Republic of Mining

Is Chile losing ground in the lithium space? – by Tom Azzopardi (Northern Miner – September 4, 2019)

September 5, 2019

Northern Miner

Chile should lead the world in lithium production. The Salar de Atacama in northern Chile is the world’s largest and richest lithium resource, containing almost half the world’s known reserves, according to the United States Geological Survey. And the region’s geological and climatic conditions make it the most competitive place to produce the mineral.

The country’s only two lithium producers, Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) and Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM) (NYSE: SQM), enjoy production costs of less than US$3,000 a tonne, compared to almost US$4,000 a tonne in some Argentinean salars.

So when lithium demand and prices began to take off earlier this decade, Chile’s economic development agency, Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (CORFO), which owns mineral rights on the Salar, signed new lease contracts with Albemarle and SQM allowing them to increase production to around two million tonnes over the life of the leases.

[Australia Raventhorpe Nickle Mine] Mining Albany for jobs – by Toby Hussey (The West Australian – September 4, 2019)

September 5, 2019

https://thewest.com.au/

A surging nickel price has prompted the owner of a Ravensthorpe mine site to restart operations early next year, creating more than 350 jobs. First Quantum Minerals confirmed on Tuesday it would re-open its Ravensthorpe nickel operation in the next six months, with a region-wide job search beginning next week.

That search will include an Albany jobs fair on Tuesday, when senior First Quantum HR staff will explain the jobs available, skills required, and proposed rosters, and answer applicants’ questions.

The Albany Advertiser understands the company will be looking for employees with skills ranging from qualified electricians to non-qualified roles in administration, agriculture and transport.

As Concern Over Critical Minerals Grows, U.S. Must Step Up – by Jeffrey A. Green (Real Clear Politics – September 5, 2019)

September 5, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Jeffrey A. Green is president and founder of J.A. Green & Co., a bipartisan government relations firm.

There is more to President Trump’s engagement with Greenland than meets the eye. Though some have panned his comments, seasoned observers believe the president’s motivations are part of a broader effort to secure a U.S. supply of rare earth elements amid a burgeoning reliance on China for this essential material.

In June, the U.S. quietly signed an agreement with the Arctic country to survey its land to help spur mineral exploration. Greenland is believed to house a significant resource of rare earths, a group of elements necessary for critical defense and commercial technology.

These efforts follow a growing interest, within U.S. policy circles, in rare earth dependency. However, if policymakers want to get serious about securing U.S. access to rare earths, any real solution must include investing in our domestic production capabilities.

Forest spraying violates treaty: Huron-Robinson elders – by Helen Morley (Sudbury Star – September 5, 2019)

September 5, 2019

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

First Nations in northeastern Ontario to take federal government to court

Some 21 First Nations along the North Shore of Lake Huron are preparing to take the federal government to court over aerial spraying they say is harming the environment and human health.

However, the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Elders of Robinson-Huron Treaty territory say the spraying is only part of a larger issue: that First Nations are not being consulted about activities taking place on their land. The elders say this violates the Robinson-Huron Treaty of 1850.

Ray Owl, the spokesperson for the TEK Elders of Robinson-Huron Treaty territory, says the 21 First Nations will take the federal government to court for violating the Robinson-Huron Treaty. That court date will take place by October.

Japan’s retail gold price clambers to highest since 1980 amid global economy jitters – by Yuka Obayashi (Reuters U.S. – September 5, 2019)

September 5, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

TOKYO (Reuters) – The retail price of physical gold in Japan climbed to its highest in nearly 40 years on Thursday, a surge accentuated by fluctuations in the value of the yen but mirroring a global hunt for the safe-haven precious metal amid worries that the U.S.-China trade row could further depress the global economy.

Japan’s biggest gold retailer Tanaka Kikinzoku said the retail price of refined gold, revised once a day in yen, stood at 5,325 yen ($49.99) per gramme on Thursday, not including consumption tax, up 0.7% from Wednesday.

That was the highest since Feb. 14, 1980 – a year when the U.S. President was Jimmy Carter and Honda Motor Co said it would build Japan’s first U.S. car assembly plant in Ohio.

Zimbabwe: The Tragedy of NGOs Singing for Their Supper – by Johnson Gonorenda (All Africa.com/The Herald – September 5, 2019)

September 5, 2019

https://allafrica.com/

The world over – the question of balance between equitable and sustainable resource exploitation has become central. The emergence in our time of matters such as greenhouse carbon emissions and competing theories on global warming, its causes, effects and extent and, more importantly, methods put forward for arresting the said pace of global warming have become key topics of global policy and a need for global solutions.

In this regard we have seen global incoherence on the way forward. The United States, in particular, has at one point alongside other global powers such as Germany, Britain, France and Canada proposed stringent policy proposals to arrest global warming.

However, in the age of President Trump, the US has been putting a massive handbrake to so-called environmental initiatives and this has frustrated her allies.

France’s Orano to develop uranium mining projects in Uzbekistan (The Times of Central Asia – September 5, 2019)

September 5, 2019

https://www.timesca.com/

TASHKENT (TCA) — Major nuclear fuel cycle company Orano has signed a partnership agreement with the Uzbek State, represented by the State Committee for Geology and Mineral Resources (GoscomGeology) to develop mining exploration and operations activities in Uzbekistan, the French company said on September 4.

The two partners have decided to create a joint venture which will be established in few months, with 51% held by Orano and 49% held by GoscomGeology.

This agreement formalizes the desire of both parties to work together on uranium mining projects in Uzbekistan, in particular in the Navoi region in a desert area at the heart of the uranium-rich province of Kyzylkum.

Court allows legal challenge against Trans Mountain just as construction resumes on pipeline – by Justine Hunter and Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – September 5, 2019)

September 5, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The federal Court of Appeal has allowed a legal challenge to the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project to proceed, just as construction – delayed by earlier court battles – is resuming both in British Columbia and Alberta.

A judicial review will determine whether Ottawa has adequately consulted with Indigenous communities about the project. The court, in a ruling released Wednesday, denied applications for a review on environmental matters, but ecology groups say they are now considering an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The court was emphatic that opposition to the pipeline, led by six First Nations communities, is not legal grounds to stop the $7.4-billion expansion project. But, in an unusually prescriptive ruling, the court has directed an expedited hearing to determine if there are grounds to overturn the project for a second time.

Glencore’s risk appetite dwindles, fueling focus on safer regions – by Ernest Scheyder and Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – September 5, 2019)

September 5, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Glencore Inc’s (GLEN.L) penchant for risk has long been mining industry lore, but the company is quickly expanding into a part of the world that would have been improbable just a few years ago: Minnesota.

The Swiss-based commodity trader took majority control last June of PolyMet Mining Corp (POM.TO), which is developing a mine in the Midwest state near the Canadian border estimated to hold a century’s worth of copper and nickel, critical to the development of electric vehicles.

It is the first time that Glencore has controlled a major mining project in the United States, where President Donald Trump has cut mining regulations and red tape in a bid to encourage domestic mining, a marked change from predecessor Barack Obama, who favored stricter oversight of the sector and slowed or halted several large mining projects.

Indonesia sees surge in nickel-related exports after ore export ban – by Bernadette Christina (Reuters U.S. – September 4, 2019)

September 4, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s ban on nickel ore exports could boost the country’s earnings from the metal five-fold in the next five years through growth in industries such as stainless steel and battery materials, a minister said on Wednesday.

In a move that threatens to cut global supply, the world’s top nickel miner said this week it would stop nickel ore exports from Jan. 1, 2020, two years earlier than initially indicated, to promote more domestic processing.

Luhut Pandjaitan, a coordinating minister overseeing mining, said nickel-related export earnings will surge from last year’s $5.8 billion, with investment in processing pouring into the nickel-rich region of Morowali in Central Sulawesi province.

Botched Bankruptcy Leads to Standoff in Kentucky Coal Country – by Jeremy Hill (Bloomberg News – September 3, 2019)

September 4, 2019

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg) — Anyone approaching the railroad tracks late last month from U.S. Route 119 outside Cumberland, Kentucky, would have seen the mass of pop-up tents, and perhaps the hand-scrawled sign in capital letters, darkened from heavy rain: “COAL OR WORKERS — WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?”

A little more than a mile down the tracks, some 100 CSX Corp. railcars are piled high with coal mined by Blackjewel LLC from the hills of Harlan County. David Pratt Jr., a 29-year-old father of three, is one of more than 200 people who helped dig out that coal and haven’t been paid for it.

That’s why he’s helped block the tracks that lead out of the coal mine south of Cumberland for more than a month. No wages, no coal. “They can’t railroad us,” said Pratt, among about 1,700 people idled across the country after Blackjewel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 1.

Philippines’ nickel ore output hike unlikely to plug Indonesia supply gap – by Enrico Dela Cruz (Reuters/Nasdaq.com – September 2, 2019)

September 4, 2019

https://www.nasdaq.com/

MANILA, Sept 2 (Reuters) – Philippine nickel mining companies are likely to boost ore production next year when Indonesia bans exports of the raw material used in stainless steel and batteries, but may still not be able to fill up the supply gap.

The Southeast Asian neighbouring countries are the biggest suppliers of nickel ore to China, the world’s largest stainless steel producer and home to some of the biggest makers of batteries for electric vehicles.

The ban will encourage Philippine miners to start ramping up ore output when the local mining season resumes next year, Dante Bravo, president of the Philippine Nickel Industry Association told Reuters.

The Tories are dissolving the Ring of Fire agreement. So what comes next? – by Jon Thompson (TVO.org – September 3, 2019)

September 4, 2019

https://www.tvo.org/

TVO.org speaks with people close to the issue about why it’s proved so divisive — and what the future may hold for Indigenous-government relations in the north

Greg Rickford, Ontario’s minister of northern development, mines and energy, and Indigenous affairs, last week issued a 90-day notice to Matawa chiefs that the province is dissolving the Ring of Fire regional-framework agreement.

“Frankly, to this point, it’s been a little complicated and lengthy,” Rickford told reporters in Sault Ste. Marie. “It has not necessarily met the timelines that the market should expect a project to come on board.”

The Ring of Fire, a large mineral belt discovered in 2007, comprises 5,000 square kilometres in the James Bay lowlands. According to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, establishing a mining development there could create as many as 5,500 jobs and more than $9 billion in economic activity over the course of a decade.

History Hunter: Hard rock mining on Dublin Gulch is more than a century old – by Michael Gates (Yukon News – August 29, 2019)

September 4, 2019

Yukon News

For other Michael Gate’s Mining History Columns on the Yukon: https://www.yukon-news.com/author/michael-gates/

The Klondike gold rush drew tens of thousands of hopeful prospectors into the north hoping to strike it rich in the placers of Bonanza Eldorado and numerous other creeks.

But among them were a smaller but unwavering brigade of prospectors who were determined to burrow beneath the placer gravels into bedrock in hope of finding the mother lode. These prospectors spread out to the branches of tributaries in regions so remote that they weren’t yet even plotted on maps.

One of these remote locations was Dublin Gulch, which was said to have been first staked by 1897. There was a staking rush to the area in 1901. Interest quickly dwindled and many of these claims lapsed, but another flurry of staking occurred two years later.

[Aboriginal Issues] Column: Defending a ‘free speech’ hero in Sudbury – by Barbara Kay (Sudbury Star – September 4, 2019)

September 4, 2019

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Last February the Sudbury branch of Chapters abruptly cancelled an upcoming book-signing event. A clue to their decision may be found in the politically incorrect title of the book in question, by area lawyer Peter Best: There Is No Difference: An Argument for the Abolition of the Indian Reserve System and Special Race-based Laws and Entitlements for Canada’s Indians.

Best is one of my free-speech Canadian heroes (full disclosure: I not only considered Best’s book a trenchantly-argued and comprehensively researched dissertation on this most important of national themes, I wrote a positive blurb for the cover).

Few and far between are disinterested scholars of Canada’s aboriginal history who have the tough hide and principled will to publicly depart from the approved Indigenous “nation-to-nation” narrative that keeps the guilt and money flowing, but perpetuates a dysfunctional status quo on many reserves.