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Zinc deficit looms, prices up, but output restarts unlikely – by Pratima Desai (Reuters U.K. – August 16, 2016)

http://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, Aug 16 Zinc’s sharp rally and looming market deficit has fed speculation that major producers such as Glencore may reverse output cuts, but analysts caution that is unlikely to happen soon.

Only when stocks of concentrate and metal sink to levels where higher prices can be sustained will large producers look at restarting capacity, they say. Benchmark zinc on the London Metal Exchange has climbed nearly 60 percent from January’s multi-year lows to around $2,300 a tonne, its highest since May 2015.

Many zinc mines have been shut or mothballed over the past couple of years, but prices did not really take off until this year when deficit expectations intensified with the closure of the Century mine in Australia and Lisheen in Ireland.

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Kidd copper spills in river in train derailment – by Sarah Moore (Timmins Daily Press – August 13, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

RAMORE – Crews are still working to clean up a potentially toxic spill in the White Clay River, near Ramore, after a train from a Timmins mine derailed on Thursday afternoon.

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) confirmed that the train, which was carrying zinc and copper concentrate and bound for Englehart, originated from Glencore’s Kidd Operations Met Site.

The mine retrieves the concentrate at its facility on Highway 101, just outside of Timmins, in Hoyle, and ships it to its processing plants via the Ontario Northland Rail (ONR) freight line. The four-car train was travelling southbound along the White Clay River Bridge on Thursday, Aug. 11 when it derailed at approximately 12:30 p.m.

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Glencore Seeks Bolivia Compensation After Mine Nationalization – by Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – August 12, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc, the Swiss miner and commodities trader headed by billionaire Ivan Glasenberg, has started arbitration proceedings against Bolivia after three of its operations were nationalized by the country, the first in 2007.

The company has tried “to settle the dispute with the government of Bolivia amicably,” it said in an e-mailed statement. “However, after almost nine years of negotiations without receiving any compensation for the nationalization of three of its operations, Glencore had no other option but to initiate arbitration proceedings to enforce its rights under international law.”

Bolivia nationalized the Vinto tin smelter in 2007 and the Colquiri zinc and lead mine was handed to state mining company Comibol in 2012. The government also seized the Vinto antimony operation.

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Exclusive: Glencore shelves plan to sell Chilean copper mine – by John Tilak and Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – August 11, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO/LONDON – Glencore has shelved plans to sell a copper mine in Chile that was expected to fetch about $500 million, after failing to achieve a high enough price, according to people familiar with the situation.

Along with other big mining companies, Glencore has been seeking to offload a range of assets to reduce debt following a commodities price crash, but a rally on raw materials markets and in the value of share prices of mining companies this year has taken away the need for urgent sales at any price.

Glencore began a process to sell its Lomas Bayas copper mine in Chile late last year, when anxiety about the health of some mining firms’ balance sheets was high.

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Glencore guiding higher ferrochrome, nickel output – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – August 11, 2016)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified mining and marketing company Glencore on Thursday guided higher 2016 ferrochrome and nickel production – the only two of its wide range of commodities that it expects to produce at levels higher than in 2015.

Reporting lower half-year production of copper, zinc, lead, coal and oil than in the first six months of 2015, the London-, Hong Kong- and Johannesburg-listed company headed by CEO Ivan Glasenberg put this year’s expected full-year ferrochrome production at 1 575 000 t – up on the 1 462 000 t of 2015.

In the six months to June 30, Glencore’s attributable share of ferrochrome production of 762 000 t was in line with last year’s first-half output. The company is also guiding 2016 nickel output of 116 000 t, up on the 96 000 t of last year.

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NEWS RELEASE: Horizonte completes acquisition of Glencore project to create one of largest nickel saprolite projects globally

LONDON, Aug. 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ – Horizonte Minerals Plc, (AIM: HZM, TSX: HZM) (‘Horizonte’ or ‘the Company’) the nickel development company focused in Brazil, is pleased to announce the transfer to a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company of the remaining two licences that make up the Glencore Araguaia nickel project (‘GAP’) in north central Brazil. This completes the licence transfer under the agreement (‘Asset Purchase Agreement’) to acquire GAP from Xstrata Brasil Exploraçâo Mineral Ltda (‘Xstrata’), a wholly owned subsidiary of Glencore, as announced by the Company on 28 September 2015.

Highlights

  • The closing of the transaction completes the consolidation of GAP and Horizonte’s Araguaia Project creating one of the largest nickel saprolite projects globally
  • The transfer includes the advanced Serra do Tapa nickel deposit
  • Combined projects currently the focus for a new Pre-Feasibility Study due for completion in Q3 2016

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Glencore Digs Out of the Abyss – by Vivienne Walt (Fortune Magazine – August 2016)

http://fortune.com/

The commodities behemoth faced a ­crisis last year as prices of metals, grains, and petroleum products—as well as the company’s stock price—plummeted. A rare inside look at how the secretive Swiss giant survived and how it plans to thrive again in a post-boom world.

Shimmering below our eight-seater plane in the dazzling African light is a mammoth hole gouged out of the terrain of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the air, the green and black hues offer just a hint of the huge mineral wealth lying under one of the poorest, most remote countries on earth.

Yet it is only after we have landed on a tiny airstrip and bumped along in an off-road vehicle for half an hour past mud-brick houses that the full extent of those riches becomes clear. From the rim of the pit, the rock 450 feet down at the bottom looks as if it has been drawn with neon Crayolas, its green popping against the deep-black earth.

“Some of the richest ore bodies anywhere are in Congo, and one of them is here,” says Pedro Quinteros, an engineer from Peru who has excavated minerals for decades on three continents and now serves as CEO of Mutanda Mining, the nine-year-old cobalt and copper facility we’re visiting. Here parts of the ore, he says, can be up to 30% copper.

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Miners juggle debts rather than sell assets cheap – by Marcus Leroux (The Australian – July 21, 2016)

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

The Times – Three years ago, Ivan Glasenberg issued a characteristically blunt assessment of where the mining industry had gone wrong. “The big guys really screwed up,” the Glencore boss told an industry conference. “We’ve always been wanting to keep building and keep putting the cash which we generate into new assets.”

In the months that followed Glasenberg’s speech, news emerged of billions of dollars of private capital being pooled to take advantage of the impending shake-out. The consensus view was that the global resources industry had, in chasing an outsized Chinese boom, merely laid the groundwork for a China-inspired bust.

The private equity vultures were gathering to swoop on any gems discarded by debt-saddled companies battling to survive the downturn.

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Glencore impeded probe, ministry alleges – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – July 21, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Representatives for Glencore Canada Corporation are scheduled to appear in court Aug. 27 on two charges in connection with the investigation into the death of a Sudbury miner.

Richard Pigeau, 54, who had more than 20 years’ experience working underground, was killed Oct. 20, 2015, by a piece of equipment in the nickel mine operated by Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, a Glencore company.

The Sudbury Star has learned that two charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act were laid against Sudbury INO’s parent company June 22 in relation to a warrant issued against the company April 18. The charges were laid by the Ministry of Labour following an investigation.

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Glencore reveals tax payout – by Staff (Sudbury Star – July 16, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Glencore paid the government of Canada $5.65 million US in taxes last year for its Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations. The figure is contained in a report released by the miner called Glencore: Payments to Government 2015.

Glencore is one of the world’s largest global diversified natural resource companies, and a major producer and trader of more than 90 commodities, it says on its website. In Sudbury, Glencore operates two underground nickel-copper mines: Nickel Rim South, which the company says is Sudbury’s largest mining operation, and Fraser Mine.

Its Strathcona concentrator receives ore from those two mines and from third-party custom feed ores, and produces two concentrate streams, a nickel-copper concentrate that goes to the Sudbury smelter and a copper concentrate that goes to Glencore Copper for smelting and refining.

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Glencore throws full weight behind transparency in money-to-govts report – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – June 29, 2016)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Global diversified mining and marketing company Glencore threw its full weight behind complete openness in its maiden Payments-To-Governments Report 2015.

In a 17-page outline, Glencore CFO Steve Kalmin provides an overview of the $5-billion it paid last year to 16 governments ranging from Argentina to Zambia and including South Africa.

Australia received the highest single amount at $866 744 000, more than ten times the $83 500 000 to South Africa. Disclosing payments made on a country‑by‑country and project‑by‑project basis, the report is aligned to the requirements of Chapter 10 of the European Union’s accounting directive.

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Sudbury activists not getting credit: Mine Miller – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – June 21, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

In a morning filled with more than a dozen heartfelt speeches, Tom Rannelli’s address at the 32nd Workers’ Memorial Day stood out.

The head of Mine Mill Local 598/Unifor Pensioners received the only standing ovation at the two-hour event after he shared a personal peeve with about 150 people there to commemorate workers who were killed or suffered illnesses as a result of their jobs.

Employees who work in mine rescue, and health and safety advocates in mining are not receiving the recognition they deserve, said a fired-up Rannelli. “How come nobody in labour ever gets the Order of Canada?” he asked. Not one person has received Canada’s national honour from the labour movement as far as he knows. “This has to change,” said Rannelli, adding he was more than peeved, he was “pissed off.”

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[Mining deaths] Losses still felt in Sudbury today – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – June 21, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Many of the same people spoke at Monday’s 32nd Workers’ Memorial Day as they have in other years, but their message never fails to resonate. Mines are deadly environments where death, injury and disease are ever present. So, then, is the need to strive for improved health and safety, and to reach the goal of zero harm underground and in surface plants.

The annual event held by Mine Mill Local 598/Unifor drew more than 150 people to the union’s Richard Lake Campground for two hours of speeches and remembrances. The day was first held 31 years ago, a year after the June 20, 1984, deaths of four men in the No. 5 shaft at Falconbridge Mine.

As often as the tragedy is recalled, the story of how Sulo Korpela, Richard Chenier, Daniel Lavallee and Wayne St. Michel lost their lives still causes chills to run down the spine. The men died after a 3.5-magnitude rock burst struck at 10:12 a.m., damaging the mine between the 3,800-foot and 4,200-foot levels.

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UPDATE 1-Glencore plans to sell option in Falco’s Horne gold project-sources – by Freya Berry and Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – June 16, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

Glencore is planning to sell its option in a gold mine owned by Falco Resources, two sources familiar with the situation said on Thursday, as the mining group and commodities trader presses ahead with asset sales.

London-listed Glencore has appointed BofA Merrill Lynch to sell the 65 percent option in the Horne 5 gold project in Quebec, the sources said, and potential buyers have been contacted.

Falco has calculated that the undeveloped Horne 5 deposit could have a net present value (NPV) of about $667 million, assuming a gold price of $1,250 an ounce and certain currency exchange conditions, according to its website. Spot gold was up 1 percent at $1,303.91 an ounce at 1148 GMT on Thursday.

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PolyMet gets more cash from Glencore – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – June 15, 2016)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

PolyMet Mining Corp. on Wednesday said it will get another $14 million in cash from its largest investor, Switzerland-based Glencore, to help the junior mining company advancing toward opening Minnesota’s first copper mine.

PolyMet announced the new loan in its quarterly financial report that shows the company continuing to spend money as it seeks state and federal permits to start the mine and processing center north of Hoyt Lakes.

PolyMet received $3 million on June 3, will get another $8 million in July and $3 million in August, with PolyMet paying Glencore 15 percent interest. Glencore also is asking for a PolyMet financing plan that will enable the company to repay Glencore in 2017 and have money to complete permitting.

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