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Copper

‘Health, then production’: Unions ramp up pressure on Chile copper miner Codelco – by Fabian Cambero (Reuters U.S. – June 11, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Unionized mine workers in Chile, the world’s top copper producer, warned on Thursday that health should take precedence over output, one day after state-run Codelco’s unions threatened a walkout at some of its operations.

Workers with the Federation of Copper Workers said there had been an “alarming” spike in coronavirus cases at some mines, one week after a miner at the company´s massive Chuquicamata mine died from COVID-19.

“This is a general warning, in case the administration does not take the measures,” Liliana Ugarte, head of the Chuquicamata 2 union, told Reuters on Thursday. “The lives of our people are more important than any production targets.”

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New King of Copper Trading Sees Demand Coming Back Stronger – by Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – June 10, 2020)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

(Bloomberg) — As head of copper trading at Trafigura Group, Kostas Bintas typically spends his time trekking around the globe, signing the deals that last year helped make Trafigura the biggest merchant of one of the world’s most crucial metals.

By March this year, he was stuck holding video calls with clients and colleagues from his home in Geneva. With the world on lockdown, the outlook for most industrial metals looked bleak. Yet even then, Bintas says there were early signs copper could emerge from the crisis even stronger.

If anything, he’s even more bullish today. Demand is bouncing back in China and stimulus packages being unleashed across the developed world promise to transform the long-term outlook — particularly with spending on copper-intensive green energy infrastructure.

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Mine Tales: Miami-area mines often led Arizona’s copper production in 20th century – by William Ascarza (Arizona Daily Star – June 8, 2020)

https://tucson.com/

The Miami-Inspiration Mining District has a long history of copper production. Some of its most prominent mining properties include the Inspiration, Miami and Copper Cities mines, which led Arizona’s copper production at intervals during the 20th century.

The area known as Miami was first noted for reddish outcrops that enticed prospectors like Black Jack Newman to invest and develop. Newman’s initial acquisition totaled 13 claims comprised of 260 acres.

With the backing of J. Parke Channing, a successful mining engineer who optioned Newman’s claims, the Miami Copper Co. was formed in 1908 with the financial backing of the Adolph Lewisohn family in New York.

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Zambia Chamber of Mines says govt tensions with power firm CEC bad for investment (Reuters Africa – June 5, 2020)

https://af.reuters.com/

LUSAKA, June 5 (Reuters) – Zambia’s attempt to force Copperbelt Energy Corp (CEC) to open up its infrastructure to other power producers has dented the country’s image as an investment destination, the Chamber of Mines said on Friday.

Energy Minister Matthew Nkhuwa issued a decree last Friday compelling CEC to allow others to transmit electricity via its infrastructure. Though it can negotiate terms, CEC said the energy regulator had also cut the tariff it can charge to 30% of the current price.

CEC, formerly a state-owned firm before it was privatised in the 1990s, said the directive and other steps taken by the government amounted to expropriation.

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COLUMN-The more exposure to China the better for metals post-coronavirus – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – June 2, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, June 2 (Reuters) – The contrasting fortunes of the prices of industrial metals inside and outside of China serves to illustrate two trends as the Asian region starts to emerge from coronavirus lockdowns.

The first is that the recovery is uneven and likely to remain so, and the second is that the more exposed to China the commodity is, the greater the likelihood it outperforms those metals that are not.

The best example is iron ore, the steel-making ingredient of which China accounts for two-thirds of the global seaborne trade.

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Latin America virus surge puts world’s biggest mines at risk – by James Attwood, Jackie Davalos and Yvonne Yue Li (Bloomberg News – June 2, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

The decision to keep Chinese factories shut after the Lunar New Year sent shudders through the massive mines of Brazil and Chile that feed them. Now, with China getting back to work and Latin America the new virus hot spot, concern is shifting from demand to supply.

Iron ore shipper Vale SA had a scare last week as it had to fend off an attempt by Brazilian prosecutors to close a complex that accounts for a tenth of its output. A union at copper behemoth Codelco said members are concerned that a still small outbreak of the virus will spread.

Alarm bells are starting to ring again in metal markets as the outbreak explodes in Latin America, with the region’s highly urbanized population of 600 million accounting for about 40% of daily deaths globally.

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Column: Copper gets a warning the worst may be yet to come – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – May 29, 2020)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – “Have metal markets forgotten about corona?” The question, posed by analysts at Commerzbank in the title of a May 28 research note, captures the latent optimism the worst of COVID-19 may be over for industrial metals such as copper.

The current London Metal Exchange (LME) copper price of $5,360 per tonne may be down by 13% on the start of January but it has also staged a significant recovery from its March low of $4,371.

The focus is on recovering activity in China rather than downturn in the rest of the world. Beijing’s stimulus package, centred on “new” infrastructure such as electric vehicle charging points, should be positive for copper demand.

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2020 was supposed to be copper’s year to shine. Now everything is uncertain – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – May 23, 2020)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Earlier this month, Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals Inc. injected US$115 million in cash to its balance sheet, shoring up the company’s finances just as a veil of uncertainty settles over the copper market.

The cash came from an agreement by Hudbay to pre-sell 80,000 ounces of gold from its Manitoba operations at an average of US$1,682 per ounce over the course of 2022 and 2023. As chief executive Peter Kukielski told shareholders, “it looks like gold is flying.”

By pre-selling gold, which has risen 15 per cent since January to US$1,737 as of Friday, Hudbay was able to preserve its access to a revolving line of credit, as clouds build over its copper business — which along with other base metals accounted for 80 per cent of its revenue in 2019.

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COPPER-SILVER: Rio Tinto preps plans for 2020 at Janice Lake – by Staff (Canadian Mining Journal – May 20, 2020)

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

SASKATCHEWAN – Following up on a positive 2019 exploration program, Rio Tinto is planning 2,000 metres of drilling, plus mapping, prospecting and geophysical surveys this year at the Janice Lake copper-silver project in northern Saskatchewan.

The major is earning up to an 80% interest in the project from Forum Energy Metals, which has optioned the property from Transition Metals.

Last year’s program at the sedimentary copper-silver project, located 55 km southeast of Key Lake, included 21 drill holes totalling 5,209 metres.

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‘A complete disaster’: Investors take aim at Teck CEO Don Lindsay after commodity cycle misses – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – May 20, 2020)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Days after Teck Resources Ltd. publicly pulled the plug in February on Frontier, a proposed $20.5-billion mine in the oilsands, one of the company’s largest investors started a campaign to oust the company’s chief executive, Don Lindsay.

Bob Bishop, founder of Impala Asset Management, a Florida-based resource focused hedge fund, which has been a shareholder since 2016, wrote a letter in late February to the board; and then a few days later, just before coronavirus halted all air travel, he flew to Toronto to deliver his message in person to the company’s chair Sheila Murray: It’s time for Lindsay to go.

For Bishop, whose firm owned 1.9 per cent of Teck’s Class B shares at year end, oil was proving to be another mistake in a long line of miscalculations: Teck invested $1.1 billion in Frontier, one of the largest greenfield oil projects ever imagined in Canada, before it abruptly withdrew from the permitting process.

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Eurobattery to buy Finland battery metals project – by Donna Slater (MiningWeekly.com – May 13, 2020)

https://m.miningweekly.com/

The option under the investment and shareholders agreement is linked to an obligation to provide successive cash financing for investments in the Hautalampi project.

Eurobattery will pay about €8.6-million over 48 months for the VHOy shares and the option premium, as well as the cash financing component.

The Hautalampi project is located at the same site as the Keretti (Outokumpu) copper mine, which operated during 1912 to 1989. The Hautalampi nickel/cobalt/copper orebody is located parallel to, and above, the exploited copper deposit. Existing surface and underground infrastructure provide significant location advantages in what is already a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction.

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Teck CEO defends strategy at mining conference as investors launch criticism – by Dan Healing (Canadian Press/Global News – May 12, 2020)

https://globalnews.ca/

The CEO of Teck Resources Ltd. defended his company’s growth strategy on Tuesday as dissident shareholders criticized what they called “underperforming” investments in coal and oilsands.

“Our strategy is very straight forward,” said CEO Don Lindsay in a webcast speech at the online Bank of America Securities Global Metals, Mining and Steel conference.

“Teck is implementing a copper growth strategy financed by the strong cash flows from steel-making coal and zinc. We are focused on rebalancing our portfolio to ultimately make our copper business bigger than our coal business, beginning with QB2, which will double our copper production on a consolidated basis.”

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What are Joe Biden’s views on two of the most controversial environmental projects in Minnesota? – by Walker Orenstein and Gabe Schneider (MinnPost – May 11, 2020)

https://www.minnpost.com/

In late April, former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign held a virtual event with Minnesota supporters to promote the Democrat’s plans to address climate change and a clean environment.

But while U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and other Biden surrogates talked about carbon-free energy, clean water, agriculture and electric cars, they did not touch on perhaps the two most controversial environmental issues in the state: copper-nickel mining in Northern Minnesota and the proposed Line 3 oil pipeline.

Many of the major Democratic candidates in the presidential race said they would oppose the Line 3 project, the proposed Twin Metals mine near Ely, or both if elected in the fall of 2020. Those stances heartened the environmentalist wing of the party and roiled trade unions and rural DFLers.

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SolGold scores $150m in funding from Franco Nevada – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 11, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Ecuador-focused miner SolGold (LON, TSX:SOLG) has secured up to $150 million from streaming company Franco Nevada (TSX, NYSE: FNV), which it will use to develop its Alpala copper-gold project.

The company said the net smelter return (NSR) agreement includes an initial $100 million. Franco-Nevada, which provides natural resource companies with upfront cash in exchange for future production, will receive a perpetual 1% NSR.

The total amount could increase by $50 million, at SolGold’s discretion. The move would also increase the NSR for Franco Nevada to 1.5%.

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Copper takes aim at COVID-19 with virus-killer coatings – by Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – May 8, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – At an outer suburban manufacturing plant, engineer Byron Kennedy is resetting a machine to spray-print a layer of copper on to a door handle, aiming to use the metal’s antiviral properties to counter the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.

His firm Spee3D is better known as a producer of 3D printers for copper and aluminium, used by customers including the Australian defence force and U.S. Marines to rapidly print new parts to get broken equipment back in action without waiting days for spares to arrive.

“Up until the end of last year, our business was building the 3D printers, which were then used to build parts,” Spee3D co-founder Kennedy told Reuters. “Come 2020, and the epidemic hits. We know about the antimicrobial properties of copper, so we thought ‘Can we do something, can we help out here?’”

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