Twitter

Mining Giants Post Red-Hot Results in Lukewarm Gold Market – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – July 27, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Four of the world’s top gold companies were in full “beats” mode in the second quarter, wringing more value out of their mines amid tepid gold prices.

A day after Newmont Mining Corp. reported higher-than-expected adjusted profits by extracting more gold at lower costs, Canada-based Barrick Gold Corp., Goldcorp Inc. and Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. followed suit Wednesday.

“It’s the night of the beats,” Andrew Kaip, a Toronto-based analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said by telephone. “The read here is that their optimization programs are continuing to deliver and their capacity to improve their operational outlook continues to have momentum.”

Read more

[Rio Tinto] How Much for That Fancy Red Diamond? It’s Kind of a Secret – by Micah Maidenberg – New York Times – July 26, 2017)

https://www.nytimes.com/

When the mining company Rio Tinto shows its latest batch of rare naturally colored diamonds — stones with hues of pink, red and even “deep-gray violet” — executives are delighted to go on about their beauty and scarcity.

But details about pricing? That is when the lips draw shut. “It’s quite confidential,” said a laughing Arnaud Soirat, the chief executive of Rio Tinto’s copper and diamond group. Welcome to the exclusive world of the colored diamond trade, a market where the buyer pool is slim, the supply is constricted and a carat can fetch $1 million or more.

On Wednesday, Rio Tinto came to Manhattan to introduce its latest and best colored diamonds, in the start of a tour that will include a stop in Hong Kong and another one in New York. The company’s latest cache, 58 stones, sparkled in glass cases on the 21st floor of a Chelsea skyscraper. With names like the Argyle Liberte and Argyle Isla, the total weight of all the stones was 49.39 carats, suggesting a collective value in the tens of millions — even though they all could fit in a pants pocket.

Read more

Glencore snaps up 49pc of Hunter Valley Operations in $US1bn deal – by Matt Chambers (The Australian – July 27, 2017)

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

UPDATE: Glencore has confirmed it had struck a $US1.139 billion deal to buy 49 per cent of the Hunter Valley Operations coal mines from Yancoal Australia and Mitsubishi.

The deal, which is conditional on approvals and the completion of Yancoal’s acquisition of Rio Tinto’s operating stake in HVO as part of a $US2.69bn deal struck last month to buy all of Rio’s Australian thermal coal, is expected to be completed within six months.

Under the deal, revealed by The Australian this afternoon, Glencore has also agreed to subscribe for $US300 million of Yancoal shares in an equity raising to fund Yancoal’s Rio purchase.

Read more

Mining industry gearing up for ‘critical’ manpower shortage – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – July 27, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – A labour market outlook for Canada’s mining industry is forecasting a critical period in the next 10 years trying to replace the anticipated influx of retirees. That being said, the mining industry is also looking at finding a long-term supply of workers who can cope with the economic ups and downs so familiar to the industry.

The concerns are spelled out in a labour market report produced by the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MIHRC). “One of the most significant challenges facing Canada’s mining industry is establishing a sustainable supply of labour that is able to withstand the economic volatility that characterizes the sector,” said the report.

There was sympathy for that concern by Domenic Rizzuto of Timmins, the human resources manager for Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines, one of this city’s largest employers. “The issue that our industry has is that we have an aging workforce. A lot of our skilled trades and a lot of our skilled mining personnel are averaging about 50 years old,” said Rizzuto.

Read more

Dear President Trump, Afghanistan’s Minerals Aren’t Very Valuable, They’re Really Not – by Tim Worstall (Forbes Magazine – July 27, 2017)

https://www.forbes.com/

This is almost amusing actually, Donald Trump is reported, in the New York Times, as thinking that Afghanistan’s valuable mineral deposits might be a good reason for the US to stay in that country. The humour here coming from the role of the New York Times in misreporting the value of the minerals in Afghanistan some 7 years ago. True, they weren’t the original source but they certainly propagated the mistake enthusiastically.

The point being that there are a lot of rocks in Afghanistan, those rocks contain metals and if the metals were out of the rocks and out of Afghanistan then they’d be valuable. But they’re not out and out, the metals are still in the rocks in Afghanistan and thus aren’t valuable. As we can tell from the fact that no one is lining up to pay for them.

Thus the idea that the US should stay there in order to aid in exploiting this value doesn’t really work out, there’s no value to be exploiting. This is the bit the NY Times just doesn’t get:

Read more

Brazil mining reforms seen passing Congress despite opposition – by Jake Spring and Alexandra Alper (Reuters U.S. – July 26, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Mining reforms decreed by Brazilian President Michel Temer are likely to pass Congress, a legislative leader told Reuters on Wednesday, despite opposition from an industry trade group.

The revisions to the mining code, announced on Tuesday, would raise government mining royalties. But officials said they would also cut industry red tape by creating a new regulatory agency and speeding up approvals.

Temer, who is under investigation for corruption, has argued that changes across many sectors of the economy are necessary to shore up government finances as Brazil emerges from its worst recession on record.

Read more

NEB can fulfill duty to consult Indigenous groups, top court rules – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – July 27, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada affirmed Wednesday that Indigenous people do not have a veto over resource projects affecting their traditional territory, even as it quashed a regulatory permit for an oil-exploration program that Inuit residents of Baffin Island feared would damage their hunting rights.

Residents of Clyde River – population 1,100 – fought an uphill battle against a consortium of multinational oil service companies that planned to conduct seismic testing to assess the oil and gas potential of offshore sites. The top court agreed that the regulatory agency had failed to adequately assess the risk posed by the seismic testing to the community’s treaty rights to hunt bowhead whales, narwhal, seals and polar bears.

In a companion ruling, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by a First Nations community that argued the government had failed to properly consult and accommodate its concerns when the regulatory agency approved Enbridge Inc.’s project to reverse the flow of its existing Line 9 pipeline through Ontario to Quebec.

Read more

Globe editorial: The ‘duty to consult’ Indigenous Canadians, and its limits (Globe and Mail – July 27, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Indigenous Canadian communities have unique rights under Section 35 of the Constitution. These protections, covering pre-existing rights and those acquired by treaty, are extensive – but some are also limited.

That’s the takeaway from a pair of Supreme Court rulings released Wednesday. One considered the National Energy Board’s approval of an oil and gas exploration project, over the objections of an Inuit community; the Court struck the project down. The other case looked at the NEB’s approval of the Line 9 pipeline reversal in Ontario; the Court said that, even though an affected Indigenous community was opposed to the project, the regulator had properly consulted and properly approved it.

At issue in both cases is the Crown’s “duty to consult.” When a development – like a pipeline or an oil-exploration project – has an impact on an Indigenous community’s rights, such as the right to hunt or fish on traditional native territory, they must be adequately consulted.

Read more

Tanzania’s President Urges Increased Control of Mineral Wealth – by Omar Mohammed (Bloomberg News – July 26, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Tanzanians are being cheated out of the country’s mineral wealth and should take more control of their natural resources, President John Magufuli said.

Investors in Tanzania’s mining industry have “stolen” from the country by failing to distribute a fair share of the revenue they generate from gold and other minerals, Magufuli said in a speech in the central region of Singida on Tuesday.

“We are surrounded by wealth; we have to stand up and protect it,” he said. “It shouldn’t happen that we have all this wealth, sit on it, while others come and benefit from it by cheating us.”

Read more

NEWS RELEASE: Over $2 Million Announced for Wataynikaneyap Transmission Project First Nations Training Program

http://www.wataypower.ca/

SIOUX LOOKOUT, ONTARIO — (Marketwired) — 07/26/17 — Wataynikaneyap Power is pleased to announce a major federal investment from the office of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) in the amount of over $2 million in support of the Wataynikaneyap Power’s First Nations training program.

Today’s announcement now brings the total amount available for capacity building and training to over $4 million. The funding announcement will ensure the communities are prepared to provide an experienced and trained up labour force to be project-ready with transferable and accredited certification. The training project is fifty per cent funded by the federal contribution and fifty per cent by Wataynikaneyap Power.

“The vision of our leaders is to create opportunities and build capacity for our people today and into the future, through meaningful involvement and participation in the project,” says Margaret Kenequanash, Chair of Wataynikaneyap Power GP. “This investment enables us to take that step forward.”

Read more

Millions of Orchids Are Blooming in an Abandoned Iron Mine – by Michelle Z. Donahue (National Geographic – May 12, 2016)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/

The plants are thriving in a wetland that sprang up after the mine was shuttered in the 1970s.

A vacationer heading to Lake Placid on State Route 3 could be forgiven for barely glancing at a group of dilapidated buildings on the way through Star Lake, New York. Those structures are all that remain of what was once the world’s largest open-pit iron mine.

But hidden in a wooded marsh directly across the street, curious road trippers would find an even more startling deposit: Millions of orchids have been thriving for over 60 years on the blighted industrial waste site.

The colorful flowers are growing atop a wetland that formed at the base of a pile of tailings—crushed rock left over when iron ore is extracted from its surroundings. As part of her research, graduate student Grete Bader tallied up the plants within 20 predefined plots, and her work suggests wildflowers now cover the hundred-acre wetland.

Read more

Freeport stock soars 15 percent on copper prices, permit progress – by Susan Taylor (Reuters U.S. – July 25, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO (Reuters) – Freeport-McMoRan Inc shares jumped to a 16-month high on Tuesday, as soaring metal prices and progress in a long-running, costly permit dispute with Indonesia buoyed the world’s biggest publicly traded copper miner.

Investors brushed aside quarterly results and full-year forecasts that were short of expectations, focusing instead on a two-year high for copper prices and Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson’s confidence in securing a new mining agreement by October for Freeport’s giant Grasberg mine.

Freeport’s stock surged nearly 15 percent on the New York Stock Exchange by mid-day Tuesday, making it the top performer on the S&P 500 Index as it outpaced gains by fellow copper miners.

Read more

Clean electric cars are built on pollution in Congo – by David Pilling (Financial Times – July 26, 2017)

https://www.ft.com/

Behind every clean electric car there is cobalt. And behind cobalt is the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Cobalt is a critical element in lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars. Such batteries already consume 42 per cent of the metal and demand will soar as the world switches from petrol and diesel cars to electric ones.

This week, Britain followed France in declaring a ban on such vehicles from 2040. Soon, almost anyone in the rich world will be able to drive safe in the knowledge that they’re being kinder and gentler to the planet.

Did I mention the Democratic Republic of Congo? Some 60 per cent of the world’s cobalt comes from this central African country, one the size of western Europe and with gargantuan problems to match. Some industry analysts are predicting a 30-fold increase in cobalt demand by 2030, much of which will come from Congo.

Read more

No one has done more for indigenous Australians than the mining industry – by Marcia Langton (The Australian – July 26, 2017)

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

Marcia Langton is foundation chair of Australian indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne.

Australians concerned about the “Uluru Statement from the Heart” and the subsequent Referendum Council call for constitutional reform and a Makarrata Commission should look to the mining industry as an example of what such change might bring.

The definition of the Makarrata Commission in the Uluru Statement is “the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination”.

Across the public, private and community sectors, no one has done more to advance a better future and self-determination for indigenous Australians than the mining industry, and to lead the transition from highly adversarial relationships to one of mutual respect, common goals, and partnerships through agreement.

Read more

Canadian Mines Create Indigenous Middle Class in Nunavut – Not in Ring of Fire – by Stan Sudol (July 26, 2017)

It’s been ten years since the world-class Ring of Fire mineral district was discovered in the isolated James Bay Lowlands, about 500 kms northeast of Thunder Bay. Not one mine has been built. During those ten years the equally isolated territory of Nunavut has built two gold mines (Agnico Eagle’s Meadowbank and TMAC Resources’ Doris) and one iron ore operation (Baffinland’s Mary River).

A fourth gold mine (Agnico Eagle) should be in production in 2019 – and Sabina Gold and Silver Corp., a junior exploration company with a very rich precious metal deposit has just been given continued development approvals by the Nunavut Impact Review Board.

Noront Resources is the only significant company in the Ring of Fire with a potentially bankable mineral asset, their nickel/copper Eagle’s Nest deposit, as well as the owner of 75 per cent of the valuable staked claims in the region. The company also has plans to develop an adjacent chromite deposit using the Eagle’s Nest underground infrastructure and is currently looking for a suitable site in northern Ontario to build a ferrochrome processing plant to supply the American market.

Read more