International Media Resource Articles – Page 753

Small-Scale Gold Mining Pollutes Indonesian Lands – by Joe Cochrane (New York Times – January 3, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/

CISITU, Indonesia — In the remote mountains of West Java, workers like 15-year-old David Mario Chandra are an integral part of Indonesia’s gold industry.

A workshop next to his family’s house in Cisitu, in Banten Province, contains machinery that turns gold ore into usable nuggets. The procedure seems simple enough: The crushed ore is tumbled with other ingredients in cylinders called balls until the valuable stuff is amalgamated. But there is a crucial material — and a final step — that alarms environmental and health experts around the world.

“We put 15 kilograms of gold ore and water into each ball, and we use 100 grams of mercury per ball,” or 3.5 ounces for 33 pounds of ore, said David, who runs the family’s workshop. Workers then purify the nuggets using an open flame, burning off the mercury in sites among residential areas throughout the village.

Yuyun Ismawati, an environmental campaigner based in Britain, says the scope of the problem is evident in the amount of mercury being exported from around the world to Indonesia, her home country. Most of it, she says, is brought in illegally.

According to the Indonesian Ministry of Trade, the country imported slightly less than one metric ton of mercury in 2012 through two local companies, primarily for commercial manufacturing, including the production of light bulbs and batteries, and for use in hospital equipment.

Why many of Ghana’s gold miners are giving up – by Matthew Davies (BBC News – December 29, 2013)

January 3, 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

Ghana – Kwaku Boham worries about the future. For years, he and his four fellow gold miners have scratched out a living on a tiny plot next to the roadside near Tarkwa in south-western Ghana.

All day in the tropical heat and humidity, they dig out the red soil and rocks and crush them in a noisy grinder, hoping to yield some small nuggets to cover their expenses and feed their families.

But they have no control over what they sell any nuggets for – that’s set in markets in New York and London. And over the past year, the price of gold has been falling.

On 1 January this year, the spot price of gold was $1,687.22 an ounce, this month it has been trading around $1,240 an ounce – a loss of around 25%. The outlook for 2014 is not much healthier. The reason gold is losing its lustre is that global economies are looking a lot healthier than they did a year ago.

The US economy grew by 3.6% in the third quarter of 2013, its best performance in 18 months, while unemployment, which hit a 26-year high at 10% in 2009, dropped to 7% last month – a five-year low.

Tanzania: Gold Mine Boosts Villagers’ Livelihoods – by Mugini Jacob (All Africa.com – January 3, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://allafrica.com/

Tarime — TARIME District Council has said it is now seeing remarkable development in the villages surrounding the North Mara Gold Mine at this time compared to the past.

Located in Nyamongo area, North Mara Gold Mine is one of Tanzania’s largest gold mines operated by African Barrick Gold (ABG) “There are big things happening in Nyamongo.

Nyamongo of today is not Nyamongo of the past”, Tarime District Council Chairman Mr Amos Sagara told a full council meeting at the District Council Conference Hall recently.

The latest full council meeting which sat to discuss development issues was attended by all Tarime councillors including those hailing from the villages around the mine and senior government experts based in the area.

The top council leader commended ABG, Tanzanian largest gold producer for speeding up implementation of Villages Benefits Implementation Agreements (VBIA’s) signed between the mine and surrounding villages late 2011.

Steel consortium slashes Afghan ore plant plan – by Krishna N Das and Jessica Donati (Reuters India – December 31, 2013)

January 3, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI/KABUL – (Reuters) – An Indian consortium has slashed a planned $10.8 billion iron ore investment in Afghanistan by 80 percent because it has been unable to get funding for the project.

The consortium has proposed new terms which would see just 130.57 billion rupees invested, according to figures released on Tuesday in India’s steel ministry year-end report.

Led by state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) (SAIL.NS), the group was forced to renegotiate the terms of the deal with the Afghan government after India’s finance ministry refused to fund the project.

The original proposal called for investment in three iron ore blocks at Hajigak in Afghanistan and in a 6 million-tonne-per-year (MTPA) steel plant.

But the finance ministry told the consortium, according to an official involved, to draw up a fresh viability study. Under the new proposed terms, the size of the plant would fall to 1.2 MTPA.

Last U.S. Lead Smelter Closes Toxic History in Ore-Rich Missouri – by Tim Jones (Bloomberg News – December 23, 2013)

January 3, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

When the St. Joseph Lead Co. finished work on its 350-foot smoke stack in 1892, the mining company’s pact with tiny Herculaneum, Missouri, was sealed. The town would enjoy more than a century of good-paying jobs while the plant belched sulfur-laced emissions.

Three decades after discovering the town’s blessing was life-threatening, its toxic partnership ends next week when the largest and last lead smelter in the U.S. shuts down.

The Dec. 31 closing of the smelter on the west bank of the Mississippi River, south of St. Louis, marks the end of an era in a region that has supplied most of the nation’s lead since the 1700s. Almost always, the roads and rails from the mines in southeast Missouri’s lead belt ran to Herculaneum.

“Never thought it would go away,” said Herculaneum Mayor Bill Haggard, nodding toward the smelter whose stack is now 550 feet tall, about the height of the Washington Monument. While lead mining continues in Missouri, the halt of smelting echoes the economics that contributed to the decline of high-sulfur coal excavation in the Midwest.

Americans’ appetite for bling on fire as gold prices sink – by Frank Tang (Reuters U.S. – December 23, 2013)

December 24, 2013

http://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK – (Reuters) – Tumbling gold prices, growing consumer confidence and aggressive discounting by retailers have Americans flocking to jewelers’ counters this holiday shopping season.

The U.S. gold jewelry industry is on track for its highest sales for the fourth quarter since 2010 and its first annual increase in gold sales in more than a decade, precious metal consultant Thomson Reuters GFMS has estimated.

“I always look for the price of gold in the news and pay attention to discounts and deals,” John Mora Gonzalez, a 31-year-old mechanic in New York, said after purchasing a necklace for his wife for Christmas. Mora had spotted J.C. Penney Co Inc’s 20-percent discount on fine jewelry, and paid $40 for a 10-karat gold necklace.

Gold prices have plunged almost a third this year, halting a 12-year run of gains. Bullion lost favor with institutional and retail investors as they braced for the U.S. Federal Reserve to reduce its monthly $85 billion bond-buying program, moving funds to equities and other riskier assets.

Renewed consumer appetite for gold is unlikely to counteract the lack of investment dollars and reverse the downward trend for prices.

US mining giant faces fight with Indonesia – by Olivia Rondonuwu (The West Australian – December 23, 2013)

December 23, 2013

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/

High in the snow-capped mountains, the sight of tribesmen roaming in loincloths contrasts sharply with that of miners using hi-tech machinery to extract gold and copper ore at a huge US-owned facility in remote Indonesia.

The heavily-guarded complex is the resource-rich Indonesia’s biggest mine and has been a controversial presence for more than five decades — accused of environmental devastation and extracting huge wealth while giving too little back to a poverty-wracked area.

On a rare visit by the foreign media to Freeport McMoRan’s Grasberg complex in Papua province, AFP saw first-hand the challenge of mining at one of the world’s biggest gold and copper mines, where thin oxygen makes it difficult for workers to breathe.

Now, the company faces a fight with the state as it looks to extend its contract at a time when emboldened politicians are taking aim at foreign miners with measures forcing them to leave more of their profits in the country.

Indonesia is transforming into a freewheeling democracy and booming economy, with mining firms among foreign companies under scrutiny in what critics say is a climate of rising economic nationalism.

Digging into the Copper Coast’s past – by Paddy Woodworth (Irish Times – December 21, 2013)

December 23, 2013

http://www.irishtimes.com/

http://www.coppercoastgeopark.com/

Waterford’s geopark reveals what lies beneath our landscape, the long history of how it got there and how its minerals moulded our history

Everything we do, everywhere we stand and, ultimately, everything we eat is based on rocks, but most of us know very little about them. Very few of us could tell a visitor much about what lies beneath our local landscape, much less the long history of how it got there or how its minerals moulded our history and determined our vegetation.

The Global Geoparks Network aims to change all that. Geology, with its mind-boggling timescales and unfamiliar language, can seem a rather daunting subject, but the network wants to steer it into our cultural mainstream.

“Is a geopark just about geology?” Patrick J McKeever, vice-co-ordinator of this Unesco initiative, asked during his presentation at the opening of Waterford’s Copper Coast Geopark visitors’ centre by the Taoiseach last month.

REPEAT-FEATURE-Dominican gold rush hits a bureaucratic slowdown – by Ezra Fieser (Reuters India – December 23, 2013)

December 23, 2013

http://in.reuters.com/

Dec 23 (Reuters) – Little more than a decade ago, one of the world’s largest known gold deposits sat abandoned in the foothills of the Dominican Republic’s Central Cordillera mountain range. Car-sized boulders leached heavy metals into what locals called the “blood river,” its waters ran so red from contaminants.

Today the mine, which reopened as Pueblo Viejo this year, hums with activity. Trucks with tires twice the size of an SUV roll through its massive open pits on roads that cut through the 11-square-kilometer site (4.24 square miles), transporting tons of rock to a processing facility.

Some 2,000 people already work here, churning out shimmering gold bars that are exported to Canada and the United States, but the mine has the potential to create 12,700 more direct and indirect jobs and contribute $1.3 billion a year in exports. This dynamic, foreign-operated enterprise is part of the country’s effort to develop an industry that could help boost and diversify its tourism-dependent economy.

Yet despite robust commercial production by two of the world’s largest gold mining companies, Canada’s Barrick Gold Corp and Goldcorp Inc, development of the mining sector is vexed by bureaucratic delays and agitation by activists still concerned about pollution and government deals with foreign companies to exploit the nation’s riches.

PRECIOUS-Gold falls, set for biggest yearly loss since 1981 – by Clara Denina (Reuters U.S. – December 23, 2013)

December 23, 2013

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Gold fell on Monday, on course for its largest annual loss in 32 years, as thin pre-holiday trade and signs of an improving U.S. economy growth kept investors fretting over the impact of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus tapering.

The metal posted its biggest weekly loss in a month after the Fed’s decision to start scaling back its bond-buying stimulus, which was followed by upbeat GDP data.

“Gold is in a bit of a limbo now because we know that the Fed starting to reduce their bond buying is a reality and the dollar should hold relatively strong from here,” VTB Capital analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov said.

“I would argue that there is support at $1,190 … but there may be more downside as it doesn’t take much to move the market in thin holiday trading.”

Spot gold fell 0.6 percent to $1,195.00 an ounce by 1051 GMT. It had briefly rebounded above $1,200 an ounce in earlier trade as investors found value in the metal after prices lost 4 percent in the previous three sessions.

Tale of Two Polish Mines Shows Biggest EU Producer’s Woes – by Maciej Martewicz and Marek Strzeleck (Bloomberg News – December 23, 2013)

December 23, 2013

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Stock markets aren’t usually a subject of discussion when you’re a kilometer underground, yet Dariusz Batyra isn’t a typical Polish miner.

“I check the share price each day,” said Batyra, 39, a senior foreman at the mine run by Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka SA, one of three coal companies in Poland not controlled by the government. “Everybody does in here.”

The performance of his employer compared with competitor Kompania Weglowa SA, the biggest producer in the European Union, explains why. Since debuting on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2009, Bogdanka has more than doubled in value as profits rose every year but one. It has done so even as the price of coal more than halved since 2008, when the global financial crisis took hold, pushing Kompania Weglowa to the brink of collapse.

Another year of diverging fortunes for the two miners underscores the contrast in an industry that’s struggled to adapt to the reality of the free market almost a quarter of a century after communism ended in Poland.

Bogdanka employs about 5,000 and analysts expect net income of 313.5 million zloty ($103 million) for 2013, making it the most profitable of seven Polish coal producers.

Friedland raises industry ire over wages claim – by David McKay (MiningMx.com – December 20, 2013)

December 23, 2013

http://www.miningmx.com/

[miningmx.com] – IVANHOE Mines president and flamboyant mining promoter, Robert Friedland, has raised the ire of his platinum industry counterparts in South Africa following comments to reporters that his company would outstrip wages paid to miners on his company’s Flatreef platinum project in South Africa by an “order of magnitude”.

“In a platinum mine in South Africa today, you have to crawl on your hands and knees on that broken rock for several hundred metres to get to the working phase,” Friedland said at a conference in a report by Reuters.

“It’s pretty claustrophobic, the men are working with muscle power, they are getting silicosis, they are breathing what they are drilling and they are tired of doing it for $12 (R120) a day. I don’t think they are going to do it for much longer, and I don’t think they should.”

“You have heard of blood diamonds for example, or Apple getting criticised for what people get paid, or you see Gap stores get worried for what people get paid in Bangladesh for sewing your clothing. Similarly it is just not viable to pay these workers $12 a day,” he said.

World top ten mining billionaires in 2013 – by Steel Guru (December 20, 2013)

December 20, 2013

http://www.steelguru.com/

Forbes has compiled a list of the world’s top 1000 billionaires, and Ferret is cutting that down to show you those in mining that made the cut for 2013.

1. (No.32 globally) Alberto Bailleres Gonzalez and family [Mexico] – USD 18.2 billion
Gonzalez owns a holding company called GroupoBAL, which amongst other things runs Penoles, which is the world’s largest producer of refined silver and bismuth, as well as Latin America’s largest producer of lead and zinc.

2. (No. 35 globally) Iris Fontbona and family [Chile] – USD 17.4 billion
Iris Fontbona is the widow of Antonio Luksic, who is the founder of the Luksic Group.

Similar to GroupoBAL, Luksic holds a number of interests in different areas, but predominantly in mining. The group has major holdings in Antofagasta, the UK listed copper miner.

3. (No. 36 globally) Georgina ‘Gina’ Rinehart [Australia] – USD 17 billion
Australia’s own Gina Rinehart graces the list early on.

Turkey imposes restriction on its biggest ferrochrome producer – by Charlotte Mathews (Business Day – December 20, 2013)

December 20, 2013

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

TURKEY has imposed power restrictions on the country’s biggest ferrochrome producer, Eti Krom, which some analysts hope will help to support prices for one of South Africa’s biggest industries. In 2012, South Africa was the world’s second-largest ferrochrome producer, having lost first place to China largely because of rising Eskom electricity tariffs and power shortages.

South Africa’s biggest ferrochrome producers are Glencore Xstrata in a joint venture with Merafe Resources; International Ferro Metals, which is listed in London; Samancor Chrome; Hernic Ferrochrome; ASA Metals; and Mogale Alloys, owned by Afarak Group (formerly Ruukki Group).

Turkey ranks among the world’s top 10 producers. Ferrochrome is mostly used in stainless steel, whose production is forecast to rise about 5.5% a year for the next few years, as it is closely correlated with global gross domestic product growth. However, ferrochrome prices have been weak recently because of a slowdown in the Chinese economy coupled with growing Chinese production.

Gold Set for First Annual Loss in 13 Years – by Matt Day (Wall Street Journal – December 19, 2013)

December 20, 2013

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

Precious Metal on Track to End a 12-Year Bull Run

Gold prices slid to three-year lows Thursday, effectively closing the book on a historic rally that lured investors on both Wall Street and Main Street.

Barring a rebound of unprecedented scale, the price of gold is set to notch its first annual decline in 13 years and its biggest drop since 1981. Gold is down 29% year-to-date.

On its way up, gold attracted legions of investors large and small, including big-name hedge-fund managers such as Paulson & Co.’s John Paulson, Greenlight Capital Inc.’s David Einhorn and Third Point LLC’s Dan Loeb. They bet that the Federal Reserve’s extraordinary stimulus launched after the financial crisis would weaken the dollar and stoke inflation, raising gold’s value as a form of protection.

Many investors got burned this year when Fed officials began to hint at scaling back the central bank’s bond-buying program designed to boost growth.