by 8.4% a year for three years, would have a material impact on each company’s results, but was also likely to add to pressure for fresh wage agreements in other areas of the mining industry.

“Gold mining companies could face the biggest impact as they are at least as labour-intensive as platinum miners, but less profitable and with higher commodity price risks.

“This is largely owing to the fact that platinum is predominantly an industrial metal and South Africa produces around 70% of the world’s supply. Rising production costs are, therefore, more likely to feed through into platinum prices than gold, where pricing is influenced far more by its use as an investment or inflation hedge and South Africa controls a smaller proportion of global supply,” the agency noted.

Zinc Springs Back To Life As It Nears A Three Year Price High Of $1 A Pound – by Tim Treadgold (Forbes Magazine – June 26, 2014)

June 26, 2014

http://www.forbes.com/

Any commodity which rises by 5% over just two weeks is worth a closer look, except when it is zinc, the ultimate industrial metal, which has disappointed for so long that even the prospect of an even stronger price recovery is being ignored.

Used almost exclusively in galvanizing steel to protect it from rusting zinc has been suffering from chronic over-supply and a depressed price which has seen it limp along at less than $1 a pound for the past three years.

That psychological barrier of $1/lb could be broken in a matter of days with the zinc price on the London Metal Exchange reaching 98.69c on Wednesday, up 5c since June 12.

What’s driving zinc is the simplest of all economic forces. The over-supply is fading,. Stockpiles are shrinking. Old mines are reaching their use-by dates, and no major new mines are planned.

Over the next three years an estimated 1.5 million tonnes-a-year of newly-mined zinc will disappear from the market thanks to mine closures, the equivalent to losing 11.5% from a market which consumes 13 million tonnes of zinc a year.

UPDATE 2-Miner Glencore appoints first female board director – by Silvia Antonioli (Reuters India – June 26, 2014)

June 26, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) – Commodity trader and miner Glencore Plc, the last London-listed blue-chip company with an all-male board, has appointed Patrice Merrin as its first female board director.

The group had come under fire from some shareholders over its apparent failure to follow recommendations in a 2011 British government review that called for more women on company boards.

Canadian mining expert Merrin, appointed a non-executive director with immediate effect, had worked at Canadian miner Sherritt for a decade before becoming chief executive of Canada’s largest thermal coal producer Luscar.

She is also a director of precious metals mining company Stillwater and has been proposed as director of MFC Industrial and Cliff Natural Resources. “This is a historic day for the FTSE and for the reforms I’ve been pushing for to ensure that there is more diversity in the talent running our biggest companies,” said UK Business Secretary Vince Cable.

“This last appointment has been long in the making but I congratulate Glencore Xstrata … The case for change is clear – businesses with diversity at their top are more successful. British businesses have embraced this move for change and done so in a voluntary way, without recourse for legal targets.”

Largest Philippine Coal Miner Plans $400 Million Plant Boost – by Cecilia Yap (Bloomberg News – June 24, 2014)

June 25, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Semirara Mining Corp. (SCC), the Philippines’ largest coal producer, plans to spend $400 million to boost power plant capacity, forecasting that two-thirds of profit will come from generation in three years.

The company may sign a syndicated loan for 70 percent of the cost of the expansion as early as next quarter, Chief Executive Officer Isidro Consunji said in an interview.

Fresh supply is being added as the Southeast Asian nation saw power demand rise by 50 percent in the 10 years to 2012, more than three times the 16 percent increase in generation capacity over the same period, according to government data.

“It’s more logical to grow the power business,” Consunji said in a June 20 interview. “It’s simpler to run and is more profitable. We do what’s easy for us and we forget what’s not.” Semirara fell 1.3 percent in Manila yesterday. The stock has risen 27 percent this year, overtaking the benchmark stock index’s 15 percent advance.

The expansion will increase the Calaca coal-fired power plant’s capacity by 350 megawatts to 1,200 megawatts, Consunji said. It bought the plant from the government in 2009 for $362 million.

UPDATE 2-Australia cuts 2015 iron ore, met coal price forecasts – by James Regan (Reuters India – June 25, 2014)

June 25, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SYDNEY, June 25 (Reuters) – Australia revised down its 2015 iron ore and metallurgical coal price forecasts as rising output of two of the country’s biggest export earners outstrips demand, raising concerns for mining companies already struggling with shrinking profit margins.

Robust growth in export tonnages meant Australia would still post an 11 percent rise in total export earnings for mineral and energy comodities in 2013-14, the Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics (BREE) said in a quarterly update.

Analysts warn, though, that Australia’s powerful mining industry is facing a prolonged stretch where commodities will fetch prices well below those of the now-defunct mining boom years. BREE lowered its price forecast for iron ore to an average $94.60 a tonne in 2015 from a previous forecast of $100.80, citing growing competition to sell into China’s steel market.

Although steel production in China is forecast to increase in 2015, competition among iron ore exporters to sell their additional production is expected to intensify, it said, while a strong Australian dollar would also drag on local miners.

“This will draw a sharp focus towards managing costs and enhancing productivity in the sector,” said Wayne Calder, deputy executive director of BREE.

South Africa miners return to work after longest platinum strike – by Ed Stoddard (Reuters U.S. – June 25, 2014)

June 25, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

MARIKANA South Africa – (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of South African platinum miners returned to work on Wednesday after wage deals ended the longest and most damaging strike in the country’s history.

The five-month strike hit 40 percent of global production of the precious metal and has cost Lonmin LMI.J, Anglo American Platinum (AMSJ.J) and Impala Platinum (IMPJ.J) a combined 24 billion rand ($2.25 billion) in lost revenue.

Industry and union officials said miners were streaming back to work and Reuters reporters saw thousands trudging to Marikana before sunrise on a cold winter’s morning. A supervisor at the Marikana operations of London-listed Lonmin told Reuters it could be a week or more before any workers went back underground. A return to full production could still take three months.

“Viva AMCU! Viva Lonmin!” one worker shouted on his way to a Lonmin processing plant. Miners in a bus danced and sang in jubilation as it drove up to the gates. Lonmin had set up huge canvas tents in a nearby stadium where miners underwent medical and other checks.

Calling for a “living wage” for its members, many of whom live in poverty, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) had demanded an immediate doubling of basic wages to 12,500 rand ($1,200) a month.

Gold Euphoria Won’t Last With Yellen’s Rally Fading – by Debarati Roy, Nicholas Larkin and Fareeha Ali (Bloomberg News – June 24, 2014)

June 25, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

After the biggest gold slump in three decades left investors heartbroken, they’re following Taylor Swift’s advice and never, ever getting back together.

Janet Yellen, the one person able to make the lovers reconcile, did her best. Prices surged the most since September the day after the Fed chair signaled last week that low interest rates are here to stay. Traders and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News aren’t expecting the euphoria to last. Volatility in futures is near a four-year low, at a time when trading volumes and open interest in Comex contracts are waning.

Prices will average $1,250 an ounce next quarter, about 5 percent less than now, according to the median of 15 estimates. The analysts were surveyed before and after the Fed’s June 18 outlook, and the forecast was unchanged. Even after a 28 percent plunge in 2013, the bears are emboldened by this year’s records in equity markets, and gold assets in exchange-traded products have shrunk to the smallest since 2009.

“The surge in gold can’t sustain itself,” Donald Selkin, who helps manage about $3 billion of assets as chief market strategist at National Securities Corp. in New York, said June 20. “It was a temporary spike because of a confluence of events: Iraq and Yellen. People will be looking at other areas for excitement. Holdings are down, so people are leaving gold in search of something better.”

BHP Billiton Passes on [Vancouver] Potash Export Facility – by Rhiannon Hoyle (Wall Street Journal – June 25, 2014)

June 25, 2014

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

SYDNEY— BHP Billiton Ltd. BHP.AU -0.69% let an exclusivity agreement lapse that would have given it the right to develop a potash export facility for its Canadian Jansen project at Washington state’s Port of Vancouver.

The world’s biggest miner wants to build its potash unit into a “fifth pillar” of its business alongside commodities such as iron ore and copper. BHP said it decided not to renew the agreement for Port of Vancouver’s near-100-acre terminal five site as it evaluates how quickly it needs to bring the Jansen project into production. The exclusivity arrangement expired last week.

A BHP spokeswoman said the move would allow management to “to actively investigate and assess alternative rail and port options” in Canada and the U.S., although BHP declined to comment on what could be the other leading options for fertilizer export.

“We have said we will continue to modulate the pace of Jansen development as we time our entry into the potash market to meet market demand,” the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “This disciplined approach gives us the flexibility to consider a broad range of options for the rail and port, including the Port of Vancouver.”