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Latin America Mining

Peak Lithium? Not So Fast – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – September 28, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Does the world have enough lithium? It depends who you ask.A 2008 study by French researcher William Tahil found there were just 3.9 million metric tons of recoverable deposits globally in mineral ores and Andean salt lakes.

That’s little enough that the world would risk running out as demand for lithium-ion car batteries and utility-scale storage ramps up over the coming decades.

A survey the following year by consultants Gerry Clarke and Peter Harben, though, concluded there was about 10 times that amount. Depending on the other parameters applied, those numbers suggest deposits could provide lithium for anything from a further 100 million cars — about 10 percent of the global auto fleet — to 10 billion or more.

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Brazil abandons controversial bid to mine Amazon natural reserve after vehement criticism from conservationists (South China Morning Post – September 26, 2017)

http://www.scmp.com/

Agence France-Presse – The Brazilian government backed off a controversial proposal to authorise private companies to mine a sprawling Amazon reserve Monday after blistering domestic and international criticism.

President Michel Temer’s office will issue a new decree on Tuesday that “restores the conditions of the area, according to the document that instituted the reserve in 1984”, the Ministry of Mines and Energy said in a statement.

Last week, environmental activist group Greenpeace said at least 14 illegal mines and eight clandestine landing strips were already being used by miners in the Denmark-sized reserve known as Renca in the eastern Amazon.

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OPINION: In the Amazon, a Catastrophic Gold Rush Looms – by Chris Feliciano Arnold (New York Times – September 18, 2017)

https://www.nytimes.com/

CONCORD, Calif. — Brazil’s interim president, Michel Temer, is willing to sacrifice millions of acres of rain forest in pursuit of a 16th-century boondoggle: fortunes of gold in the Amazon.

In August, Mr. Temer signed a decree to open a rain forest reserve — an area larger than Denmark — to commercial mining, threatening decades of progress on environmental protection and indigenous rights in the Amazon. The approximately 17,800-square-mile National Reserve of Copper and Associates, or Renca, which straddles the northern states of Pará and Amapá, was created by Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1984 to guard mineral resources from foreign exploitation as the country staggered toward democracy.

Today the reserve is a patchwork of conservation areas and indigenous lands. Its protected status has deterred the runaway development rampant elsewhere in the Amazon that has squelched biodiversity, destroyed indigenous communities and reduced millions of acres of rain forest to pastureland.

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Brazilians toil for gold in illegal Amazon mines – by Nacho Doce (Reuters U.K. – September 14, 2017)

https://uk.reuters.com/

CREPURIZAO, Brazil (Reuters) – Informal mining in Brazil is seen by many as a scourge polluting the Amazon rainforest, poisoning indigenous tribes and robbing the nation of its wealth. For others it is a way of life.

Brazilian garimpos, or wildcat mines, are operated by small crews of men, often caked in red-brown mud and working with rudimentary pans, shovels and sluice boxes that have been used for centuries.

More sophisticated operations use water cannons and boats sucking mud from the bottoms of rivers. Regardless of the method, searching for gold and other minerals like cassiterite and niobium is dirty, dangerous and often illegal. “Looking for gold is like playing in a casino,” said a 48-year-old miner.

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Authorities: Gold miners at a bar bragged about slaughtering members of a reclusive Brazilian tribe – by Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (Washington Post – September 11, 2017)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

The outside world might never have heard about the suspected massacre if not for some barroom boasting by a group of miners fresh from working an illegal gig in the Amazon jungle. The garimpeiros had bragged that they’d come across members of a reclusive, uncontacted Amazonian tribe near Brazil’s border with Peru and Colombia, authorities say.

The tribe members were greater in number — there were as many as 10 — but the gold miners said they’d gotten the better of them and killed the entire lot, said Carla de Lello Lorenzi, communications officer for Survival International in Brazil, relaying information from reports the group had received.

The miners cut the tribe members’ bodies so that they wouldn’t float, Lorenzi said, then dropped them into the Jandiatuba River. The miners had collected tools and jewelry from the indigenous dead, corroborating their story.

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Tahoe shares surge after Guatemala ruling – by Frik Els (Mining.com – September 11, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

Shares in Tahoe Resources (TSX:THO)(NYSE:TAHO) surged on Monday after a Guatemalan court reinstated the company’s license to operate its giant Escobal silver mine.

Shares in the Canadian miner gained as much as 49% at the start of trade before closing up 33% for a $1.5 billion market capitalization in the New York Stock Exchange. Escobal is the world’s third largest primary silver mine with production of 21.2 million ounces of silver in concentrate in 2016.

Vancouver-based Tahoe said the Guatemalan Supreme Court decision reverses an earlier ruling that went against its subsidiary Minera San Rafael (MEM), in an action brought by the anti-mining group, CALAS, against the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines in May.

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Canada’s Sherritt eyes nickel products for booming battery market – by Nicole Mordant (Reuters Canada – September 11, 2017)

https://ca.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – The rise of electric cars is spurring Sherritt International Corp (S.TO) to consider branching into producing the types of nickel most sought after by battery manufacturers, the chief executive of the Canadian company said on Monday.

David Pathe said Sherritt, which is one of the world’s largest producers of nickel, was studying the economics around building a plant to produce nickel sulphate, a powder-like substance particularly suited for use in batteries.

Sherritt already produces high-grade nickel for use in the stainless steel industry and in sophisticated applications including batteries. The company does not produce nickel sulphate, which consistently fetches a price premium over London Metal Exchange-traded nickel.

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We’re Going to Need More Lithium – by Jessica Shankleman, Tom Biesheuvel, Joe Ryan, and Dave Merrill (Bloomberg News – September 7, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

There’s plenty in the ground to meet the needs of an electric car future, but not enough mines.

Starting about two years ago, fears of a lithium shortage almost tripled prices for the metal, to more than $20,000 a ton, in just 10 months. The cause was a spike in the market for electric vehicles, which were suddenly competing with laptops and smartphones for lithium ion batteries.

Demand for the metal won’t slacken anytime soon—on the contrary, electric car production is expected to increase more than thirtyfold by 2030, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Rest assured, Earth has the lithium. The next dozen years will drain less than 1 percent of the reserves in the ground, BNEF says. But battery makers are going to need more mines to support their production, and they’ll have to build them much more quickly than anyone thought.

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The Return of Gold Fever – by Roger Lemoyne (The Walrus – January 12, 2011)

https://thewalrus.ca/

One of Canada’s pre-eminent photojournalists explores one of man’s oldest obsessions in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon

We’ve all heard tales of the men who followed the lure of gold into harsh wilderness, turning over the land with brute force, often finding little more than the community of fellow dreamers. Legendary gold rushes took place in California, Victoria, and the Klondike in the second half of the nineteenth century, right around the time the camera was invented.

But while portrait photography caught on quickly in cities, hauling giant glass plates into the bush was next to impossible, so the gold rush phenomenon went almost completely undocumented visually. Not until the advent of hand-held cameras like the Leica could photographers portray stories unfolding in remote locations—which is exactly what Sebastião Salgado did when the Serra Pelada gold rush broke out deep in the Brazilian Amazon, circa 1980.

When I was starting out in photography, Salgado was king. He had taken the “concerned photographer” mission global, producing massive books on broad social themes, with an unprecedented combination of artistry and salesmanship. His Serra Pelada—black and white shots of some 80,000 mud-caked miners—was an account of epic, almost biblical human undertaking.

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Gold, greed and garimpeiros: Corruption allegations roil failed venture at Brazil’s most notorious mine – by Matt Sandy (Al Jazeera America – July 21, 2015)

http://projects.aljazeera.com/

Standing on the steps of her pale blue wooden shack overlooking one of the world’s most notorious gold mines, Maria Rita Ferreira Rodrigues was so incensed she could not stop shouting.

The 58-year-old said she had lived in this house in Serra Pelada for 28 years, since it was a gold-rush town of violence, greed and intrigue amid the vestiges of the rain forest. But she had never seen anything like this.

“They humiliated us and treated us with contempt,” she said in February of the Canadian energy company Colossus Minerals, which spent $300 million over the past eight years trying to reopen the mine. “Everyone powerful here was bought by Colossus. There was not one judge, police chief or prosecutor on our side.”

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The hell of Serra Pelada mines, 1980s (Rare Historical Photos – February 24, 2016)

Serra Pelada, Brazil – Sebastião Salgado Wiki Photo 

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/

Serra Pelada was a large gold mine in Brazil 430 kilometres (270 mi) south of the mouth of the Amazon River. In 1979 a local child swimming on the banks of a local river found a 6 grams (0.21 oz) nugget of gold. Soon word leaked out and by the end of the week a gold rush had started. During the early 1980s, tens of thousands of prospectors flocked to the Serra Pelada site, which at its peak was said to be not only the largest open-air gold mine in the world, but also the most violent.

At first the only way to get to the remote site was by plane or foot. Miners would often pay exorbitant prices to have taxis drive them from the nearest town to the end of a dirt track; from there, they would walk the remaining distance—some 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) to the site.

Huge nuggets were quickly discovered, the biggest weighing nearly 6.8 kilograms (15 lb), $108,000 at the 1980 market price ( now $ 310,173 in 2016). During the peak of the gold rush the mine was known for appalling conditions and violence, whilst the town that grew up beside it was notorious for both murder and prostitution.

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Brazilian mining giant Vale gears up for ‘in-house’ diversification, possible acquisitions (Platts.com – September 6, 2017)

http://blogs.platts.com/

Speculation has mounted in recent weeks on possible plans by Brazilian mining company Vale’s new CEO Fabio Schvartsman to diversify and make new acquisitions. New strategic partnerships are in theory ruled out because Vale is big enough “to set its own, even more ambitious goals,” according to the new CEO.

New developments may be known on October 18, the date of Vale’s next general shareholders’ assembly, when a “diagnostic report” on the company’s activities, called for by the new CEO, may be considered by board members.

Indications are that Schvartsman — CEO of a paper and pulp concern before he took over the helm of the Brazilian mining giant in May — is concerned over Vale’s dependence on standard iron ore products, the company’s mainstay.

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[Barrick Dominican Republic – Pueblo Viejo Mine] Local hiring program changing lives: (Barrick Beyond Borders – August 27, 2017)

(Video: I am Barrick Pueblo Viejo)

http://barrickbeyondborders.com/

Poverty is the hard reality for many people in the communities surrounding the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic

Isidro Felix and Bladimir Morillo did not have high expectations when they heard Barrick had acquired a majority interest in the Pueblo Viejo mine. Felix, who is from the town of El Maricao, just three miles from Pueblo Viejo in the Dominican Republic’s Sanchez Ramirez province, sums up the prevailing view in his community at the time.

“Barrick will come, bring people from other countries to work at the mine, and forget about us.”

Morillo, who hails from El Naranjo, just two miles from the mine, says his community had similar sentiments. Today, however, 11 years after Barrick acquired its interest in Pueblo Viejo and 5 years after the mine entered production, perceptions have changed.

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Iron Ore’s Kings Are Spending Again – by Rebecca Keenan and David Stringer (Bloomberg News – August 29, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The biggest iron ore producers in Australia are spending as much as $10 billion on mines so they can keep pumping out shipments to China as demand in their biggest customer shows little sign of easing.

Led by Rio Tinto Group, the nation’s top three exporters plan to add about 170 million metric tons of new capacity to replace exhausted mines and are studying investments in infrastructure and equipment to boost export capacity to their long-term targeted rates. Output will rise 9 percent to 843 million tons in 2022, according to Deutsche Bank AG estimates.

Forecasts of a slowdown in China’s steel industry are proving to be misplaced with BHP Billiton Ltd. saying production hasn’t yet peaked and likely won’t do so until the middle of next decade, while steel-making raw materials will continue performing well over the coming 12 months. Iron ore prices are trading near a four-month high.

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Brazil to redo Amazon mining decree after criticism – by Jake Spring (Reuters U.S. – August 28, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s government will revise a decree that opened up a vast mineral reserve in the Amazon rainforest to mining, ministers told journalists on Monday, responding to overwhelming criticism from lawmakers and activists.

Mining and Energy Minister Fernando Coelho Filho said the government would rescind its prior decree and issue a new one that still abolishes the mineral reserve but specifies existing protections for parts of the area that will remain in place.

The changes, as described, will be largely superficial, spelling out protections that would have remained in place anyway, and Coelho Filho largely repeated remarks he made on from Friday defending the move to allow mining.

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