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Zinc, Lead and Tin

Four warning signs that Teck’s spectacular gains are over – by David Berman (Globe and Mail – August 18, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Teck Resources Ltd. rewards nimble investors who can move against the current, selling the stock when times are good and buying it when the outlook is dismal. Today, conditions are excellent for the Vancouver-based miner, and that suggests shareholders should consider departing from this roller coaster of an investment.

On the surface, this might not sound like a great idea, given Teck’s stellar second-quarter results, released late last month. Teck, which produces copper, zinc and steelmaking coal from mines in Canada, the United States, Chile and Peru, topped analysts’ estimates with a profit of $577-million or $1 a share – way up from a profit of just 3 cents a share a year ago.

Analysts had been expecting a profit of 90 cents a share, according to Reuters. The company’s debt levels are also falling, which is good. Net debt per share declined to $9.59, according to a report from Canaccord Genuity, down from $13.42 a share last year, which is a steeper drop than analysts had been expecting.

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Zinc Breaks Through $3,000 Barrier as Metals Rally Gathers Pace (Bloomberg News – August 16, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Zinc surged above $3,000 a metric ton for the first time in almost a decade while aluminum approached a three-year high, adding momentum to a metals rally fueled by bets on tightening supplies and robust demand.

Zinc jumped as much as 5.8 percent to $3,132.50 a ton on the London Metal Exchange, the highest since 2007, before settling at $3,119 at 5:51 p.m. in London. Aluminum rose as much as 2.7 percent to the highest since September 2014, while nickel, copper and lead also advanced. The rally boosted mining shares, with Freeport-McMoRan Inc. among the biggest gainers.

An index of base metals has climbed to a more-than two-year high amid better-than-expected demand in China and a weakening dollar. The Asian nation is stepping up efforts to shut illegal aluminum and steel plants to cut emissions and excess capacity.

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COLUMN-Lead gets unforeseen boost from North Korean sanctions – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – August 17, 2017)

http://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Lead has been an unlikely and unforeseen beneficiary of the North Korea missile crisis. A new round of U.N. sanctions includes North Korean exports of lead concentrate. China, which signed up to the U.S.-drafted resolution, will lose an increasingly significant flow of raw materials to its lead smelters.

The news has reinvigorated a market that had lost its bull narrative thread. London Metal Exchange (LME) lead for three-months delivery hit a nine-month high of $2,537 per tonne on Thursday morning.

Not as exciting as zinc, which has just surged to its highest level in over a decade. But being overshadowed by its more glamorous sister metal is nothing new for lead. Characterised by a lack of statistical clarity and only sporadic news flow, lead tends to get regularly punished on the London market in the form of the popular relative value trade against zinc.

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Artists, hippies, miners — Patagonia divided over hamlet’s economic future – by Lucas Waldron (Arizona Daily Star – August 13, 2017)

http://tucson.com/

Patagonia has one bar, one coffee shop, one gas station. And customers at nearly all of them are divided between those in favor of a new mining project in this tiny southeastern-Arizona town and those against it.

Roughly half of Patagonia’s 900 residents support Arizona Mining Inc., a Canadian company that recently bought land near town for exploratory drilling. The rest oppose the mining company, seeking to preserve the region’s unique rare wildlife and steer the economy away from mineral extraction and toward environmental restoration.

Arizona Mining Inc. has vowed to create an estimated 500 jobs through a mine it plans to have up and running in 2020. In July, the company predicted the mine will extract 10,000 tons of minerals per day and could be viable for eight years.

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As 777 winds down, Hudbay looks to Lalor – by D’Arcy Jenish (Canadian Mining Journal – June 2017)

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

For nearly a century – 90 years in December, to be precise – Hudbay Minerals has been the cornerstone and lifeblood of the northern Manitoba community of Flin Flon. But change is coming to this quintessential one-industry, resource-based Canadian town. In 2020, Hudbay is scheduled to close the 777 mine – its only remaining mining operation in the immediate vicinity of Flin Flon.

Meantime, the company is continuing to develop and expand its base and precious metal Lalor mine, which began producing in late 2014 and is located in Snow Lake, 215 km east of Flin Flon. “We have undertaken a program of re-evaluating exploration opportunities with the Flin Flon area,” says Cashel Meagher, Hudbay’s senior vice-president and chief operating officer. “The obvious future in northern Manitoba will divert from Flin Flon to Lalor. We want to perpetuate the life of the Lalor mine.”

In fact, the potential at Lalor has continued to increase since Hudbay launched an aggressive exploration program in 2007. The company drilled 180 holes from surface and identified a sizeable deposit of ore-grade material – zinc on top, copper beneath it and a halo of contact gold beneath the copper.

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Glencore turns bigger copper, zinc price bull: Nickel not so much – by Frik Els (Mining.com – August 10, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

Miner and commodities trader Glencore (LON:GLEN) raised its revenue and profit outlook for the year on Thursday with the Swiss company citing the fast-growing electric vehicle market as a key driver.

“Most automotive players are now accelerating investment in/adoption of electric vehicle technologies, reflecting, in part, increasingly aggressive Government mandates around emission targets.

Growth in electric vehicle/energy storage systems requires changes in material flows, including the installation, rebuild and replacement of supporting infrastructure. Based on current and emerging technologies, these changes should benefit enabling commodities such as copper, cobalt and nickel,” Glencore said in a statement accompanying its half-year results.

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Sprott Conference: Friedland pitches metals used in electric vehicles – by Lesley Stokes (Northern Miner – August 8, 2017)

http://www.northernminer.com/

VANCOUVER — The electric car revolution is accelerating, and so will the demand for metals that make them work, Robert Friedland, executive chairman of Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN; US-OTC: IVPAF) said during a presentation at the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium in Vancouver in late July.

In what has become a recurring topic in his presentations, Friedland stated that continued rapid urbanization, combined with efforts to fight air pollution, will lead to the ramping up of electric vehicle production. And the demand for the metals needed to build them — including copper, platinum, palladium, zinc, nickel and cobalt — will rise as a result.

“This is an era of unprecedented change, it’s really happening,” Friedland said. “The handwriting is on the wall. For those of you who deny this phenomenon, you’re going to miss this massive disruption opening soon at a theatre near you.”

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Spongy zinc battery may beat lithium-ion on safety, price, recycling – by James Dunn (North Bay Business Journal – July 24, 2017)

http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/

If nearly 500,000 deposits of $1,000 each on the new Tesla Model 3 indicate bridled demand, the electric cars have a sure future. Tesla plans to start delivery of the $35,000 vehicles on July 28, when it will release the first 30. Palo Alto-based Tesla aims to crank out about three cars a day in August, boost output to 1,500 in September and build to a rate of 20,000 a month by the end of 2017.

Tesla electric cars rely on lithium-ion batteries. The company is building a gargantuan battery factory in Nevada — some 5.8 million square feet — slated for completion in 2020. The enormous production capacity could drive down battery costs by about 30 percent, Tesla said, from batteries now produced by Panasonic in Japan.

But a Marin-based aerospace engineer sees problems with lithium-ion technology: potential for explosions as occurred in Samsung phones in 2016; high cost; and poor recyclability. He suggests zinc, the metal used to stop corrosion in galvanized steel, as an alternative.

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Zinc Rally Set to Last as Producer Sees Best Price in Decade – by Swansy Afonso (Bloomberg News – July 20, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The rally in zinc prices has the potential to jump this year to levels not seen in a decade as demand continues to outstrip supply amid mine output disruptions, according to Hindustan Zinc Ltd., Asia’s biggest producer by market value.

Prices may rise to about $3,000 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange in the next couple of quarters, Sunil Duggal, chief executive officer of the Vedanta Ltd. unit, said in a phone interview from Udaipur in Rajasthan. The last time prices hit that level was in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Zinc, used to galvanize steel, has spearheaded an advance in base metals, gaining about 23 percent in the past year, as production cuts by Glencore Plc and other suppliers helped spur shortages. Higher prices and an increase in output saw Hindustan Zinc on Thursday report an 81 percent increase in net income to 18.8 billion rupees ($292 million) in the three months to June.

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Cuba seeks to revive mining sector with new lead and zinc mine – by Sarah Marsh (Reuters U.S. – July 22, 2017)

http://www.reuters.com/

MINAS DE MATAHAMBRE, Cuba (Reuters) – A new lead and zinc mine in northwestern Cuba is on track to start production in October as part of the Caribbean island’s attempt to breathe fresh life in its mining sector, the joint venture Emincar overseeing the project said this week.

While nickel exports are already one of Communist-run Cuba’s main foreign currency earners, the cash-strapped country has untapped potential in other mineral deposits, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The $278 million Castellanos mine will produce annually 100,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate and 50,000 tonnes of lead concentrate, said executives at Emincar, the venture between Swiss-based commodities giant Trafigura and Cuban state firm Geominera.

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COLUMN-Funds return to zinc as LME stocks plunge – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – July 7, 2017)

http://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, July 7 The zinc funds-fundamentals pendulum has swung again. Back in May funds were beating a collective retreat from the London zinc market after a second failed attempt at the big-number $3,000-per tonne resistance level. The London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month price troughed at $2,427.50 on June 7, since when it has bounced back to a current $2,783.00.

Funds have returned with a vengeance, according to LME broker Marex Spectron, which estimates they have gone from net short at the start of June to net long. Indeed at over 20 percent of open interest speculative length is back to levels last seen in January.

What’s caused this sharp shift in positioning? The short answer is LME stocks. While the headline number continues to tick lower, now down by 146,600, or 34 percent, on the start of the year, “live” on-warrant tonnage has slumped to levels not seen since 2007.

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[Alaska] Robust Resources – Red Dog Mine celebrates milestone anniversary – by Melanie Franner (Mining North of 60 – April 14, 2015)

http://miningnorthof60.com/

It’s been 25 years since the opening of the Red Dog zinc and lead mine, created through an operating agreement between Teck Resources Limited (Teck) and NANA Regional Corporation Inc. (NANA), an Alaskan native corporation, to develop mineral resources on its territorial land. That agreement is still in effect today and has resulted in approximately $1 billion in royalties being paid to NANA.

“We have been operating the Red Dog Mine since 1989,” explains Wayne Hall, manager, communications and public relations at Teck’s Red Dog Mine. “There is a long history associated with the mine which began in the early 1980s when NANA began looking for a mining company to partner with that had experience mining in northern latitudes and cold climates.” That company turned out to be Cominco Limited, which eventually became part of Teck Resources, Canada’s largest diversified resources company.

NANA, owned by the Iñupiat people of Northwest Alaska, is the landowner of a region that measures 38,000 square miles, most of which is above the Arctic Circle. The region includes 11 communities that range in size from 122 to more than 3,500 residents.

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Mount Isa Super Basin hosts the world’s largest zinc deposits – by Tony Raggatt (Townsville Bulletin – July 4, 2017)

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/

THE country north of Mount Isa has the potential to deliver the world’s next big zinc mine with huge benefits for Townsville in jobs and manufacturing, according to a Western Australia explorer.

Pursuit Minerals Ltd, currently listed on the Australian sharemarket under the name Burrabulla Corporation, has successfully raised $6 million to begin a two-year search in the Mount Isa Super Basin.

The area hosts the largest concentration of zinc deposits on the planet and is in the same area of the now depleted Century zinc mine mothballed last year.

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As 777 winds down, Hudbay looks to Lalor – by D’Arcy Jenish (Canadian Mining Journal – June 2017)

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

For nearly a century – 90 years in December, to be precise – Hudbay Minerals has been the cornerstone and lifeblood of the northern Manitoba community of Flin Flon. But change is coming to this quintessential one-industry, resource-based Canadian town.

In 2020, Hudbay is scheduled to close the 777 mine – its only remaining mining operation in the immediate vicinity of Flin Flon. Meantime, the company is continuing to develop and expand its base and precious metal Lalor mine, which began producing in late 2014 and is located in Snow Lake, 215 km east of Flin Flon.

“We have undertaken a program of re-evaluating exploration opportunities with the Flin Flon area,” says Cashel Meagher, Hudbay’s senior vice-president and chief operating officer. “The obvious future in northern Manitoba will divert from Flin Flon to Lalor. We want to perpetuate the life of the Lalor mine.”

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From Tesla Cars to Underwear, Metal Makers Seek New Markets – by Susanne Barton, Mark Burton and Laura Millan Lombrana (Bloomberg News – June 13, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s biggest mining companies would like you to put more zinc in your zucchini and copper in your socks and dental floss.

While builders and manufacturers remain the biggest metals users, producers are confronting the end of a Chinese industrial boom that fueled surging global demand and prices. For more than a decade, the country dominated markets as it sucked up raw materials to build factories, homes and power lines. Now, with the industrial engine cooling, mine owners are looking for new uses to spur sales like in fertilizer, electric-car batteries and salmon cages.

“Traditional demand isn’t going to fall off a cliff,” said Paul Gait, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. in London. “But it’s true that no one wants to hear about industrial production growth or Chinese cement demand anymore.”

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