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Latin America Mining

Copper Boom Has a Top Zinc Miner Scouring for Red-Metal Assets – by Mariana Durao (Bloomberg News – August 2, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Brazilian conglomerate Votorantim is on the prowl for copper assets as demand for the metal used in wiring is set to take off in the clean energy transition.

The group’s Nexa Resources SA unit — the world’s fourth-largest zinc producer — wants to increase exposure to copper and is evaluating expansions of its existing mines, as well as potential new projects and acquisitions, Chief Financial Officer Rodrigo Menck said.

“We have a primary interest in copper, a metal most pursued by investors in the wake of electrification,” he said in an interview.

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Documentary shines a light on lithium mining and conflicts in Argentina – by Fermin Koop (Dialogochino.net – August 3, 2021)

Years in the making, the film tells the story of the communities of Salinas Grandes, Jujuy province, who resist the arrival of mining companies for lithium extraction in Argentina

Clemente Flores lives in the El Moreno community in Salinas Grandes, Jujuy, Argentina, where indigenous communities are trying to prevent mining companies from extracting lithium. The amount of water needed to obtain the mineral, used to power electric car and phone batteries, would radically alter their way of life, Clemente argues.

In the name of lithium, a new documentary directed by Cristian Cartier and Martín Longo, tells the story of a conflict generated by lithium extraction. The film, which took more than five years to make, is available online for free until 9 August and is then scheduled for release in cinemas across Argentina.

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Brazil Prosecutors Target Final Samarco Dam Settlement This Year – by Mariana Durao (Bloomberg News – July 22, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A final settlement between Brazilian authorities and the Samarco iron-ore venture can be reached this year, bringing legal certainty to owners Vale SA and BHP Group six years after a devastating tailings dam collapse.

That’s according to federal prosecutor Carlos Bruno Ferreira da Silva, who said in an interview that the final reparation value is yet to be defined and will be based on independent technical studies.

Silva, who is leading talks on behalf of prosecutors, pointed to a document signed by the parties that estimates talks to last about four months from June 22, the last four weeks of which would be focused on a final draft. Authorities and company officials have been meeting weekly.

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Mining Boss Sees Fervor Calming With Peru Leftist to Take Office – by James Attwood (Bloomberg News – July 21, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Peru’s mining industry is hopeful of avoiding the kind of drastic measures that would stifle investment and future production when Pedro Castillo takes office in the world’s No. 2 copper producer.

While the president-elect may have spoken of taking some extreme measures during the campaign, he may be more measured once in office, according to Victor Gobitz, president of Peru’s Institute of Mining Engineers.

During a tense and polarizing election process, the rural union activist from a Marxist party vowed to nationalize energy assets, block certain projects and take a bigger share of the mineral windfall to fight poverty.

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Analysis: Illegal gold mining in Peru set to continue – by Ben Heubl (Engineering and Technology – July 16, 2021)

https://eandt.theiet.org/

Peruvian authorities seem powerless to stop illegal gold mining that has wreaked havoc in the country’s rainforests and is poisoning the environment with mercury. E&T’s analysis shows that the practice boomed during the pandemic.

The price of gold is sensitive to crisis, but can itself be the cause of turmoil, especially in an environmental context.

During the past year and a half of the global pandemic, the gold price reached historic heights. As a result, an artisanal gold-mining boom swept the world, notably in countries that are but resource-rich.

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Copper mining is Opec on crack, so why is the price falling? – by Frik Els (Mining.com – July 13, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Much like the reference in this piece’s headline, it’s a cliché to call a country the Saudia Arabia of something.

The top search suggestion at the moment is the Saudi Arabia of wind. That’s Boris Johnson’s dream for the UK and from a leader with an affinity for hot air, perhaps not unexpected.

The Saudi Arabia of lithium query takes you to a story about Chile, which is wrong. Neither is it Afghanistan as this article in the NYT would have it. It’s Nevada; Elon Musk confirmed it last year.

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EXCLUSIVE Peru’s Castillo expects mining firms to accept ‘prudent’ tax changes, adviser says – by Marco Aquino (Reuters – July 6, 2021)

https://www.reuters.com/

LIMA, July 6 (Reuters) – Peru’s socialist president-in-waiting expects mining firms enjoying high metals prices to be won over to “prudent” plans to hike taxes on mineral resources, a top adviser told Reuters on Tuesday.

In a sign that the gap between the business sector in the world’s no. 2 copper producer and the incoming leftist government is closing, Pedro Francke, Castillo’s economic adviser, said he expected firms would not oppose a planned review of tax rules after dozens of meetings with businesses.

Castillo is set to be confirmed president after a review of ballots from the June 6 vote. The political novice and former teacher has rattled Peru’s elite with plans to redraft the constitution and sharply hike taxes on miners he once said had “plundered” the country’s wealth.

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Chile royalty regime changes may jeopardise future investments – Woodmac (Mining Weekly.com – July 5, 2021)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

Although proposed changes to Chile’s mining royalty regime are not expected to have a drastic impact on the copper-producing nation’s production landscape in the near term, amendments do risk compromising continued appetite for large-scale, long-term investments.

This is according to resources consultancy Wood Mackenzie analyst William Tankard, who stresses that Chile has to careful consider the implementation of its royalty regime reform.

“It is unhelpfully alarmist to place primary focus on the proposed amendments [impact] on producers’ value loss under current spot prices, which are at record highs,” he cautions.

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Peru’s indigenous hope for a voice, at last, under new president – by Stefanie Eschenbacher and Angela Ponce (Reuters – July 5, 2021)

https://www.reuters.com/

CARATA, Peru, July 5 (Reuters) – Maxima Ccalla, 60, an indigenous Quechua woman, has spent her life tilling the harsh soil in Peru’s Andean highlands, resigned to a fate far removed from the vast riches buried deep beneath her feet in seams of copper, zinc and gold.

The Andean communities in Ccalla’s home region of Puno and beyond have long clashed with the mining companies that dig mineral wealth out from the ground.

In recent interviews, many said they felt discriminated against and marginalized, and accused mining companies of polluting their water and soil.

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Lithium nationalism taking root in region with most resources – by Jonathan Gilbert and Daniela Sirtori-Cortina (Bloomberg News – June 29, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Politicians in Latin America, a region that accounts for more than half the world’s lithium resources, are looking to increase the role of the state in an industry that’s crucial for weaning the world off fossil fuels.

In Argentina, state energy companies are entering the lithium business as authorities make a bid to develop downstream industries. In Chile, a leading presidential candidate wants to do something similar just as the nation drafts a new constitution that may lead to tougher rules for miners.

To be sure, no one in power is talking about expropriating assets in production and much of the anti-investor rhetoric in Chile is coming from opposition groups.

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Glencore to buy out Anglo American and BHP at coal mine – by Greg Roxburgh(Alliance News – June 28, 2021)

https://www.morningstar.co.uk/

(Alliance News) – Glencore PLC on Monday said it has agreed to buy out its Cerrejon coal mine joint venture partners, Anglo American PLC and BHP Group PLC, for USD588 million.

For London-based Anglo American, the sale will mark the wide-ranging miner’s exit from thermal coal. Anglo will be selling its 33% stake in the Colombian mine for USD294 million.

“Today’s agreement marks the last stage of our transition from thermal coal operations,” said Anglo American Chief Executive Mark Cutifani.

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Brazil to ease licencing of newly listed strategic minerals – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – June 23, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

The Brazilian government has issued a list of specific metals which production aims to boost through a recently established policy that seeks to identify projects of minerals deemed of special interest to the country.

The so-called Policy for Strategic Minerals guarantees support to companies involved in the exploration and mining of a variety of commodities, including potash, iron ore, gold and battery metals, such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.

The government backing comes mostly in the form of easing the licencing process by facilitating, for example, the dialogue between the environmental agency responsible for conducting the environmental licensing process and authorities such as the managing bodies of Conservation Units, the National Indian Foundation (Funai), the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) and the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan).

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Brazil to deploy police to protect Yanomami from miners (France24.com – June 14, 2021)

https://www.france24.com/en/

Brazil said Monday it would deploy a special security force to protect the Yanomami indigenous reservation, whose residents have clashed recently with illegal miners encroaching on native lands in the Amazon rainforest.

The measure comes after Brazil’s Supreme Court last month ordered far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s government to adopt “necessary measures” to protect the Yanomami and Mundurucu peoples’ reservations from wildcat gold miners.

Justice Minister Anderson Torres gave a federal force of police and firefighters a 90-day renewable mandate to “preserve the public order” on Yanomami lands.

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After two collapses, a third Vale dam at ‘imminent risk of rupture’ – by Juliana Ennes (Mongabay.com – June 14, 2021)

https://news.mongabay.com/

A dam holding back mining waste from Brazilian miner Vale is at risk of collapsing, a government audit says.

The same company was responsible for two tailings dam collapses since 2015 that unleashed millions of gallons of toxic sludge and killed hundreds of people in Brazil’s southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

The retired Xingu dam at Vale’s Alegria iron ore mine in Mariana — the same municipality where a Vale tailings dam collapsed in November 2015 in what’s considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to date — is at “serious and imminent risk of rupture by liquefaction,” according to an audit report from the Minas Gerais state labor department (SRT), cited by government news agency Agência Brasil.

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Copper Riches Are in Cross-Hairs of Chile Presidential Hopeful – by Valentina Fuentes and Eduardo Thomson (Bloomberg News – June 10, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The man who early polling suggests will be Chile’s next president plans to raise mining taxes in coordination with neighboring nations and take equity stakes in copper mines in a bid to retain more mineral wealth.

Daniel Jadue, the current front-runner in polls for November’s elections in Chile, wants to align mining rules with Peru, Argentina and Bolivia so they don’t compete for investments, he said in an interview Wednesday.

Like Indonesia has done, he also plans to renegotiate with foreign companies to take stakes in their assets in what would be the industry’s biggest disruption since U.S.-owned mines were nationalized to form Codelco in the 1970s.

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