Republic of Mining

NEWS RELEASE: IAMGOLD Joins Young Mining Professionals & Orefinders Resources Inc. to Establish YMP Scholarship Fund in Exploration and Mining (Jan 24, 2018)

January 24, 2018

https://www.youngminingprofessionals.com/

TORONTO, Jan. 24, 2018 /CNW/ – IAMGOLD Corporation (“IAMGOLD” or the “Company”) is proud to announce that it has joined Young Mining Professionals (“YMP”) and Orefinders Resources Inc. to establish the YMP Scholarship Fund (the “Fund”) in exploration and mining.

The YMP Scholarship Fund has been created to attract young Canadians to the exploration and mining industry by supporting their academic studies in earth sciences and mining engineering. The Fund will help students who have demonstrated superior leadership, determination and an entrepreneurial spirit towards the mining industry. IAMGOLD is delighted to support an initiative that will encourage talented and resourceful young professionals to become Canada’s next generation of mining leaders.

“IAMGOLD is proud to support the YMP Scholarship Fund as part of the development of the next generation of decision-makers in Canada’s mining sector,” said Steve Letwin, President and CEO of IAMGOLD. “Ensuring Canada’s youth are equipped with the tools necessary to succeed and drive the responsible management of our mineral resources is an essential long-term investment.

The carbon-tax system isn’t a tax grab. It’s an economic bulldozer – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – January 24, 2018)

January 24, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

We all know the great eco-fiscal rationale for Canada’s national carbon tax. By putting a tax on carbon emissions, Ottawa is said to be deploying the most effective driver of human behaviour known to economic science: the price system.

High price equals lower demand for gasoline and other fossil fuels, and therefore lower carbon emissions that cause global warming. As the self-appointed Ottawa-based NGO known as the EcoFiscal Commission says, imposing a carbon price/tax is way more practical, simple and cost-effective than, say, heavy-handed, complicated and cost-ineffective regulation.

It is with these grand economic concepts in mind that we turn now to the federal government’s recently released Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA), a core piece of legislation that would mandate a national carbon price along the lines advocated by ecofiscalists.

Commerce secretary gives Trump options to fight steel and aluminum dumping, including higher tariffs – by Lori Ann LaRocco (CNBC – January 22, 2018)

January 23, 2018

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has recommended to President Donald Trump a wide range of options to deal with aluminum and steel dumping in the U.S., including potentially higher tariffs, sources told CNBC.

The options also include specifically targeting “bad actors” in other countries that are active in imports of the metals. Trump and his administration announced the Section 232 investigation into steel and aluminum in April 2017. The investigation was to determine whether the imports posed a threat to the country’s national security.

Trump has 90 days to review the so-called 232 report’s findings and recommendations. The president would then decide on what course of action to take.

Clarke ready to move Mesabi Metallics forward – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – January 22, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

NASHWAUK — Tom Clarke leaned forward in a squeaky office chair in a drafty construction-site trailer, pulled out his phone and touched an app that exposed a countdown clock that flashed 171 days, 6 hours, 36 minutes and 28 seconds.

“That’s how much time we have to get this moving. I show it to everyone who is working on this project,” Clarke said earlier this month. “But we’re going to get there before that date.”

The zero hour on that clock is the June 30 deadline for Clarke’s Chippewa Capital Partners to have money in the bank, contractors on site and construction advancing full-speed on the Mesabi Metallics combined taconite mine, processing center and iron plant.

COLUMN-Iron ore defies bearish factors as China imports hold up – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – January 23, 2018)

January 23, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Spot iron ore prices in Asia appear to be poised on the precipice of a steep decline as a myriad of factors suggest an imminent correction. Except for one factor, which is probably enough to hold them up, at least for a little longer.

On the bearish side, port inventories SH-TOT-INV in top importer China are at a record high of 154.3 million tonnes, steel prices are starting to weaken as China’s vast property sector shows signs of easing growth, and supply from major exporters Australia and Brazil is expected to increase.

In theory these factors should be more than enough to start a slide in spot prices, but so far this hasn’t happened. Iron ore futures traded on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), which are based on the spot price for China cargoes, ended at $76.46 a tonne on Monday, up 7.3 percent since the end of last year and 31 percent since the 2017 low of $58.53 on Nov. 1.

Rio Tinto builds bauxite expansion option at Amrun – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – January 23, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.afr.com/

Rio Tinto’s $US1.9 billion ($2.4 billion) Amrun bauxite project is being built with foundations to support a much bigger expansion in the future, with the project now more than 75 per cent complete.

Approved by the Rio board in November 2015, the Amrun team will soon award some of the major contracts associated with the project, including for shiploaders, reclaimers and stackers. Amrun will produce 22.8 million tonnes of bauxite per year starting in mid 2019, with 10 million tonnes of that set to replace a nearby mine that is close to retirement.

Rio’s growth and innovation executive Stephen McIntosh said the size of the resource at Amrun could support a more than doubling of production in the future if Rio ever chose to pursue further expansion.

Alexco looks to resume silver mining near Keno City, Yukon, this year (CBC News North – January 22, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Company says its Bermingham deposit compares favourably to those found near Keno City a century ago

Alexco Resource Corp. is hoping to resume mining for silver this year in Yukon’s Keno Hill district, five years after the company shut down its Bellekeno mine.

The Vancouver-based company has applied to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB) to develop its Bermingham deposit on Galena Hill, about 6.8 kilometres from Keno City, Yukon. The company’s existing licences would need to be amended for the new deposit.

According to Alexco, the Bermingham deposit is comparable to the types and grades of silver first found at Keno Hill almost a century ago. ”It’s good news, for sure. It’s more jobs, it’s more opportunities — it’s great,” said Scott Bolton, mayor of the nearby community of Mayo.

Don’t Just Look At Gold; Opportunities In Zinc, Copper, Lithium Says Brent Cook (Kitco News – January 22, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – While gold could do reasonably well in 2018, one famed analyst is recommending that investors shouldn’t be focused on just one precious metal.

On the sidelines of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, Brent Cook, creator of Exploration Insights, told Kitco News’ Daniela Cambone that along with gold and silver he sees opportunities in copper, zinc and lithium.

“What we’re really looking for is high-margin, early-stage discoveries in any metal that a company can make money on, that a major company will buy,” he said. “So, I don’t care if it’s lithium, zinc, copper, gold, it’s more about the upside potential.”

NEWS RELEASE: Global Trends in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM): A review of key numbers and issues (International Institute for Environmental and Development – January 22, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.iisd.org/

For the entire report: https://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/igf-asm-global-trends.pdf

Global Trends in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM): A review of key numbers and issues was prepared by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) for the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (IGF).

ASM has experienced explosive growth in recent years due to the rising value of mineral prices and the increasing difficulty of earning a living from agriculture and other rural activities. An estimated 40.5 million people were directly engaged in ASM in 2017, up from 30 million in 2014, 13 million in 1999 and 6 million in 1993. That compares with only 7 million people working in industrial mining in 2014.

ASM is generally pursued as a route out of poverty or as an activity to complement insufficient income, especially in communities where alternative employment is hard to come by. ASM is also a very diverse sector. Its main challenges vary from region to region—and often from site to site.

China charges Australia’s lithium boom – by Lachlan Colquhoun (Asia Times – January 23, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.atimes.com/

Australia enjoys new mining growth with rising demand for the light metal used in many ‘next generation’ technologies

Australia is on the cusp of a new commodities boom as a lithium exporter, and Chinese investors are well ahead in the race to secure their supply.

As the critical ingredient in next generation battery storage and electric vehicle technologies, global demand for lithium is forecast to grow at a compound rate of 18% in the decade to 2025, according to Macquarie Research.

In 2015, Australia supplied around 36% of the world’s lithium. By 2021, that proportion is forecast to grow to 48% of a much larger global market. Australian exports of spodumene, the mineral ore containing lithium, have increased 84% in the three years since 2014.

Zimbabwe May End Local Ownership Rule on Platinum, Diamonds – by Antony Sguazzin and Godfrey Marawanyika (Bloomberg News – January 23, 2018)

January 23, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Zimbabwe, which has the world’s second-biggest platinum reserves, may lift a requirement that companies mining the metal or diamonds must be at least 51 percent owned by black citizens of the country, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said.

Mnangagwa, who became president in November after Robert Mugabe resigned under pressure from the military, has announced that the ownership requirement on all other minerals will be abolished. The government needs to assess its platinum and diamond industries more carefully, he said.

“I only excluded diamonds and platinum for now. We do not have a real or deep-rooted or well-interrogated policy on diamonds or platinum,” the 75-year-old president said in an interview in his office in the capital, Harare, last week. “Down the line when we are satisfied that this can also go into the open basket we will do so.”

Revamped Barrick harkens back to founding principles as ‘new generation’ of discovery, partnerships beckon – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – January 23, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – The world’s largest gold producer by output Barrick Gold is looking towards a more sustainable future based on a leaner, more tightly owned portfolio, with future growth increasingly hinging on forming synergistic partnerships with former mining rivals.

With the gold price off to a strong start in the first few weeks of 2018, up 2.32% since the start of the year and trending above the psychological $1 300/oz mark, Barrick president Kelvin Dushnisky told attendees at a Vancouver mining conference that the company had come full circle in the aftermath following gold’s historic bull run through the 2011s.

He recounted those years as ranking among the most difficult in the gold major’s history. “It was partnerships that laid the foundation for Barrick. Partnership has been at the heart of our culture from Barrick’s earliest days, personified by visionary entrepreneur Peter Munk, and operations manager Bob Smith,” he said.

Pretium shares are tanking after Brucejack ramp up disappoints – by Frik Els (Mining.com – Janaury 23, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.mining.com/

Shares in Pretium Resources Inc (NYSE:PVG) tanked on Tuesday after the company announced disappointing production and cost forecasts from its Brucejack gold-silver mine in British Columbia.

During lunchtime trade the Vancouver-based producer was exchanging hands for $7.95 a share, down 26.3% on the New York Stock Exchange, in massive volumes of more than 10m shares traded. Pretium is now worth $1.9 billion down 37% from its year high hit early February.

In a statement Pretium said after six months of ramp-up at the Brucejack mine in the northwest of the Canadian province, production totaled 152,484 ounces of gold, but fourth quarter output was nearly 12,000 ounces below the prior quarter. Gold recoveries declined to 95.8% in the quarter compared to the previous three months.

Explosion knocks out drying complex at Teck coal mine, raising safety concerns (Victoria Times Colonist – January 22, 2018)

January 23, 2018

http://www.timescolonist.com/

CANADIAN PRESS: VANCOUVER — The union at a Teck Resources Ltd. coal mine near Sparwood, B.C., says it’s concerned about worker safety following an explosion that knocked out the mine’s coal drying complex last week.

Alex Hanson, president of United Steelworkers Local 9346, says someone could have been killed in the incident at the Elkview mine that workers report sent a fireball shooting through vents in the sides and roof of the building.

He says there were two smaller but similar events last year in the complex where coal is dried using a natural gas heating system before being loaded on railcars to go to market.

France’s Areva rebrands to Orano in dire uranium market – by Geert De Clercq (Reuters U.S. – January 23, 2018)

January 23, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

PARIS (Reuters) – French uranium mining and nuclear fuel group Areva rebranded itself as Orano on Tuesday, closing the book on a years-long restructuring but still facing an uncertain future, with uranium prices at decade lows and the nuclear industry in the doldrums.

Chief Executive Philippe Knoche said a new name and logo were necessary to start another chapter in the history of the state-owned company, which was split in two and recapitalized in 2017 after years of losses wiped out its equity.

“We had to change our name – we are a new company with a different perimeter, focused on the fuel cycle,” Knoche said at a presentation of the new brand.