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BHP says likely to quit global coal lobby group – (Reuters U.S. – December 18, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Global miner BHP Billiton said on Tuesday it has taken a preliminary decision to leave the World Coal Association citing disagreement over climate change, and might also withdraw from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over mining industry rules.

BHP has largely quit mining coal for power plants but is the world’s largest exporter of coal for steel-making. It will seek responses from the World Coal Association over policy differences before making a final decision on whether to pull out in March 2018, it said.

The miner came under pressure from Australian green groups earlier this year to leave any industry associations whose policies did not match the company’s support of the Paris climate accord agreed in 2015.

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The Last Coal Tycoon – Chris Cline – by Christopher Helman (Forbes Magazine – December 2017)

https://www.forbes.com/

Dark days ahead for coal? Don’t tell that to billionaire Chris Cline, who’s convinced that the dirtiest fuel still has a bright future and is building what he believes will be the last mine standing.

The masseuse felt the broken bones and the scars and asked Chris Cline what he did for a living. Cline said he was in the energy business. What kind of energy?, she wondered. Maybe solar panels or windmills? No, not that, he said. You’re not a fracker, are you? No, not that either. Then what? “I own coal mines,” said Cline.

Without a word she stopped working on him and left the room. He waited a while, but she didn’t return. Cline won’t name the resort (“I might want to go back there”). And the scars? From his years underground in Appalachian mines, where the coal seams have been worked so thin it’s like “crawling under a table all day.” Cuts on his back from a mine’s ceiling “felt like insect bites.”

Cline, 59, is one of the most archaic and unpopular specimens of capitalist: the coal tycoon. He doesn’t mind people not liking him. He knows that coal fuels 40% of the world’s power needs. “People deserve the cheapest energy they can get,” he says. “Tell the poor in India and China that they don’t deserve to have reliable, affordable electricity.”

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British coal still burning abroad despite push for global ban – by Susanna Twidale and Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – December 18, 207)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain led calls for an end to coal-fired power generation at United Nations climate talks in Bonn last month but at the same time British companies are active in coal projects around the world, often with government help.

In Britain, the use of coal in electricity generation has declined sharply since the introduction of a carbon tax in 2013, although the country remains a center of coal-mining expertise.

Many in the mining industry see no contradiction. They say coal remains the best option in some countries and it would be hypocritical for the developed world to deny emerging economies the power they need.

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What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World – by Jack Ewing (New York Times – December 18, 2017)

https://www.nytimes.com/

On the slope of a thickly forested Czech mountain, three men in hard hats and mud-spattered fluorescent vests dig for the metal that could power a new industrial revolution.

They watch carefully as a mobile rig, mounted on tank treads, hammers and spins a drill bit hundreds of yards into the bedrock. Water gushes from the bore as the bit punctures an underground spring.

The men are prospecting for new sources of lithium, a raw material now found primarily in China and Chile that could become as important to the auto industry as oil is now. Faster than anyone expected, electric cars are becoming as economical and practical as cars with conventional engines. Prices for lithium-ion batteries are plummeting, while technical advances are increasing driving ranges and cutting recharging times.

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Chinese investment firm snaps up Giustra-backed Lithium X – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – December 19, 2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A Chinese investment firm is buying a Frank Giustra-backed lithium exploration company run by a 29-year-old rookie CEO.

On Monday, Nextview New Energy Lion Hong Kong Ltd. announced it is paying $265-million for Lithium X Energy Corp. – the second investment by the Chinese investment firm in a Canadian-listed lithium company in the past few days.

The latest deal was announced in the midst of an ebullient market for battery metals such as cobalt and lithium, which have soared in price in recent years thanks to demand from the electric car industry.

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Another ‘green’ power boondoggle sinks taxpayers and consumers in the red – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – December 13, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

They promised green and clean. What they deliver to Canadians instead is expensive and in the red

From Bonavista to Vancouver Island, from the Arctic Circle to the Great Lake waters, this land really belongs to electric-power monopolies and politicians who routinely bulldoze property rights, ratepayers, taxpayers and the regulators that have become puppets of governing political string-pullers.

They promised green and clean. What they deliver to Canadians instead is expensive and in the red. From coast to coast, provincial governments continue to plow ahead with power-generating mega-projects and green-power schemes whose only certain output is massive debts and soaring costs to deliver electricity that may never be needed.

Out Bonavista way, Newfoundlanders are saddled with Muskrat Falls, a giant dam project under construction in Labrador. Nalcor Energy, the provincial power monopoly in cahoots with provincial and federal politicians, started with a cost estimate of $7.4 billion to ship electricity from Labrador to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. The latest estimated cost is $12.7 billion.

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The Near Future of Electric Cars: Many Models, Few Buyers – by Keith Naughton (Bloomberg News – December 19, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

There will be more than 100 different battery-powered vehicles available in five years, despite little interest so far from drivers.

Automakers with ambitious plans to roll out more than a hundred new battery-powered models in the next five years appear to be forgetting one little thing: Drivers aren’t yet buzzed about the new technology.

Electric cars—which today comprise only 1 percent of auto sales worldwide, and even less in the U.S.—will account for just 2.4 percent of U.S. demand and less than 10 percent globally by 2025, according to researcher LMC Automotive. But while consumer appetite slogs along, carmakers are still planning a tidal wave of battery-powered models that may find interested buyers few and far between.

“When you hear people talk about the tipping point, it’s really that they’re counting the number of product offerings,” Hau Thai-Tang, Ford Motor Co.’s global head of product development and purchasing, said of electric cars. “Nobody can cite what the actual demand will be.”

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Gold May Not Be Bitcoin, But Miners Can Still Make You Money – by Aoyon Ashraf (Bloomberg News – December 18, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Gold and silver prices haven’t had the best year when compared to industrial metals, and the outlook for next year looks muted at best.

The metals may not see the same gains as “gold 2.0,” a term used to describe bitcoin by one of its biggest advocates, Tyler Winklevoss, but industry analysts recommend investors take a look at the “seasonal trade” in gold and silver equities. Early in the year, those stocks tend to perform better, creating trading opportunities.

And for 2018, analysts are expecting gold and silver prices to repeat New Year’s rally trends, with positive returns most likely to come in the first quarter. In fact, the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index (GDM) saw its best performance on average during the months of January and February, while September and October had the worst performance.

Goldman Sachs

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Supply cuts a ‘step change’ for uranium price – by Frik Els (Mining.com – December 18, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

The announcement made by uranium giant Cameco in November that it’s suspending operations at its flagship McArthur River mine in northern Saskatchewan and surprisingly deep three-year cuts by Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazatomprom provide a “step change” for uranium prices says a new report on the sector from Cantor Fitzgerald equity research.

On Monday, the world largest producer of uranium, surprised the beleaguered market with a larger than expected cut to production of its own.

Two weeks ago Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazatomprom announced intentions to reduce its output of U3O8 by 20% or 11,000 tonnes (around 28.5m pounds) over the next three years beginning in January 2018. According to the company roughly 4,000 tonnes will be cut in 2018 alone “representing approximately 7.5% of global uranium production for 2018 as forecast by UxC.”

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Electric cars have made this once obscure metal the hottest commodity of 2017 – by Eshe Nelson (Quartz Media – December 18, 2017)

https://qz.com/

2017 belonged to cobalt. The silvery-blue metal, which is mined as a by-product of copper and nickel, is a crucial element in the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from electric cars to Apple products.

This year, it has completely outshone the rest of the commodities market. The price of cobalt surged 120%, while the Bloomberg commodity index fell 4%.

The market for cobalt has increased from about $4 billion last year to about $8 billion, according to Bloomberg. Traders and automakers are betting that consumers will increasingly switch to electric vehicles as several countries around the world try to drastically cut down carbon emissions by banning gas and diesel cars.

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Fort Knox gold benefits the Interior: Parcel G new mineral rights could expand life of Fort Knox mine (Daily News-Miner – December 19, 2017)

http://www.newsminer.com/

News-Miner opinion: Earlier this month, Kinross Gold Corp. announced it acquired additional mineral rights directly west of its Fort Knox Gold Mine. Known as Parcel G, this 709-acre tract of land contains an estimated 2.1 million ounces of gold. Going by Monday’s gold price, there could be more than $2.6 billion in gold beneath the surface of the site.

Parcel G could expand the life of the Fort Knox Gold Mine. This would be great for Fairbanks, so let’s hope Parcel G is mined.

Located about 25 miles northeast of Fairbanks, the open-pit Fort Knox Gold Mine has been producing gold for 20 years. It has produced more than 7 million ounces since opening and is the largest producer of gold in Alaska’s history.

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Ethical investors tightening screws on emerging-market debt issuers – by Claire Milhench (Reuters U.S. – December 18, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – For years, the Brazilian mining conglomerate Vale was a darling of emerging market investors, who were happy to ignore the company’s poor record on environmental and social issues because of the high yields its bonds paid.

But warnings about the company’s policies were horribly vindicated in 2015, when a dam holding back waste at its Samarco mine burst, killing 19 people in Brazil’s worst-ever environmental disaster.

Prices on Vale and Samarco bonds plummeted by about a third after the disaster. Vale, along with mine co-owner BHP Billiton, is facing a multi-billion dollar claim.

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Outlook 2018: B.C. mining industry opens doors to greener future – by Bryan Cox (Business Vancouver – December 19, 2017)

https://www.biv.com/

Bryan Cox is president and CEO of the Mining Association of British Columbia.

Taking stock of the landscape on the eve of 2018, it is evident that the Mining Association of BC (MABC) has an important task for the year ahead. Commodity markets have begun to turn around, mines that have been idled in previous years are reopening and several exciting projects continue to move through the regulatory process.

The mining industry will engage in a meaningful way with British Columbians about the role of mining – not just in the economy, but in their day-to-day lives and, importantly, in the transition to a cleaner, more sustainable future for everyone.

B.C. is a province with many unique advantages. As the Pacific gateway, we offer multiple vibrant port cities with access to international markets. We have rich mineral deposits, and a pool of world-class talent, and our mines have been leaders in the development of agreements and partnerships to ensure we are sharing resources and benefits with First Nations partners and communities.

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First Quantum breathes new life into Northern Dynasty’s Pebble project – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – December 18, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Base metals miner First Quantum Minerals has signed a framework agreement with Northern Dynasty Minerals to work on formalising an option on the controversial Pebble copper/gold project, in south-east Alaska.

The announcement on Monday breathes new life into the project billed as the largest undeveloped copper/gold project in the world, and which faces strong opposition from local conservationists, Aboriginal groups and nongovernment organisations.

Under terms of the framework agreement, a subsidiary of First Quantum will sign an option agreement with Northern Dynasty and pay $150-million, staged over four years, to acquire the option to acquire half an interest in the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) for $1.35-billion.

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NEWS RELEASE: Skeena Secures Option to Acquire Eskay Creek & Announces Strategic Investment from Barrick (December 18, 2017)

https://www.skeenaresources.com/

Vancouver, BC (December 18, 2017) Skeena Resources Limited (TSX.V: SKE) (“Skeena” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the signing of an agreement with Barrick Gold Inc. (“Barrick”), granting an option (the “Option”) for the Company to acquire a 100% interest in the past-producing Eskay Creek property (“Eskay” or the “Property”) located in the Golden Triangle of northwest British Columbia. Barrick Gold Corporation will also complete a strategic investment with the Company for gross proceeds of C$1 million.

Skeena’s CEO, Walter Coles Jr. commented, “Eskay Creek was a remarkable discovery that became an extraordinary mine. It produced 3.3 million ounces of gold and 160 million ounces of silver from 2.2 million tonnes of ore from 1994 until closure in 2008. We are honoured that Barrick has given us an opportunity to investigate and potentially revitalize one of Canada’s highest-grade past-producing mines.”

Under the terms of the option agreement, Skeena may acquire a 100% interest in Eskay in consideration for:

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