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BHP still sees [Pilbara] greenfields – by Andrew Burrell (The Australian – April 23, 2014)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business

BHP Billiton iron ore boss Jimmy Wilson has dismissed suggestions that the era of multi-billion-dollar greenfields iron projects in the Pilbara has come to an end, even as the mining giant focuses on extracting efficiencies rather than building new mines.

Mr Wilson also refused to be drawn into forecasting the iron ore price amid fears it could tumble in response to patchy Chinese economic data. He said few ¬people had any idea about the outlook for Australia’s most valuable export commodity.

Speaking at the opening of BHP’s $US3.6 billion ($3.9bn) Jimblebar mine near the town of Newman, Mr Wilson said he and his team had “impressed ourselves” by boosting production forecasts from its West Australian operations from 207 million ¬tonnes per annum to 217mtpa for this financial year.

The improved outlook had been achieved through operational improvements, productivity gains and technological innovation rather than any major capital spending. But Mr Wilson rejected suggestions that Jimblebar, along with Gina Rinehart’s $10bn Roy Hill project, could be the last greenfields mines of the Pilbara iron ore boom.

He said the reluctance by miners to allocate billions of dollars towards new mines was driven by the fact that Chinese raw steel production had slumped from a growth rate of 24 per cent almost a decade ago to as low as 3.4 per cent in coming years.

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Platinum strike highlighting huge potential opportunity loss for economy – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – April 23, 2014)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The prolonged strike of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union in the platinum belt is highlighting the colossal potential opportunity loss to the South African economy should the country lose out on its platinum patrimony, which has an amazingly bright latent future.

Platinum has the potential to tick all the important economic boxes for a South Africa that is striving to add maximum value to its metals and minerals. A fuel cell industry, with platinum at its heart, would support South Africa’s drive for economic growth and jobs. Early projections point to massive future global demand for platinum, but blurring the metal’s great potential future are concerns around security of supply.

Hydrogen South Africa (HySA)/Catalysis, a project backed by the South African taxpayer and co-hosted by the University of Cape Town and the State-owned Mintek, estimates that future global demand for platinum catalysts in fuel cells – at only 0.1 g for every kilowatt of output – would absorb South Africa’s entire current platinum mining capacity.

“When the fuel cell technology industry takes off, it’s going to be a multibillion-dollar market,” says HySA/Catalysis Centre of Competence director Dr Olaf Conrad, who, with HySA/Catalysis key programme manager Dr Sharon Blair, spoke to Mining Weekly Online from Cape Town.

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Deadly Illegal Mining Booms Below South African City of Gold – by Kevin Crowley (Bloomberg News – April 24, 2014)

 http://www.bloomberg.com/

Smoke rises from a derelict mine shaft 25 miles east of Johannesburg, where illegal miners cook, work and sleep below ground for weeks at a time.

They have broken through a slab of concrete covering the entrance to the shaft, one of 6,000 abandoned mines, many around Johannesburg, known as “eGoli,” or “City of Gold” in Zulu. At least 40 unlawful prospectors have died in South Africa this year as mines collapse, workers succumb to poisonous gases and gangs wage turf wars underground.

“Any mistake and you feel you’re going to be killed,” said Joseph Sithole, 23, an undocumented Mozambican migrant, as he stood among corrugated-iron shacks and rubbish-strewn paths near the mine. He recounted how last year he dashed to one side of a shaft after hearing a crack, narrowly avoiding being buried by falling rocks. He felt his way to the surface through clouds of dust.

Sithole is one of 14,000 people the government estimates are now involved in illegal mining, which comes as a drop in gold prices and aging ore bodies shut South African shafts. The practice has grown to create a complex criminal industry valued at 6 billion rand ($566 million) a year, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said in February.

The government now plans to block up entrances to abandoned mines, compel owners to heighten security and increase convictions for illegal mining.

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Barrick’s Munk: Newmont Deal ’Always Made Sense’ (Bloomberg TV – April 23, 2014)

  http://www.bloomberg.com/tv/ April 23 (Bloomberg) — Peter Munk, founder and chairman of Barrick Gold Corp., talks about a possible merger with Newmont Mining Corp., gold prices, and Barrick’s acquisition of Equinox Minerals Ltd. Munk speaks with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Iron ore price fears raise earnings alert – by Barry Fitzgerald (The Australian – April 23, 2014)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business

FEARS that iron ore prices are set to crumble in response to patchy Chinese economic data and the unfolding 20 per cent annual surge in exports from the Pilbara have re-emerged, forcing investors to place the earnings outlook for leading producers on high alert.

Prices for the key steelmaking raw material were sent sharply down on Monday and were lower again in Chinese futures trading yesterday.

Monday’s fall as measured by The Steel Index was $US3.20 or 2.7 per cent to $US113.30 a tonne. The sharp fall comes just as the producers and investors had grown relaxed on iron ore’s near-term price outlook after it had worked its way back from this year’s low of $US104.70 on March 10.

The latest fall was put down to the rise in stockpiles at Chinese ports to near record levels, along with another easing of bans in India, which have kept as much as 50 million tonnes annually off the seaborne market.

India’s Supreme Court lifted a ban on iron ore mining in Goa but restricted output to 20 million tonnes a year. It follows the lifting of bans in the biggest producing state, Karnataka, capped at 30 million tonnes a year.

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Chile creates Mining Tourist Route – by Carolina Contreras (Infosurhoy.com – April 16, 2014)

http://infosurhoy.com/en_GB

In 2015, tourists can see mining developments, learn copper extraction and refining and marvel at the size of the machinery used in large-scale mining.

ANTOFAGASTA, Chile – Beaches, mountains, desert and the Patagonia are some of Chile’s biggest tourist attractions. But in 2015, the country will add a new one: mines in Chile’s northern region, such as Chuquicamata – the largest surface mine in the world that’s in the Antofagasta region – 1,585 kilometers north of the nation’s capital of Santiago.

The excavation area, which is 4.5 kilometers long, 3.5 kilometers wide and 1.1 kilometers deep, is one of Chile’s main mines.

The South American country is the world’s largest copper exporter, with 5.77 million metric tons of annual production and exports worth US$43.1 billion in 2013, according to the Mining Council, which represents the country’s largest mining companies.

Beginning in 2015, Chuquicamata, along with 23 other mines, will be open to tourists as the main attraction on the Mining Tourism Route, created by the Antofagasta Regional Branch of the National Tourism Service (Sernatur) in collaboration with mining companies and the Regional Ministerial Secretariat for Mining.

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COLUMN-Indonesia to make it even harder for foreign miners – by Clyde Russell (Reuters India – April 23, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

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

LAUNCESTON, Australia, April 23 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s decision to start cancelling investment treaties with 62 countries has passed with little comment, but the move may have a greater impact than the recent banning of mineral ore exports.

Indonesia last month kick-started the process of terminating all of its bilateral treaties by notifying the Netherlands that its agreement to protect and promote investment would end in 2015, and signalling that the others would end as soon as possible.

The agreements, which are common between states, protect the rights of investors in each other’s country, and typically include clauses about fair treatment, no expropriation and guarantees that profits can be repatriated.

Most importantly for many investors in countries like Indonesia, with its patchy record on legal certainty, is the right of appeal to the Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Among the countries that have treaties with Indonesia are major foreign investors including China, India, Australia, Britain, Singapore and Russia. However, the United States and Japan are among nations that don’t have agreements.

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Elemental Human Rights and Sierra Leone’s Iron Ore – by Joe Kirschke (Engineering and Mining Journal – April 16, 2014)

http://www.e-mj.com/

It was the eye of a slow-forming, powerful storm in one of West Africa’s most weathered places. In spring 2012, Bumbuna, a hamlet in a war-ravaged Sierra Leone notorious for its “blood diamonds,” witnessed a confrontation between police and workers protesting conditions at a project owned by U.K.-headquartered iron ore producer African Minerals Ltd. (AML).

Authorities said strikers tried torching an AML fuel depot and a police station, allegations disputed by human rights monitors. But the events ending April 18 were clear: After decimating the town market, police unleashed tear gas and live ammunition on the unarmed crowd—killing a female contractor while wounding eight non-employees; three officers were also injured. Sierra Leone’s independent Human Rights Commission called it a “war zone.”

Whether amid indifference, dismay or connivance—or all three—such episodes have haunted mining for generations. There’s certainly blame to circulate: Barrick Gold Corp., BHP Billiton, Freeport McMoRan and Rio Tinto—among countless others—have long been under fire. But in a world economy globalizing astride social media, bad news—fairly and unfairly—spreads quicker than ever. Consequently, environmental concerns, once at Corporate Social Responsibility’s (CSR) forefront, are taking a back seat to human rights issues—with some companies adapting quicker than others.

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The robot is ready – so when will deep sea mining start? – by Stephen Eisenhammer and Silvia Antonioli (Reuters U.S. – April 18, 2014)

http://www.reuters.com/

NEWCASTLE, England/LONDON – (Reuters) – The world’s first deep sea mining robot sits idle on a British factory floor, waiting to claw up high grade copper and gold from the seabed off Papua New Guinea (PNG) – when a wrangle over terms is solved.

Beyond PNG, in international waters, regulation and royalty terms for mining the planet’s subsea wealth have also yet to be finalized. The world waits for the judgment of a United Nations agency based in Jamaica.

“If we can take care of the environment we have a brand new day ahead of us. The marine area beyond national jurisdiction is 50 percent of the Ocean,” said Nii Odunton, secretary general of the U.N.’s International Seabed Authority (ISA).

“I believe the grades look good, the abundance looks good, I believe that money will be made,” Odunton said from the ISA offices in Kingston.

High-tech advances, depleted easy-to-reach minerals onshore and historically high prices have boosted the idea of mining offshore, where metals can be fifteen times the quality of land deposits.

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Mine Tales: San Manuel was once world’s largest underground copper mine – by William Ascarza (Arizona Daily Star – April 14, 2014)

http://azstarnet.com/

Located in the Lower San Pedro River Basin 40 miles northeast of Tucson and a mile south of the Mammoth-St. Anthony Mine, the San Manuel area enticed 1880s prospectors attracted to the copper-stained exposures of Red Hill and other nearby localities.

The San Manuel group of mining claims was found in the 1920s and ’30s. Several claimants initiated exploratory drill holes in the area in search of a substantial ore body that would yield profit.

Concerned about potential copper shortages during World War II, the United States government classified copper as a strategic wartime metal in July 1942. As a result, extensive test drills were undertaken by the Magma Copper Corp., which by then owned an interest in the property.

The San Manual Copper Corp. formed as a subsidiary of the Magma Copper Co. to carry on the exploration, revealing reserve estimates for copper ore that totaled 30 million tons, averaging 0.80 percent copper. Development of the San Manuel ore deposit — 7,700 feet long, 3,500 wide and up to 2,700 feet deep — began in 1952 with the approval of a $94 million loan by the Reconstruction Finance Corp. to the Magma Copper Corp.

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Hunt Becomes Billionaire on Bakken Oil After Bankruptcy – by Brendan Coffey (Bloomberg News – March 28, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

William Herbert Hunt was once one of the wealthiest men on Earth. With his brother, Nelson Bunker Hunt, the billionaire bought more than 195 million ounces of silver — 60 percent of the U.S. market — in the 1970s. By early 1980, their stake was valued at more than $9 billion.

The Hunts’ position imploded when silver prices plummeted 80 percent over the course of a few weeks in March 1980, culminating 33 years ago this week on what traders called Silver Thursday. The crash rattled Wall Street and sent the Texas brothers into bankruptcy.

Hunt is once again a billionaire, this time with oil. In October, he sold 43 percent of the North Dakota petroleum assets owned by his closely held Petro-Hunt LLC for $1.45 billion to Houston-based Halcon Resources Corp. (HK) The cash and stock deal made Hunt Halcon’s largest shareholder and boosted his net worth to $4.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“The numbers are out there,” said Hunt, 84, in a telephone interview from his Dallas headquarters. “We’re a family-owned company — a private company — and are really not interested in being out in the public arena.” Hunt hasn’t appeared on an international wealth ranking in 25 years. He said oil will continue to fuel the U.S. economy.

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[Norilsk Russia and Nickel Mining] Life behind closed doors in the Arctic is…..fun! – by Kate Baklitskaya (Siberian Times – April 22 2014)

http://siberiantimes.com/home/

Norilsk is home to the world biggest mining and metallurgy complex, and is shut off from the world in more ways than one.

From deep in Soviet times, it was ‘closed’ to outsiders, and currently remains exceptionally hard to visit for foreigners. It appears on lists of the top ten most polluted cities in the world, and yet has no road or rail connections to the ‘mainland’, as the rest of Russia is known here, and the sea port Dudinka, which is 100 km from Norilsk is closed for nine months a year. Yet, intriguingly, the 177,000 people living in Norilsk – which accounts for two per cent of Russia’s entire GDP – seem more contented than many others in Russia.

On a Saturday night, local photographer Nadezhda Rimskaya, 32, goes to OverTime bar to see the local rockabilly band. Nadezhda graduated from a college in St Petersburg but decided to return home and has been working here for the last four years. The concert finishes after midnight and the group of young people decide to go for a late dinner.

Luckily there are places where the kitchen remains open after midnight – for example Maxim pub. Indeed, Moscow-level restaurants and night clubs, bars and coffee shops, are increasing in Norilsk powered by the high demand, surprising as this may seem.

‘Norilsk misses just two things – oxygen and the internet’, says Nadezhda on her night out, referring to the general lack of oxygen in the air in the north and the absence of the high speed internet in the city. Everything else is fine here and in many ways much better than in many Russian cities. I’m honestly surprised when I hear people say that Norilsk is ‘horrible’. That’s just a misinformed stereotype.’

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COLUMN-Everybody but the curve thinks iron ore is going down – by Clyde Russell (Reuters India – April 22, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

(Reuters) – It’s hard to find any bullish predictions for iron ore prices, with the consensus being that it will drop to below $100 a tonne. Except this isn’t reflected in the financial markets.

The latest bearish signal for iron ore is the decision by an Indian court to allow the mining of 20 million tonnes per annum in the state of Goa, most of which will end up on the export markets.

While this isn’t enough ore to cause prices to slump, it adds to the overall growth in supply, which is widely expected to overwhelm growth in demand, especially as top buyer China’s economy loses some momentum. But despite the bearish outlook, the actual pricing for iron ore, both in the spot and futures markets, is holding up well.

Asian spot prices .IO62-CNI=SI were $113.30 a tonne on Monday, down 15.6 percent so far this year. But they are up 8.2 percent from the year low of $104.70 on March 10 and 31 percent above the 2012 low of $86.70, which was the weakest price for three years.

But more importantly than the spot market, the main paper markets are also showing pricing resilience. The curve for Singapore iron ore swaps <0#SGXIOS:> has a good track record of pointing to turns in market pricing.

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Rio’s Oyu Tolgoi woes deepen – by Matt Chambers (The Australian – April 22, 2014)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business

MONGOLIA has stepped up criticism of Rio Tinto over continuing delays to expansion of the pair’s $US11.5 billion ($12.3bn) Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, revealing a big divide still stands in the way of the profitable second stage of the giant mine.

In a letter to Rio chief Sam Walsh leaked to the Mongolian press at the weekend, Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag chided Rio over behind-the-scenes moves to declare it was seeking an end-of-year extension to project financing for the $US5.1bn underground expansion of Oyu Tolgoi.

Lenders’ commitments for a $US3.6bn financing package for the stalled expansion expired last month because Rio and the government could not agree on Mongolia’s take from the project, access to water, and a $US2bn cost blowout on the first-stage ­expansion.

The disagreement threatens to derail the underground expansion of the project, which is where most of the value is set to be ­realised. The March 27 letter from Mr Altankhuyag, who has declared Mongolia is ready to wrap up the funding, shows the government is unhappy with Rio’s public statements on the project.

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Nickel Prices Hit 14-Month High – by Ira Iosebashvili (Wall Street Journal – April 18, 2014)

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

Indonesia Ban, Russia-Ukraine Tensions Stoke Concerns Over Supply

Nickel prices are soaring amid growing concern about the availability of supply from Indonesia and Russia, the top two producers of the metal.

The price of the industrial metal, which is used to make steel stronger and more resistant to corrosion and extreme temperatures, hit a 14-month high on Thursday, bringing year-to-date gains to 29%.

Driving up prices in the $25 billion nickel futures market is a supply shortfall caused by a recently introduced export ban in No. 1 producer Indonesia, analysts and investors say. Further adding to the worry about global supplies is the situation in Ukraine: Some traders fear that nickel miners in Russia, which ranks second in terms of output, could face sanctions if tensions escalate. Together, the two countries account for more than a third of world nickel output.

If the export ban isn’t quickly resolved, analysts and investors expect supplies of the metal to fall short of global demand for the first time since 2010. Tensions regarding Indonesia and Russia have put the nickel market on a different footing than that of many other industrial metals, such as aluminum, where supplies are more plentiful.

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