International Media Resource Articles – Page 749

UPDATE 1-Timmins Gold joins new mining rush to equity markets – by Euan Rocha (Reuters U.S. – January 22, 2014)

January 22, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

Jan 22 (Reuters) – Timmins Gold Corp, which owns the San Francisco gold mine in Mexico, said on Wednesday it will sell C$25 million ($22.7 million) in equity to a syndicate of banks, the latest in a slew of recent share offerings from Canadian miners.

The Timmins deal, designed to strengthen its balance sheet, builds on a wave of offerings that may signal a thaw in the financing environment for miners, which have long been out of favor with investors.

The bank syndicate, led by RBC Capital Markets, will buy the shares at C$1.50 each, a significant discount to Timmins’ closing price of C$1.73 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday. The transaction was done as a bought deal.

A bought deal occurs when an underwriter, or a syndicate, buy shares from an issuer before selling them to the public.

While these deals typically occur at a slight discount to a company’s last trading price, the large discount that Timmins agreed to underscores the challenges still facing gold miners.

Unrealistic demands threaten companies, employees and country – Platinum bosses – by Zandi Shabalala and Ed Stoddard (Mineweb.com – January 22, 2014)

January 22, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

The chief executives of Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin, in a rare joint statement, said strikes have cost the companies over $1.15bn in the last 2 years.

JOHANNESBURG (REUTERS) – Bosses of the world’s top three platinum producers accused South Africa’s AMCU union of making “unaffordable and unrealistic” demands on Tuesday ahead of a strike this week which could hit over half of global output of the precious metal.

The chief executives of Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin made the dramatic warning as signs of some divisions emerged in the hardline Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, which has called the stoppage for Thursday.

In a rare joint statement that throws down the gauntlet in a bruising standoff between capital and labour, the trio said that “it is of great concern … that employees are being made promises by AMCU that cannot be delivered upon.”

UPDATE 1-Indonesian mining group challenges ore export ban in court – by Fergus Jensen (Reuters India – January 22, 2014)

January 22, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

Jan 22 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s Mineral Entrepreneurs Association (APEMINDO) has filed a legal challenge against a ban on ore exports introduced less than two weeks ago.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed off on the controversial ore export ban on Jan. 12, although last-minute amendments eased the impact of the export ban on mining giants Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold and Newmont Mining Corp which are now subject to an export tax.

Indonesia is the world’s biggest exporter of nickel ore, refined tin and thermal coal and is an important producer of copper and gold. It is seeking to increase added value from its mineral wealth but has been widely criticised for the ore export ban, seen by many as unfeasible.

“If this policy is carried out it will kill mining businesses,” Revly Harun, a lawyer for APEMINDO, told Reuters on Wednesday. “If they want to make smelters they need money for that. We don’t think this ore export ban is realistic.”

New Copper Mine Under Construction in Lyon County [Nevada] – Paul Nelson (KTVN.com – January 20, 2014)

January 21, 2014

KTVN Channel 2 – Reno Tahoe News Weather, Video –

http://www.ktvn.com/

Nevada Copper is in the process of building an underground mine at Pumpkin Hollow – a rural area about 8 miles southeast of downtown Yerington.

“There’s nothing out there. There’s no protected habitat. There’s no environmental issues. It’s a perfect mining situation,” says Lyon County Manager Jeff Page. Once the 2,140 feet deep mine shaft is complete, they will start mining more than one billion pounds of high-grade copper.

“To us, this is like hitting the mother lode. This is amazing,” says Korin Barnes, Nevada Copper project geologist. Equipment will be assembled inside the mine shaft and will remove ore from about 35 miles of tunnels resembling an underground city.

INTERVIEW-Greenland eyes mines as melting ice cap unlocks mineral riches – by Balazs Koranyi (Reuters India – January 21, 2014)

January 21, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

TROMSOE, Norway – Jan 21 (Reuters) – Greenland will push ahead with a uranium and rare earths mine despite the objections of its former colonial ruler and main benefactor as the melting of the polar ice cap unlocks the country’s natural resources, its prime minister said.

Arctic Greenland, with the lowest population density in the world, could open its first big iron ore mine in five years and award the first rare earths exploitation licence by 2017, hoping for riches that could attract thousands of workers and leave the locals in a minority, Aleqa Hammond told Reuters.

“We simply refuse to go under as a culture because of climate change,” Hammond, 48, said on Tuesday on a visit to Norway. “We have to adapt because the ice is disappearing and hunting is no longer the main source of income.

“But climate change gives us a new chance to survive because our minerals become accessible so we’ll adapt,” Hammond, an Inuit woman brought up to skin seals, said. “We are one of the very few countries around the world where climate change is giving us benefits.”

Silicosis: The curse of Lesotho’s miners – by Victoria Schneider (Al Jazeera.com – January 20, 2014)

January 21, 2014

http://www.aljazeera.com/

A legacy of injustice and an under-resourced healthcare system has led to generations of workers becoming gravely ill.

Maseru, Lesotho – When Lebina Liphapang last went down the world’s deepest gold mine, he was already feeling sick. He had worked underground in South Africa for 29 years, far away from his wife and children back home in Lesotho. He was a general labourer, a winch driver, then a stoker.

It was harsh, he says, working underground. The darkness, the heat. “In the early days, we didn’t have mouth or nose protection. It was hardly bearable,” he said.

He wanted to continue working, despite the conditions. But one day in 2003 he asked for his retirement package. “I thought: ‘If I continue to work here I am going to die.’ As much as it is necessary to go to South Africa and work and provide a living for my family, this work was completely hazardous to me.”

Bristow warns on Kibali gold mine – Don’t rock the boat! – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – January 21, 2014)

January 21, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Building the big Kibali gold mine in the DRC has been a remarkable achievement but Randgold CEO, Mark Bristow, warns against the status quo being adversely affected by possible future legislation.

LONDON (MINEWEB) – In a media presentation in Kinshasa, Randgold CEO Mark Bristow has set out the company’s achievement in bringing the big Kibali gold mine in the north eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) into production and highlighted some specifics.

Commenting, though, that this remains very much a work in progress as development continues, he also used the presentation to perhaps advise the DRC government not to tinker with possible forthcoming new mining legislation so as to undo the great work done in building the new mining operation with all the advantages it has brought to the area in which the mine is located and to the DRC in general.

“At the national level” Bristow commented, “government is urged to take care that its proposed revision of the Mining Code does not deter further investment in the development of the country’s mineral wealth and rather work with us and other investors to build on what we have all worked so hard to deliver.” In other words – ‘please don’t rock the boat!’

Mining while female: The perils of Marikana – by Ilham Rawoot (Al Jazeera.com – January 20, 2014)

January 21, 2014

http://www.aljazeera.com/

Women miners in South Africa say they are often subjected to sexual harassment – and worse – while on the job.

Johannesburg, South Africa – It has been almost two years since 27-year-old Pinky Mosiane was raped and murdered hundreds of metres underground in an Anglo Platinum mineshaft in Marikana, South Africa.

A suspect in the Mosiane case was finally arrested three months ago. This was not the first time a woman mineworker had been raped underground in South Africa. But it was the first time that substantial attention was given to these women and the sexual harassment they are subjected to on a daily basis.

In August 2012, a mining town named Marikana, along the “Platinum Belt” in South Africa’s North West province, made headlines around the globe. Thirty-four mineworkers employed by platinum miner Lonmin were killed when police opened fire during a strike over wages.

But the women of Lonmin have often remained unnoticed. “Anne”, a miner employed by Lonmin in Marikana who asked that her real name not be used, has been working underground for three years fixing ventilation pipes. With her gold-painted nails and not a stray hair amid her tight braids, it is hard to imagine her labouring in overalls, covered in black dust.

Why Colombia halted a US company’s coal exports – by John Otis (Global Post – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/

Drummond Co. helped make Colombia the world’s No. 4 coal exporter. But after alleged dirty deeds, now Bogota’s punishing the Alabama firm.

BOGOTA, Colombia — By shipping 80,000 tons of coal per day, the Alabama-based Drummond Co. has helped turned Colombia into the world’s fourth largest coal exporter — but it’s always been a dirty business.

From Drummond’s Caribbean port near the resort city of Santa Marta, cranes loaded Drummond coal onto open-air barges for delivery to ships. This process kicked up coal dust that fouled the air, water and beaches, angering local fishermen, beachgoers, hotel owners and environmental activists.

But it all came to a halt Jan. 13 after the Colombian government ordered Drummond to stop loading coal until it meets new environmental standards. Under a Colombian law that took effect Jan. 1, coal must now be loaded directly onto ships via enclosed conveyor belts, a much cleaner system.

Duluth: Hearing on PolyMet mine project draws hundreds, for and against – by John Myers (Forum News Service – January 18, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.twincities.com/

The main ballroom at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center had 1,500 chairs set up Thursday night for the public hearing on the PolyMet copper mine project, and nearly all of them were taken.

Another 100 or so people stood along the back wall for more than two hours of public testimony on the so-called Supplemental Joint Environmental Impact Statement, the environmental review document.

The hearing, the first of three, was hosted by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service — the regulatory agencies that ultimately will decide if the environmental review is officially “adequate” or not.

The audience appeared roughly split evenly, with half saying the science is sound and the project is ready to go ahead but half saying that too many questions loom unanswered.

PolyMet wants to build Minnesota’s first copper mining operation just north of Hoyt Lakes, an open pit mine and processing center that also would produce nickel, gold, platinum, palladium and other valuable minerals.

Deep-sea mining could make ‘largest footprint of any single human activity on the planet’ – by Kevin Douglas Grant (Global Post – December 19, 2013)

January 20, 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/

Honolulu, Hawaii is emerging as a hub for a race to extract billions of dollars worth of minerals from the ocean floor. Modern technologies like cell phones, laptops, wind turbines and hybrid vehicles all require rare minerals, often difficult and expensive to extract from the earth.

As demand for these kinds of products surges globally and more accessible deposits of those minerals are depleted, Civil Beat reported Wednesday, countries around the world are flocking to Hawaii to explore a vast undersea area believed to contain massive mineral deposits worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The area is called the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, and organizations from countries including Japan, Great Britain, Russia, South Korea, China, France, Germany and the US are now using Honolulu as a departure point for exploration. Though the zone is just one of several in the sights of deep-sea mineral industry pioneers, researchers involved believe it holds great promise.

Their expeditions are mapping parts of the zone about 500 miles southeast of Hawaii, which covers a total estimated area of 6 million total square miles.

Jakarta mired deep in mining mess – by John McBeth (The Straits Times/Jakarta Post – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.thejakartapost.com/

Giving with one hand and taking with the other, the Indonesian government has effectively enforced a blanket ban on mineral ore exports in a bizarre, nationalist-driven decision-making process that will cost the country billions and put tens of thousands out of work.

While value-added is an understandable goal for a country blessed with so many natural resources, the implementation of the signature policy has been bedevilled by weak leadership, poor conceptualising, political grandstanding and bureaucratic ineptitude.

Miners are now threatening to head to international arbitration, with copper giants Freeport Indonesia and Newmont Nusa Tenggara facing the prospect of shutting down 65 per cent of their production – a huge chunk of the US$10 billion Indonesia makes each year from mineral exports.

The move to process all mineral ore onshore within five years was foreshadowed in the 2009 Mining Law, but only given clarity – and teeth – in a ministerial regulation issued belatedly in July 2012, which laid out the required purity levels for each individual mineral.

RPT-INTERVIEW-Chile’s environment lawyers say they’re just warming up – by Alexandra Ulmer and Fabian Cambero (Reuters India – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Chile’s leading environmental lawyers, who have helped stall around $30 billion in mining and energy projects, say the battle is only just beginning – and copper investments are poised to come under increasing fire this year.

In a significant shift for business-friendly Chile, empowered social groups are successfully suing massive projects over threats to glaciers, health, indigenous rights and biodiversity.

Power projects have so far fared the worse, but Santiago-based lawyers Alvaro Toro and Lorenzo Soto say many communities are now turning up the heat on mining in the world’s top copper producer.

“This year is going to be very conflictive,” Alvaro Toro, a lawyer with environmental NGO OLCA, told Reuters in his tiny office, just a block from the headquarters of world No.1 copper miner, Codelco.

“Projects are increasingly being set up in fragile places. People’s opposition is completely rational,” he said on Friday.

UPDATE 2-S.Africa minister warns on economy as mines face strike threat – by David Dolan (Reuters India – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 20 (Reuters) – South Africa’s ailing economy cannot afford more mine labour unrest, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Monday, as the platinum industry’s main trade union served notice on the world’s top three producers that it planned to strike this week.

A series of sometimes violent strikes in the factory and mining sectors constrained growth to a sluggish 2 percent in 2013, hampering efforts by President Jacob Zuma’s government to create badly needed jobs as it braces for elections this year.

The African National Congress has swept elections since overturning white minority rule in 1994, but the party Zuma now heads faces growing criticism that it has failed to lift millions of blacks out of poverty during 20 years in power.

Platinum producers Anglo American Platinum, Lonmin and Impala Platinum said they had received notice from the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) to strike in 48 hours, setting the stage for another crippling wave of unrest.

Call for greater State participation in mining could lead to conflicts of interest – by Leandi Kolver (MiningWeekly.com – January 17, 2014)

January 17, 2014

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Should the State play a larger role in South Africa’s mining sector, as envisaged by the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) 2014 election manifesto and the ‘State Intervention in the Minerals Sector’ (Sims) report, the establishment of an independent regulator would be essential to prevent conflicts of interest, Webber Wentzel head of Africa mining and energy projects Peter Leon said.

In his yearly January 8 statement, ANC and State President Jacob Zuma indicated that the ANC was moving ahead with measures to strengthen the State mining company and to ensure increased beneficiation for industrialisation. This statement was echoed in the ANC’s election manifesto, which stated that “the role of the State-owned mining company will be strengthened”.

Leon told Mining Weekly Online that, while the manifesto did not deal with the issue of the State-owned mining company in detail, the Sims document explained that the State would play a key role by ensuring the compulsory beneficiation of “strategic” minerals at “competitive” and “affordable” prices, and that a more direct role would be played by the State mining company through the “development of strategic minerals” and “supporting, where appropriate, vertically integrated value chains that strengthen strategic industries”.