Twitter

Burning Coal – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – November 11, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

It’s becoming harder for Australia’s government to avoid talking about the link between its biggest export earner and rising temperatures.

You could smell the approach of Sydney’s bushfires two weeks away. Leaving my home for work last month at a time when California’s fires were at their most intense, the sandalwood odor of burning eucalyptus was heavy on the air.

Looking north from Bloomberg’s office to the far side of Sydney Harbour, the normally sparkling blue water was a barely discernible smudge. That was mostly not wildfire, but a dozen deliberate hazard-reduction burns under way across the metropolitan area in a last-ditch attempt to eliminate flammable plant litter and undergrowth before conditions worsened.

Tuesday will prove a test of how effective that has been. Sydney’s entire metropolitan area and a swathe of country in the Hunter Valley to the north and Illawarra to the south will face catastrophic fire danger, the highest risk rating in New South Wales state, thanks to strong winds combined with temperatures up to 37 degrees centigrade.

Read more

Bolivia: Where revolutionaries and lithium miners go to die – by Rick Mills (Mining.com – December 26, 2018)

https://www.mining.com/

Other than being the country where Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara was killed, most North Americans know little about Bolivia.

The landlocked country is surrounded by Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile. Today, it is South America’s poorest nation. But in the 1960s, Bolivia was going to be the launchpad of Che Guevara’s socialist revolution.

Born in Argentina, Ernesto “Che” Guevara became radicalized by the poverty, hunger and disease he saw while traveling South America as a young medical student. He got involved in social reforms enacted by Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, which were resisted by the United States.

Read more

Reopening of Boungou mine in Burkina will depend on security: Semafo (Reuters Canada – November 11, 2019)

https://ca.reuters.com/

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – Canadian gold miner Semafo will not resume operations at its Boungou mine in Burkina Faso until security in the area is assured following last week’s deadly ambush on a road to the site, the company said on Monday.

At least 39 people were killed in the attack on the Semafo convoy last Wednesday, the latest in a series of high-profile actions in a country plagued by jihadist violence.

A total of 241 employees, contractors and suppliers were caught up in the attack, which killed at least 39 and wounded 60 with one person still unaccounted for, Semafo said.

Read more

Kenney’s plan to get Alberta out from under Trudeau before he completely destroys it – by Diane Francis (Financial Post – November 11, 2019)

https://business.financialpost.com/

He also pointed out, to those who claim that the world must wean
itself from oil, that this is irrational. “The International Energy
Agency says global demand for oil will increase from 100 million
barrels per day to 110 million barrels a day by 2040. The same
agency says that, even if there is full compliance with the Paris
Treaty on climate, the demand by 2040 will be 80 million barrels
per day,” he said. “And natural gas demand globally will double”.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father rolled out the National Energy Program in 1980 — a punitive tax grab for Alberta’s oil revenues to pay for the Liberal welfare state. Years later, Justin Trudeau did a redo by discriminating against Alberta’s oil industry to pay for his welfare state, phoney climate agenda and Quebec goodies.

But again, the jig’s up and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney came out fighting this weekend and, as many of us have recommended, embarked on a “workaround” strategy to get out from under Trudeau and the Laurentian elites who still control Canada.

Instead of a national energy grab, this Trudeau has cloaked himself in green by attacking the oil industry without even addressing the real problem which is demand.

Read more

It took decades to push Alberta to this point — but it was inevitable – by Kelly McParland (National Post – November 11, 2019)

https://nationalpost.com

Kenney’s panel will look at these and other issues, including
deep disgruntlement with the equalization program that treats
Alberta as a “have” province while sending $13 billion — 65
per cent of the national total — to “have not” Quebec. Quebec’s
payment rose sharply this year, even as it announced a $4
billion surplus. Alberta, in contrast, expects a shortfall of
$8.7 billion for the same period.

The combative address Jason Kenney delivered in Red Deer on Saturday didn’t come out of the blue. This is a storm cloud that’s been hovering around Alberta for a very long time. Eventually it was going to erupt.

There have been plenty of precursors. From Pierre Trudeau’s first lunge at Alberta’s oil wealth almost 40 years ago via the National Energy Program, Albertans have kept a wary eye on Ottawa and its grabby revenue fingers.

Read more

Column: Funds are starting to turn more bullish on copper – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – November 11, 2019)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Whisper it softly, but there are the very first signs that funds are turning more friendly to Doctor Copper. London Metal Exchange (LME) copper has been locked into a sideways trading pattern since the middle of the year with robust internal dynamics swamped by the broader, negative macro story.

Concerns about China’s manufacturing slowdown and the Sino-U.S. trade dispute have manifest themselves in a big fund short position on the CME copper contract since June. That big short, however, has shrunk a lot over the last couple of weeks as the prospect of some sort of trade deal becomes more credible.

London copper, meanwhile, has seen a flurry of interest in the options market with buyers looking for upside exposure next year. This is still a tentative turnaround but it seems as if the money men are starting to look beyond the copper-negative Trump tariffs trade.

Read more

[British Mining] Norma Gregory on the Hidden History of Black Miners and Her New Exhibiton – by Alex Kuster (Leftlion.co.uk – November 10, 2019)

https://www.blackcoalminers.com/

https://www.leftlion.co.uk/

Nottingham has plenty of things to be proud of. Our roots being one of them; history is so deeply embedded in many of the things that we all love about this city. But the narrative isn’t fully complete. Historian Norma Gregory has spent the past few years unearthing the untold stories of several black coal miners who lived and worked in the UK.

We spoke to her about her new exhibition, Digging Deep: Coal Miners of African Carribean Heritage which features photos, audio recordings and oral histories that have previously been left unheard…

Tell us a little bit about the exhibition…

The exhibition is currently at The National Coalmining Museum in Wakefield. It’s been a multi-level, multi-pronged, all-hands-involved project. We have interviewed over 67 miners in total so far – we have a database of over 200 names, and that’s all come from word of mouth.

Read more

Protests in Chile, Bolivia threaten India’s search for assets in ‘Lithium Triangle’ – by Ajoy K Das (MiningWeekly.com – November 11, 2019)

https://m.miningweekly.com/

KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Civil unrest and violence in Chile and prospects of tougher security norms, together with unrelenting protests over a disputed electoral process in Bolivia, have thrown a spanner in the wheels of Indian mining companies getting a toe-hold in the so-called ‘Lithium Triangle’.

As protestors continue to hit the streets, with widespread reports of violence, snowballing into a deeper anti-government movement, India’s recent push for lithium assets in Latin America is being forced to the backburner, if not becoming unstuck completely.

The perception among Indian mining companies planning forays in search of lithium assets in Latin America is that though unrest and violence in Chile was triggered by a marginal hike in subway fares, opposition to the right-of-center neoliberal economic policy of the incumbent Chilean government is at the heart of civil movement.

Read more

Impala’s Zimbabwe Mine Is Said to Be in Talks on Amplats Land – by Godfrey Marawanyika and Brian Latham (Bloomberg News – November 11, 2019)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. is in talks to buy land in Zimbabwe from rival Anglo American Platinum Ltd. as the world’s second-biggest producer of the precious metal seeks to boost output from the southern African country, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

The purchase of the claims by the Mimosa mine, which is jointly owned by Impala and Sibanye Gold Ltd., could be finalized by the end pf the year, according to the people who asked not to be identified because the discussions aren’t public.

Impala and Amplats mine most of their platinum group metals in neighboring South Africa, which has the world’s biggest reserves of platinum. But Zimbabwe’s deposits, second only to South Africa’s, are shallower and therefore cheaper to mine.

Read more

A Canadian company wants to build Brazil’s largest open-pit gold mine: Now that Bolsonaro is in power, it just might succeed – by Jacob Lorinc (Toronto Star – November 9, 2019)

https://www.thestar.com/

On the morning of the annual Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, in February 2017, a group of samba dancers stood solemnly in front of a massive parade float depicting five venomous snakes, their forked tongues protruding from the back of a bearded man with bloodshot eyes.

The gruesome display was a publicity stunt — a symbol of agribusiness invading the eastern edge of the Amazon rainforest, said the dancers in a press conference that morning. To the delegation of Indigenous leaders in attendance, the monster allegorized several industrial projects recently encroaching on their territories.

For some, it represented the Belo Monte, a massive government-owned hydroelectric dam that flooded the shores of the lower Xingu River, a tributary to the Amazon River. For one delegate, the leader of the Juruna tribe, the monster represented a more recent perceived threat to the communities living near those shorelines — a Canadian mining company by the name of Belo Sun.

Read more

Cost of Ivanhoe’s giant copper project in Congo hits $1.3 billion – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 8, 2019)

https://www.mining.com/

Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN) said Friday that initial capital costs for its Kakula copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is now estimated at $1.3 billion, and 18% increase over planned costs.

The fresh figure, which includes expanded plant capacity, additional mining fleets and pre-production ore stockpile, will allow the company to begin production at the mine in the third quarter of 2021, Ivanhoe said.

Capacity of Kakula’s processing plant modules increased by 26% in the three months to Sep. 30, from 3 Mtpa to 3.8 Mtpa, significantly boosting projected early-stage copper production, the Toronto-based miner noted.

Read more

The Hidden Cost of Gold: Birth Defects and Brain Damage – by Richard C. Paddock (New York Times – Novmeber 9, 2019)

https://www.nytimes.com/

CIDAHU, Indonesia — Thousands of children with crippling birth defects. Half a million people poisoned. A toxic chemical found in the food supply. Accusations of a government cover-up and police officers on the take. This is the legacy of Indonesia’s mercury trade, a business intertwined with the lucrative and illegal production of gold.

More than a hundred nations have joined a global campaign to reduce the international trade in mercury, an element so toxic there is “no known safe level of exposure,” according to health experts.

But that effort has backfired in Indonesia, where illicit backyard manufacturers have sprung up to supply wildcat miners and replace mercury that was previously imported from abroad. Now, Indonesia produces so much black-market mercury that it has become a major global supplier, surreptitiously shipping thousands of tons to other parts of the world.

Read more

Investors wary as social unrest spreads from Hong Kong to Santiago – by Rodrigo Campos (Reuters U.S. – November 11, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Social unrest worldwide is alarming some global investors, who say protests from Hong Kong and Lebanon to Chile are forcing them to be more cautious even though the impact on financial markets has been spotty so far.

Investors at the Reuters Global 2020 Investment Outlook Summit last week were particularly concerned about Hong Kong, where pro-democracy protests have been raging over the past six months.

Some said they saw a theme building up with factors such as the impact of globalization, wealth inequality and climate change creating political uncertainty over the next five to 10 years that would influence markets.

Read more

OPINION: Beware foreign CEOs: Sometimes they just want to go home – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – November 9, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Want to lose another Canadian head office? Easy! Hire a non-Canadian CEO. Canadian boards of directors seem to have a fascination with foreign chief executive officers. Canada is (largely) an open economy, one with pretenses to corporate greatness, so why not pick the best and the brightest from the United States, Europe and elsewhere?

Load them up with fat salaries and share option packages, and watch them create a Niagara of shareholder value. And a flag-waving Canadian business champion as a bonus.

Canada and a few other countries that worship at the altar of shareholder value, Britain among them, have bought into the cult of the globalist CEO – big time. But the cult is wearing thin.

Read more

Iran has discovered an oil field with an estimated 53 billion barrels of crude, Rouhani says – by Nada Altaher and Matthew Robinson (CNN Business – November 10, 2019)

https://www.cnn.com/

Abu Dhabi (CNN)A vast oil field containing an estimated 53 billion barrels of crude oil has been discovered in Iran, President Hassan Rouhani announced Sunday, a find that could boost the country’s battered economy amid stringent US sanctions.

The oil field in southwest Iran stretches over an area of 2,400 sq km (about 1,491 square miles) in the Khuzestan province and is around 80 meters (262 feet) deep, according to the Iranian leader.

It would be the country’s second largest oil field, behind one in Ahvaz containing an estimated 65 billion barrels. “We have discovered a new big oil field with 53 billion barrels of reserves,” Rouhani said in a speech Sunday in the city of Yazd, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.

Read more