Latin America Mining – Page 109

Barrick Gold Corp shareholders file class action suit over Pascua-Lama mine – by Drew Hasselback (National Post – April 25, 2014)

April 25, 2014

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Barrick Gold Corp. has been named in a proposed shareholders class action lawsuit that seeks $6-billion in damages because the company allegedly failed to make timely disclosure of problems at its Pascua-Lama mine in South America.

“Barrick misrepresented the progress and feasibility for development and production at the Pascua-Lama mine, repeatedly through the class period,” the plaintiffs allege in a notice of action filed Thursday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto.

Lawsuits in Ontario usually begin with the filing of a legal document called a statement of claim. Filing a notice of action officially launches the case, but also gives plaintiffs more time to follow up with more detailed allegations in the statement of claim.

The document filed Thursday contains allegations that have not been proven in court. “The company is aware that a notice of action has been filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Barrick disputes the allegations, and will defend itself against any lawsuit vigorously,” the company said in an emailed statement late Thursday.

Plaintiffs have filed similar securities class actions against Barrick over Pascua-Lama in the U.S. federal courts. The company has denied the allegations in the U.S. claims.

About 40,000 illegal miners ignore Peru’s deadline to formalize status – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 23, 2014)

April 24, 2014

http://www.mining.com/

Peru’s government has began legalizing tens of thousands of informal gold miners this week, in an effort to restrict an activity that has cost the country millions of dollars in lost fees and severely damaged the environment.

However, about 40,000 of roughly 110,000 illegal miners ignored the Saturday deadline to legalize their status, evading government efforts to bring them into the formal economy.

Over the past five years unregulated mineral extraction in the South American nation, especially gold mining, became an industry of its own, to the point experts calculated it was bringing more profit into the country than drug trafficking. The activity has also led to violence, pollution and the destruction of over 40,000 hectares of the country’s Amazonic rainforest.

In response to those challenges, Peru’s government launched in 2012 a program to incorporate illegal and informal miners into the system by April 2014. Minister of Energy and Mines Jorge Merino justified the measure saying Peru had reached a point of “no return” in the fight against the fly-by-night activity.

Chile creates Mining Tourist Route – by Carolina Contreras (Infosurhoy.com – April 16, 2014)

April 23, 2014

http://infosurhoy.com/en_GB

In 2015, tourists can see mining developments, learn copper extraction and refining and marvel at the size of the machinery used in large-scale mining.

ANTOFAGASTA, Chile – Beaches, mountains, desert and the Patagonia are some of Chile’s biggest tourist attractions. But in 2015, the country will add a new one: mines in Chile’s northern region, such as Chuquicamata – the largest surface mine in the world that’s in the Antofagasta region – 1,585 kilometers north of the nation’s capital of Santiago.

The excavation area, which is 4.5 kilometers long, 3.5 kilometers wide and 1.1 kilometers deep, is one of Chile’s main mines.

The South American country is the world’s largest copper exporter, with 5.77 million metric tons of annual production and exports worth US$43.1 billion in 2013, according to the Mining Council, which represents the country’s largest mining companies.

Beginning in 2015, Chuquicamata, along with 23 other mines, will be open to tourists as the main attraction on the Mining Tourism Route, created by the Antofagasta Regional Branch of the National Tourism Service (Sernatur) in collaboration with mining companies and the Regional Ministerial Secretariat for Mining.

Even in this market, miners see assets worth overpaying for – by Brian Milner (Globe and Mail – April 17, 2014)

April 17, 2014

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

The bargain-hunters scouring the mining world for dirt-cheap acquisitions must be getting frustrated. The battle for Osisko Mining Corp. in Quebec and a Chinese company’s full-price purchase of a Peruvian copper mine show that softer demand, weaker prices and the pounding many miners have taken in the stock market aren’t pushing producers to part with valuable core assets for chump change.

Miners’ willingness to hang tough suggests the battered sector has reached a bottom. Producers are willing to wait and for good reason – there is an increased willingness among potential buyers to pay top dollar for high-quality assets.

In the Osisko case, Yamana Gold Inc. and Agnico Eagle Gold Inc. have reached a friendly deal to buy the Montreal-based gold miner for $3.9-billion and divvy up its assets. The stock and cash offer works out to $8.15 a share, 11 per cent above a revised bid from Goldcorp Inc.

Goldcorp sweetened its original hostile offer by about $1-billion to $3.6-billion when it became apparent that Osisko wasn’t about to be low-balled on its prized Canadian Malartic mine in Quebec.

Chinese group buys Las Bambas mine for $5.85-billion, giving boost to sector – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – April 14, 2014)

April 14, 2014

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Glencore Xstrata PLC sold its massive Peruvian copper project to Chinese investors for $5.85-billion (U.S.) in cash, the biggest deal in the mining sector in more than a year and an encouraging sign for an industry that has been hit hard by lower metal prices.

The sale of Las Bambas to a consortium led by state-owned China Minmetals Corp. could inject more life into the mining sector, which has struggled with fears that China’s slowing economy will crimp demand for raw materials.

“This shows you that Chinese companies still really believe in China. Westerners are overreacting to the lower economic growth,” said John Gravelle, mining leader with consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.

The large Las Bambas copper mine is mostly built and scheduled to start production next year. It is scheduled to produce 400,000 tonnes of copper a year from 2015, equivalent to 12.5 per cent of 2013 imports of copper metal by China. Chinese regulators required the divestiture of the Peruvian asset when Switzerland-based Glencore bought Anglo-Swiss Xstrata.

China-backed group pays US$6B for Glencore’s Las Bambas copper mine – by Karen Rebelo and Silvia Antonioli (Reuters/National Post – April 14, 2014)

April 14, 2014

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

A Chinese consortium bought the Las Bambas copper mine in Peru from Glencore Xstrata for US$6 billion, the high end of analysts’ forecasts in China’s biggest acquisition of a mine, showing the strength of its long-term need for copper.

MMG Ltd, the Hong Kong-listed offshore arm of China’s state-owned Minmetals Corp, led the winning bid in partnership with Hong Kong-registered Guoxin International Investment Corp and state-owned investment giant CITIC Group.

Commodity trader Glencore had agreed to sell Las Bambas to secure approval from China’s competition authorities for its takeover of miner Xstrata. Beijing made this condition to prevent the merged group from having potentially too much power over the global copper market.

A Chinese buyer had been considered a virtual certainty since Las Bambas was put on the block, given the deep pockets of China’s state-owned enterprises and its hunger for copper as the world’s top consumer of the metal.

Glencore will receive about US$5.85 billion in cash upon completion of the deal, which compared with analysts’ forecasts between US$5 billion and US$6 billion.

Exploration suffers as copper miners axe costs, cut debt – by Susan Thomas (Reuters U.S. – April 10, 2014)

April 11, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO- (Reuters) – A weak copper price and tighter financing are forcing mining companies to cut or stall spending on exploring to their lowest levels in four years as they focus instead on axing costs and reducing debt.

Executives who gathered in the Chilean city of Santiago this week acknowledged tougher environmental standards, labor strikes, community resistance and resource nationalism were also making exploration more challenging.

Over the last year to 18 months mining companies have been buckling to shareholder pressure and cost cutting, Vanessa Davidson, consultancy CRU’s copper group manager told the CESCO/CRU copper conference in Santiago.

She said this has included head count reductions and cutting or stalling exploration spending; a trend that is likely to continue.

“We are just seriously focusing on using capital effectively, so exploration would come under the spotlight as well,” Anglo American copper business Chief Executive Officer Hennie Faul told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual CESCO/CRU copper conference in Santiago. “We believe in the fundamentals of copper, but we don’t foresee ourselves expanding our exploration for now.”

Copper price expected to fall, possibly test $6 000/t as supply surges – GFMS – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – April 8, 2014)

April 9, 2014

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The global copper market is expected to post a moderate surplus this year, which will result in copper prices remaining under pressure, the fifth instalment of Thomson Reuters’ ‘GFMS Copper Survey 2014’ has found.

The average yearly price was expected to fall below $7 000/t in 2014 for the first time since 2009, with a test of the $6 000/t level deemed likely over the second half, the report states.

Launched on Tuesday during the CESCO/CRU copper conference in the Chilean capital city Santiago, this year’s study noted how copper prices continued to exhibit a downside bias in 2013, as a sharp acceleration in global mine supply and uncertainties over the global economic recovery dented the red metal’s near-term prospects.

GFMS said that the copper market was in a largely balanced position in 2013, despite global mine output rising by 8%, its fastest pace in more than a decade. Robust demand growth, a tight scrap market and delays in processing concentrate into refined metal limited the size of the market oversupply.

INTERVIEW-China’s economic problems not serious, miner Antofagasta says – by Alexandra Ulmer and Fabian Cambero (Reuters India – April 7, 2014)

April 7, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO, April 7 (Reuters) – China’s economic problems are minor and are unlikely to trigger a crisis in the world’s biggest metals consumer, the chief executive officer of Chilean miner Antofagasta Minerals Plc told Reuters on Monday.

Copper prices fell to 3-1/2-year lows in March after a bond default by a Chinese company aroused fears about credit problems in the country. Prices have since steadied, though investors remain wary of slowing growth rates in the Asian giant.

Mining industry veteran Diego Hernandez, who used to head Chilean state copper producer Codelco and base metals at BHP Billiton, brushed aside major fears about the health of the buyer of 40 percent of the world’s copper.

“We think the Chinese economy is fairly solid,” he said during an interview in his office in Chile, the world’s top producer of the red metal, as part of the CESCO/CRU copper conference. “It may have some problems, but they’re minor.”

Still, the copper market could tilt into a small surplus if new and expanded deposits come on line as promised, Hernandez said. Contributing to that would be the London-listed company’s own production, as first-quarter output was on target, Hernandez said.

Copper Titans Gather as Decade-High Glut Overshadows Earthquakes – by Matt Craze and Juan Pablo Spinetto (Bloomberg News – April 06, 2014)

April 7, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

The world’s strongest earthquake in a year and hundreds of aftershocks rattled the copper-rich Atacama Desert last week, forcing almost a million people to seek refuge from tsunamis. The copper market barely reacted.

The metal is down 0.6 percent in London since Anglo American Plc to Antofagasta Plc temporarily halted some operations after an 8.2-magnitude temblor struck on the evening of April 1. Investors’ indifference is explained by surging global output at a time of waning Chinese demand growth.

As tremors continue to shake northern mines, it will be the prospect of the biggest global glut since the so-called super-cycle began — and how miners are reacting by shelving expansions and shoring up balance sheets — that dominate discussion at the industry’s annual get-together in Santiago this week. Chile, the top producer, is opening three mines in a year, more than it has started in the past decade.

“Demand is not going to grow by the same margin, which is going to generate a significant surplus,” Alvaro Merino, head of research at Chilean mining society Sonami, said in an April 4 interview. “You are really going to see this increase in the second half of this year.”

Clarke Inc proposes three Sherritt board nominees – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – April 3, 2014)

April 4, 2014

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – In its attempt to shake up the board of diversified miner Sherritt International, Halifax-based investment firm Clarke Inc on Thursday named its three nominees for election to the Sherritt board at the Toronto-based mining company’s annual and special meeting on May 6.

Under the leadership of Clarke president and CEO George Armoyan, a group of concerned shareholders nominated Armoyan, resource advisory and investment business Astor Group CEO Ashwath Mehra and 30-year accounting and international business veteran and Municipal Group of Companies VP of finance and CFO David Wood for election to the Sherritt board.

In a statement published on Thursday, the concerned shareholders sought to ensure that Sherritt’s board acted on behalf of all shareholders and increased its focus on creating shareholder value.

“Directors should share in the risks and the rewards alongside the shareholders of Sherritt. We believe a primary cause of Sherritt’s dismal performance is that the board has no incentive to improve the return to shareholders. “The directors are not significant investors but are exceptionally well paid, no matter how the company or its shares perform. Sherritt belongs to its shareholders. Together, we can regain the value lost,” Armoyan said.

Copper price soars on Chile – by Dow Jones Newswires (The Australian – April 3, 2014)

April 3, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Copper prices soared before paring early gains to end only slightly higher Wednesday on news of a powerful earthquake off the coast of Chile, as most mining operations appeared to be unaffected.

Copper prices had a roller-coaster reaction to the news over the course of the global day. The 8.2-magnitude quake near Chile, the world’s largest producer of the metal, initially pushed up the three-month copper contract on the London Metal Exchange by more than 1 per cent to $6,728.75 a metric tonne.

The price quickly reversed before spiking again later in the day, as US traders began work, to $US6,734 a tonne, the highest since March 10. LME three-month copper closed the day at $6,680 a tonne, up 0.3 per cent from the previous day’s closing price.

In the US, the most actively traded contract, copper for May delivery, rose as high as $3.0740 a pound before closing up 1.1 cents, or 0.4 per cent, at $3.0455 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Aluminium prices tracked copper, rising 1.5 per cent on the day to $1,823 a tonne.

“Concerns about China’s economic outlook overwhelmed short-lived fears of supply disruptions following the earthquake,” said analysts at RBC Capital Markets in a note to clients.

Business leaders plug Canada to Brazilian companies – by Stephanie Nolen (Globe and Mail – March 22, 2014)

March 24, 2014

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

RIO DE JANEIRO — Canada is a stable, predictable country where “some of the rules are tough, but you know what they are,” and Brazilian companies will find it astoundingly easy to set up shop here, an audience of business leaders heard in Rio de Janeiro this week. That ringing endorsement came from no less an authority than Luciano Siani, chief financial officer of Vale SA, which has the highest-profile Brazilian investment in Canada.

Mr. Siani described his company’s move to set up potash operations in Saskatchewan in 2009: “We were promptly welcomed by a central agency of the government that provided us in a few months with a contract for gas, water, energy – there was no difficulty whatsoever to get all of the logistics for the project. And these are things that would have taken several years here in Brazil … it would be a nightmare.”

Mr. Siani made this unexpected plug for Canada at an event organized by the Canadian consulate in Rio, which brought BMO Financial Group vice-chairperson Kevin Lynch to town to talk up Canada as its “investment champion.” Canada’s trade with Brazil is currently $6-billion a year. That’s up 25 per cent from where it was five years ago, but it is still only the equivalent of four days of Canada-U.S. trade, Mr. Lynch noted.

Excellon CEO talks Mexican tax reform and strategy – by Anthony Vaccaro (Northern Miner – March 21, 2014)

March 24, 2014

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

Excellon Resources’ (TSX: EXN) La Platosa Mine in Durango is one of the world’s highest grade silver mines. The mine also boasts lead and zinc byproducts that help make it one of the lowest cash cost silver mines in Mexico.

The company’s CEO, Brendan Cahill, took some time to sit down with The Northern Miner at the recent Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in Toronto to discuss recent changes to Mexico’s tax code and Excellon’s strategy for thriving in a low cost commodity environment.

The Northern Miner: Your company, like other producers in Mexico such as Sierra Metals (TSX: SMT), took a more expedited route towards production, eschewing the formalities of completing a bankable feasibility study. Is there something about Mexico that allows companies to fast-track to production?

Brendan Cahill: With all the talk of tax reform, when you go through the checklist of things a company is looking for in a country it is going to invest in — the geology, the security, the community relations, education, stability of government — it is still better than almost anywhere else in the world for building a mine.