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Iron Ore

Inuit hunters blockade Nunavut iron ore mine in effort to have environmental concerns heard – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – February 6, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A small gathering of Inuit subsistence hunters are staging a blockade at the Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. complex in Nunavut, claiming that their concerns about a proposed expansion of the Mary River mine have not been heard.

Privately-held Baffinland said that two groups of hunters had gathered at the mine on Baffin Island on Thursday night – one at the company’s airstrip, and the other on the supply road that leads out of the mine.

The Oakville, Ont.-based miner has proposed doubling its production of iron ore at Mary River to 12 million tonnes a year, from six million tonnes.

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Vale to Pay $7 Billion for One of Worst Ever Mine Disasters – by James Attwood (Yahoo Finance/Bloomberg – February 4, 2021)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — Vale SA reached a settlement agreement with Brazilian authorities for a dam collapse that killed 270 people and led to production cutbacks that stripped the company of the title of world’s biggest iron ore producer.

The deal comes two years after the Brumadinho disaster, giving affected communities a clear framework for compensation and reparations and removing a considerable legal overhang for Vale. Its shares were little changed in Sao Paulo.

Vale will pay 37.7 billion reais ($7.03 billion) including cash payments to affected people and investments in environmental projects, the Rio de Janeiro-based company said in a statement. Vale estimates it will book an additional expense of 19.8 billion reais in 2020 results.

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Final hearings extended for Nunavut mine expansion – by Beth Brown (CBC News North – February 3, 2021)

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

Environmental hearings for an expansion of the Mary River Mine on north Baffin Island are being extended, again.

An additional hearing is now being planned for March, the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) announced Tuesday, after a two-week technical meeting being held in Iqaluit and Pond Inlet fell a week behind schedule,

“The board is planning to hold the extended session in Iqaluit and plans to bring together up to five community representatives representing the hamlet, hunters and trappers organization, women, youth and elders from each of the seven communities, including representatives from Pond Inlet, all together in one venue,” said Kaviq Kaluraq, chair of the review board, when announcing the schedule changes.

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Indigenous opposition to Arctic mine expansion could halt development – by Naill McGee (Globe and Mail – February 1, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A proposed iron ore mine expansion by Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation is raising environmental red flags among Inuit groups, hamlets, and subsistence hunters and trappers, potentially putting the brakes on one of the biggest industrial developments ever envisaged in the Canadian Arctic.

Privately held Baffinland hopes to double its production of iron ore at its Baffin Island mine in Nunavut to 12 million tonnes a year, from six million tonnes.

The Oakville, Ont.-based miner also wants to build a railroad that would transport ore from its Mary River mine in the Qikiqtani region of North Baffin to Milne Port, about 100 kilometres away.

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‘Permanent state of fear’: 2 years after disaster, mine tailings dams a big risk – by Taylor Kuykendall (S&P Global Market Intelligence – Janaury 2021)

https://www.spglobal.com/

On Jan. 25, 2019, a large dam full of mining waste from the Corrego do Feijao iron ore mine owned by Vale SA ruptured and sent a mudslide downstream toward Brumadinho, Brazil, killing at least 270 people. Two years later, some question if the mining industry has done enough to avert further disasters.

Vale has faced billions in costs due to the incident, and several employees and contractors were charged with homicide, including former Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman. While new standards have been introduced, many people still fear other tailings dams could fail, putting communities around the world at risk.

Maria Teresa Corujo is with Janeiro Marrom, or Brown January, a campaign working to raise awareness about the disaster. Corujo described training drills with sirens in Brazilian communities near tailings dams, so that community members could rehearse running in case of another failure.

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Brumadinho dam collapse could have been predicted weeks in advance – study – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – January 24, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

The dam collapse at Vale’s (NYSE: VALE) Córrego do Feijão mining complex in Brazil, which killed almost 300 people two years ago, could have been foreseen with the right monitoring technology.

This is according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Nottingham and Durham University, who collaborated with Terra Motion and discovered that by applying satellite radar imaging InSAR to check for small ground movements in and around dams, it is possible to predict a dam burst.

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Rio Tinto, Fortescue hit pay dirt as prices surge – by Sarah Turner and Jenny Wiggins (Australian Financial Review – January 18, 2021)

https://www.afr.com/

Another stunning rally in iron ore prices is set to put a rocket under profits for the major iron ore producers, showering shareholders with dividends, shoring up the sharemarket and helping the government restore its pandemic-ravaged finances.

Last week, the spot iron ore price reached $US172.36 a tonne, up 1.3 per cent on the previous session according to Fastmarkets MB. Iron ore futures on the Singapore exchange traded at $US170.15 a tonne at the end of the week – the highest since their inception in 2013 – after rallying nearly 10 per cent since the start of the year.

William Curtayne, portfolio manager at Milford Asset Management, said that if iron ore prices were held at about $US165 a tonne there would be large-scale upgrades to the earnings expectations of the iron ore miners.

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Pond Inlet calls for slow increase to iron ore output at Mary River Mine (CBC News North – January 13, 2021)

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

With final environmental hearings for a production expansion at Mary River Mine set to start in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, in two weeks, the community’s municipal council says it is prepared to support the project if the mine owners agree to gradual production increases.

Instead of seeing output at the mine immediately double from six million to 12 million tonnes of iron ore shipped out annually, the hamlet is asking Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation to only increase output by 1.5 million tonnes each year.

“The Hamlet of Pond Inlet will not support the phase two project unless Baffinland agrees to a proposal to phase in the shipment of 12 million tonnes or ore per year, in yearly increments of 1.5 million tonners per year,” Pond Inlet Mayor Joshua Arreak said in a recent letter to the Nunavut Impact Review Board.

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Seven Inuit communities create non-profit to lobby mining industry in Baffin region – by Beth Brown (CBC News North – January 11, 2021)

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

A new Inuit led non-profit in Nunavut’s northern Qikiqtaaluk region is hoping to make sure its seven member-communities benefit from industry in the region, including in aviation, fisheries and mining.

The North Baffin Association, or Qikiqtaaluk Uangnangani Katujjiqatigiit in Inuktut, was formed at the end of 2020 “after years of coordination,” it said in a Jan. 7 news release.

“We are very happy and proud to announce to our members that an organization that reflects their needs has been created to represent them,” executive director Neeko Inuarak said. To do this, the association says it will create its own separate business arm.

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Beny Steinmetz: Mining tycoon in Swiss trial over Guinea deal (BBC News – January 11, 2021)

https://www.bbc.com/

A billionaire French-Israeli diamond magnate, Beny Steinmetz, has appeared in court in Switzerland to face trial over alleged corruption linked to a major mining deal in Guinea.

He has always denied his company, BSGR, paid multi-million dollar bribes to obtain iron ore mining exploration permits in southern Guinea in 2008.

He travelled to Geneva from Israel for the two-week trial. If convicted he could face up to 10 years in prison. Steinmetz, 64, was previously sentenced in absentia to five years in prison by a court in Romania for money laundering.

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Junior miners bring abandoned iron ore projects back to life – by Jamie Smyth and Neil Hume (Financial Times – January 5, 2021)

https://www.ft.com/

Six years after a once-in-a-generation commodities crash forced Noble Group to close the Frances Creek iron ore mine in remote northern Australia, its new owners are restarting it.

Darwin-based NT Bullion is among a host of junior miners from Australia to Canada that are resuscitating operations abandoned by larger producers of the steelmaking ingredient.

Their bets made at the bottom of the mining cycle could prove lucrative. The price of iron ore surged 65 per cent last year to a nine-year high of $166 a tonne on the back of sustained strong demand in China and supply constraints in Brazil, the world’s second-biggest producer.

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Rio Should Make Restitution to Juukan Land Owners, Report Finds – by James Thornhill (Bloomberg News – December 9, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Rio Tinto Group should to agree a restitution package with traditional landowners over mine blasts this year that badly damaged two ancient Aboriginal heritage sites, Australian legislators recommended in a sweeping report after four months of hearings into the incident.

The inquiry’s interim report called on Rio, and all other mining companies operating in Western Australia, to put on hold any applications under a controversial section of the state’s indigenous heritage law that gives companies with mining rights permission to damage a site.

It also advised that the state government replace the law with stronger protections. “Rio Tinto’s role in this tragedy is inexcusable,” the report said. “Rio knew the value of what they were destroying but blew it up anyway.”

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Iron Ore Is This Year’s Hottest Commodity on China-Fueled Surge – by Annie Lee and Krystal Chia (Bloomberg News – December 10. 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A surge in demand in China, the world’s key growth engine, risks a shortage of iron ore that’s pushed prices past $150 a ton and crowned it this year’s best-performing major commodity.

Futures in Singapore have surged almost 70% this year, hitting their highest since trading started in 2013, as China’s stimulus-led rebound fuels steel output and consumption.

The rally received an added boost from Vale SA’s cut to annual production guidance last week, while the first quarter is likely to bring elevated risks of weather disruptions for southern hemisphere producers.

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Chinese Junk Could Sink The Profits Of Big Iron Ore Miners – by Tim Treadgold (Forbes Magazine – December 2, 2020)

https://www.forbes.com/

Scrap steel in China is emerging as a significant threat to the future profits of the world’s biggest mining companies.

BHP, Rio Tinto, Anglo American, Vale and Fortescue Metals rely heavily on Chinese demand for steel made mainly from iron ore shipped from mines in Australia, Brazil and South Africa.

Locally mined material is also an important source of iron ore in China but another source, scrap steel, has played a lesser role than in other countries with big steel industries, such as Japan.

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An all-out trade war with China would cost Australia 6% of GDP – by Rod Tyers and Yixiao Zhou (The Conversation – November 30, 2020)

https://theconversation.com/

China accounts for more than a third of export dollars earned by Australia. The figures, for the 12 months to October, cover the period of coronavirus disruptions and disputes over trade.

They apply to physical exports rather than harder to measure services, and are dominated by record high Chinese takings of Australian iron ore. But they mightn’t last.

China is changing, transitioning from growth driven by the iron-ore hungry expansion of cities and manufacturing to growth driven more by the supply of services.

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