United States Mining – Page 80

Foreign Miners Pull Up Stakes in Indonesia – by Sara Schonhardt (Wall Street Journal – August 30, 2016)

August 30, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/

Newmont Mining’s exit after more than 30 years illustrates the companies’ growing difficulties there

JAKARTA—When Newmont Mining Corp. began exploring for gold in Indonesia in the 1980s, the country’s wealth of untapped resources was seen as the Colorado-based miner’s ticket to the big leagues.

The Batu Hijau copper and gold mine in eastern Indonesia was one of the largest undeveloped deposits in the world, and Newmont’s billion-dollar investment put it on the path to becoming the world’s No. 2 gold miner by output.

More than three decades later, Newmont’s exit from Indonesia illustrates that the country has become a more difficult place for foreign miners to operate, say analysts. Newmont in June agreed to sell its 48.5% economic interest in the local unit that runs the mine, PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, to a group of local investors led by Indonesian-listed oil-and-gas company PT Medco Energi Internasional Tbk. Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., with which Newmont operates the mine, is selling its stake to the group as well.

Chinese-owned Zhongwang USA enters U.S. aluminum market with Aleris buy – by Luc Cohen(Reuters U.S. – August 30, 2016)

August 30, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK – Zhongwang USA LLC, backed by Chinese aluminum magnate Liu Zhongtian, said on Monday it would buy U.S. aluminum company Aleris Corp in a bet by the billionaire that the nascent U.S. automotive aluminum sector will be the industry’s next big growth market.

The $2.33 billion deal comes as Liu and Zhongwang International Group Ltd, the parent of Zhongwang USA, are embroiled in a dispute over U.S. import duties amid broader trade tensions between the U.S. aluminum industry and China. It marks the biggest entry by a Chinese company into the U.S. aluminum industry since trade tensions began ramping up in recent years.

Zhongwang International is parent of China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd, the world’s second-largest producer of aluminum extrusions. It has been accused of evading U.S. import duties on extruded products, prompting an investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC).

Teck not liable for historic air pollution, rules U.S. court – by Sheri Regnier (Trail Daily Times – August 24, 2016)

August 25, 2016

http://www.traildailytimes.ca/

The U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled that Teck Resources cannot be held liable for air pollution that historically drifted across the border into Washington.

Chris Stannell, Teck’s senior communications specialist says the company is pleased with the decision and a review of its implications are currently underway with counsel.

He says Teck and its affiliates have invested over $75 million to date, under EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) oversight, towards a study to identify potential risks to human health or the environment in the Upper Columbia River associated with historic operations at the Trail facility.

Coalition pushes for greater environmental protections for the Grand Canyon – by Megan Janetsky (Arizona Republic – August 24, 2016)

August 25, 2016

http://www.azcentral.com/

The eve of the 100th birthday of the National Park Service was not met in Phoenix with chipper choruses of “Happy Birthday” but rather with calls by local and national organizations to protect the Grand Canyon by halting uranium mining in the area.

Members of Environment Arizona and the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club, which together form the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument Coalition, gathered Wednesday in downtown Phoenix to announce their petition to take action on uranium mining and old-growth logging in the Grand Canyon.

With the support of 500 local businesses and a half-million signatures, groups like Environment Arizona and Sierra Club are banding together to send a petition to the Obama administration to create a Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument. Some 6,000 of the signatures were gathered in the past week in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, according to the groups’ spokesmen.

Commentary: Western officials fear new EPA rules could cripple mining operations – by Thomas Mitchell (Elko Daily Free Press – August 24, 2016)

August 24, 2016

http://elkodaily.com/

There is growing fear among officials across the West that in the waning days of the Obama administration his Environmental Protection Agency may enact regulations that could cost the hard rock mining industry billions of dollars, jeopardizing jobs and entire communities.

Earlier this year, the EPA, as is its wont, settled a lawsuit from a passel of self-styled environmental groups by agreeing to write further regulations requiring additional financial assurances — in the form of expensive surety bonds — that mining sites will be adequately cleaned up and reclaimed at the end of operations.

The court gave the EPA until Dec. 1 to write these new rules. Lest we forget, it was the geniuses at the EPA who bungled the reclamation of the Gold King mine near Silverton, Colo., a year ago, dumping millions of gallons of toxic-metal-laced pollutants into the Animas River, turning it a bright yellow.

[Coal Mining Kansas] Big Brutus: So big, ‘You have to see to believe’ – by Beccy TAnner (News and Observer – August 19, 2016)

August 22, 2016

http://www.newsobserver.com/

WEST MINERAL, Kan. Like a mountain in the distance, Big Brutus rises above the Kansas horizon long before visitors are anywhere close it. This part of Kansas is coal mining country. And Big Brutus — the world’s largest electric shovel — is the last vestige of southeast Kansas’ heyday in the mining industry.

Travel along the back roads and there are glimpses of ghost towns and strip mines. Forty years after Big Brutus’ engines went quiet, this area of Kansas — where the Ozark hills and hardwood forests meet prairie — still has an industrial feel.

At one time, between Cherokee County and Crawford County, there were 63 mines that produced a third of the nation’s coal.

What the Backlash Against Coal Feels Like to a West Virginian Miner – by Adrienne Green (The Atlantic – August 17, 2016)

August 18, 2016

http://www.theatlantic.com/

Gary Campbell reflects on the pride America once reserved for those who helped fuel its growth.

For decades, coal was one of the most influential industries in America, powering businesses, heating homes, and providing many rural communities with well-paid, often unionized jobs. But since then, researchers arrived at the consensus that mining coal is bad not only for the environment and the climate, but public health too—which has prompted a backlash that has damaged the industry.

The New York Times, for example, reports that coal production is headed toward its lowest point in 35 years. Also, three of the largest coal producers in the country have declared bankruptcy in a six-month span, and since 2014, more than 191,000 U.S. miners have lost their jobs.

In West Virginia, stricter environmental controls and the availability of natural gas has resulted in widespread job losses and mine closures.

Navajo Nation Sues E.P.A. in Poisoning of a Colorado River – by Julie Turkewitz (New York Times – August 16, 2016)

August 18, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

DENVER — The Navajo Nation filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Environmental Protection Agency and several corporations, saying that poisoned water that flowed from a punctured Colorado mine last year disrupted hundreds of lives near a critical watershed.

The disaster, the federal suit says, has heightened economic and spiritual pain in a region hamstrung by poverty and drought. The tribe is seeking to hold the agency and corporations accountable, be made whole for at least $2 million spent on testing and alternative water sources and be compensated for lost revenue and psychological damages.

“We cannot just sit back and let the E.P.A. do what they’ve been doing, just doling us pennies,” said the president of the Navajo Nation, Russell Begaye, in a telephone interview. “This river is the main river that gives life to the whole region, not just those who live around the river, but the entire nation. This is our lifeblood. It is sacred to us.”

Beyond Coal: Imagining Appalachia’s Future – by Sheryl Gay Stolbergaug (New York Times – August 17, 2016)

August 18, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

To offset lost mining jobs, officials, business leaders and environmentalists are setting aside political feuds to try to create an entrepreneurial economy.

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — Here in the heart of central Appalachian coal country, an economic experiment is underway inside an airy renovated Coca-Cola bottling plant. Most days, Michael Harrison, a former mine electrician and “buggy man” who once drove trucks 700 feet underground, can be found hunched over a silver laptop, designing websites for clients like the Pikeville tourism board.

Mr. Harrison, 36, is one of 10 former mine workers employed at BitSource, an internet start-up founded by two Pikeville businessmen determined to prove a point: that with training and encouragement, Kentucky miners can learn to code.

“We told them, ‘Quit thinking of yourselves as unemployed coal workers; you’re technology workers,’” said Rusty Justice, a founder of BitSource. He called his pep talks “reimagination training.”

U.S. must bury coal to save miner jobs: Interior secretary – by Valerie Volcovici (Reuters U.S. – August 9, 2016)

August 11, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

EHRENFELD, PA. – From Appalachia to Wyoming, surging demand for cheap natural gas, tougher environmental regulations and multiple coal company bankruptcies have left behind a devastated coal business, lost jobs and billions of dollars in cleanup work.

Many of the jobs are gone for good, but ex-miners can repair the damaged land and shape a post-coal economy, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said on a recent visit to coal country, offering up a future starkly different from Donald Trump’s.

Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, promises to return coal country to its glory days by repealing environmental regulations. “We will put our coal miners and steel workers back to work,” he said in a speech in Detroit on Monday.

EPA continues to make amends for spill at Colorado mine – by Michael Carroll (AMI Newswire.com – August 10, 2016)

August 11, 2016

https://aminewswire.com/

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ponied up more than $1 million last week to reimburse affected communities, a year after an EPA-led remediation operation at a Colorado mine backfired and sent three million gallons of toxic water into nearby waterways.

The EPA’s Office of Inspector General has also confirmed that it is conducting a criminal investigation into the federal agency’s actions last August at the abandoned Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colo. The excavation of a horizontal drainage passage caused pressurized water containing heavy metals to spew into a nearby creek and eventually contaminate waterways in three states and the Navajo Nation.

Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), whose district includes the Gold King Mine, is now pushing to get that mining district added to the National Priorities List, which would make the area eligible for long-term cleanup strategies under the Superfund program, Tipton’s spokeswoman told AMI Newswire.

Aluminum price-fixing claims rejected by U.S. appeals court – by Jonathan Stempel (Reuters U.S. – August 9, 2016)

August 10, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld the dismissal of nationwide antitrust litigation accusing banks and commodity companies of conspiring to drive up aluminum prices by reducing supply, forcing them to overpay.

By a 3-0 vote, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said so-called commercial end users and consumer end users lacked standing to sue because their alleged antitrust injuries were too far removed from the alleged misconduct.

The plaintiffs had accused Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, the mining company Glencore Plc, and various commodity trading, metals mining and metals warehousing companies of having colluded from 2009 to 2012 to rig prices by hoarding inventory.

Donald Trump Pledges to Roll Back Energy Regulations, Bolster Coal Industry – by Amy Harder (Wall Street Journal – August 8, 2016)

August 9, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/

In address to Detroit Economic Club, GOP nominee paints broad picture of industry improvements

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promised Monday to repeal a host of energy and environmental regulations, save the coal industry and lift restrictions on energy sales.

But many of those promises may be challenging to fulfill. A new president cannot easily cancel most regulations, which require a lengthy, exacting process to enact or withdraw.

More broadly, many of the coal industry’s woes are driven by world-wide market trends that are likely to persist regardless of the plans of any particular president.

Criminal investigation underway into 2015 Colorado mine spill – by Keith Coffman (Reuters U.S. – August 1, 2016)

August 2, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

DENVER – Federal investigators said on Monday they have opened a criminal probe into the 2015 spill of some 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of toxic wastewater from a defunct Colorado gold mine that was triggered by a contractor with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

At the urging of congressional leaders, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General is investigating the rupture from the Gold King Mine above Silverton, Colorado, that fouled waterways in three states and Native American lands, the agency said in a statement.

“Based on requests from several members of the House and Senate, the OIG is conducting both a program evaluation and a criminal investigation of the Gold King Mine spill,” the EPA said in a statement.

This U.S. Coal Miner’s Getting Paid to Buy Assets in Appalachia -by Tim Loh (Bloomberg News – July 25, 2016)

July 26, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

James Booth has done it again. In September, his Booth Energy coal group bought a collection of Appalachian mines from a Florida utility company for nothing beyond liabilities. On Monday, it acquired another two sites in West Virginia — this time, from Consol Energy Inc. — for nothing beyond liabilities.

In fact, Consol will pay a Booth Energy unit $27 million at closing and $17 million more over four years, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday. Such is the state of U.S. coal markets that Consol, looking to expedite its transition from mining coal to exclusively producing natural gas, is willing to part with non-core assets for, well, nothing.

For Booth and others, coal’s bust is yielding bargains. Last winter, West Virginia’s Jim Justice paid $5 million — and assumed liabilities — to buy back mines he’d previously sold for $568 million.