Iron ore boom of the 2000s repeating – this time with critical metals – by James Cooper (Northern Miner – February 22, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

A headline published in The Age back in July 2003 reads: “[Andrew] Forrest has a grand $1.2bn plan for tiny Perth mining company.” That company was called Allied Mining and Processing and you’ve probably never heard of it. But from small roots this tiny outfit grew into one of Australia’s largest listed companies with a market cap exceeding A$88 billion.

Twenty years ago, Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest renamed this micro-cap stock to Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG). The rest is history, but it was quite the story behind Twiggy’s road to immense wealth. Fortescue was perhaps the single biggest success story from the last mining boom. A stock that grew from a measly A2¢ per share back in 2003 to more than $10 a share just five years later.

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Iron ore rally built on more than just China optimism – by Clyde Russell (Reuters – January 29, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Iron ore is having a strong start to the year, with rising prices and robust imports by China, sparked by optimism the world’s largest buyer of the steel raw material is adding enough stimulus to boost demand.

The optimism in the past week has consigned China’s soft steel production data for December to memory, with both sentiment and fundamentals supporting the iron ore market. Iron ore contracts traded in Singapore ended at $135.31 a metric ton on Jan. 26, posting a weekly increase after declining for the two previous weeks.

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Swedish town pays a price for its mining success – by Erika Page (Christian Science Monitor – January 25, 2024)

https://www.csmonitor.com/

Annica Henelund swings open the front door of her fabric shop as she has thousands of times before. Inside, not much has changed in the past 51 years. Piles of bright cloth line tabletops and shelves from floor to ceiling. Most of it will never be sold. In a few short weeks, the store must be empty and ready for demolition.

Residents of Kiruna have long known this moment would come. As the state-owned iron-ore mining company LKAB expands its operations underground, this Arctic town is sinking into the ground. So it’s relocating. A shiny new city center located 2 miles east was inaugurated last fall.

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Mining giants told to pay $9.7bn over Brazil dam disaster – by Peter Hoskins (BBC.com – January 26, 2024)

https://www.bbc.com/news/

A federal judge in Brazil has ordered mining giants BHP, Vale and their Samarco iron ore joint venture to pay 47.6bn reais ($9.67bn) in damages over a deadly dam burst in 2015.

The collapse of the Fundão dam in the south-east of the country caused a giant mudslide that killed 19 people. It also severely polluted the Rio Doce river, compromising the waterway to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean. It was not immediately clear how much each company is required to pay.

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How did Vale tailings dam burst and kills hundreds? – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Northern Miner – January 17, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Construction details in the tailings dam at Vale’s (NYSE: VALE) Corrego do Feijao iron ore mine in Brazil may have caused the burst that killed at least 270 people when 10 million cubic metres of sludge destroyed neighbouring settlements and took out a railway bridge, according to Swiss researchers.

Why the dam broke in 2019 specifically – three years after the pond was last loaded with new tailings – and why no significant displacements had been detected before the collapse, is the focus of a new paper by scientists at the university ETH Zurich.

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World’s biggest mining project to start after 27 years of setbacks and scandals – by Tom Wilson (Financial Times – January 7, 2024)

https://www.ft.com/

Rio Tinto hopes $20bn Guinea iron ore, rail and port plan will pave way for ‘new era’ of mining

The world’s biggest mining project, a $20bn iron ore, rail and port development in a remote corner of west Africa, is expected to start this year after a 27-year wait beset by setbacks, scandals and several false dawns.

UK-listed Rio Tinto first secured an exploration licence in the Simandou mountains in south-eastern Guinea, 550km from the coastal capital, in 1997. Since then the country of 13mn people has had two coups d’état, four heads of state and three presidential elections.

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Gina Rinehart looks to life beyond the rivers of cash from iron ore – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – December 14, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

The mining magnate, crowned The Australian Financial Review Business Person of the Year, is recognised for her preparedness to take big bets and the role she’s played in shaping Australia’s economy.

Wesfarmers boss Rob Scott is an unabashed fan of billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart and her achievements in business and contributions to philanthropic and community causes. Rinehart, says Scott, is “the driving force behind one of Australia’s largest and most successful private companies, which has created thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of value to the community”.

He adds: “She is ambitious for Australia and our key export industries and is investing to make a difference. “Many people would not appreciate the extent and generosity of Gina’s philanthropic and community support, but it is substantial, and her support of many of our Olympic athletes is remarkable.”

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Mining Giant Vale Says China Can’t Control the Price of Iron Ore – by Mariana Durao and Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – December 5, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — China may be the world’s biggest buyer of iron ore, but even that powerful position doesn’t mean that Beijing can succeed in dictating prices for the steelmaking ingredient, said the head of No. 2 producer Vale SA.

The comments by Vale Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Bartolomeo come as China has appeared to ramp up its decades-long struggle to wrest more power over the iron ore market from Vale and its two Australian rivals, BHP Group and Rio Tinto Group, which together dominate global production.

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Baffinland gets OK to ship more ore from Nunavut mine (CBC News Canada North – November 20, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Mining company can ship 6 million tonnes of ore annually until Dec. 31, 2024

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. has been given the OK to ship more ore from its Mary River mine in Nunavut. The company can ship up to six million tonnes of ore per year until Dec. 31, 2024 — that’s up from 4.2 million tonnes per year.

Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal approved the plan following a recommendation from the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB). Baffinland has in past requested, and been approved for, similar such temporary increases.

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The world’s iron ore powerhouse is preparing to reinvent itself – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – October 28, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Vast heaps of crushed brown rock hem the Indian Ocean at Western Australia’s Parker Point port — each a stockpile of 200,000 tons of iron ore, ready to be poured into a procession of bulk carriers bound for Asia’s steel mills.

Rio Tinto Group, the world’s largest iron ore producer, shipped its first cargo of the steelmaking ingredient from this spot in 1966, at the dawn of a boom that minted billionaires and lifted the Australian economy, generating A$1.3 trillion ($820 billion) in earnings in the past two decades alone. Last year, iron ore shipments accounted for about 5% of the country’s gross domestic product.

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Vale to sell sand from Brazilian iron ore tailings – by Len Gillis (Northern Ontario Business – October 24, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

International miners creates spinoff company to market treated tailings as ‘sustainable sand’ for construction, road projects

Vale SA, the international parent company of Vale Canada, has had difficulty with the safety of some of its tailings dams, said it has created a new company to sell and distribute sand from its iron ore tailings properties.

Two dams operated by Vale SA failed in recent years, leaving hundreds of miners and civilians dead and creating significant environmental damage. Vale said the new company, named Agera, will be based in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil and is planned to develop and expand what Vale calls the Sustainable Sand business.

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Iron Billionaires Are in a Green Energy Race – by David Fickling (Washington Post/Bloomberg – October 23, 2023)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Which of Australia’s iron ore billionaires has more money invested in advancing the energy transition? Andrew Forrest, a green evangelist who recently warned that “it’s business which will kill your children?” Or Gina Rinehart, a Trump-supporting culture warrior who’s characterized climate science as propaganda? Believe it or not, at this point it’s neck and neck.

After muscling her way into a takeover battle for lithium developer Liontown Resources Ltd., Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting Pty vehicle now has well over A$1.28 billion ($809 million) invested in energy-transition materials, including a 19.9% stake in Liontown and a royalty stream from a separate lithium project.(1) The power division of Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group Ltd., which he’s promised to turn into one of the world’s biggest energy companies, had assets of $819 million at the end of June.

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U.S. Races to Expand Michigan Locks and Secure the Supply Chain – by Ken Thomas (Wall Street Journal – October 15, 2023)

https://www.wsj.com/

The Soo Locks, which once served the fur trade, now move 90% of iron ore for automakers and manufacturers

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich.—About 10,000 ships pass through the Soo Locks each year to bring iron ore, grain, limestone and other staples across the Great Lakes and Canada into the Midwest and beyond. The navigational system, which allows large ships to bypass rapids below Lake Superior, was originally opened in the 1850s to handle a boom in copper mining. Every few decades, the locks were upgraded—until recently.

The largest lock, built in the 1960s and called the Poe Lock, is a vital link in the U.S. industrial supply chain but has been shut down for repairs 20 times in the last 10 years. Nine of the outages occurred in the last four years.

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Fortescue CEO Fiona Hick’s sudden departure raises eyebrows – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – August 28, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) announced on Monday the unexpected departure of its chief executive officer Fiona Hick, who held the post for less than six months and who attended a corporate party on Saturday to mark the iron ore miner’s 20-year anniversary.

Hick, who was scooped up in November last year from oil and gas producer Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS), has been replaced by current chief operating officer for the iron ore division, Dino Otranto. The 49-year-old female executive made her name by pushing the Western Australia’s resource sector to address its sexual harassment and bullying issues while serving as president of the state’s Chamber of Minerals and Energy.

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Lawyer alleges Gina Rinehart committed ‘egregious fraud’ over transferred mining licences – by Staff (Mining.com – August 15, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

Hancock Prospecting Executive Chairman Gina Rinehart committed “egregious fraud”, Perth Supreme Court heard on Monday, according to a Guardian report.

A lawyer for Rinehart’s children alleges there is clear evidence that mining licenses were unlawfully transferred to the company and a subsidiary after her father, Lang Hancock, died in 1992, the Guardian reported. “We don’t use the word fraud lightly,” lawyer Christopher Withers reportedly said during the trial over mining assets and royalties.

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