Republic of Mining

Top jewellery brands failing to ensure gold, diamonds mined ethically, Human Rights Watch says – by Henry Sanderson (Financial Times – February 8, 2018)

February 8, 2018

https://www.ft.com/

Some of the world’s leading jewellery companies are failing to ensure that their gold and diamonds are mined ethically, according to Human Rights Watch, despite two decades of efforts to clean up the industry.

While the world has made progress limiting the flow of diamonds linked to conflict, so-called blood diamonds, leading brands such as Boodles, Rolex, Cartier and Bulgari are failing to do enough to show that all their gems are not linked to broader human rights abuses, the New York-based group said.

“An increasing number of customers want to be sure the jewellery they buy has not fuelled human rights abuses,” Juliane Kippenberg, associate child rights director at Human Rights Watch, said.

China Wealth Fund Joins Fray for $2 Billion Rio Portfolio (Bloomberg News – February 8, 2018)

February 8, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The Chinese sovereign wealth fund is considering joining the bidding for Rio Tinto Group’s last remaining coal mines, which may fetch more than $2 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

China Investment Corp. is discussing making a joint offer with Australian private equity firm EMR Capital Advisors Pty, which was among shortlisted bidders for the Hail Creek and Kestrel mines, according to the people.

Suitors are scheduled to make site visits to the operations in Australia’s Queensland state this month ahead of the final bid deadline in March, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

Analysis: Southeast Asian nickel ore producers may miss the boat on EV demand – by Eric Yep (Platts.com – February 8, 2018)

February 8, 2018

https://www.platts.com/

Two key Southeast Asian nickel ore producers that shaped the market in recent years — the Philippines and Indonesia — are poorly placed to take advantage of a boom in battery demand from the growing electric vehicles market.

Their predicament stems from the lack of technology and investment needed to produce Class 1 battery-grade nickel sulphate — a direct outcome of the regulatory policies enforced by the two countries in recent years.

Two years ago, the Philippines and Indonesia were two of the world’s largest producers of nickel ore, accounting for a third of global production. The type of nickel laterite ore produced by them largely feeds the steel industry in China.

Battery technology will define the future of renewable energy – by John Campion (The Hill – February 7, 2018)

February 8, 2018

http://thehill.com/

Battery technology will define the future of renewable energy

It is an exciting time to be involved in energy innovation. There have been developments on multiple fronts at the consumer level with the introduction of new models of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, and perhaps more importantly, at the utility level with massive commercial investments in renewable energy generation and storage technologies.

Renewable energy, especially solar and wind power, is quickly becoming the dominant locus of new electricity generation investment. The Bloomberg 2017 New Energy Outlook predicts that $10.2 trillion will be spent on new power generation worldwide through 2040, and a massive 72 percent of this will be invested in new wind and solar plants.

The broader availability of clean power is an encouraging development from both an environmental and an economic perspective. However, as energy markets accelerate along the transition from conventional to sustainable energy generation, there will be a growing problem that the industry must address.

Rio Tinto Confident U.S. Will Treat Canada Differently on Trade – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – February 7, 2018)

February 8, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The head of Rio Tinto Group’s aluminum division is confident the Trump administration will recognize that Canada must be viewed differently when considering import tariffs on the metal and in Nafta talks.

“There’s a clear recognition of the strategic importance of the Canadian industry to the American manufacturing base,” Alf Barrios, chief executive of Rio Tinto’s aluminum division, said Wednesday in a phone interview. That view was expressed to him in conversations within the last few weeks, he said. “It is different than the other importing countries.”

In January, U.S. President Donald Trump received the findings of the eight-month “Section 232” investigation into whether aluminum imports pose a threat to national security.

Coniston pushes back against chromite smelter – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – February 8, 2018)

February 8, 2018

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

City officials attended a boisterous meeting in Coniston on Wednesday to discuss the prospect of a chromite smelter. Last week, the city named Coniston as its preferred location in its bid to Noront Resources for the smelter.

Ian Wood, the city’s director of economic development, said Wednesday Coniston was chosen as a location because the logistics made sense. It is zoned appropriately, it is a brownfield, and the site has proximity to water, Highway 17 and the railway, as well as easy access to hydro.

“The CN mainline is ideal,” Wood said. “Coniston sits very close to a main hydro-electric corridor, with the Hanmer transformer station. It’s critical for their power supply.”

SpaceX Stuns the World: Even without customers, the Falcon Heavy is a milestone in American spacefaring – by Editors (Bloomberg News – February 7, 2018)

February 8, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

“It seems surreal to me,” said Elon Musk, proprietor of SpaceX, and for once he was understating things.

On Tuesday, his company blasted a 230-foot rocket into orbit, returned its two side boosters to Earth for a flawlessly synchronized landing, and — with exquisite nerd flair — propelled Musk’s own Tesla Roadster toward deep space, where it’s expected to orbit the sun for hundreds of millions of years.

Surreal, yes. But it was also a triumph of private enterprise and a milestone in American spacefaring. Its true significance, in fact, may not be apparent for decades. Known as the Falcon Heavy, the new projectile has 27 engines generating 5 million pounds of thrust, making it the most powerful rocket ever built by a private company.

[Noront Resources] Miner must now choose which one lands the Ring of Fire ferrochrome smelter – by Jim Moodie (North Bay Nugget – February 7, 2018)

February 8, 2018

http://www.nugget.ca/

Noront Resources has a difficult decision to make on where it will process Ring of Fire chromite. “It’s not an obvious slam dunk for one community,” said the company’s CEO Alan Coutts on Tuesday. “There’s no one proposal that was head and shoulders above all the others.”

Coutts said the company anticipated each pitch would be strong. “It’s great because everyone put on their thinking caps, became creative, and has come forward with compelling proposals.”

The Noront head was in Sudbury for a chamber of commerce-hosted conference on Tuesday, less than a week after the Nickel City, along with Timmins, Thunder Bay and the Sault, submitted bids to host a ferrochrome smelter. North Bay has backed the Timmins bid, as it would be the most beneficial to the Ontario Northland Railway. Speaking with media after his keynote address, Coutts said the miner has to weigh a number of factors in making a final choice.

Political shifts lift investor mood in southern African mining – by Ed Stoddard and Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – February 8, 2018)

February 8, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Mining is a long-term game, but in southern Africa dramatic political changes have transformed the investment mood for the better in the space of a year.

Angola’s Jose Eduardo dos Santos and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe stepped down in 2017 after a combined 75 years in office, while the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as head of South Africa’s ruling ANC heralds the looming end of President Jacob Zuma’s scandal-ridden administration.

Industry leaders meeting in Cape Town for an annual mining conference said the mood was radically different from a year ago as rising commodity prices, economic recovery and political change help offset lingering challenges.

Chinese steelmaking sparks mini-revival for ailing coal industry – by Josh Siegel (Washington Examiner – February 6, 2018)

February 6, 2018

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/

Consol Energy saw a record year at its coal export terminal in Baltimore in 2017, serving ships bound for Asia and Europe. The company mined some of the coal itself from its three sites in southwestern Pennsylvania, mostly in the form of traditional thermal — or steam — coal, used for electricity generation.

But much of the coal came from other U.S. companies mining lesser-known metallurgical — or coking — coal, the high-temperature type used in steelmaking. It’s this type of coal, marked for export, that sparked a mini-revival for the downtrodden industry last year.

“We expect globally coal will continue to be cost-effective and prevalent,” said Jim McCaffrey, Consol’s senior vice president of marketing, in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “We will see some lumpy years. No doubt about that. But our cost picture puts us in a great position to ride out bad times and enjoy the good times.”

Private capital favours investing in copper over gold for first time – by Frik Els (Mining.com – February 5, 2018)

February 6, 2018

http://www.mining.com/

Gold projects are no longer the favourite destination of private capital raised for investment in the mining sector as optimism about electric vehicle demand steer funds into battery metals.

Private-equity deals in the mining industry bounced back in 2017 according to a new report by UK law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner with investment in the sector jumping by more than 30% to $2.3 billion.

Copper overtook gold as the most attractive commodity in 2017, with $1.6 billion in deals representing just shy of 70% of all money flowing into the sector.

Black Lung Study Finds Biggest Cluster Ever Of Fatal Coal Miners’ Disease – by Howard Berkes and Adelina Lancianese (National Public Radio – February 6, 2018)

February 6, 2018

https://www.npr.org/

Epidemiologists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health say they’ve identified the largest cluster of advanced black lung disease ever reported, a cluster that was first uncovered by NPR 14 months ago.

In a research letter published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, NIOSH confirms 416 cases of progressive massive fibrosis or complicated black lung in three clinics in central Appalachia from 2013 to 2017.

“This is the largest cluster of progressive massive fibrosis ever reported in the scientific literature,” says Scott Laney, a NIOSH epidemiologist involved in the study. “We’ve gone from having nearly eradicated PMF in the mid-1990s to the highest concentration of cases that anyone has ever seen,” he said.

Voisey’s Bay poised to capitalize on demand for cobalt, but Vale silent – by Terry Roberts (CBC News NL – February 06, 2018)

February 6, 2018

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

Sources say ballistic surge in cobalt prices makes underground mine project more likely

A ballistic surge in the price of cobalt could mean positive things for Labrador’s Voisey’s Bay mine, but if executives at Vale are excited, they certainly aren’t saying.

Reuters is reporting that the Brazilian mining giant, which owns the Voisey’s Bay mine and processing facility at Long Harbour, Placentia Bay, is looking to cash in on cobalt.

The international news agency is reporting that Vale is looking to sell unmined cobalt, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to investors and that could be a positive sign as the company decides whether to proceed with an underground mine at Voisey’s Bay.

Northern Ontario cities make a grab for the chromite ring – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 6, 2018)

February 6, 2018

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Ring of Fire developer Noront Resources receives community bid packages for smelter project

Feb. 2 was D-Day for four Northern Ontario cities to make their best pitch in vying for a Ring of Fire ferrochrome processing plant. That was the deadline Noront Resources marked on the calendar for Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Timmins and Thunder Bay-Fort William First Nation to each deliver their most convincing case on why they should host the $1-billion mineral processing development.

The Toronto-based mine developer will spend the next few months huddled with Hatch project engineers to assess the comparative strengths and weaknesses of each city’s bid.

On the table are 350 permanent smelter jobs for the facility’s first stage, many plant construction jobs, a multitude of service spinoff opportunities, and a huge economic boost for one community that may continue for generations to come as the Far North opens up for mining development.

Zimbabwe’s mining minister says lithium biggest draw – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters Africa – February 6, 2018)

February 6, 2018

https://af.reuters.com/

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Zimbabwe has the potential to be a leading producer of lithium, which has so far attracted more interest than any other of its minerals, Zimbabwe’s new Minister of Mines and Mining Development Winston Chitando said on Tuesday.

He said he had last week reached a deal with a small listed company, which was expected to generate revenue of $1.4 billion over eight years from a lithium project.

Chitando took office after Emmerson Mnangagwa became president in November 2017 when the military took charge and Robert Mugabe resigned after 37 years in office.