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United States Mining

UPDATE 2-Mosaic to buy CF’s phosphate business for $1.2 billion – by Rod Nickel (Reuters U.S. – October 28, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

Oct 28 (Reuters) – Mosaic Co said on Monday that it would buy the phosphate business of fellow U.S. fertilizer producer CF Industries Holdings Inc for $1.2 billion in cash, in a deal that bolsters each company’s core business.

The deal signals Illinois-based CF’s increased focus on its core nitrogen fertilizer products and comes after Mosaic has said it was looking to increase its production of phosphate, one of three critical crop nutrients.

Shares of CF, the largest U.S. nitrogen producer, was up 3.8 percent at $217.62 in midday New York Stock Exchange trading, while Mosaic, the world’s biggest producer of finished phosphate products, rose 0.2 percent to $46.02.

Minnesota-based Mosaic will acquire the South Pasture phosphate mine and plant, a phosphate manufacturing plant and ammonia terminal and warehouse facilities, all of which are in Florida.

The facilities produce about 1.8 million tonnes of phosphate fertilizer per year, topping up the annual 8.2 million tonnes produced by Mosaic and adding about 30 cents per share to its 2015 earnings, the company said. It expects the deal to close in the first half of 2014.

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Illinois’ Teachable Moment: The True Cost of Coal, Slavery and Historical Markers – by Jeff Biggers (Huffington Post – October 28, 2013)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

As another coal train derailed in southern Illinois last weekend, the Illinois State Historical Society teamed up with the Illinois Coal Association on Saturday for their own collision with history during the installation of a historical marker for the state’s “First Coal Mine.”

The real train wreck: Among numerous errors, the Illinois State Historical Society marker fails to mention that other coal mines abounded in southern Illinois, thanks to enslaved African American labor — including the so-called “first coal mine” — while the Illinois Coal Association took the occasion to erroneously bash “environmental regulations” for mining job losses, as the Prairie State plunges head-long into a new coal rush and a reckless environmental and health disaster.

What gives, Illinois State Historical Society? Doesn’t history matter — at least over the hackneyed phrases of the Big Coal lobby, even if they provided most of the funds for the historical marker?

While our nation now recognizes that “Black History Month” emerged from historian Carter Woodson’s “six-year apprenticeship” in the West Virginia coal mines, isn’t it time for the Illinois State History Society to stop finding excuses in the Land of Lincoln — and Obama — and finally come clean on the secret legacy of slavery in our coal mines and salt wells, if only to remind us of cautionary tales for our own times?

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Ontario backs away from plans to buy new nuclear reactors – by Adam Radwanski (Globe and Mail – October 10, 2013)

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.

Ontario’s government will shelve plans for a major new investment in nuclear power, according to industry and government sources.

Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals have decided against spending upwards of $10-billion to buy two new nuclear reactors as had been planned when Dalton McGuinty was premier, and will commit only to refurbishing existing ones, the sources told The Globe and Mail.

The decision appears to be the latest blow to the nuclear industry, which is already facing a decline in international demand, safety concerns after 2011’s earthquake-induced meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima plant, and the emergence of comparatively cheap natural gas. As the most nuclear-reliant province in Canada and the only one with plans to acquire new reactors, Ontario had been held up as a source of hope for prospective builders, including Candu Energy Inc., the once-mighty division of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited that is now a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin.

As a result of the change in plans, nuclear power – which accounted for 56 per cent of Ontario’s total energy supply in 2012 – could end up with a somewhat smaller share of the supply mix. At the same time, the decision reflects stagnant demand due largely to the struggles of the province’s manufacturing sector.

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Iron Range mine could pollute water for up to 500 years – by Josephine Marcotty (Minneapolis Star Tribune – October 5, 2013)

http://www.startribune.com/

A proposed copper-nickel mine in northeast Minnesota would generate water pollution for up to 500 years and require billions of dollars in long-term cleanup costs, state regulators have concluded as they near a key stage in the project’s review.

The mine would require what critics say is essentially perpetual water treatment — a first in Minnesota’s long history of mining — to remove pollutants and heavy metals that would otherwise flow into nearby streams and rivers and eventually Lake Superior, according to a draft environmental impact statement.

The analysis, which regulators expect to release for public review in November, was prepared as part of the state’s review of a mining complex proposed by PolyMet Mining Corp., at a site near Hoyt Lakes.

The prospect of centuries of water treatment illustrates the scope of the environmental challenges facing what would be Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine — and why it has generated intense environmental scrutiny and divided communities on the Iron Range. PolyMet is the first of many companies lining up to tap into one of the world’s largest copper-nickel deposits. The deposits offer the promise of a new era of mining for Minnesota, but one that comes with significant ecological risks for the wildest and most treasured corner of the state.

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Proponents, critics draw opposite lessons from recent copper mines – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – October 5, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Supporters of Minnesota copper mining often cite the Flambeau Mine near Ladysmith in north-central Wisconsin as an example of a mine that can run well, be played out and ultimately be “reclaimed” while not causing significant environmental problems.

While environmental groups cite ongoing issues with runoff at the Flambeau site, including high levels of copper in a small stream in excess of water quality standards, an August U.S. Court of Appeals decision ruled the company is not in violation of its permit. That decision is being interpreted by mining supporters in Minnesota as an example of a copper mine operating and closing without environmental doom predicted by critics.

The small Wisconsin deposit, discovered in 1969, was mined along the Flambeau River between 1993 and 1997, producing 181,000 tons of copper, 334,000 ounces of gold and 3.3 million ounces of silver.

“Yes, copper, nickel and other much needed metal production can and has been done safely and successfully, without polluting local waters,” the industry group Mining Minnesota notes in a recent publication. The Flambeau mine is “a great example of this success … and has since been closed and reclaimed in full compliance with Wisconsin laws.”

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Alaska’s Zombie Gold Mine to Nowhere – by James Greiff (Bloomberg News – October 1, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

James Greiff is a Bloomberg View editorial board member.

What happens when the main financial backer pulls out of a project? The answer is usually clear: The deal fails, which is what the foes of a gigantic gold and copper mine in Alaska are counting on. But in this case the mine has only been dealt a setback and is far from dead.

That about sums up the state of play after last month’s announcement by Anglo American Plc that it would pull out of a partnership that planned to build what’s known as Pebble Mine, proposed for the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska. If the mine were developed, it would be the biggest of its type in North America — and located on the headwaters of rivers flowing into the world’s most productive salmon fishery.

Environmentalists, the commercial salmon industry and local indigenous tribes were ecstatic, as one might expect. They had argued — no doubt correctly — that the mine couldn’t be safely developed without damaging the salmon fishery, and they waged a savvy campaign that no doubt raised the stakes for Anglo American.

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Why Miners Walked Away From the Planet’s Richest Undeveloped Gold Deposit – by Brad Wieners (Bloomberg Business Week – September 27, 2013)

http://www.businessweek.com/

Before pulling out of the Pebble Mine project last week, Anglo American (AAUKY), one of the world’s biggest mining companies, had invested six years and at least $541 million—in a partnership with Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals (NAK)—to develop the site in southwestern Alaska. Wait, pause on that number for a sec: $541 million.

That’s right, the London-based multinational and its U.S. subsidiary (AA Pebble) just forfeited a return on more than half a billion dollars of its shareholders’ money. By the end of its 60-day withdrawal from the project (mid-November), that figure will probably end up closer to $580 million. Anglo American has also indicated it will write down a $300 million loss (misreported as a “penalty” elsewhere) to remove the proposed mine as an asset from its books.

Although a far smaller player, Northern Dynasty will soon own 100 percent of the project, thought to be worth $300 billion or more, and vows to carry on. Having completed more than a million feet of exploratory, diamond-core drilling in 1,200 holes, the former partners also amassed a 27,000-page study of the terrain, but had not begun the formal permitting process. In fact, Northern Dynasty has plowed $180 million into Pebble since it first secured the rights to the region in 2001.

Huge mining consortiums frequently seed nine-figure projects, but $760 million-plus is still a large sum, so why did Anglo American bail now?

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Newmont bids for Las Bambas to beef up copper assets – CEO Goldberg – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – October 1, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Newmont, which began as a copper-gold miner in the early 1900s, is seeking to increase its copper mining operations as “pure gold plays” appear to be losing favor with investors.

RENO (MINEWEB) – In seeking to increase its copper holdings, Newmont Mining is apparently returning to its historic copper roots under the leadership of new CEO Gary Goldberg, a former copper mining executive for Kennecott Utah and Rio Tinto.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Monday, Goldberg said the company had expressed interest in the hotly sought after Las Bambas copper project in Peru. Mineweb was told of Newmont’s potential Las Bambas acquisition by a former top Newmont executive at last week’s Denver Gold Forum in Denver.

Newmont Founder, William Boyce Thompson, accumulated a large fortune by buying undervalued copper and gold claims through Newmont Mining. By the 1940s Newmont would become one of the world’s largest copper producers, eventually becoming a major shareholder in Magma Copper, which would be acquired by Australian uber miner BHP in the mid-1990s. By the 1960s, the company’s Carlin Trend discovered in northeastern Nevada would issue a new era for Newmont as a gold producer.

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U.S. Coal Companies Scale Back Export Goals – by Clifford Krauss (New York Times – September 13, 2013)

http://www.nytimes.com/

HOUSTON — The ailing American coal industry, which has pinned its hopes on exports to counter a declining market at home, is scaling back its ambitions as demand from abroad starts to ebb as well.

Just south of here, New Elk Coal terminated its lease late last month at the Port of Corpus Christi, where it had hoped to export coal to Brazil, Europe and Asia. Two days later, when the federal government tried to auction off a two-square-mile tract of land in Wyoming’s Powder River basin, a region once poised to grow with exports to Asia, not a single coal company made a bid.

They were the latest signs that a global coal glut and price slump, along with persistent environmental opposition, are reducing the likelihood that additional exports could shield the industry from slipping domestic demand caused by cheap natural gas and mounting regulations.

United States coal exports this year are expected to decline by roughly 5 percent from last year’s record exports of 125 million tons, and many experts predict the decline will quicken next year. At the beginning of 2012, the coal industry had plans to expand port capacity by an additional 185 million tons. But those hopes have faded this year.

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Lawmaker’s view: PolyMet will revitalize Iron Range – by Senator Dave Brown (Duluth News Tribune – September 26, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to tour the proposed PolyMet mine site near Hoyt Lakes. PolyMet would like to reopen a former taconite mine for copper and nickel. Not knowing much about the mining industry in general, I was curious about the new jobs, tax revenue and other opportunities that could be generated for the state.

The staff members at PolyMet are lifelong Iron Rangers proud of their northern Minnesota mining heritage. They are avid outdoors enthusiasts who enjoy hunting, fishing and frequent trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. PolyMet has put together an experienced mining staff with strong and loyal employees who represent the best of Minnesota.

Refurbishing the PolyMet site will cost about $475 million and take about 2 million working hours. This is about the same as building Target Field, the new baseball stadium in Minneapolis. New jobs will be for carpenters, laborers, operating engineers and teamsters. Once the buildings and equipment are repaired and refurbished, the plant will have about 360 jobs that will pay $26 to $32 per hour year-round, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Over the 20-year life of this proposed project, it is estimated to generate $720 million in wages and benefits, $300 million in state and local government taxes and $10.3 billion for St. Louis County.

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Economists duel over benefits of Arizona copper mine – by Mike Sunnucks (Phoenix Business Journal – September 25, 2013)

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/

A new economic study pours water on the projected benefits of a huge proposed copper mine 60 miles east of Phoenix.
But the authors of a previous study, commissioned by the multinational companies proposing the mine, are sticking by their more ambitious projections.

The competing studies look at the proposed Resolution Copper Mine in Superior. The mine would be one of the largest in the world and is proposed by U.K.-based Rio Tinto PLC and Australia’s BHP Billiton Ltd. The two companies are among the largest copper miners in the world.

The San Carlos Apache Tribe — which opposes the mine — commissioned a new study by University of Montana economist Thomas Power and his firm Power Consulting Inc. The study takes issue with a 2011 study commissioned by Resolution Copper Co. and conducted by Scottsdale-based Elliott D. Pollack & Co.

Resolution Copper is the company formed by BHP and Rio Tinto to develop the mine. The Pollack study projects the mine will create 3,719 jobs statewide worth $220.5 million in annual wages. That includes 1,429 direct mining jobs for the mine.

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Anglo American pulls out; is it because we’re crazy? – by Paul Jenkins (Anchorage Daily News – September 22, 2013)

http://www.adn.com/

British mining giant Anglo American’s abandoning the complicated, expensive and grindingly slow slog to develop the rich Pebble prospect in Southwest Alaska is understandable — but you have to wonder how it must appear to other businesses and industries considering investments in Alaska.

Anglo American, which poured more than $541 million into the Pebble effort, points to its deep backlog of projects waiting for development. It says it is looking at higher-value, lower-risk undertakings, planning to cut by a third the nearly $950 million it spends annually on keeping afloat pre-approval stage, complicated, from-scratch projects such as Pebble.

All that may be a dodge, a way of saying Anglo American could see the handwriting on the wall and grew weary of trying to win anything resembling a fair hearing for Pebble in Alaska. With the Environmental Protection Agency poised, if not panting, to block Pebble ostensibly to protect Bristol Bay salmon — based, mind you, on an assessment that could not even pass muster with its own peer review panel — the $300 billion project’s future must have seemed sketchy.

It is notable that Anglo American did not sell, likely because there were no takers in the current environmental and regulatory atmosphere. It simply folded its cards and opted to eat a $300 million post-tax penalty for pulling out.

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Does Anglo American’s departure doom the Pebble prospect? – by Alex DeMarban (Alaska Dispatch – September 21, 2013)

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/

Anglo American’s pullout from Pebble is hardly a death knell for the promising but beleaguered mineral prospect in Southwest Alaska. But the move increases the chance of an important shift in the project, one that could lead to a less environmentally risky design than the massive, open-pit option that has sparked widespread opposition.

That’s the opinion, anyway, of Paul Metz, a longtime mineral economics expert from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

With Anglo departing, Rio Tinto is now the only major mining company invested in the project. Rio Tinto, headquartered in London, holds 19.8 percent of Northern Dynasty Minerals, the junior mining company from Canada that has long led efforts to develop the prospect.

Rio Tinto has said it would support an underground mine at Pebble, while rejecting the open-pit approach that many believe will play a large part of Northern Dynasty’s eventual plans.

The Pebble Partnership, once owned half by Anglo American and half by Northern Dynasty, is now working on a transition plan as Anglo backs out, as was publicly announced earlier this week, an official with Pebble said.

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Innovators work to diversify the U.P. economy – by Kathleen Lavey (Detroit Free Press – September 22, 2013)

http://www.freep.com/

Gannett Michigan – Seven hundred feet below the surface of the earth, John Mason drives a truck through the heart of Eagle Mine, the tires crunching on irregular pieces of rock at the bottom of the tunnel.

He points to a section of the rock that’s a slightly different color than the rest. It gleams a little in the artificial light from the lamp on his hard hat.

“There,” Mason says, “is the ore body. Right there.” Four percent copper. Five percent nickel. An estimated 550 million pounds of usable metal in a mine near Marquette.

That’s no match for the purity of the copper hewn from the U.P.’s ancient rock formations during its 19th- and 20th- Century mining boom. But these days, getting it out is worth an investment of more than $1 billion and an effort that will keep a crew of up to 220 miners busy for at least eight years.

The new mine, scheduled to begin extracting ore late next year, is the next chapter in the Upper Peninsula’s long history of making a living from natural resources.

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Tentative deal in dispute over N.Y. [Copper] heiress’ will – by Jennifer Peltz (Associated Press -September 21, 2013)

http://www.boston.com/?mastheadLogo

NEW YORK (AP) — A tentative deal has been reached in a New York court fight over the will of a reclusive Montana copper mining heiress that would give more than $30 million of her $300 million estate to her distant relatives, a person familiar with the case said Saturday.

The breakthrough in the fight over Huguette Clark’s estate comes after jury selection started in a trial pitting nearly two dozen of her half-siblings’ descendants against a goddaughter, a hospital where she spent the last 20 years of her life, a nurse, doctors, a lawyer and others.

An April 2005 will cut out her distant relatives. Another will, six weeks earlier, left them most of her money. The tentative settlement will give the relatives about $34.5 million after taxes under the deal, while her nurse would have to turn over $5 million and a doll collection valued at about $1.6 million, the person told The Associated Press. Her lawyer would get nothing.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the settlement because it hasn’t yet been made public. News of the tentative settlement was first reported by The New York Times and WNBC.

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