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Ferro giants- the world’s biggest iron ore producers (Mining-Technology.com – May 29, 2014)

http://www.mining-technology.com/

The top ten iron ore producers account for over 90% of the world’s total iron ore output. Mining-technology.com profiles the ten biggest iron ore producing countries based on latest production and reserve data.

China

China, the largest producer, consumer and importer of iron ore, produced 1.3 billion tonne (bt) of iron ore in 2012, accounting for about 44% of the world’s output. The country’s crude ore reserves as of 2013 stood at 23bt containing 7.3bt of iron – the fourth largest in the world. China’s run-of-mine iron ore output is, however, of low quality, containing about 22% iron.

Over half of the nation’s domestic iron ore production comes from mines located in Hebei and Liaoning provinces while Beijing, Shanxi province and Inner Mongolia are the other iron ore producing regions. Ansteel Mining, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anshan Iron and Steel Group (Ansteel Group), is the biggest iron ore producer in the country.

Australia

Australia produced 519 million tonnes (mt) of iron ore in 2012 accounting for about 18% of global iron ore output. The country’s estimated iron ore reserves of 35bt, containing 17bt of iron, makes it the world’s richest iron ore reserves holder.

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Mining giants – the top ten richest mining companies (Mining-Technology.com – March 27, 2014)

http://www.mining-technology.com/

Glencore Xtrata, followed by BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale recorded the biggest revenue from mining operations in 2013. Mining-technology.com profiles the world’s ten biggest mining companies based on revenue earned in calendar year 2013.

Glencore Xtrata

Glencore Xstrata, created through the merger of the world’s biggest commodities trader Glencore and the diversified mining company Xtrata in May 2013, is the world’s biggest mining company. The mining and trading conglomerate headquartered in Switzerland reported revenues exceeding $200bn from industrial and marketing activities in its metals and minerals, and coal and oil segments in 2013.

The company’s mining operations encompass over 150 mining and metallurgical sites around the world. Revenue from the metals and minerals business including copper, nickel, zinc/lead, alloys, alumina/aluminium and iron ore was over $64bn in 2013. Glencore Xstrata also produced 138.1 million tonnes of coal in 2013 recording industrial revenues exceeding $10bn.

The Zanaga iron ore mine in Republic of Congo, the Collahuasi copper mine in Chile, the Antamina copper-zinc mine in Peru, and the Correjon coal mine in Colombia are among the major mining operations in which Glencore Xtrata holds significant interests.

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China Swaps Gusto for Rigor as It Learns From Africa – by Franz Wild (Bloomberg News – June 3, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

China’s gung-ho foray into Africa is waning. As trade with the continent surpasses an annual $160 billion, its companies are avoiding risk by taking smaller stakes in projects close to making money.

Cowed by capricious commodity prices, political instability and a string of lost investments, Chinese financiers aren’t as gutsy as when state-owned giants used their heaps of cash to propel the nation’s “Go Out” drive and whip up business abroad 15 years ago.

“There was a lot of enthusiasm and momentum,” said Clement Kwong, whose Beijing-based Long March Capital Ltd. clubbed together with other investors last year to take over a South African gold company. “That momentum is definitely reined in by a new level of risk aversion and caution.”

China surpassed the U.S. as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009. Trade volumes soared 11-fold in the decade through 2013, according to data from the Geneva-based International Trade Centre. The quest for profit now trumps the wider aim of creating a Chinese footprint abroad.

Smaller private companies are taking the lead from the state-owned giants that prepared the ground. After many African leaders doubled back on the initial fervor for China, the new players are less conspicuous and score quicker returns.

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Indonesian minister spearheads drive to restart copper exports – by Wilda Asmarin and Michael Taylor(Reuters India – June 4, 2014)  

http://in.reuters.com/

JAKARTA – (Reuters) – Indonesia’s chief economics minister is spearheading a series of high-level government and industry meetings on Wednesday, aiming to broker a deal with foreign miners to restart copper concentrate exports that were halted nearly five months ago over a controversial tax.

Billionaire businessman Chairul Tanjung, who was appointed to the role last month, has made restarting copper exports a top priority amid a widening trade deficit, a slowdown in first-quarter economic growth and the prospect of job layoffs at mines.

Tanjung was due to attend a cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning to thrash out a new tax deal that could potentially be put before miners, including Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc and Newmont Mining Corp.

“After the cabinet meeting I will receive a report from the negotiating team at the coordinating economic ministry,” Tanjung said on Wednesday, speaking ahead of the cabinet meeting in the capital Jakarta. “Let’s see the result. If the results are finalized, I will officially receive the Freeport and Vale CEOs,” he said.

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COLUMN-Asian coal miners, traders face up to grim realities – by Clyde Russell (Reuters India – June 4, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

Clyde Russell is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own.

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, June 4 (Reuters) – “There is no skin left on my teeth to hang on with,” was the lament of a coal trader, expressing a sentiment echoed time and again at the industry’s largest gathering in Asia.

Normally coal miners, traders and shippers are a fairly optimistic bunch, their good humour likely shaped by a tough industry that is increasingly unloved across the world despite being essential to keeping the lights on.

But the mood at the Coaltrans Asia conference in the Indonesian resort island of Bali this week was subdued, and the question on everybody’s lips was how much lower can coal prices go.

At a roundtable session, a well-known analyst talking about the outlook for prices was mobbed, while an expert on valuing coal mines cut a lonely figure, underscoring that nobody is currently interested in investing in coal production.

The price of coal at Australia’s Newcastle Port , an Asian benchmark, fell to $73.89 a tonne in the week to May 30, down 14.3 percent so far this year and close to the 4-1/2 year low hit in March.

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Romania’s gold mine project on hold after parliament rejects bill – by Luiza Ilie (Reuters U.S. – June 3, 2014)

http://www.reuters.com/

BUCHAREST, June 3 (Reuters) – Romania’s lower house of parliament rejected a bill on Tuesday that would have allowed Canada’s Gabriel Resources to proceed with plans to set up Europe’s biggest open-cast gold mine, putting the project on hold indefinitely.

The bill, which was initially approved by the leftist government of Prime Minister Victor Ponta, drew thousands of anti-mine protesters into the streets across the European Union country last year, prompting the senate to strike it down.

The lower house had the final say, and data it published on Tuesday showed deputies rejected the draft law with 302 votes against and one in favour.

Romania is one of Europe’s poorest countries but it is comparatively rich in natural resources, including gas, coal and gold. Tuesday’s vote has kicked into the long grass a project the government has said is vital to reviving an ailing mining sector in a Romanian region in dire need of jobs and investment.

Gabriel has been waiting for more than 15 years for approval to use cyanide to mine about 314 tonnes of gold and 1,500 tonnes of silver in the small town of Rosia Montana. The local unit of Gabriel Resources declined to comment on Tuesday.

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Nickel Gain Enables BHP to Anglo to Sell Mines: Real M&A – by Maria Kolesnikova and Firat Kayakiran (Bloomberg News – June 4, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The 37 percent surge in nickel this year means some of the world’s biggest metals companies may finally be able to sell as much as $14 billion in unwanted mines they’ve held for years.

Diversified mining companies such as BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) and Anglo American Plc (AAL) don’t see the metal as strategic because it generates less cash than other commodities and requires more investment. With nickel prices improving and companies looking to cut costs, OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the largest producer, last month agreed to sell two mines in Australia. BHP, valued at $174 billion, said May 14 that it’s holding talks to sell its Australian nickel unit, while London-based Anglo said it may consider shedding its mine in Brazil.

Private-equity firms and smaller companies such as $12 billion First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (FM) could be potential buyers, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Should nickel prices continue to rise, BHP’s assets could be valued at as much as $9 billion and Anglo’s at $5 billion, Macquarie Group Ltd. said.

“Deals chase a rising commodity,” Lee Downham, global mining transaction chief at Ernst & Young LLP in London, said by e-mail. When prices climb, those companies “with a strategy to divest look to capture positive market sentiment in order to generate a higher valuation.”

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India’s Growth Could Pass China Under Modi: Jim O’Neill Interview (Bloomberg T.V. – June 3, 2014)

  http://www.bloomberg.com/tv/ June 3, 2014 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg View columnist Jim O’Neill examines the strength of the Chinese economy following Monday’s strong PMI Manufacturing report, offers his outlook for India’s economy following the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and previews this week’s European Central bank meeting. He speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “The Pulse.”

PolyMet mining issue cuts deep into DFL unity at state convention – by Baird Helgeson (Minneapolis Star Tribune – June 2, 2014)

http://www.startribune.com/

DULUTH – Democrats averted a nasty public fight Sunday over a controversial Iron Range copper-nickel mining proposal that has vividly split powerful party factions.

Activists at the state DFL convention decided against debating a proposal to make support of mining part of the state party platform. The move took on enormous implications as environmentalists and labor supporters are bitterly divided over PolyMet Mining Corp.’s proposal to extract copper and nickel from the long-closed LTV mine in Hoyt Lakes.

“The mining issue has the potential to rip up the last remaining hard-core Democrats,” said Joel Holstad, a DFL activist from Forest Lake. “I have no idea which way this is going to go, but I think this issue has the potential to be incredibly impactful on the future of the party.”

Some elected Democrats, who control the governor’s office and the House and Senate, were dreading a bruising public fight that would have overshadowed DFLers’ overwhelming endorsements of Gov. Mark Dayton and U.S. Sen. Al Franken, who are heading into tough re-election fights.

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Vale steels itself for changing times – by Joe Leahy (Financial Times – June 3, 2014)

http://www.ft.com/home/us

The helicopter circles over a range of verdant mountains in the Carajás National Forest, a park in Brazil’s Amazonian state of Pará.

In spite of the thick jungle on their lower slopes, some of the peaks are strangely bare. This is a clue as to what lies below the surface – a giant iron ore body known by miners as Carajás Serra Sul S11D, which decodes as Carajás southern mountain range iron ore body 11, block D.

The discovery is so large it will boost the production of Brazilian miner Vale, the world’s second-largest iron ore miner by volume, by nearly a third after it comes on-stream in 2016 compared with the company’s expected production this year of 312m tonnes. Vale claims it is the largest such project in the iron ore industry.

“We are flying above the S11D,” says Jamil Sebe, Vale’s director of northern region ferrous metal projects, above the noise of the helicopter rotors. “Where you have iron, you don’t get trees, that’s one of the ways to discover iron ore.”
Conceived during the commodity supercycle of the past decade, the $20bn project to develop S11D comes as the environment for the industry is changing radically.

Iron ore prices in May suffered their sixth monthly consecutive drop, marking a record losing streak for the steelmaking ingredient.

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Yamana Gold’s Marrone Canada’s highest paid mining CEO – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – June 3, 2014)

http://www.mineweb.com/

13 Canadian mining CEOs ranked among Canada’s highest paid CEOs of the 100 largest public companies in a Globe and Mail survey published Sunday.

RENO (MINEWEB) – Yamana Gold CEO Peter Marrone is Canadian’s highest paid mining CEO, ranking 15th in The Globe and Mail’s annual ranking of top paid CEOs from the 100 largest public companies.

However, Marrone’s total compensation dropped 11% to $10,708,817 as of the end of last year. The total value of the CEOs’ equity in Yamana was $27.61 million.

The only female mining CEO on the list, Turquoise Hill Resources’ Kay Priestly, was also the lowest paid, ranking 97th on the list at total compensation of $1,033,317. Priestly holds $511,384 in equity value in the parent company of the lucrative Oyu Tolgoi operation in Mongolia.

While 87th ranked-David Harquail of Franco Nevada was the second-lowest paid mining CEO on the list at total compensation of $2,709,412, up 7%; he ranked third in total equity held in Franco-Nevada, an astounding $68.2 million.

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TWO MINING BEHEMOTHS BATTLE AN ISRAELI BILLIONAIRE – by Patrick Radden Keefe (The New Yorker – June 2, 2014)

http://www.newyorker.com/

One day in November, 2008, two rival groups of mining executives convened for a meeting in a black office tower on the southern tip of Manhattan. They represented two of the largest mining companies in the world: Brazil’s Vale, and its Anglo-Australian competitor, Rio Tinto. Vale was interested in acquiring a stake in one of Rio Tinto’s most prized projects: a mountain range in the tiny west African nation of Guinea, which contained the planet’s richest deposit of untapped iron ore and was known as Simandou.

When they met that day, executives from Rio Tinto acknowledged that their legal claim to Simandou was under threat. In the summer of 2008, the government of Guinea had rescinded its right to develop the concession, and a new player had emerged on the scene: an Israeli billionaire named Beny Steinmetz, who had made his name in the diamond trade and now had designs on Simandou.

The negotiations between Vale and Rio Tinto eventually fell apart, but Rio Tinto’s concerns turned out to be well founded. Guinea granted Steinmetz’s company, B.S.G.R., exploration rights to half of the Simandou deposit. Then, in 2010, B.S.G.R. announced that it was forming a joint venture to develop the ore—with Vale. The leadership at Rio Tinto was incensed: not only had they lost half of their precious asset to Steinmetz but he had then gone into business with their chief competitor, with whom they had only recently been negotiating a joint venture themselves.

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Obama to Take Action to Slash Coal Pollution – by Coral Davenport (New York Times – June 2, 2014)

http://www.nytimes.com/

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Monday will announce one of the strongest actions ever taken by the United States government to fight climate change, a proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulation to cut carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, according to people briefed on the plan who spoke anonymously because they had been asked not to reveal details.

The regulation takes aim at the largest source of carbon pollution in the United States, the nation’s more than 600 coal-fired power plants. If it withstands an expected onslaught of legal and legislative attacks, experts say that it could close hundreds of the plants and also lead, over the course of decades, to systemic changes in the American electricity industry, including transformations in how power is generated and used.

It is also likely to stand as President Obama’s last chance to substantially shape domestic policy and as a defining element of his legacy. The president, who failed to push a sweeping climate change bill through Congress in his first term, is now acting on his own by using his executive authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act to issue the regulation.

Under the rule, states will be given a wide menu of policy options to achieve the pollution cuts. Rather than immediately shutting down coal plants, states would be allowed to reduce emissions by making changes across their electricity systems — by installing new wind and solar generation or energy-efficiency technology, and by starting or joining state and regional “cap and trade” programs, in which states agree to cap carbon pollution and buy and sell permits to pollute.

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China Builds Sulawesi Smelters as Ore Ban Cuts Jobs: Commodities – by Yoga Rusmana (Bloomberg News – June 2, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Since Indonesia banned ore exports, the global nickel industry has been rocked by surging prices, Chinese workers like Zhang Qi Guang are building smelters in Sulawesi and business at Eva’s Jewel restaurant has collapsed.

Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of mined nickel, halted shipments Jan. 12, sending prices up as much as 56 percent and prompting Morgan Stanley to forecast a global output deficit over the next five years.

The government’s rationale for the ban was that too much wealth was leaving the country because the raw ore is worth far less than refined metal. It figured the world would come to its doorstep to build smelters that extract nickel from the red earth. While some of those investments have begun, the downside is idle mines, tens of thousands of lost jobs and piles of unwanted ore waiting to be processed. Sales at Eva’s Jewel in the town of North Konawe fell as much as 80 percent.

“You never get the sweet thing unless you eat the bitter thing,” said Alexander Barus, vice president of PT Sulawesi Mining Investment, a joint venture of Jakarta-based Bintangdelapan Group and Chinese steelmaker Tsingshan Holding Group, which is building two smelters on Sulawesi. “We feel sad about the people, but just you wait two or three years.”

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