Acacia Mining (LON:ACA), Tanzania’s No.1 gold producer majority owned by Barrick, has agreed to pay higher mining taxes in the country even though it’s still disputing in an international court some of the changes to the laws governing its three gold mines.
The company, which spun off from Barrick Gold in 2010, will now pay a 6% royalty, up from 4%, on metallic minerals including gold, copper and silver. The miner also said it would continue to pay the recently imposed 1% clearing fee on exports.
Acacia’s decision to comply with higher royalties fits experts forecast that companies already active in the Tanzanian mining sector will stay put, despite the much-less favourable regulatory environment.
An ugly year for diamonds in the vital U.S. market is piling pressure on Europe’s historic center of the $80 billion global trade.
Diamond trading companies in the Belgian port city of Antwerp, which has been the industry’s trading capital for five centuries, were already feeling the pinch from a tightening credit bubble and thin margins. That’s now being compounded by falling demand from some of the industry’s biggest customers, notably retailers Signet Jewelers Ltd. and Tiffany & Co.
“Some of the major retailers have been exerting significant buyer power on diamond companies over the last few years,” said Anish Aggarwal, a partner at consultant Gemdax in Antwerp. “If a diamond company becomes too dependent on such retailers, they can get very exposed.”
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Mining and metals companies operating in Europe are set to remain in recovery mode, as a sluggish recovery in mineral prices keep investment activity subdued, while environmental regulations will pose headwinds for coal-producing countries.
BMI Research said on Thursday that mineral prices were unlikely to recover over the coming quarters, citing a drop in Chinese demand owing to an economic slowdown in that country. Poor short- to medium-term growth prospects in Europe’s two mining powerhouses, Ukraine and Russia, over the next five years would further hinder mining development in the region.
“As a result, mining companies will remain cautious moving forward and will focus on improving balance sheets and protecting themselves from potential price volatility, rather than investing in greenfield projects,” the Fitch Group company stated.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan is embracing the fight against climate change in Congress even as he faces criticism from environmentalists back home for his support of local mining interests.
In a congressional hearing on Friday, the northeastern Minnesota DFLer will tout his bill to complete a land swap that would benefit the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine. Nolan also recently joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers called the Climate Solutions Caucus, and he maintains that there’s no contradiction between reducing carbon emissions and championing a mining project that has drawn opposition from a range of environmental groups.
“I am convinced beyond any doubt whatsoever that 21st-century state-of-the-art mining which is compliant with strong environmental rules and regulations, unlike the mining of the past, is part of a foundation to address global warming and reduce the carbon footprint,” Nolan said in an interview.
LONDON (Reuters) – Alcoa is bringing one of its U.S. aluminum smelters back from the dead. The Warrick smelter in Indiana has annual capacity of 269,000 tonnes, its own coal-based power source and is integrated with a rolling mill.
None of which saved it from Alcoa’s scramble down the cost curve in the face of falling prices, culminating in its permanent closure in January 2016. That’s different from what the industry calls a “curtailment”, a temporary idling for possible restart.
But now, miraculously, Warrick is back and Alcoa will fire up three of the plant’s five production lines, with capacity of 161,400 tonnes of aluminum. The other two will be classified as “curtailed”. The timing of this resurrection is politically charged.
TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – July 14, 2017) – Osisko Mining Inc. (TSX:OSK) (“Osisko” or the “Corporation”) is proud to announce that it is a participating sponsor in the search for and recovery of nine Avro Arrow free flight models launched over Lake Ontario in series of tests during 1954 – 1957.
The models are one-eighth scale replicas of the famed flying jet, and were part of the final flight design test work done prior to the production of the CF-105 Arrow. The goal of the search is to discover the resting place of the nine models, recover and ultimately house them at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa and the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton, Ontario.
The search and recovery program is a Canada 150 collaborative effort spearheaded by OEX Recovery Group Incorporated, sponsored by Osisko group companies Osisko Mining Inc. and Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd., in collaboration with their financial partners at National Bank, the Bank of Montreal, Canaccord Genuity, Maxit Capital, Eight Capital and Northfield Capital; the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (CASM), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), the Canadian Conservation Institute, and Bennett Jones LLP. Support for this project is also being provided by Scarlett Janusas Archaeology, Canadian Coast Guard, the Royal Canadian Military Institute and Canada Company.
ULAANBAATAR — Working 50 meters (164 feet) under ground with minimal air supply, Uuganbaatar is one of thousands of Mongolians trying to make a living digging for coal.
Although the mining season does not begin until autumn, when the ground freezes and work is safer, the 31-year-old and his colleagues are seeking to gain a head start by digging a shaft in Nalaikh, one of the nine districts of Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, in late June.
But their mine could soon be shut by the government, which has launched an unprecedented crackdown on sites that don’t meet safety standards. That would mean even fewer opportunities for Mongolia’s individual prospectors, who have already been hit hard by the privatization of mines previously open to all.
Global mining leader Barrick Gold is at the forefront of digital transformation. The organization, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, is focused on becoming a 21st century company – a priority that drives Barrick Gold to integrate technology into everything they do.
Look no further than Barrick’s recent partnership announcement with Cisco and Great Basin College in Nevada for proof of this focus. The company is investing nearly $400,000 over three years to “bring digital and information technology skills development courses, free of charge, to groups in the community” through Cisco’s Networking Academy curriculum.
The company doubled-down on this announcement by stating they plan to expand the program to every community in which they operate – including in Argentina, Canada, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Zambia.
SUPERIOR, Arizona (Reuters) – Rio Tinto’s proposed Resolution Copper Mine in Arizona would tunnel 7,000 feet underground, where rocks radiate heat from the earth’s molten core. It would suck up enough water to supply a city and leave a crater a mile and a half wide and 1,000 feet deep.
Planned for more than a decade, the project would be a prototype for a looming era of more invasive U.S. mines as companies run out of easy-to-reach deposits, geologists say. It is also the project President Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, had in mind as he began crafting a “hit list” of regulations that should be killed to speed industrial permitting.
“A company shouldn’t have to be hundreds of millions of dollars into risk money without knowing whether there is a real chance it is going to get approved,” Ross told Reuters in a May 9 interview, referring to the mine.
Tahoe Resources Inc., whose flagship Guatemalan mine has been suspended, is taking steps to cut costs, including possibly slowing an expansion of a project in Peru and trimming exploration.
The Reno, Nevada-based company may also discuss halting its dividend at an August board meeting and might slow down the payment of bills, Chief Executive Officer Ron Clayton said Thursday in a telephone interview.
“We certainly are already cutting back on things that are very discretionary,” Clayton said, adding the company will decide in the next two to three weeks what else it can save on. “Our gold mines, if we clip back a little bit on our exploration and capital spending, can generate cash.”
Shares in Canadian miner Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX:NDM) were up Wednesday morning following a decision by the Trump administration that could further pave the way for the company’s vast, but stalled Pebble copper-gold-silver project in Alaska.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed late Tuesday revoking a 2014 ruling that bans large-scale mining in the area over the potential risks to one of the planet’s greatest wild salmon fisheries.
The federal agency noted it would accept public comments on the proposal for the next 90 days before making a final decision.
Activists say that demand for cheap Colombian coal from German utilities such as Uniper and RWE is leading to systematic killings and evictions in the country.
It’s not often that the subject of murder is raised at a shareholder meeting. So it’s fair to say that the comments made by Maina van der Zwan at the otherwise uneventful AGM of German energy company Uniper were unexpected.
Holding up a grainy picture of a Colombian man, the activist at Dutch NGO Pax announced: “He was the spokesman for a community which had opposed the expansion plans of a mining company in the Colombian region of Cesar. On September 11, he was murdered in cold blood.”
Executives from Sibanye Gold Ltd., South Africa’s biggest gold miner, were in Los Angeles in the final stages of a roadshow with U.S. bond fund managers last month when a bombshell hit from back home.
The government had introduced shock new rules requiring local mines to be 30 percent black-owned in perpetuity, toughening existing requirements and implying hefty dilution for shareholders. South African stocks tumbled and bond yields rose that day.
The measures, called Mining Charter 3, put at risk funding for Sibanye’s $2.2 billion acquisition of Stillwater Mining Co. of the U.S., the biggest foreign takeover by a South African mining company in 16 years.
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Rusal has resumed construction of its long-stalled Taishet aluminum smelter project in Siberia in expectation of a widening global aluminum deficit, the company said on Wednesday.
The world’s second-largest aluminum producer behind China’s Hongqiao needs a further $700 million to complete the project, having invested about $800 million in Taishet before it was halted because of falling aluminum prices.
Aluminum prices have jumped by 12 percent to $1,887 a tonne since the start of January and Rusal expects them to climb above $1,900 by the end of the year, said Deputy Chief Executive Oleg Mukhamedshin, citing the company’s belief that the global deficit will reach 1.8 million tonnes in 2018, up 500,000 tonnes this year.
Iron ore imports by China this year are on course to exceed 1 billion metric tons by a comfortable margin, breaking 2016’s record, after first-half figures showed another jump in cargoes and highlighted the ability of the top steelmaker to absorb rising supplies. Miners’ shares advanced.
Shipments in June were 94.7 million tons, up from 91.5 million in May, according to customs data on Thursday. In the first six months, imports rose to 539 million tons, 9.3 percent higher than the same period in 2016. Last year, China only just beat the 1 billion ton mark, importing 1.024 billion tons.
Asia’s top economy has been pulling in ever-greater volumes of low-cost ore to meet resilient demand from mills, who’ve benefited from rising steel prices in the second quarter.
