International Media Resource Articles – Page 770

Trapped South African miners refuse to leave pit (BBC News Africa – February 16, 2014)

February 18, 2014

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

The operation to rescue illegal gold miners trapped in an abandoned mine in South Africa has been halted overnight. So far 11 miners have been rescued from the shaft near Johannesburg.

Other trapped miners refused to leave after discovering they faced arrest at the surface. It is unclear how many remain underground, with reports suggesting they could number 200.

A full rescue operation will not restart unless the miners request it, said an emergency services official. Werner Vermaak of ER24 told the BBC the mine site would be guarded overnight by a private security company, who can call for help if the miners change their mind. They could also prevent unauthorised rescue attempts.

Mr Vermaak said the miners would not be denied help if they called for it.”They will be offered rescue should they decide to come out,” he said, adding “but they will be arrested should they come to the surface again,” he said. Lacking ladders or ropes, they will not be able to leave the mine without help, he added.

Brazil land disputes spread as Indians take on wildcat miners – by Lunae Parracho and Caroline Stauffer (Reuters India – February 14, 2014)

February 18, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

JACAREACANGA, Brazil – Feb 17 (Reuters) – As Brazil struggles to solve land disputes between Indians and farmers on the expanding frontier of its agricultural heartland, more tensions over forest and mineral resources are brewing in the remote Amazon.

The government of President Dilma Rousseff gave eviction notices to hundreds of non-Indian families in the Awá-Guajá reserve in Maranhão state in January and plans to relocate them by April, with the help of the army if necessary, Indian affairs agency Funai says.

The court order to clear the Awá territory follows the forced removal of some 7,000 soy farmers and cattle ranchers from the Marãiwatsédé Xavante reservation last year, a process profiled by Reuters that resulted in violent clashes. [link.reuters.com/dew27t ]

Anthropologists say evictions from Awá territory could be even more complicated. It is thought to be a base for criminal logging operations and is also home to some indigenous families who have never had contact with outsiders, a combination that worries human rights groups lobbying for the evictions.

Anglo ‘not anywhere near where we need to be’ – Cutifani – by Leandi Kolver (MiningWeekly.com – February 14, 2014)

February 14, 2014

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – While Anglo American’s financial results were encouraging, they were “not yet satisfactory”, said CEO Mark Cutifani at the diversified major’s results presentation on Friday.

“The business improvement is encouraging, but we are not anywhere near where we need to be as a group,” he stated. Anglo reported a 6% increase in underlying profit to $6.6-billion for the 2013 financial year, with the company’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation having increased by 7% to $9.5-billion.

After deducting tax and profits attributable to noncontrolling interests, which represented a greater proportion of profit than in 2012, the company’s underlying earnings decreased by 7% to $2.7-billion. Underlying earnings a share amounted to $2.09.

The company also declared impairments of $1.9-billion, principally in relation to its Barro Alto operation, in Brazil, its platinum portfolio review, the Michiquillay operation, in Peru, and the Foxleigh mine, in Australia. Meanwhile, the group’s net debt increased by $2.14-billion to $10.65-billion, while net debt to total capital at December 31, 2013, was 22.2%, compared with 16.3% at December 31, 2012.

Search for Space Junk Turns to Gold – by Ross Kelly (Wall Street Journal – February 13, 2014)

February 14, 2014

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

Mark Creasy Swaps Nickel Deposit Stake for Cash, Shares in Sirius Resources

SYDNEY—It is one of the most unusual lucky strikes in mining folklore: the prospector who stumbled on a large nickel deposit while searching for the wreckage of a space station in the Australian outback.

Now, Mark Creasy is on paper 188 million Australian dollars (US$167 million) richer after swapping his remaining 30% stake in the deposit for cash and shares in Sirius Resources Ltd., which wants to develop a new nickel mine.

Mr. Creasy is already one of Australia’s richest men, with another big discovery—a gold deposit known as Bronzewing—selling for A$117 million in 1991 and earning him an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the highest payout to a prospector at that time. According to the most recent Sunday Times Rich List in April, Mr. Creasy was worth an estimated £500 million (US$833 million).

He isn’t resting on his laurels, telling The Wall Street Journal that he will use the proceeds of the latest deal to keep searching for more minerals in Western Australia state, including in the remote Pilbara region where BHP Billiton Ltd. BHP.AU +1.05% and Rio Tinto source most of their iron ore.

Barrick Gold Posts $2.8 Billion Loss – by Judy McKinnon and Alistair MacDonald (Wall Street Journal – February 13, 2014)

February 13, 2014

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

Takes Impairment Charge for Projects

Barrick Gold Corp. ABX.T +3.36% Thursday posted a fourth-quarter loss of $2.8 billion after taking another impairment charge for troubled projects such as its massive Pascua Lama operation and as it continued to grapple with lower gold prices.

The world’s largest gold miner as measured by both production and market capitalization also slashed its gold reserves 26%, guided for lower gold production in 2014 and cut its capital-spending plans by about 50%. “2013 was a tough year for Barrick by any measure,” Jamie Sokalsky, president and chief executive, said in a statement.

The company said its gold reserves at the end of 2013 fell to 104.1 million ounces from 140.2 million ounces a year earlier. It calculated its reserves for the year using a gold price assumption of $1,100 an ounce, it said, well below the $1,500 an ounce used in 2012.

“While this is well below the company’s outlook for the gold price and below current spot prices, it reflects Barrick’s focus on producing profitable ounces with a solid rate of return and the ability to generate free cash flow,” the company said.

No oil, but a phosphate future for Saudi desert outpost – by Angus McDowall (Reuters India – February 13, 2014)

February 13, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

TURAIF, Saudi Arabia, Feb 13 (Reuters) – Billboards on the highway outside Turaif, a remote desert town in the far north of Saudi Arabia, foretell a glittering future of glass offices and palm-shaded residential streets. A future that won’t rely on Saudi oil.

Last week an array of government ministers gathered in a tent near this barren outpost, 1,100 kilometres (700 miles) from Riyadh, to sign contracts to develop an industrial complex around a phosphate mine, with a new railway link to a Gulf port and total investments estimated at more than $9 billion.

The Waad al-Shimal project, or “Northern Promise”, is part of a wider strategy in the kingdom, the world’s largest oil exporter, of building downstream industries and boosting the private sector instead of simply exporting raw materials.

It follows in the footsteps of Jubail and Yanbu, massive industrial cities on the Gulf and Red Sea coasts that were built in the 1980s as Saudi petrochemical production grew.

UPDATE 2-Hedge fund plans proxy fight with Cliffs to install new CEO – by Allison Martell (Reuters U.S. – February 12, 2014)

February 12, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

Feb 12 (Reuters) – The activist investor squaring off with Cliffs Natural Resources Inc named its preferred candidate for chief executive officer on Wednesday and said it plans to nominate enough new directors to form a majority of the iron ore miner’s board.

Hedge fund Casablanca Capital, which owns about 5.2 percent of Cliffs, said it is backing Lourenco Goncalves, former CEO of Metals USA, to take the top job at hard-hit Cliffs.

Last month Casablanca publicly urged Cliffs to spin off its international operations and form a master limited partnership from its U.S. assets, but the fund declined to say what its next steps would be if Cliffs refused.

Cliffs, a relatively high-cost producer, has been battered by weak iron ore prices. Operational issues and worse-than-expected costs have plagued its Bloom Lake Mine in Quebec, once seen by analysts as a key growth project.

After months of uncertainty, the company said on Tuesday it has decided to indefinitely suspend a planned expansion at Bloom Lake, and idle Wabush, another Canadian mine, slashing capital spending and cutting some 500 jobs.

Numsa head calls for nationalisation of mines – by Kim Cloete (MiningWeekly.com – February 11, 2014)

February 12, 2014

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), which is in the midst of a battle against the union federation it ostensibly falls under, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), has called for the nationalisation of mines and the financial sector in South Africa.

Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim told the Cape Town Press Club that nationalisation was not “some dogma from the past” but an immediate and urgent requirement to “save our nation”.

“I want to say this very clearly and very straightforwardly. There is only one way to create the number of jobs that are needed in South Africa – the number the National Development Plan dreams about. That is to harness the profits of the mining and financial sectors and use them to build a manufacturing industry.”

Jim said deindustrialisation had caused a massive loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector. “This will not stop until we fundamentally change direction.”

Jim, who represents around 340 000 workers in the metal sector, called for an end to liberalised trade, which he said caused huge dumping of products from China and elsewhere and had shut South Africans out of jobs.

CA miners applaud exploration tax credit extension, skills training – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – February 12, 2014)

February 12, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

As Canada’s Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty Tuesday tabled his Economic Action Plan of 2014, he committed to a balanced federal budget in 2015.

RENO (MINEWEB) – Two prominent Canadian mining organizations Tuesday hailed Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty’s Economic Action Plan 2014, which extends a mining exploration tax credit. Economic Action Plan 2014 proposes no new taxes on Canadian businesses and projects the country’s deficit will decline to C$2.9 billion in 2014-15. A C$6.4 billion budget surplus is anticipated in 2015-16.

The Association for Mineral Exploration BC (AME BC) said it welcomed the extension of the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit contained within the federal budget. David McLelland, chair of AME BC, said, “Many of our members are having difficulty raising capital in these financially challenging times, and the renewal is much appreciated.”

The Mineral Exploration Tax Credit increases exploration financing through providing individuals who invest in companies that are exploring for minerals in Canada with a 15% tax credit on eligible expenditures.

Despite good data, headwinds await Indonesia’s economic growth – by Randy Fabi and Rieka Rahadiana (Reuters U.S. – February 11, 2014)

February 12, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Ibris Nickel Pte Ltd has not made a shipment from its remote mine in Indonesia’s Southeast Sulawesi for six weeks and is bleeding $12 million a month, one of hundreds of small miners squeezed by a controversial mineral export ban imposed last month.

The problems at privately owned Ibris illustrate one of several headwinds facing Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, despite a spate of surprisingly strong economic data.

Indonesia is not only confronting a mining crisis, but also the delayed effects of the central bank’s aggressive monetary tightening, political uncertainty in an election year, a slowdown in China, and the tapering of U.S. monetary stimulus.

“We very much doubt the economy has bottomed and expect the downturn to resume form in the current quarter,” said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, an economist at Credit Suisse. Recent data has looked good: December’s trade surplus, at $1.52 billion was double the market consensus, the largest in two years and the third straight monthly surplus, the government said last week.

India rejects call to ban iron ore exports from top producing state – by Krishna N Das and Jatindra Dash (Reuters India – February 12, 2014)

February 12, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR, India, Feb 12 (Reuters) – India’s mines ministry has rejected suggestions by a powerful government panel to ban exports of iron ore and limit output from the eastern state of Odisha, dispelling fears the country’s top producer faced curbs similar to those imposed elsewhere.

The bans in two other producing states, Karnataka and Goa, have helped spur sales by miners from Australia, Brazil and South Africa, pushing India to ninth place last year among world exporters of the steelmaking raw material to top market China.

The panel, led by Justice M.B. Shah, asked the ministry to consider the restrictions to ensure that future generations are “not required to import iron ore” and to crack down on illegal mining, after recommending the same steps for Karnataka and Goa.

Bans in these two southern states, following the findings of the Shah Commission set up in 2010, have already slashed India’s exports of iron ore by about 85 percent, or 100 million tonnes, in the past two years, pushing the country from its 2011 ranking of No. 3 among world exporters to China.

UPDATE 2-Miner Cliffs to slash 2014 capital spending, cut 500 jobs – by Nicole Mordant (Reuters U.S. – February 11, 2014)

February 12, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

Feb 11 (Reuters) – Under pressure from an activist shareholder, Cliffs Natural Resources Inc said on Tuesday it will slash capital spending, forego a planned expansion at a key Canadian mine and shut another mine in Canada, cutting about 500 jobs.

Cliffs, a Cleveland-headquartered iron ore and coal producer, said it plans to reduce its capital spending in 2014 by more than 50 percent to between $375 million and $425 million as it cuts back its Bloom Lake Mine expansion and idles production at its Wabush Mine.

The miner has recently been targeted by an activist shareholder who wants the company to be broken up and Cliffs to spin out its “riskier” international operations, including the Bloom Lake and Wabush mines, into a separate business from its strong cash-generating U.S. operations.

Cliffs acquired Bloom Lake as part of its takeover of Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines Ltd in 2010 but higher-than-expected costs at the mine have weighed on Cliffs’ earnings. Cliffs delayed a planned expansion in 2012, and a year ago took a $1 billion goodwill writedown related to the Consolidated Thompson deal.

‘Mine-to-Close’ method best for managing mine-closure risks – Beale – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – February 11, 2014)

February 11, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Heavy data gathering, lab testing instead of field tests, and standards-based regulation may not be the best approach to sustainable mine closure, says mining hydrologist Geoff Beale.

RENO (MINEWEB) – Mining hydrologist Geoff Beale of Schlumberger Water Services is urging mining companies to “take careful consideration of closure when planning their initial and expanded site layoffs” to reduce the chance of being saddled with mine pollution liability issues in perpetuity.

In a presentation to the Northern Nevada Section of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Monday night, Beale noted that mine operators increasingly adopt a “mine to close” approach when planning their initial and expanded site layouts.

Beale reminded his audience that the controlled mine closure has only occurred within the past two decades, and that many of the mines entering the closure stage now were developed before closure regulations existed.

Mechanised platinum mines forecast for South Africa – by Brendan Ryan (Business Day – February 10, 2014)

February 10, 2014

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

THE persistent climate of labour unrest and unsustainable pay demands could lead to a long-term structural change in South Africa’s platinum mining industry with the producers opting to develop new mechanised mines.

That is the conclusion drawn by JPMorgan Cazenove analysts Allan Cooke and Steve Shepherd in a recently published major review of prospects for the South African platinum industry. The implication of such a development is that the platinum industry would move towards the business model used by the country’s coal producers, where labour relations are far less volatile than on the gold and platinum mines.

The reasons are that the fewer skilled workers employed on the coal mines are far better paid than the larger numbers of unskilled workers employed on the labour-intensive, deep-level gold and platinum mines.

The new platinum mines would be built on the Northern Limb — or “Platreef” — section of the Bushveld Complex. That is where Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) has already established its Mogalakwena opencast mine and entrepreneur Robert Friedland plans to develop his high-tech “Flatreef” underground mine.

COLUMN-Australia going back to coal has lesson on U.S. LNG exports – by Clyde Russell (Reuters India – February 10, 2014)

February 10, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

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

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Feb 10 (Reuters) – The decision by an Australian power company to mothball a natural-gas plant and restart two coal-fired units seems wrong on many levels, but strangely, it has implications for U.S. liquefied gas exports.

Stanwell Power Corp, an electricity producer owned by Queensland state, said last week it would shut for three years its 385-megawatt (MW) Swanbank E power station, west of the state capital Brisbane, while restarting two coal units with a combined 350-MW capacity at its Tarong plant.

The decision was framed in terms of economics, with the company saying it made more sense to sell the gas to other users than to use it to generate power, and that returning to coal would improve its competitiveness.

This switch back to coal power in Queensland brings together several issues that show the difficulty of implementing policies designed to combat climate change, while keeping industry competitive and encouraging lucrative energy exports in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG).