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Iron Ore

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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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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Front Row Seat: Book explores culture, conflict on Iron Range – by Jay Gabler (Duluth News Tribune – August 17, 2023)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

As a sociological research project, Erik Kojola spent four years talking with people on both sides of the copper-nickel mining debate for “Mining the Heartland.”

DULUTH — Erik Kojola’s paternal grandparents have died, but he thinks the Hibbing couple would have been excited to know their grandchild wrote a book about the Iron Range. At the same time, Kojola believes, they would have been “somewhat dismayed to see some of the conflicts that are going on right now.”

Kojola was speaking via video call last week from the Washington D.C. area, where he lives and works as a researcher for Greenpeace. He was raised out east, but his parents are from the Northland and Kojola got to know the area through family visits.

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DFD Rhodes stakes claim on Gina Rinehart’s fortune as court hears Lang Hancock exaggerated personal role in iron ore discovery – by Nicolas Perpitch (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – July 31, 2023)

https://www.abc.net.au/

Billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s father Lang Hancock exaggerated his personal role in the discovery of rich Pilbara iron ore reserves and downplayed the role of others, the West Australian Supreme Court has been told. That was the assessment of lawyer Jeremy Stoljar SC, who recounted to the court a business meeting in May 1972 between Mr Hancock and his associates at the time, including prominent businessman Don Rhodes.

Mr Stoljar is representing the Rhodes family company DFD Rhodes, which has joined the mammoth legal battle between Ms Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Mr Hancock’s late former business partner Peter Wright’s family and their company Wright Prospecting.

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BHP and Vale square off in London court – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – July 12, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

BHP (ASX: BHP) and Vale (NYSE: VALE) faced off in a London court on Wednesday as part of one of the largest class action lawsuits in history, which could see them fined £36 billion ($44bn) for their role in a mining disaster in Brazil that killed 19 people.

The case, brought to trial by around 720,000 Brazilians, centres on who should accept legal and financial responsibility over the deadly 2015 collapse of a dam. The incident at the iron ore mine, owned by BHP and Vale’s joint venture Samarco, became the country’s worst ever environmental disaster.

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Juukan Gorge owners PKKP and Fortescue negotiate land use deal – by David Prestipino (National Indigenous Times – July 13, 2023)

https://nit.com.au/

Fortescue Metals and PKKP Aboriginal Corporation have signed a memorandum of understanding they hope will lead to join management of current and future projects on Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura lands. The PKKP holds native title over nearly 11,000sqm of sparsely populated land west of Karijini National Park, including FMG’s Eliwana mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

The corporation was highly critical of Rio Tinto after the miner destroyed 46,000-year-old heritage-listed rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in May 2020, against the wishes of the PKKP people, who were unaware of the company’s intentions until it was too late.

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On the rails: around Western Australia’s massive mining rail network – by JP Casey (Mining Technology – June 12, 2023)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

The Pilbara produced over 800 billion tonnes of iron ore in 2020-21, a massive amount requiring an equally massive rail network. JP Casey investigates.

The Pilbara is Australia’s, and perhaps the world’s, mining heartland, dominating in both national and global production of a number of minerals. The region was the world’s second-largest producer of bauxite and third-largest of gold in the 2020-21 financial year, and these commodities delivered close to $15bn (A$23bn) in value for the Australian economy.

However, iron ore is the jewel in the region’s crown of commodities. Pilbara miners produced over 800 billion tonnes of iron ore in the 2020-21 financial year, with Western Australia accounting for 98% of the country’s total iron ore reserves. These products included over $100bn (A$150bn) worth of iron ore exports, and generated $103.3bn (A$154bn) in sales, up from $42.7bn (A$64bn) in 2016-17.

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Revised plan for mining Mary River iron – by Rose Ragsdale (North of 60 Mining News – June 2, 2023)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Six months after the Canadian government rejected a plan to double approved output from the Mary River iron mine on Nunavut’s Baffin Island, the mine’s operator, Baffinland Iron Mines Corp., is working to get the green light to move ahead with a different proposal.

The new plan, which the company calls a “Sustaining Operations Proposal,” surfaced in December, about a month after federal Northern Affairs Minister Daniel Vandal rejected the earlier plan Nov. 16 to expand operations and double approved shipping output from the mine to 12 million metric tons of iron ore annually.

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Top Stock Fund Wagers BHP, Rio Tinto Will Weather Iron-Ore Slump – by Georgina McKay (Bloomberg News – May 17, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A top equities fund manager is backing BHP Group Ltd. and Rio Tinto Ltd., betting they can withstand softer iron-ore prices and will benefit as China’s reopening boosts demand for the commodity.

Australian producers are attractive as they have relatively low operating costs and high exposure to the mainland, the world’s largest consumer of the steel-making ingredient, according to David Wilson, who oversees the equivalent of $5.3 billion at Australia-focused First Sentier Wholesale Geared Share Fund. The fund has returned 10% this year, beating more than 90% of its peers.

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Inside the mines and megamachines of the Iron Range – by Eric Roper (Star Tribune – May 12, 2023)

https://www.startribune.com/

A family’s question about large machines resulted in a Curious Minnesota field trip to the mighty Mesabi, a place that has fueled America’s success story.

KEEWATIN — The deep pits of the Iron Range feel quite otherworldly in a state known for its flat topography. Here, trucks the size of houses traverse vast canyons that have been carved away over decades by explosives and excavators. It is a constantly evolving landscape.

The Munson family of St. Louis Park asked Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune’s reader-fueled reporting project, to find the state’s largest machine — inspired by 9-year-old Julien’s new Transformers toy. Our hunt for answers in January revealed many candidates in the iron mines of northern Minnesota.

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Why magnetite matters more to Fortescue in the green iron era – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – May 7, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

Andrew Forrest gave a big green tick to Fortescue producing a high-grade magnetite at Iron Bridge.

Andrew Forrest says there’s a graveyard somewhere full of failed magnetite projects, but his will be different. Fortescue Metals Group’s Iron Bridge magnetite mine reached a first production milestone last week after surviving its own near-death experience in early 2021. The Fortescue founder and chairman breathed a great sigh of relief on May 1 when Iron Bridge started churning out magnetite with an iron content greater than 68 per cent.

It has taken other projects years to achieve target grades and some have never got there. The breakthrough for Fortescue comes at a time when high-grade product from the iron ore industry is seen as the quickest path to greener iron and therefore greener steel. And in a green iron world, magnetite projects make more sense than they did in the past.

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