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Day: August 4, 2015

Finnish nickel mining execs on trial for environmental damage (AFP – August 4, 2015)

https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/

Four former executives with a Finnish nickel mining company accused of contaminating lakes with uranium, cadmium and other toxic elements went on trial Tuesday charged with aggravated environmental damage.

Talvivaara Sotkamo, the bankrupt operator of the European Union’s biggest nickel mine, is also named among the defendants in the highly-publicised case in Kainuu, east-central Finland.

The prosecutor asked the district court to seize 13.3 million euros ($14.6 million) in illegal profits from Talvivaara Sotkamo’s estate and the four executives, according to court documents.

Situated around 500 kilometres (300 miles) north of Helsinki, the mine opened in 2008 amid expectations it would usher in a new era in nickel mining in Finland.

But the operation ended in environmental disaster and economic failure after toxic levels of nickel, cadmium, uranium, aluminium and zinc were detected in nearby lakes and rivers in 2012, and again in 2013 after waste water began to leak from the mine.

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Zinc, nickel add a little lustre to Diggers – by Tess Ingram (Sydney Morning Herald – August 4, 2015)

http://www.smh.com.au/business

As Diggers and Dealers delegates rolled in for day two of the annual mining conference, heavy heads from a late night in Kalgoorlie’s famous watering holes were unlikely to be relieved by an injection of optimism.

Commodity prices are down across the board. Since last year’s conference, base metals are down between 20 and 40 per cent, while gold is down about 15 per cent and iron ore has plummeted nearly 50 per cent during the year.

Australian domiciled gold producers, buoyed by the falling local currency, are a shining centre of attention at the conference but there are some other bright spots.

Despite a recent price slide that has forced some analysts to downgrade their price forecasts, zinc-focused companies at the conference attracted a considerable level of interest from analysts and investors at their marquee booths.

Zinc for delivery in three months has fallen to around $US1893 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange.

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Rob McEwen Interview: “This is Hurting Junior Miners More than the Gold Price” – by Angela Harmantas (Small Cap Power.com – July 28, 2015)

http://www.smallcappower.com/

Mining executive Rob McEwen spoke with SmallCapPower correspondent Angela Harmantas recently, with the former Goldcorp CEO talking about his company McEwen Mining bouncing back from a robbery, explaining how junior gold miners can remain profitable in this environment and what is driving his belief that the gold price will bounce back in a big way.

Rob McEwen is one of the more vocal members of a diminishing minority of gold bugs. He certainly has the experience to back his claim that gold will hit US$5000 an ounce in the not-too-distant future: over his 25-year mining career, he grew Goldcorp into a multi-billion dollar company that ranks as one of the world’s largest producers of precious metals. Today, as the Chairman and Chief Owner of McEwen Mining (TSX: MUX), he is hoping to achieve the rarified status of becoming one of only two gold companies on the S&P 500 (the other being Newmont Mining).

There have been a few setbacks for McEwen Mining this year, however. In April, a brazen robbery occurred at the company’s flagship El Gallo 1 mine in Mexico, a loss of nearly $8.4 million in revenue. And the beating that gold stocks are taking in the market thanks to a depressed gold price has caused MUX shares to fall to levels that threaten its inclusion on the NYSE. In addition to these insular challenges, the entire gold industry is struggling to maintain a positive outlook as gold plummeted recently to less than US$1100 after China dumped nearly 5 tons of bullion and Morgan Stanley analysts predicted gold could soon hit $800.

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Obama Didn’t Kill Coal, the Market Did – by Michael R. Bloomberg (Bloomberg News – August 4, 2015)

http://www.bloombergview.com/

Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new Clean Power Plan are describing it in apocalyptic terms. But much of what they believe about the plan — that it will destroy the coal industry, kill jobs and raise costs for consumers — is wrong. And it’s important to understand why.

The overblown political rhetoric about the plan tends to obscure the market reality that the coal industry has been in steady decline for a decade, partly as a result of the natural gas boom, but mostly because consumers are demanding cleaner air and action on climate change.

Communities across the U.S. have led the way in persuading utilities to close dirty old coal plants and transition to cleaner forms of energy. The Sierra Club’s grass-roots Beyond Coal campaign (which Bloomberg Philanthropies funds) has helped close or phase out more than 200 coal plants over the past five years.

The primary reason for the public revolt against coal is simple: It causes death, disease and debilitating respiratory problems. A decade ago, coal pollution was killing 13,000 people a year. Today, the number is down to 7,500, which means that more than 5,000 Americans are living longer, healthier lives each year thanks to cleaner power.

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States Should Shun the EPA’s New Power Mandate – by Hal Quinn ad Peter Glaser (Wall Street Journal – August 2, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

The agency has failed to properly weigh the costs, even though the Supreme Court says it must.

On Monday President Obama is announcing the final version of his Clean Power Plan, the carbon-emission rules for power plants to secure his climate-change legacy. The plan is designed to hobble electricity generators much as the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2012 rule to reduce mercury and other emissions has harmed the coal industry.

Fortunately for consumers, on June 29 the Supreme Court slapped down the agency’s 2012 rule. In Michigan v. EPA, the court said the agency failed its legal obligation to compare the cost of its mercury standards with the benefits.

Reckless disregard for costs has also guided the agency’s Clean Power Plan. The White House promises Monday’s rule will offer more flexibility to meet emissions targets than an earlier draft, but the targets may be even more difficult to meet. That will force rate payers into steeper cost increases, and concessions the EPA makes to some states and industries will come at the expense of others.

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COLUMN-Iron ore’s “bull market” shows rise of financial trading – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – August 3, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 3 (Reuters) – One of the more fanciful notions from the recent rally in iron ore prices is that the steel-making ingredient is now back in a bull market.

Asian spot iron ore .IO62-CNI=SI does meet the technical definition of being in a bull market, having gained 25.4 percent between its record low of $44.10 a tonne on July 8 and the close of $55.30 on July 29.

Markets are said to be in a bull phase when the rally exceeds 20 percent, likewise they are in a bear period when the decline is greater than 20 percent.

Traders are more likely to talk about dead cat bounces than bull runs where iron ore is concerned, and the fact remains that despite the price rally, iron ore remains down 25.7 percent so far this year and is barely a quarter of what it was at its all-time high in early 2011.

The recent gain in spot prices is actually the second technical bull market already this year, following the 40 percent jump between the low of $46.70 a tonne on April 2 and the peak of $65.40 on June 11.

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COMMENTARY: Mount Polley mine disaster’s first anniversary is no reason to celebrate – by Ana Simeon and Ugo Lapointe (The Stright.com – July 31, 2015)

http://www.straight.com/

Ana Simeon is with Sierra Club B.C. Ugo Lapointe is with MiningWatch Canada.

On August 4 last year, Quesnel Lake residents and communities along the Fraser River were eagerly anticipating one of the largest sockeye returns in recent history.

What they got instead was a nightmare: over 24 billion litres of mine waste burst through Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley dam into their watershed.

Mount Polley is the largest mining waste spill in Canada’s history. The consequences and overall costs of this disaster concern us all, including a steep cost on the industry’s reputation and public trust.

Yet a year later, the mine is running again under a restricted permit. While both the company and the B.C. government attempt to be reassuring, many questions remain unanswered.

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Rio wants exploration collaboration to discover next big seam – by Tess Ingram (Sydney Morning Post – August 3, 2015)

http://www.smh.com.au/

Well-known West Australian explorer Mark Bennett has queried whether a plan by Rio Tinto to reinvigorate exploration in Australia through partnerships with junior mining companies will work as intended.

Rio has used its first presentation at the Diggers and Dealers conference in eight years to call for collaboration in exploration in order to find the next major mineral discovery in Australia.

The country’s miners are relying on deposits discovered at shallow depths more than 30 years ago and are struggling to discover further large, tier-one deposits at depth.

The current cost and risk of deeper exploration has meant many miners have abandoned exploration efforts altogether, opting for more bankable exploration around existing deposits (known as brownfields exploration) or in other countries, where resources remain shallow.

Speaking on the first day of the annual conference in Kalgoorlie, Rio Tinto exploration director Australasia Ian Ledlie extended an invitation to junior companies to use the global major’s mineral analysis technology to help prove up discoveries.

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White House set to adopt sweeping curbs on carbon pollution – by Joby Warrick (Washington Post – August 1, 2015)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

The Obama administration will formally adopt an ambitious regulation for cutting greenhouse-gas pollution on Monday, requiring every state to reduce emissions from coal-burning power plants and putting the country on a course that could change the way millions of Americans get their electricity.

A retooled version of the administration’s Clean Power Plan, first proposed a year ago, will seek to accelerate the shift to renewable energy while setting tougher goals for slashing carbon emissions blamed for global warming, according to administration officials briefed on the details.

The new plan sets a goal of cutting carbon pollution from power plants by 32 percent by the year 2030, compared with 2005 levels — a 9 percent jump from the previous target of 30 percent — while rewarding states and utility companies that move quickly to expand their investment in solar and wind power.

Many states will face tougher requirements for lowering greenhouse-gas emissions under the revised plan.

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New EPA rule on greenhouse gases the latest blow to King Coal – by Steven Mufson (Washington Post – August 1, 2015)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

When coal was king, it fueled more than half of the nation’s electricity. It fired up American industry and powered an ever-growing variety of household appliances and electronics. And American presidential hopefuls paid homage to coal, courting mine owners and miners whose unionized ranks once numbered more than 400,000.

Barack Obama was no exception. As a state legislator in 2004 and again as a U.S. senator, he supported proposals for huge federal subsidies to turn coal into motor fuel and ease America’s reliance on oil imports. “With the right technological innovations, coal has the potential to be a cleaner-burning, domestic alternative to imported oil,” Obama said in June 2007.

All of that has changed. On Monday, the Obama administration takes on the coal industry with the final version of rules it has dubbed the Clean Power Plan, a complex scheme designed to reduce, on a state-by-state basis, the amount of greenhouse gases the nation’s electric power sector emits. The main target: coal.

Today, more people in the United States work jobs installing solar panels than work in the coal industry.

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The Observer view on global mining regulation (The Guardian – August 2, 2015)

http://www.theguardian.com/

The suffering of communities in Zambia’s copper mining region highlights the need to create a global regulatory regime

The appalling suffering of villagers living close to the mining town of Chingola, in Zambia’s copperbelt region, whose water supplies have been dangerously polluted by leaks of sulphuric acid and other toxic chemicals, is both avoidable and unacceptable. As we report today, the Chingola pollution and associated environmental damage has led to serious health problems for those affected, such as potential organ failure, cancers and permanent disabilities, as well as failed crops, loss of earnings and livelihoods.

This continuing toll on life and well-being is wholly avoidable, in part because the problems associated with Vedanta Resources’ giant mine at Chingola have been common knowledge for some years.

A scientist whistleblower familiar with company activities claimed operating and maintenance standards were consistently poor from 2005, when the Vedanta-owned subsidiary, KCM, bought the plant. “There have been heavy spillages and massive leakages. Acid has been leaking all over the place… No effort has been made to correct this scenario,” the whistleblower said.

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Gold’s M&A Wave to Roll on as Bullion Falls to Five-Year Low – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – August 2, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Gold’s tumble to the lowest since 2010 promises to prolong a mergers and acquisitions boom that’s seen transactions at a three-year high as weaker prices slash asset valuations.

Deals valued at $9.6 billion were proposed or completed in the six months to June 30, up 7 percent on the previous half, as producers including OceanaGold Corp. agreed acquisitions, according to data complied by Bloomberg. They totaled $22.3 billion last year, the highest since 2011, the data show.

“I’d expect that thematic to continue and the next wave of activity from an M&A point of view might be more mergers,” Reg Spencer, a Sydney-based analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group Inc., said by phone. “Unless the smaller guys get together and get bigger quickly, they’ll find they are less able to compete when assets do become available.”

Gold producers in Australia gathering Monday for a three-day annual conference in outback Kalgoorlie, a key center of output since the 1880s, proposed or completed deals worth $4.5 billion in the past 12 months, according to the data. The nation is the largest producer after China.

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For Fortescue’s Andrew Forrest, it’s mine, all mine – by Jonathan Barrett (Australian Financial Review – July 31, 2015)

http://www.afr.com/

Billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest has relied on a series of controversial strategies to climb to the top of the resources pile.

It is not your ordinary after-school job.

It is the year 2000, and Daniel Kerr is under pressure from his mum to get part-time work. The 15-year-old schoolboy wouldn’t mind a few extra dollars given he needs a new set of wheels; he does, after all, have a habit of wearing out skateboards.

Kerr looks in the local paper, the Kalgoorlie Miner, and on the public noticeboard before he finds the perfect job. “Money for jam,” he thinks to himself.

An employer is looking for someone to go down to the local mines department once a week and hand-copy information that is lodged by explorers and miners. The job description might raise eyebrows for those living in major cities, but Kerr lives in the heart of Western Australia’s Goldfields region, where almost every job has a red-earth mineral tinge to it.

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Birthplace of the A-bomb: Nuclear New Mexico: Past and future – by Tom Vaughn (Desert Exposure – August 2015)

http://www.desertexposure.com/

The atomic genie was let out of the bottle 70 years ago here in New Mexico. It can’t be put back in; nobody wants it to go away. Nuclear medicine, nuclear power, atomic clocks, nuclear propulsion in submarines and spacecraft … the technological advances made possible by atomic research are not to be given up. Yet the genie is still capable of destroying worlds, or at least wreaking havoc locally. The challenge today is to keep it corralled.

The earliest uses of uranium ores in New Mexico had nothing to do with radioactivity. Ground to a powder, the yellowish minerals were used by Native Americans to color designs on deerskin cradle-board coverings.

In the 1920s, low-grade uranium ores (autunite and torbernite) were recovered from old silver mines in the White Signal and Black Hawk mining districts west of Silver City for use in glazes and to color glass. Significant uranium deposits in these areas were identified during the uranium boom of the 1950s.

World War II gave birth to the Manhattan Project — a search for a super-weapon that could give its wielder a decisive victory. Building on earlier research into radioactivity and atomic physics, both Germany and the United States raced to produce an atomic bomb.

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Where the Dead Become Diamonds – by Roc Morin (The Atlantic – October 14, 2015)

http://www.theatlantic.com/

A Swiss company wants to change the way people mourn by transforming the remains of their loved ones into gems.

“When a man of 80 kilos is cremated, he becomes 2.5 kilos of ashes,” Rinaldo Willy explained. “With these ashes, we make a diamond of 0.2 grams, smaller than a button on your shirt. How heavy is the soul—if we have a soul?”

In its coupling of the tangible and intangible, it is a question that epitomizes Willy’s work. Every year, Algordanza, the company he founded in 2004, receives more than 800 urns filled with human ashes. For between $5,000 and $20,000, the contents of each parcel are transformed into a diamond.

It is also more than a diamond. “Maybe ‘soul’ is too strong of a word,” Willy continued, still struggling to define the essence of his product. “Our process is purely physical—but if the deceased had blue eyes, and the diamond turns out blue, you can be sure that the family will say, ‘Oh, it’s exactly the color of his eyes.’”

We were sitting on the cool leather couches of Algordanza’s simple reception room in the sleepy town of Chur, Switzerland.

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