Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining – Page 70

[Australia Mining] Political Fury As Australia’s Second Largest Bank Refuses To Fund Adani’s Mega Coal Mine – by Anthony Sharwood (Huffington Post – April 28, 2017)

April 28, 2017

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/

With Westpac out, Adani’s proposed Carmichael mega coal mine looks in doubt again.

There’s a lot of love for Westpac this Friday, and plenty of anger too. It’s all because Australia’s second largest bank has overhauled its policy of lending to coal mining projects.

An announcement by Westpac overnight effectively killed off any potential commitment by the bank to help fund Indian mining giant Adani’s proposed Carmichael “mega coal mine” in Queensland. The backflip means Westpac will pay more than lip service to its long-stated commitment to combating climate change, and can be interpreted as a direct response to intense public pressure.

But senior Turnbull government figures are furious. Queensland Senator Matthew Canavan, who has long cast the potential mine as an issue about jobs, jobs and jobs, accused the bank of turning its back on Queensland. Canavan reportedly has urged Queenslanders to take their mortgage business elsewhere.

Australian-first centre tackles mining scars on WA landscape – by Emma Young (WA Today – April 27, 2017)

April 27, 2017

http://www.watoday.com.au/

An Australian-first project has lured scientists to Perth from across the globe to work with resources companies on restoring huge tracts of WA land left barren after mining is done. The $6.7 million new centre at Curtin University is led by botanist Kingsley Dixon, former director of science at Kings Park and 2016 WA Scientist of the Year.

He said while Australia had strict approvals processes and mine regulation, the end of a mine’s life was far less scrutinised. “A report by the Australia Institute in March showed Australia had 60,000 abandoned mines where the miner has walked away because it’s too hard to patch the hole, put back the veg,” he said.

“Now a federal inquiry happening into how we got this so wrong. “And in this state the scale of the problem is colossal. There are few other mining activities in the world on this scale.”

Iron ore to slide below $US50 in 2018, says Westpac’s Justin Smirk – by Jasmine Ng (Bloomberg/Australian Financial Review – April 25, 2017)

April 26, 2017

http://www.afr.com/

Iron ore is destined to retreat back below $US50 a tonne next year as supplies go on rising, according to the top forecaster, who warned that weakening prices will probably encourage the sale of inventories.

The raw material will drop to average $US62 in the third quarter and $US59 in the final three months of this year before falling through 2018 to a low of $US41, said Justin Smirk, senior economist of Westpac Banking Corp. Westpac placed first in predicting prices in the first quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Iron ore was whipsawed last week after hitting a near six-month low as investors weighed signals of strength in the largest user China, including steel output at a record in March, against prospects for rising supply. Top miners including Brazil’s Vale are bringing on new capacity, bolstering seaborne sales, at the same time that miners in China have been reviving production. Smirk said that there’d been a huge ramp-up in Chinese supply.

Goldman Sacks advises ‘sell’ in BHP Billiton downgrade – by Matt Chambers (The Australian – April 26, 2017)

April 25, 2017

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Goldman Sachs has turned increasingly negative on the mining sector, downgrading BHP Billiton to “sell” and slashing its target price for Rio Tinto in the face of falling iron ore prices and what it sees as China’s potential to restrict credit.

In a report out of London yesterday, Goldman analysts led by Eugene King told investors they should sell BHP and London-listed miners Antofagasta and Kumba.

The bank kept its neutral rating on Rio but still slashed its target price for the miner’s London shares by 20 per cent to £28. It cut its target price for BHP’s London shares by 21 per cent to £11.

Figures show how boom brought wealth to Western Australia – by Shane Wright (Perth Now – April 24, 2017)

April 25, 2017

http://www.perthnow.com.au/

THE mining boom delivered WA an income boost unlike anything seen across the country since the 19th century, spreading wealth from the suburbs to some of the most isolated communities.

A breakdown of tax figures covering the mining boom from 2003-04 until 2014-15 shows a record number of communities saw their average incomes at least double. The Australian Tax Office tracked the income details of more than 2570 postcodes nationwide.

Just 126 showed average taxable incomes at least doubling over the mining boom period. More than 70 of them were in WA, which accounted for almost one in three of the State’s postcodes. Incomes in the State’s richest postcode, which covers Peppermint Grove and Cottesloe, soared from almost $70,500 at the start of the boom to$144,273 in 2014-15.

Mount Isa, a city of mining, huge distances and a close-knit community – by Oliver Lewis (Suff.co.nz/ – April 23, 2017)

April 24, 2017

http://www.stuff.co.nz/

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, large white gumboots and a hard hat with a torch on the front we descend into the mine. I’m in Mount Isa, deep in the north-west of the Queensland Outback. It is a city built by mining, rising from the arid red dirt of the landscape in 1923, after prospector John Campbell Miles first discovered lead ore here.

From the air, the land surrounding Mount Isa, or The Isa as it is known by locals, looks like the scarred surface of an alien planet. From my window seat in the plane, the rocks below reflect back beams of light from the setting sun, hinting at the great seams of zinc, copper, lead and silver buried under the dirt.

We’re on the Hard Times Mine Underground Tour , just beside the Outback at Isa visitor centre, in the middle of the city of around 22,000. Because of health and safety precautions, tours into the actual mines closed a few decades ago, so the city built its own mock mine, with around 1.2 kilometre of tunnels. Our tour group is led by Alan Rackham, a miner of 49 years who over the course of the next two-and-a-half hours takes us through the history of mining in the area.

[Australia Mining] Regional cities show resilience after mining boom goes bust, Productivity Commission report says – by Sarina Locke (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – April 20, 2017)

April 21, 2017

http://www.abc.net.au/

Benefits from the mining boom are still being felt in regional areas despite the prolonged downturn, according to a report from the Productivity Commission. In its interim report on transitioning regional economies, the Productivity Commission found about 80 per cent of regions had positive employment growth over the past five years, although most also saw decreases at times.

The report found employment in the mining sector was higher now than before the boom, and mining regions had been more resilient to the downturn than regions that were highly dependent on manufacturing.

Western Australia and Queensland had been most affected by the downturn in mining investment, with unemployment levels doubling in those states compared to the peak of the boom. Some regional centres, like Townsville in Queensland — a base for FIFO workers — had also been harder hit.

BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto at risk in Donald Trump’s steel crackdown – by John Kehoe (Australian Financil Review – April 21, 2017)

April 20, 2017

http://www.afr.com/

Australian iron ore producers BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are at risk of becoming collateral damage in US President Donald Trump’s move to stamp out the “dumping” of cheap steel by foreign producers such as China.

President Trump ordered the Commerce Secretary to prioritise an investigation into whether steel imports into the US “threaten to impair national security”, by drawing on an obscure provision in a 1962 trade law.

The move opens up a path for the Trump administration to potentially impose tariffs on subsidised steel from a broad range of countries that Australia exports the steel-making ingredient iron ore to.

Shandong No Longer Pursuing Barrick’s Super Pit Stake – by by Scott Deveau and Linly Lin (Bloomberg News – April 19, 2017)

April 20, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Shandong Tyan Home Co. said it has ended talks to acquire Barrick Gold Corp.’s stake in its Kalgoorlie Super Pit mine in Australia because of recent tightened controls in China on outbound investment.

Toronto-based Barrick began the process to sell its stake in the mine, a 50-50 joint venture with Newmont Mining Corp., last year. Talks between Barrick and Minjar Gold Pty, a Shandong Tyan subsidiary, stalled in February after the buyer faced delays securing financing for a $1.3 billion bid, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time.

“The company is no longer pursuing this project,” Shandong Tyan said in an exchange filing, citing both the tightened controls on outbound investment and foreign exchange.

China’s Shandong Tyan says talks over on bid for Barrick’s Kalgoorlie – by Susan Taylor (Reuters U.S. – April 19, 2017)

April 19, 2017

http://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO – Shanghai-listed Shandong Tyan Home (600807.SS) said on Wednesday its negotiations with Barrick Gold Corp (ABX.TO) to buy the Canadian operator’s 50-percent stake in Kalgoorlie mine have ended without a deal, citing new capital and acquisition rules in China.

Toronto-based Barrick had been reviewing the financial backing behind an approximate $1.3 billion bid for its stake in Kalgoorlie mine by Minjar Gold, a unit of Shandong Tyan, Reuters reported in November. Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer, declined to comment on the matter. It reports first-quarter financial results on April 24.

In February, Barrick President Kelvin Dushnisky said “advanced negotiations with a proposed buyer,” were under way and Barrick would be “happy sellers” at the right price. “We’re also very happy to continue to own that asset,” he said.

Cyclone Wreckage Lays Bare Met Coal’s Top Exporter Weak Link – by Perry Williams and Ben Sharples (Bloomberg News – April 13, 2017)

April 18, 2017

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg) — Two weeks after a cyclone tore through Australia’s biggest metallurgical coal mining basin, the industry is still reeling. The outages are a flashback to deluges in 2008 and 2010-11, which forced miners in the world’s largest exporter of the steel-making commodity to update operations with stronger flood defenses and better pumps to drain water.

Though producers now have bigger walls, the weakest link in the supply chain this time has been rail lines, particularly the Goonyella network that was swamped by landslides, cutting off deliveries to major ports on the east coast.

“There’s not much you can do to protect the rail,” said Keith De Lacy, former chairman of Macarthur Coal Ltd., which was acquired by Peabody Energy Corp. “They are always subject to washouts. Goonyella is a major line and carries an enormous amount of coal, and once it’s knocked out it can’t just be repaired overnight.”

Labor resists pressure for $900 million loan: ‘Adani coal mine should stand on its own two feet’ – by Fergus Hunter (Sydney Morning Herald – April 12, 2017)

April 12, 2017

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

Labor has rejected government claims the Adani Carmichael coal mine project in central Queensland deserves a $900 million concessional loan funded by taxpayers, saying the project should stand or fall “on its own two feet”.

The opposition supports the $22 billion endeavour, which backers say will create thousands of jobs, but resources and northern Australia spokesman Jason Clare has dismissed Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s claim on Tuesday the government funding is a “tipping point issue to get this mine going”.

“The project should stand on its own two feet,” Mr Clare told ABC Radio on Wednesday morning. The government is currently considering offering a $900 million loan to the company, to build a railway that would transport coal from the mine to the port at Abbot Point, where it would be shipped to India.

Renewables roadshow: how Broken Hill went from mining to drag queens and solar farms – by Michael Slezak (The Guardian – April 12, 2017)

April 12, 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/

The home of BHP and Mad Max can now take credit for kickstarting the large-scale solar industry in Australia

Broken Hill is the birthplace of modern mining in Australia. It lends its initials “BH” to the mining giant BHP, and in January 2015 in an Australian first, the so-called Silver City was added to the National Heritage list in part due to its mining industry.

The city is cut in half by a mine, with a giant pile of waste material rising from its centre. It can be seen from every street in town, like a monument to the stuff the city was built from.

But over the years, mining in Broken Hill has declined. Even the titular hill, the one that appeared “broken”, has been mined away. As it disappeared, so did the jobs. Around 30,000 people once lived in Broken Hill, with 3,500 employed in the mines. Nowadays the population is around 18,000; approximately 500 of those work in mining.

Elliott’s BHP plan was doomed, but the ulterior motive isn’t – Clyde Russell (Daily Mail/Reuters – April 12, 2017)

April 12, 2017

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, April 12 (Reuters) – When activist shareholder Elliott Advisors went public with its call to restructure BHP Billiton, it was most likely aware that the world’s largest mining company would reject the plan.

Elliott, which manages more than $32.7 billion and holds about 4.1 percent of BHP’s London-listed shares, wants the company to end its dual London-Sydney listing, hive off its petroleum assets in a separate listing in New York, and return more cash to shareholders.

By going public with the letter it wrote to BHP directors, Elliott should have known it had no chance of its proposal succeeding. Indeed, BHP soon shot down the plan, saying the costs would outweigh the benefits.

Australia needs greater mining and METS cohesion (Australian Mining – April 10, 2017)

April 11, 2017

https://www.australianmining.com.au/

Australia’s minerals industry and its mining equipment, technology and services (METS) sector need to collaborate better for the sake of the nation’s future prosperity, according to Dr Vanessa Guthrie, Chair of the Minerals Council of Australia.

In an interview ahead of her talk at the Austmine 2017: Mining’s Innovation Imperative conference, Dr Guthrie said mining and METS companies were drivers of innovation and investment, provided highly-skilled employment opportunities and generated the bulk of Australia’s export earnings.

“Mining and METS companies already work together on a daily basis to support and reinforce each other’s operational activities,” Dr Guthrie said. “By collaborating and partnering at an industry level we can ensure that mining and METS continue to innovate and grow – and that, in turn, will help secure Australia’s economic prosperity into the future.”