https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
Ten months after an abrupt adjournment, discussions on the expansion of a mine on Baffin Island is set to resume.
The Nunavut Impact Review Board is reconvening its meetings to assess an expansion at the Mary River Mine in the northern Qikiqtaaluk region in Nunavut.
The mine is about 176 kilometres southwest of Pond Inlet. It’s one of the most northern mines in the world, according to the Baffinland website.
DARWIN, Australia — The caves, set deep in a desert gorge, had yielded a treasure trove of artifacts tracing Aboriginal people’s long history in Australia: a 28,000-year-old kangaroo bone sharpened into a blade; a 4,000-year-old plait of human hair believed to have been worn as a belt.
Underneath the caverns sat millions of dollars’ worth of high-grade iron ore, in a country where mining is king.
In May, the minerals giant Rio Tinto decided to blow up the caves to get at the riches below. But on Friday, it became clear that Australia’s most powerful export industry had met a force it could not bulldoze: the global movement for racial justice.
Rio Tinto has succumbed to the pressures of a shareholder revolt over its scandalous decision to destroy ancient Indigenous heritage sites in Western Australia, with its chief executive and two other top corporates stepping down.
In an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday, Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques said he would leave “by mutual agreement” but remain in the top job until a successor was found or March 31, whichever was earlier.
Iron ore chief Chris Salisbury has stepped down immediately but will be paid until December 31 when the head of corporate relations Simone Niven will depart after “completing an orderly transition of her responsibilities”.
Leaders from five communities on northern Baffin Island are unifying as the North Baffin Group in the hope of having their concerns heard by a mining company and by an organization that is supposed to represent their interests.
If their concerns aren’t heard, the group warns Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. that its operations at the Mary River iron ore mine will not continue.
“This information has been the same since Baffinland started—work with the Inuit, you will succeed. If you try to work alone, you’re going belly up,” said Eric Ootoovak, the chair of the Mittimatalik Hunters and Trappers Organization.
The World Bank is said to be mulling an $135 million investment in the proposed Nimba iron ore mine in southeastern Guinea, which is owned by Canada’s High Power Exploration (HPX), a privately-held company founded my mining mogul Robert Friedland.
The move by MIGA, the bank’s agency for foreign investment, would help HPX deal with potential political risks associated with the mine’s exploration phase, including the completion of key studies preceding Nimba’s construction and operations.
MGA’s involvement could prove crucial for both the Guinean economy and the local biodiversity, Africa Intelligence reports.
Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. has held talks with Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani on potential mining sector opportunities in the nation, which has struggled to accelerate development of an estimated $1 trillion worth of minerals deposits.
Ghani and the company’s chairman Andrew Forrest held an Aug. 6 video conference over potential investment in iron ore and copper resources, and the billionaire miner is scheduled to visit Kabul in October for further talks, according to Qadeer Khan Mutfi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.
A perfect storm of reduced supply and rising demand which has driven the price of iron ore to more than $110 a ton is forecast to keep blowing into next year.
Despite repeated forecasts that the price of the steel-making material is overdue for a correction the latest reading of the iron ore market is for the price to be higher for longer thanks largely to supply and demand effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Brazil, one of the world’s biggest iron ore producers, has seen its mining industry buffeted by the public health crisis which has crimped exports while China, the biggest consumer, has lifted imports to meet high demand caused by government economic stimulus to counter the effects of Covid-19.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation says if a Nunavut regulator further delays its Mary River Mine expansion it would cause “extreme prejudice” against the company and be a “breach of procedural fairness,” according to documents filed on the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s public registry.
The board recently released a suggested schedule of meetings over the next three months to address the company’s Phase 2, which includes using rail lines to transport ore within Baffin Island.
The mine is about 100 kilometres from Milne Inlet on north Baffin Island. Those meetings, which have been suspended since March due to COVID-19, must occur before a public hearing can happen.
Australian mining giants Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group have joined BHP Group in reporting record shipments of iron ore, the bulk of it to China, as an infrastructure and property construction boom in the world’s second largest economy drives a rebound in steel production.
The companies have reported record earnings on the back of the iron ore shipments, even though exports of other minerals like aluminium and copper remain in the doldrums as the coronavirus pandemic saps global demand.
Australia’s record iron ore exports to China, combined with a surge in shipments of coking and thermal coal, indicate trade in the key industrial ingredients has not suffered because of a diplomatic spat between the two countries.
Rio Tinto Group is accelerating work toward potential development of the giant Simandou iron ore project in Guinea, as half-year earnings showed the steel-making ingredient dominated the second-biggest miner’s profits.
There’s been a longstanding question mark over Rio’s stake in the massive African deposit. For years, a cast of owners including Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz and authorities in the West African nation fought over rights to develop Simandou.
Even with those disputes now settled, Rio must decide whether it’s prepared to spend the large amounts needed to extract and transport the super-rich ore from its part of the project.
The iron ore boom powering the profits of the world’s biggest mining companies is showing no sign of fading thanks to stronger-than-expected Chinese steel demand.
Despite multiple forecasts over the past 12-months that the iron ore price was overdue for a fall it has done exactly the opposite, rising this week to a new 2020 high of $107 a ton, up 30% over the past four months.
Given that the biggest miners produce iron ore at a cash cost of around $13/t that latest price implies a gross profit margin, before accounting and other charges, of close to 700%.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association have a new agreement for Inuit oversight of the Mary River Mine. Officials from both groups say it will be worth more than $1 billion over the life of the iron ore mine.
Announced Monday, the Inuit Certainty Agreement was signed on June 16. It’s been in the works since an environmental review of the mine’s production and rail expansion ended abruptly last fall, says PJ Akeeagok, president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association.
The new, legally binding agreement clears up most technical concerns that previously left the Baffin Inuit organization unable to support the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s hearing for the phase-two expansion, which would increase production at Mary River.
(Bloomberg) — Scraping away delicately at the reddish-brown earth of northwestern Australia’s vast Pilbara region, a team of archaeologists uncovered a record of life dating back more 40,000 years.
Buried in natural shelters at the base of a cliff were thousands of stone and wooden tools, the sharpened fibula bone of a kangaroo and braided strands of hair.
They worked quickly inside the Juukan Gorge rock shelters to recover the artefacts — and needed to. The team was a salvage squad, sent in with a tight deadline to excavate a site in the path of an encroaching iron ore mine and approved for destruction.
https://www.miningjournal.net/
MARQUETTE — Driving west into Marquette along U.S. 41, passers-by come across a stone structure that resembles an igloo on the Iron Ore Heritage Trail.
Were those curious aware at one time the kiln was used to burn wood into charcoal which fed blast furnaces that converted iron ore and limestone into pig iron during the late 19th century?
After the last of the 43 Carp River kilns collapsed in a heavy wet spring snowstorm in 2016, the historical sandstone structure has been resurrected and was officially turned over to the city of Marquette Monday during a ceremony.
Sao Paulo | Vale’s Itabira mine is back up and running this week after the Brazilian mining giant convinced local health authorities that new measures would contain the spread of COVID-19 among its workers.
The mine was producing 2.7 million tonnes a month before a local court in the state of Minas Gerais this month shut it down for almost two weeks on reports that 200 workers had tested positive for COVID-19.
Vale got clearance late last week to resume operations after clarifying its safety protocols and amending some of its policies. The miner estimates it lost about 1 million tonnes of output over the 12-day shutdown, but again stuck by its revised 2020 guidance of 310-330 million tonnes.
