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Iron Ore

Brazil’s Vale to avoid driving down global iron ore market – by Dominic Ellis (Mining Global – November 11, 2020)

https://www.miningglobal.com/

Brazilian miner Vale SA will place caution before capacity as it seeks to avoid driving down the iron ore market and presses forward with its recovery from a deadly dam break in 2019.

Speaking at an interview during the Reuters Commodity Trading Summit, Luciano Siani, chief financial officer for Vale, says that the miner is prepared to raise its capacity using safer and less polluting methods to 450 million tonnes in about five years – almost 50 percent more than forecast production for 2020.

“We are going to be responsible and we are not going to overflow the markets with iron ore,” he adds, asserting that the miner would not use full capacity if an expected surge in manufacturing-driven Asian demand does not materialise.

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UK court blocks lawsuit against BHP over Brazil dam burst – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 9, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

The High Court of Manchester, northwestern England, blocked on Monday a £5 billion ($6.6bn) lawsuit against BHP over a devastating dam collapse at an iron ore mine in Brazil in 2015, which killed 19 people and became the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history.

The suit, filed last year by 235,000 Brazilian people and groups including indigenous tribes and the Catholic Church, claims the world’s no. 1 miner was “woefully negligent” in the run-up to the Samarco dam failure.

The claimants were seeking compensation for physical and psychological injury, property damage, moving costs, loss of earnings, loss of water supply and lost fishing income.

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2020 has been transformational year for Iron Range mining – by Jerry Burnes (Minneapolis Star Tribune – November 9, 2020)

https://www.startribune.com/

Associated Press – VIRGINIA, Minn. — When Lourenco Goncalves took the helm as CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources in 2014, he inherited a ore boat’s load of a mess: billions in debt, a declining reputation and a rumblings that the century-plus-old company would go belly up in bankruptcy.

Check that. He didn’t inherit the mess. He took it over — in a hostile fashion — to willingly enact his vision for the company, spending millions of his money to, in his words during a 2018 interview, “put my money where my mouth is.”

In the six years since, Cleveland-Cliffs (the company reverted back to its original name in 2017) has shed those billions of dollars owed, helped lead the Iron Range out of a massive industry downturn in 2015 and is ready to open the company’s first hot-briquetted iron facility in Toledo, Ohio.

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Asia Today: Court upholds state border closings in Australia (Lethbridge News Now – November 5, 2020)

https://lethbridgenewsnow.com/

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s highest court on Friday upheld a state’s border closure and dismissed billionaire businessman Clive Palmer’s argument that the pandemic measure was unconstitutional.

The seven High Court judges ruled that Western Australia’s state border closure to non-essential travel applied during “a hazard in the nature of a plague or epidemic” complied with the constitution.

All Australian states and territories have used border restrictions to curb infections and a court ruling against Western Australia could have impacted their pandemic responses.

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Clyde River mayor braces for legal action over iron mine expansion – by Derek Neary (Nunavut News – November 4, 2020)

https://nunavutnews.com/

Jerry Natanine prevailed in a high-profile 2017 Supreme Court case to prevent offshore seismic testing, and he says he’s prepared to use the legal system again, if necessary, to stop Baffinland Iron Mines from building a railway.

“Absolutely, I’m prepared to go to court,” Natanine says. “They’re just walking all over us.”

The mayor’s primary concern is for wildlife, particularly caribou, in relation to the proposed 110-km railroad that would stretch from the Mary River mine to Milne Inlet.

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Gina Rinehart’s wealth soars as Hancock Prospecting reports $4b profit – by Nick Toscano (Brisbane Times – November 4, 2020)

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/

Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has added to her wealth after her mining company Hancock Prospecting reported a 50 per cent surge in profit on the back of soaring prices for iron ore.

Days after Mrs Rinehart topped The Australian Financial Review’s 2020 Rich List with an estimated $29 billion fortune, financial accounts reveal her private company’s after-tax profit rose from $2.6 billion to $4 billion in the past financial year.

While many of Australia’s top export commodities such as coal and liquefied natural gas have faced sharp falls due to various impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, iron ore has soared and remains above $US110 a tonne, providing a windfall to mining giants such as Fortescue, BHP, Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting’s majority-owned Roy Hill.

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$14 trillion investor coalition puts Australia’s miners on notice over Indigenous rights – by Nick Toscano (Sydney Morning Herald – October 29, 2020)

https://www.smh.com.au/

A coalition of global investors managing a collective $14 trillion has written to Australia’s biggest mining companies describing Rio Tinto’s destruction of Aboriginal rock shelters as a wake-up call and demanding assurances about their relationships with First Nations peoples.

In a letter circulated on Thursday, the investor group which included America’s Fidelity, the Church of England Pensions Board and several top local super funds said their long-term investments meant they needed to have confidence in how miners obtained and maintained their “social licence” with the traditional custodians of their land on which they operated.

The push comes after traditional owners were left devastated and investors shocked and outraged at Rio Tinto’s ill-fated decision to blast through two culturally significant 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Western Australia’s Juukan Gorge to enlarge an iron ore mine.

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Fortescue sees strong iron ore demand as China churns out record steel – by Nick Toscano (The Age – October 29, 2020)

https://www.theage.com.au/

The head of mining giant Fortescue says the strength of the Chinese steel sector has beaten all expectations this year, pushing annual output towards a record 1 billion tonnes and supporting ongoing demand for Australia’s top export, iron ore.

After Fortescue lifted its Western Australian iron ore shipments by 5 per cent in the past three months, chief executive Elizabeth Gaines said China was exhibiting robust demand for the steelmaking raw material and had churned out more than 781 million tonnes of crude steel so far this year.

This marked an increase of 4.5 per cent in steel production for the first nine months of the year compared to the same time last year, and has helped drive a stunning price rally, Ms Gaines said.

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Despite political spotlight, Iron Range town still waiting for economic spark – by Katie Galioto (Minneapolis Star Tribune – October 26, 2020)

https://www.startribune.com/

HOYT LAKES, MINN. – When Donald Trump became president and promised an extraordinary economic resurgence for Minnesota’s Iron Range, this small town of 2,000 seemed poised for a renaissance.

But four years later, Hoyt Lakes is more or less the same. The northeastern Minnesota city that’s home to the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine hasn’t gained or lost many jobs since Trump took office. Unemployment remains higher than the state average, while median household income is much lower than in other parts of Minnesota.

Presidential candidates thrust the Iron Range into the national spotlight this election cycle, claiming credit for its recent successes and blaming others for its struggles.

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LANG HANCOCK: Clash of the dynasties: Pilbara’s role as kingmaker for nation’s wealthy makes it a risk worth fighting over – by Aja Styles (Sydney Morning Herald – October 19, 2020)

https://www.smh.com.au/

The legal war being waged by Wright Prospecting over Pilbara iron ore tenement Hope Downs, coupled with its acquisition of Rhodes Ridge, has the capacity to reshape Western Australia’s mining landscape for generations to come.

Edith Cowan University business lecturer Tom Barratt says Wright’s improved riches could allow it to become more active in a region that has produced the nation’s biggest mining heavyweights.

Wright Prospecting is chasing a 25 per cent stake in the Hope Downs 4, 5 and 6 mining tenements – currently split 50/50 between Hancock Prospecting and Rio Tinto – as well as half the royalties from Hope Downs 1, 2 and 3.

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Clash of the dynasties: Legal showdown looms over Lang Hancock’s multi-billion dollar iron ore tenement – by Aja Styles (Sydney Morning Herald – September 3, 2020)

https://www.smh.com.au/

The end game in a historic feud over Western Australia’s iron ore throne looks set to begin as the Pilbara’s biggest mining dynasties prepare to clash in the Supreme Court.

The historic showdown will unearth the 1960s business dealings of late mining magnate Lang Hancock relating to the multibillion-dollar Hope Downs iron ore tenement in what is shaping up to become the state’s biggest civil court case.

On the one side is Mr Hancock’s daughter and the richest woman in Australia, Gina Rinehart, coupled with her company Hancock Prospecting. On the other are the heirs of Mr Hancock’s business partner, Peter Wright, and the descendants of a third Pilbara mining pioneer, Don Rhodes.

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Baffinland plans further expansion at Nunavut’s Mary River: report – by Jim Bell (Nunatsiaq News – October 14, 2020)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. is likely planning a further expansion of its Mary River iron mine that would see iron ore shipments through its Milne Inlet port increase to 18 million tonnes a year.

That information is contained in a credit report on Baffinland, prepared by Moody’s Investors Service, dated June 2020 and obtained by Nunatsiaq News.

“Baffinland plans to expand the Mary River mine to a capacity of 18 Mtpa [18 million metric tons, or tonnes],” says the report, which repeatedly refers to a “Phase 3” expansion.

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Rio Needs More Than a Safe Pair Of Hands – by Clara Ferreira Marques (Bloomberg/Financial Post – September 28, 2020)

https://financialpost.com/

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Rio Tinto Group may choose to play it safe in its next choice of chief executive officer. With Jean-Sebastien Jacques heading for the exit after the destruction of a sacred Aboriginal site, Australian politicians are also piling on pressure for a local to be given the role.

The mining giant should resist the temptation of an old-school solution. Jacques’s successor will certainly have to rebuild Rio’s credibility after the spectacular failure at Juukan Gorge.

Repairing frayed community and government relations will be among the first tasks. It won’t be enough to pick a veteran technocrat for CEO, though, as miners did after the mistakes of the last boom.

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Rio Tinto promised to respect indigenous people. It has a chance to in the U.S. – by Lauren Redniss (Washington Post – September 22, 2020)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Earlier this month, the Anglo-Australian mining conglomerate Rio Tinto announced its chief executive, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, and two other top executives would step down as the company reckons with its decision last May to bulldoze ancient rock shelters in Australia’s Juukan Gorge to gain access to iron ore.

For the Indigenous Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people, the rock shelters were sacred sites. Archaeologists have found evidence of 46,000 years of human presence at the gorge.

In June, Rio Tinto issued an apology. But pressure from Indigenous groups and Rio Tinto’s shareholders pushed the company to take a stronger stand.

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Igloolik leaders say Inuit face barriers in Nunavut mine environmental review – by Beth Brown (CBC News North – September 15, 2020)

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

A day and a half into meetings on a proposed expansion at Mary River Mine in Nunavut, community participants say they face barriers that limit the full participation of Inuit.

“Every intervener in this process has lawyers and advisers. We were the only ones that are lacking,” said Igloolik mayor Merlyn Recinos, adding that federal funding given to communities to help them hire specialists isn’t enough.

In response to Recinos, a representative from Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) said that applications from communities were not “robust” enough to justify the amount of participant funding they requested from the Treasury Board of Canada.

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