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How new investments will drive a rebound in Papua New Guinea’s mining sector (Borneo Post – March 17, 2019)

Borneo Post

A raft of foreign capital investments across new and existing mines in Papua New Guinea are set to boost production and lead to a rebound in government revenues; however, there are concerns proposed legislative changes could hinder activity moving forward.

In December Australian company Newcrest Mining and its partner, South Africa’s Harmony Gold, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with PNG’s government over a potential 9.1 billion kinas (US$2.8 billion) investment to develop the Wafi-Golpu mine, a copper-gold asset in Morobe Province.

While the MOU will not immediately lead to progress on the mine, it paves the way for further talks and a possible final agreement that will delineate benefit and revenue-sharing arrangements between developers and local communities.

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Brazil Court Orders Vale to Stop Operations at Another Mine – by Walter Brandimarte (Bloomberg News – March 17, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

A Brazilian court ordered Vale SA to halt production at another of its iron ore mines, further reducing the company’s output capacity after a deadly dam burst increased government scrutiny over its operations.

The Timbopeba mine in Minas Gerais state produces 12.8 million tons of iron ore per year, Vale said in a statement, adding that it will comply with the court decision. The judge also ordered the company to stop using the Doutor dam that receives tailings from the mine. A fine of 500,000 reais ($131,000) per day will be imposed in case of disobedience.

Since the Brumadinho dam accident that left more than 300 people dead or missing on Jan. 25, Vale has also been ordered to stop operations at its Brucutu mine in the same state.

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[Space Mining] Maple moon rising: a gateway to better Canada-US relations? – by Christopher Sands and Sean Kelly (Policy Options – March 2019)

http://policyoptions.irpp.org/

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on February 28 that Canada would join the United States in its Lunar Gateway project, becoming the first international partner to officially sign on. The announcement came with a financial commitment of $2 billion over 24 years.

Then, on March 6, Minister for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains launched a comprehensive new Canadian space policy. Titled Exploration, Imagination, Innovation: A New Space Policy for Canada, the strategy sets federal research funding priorities for space science in four areas: lunar science, artificial intelligence, robotics and health.

The goal is to highlight areas in which Canada has already developed deep expertise while accelerating cutting-edge research to ensure that Canada can continue to contribute as a partner of choice for the US and other countries engaged in space exploration.

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Goldcorp’s Ian Telfer gives up director seat at Newmont amid outcry over retirement payment – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 15, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Goldcorp Inc. says its long-time chairman will not be joining the board of Newmont Mining Corp. after an outcry over a huge bump in his retirement benefits.

Last week, Goldcorp’s board approved a near-tripling of Ian Telfer’s retirement benefit to US$12-million from US$4.5-million. The cash is payable to Mr. Telfer should Newmont succeed in its plans to buy the Vancouver-based miner. In explanation for the increase, Goldcorp has said Mr. Telfer’s compensation has not historically been adjusted for inflation.

The arrangement was met with scorn by some stakeholders, especially considering Mr. Telfer agreed to sell Goldcorp near a historic low in its stock price.

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Mines could go nuclear in less than 10 years – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – March 15, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Historic panel talks “reliable, clean and cost-effective” energy being researched partly in Sudbury

Nuclear power is grabbing the attention of the mining industry, to the point where there is a real possibility there could be portable reactors powering mines in less than 10 years.

That was the news delivered at a first-of-its-kind panel discussion at the Prospectors and Developers Association’s (PDAC) annual convention, in Toronto on March 3.

The panel included Vic Pakalnis, president and CEO of Sudbury-based Mirarco, which is part of development of the technology to create small modular reactors (SMR); Diane Cameron of Natural Resources Canada; Ryan Blinn of Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh, Penn.; Corey McDaniel of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River, Ont.; Frank Saunders of Bruce Power in Tiverton; and Nathan Tedford from Hatch Ltd. in Mississauga.

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Huge demand for copper, cobalt, lithium and nickel in the offing as EV uptake increases – by Tracy Hancock (MiningWeekly.com – March 15, 2019)

http://m.miningweekly.com/

Metals of the Future

Investors focused on the mining sector may not fully appreciate how quickly the electric vehicle (EV) is being adopted globally, in light of the world pursuing a low-carbon emissions future, says battery metals investment vehicle Cobalt 27 Capital chairperson and CEO Anthony Milewski, who warns of a potential deficit in the supply of the metals critical to achieving this future.

Global management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company says 2017 marked the first time EV sales passed the one- million mark, noting in May 2018 that, by 2020, EV producers could be moving 4.5- million units, about 5% of the overall global light-vehicle market.

Even with South Africa’s electricity supply woes, automotive company Jaguar Land Rover South Africa forecast in January that South Africa could have 145 000 EVs on its roads, expecting yearly sales of new EVs to reach 43 000 units in the next six years.

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‘Repeal your laws but respect our laws’ Ontario First Nation chief tells Premier Doug Ford – by Matt Prokopchuk (CBC News Thunder Bay – March 15, 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Letter from Donny Morris comes as Ontario takes input on proposed repeal of Far North Act

The chief of a northern Ontario First Nation says if the province goes ahead with a planned repeal of the Far North Act, whatever rules and regulations replace it will have to work with his community’s own laws.

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (K.I.) Chief Donny Morris wrote to Premier Doug Ford early in March, as the provincial government takes input on its proposal to do away with the 2010 legislation, enacted to set guidelines for land-use planning in the far north. The act itself, however, has drawn criticism from First Nations, saying they were never consulted when the previous Liberal government enacted it.

“The Far North Act may be on its way out, but our laws, our Indigenous legal orders will remain,” Morris’s letter said, adding that those legal orders include regulations surrounding how the community is to be consulted, rules around allowable activities on K.I.’s traditional territory, as well as a declaration that sets out laws to protect the local watershed.

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Provinces divided over minerals and metals plan – by Tyler Nyquvest (Business In Vancouver – March 14, 2019)

https://biv.com/

Recently, Canada’s mining ministers announced the new Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan (CMMP) to draw attention to the importance of the sector and create a road map for the future.

Some of the key themes of the CMMP are raising awareness, responding to ongoing and emerging challenges and helping to position the country as a major supplier of the minerals and metals that will power the cleaner global economy of tomorrow.

“While Canada has long benefited from a prosperous minerals and metals industry, we are not immune to global competitive forces, and cannot take the benefits and opportunities that mining offers Canadians for granted,” Pierre Gratton, president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada, said in a press release.

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Column: Funds start buying into the copper recovery story – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – March 12, 2019)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – In a tentative return to Doctor Copper for the money men, investors are starting to buy back into the metal after aggressively shorting the market at the start of the year.

Some of the gloom weighing on the copper price appears to be lifting, with more positive noises from U.S.-China trade talks and expectations that Beijing’s latest stimulus boost will revitalise a flagging manufacturing sector.

Copper’s own micro dynamics, in particular low visible stocks on the world’s three exchanges, are also fanning bullish enthusiasm. Funds increased their net long holdings on the CME copper contract by 7,488 contracts to 23,126 in the week to March 5, a level not seen since the middle of last year.

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[Diamonds] The end of emotion – the beginning of reason – by Ya’akov Almor (Index Online.com – March 14, 2019)

http://www.idexonline.com/

The March issue of IDEX Magazine is out. The cover story invites readers to consider the future of the diamond industry, specifically the bulk of diamond mining production, those rough diamonds that are cut and polished to become melee.

Is there a chance that we can soon stop talking about synthetic or lab-grown diamonds (LGDs)? I really hope so. We need to focus on marketing and selling diamonds. And melee is the bread and butter of the entire supply pipeline.

But first, the diamond industry and trade needs to stop screaming foul. During the past decades, the industry has been discussing, arguing and sometimes even kicking and screaming against the tendency to call synthetic diamonds…indeed, diamonds.

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SolGold’s Nick Mather our Mining Person of the Year for 2018 – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – February 27, 2019)

Northern Miner

Nicholas Mather, president and CEO of Australian junior SolGold, is The Northern Miner’s Mining Person of the Year for 2018 in recognition of his role as the driving force behind the wildly successful grassroots team that has drilled off the world-class Alpala gold-copper deposit at its Cascabel project in Imbabura province in northern Ecuador, with potentially many more discoveries to come in the region.

The past year was a pivotal one for Toronto- and London-listed SolGold. In November 2018, it tabled an updated resource for Alpala that tallied a staggering 2.1 billion indicated tonnes grading 0.41% copper and 0.29 gram gold per tonne, or 0.60% copper equivalent (at a 0.2% copper-equivalent cut-off), plus another 900 million inferred tonnes grading 0.27% copper and 0.13 gram gold, or 0.35% copper equivalent, at the same cut-off. These numbers are based on 133,600 metres of drilling.

That translates to a contained metal content of 8.4 million tonnes copper and 19.4 million oz. gold in the indicated category, and another 2.5 million tonnes copper and 3.8 million oz. gold in inferred.

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HISTORY & CULTURE: ‘The industrial revolution started here’ – by Vangmayi Parakala (The Hindu – March 15, 2019)

https://www.thehindu.com/

The 2019 Colonel James Tod Awardee, British Musem’s Dr. Paul Craddock talks of early metallurgy in Rajasthan, and how it influenced Europe

At sunset, below the ramparts of the Udaipur City Palace, the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation (MMCF) recognised service towards nation-building, art, conservation, and culture with their 37th annual awards ceremony this weekend. Along with former ISRO chair Dr. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan as chief guest, the MMCF’s chairman, ‘Maharana’ Arvind Singh Mewar, presented the honours.

The foundation has 13 instituted awards, of which the Colonel James Tod Award recognises a foreign national’s service or contribution to the country in line with the “spirit and values of Mewar”. Dr. Paul T. Craddock, a scientist attached to the British Museum, was this year’s recipient.

Craddock has been studying early metallurgy in India, especially in the Zawar region, a mining township about 40 kilometres from Udaipur. Previous recipients of this award include journalist Sir Mark Tully and author V.S. Naipaul.

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Delayed But Looming: The Question of Bougainville Independence – by Grant Wyeth (The Diplomat – March 14, 2019)

https://thediplomat.com/

The referendum for Papua New Guinea’s eastern region is now set for October. How its outcome will be handled remains unclear.

Earlier this month the date of the Bougainville independence referendum was pushed back. Initially — although tentatively — scheduled for June 15, the poll will now be held in October. Under the 2001 peace agreement that followed a decade-long civil war in Papua New Guinea (PNG), it was negotiated that a referendum on the future status of Bougainville would be held prior to mid-2020.

While preparations have been ongoing, it is believed the Bougainville Referendum Commission (BRC), headed by former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, would have been both financially and structurally struggling to meet the referendum’s requirements by June.

While the delay in the referendum isn’t a great surprise, the exact meaning of the referendum continues to be contested. PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill recently stated that the referendum is nonbinding, and that after the poll is conducted the PNG parliament will debate the results, and ultimately decide on whether Bouganville will become the world’s newest country.

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Agreements seen as reconciliation: Ontario chiefs and ministry talk about their experiences with negotiations with revenue-sharing – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – March 13, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Several Ontario Indigenous chiefs say revenue-sharing agreements will be good for all communities in Northern Ontario because the First Nations are major supporters of businesses in the region.

And the provincial government says it is ready and waiting for the next proposal from communities. Revenue-sharing agreements have taken a more significant role in recent years as mining and forestry companies seek to harvest resources from Indigenous lands.

It was a hot topic at the 2019 convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association (PDAC) in Toronto. Several panels were dedicated to discussing personal experiences, legal frameworks and the benefits and challenges associated with them.

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OPINION: Mining’s Dirty Secret Won’t Survive a Changing Climate – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – March 13, 2019)

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Can mining be green? That’s certainly the ambition of some of the biggest companies in the sector. Rio Tinto Group last year became the first major miner to stop digging up coal altogether.

Glencore Plc, historically one of the commodity’s most vocal boosters, has promised to cap production at current levels. “We have a portfolio free of coal and oil and gas,” Rio’s Chief Executive Officer Jean-Sebastian Jacques told investors after annual results last month. “We are well-positioned to thrive in the world that values sustainability more and more.”

Well, up to a point. Miners have certainly been working to reduce the impact of their own operations. Partly thanks to asset sales and spinoffs, carbon pollution from on-site fuel and electricity – so-called Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions – has fallen by almost half in the past five years at the two biggest players, Rio Tinto and BHP Group.

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