Nickel reserves in Murmansk Region’s mine sufficient for decades to go (Tass.com – April 3, 2018)

http://tass.com/

MURMANSK, April 3. /TASS./ The Severny mine, the main supplier of raw material to the Kola MMC (part of Norilsk Nickel), will be developed until 2060, the Kola MMC’s Deputy Director General Konstantin Nesterov told TASS.

“The company’s plans focus on – further development of the southern underground section and opening of the next horizon – 740 meters,” he said. “Thus, we shall extend the mine’s work to approximately the 2060s.”

The company did not specify the stock’s amounts. According to the Kola MMC, in 2017, the company’s geologists completed a unique project – they made a large digital model of the Severny mine. The audited all mining operations, installed new software, and all data from paper sections and plans were converted into the digital format.

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Iran Steps In to Invest in Afghanistan Iron Ore Mine (Financial Tribune – April 4, 2018)

https://financialtribune.com/

Iran wants to invest in Sangan iron ore mine of Herat Province, located in border areas between Afghanistan and Iran, Afghan media reported.

As mineral resources from Sangan iron ore mine on the Iranian side are nearing depletion, Iran is willing to invest in the Afghanistan part of the mine to fulfill its need of raw materials for its factories, Wadsam news agency reported.

The two countries have yet to reach an agreement on where to process the mineral resource. Afghan acting minister of mines, Nargis Nehan, said based on Afghanistan’s policy, extracted mineral resources should be processed inside Afghanistan.

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COLUMN-Damp squib or next commodity super-cycle? The Belt and Road dilemma – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – April 4, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

HONG KONG, April 4 (Reuters) – China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of those rare things that virtually everybody seems to have heard about, but equally, very few people can actually claim to have a detailed understanding of what it means.

This dichotomy was in evidence at the Belt and Road conference, hosted by Mines and Money, in Hong Kong on Tuesday, with views ranging from the BRI will be the driver of a new super-cycle for commodities to that it’s more of a marketing slogan aimed at boosting the image and influence of the government in Beijing.

On the side of thinking of the BRI as a sort of a Marshall plan for Asia, Africa and even Europe are a set of impressive sounding numbers, which dwarf the scale of the U.S. initiative that helped to rebuild Europe after World War II.

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BlackRock’s $1.3 Billion Gold Fund Feels Pain of Miners – by Susanne Barton (Bloomberg News – April 4, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

This year hasn’t been kind to precious-metal stock pickers at the world’s biggest asset manager, but their luck may be about to turn.

The $1.3 billion BlackRock Gold and General Fund lost 15 percent last quarter, its worst performance since the third quarter of 2015. Among large materials-focused equity funds, it was the second-worst performer after another BlackRock gold fund domiciled in Japan.

BlackRock wasn’t alone in suffering losses on its gold investments in the first quarter, with AMG and Franklin funds both losing more than 9 percent.

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Gold Is Heading to $1,400 If Trade War Breaks Out, According to Sprott – by Ranjeetha Pakiam (Bloomberg News – April 3, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Aggregate U.S. debt seen contributing to worries over dollar Gold will surge to the highest level in five years if a global trade war breaks out, according to Rick Rule, chief executive officer of Sprott U.S. Holdings Inc., who’s been involved in the market for four decades.

Bullion could top $1,400 an ounce in 2018 as escalating trade tensions drive investors to havens and the three-decade bull market in bonds nears an end, said Rule, who’s due to speak at a conference in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

Spot gold traded at $1,337.50 Tuesday after three straight quarters of gains, while exchange-traded fund holdings are around the highest in half a decade.

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What anti-Adani protestors can learn from the Jabiluka blockade – by Scott Ludlam (The Guardian – April 2, 2018)

https://www.theguardian.com/

Like anti-Adani protesters today, those who stood up at Jabiluka were attacked. It’s good to remember that people can prevail

ne of Australia’s proudest land rights struggles is passing an important anniversary: it is 20 years since the establishment of the blockade camp at Jabiluka in Kakadu national park. This was the moment at which push would come to shove at one of the world’s largest high-grade uranium deposits. The industry would push, and people power would shove right back.

The blockade set up a confrontation between two very different kinds of power: on the one side, the campaign was grounded in the desire for self-determination by the Mirarr traditional Aboriginal owners, particularly the formidable senior traditional owner Yvonne Margarula.

They were supported by a tiny handful of experienced paid staff and backed by an international network of environment advocates, volunteer activists and researchers.

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South Australian geologists to drive a revolution in minerals exploration – by Anthony Dodd (The Lead – April 03, 2018)

http://theleadsouthaustralia.com.au/

A new research centre has been established to help reduce the cost of mineral exploration in Australia in order to boost output.

Replacing the Deep Exploration Technologies CRC, the newly established MinEx Cooperative Research Centre will begin operating in July at the University of South Australia and in Western Australia.

Chief Scientific Officer for the MinEx CRC and John Ralston Chair in Minerals and Resources Engineering at UniSA’s Future Industries Institute, Professor David Giles, said his objective is to enhance the efficiency of minerals exploration nationally.

“In the Australian context, the cost of exploration for new deposits has risen over the past 30 years and our success rate has declined,” Prof Giles said.

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Prairie Mining starts legal action against Poland’s environment ministry (Reuters U.S. – April 3, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

WARSAW, April 3 (Reuters) – Australia’s Prairie Mining said it filed a lawsuit in a Warsaw civil court on Friday against the Polish environment ministry, seeking an extension to the company’s exclusive rights to a mining project in the country.

The news sent the miner’s shares plunging 30 percent in London and 20 percent in Warsaw. Prairie Mining secured in 2015 the exclusive right to apply for a mining concession for the Jan Karski mine in southeast Poland and had until April 2, 2018 to file its application.

The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it had not been able to apply for the concession because it first needs to obtain an environmental permit from local authorities, which it said has been delayed.

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Six miners killed and 44 injured as bus petrol-bombed in Limpopo – by Allan Seccombe (Business Day – April 3, 2018)

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/

Some of the mining companies have spoken of a criminal element creeping into protests in an area where unemployment and poverty are high

Six miners and 44 others were hurt in an arson attack on a bus carrying them to the Modikwa Platinum Mine on Monday evening.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), police and the companies that own the mine, African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) and Anglo American Platinum, said the employees were on their way from the Ga-Morga village in Limpopo to the mine on the eastern limb of the Bushveld Igneouss Complex.

The attackers were unknown, as was the motive.

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Dormant Swedish Mine Comes Alive in Rush for Car Batteries – by Niclas Rolander and Jesper Starn (Bloomberg News – April 3, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The global race to develop batteries for electric cars is reaching deep into the pine forests of central Sweden, where a dormant graphite mine is getting a new lease on life.

Woxna, situated about 160 miles (259 kilometers) north of Stockholm, was mothballed in 2001 amid a slump in prices. Now, a Canadian company called Leading Edge Materials Corp. is preparing to revive operations.

Though graphite has grabbed fewer headlines than other battery components like lithium and cobalt, whose prices have surged in recent months, the carbon material makes up a large part of the raw material costs.

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Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe Mining Rush Leaves Big Producers Behind – by Felix Njini and Brian Latham (Bloomberg News – April 3, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

While Zimbabwe’s leadership change has sparked a race for the nation’s mineral riches among entrepreneurs and tiny explorers, big-name mining companies are taking a wait-and-see approach.

New President Emmerson Mnangagwa has a lot to prove as he seeks to revive the economy and attract mining investment that shriveled under his predecessor, Robert Mugabe. So far, Mnangagwa has pledged investor-friendly policy changes and partially rolled back a law requiring mining companies to be locally owned.

It seems to be working, at least in some quarters. The government says mining commitments reached as much as $6 billion since Mnangagwa’s appointment, including a record $4.2 billion pledge from a company linked to mining entrepreneur Loucas Pouroulis for a platinum mine and associated infrastructure.

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COLUMN-Is there an electric accelerator to falling nickel stocks? – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – April 3, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, April 3 (Reuters) – Stocks of nickel held in London Metal Exchange (LME) warehouses MNI-STOCKS fell by 46,344 tonnes, or 12.6 percent, over the first quarter.

The downtrend has been running for seven consecutive months but there has been a marked acceleration since the start of January.

Cancellation activity, metal being taken off warrant in anticipation of physical load-out, has also been elevated. There were 54,294 tonnes of net new cancellations last month, most of them at the Malaysian port of Johor.

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Investment in Africa’s mining sector to rise: BMI – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – April 2, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Despite the fact that, through the enactment of new laws and regulations, local governments in Sub-Saharan Africa are starting to claim a larger share of their countries’ mineral resource wealth, BMI Research believes that investments in the region will continue to rise in Q3-2018.

In an industry overview published today, BMI presents the recent changes to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining code as an example of a situation that challenges all the parties involved, but that is very unlikely to cloud miners’ interest in venturing in the country.

“On March 10 President Kabila signed into law a new mining code that will raise royalties on minerals across the board, as he tries to shore up the support and funding need to retain power.

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Rio Tinto’s Coal Canary Stops Tweeting – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – March 28, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Prices at Australia’s Newcastle port, the largest export harbor for the thermal coal used in power generation, have held above $90 a metric ton for eight months, the best run since the market peaked between 2010 and 2012, only dropping below that level this week.

Glencore Plc’s energy business — essentially a coal-mining operation with a droplet of oil thrown in 1 — generated as much profit in 2017 as in the previous three years put together, and accounted for a quarter of group earnings. This month is one of the dozen best for coal deal-making activity since the start of 2006, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

That could make Rio Tinto Group’s decision to exit the last of its coal mines seem quixotic at best. While the sales of its Kestrel and Hail Creek mines and Valeria and Winchester South projects will generate about $4.15 billion (enough on paper to leave Rio debt-free), they’ll make it an increasingly iron ore-dependent business.

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Never Mind the Mines. In Congo, There’s Cobalt Under the House – by William Clowes and Thomas Wilson (Bloomberg News – March 28, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The man was digging a toilet in his backyard when his shovel struck a shimmering blue vein of cobalt. At least that’s the legend in Kolwezi. Once a few locals discovered the metal underfoot five years ago, everyone grabbed hand shovels and pickaxes; they tunneled beneath homes, schools and churches.

And that’s how a working-class neighborhood, located on the edges of a densely populated city of half a million, became a hive of pits and tunnels.

“My neighbors started to dig in 2013 and I followed their lead,” said Edmond Kalenga, who went as deep as 20 meters (65 feet) under his home. “The minerals are like a snake moving through the village. You just followed the snake.”

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