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Resource nationalism as imperialism – by Arianto Sangadji (Inside Indonesia – Oct/Dec 2017)

http://www.insideindonesia.org/

Foreign investment in large-scale mining has encountered serious obstacles

Over the past decade, foreign investment in large-scale mining has been hampered by the enactment of Law No. 4/2009 concerning mineral and coal, which replaced the more liberal Law No. 11/1967. The replacement act and its subsequent regulations have been the subject of intense national policy debate.

Apart from a host of uncertainties due to regulatory changes, some argue that the new law substantially undermines favourable conditions for foreign mining investment. Initially, at least, the policies restricted the inflow of transnational mining capital.

Most criticism of the current development of mining investment is directed at government policy for being heavily nationalistic, for example the prohibition on exporting unprocessed ores in the 2009 law; the mandatory requirement for in-country processing and refining; and the imposition of partial but significant divestiture of foreign mining capital on domestic mining firms, both-state owned and private.

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Mad About Madagascar’s Mining Potential – by Christopher Ecclestone (InvestorIntel.com – October 18, 2017)

https://investorintel.com/

With the eclipse of Tanzania as a mining destination the hunt is on for amenable jurisdictions in East Africa. In recent years the rising stars have been Mozambique and to a lesser extent, Madagascar.

The last month saw the full court press of the great and good of Madagascar descend upon London for a day of interaction with London investors in the energy and mining sectors. We attended in the company of NextSource Materials Inc. (TSX: NEXT | OTCQB: NSRC) (formerly Energizer Resources) which has a graphite project and a vanadium deposit in the country.

The event had a certain element of cloak and dagger to it with the location of an event only being released a few days before the event to the hundreds of people attending, somewhat like a house-rave in the 1980s.

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Pretium ramps up at Brucejack in BC – by Lesley Stokes (Northern Miner – October 18, 2017)

http://www.northernminer.com/

VANCOUVER — Pretium Resources’ (TSX: PVG; NYSE: PVG) new 8.7 million oz. Brucejack gold mine in northwestern B.C.’s Golden Triangle district is “well on its way” to becoming a 500,000 oz. per year gold producer, says president and CEO Joseph Ovsenek.

During the third quarter, the company produced 82,203 oz. gold from 261,262 tonnes grading 10.52 grams gold per tonne. News of the results drove shares of the company up 28% to a peak of $15.48 before settling at $14.98 at the time of writing.

“I’m fairly confident that are our quarterly results beat the expectations on the street,” Ovsenek tells The Northern Miner during a phone interview. “There’s also a Credit Suisse research note that talked about a large short position on Pretium, and how this is forcing some of those to cover. So I expect that’s a big part of our recent share price gain, as well.”

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Sierra Leone gem sale a break with ‘blood diamond’ past (The Australian – October 18, 2017)

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

AFP – Sierra Leone plans to auction off a massive 709-carat diamond at a December sale in New York, aiming to make a clean break with the “blood diamonds” of its past.

The stone, which was unearthed in March, is the largest discovered in Sierra Leone in almost a half-century and is between the 10th and 15th largest ever found worldwide, experts say. Sierra Leone authorities told reporters that the massive gem will go up for sale on December 4 at Rapaport Auctions, which specialises in the diamond trade.

The government has pledged to be transparent in the stone’s sale, mindful of the history of cross-border diamond trafficking that fuelled Sierra Leone’s civil war from 1991-2002.

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B.C. miner Donald McLeod fulfilled every prospector’s dream – by Catherine McLeod-Seltzer (Globe and Mail – October 19, 2017)

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/

Catherine McLeod-Seltzer is Don’s daughter.

Miner. Mentor. Husband. Father. Born Oct. 21, 1928, in Stewart, B.C.; died May 27, 2017, in Vancouver; of complications from a fall; aged 88.

Don McLeod’s story is the stuff of British Columbia mining legend: A tramp miner who, through gritty determination, unflagging optimism and a good helping of luck, fulfilled every prospector’s dream when he struck it big and brought three rich gold mines to production.

Don grew up in Stewart, B.C., a frontier mining community in the province’s farthest northwest corner. When Don’s mother, Catherine, arrived there from Scotland in 1926, she thought it was the end of the world. But for a young boy, it was paradise to grow up in a close-knit town in the middle of the wilderness; where else could you have a grizzly bear for a pet or play with blasting caps (even if he almost blew himself up)?

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Coal Mines, Robots and Psychopaths – by Matt Levine (Bloomberg News – October 19, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Also personal ICOs, bond volatility and bank buybacks.

Rio Tinto – There is a certain rather exhausting set of characteristics that you would expect to find in successful chief executive officers. They dream big. They relentlessly pursue their goals. They have high expectations of their subordinates, demanding total loyalty and commitment and effort and creativity. They think outside the box. They don’t take no for an answer.

There is a problem with this list of characteristics, beyond how exhausting it is. Imagine the CEO of a mining company that buys a giant coal mine in inland Mozambique for $3.7 billion, and then finds out that there’s no way to get the coal to the coast for shipment. “Sorry boss,” say his subordinates.

“That mine is worthless now.” How would you expect him to react? Well of course he is going to demand that the subordinates find a way to get the coal out. Of course he is going to continue to believe that the mine is worth more than the $3.7 billion he paid for it.

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NEWS RELEASE: FORMATION CAPITAL CORPORATION U.S. ANNOUNCES POSITIVE ENGINEERING FEASIBILITY STUDY TO BUILD $187 MILLION MINING AND REFINING OPERATIONS IN EASTERN IDAHO

BLACKFOOT, ID – October 19, 2017 — Salmon, Idaho based salormation Capital Corporation, U.S., a wholly owned subsidiary of eCobalt Solutions Inc. (ECS.TSX / ECSIF.OTCQB) has received an economic Feasibility Study that outlines the development of a cobalt mining operation near Salmon, Idaho and hydrometallurgical refining facility on a railhead in neighboring Blackfoot, Idaho. The project is known as the Idaho Cobalt Project, and is owned by eCobalt’s wholly owned subsidiary, Formation Capital Corporation, U.S.

With pre-construction activities already underway, the vertically integrated Idaho Cobalt Project is designed to produce cobalt for the rechargeable batteries market.

The total initial capital cost is estimated at $187 million with additional sustaining, reclamation and closure costs of $101M totaling $288 million. Construction of the project is contingent upon the successful conclusion of mine financing.

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Alcoa Sees Global Aluminum Market Balancing on China’s Curbs – by Joe Deaux (Bloomberg News – October 18, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Alcoa Corp. sees Chinese cuts in aluminum production returning the global market to “relative balance” as the Asian nation’s supply-side reforms begin to bite.

The largest U.S. aluminum producer reduced its global surplus forecast for the lightweight metal this year as China appears to be holding to its promise to curb capacity to meet pollution-control targets.

“The improvement is mostly due to planned and actual curtailments in Chinese smelting capacity as well as increased Chinese demand,” Alcoa said Wednesday in its third-quarter earnings statement.

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The Truth About the Cobalt Crisis: It’s Not a Crisis, Yet – by Jason Deign (Green Tech Media – October 8, 2017)

https://www.greentechmedia.com/

Volkswagen’s failure to secure long-term cobalt supplies has highlighted concerns over one of the most precarious elements in the lithium-ion battery supply chain.

There is sufficient cobalt worldwide to meet foreseeable demand for the mineral, according to Caspar Rawles, an analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. The real question “is whether we can access it quickly enough,” he said.

Volkswagen last month sought to secure a €50 billion ($59 billion) contract to supply enough cobalt for 150 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion battery storage by 2025, which Rawles said could amount to roughly 30,000 tons of the metal a year.

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75,000 manufacturing jobs lost — that’s the price of Ontario’s electricity disaster – by Ross McKitrick and Elmira Aliakbari (Financial Post – October 19, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Global factors cannot explain Ontario’s performance. Clearly electricity prices are to blame

In the 1990s and into the 2000s, Ontario was a low-electricity-cost jurisdiction. This was a competitive advantage for the province, helping attract business and foster economic growth.

Of course, in recent years, due largely to the Green Energy Act and its inefficiencies, Ontario electricity prices have soared, hurting industrial competitiveness, especially in the manufacturing sector where electricity is a major cost.

The results have been devastating. Between 2005 and 2015, Ontario’s manufacturing output fell by 18 per cent and manufacturing employment fell by 28 per cent. More specifically, from 2008 to 2015, Ontario’s manufacturing job levels fell from 805,170 to 688,735.

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Western Nunavut to pressure new government on Grays Bay – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – October 18, 2017)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

CAMBRIDGE BAY—The Kitikmeot Inuit Association wants to make sure the Grays Bay Road and Port project remains a top government priority, because the Oct. 30 territorial election could see western Nunavut left out of the territory’s leadership circle.

That’s because two of the Grays Bay project’s biggest champions, Peter Taptuna and Keith Peterson, are not seeking re-election.

The upcoming election could result in “a cabinet that may have quite different priorities than the ones which we have enjoyed under [outgoing] Premier Peter Taptuna,” KIA President Stanley Anablak said Oct. 16 in his president’s report to the annual general meeting of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association in Cambridge Bay.

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Nunavut Inuit call for public hearing on iron mine expansion – by Beth Brown (Nunatsiaq News – October 13, 2017)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

The Qikiqtani Inuit Association and the Hamlet of Pond Inlet have called on the Nunavut Planning Commission to hold a single in-person public hearing in the North Baffin community before the commission considers a land use plan amendment that would allow a new railway and winter shipping route to service the Mary River mine.

The call comes by way of public submissions made to the NPC after Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. submitted a proposed amendment to the land use plan, Aug. 31, for the second phase of its iron ore project.

The amendment asks to construct a 110-km railway along the route of the existing tote road between the mine and the Milne Inlet port and to allow winter icebreaking in Milne Inlet and Eclipse Sound so freight can be shipped in December, January and February.

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BMO: Miners may revisit dormant mega-projects – by Matthew Keevil (Northern Miner – Matthew Keevil)

Northern Miner

VANCOUVER — The last five years have seen large-cap miners shelve — and often write-down — ambitious, greenfield development projects that carry significant development price tags and heightened risk.

The majors instead focused on stronger operating margins and lighter balance sheets, which were typically characterized by improved free cash flow generation and lower debt.

The last 18 months have marked a shift in sentiment for metal producers, however, as metal prices have strengthened and risk capital markets entered the nascent stages of recovery.

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Amazon rainforest deforestation: ‘Almost 10 per cent’ due to development around mines – by Nick Kilvert (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – October 18, 2017)

http://www.abc.net.au/

Almost 10 per cent of clearing in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest is being driven by unregulated development around mine sites, a new study has found. Researchers analysed satellite data from 2005 to 2015, contrasting areas within a 70-kilometre radius of mine sites, with areas not proximal to mines.

In the study published today in Nature Communications, they found that an extra 11,670 square-kilometres of Amazon rainforest had been cleared where mines were within that radius.

“This is an unregulated source of deforestation, we didn’t know it existed and we assumed it was much smaller than what our results have shown,” said lead author Dr Laura Sonter of the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute.

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Electric Car Makers Have an Africa Problem – by Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg News – October 17, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Automakers find it hard to lock in the price of cobalt for batteries.

Volkswagen’s recent failure to lock in the price of cobalt for five years points to a serious problem with the optimistic projections of an electric vehicle revolution. These projections are based on gradually declining battery prices, but the scarcity of certain minerals and their concentration in politically unstable countries may interfere with that dynamic.

The high price of batteries necessary for a solid EV range is the biggest reason EVs now need government subsidies to sell in noticeable quantities. In a recent paper, Vrije Universiteit Brussel’s MOBI Research Group projected, however, that the price will fall to $100 per kilowatt-hour from the current $432 sometime between 2020 and 2025.

If that happens, electric mobility without much “range anxiety” (the worry your battery will run out en route) will be within the reach of most people who can buy a gasoline-powered car today.

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