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What is phosphate? – by Matt M. Johnson (Bradenton Herald – January 2, 2016)

http://www.bradenton.com/

DUETTE — At its Wingate Creek and Four Corners mines in Manatee County, Mosaic is digging phosphate rock out of the earth for use as the primary component in the agricultural fertilizers it manufactures.

Rich in an essential plant nutrient, phosphorous, the rock lies beneath the surface in deposits throughout central Florida. Left behind when sea water receded from Florida about 15 million years ago, much of the phosphate collected is in a formation known as the Bone Valley. The 1.3-million acre formation stretches between modern-day Polk, Hillsborough, Desoto and Manatee counties.

Florida is now home to 27 phosphate mines covering more than 491,900 acres, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

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COLUMN-Seven (possibly) magnificent commodity bets for 2016 – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.K. – December 24, 2015)

http://uk.reuters.com/

Dec 24 It’s always tempting for commodity analysts to issue forecasts for the coming year, even though we intrinsically know that the future is inherently uncertain and even the most reasoned expectations can be easily confounded by events.

With that in mind, and with a nod to my fellow Australians’ love of a punt, I’ve decided rather to do a list of bets I may be tempted take in commodity markets in 2016, assuming I was allowed to wager.

1. Crude oil will trade both below $30 a barrel and above $60 in 2016.

Logic and momentum suggest the first part of this bet is a no-brainer, with both Brent and WTI crude already having tested below $35 a barrel.

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Editorial: Top stories of 2015 – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – December 23, 2015)

http://www.northernminer.com/

Phew, was 2015 a tough year for miners! As we look back and tie a bow around the fourth year of the downturn in commodity prices and the mining sector, we see an industry in defensive mode, spending more time and energy reacting to harsh, global economic forces than charting their own paths forward.

In July, we saw the end of the Commodity Supercyle, as commodity prices represented by the Bloomberg Commodity Index returned to levels last seen in 2002 — or right back to where they were at the start of the much-beloved Supercycle that peaked in 2011.

(To be fair, most other industries have limped along in recession or low-growth mode since the onset of the global recession in 2008, while the mining industry gained some respite with that freaky boom in 2010–11, fuelled by a still-voracious Chinese demand for raw commodities.)

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The Final Lump of Coal in Britain’s Stocking – by Steffan Morgan (Foreign Policy – December 23, 2015)

http://foreignpolicy.com/

Within a few years, there will be no visible reminder that coal was once dug out of the ground at the Kellingley Colliery.

As it has gone with so many other towns in Britain — Creswell in Derbyshire, Rhodesia in Nottinghamshire, Mardy in South Wales — so it will go with Beal, in North Yorkshire, the town where Kellingley was located. Today, these are small towns and villages — some with only one street, one pub, and one shop — but once they were places of international importance, whose coal powered the Industrial Revolution, drove the steam trains on Victorian railways, and fueled the ships that fought World Wars I and II.

The coal industry — a business that once defined Britain — ended in any meaningful sense with the closure of Kellingley, the last deep pit mine in the United Kingdom, on Dec. 18, though, realistically, the industry has been on life support since 1990. When the workers at Kellingley finished their final shift, surrounded by members of the media, it was with feelings of dejection and anger, but also with a calm resilience.

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Monster rally for mining stocks – by Frik Els (Mining.com – December 23, 2015)

http://www.mining.com/

Investors returned to the metals and mining sector in a big way on Wednesday after good news from the world’s two largest economies and metals consumers.

Yesterday, Chinese leaders paved the way for a raft of measures to stimulate the country’s slowing economy while growth figures in the US, although modest came in ahead of expectations.

On the Comex market in New York copper for delivery in March climbed 1% to $2.13 a pound or just under $4,700 a tonne. The red metal is up more than 6% from a six-year low hit a month ago. The benchmark price of iron ore consolidated its rebound from near decade lows to exchange hands for $40.20 a tonne, an 8.6% advance over two weeks.

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OPINION: No doubt that Africa needs what China offers – by Xhanti Payi (Business Day Live – December 9, 2015)

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

DESPITE his many political and philosophical detractors, Henry Kissinger is one of the few authoritative voices on China. Having served as a key US diplomat during a time when China was reinventing herself to what she is today, Kissinger has had a perspective few other analysts have today.

His views on China are not inconsistent with the China we see, in the ways in which it responds to global debates and tensions. One need only look at the way China votes at the United Nations Security Council to understand its posture on affairs of other nations.

In his book, On China, Kissinger is seemingly at pains to show that, unlike the US, China is not interested in exporting its values or owning culture and territories outside itself — that even though it may seek to be a leading civilisation, it does so not through an effort to export its values, but to sustain them even in what Kissinger himself calls the “new world order”.

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Mining millions and corrupt politicians in Indonesia scandal – by Jeremy Mulholland ( The Australian – December 22, 2015)

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

Indonesia has been rocked by extraordinary revelations about top-level negotiations with one of the world’s most profitable mining companies, Freeport-McMoRan, which operates in the high mountains of West Papua province.

A leaked recording of an informal meeting has exposed the then chair of Indonesia’s national parliament, Setya Novanto, and oil tycoon Riza Chalid attempting to secure by gift a $US4 billion ($6.1bn), 20 per cent stake in Freeport’s mines, plus a proposed hydro-electric power plant.

The scandal, denounced as the worst to hit Indonesia, has incited demands for a thorough public investigation. At the heart of the row is Freeport’s desire to quickly secure an extension of its contract — which expires in 2021 — for control of one of the biggest gold and copper mines in the world.

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[Nevada] Mining Not Major Threat To Sage Grouse, Says Mining Association – by Casey Morell (Nevada Public Radio – December 22, 2015)

http://knpr.org/

The battle over the sage grouse continues.

The National Mining Association, a group representing mining companies, is protesting the federal government’s plan to protect the sage grouse.

Specifically, the group does not want the Bureau Of Land Management to protect the bird on land that can be mined for gold and minerals.

“I think our major concern is the proposed withdrawal of 10 million acres of land from mining operations,” said Katie Sweeney, senior Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, National Mining Association.

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Alaska Treasure Mine and the ghost town of Gastineau City – by Brian Weed (Juneau Empire -December 23, 2015)

http://juneauempire.com/

The history of the Alaska Treasure Mine begins in 1884, when William Thompson found mineralization on the south end of Douglas Island, in the Nevada Creek area. Unable to find any backers, Thompson didn’t develop it and the area was abandoned.

In 1903, Percy Morgan and Col. Frank Stone purchased the area and created the Alaska Treasure Gold Mining Company. There were 25 employees working the property in the summer of 1904. The next year a wagon road was built from the beach to the mine site; it had an elevation gain of about 800 feet.

Under the watchful eye of Mike Hudson, buildings were built, tunnels drilled and, by the end of the year, the Corbus Mill, Hudson adit, Hogback shaft and 700 feet of trenches were completed. In 1906, 1.5 tons of hand-picked ore was sent to a smelter and it came back with an $11,000 return.

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Mitch McConnell and the Coal Industry’s Last Stand – by Paul Barrett and Jim Rowley Bloomberg News – December 23, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Shale gas, solar, wind, new regulations and environmentalists have put relentless pressure on coal. But the Senate majority leader still believes he can stem the tide.

A ballad called “Coal Keeps the Lights On” took singer-songwriter Jimmy Rose of tiny Pineville, Ky., all the way to the finals of America’s Got Talent in the summer of 2013. AGT judges Howard Stern, the radio shock jock, comedian Howie Mandel, and supermodel Heidi Klum cheered and clapped. “That was a damn good song,” Stern declared.

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Trumbo and the Hollywood redwash – by Peter Foster (National Post – December 23, 2015)

http://business.financialpost.com/

When is Hollywood going to make a movie about the persecution of those who dare to question the “consensus” on climate change?

This admittedly outlandish thought came to mind after viewing Trumbo, which is yet another regurgitation of the fondly cherished myth of how a few brave Hollywood screenwriters dared to stand up for free speech against Congressional bullying in the 1940s. And all for nothing more than being crypto Communists.

But a similar threat of deprivation of research funds, and even unemployment, hovers over the academic community when it comes to official climate science and policy. So where are the freedom-loving film scripts?

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Dominion Diamond stock surges after hedge fund pushes for overhaul – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – December 23, 2015)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Shares of Dominion Diamond Corp. jumped on Tuesday following news that a Toronto-based hedge fund is pressing for sweeping changes at the Arctic miner.

K2 & Associates Investment Management Inc. released a letter on Monday in which it said it represented a group of investors that had collectively amassed a 5.4-per-cent stake in Dominion, the world’s third-largest producer of rough diamonds by value.

Josef Vejvoda, a portfolio manager at K2, wrote in the letter that Dominion’s share price has “suffered excessively and unnecessarily as a result of misguided policies and missed opportunities.” He pushed for a meeting with independent directors of the Toronto-based miner to discuss how to halt “the continued erosion of shareholder value.”

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DIAMONDS: CPAWS very wrong about Victor mine – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – December 22, 2015)

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Remember hearing that “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”? Here is a contemporary corollary: “Especially when you cherry-pick your facts to make another look bad.”

The case in point is the report circulated by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s (CPAWS) Wildlands League. In it the organization accuses De Beers

Canada and its Victor diamond mine in northern Ontario of environmental offenses. CPAWS calls the situation a failure of self-monitoring and urges independent monitoring and reporting.

“The report is greatly misleading,” De Beers Canada’s senior external and corporate affairs manager Tom Ormsby said when contacted by CMJ.

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Iron ore slump halts work on Australia’s last big mine project – by James Regan (Reuters U.S. – December 22, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY – Dec 23 Slumping iron ore prices have brought down the shutters on the last of Australia’s mining boom-era projects still on the drawing board, with partners calling time on the planned $5 billion West Pilbara Iron Ore project.

The proposed mine, a four-way partnership led by two of Asia’s biggest steel companies, would have added 30 million tonnes of iron ore to an already oversupplied market facing slower-than-expected demand from China.

The partners had been due to embark on final feasibility studies for the mine before starting construction, which would have cost around $50 million.

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