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Philippine President-Elect Duterte Warns Miners on Environment – by Ian C Sayson and Andreo Calonzo (Bloomberg News – June 5, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has warned mining companies whose operations threaten the environment to either upgrade their practices or face closure.

“Mining people must shape up,” Duterte told supporters Saturday at a Davao City concert celebrating his May 9 election victory. Much of what they do now, “especially in Surigao,” is problematic. “They have to stop. They are spoiling the land. They are destroying Mindanao.”

Mindanao, Duterte’s home and the second-largest Philippine island, is estimated to sit on $300 billion worth of mineral deposits, from nickel, copper to gold. The region is mostly undeveloped due to a combination of government neglect and decades of insurgency from leftists and Islamic separatists.

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Niobium Mining – The First Step in Building a Fighter Jet (Palisade Global Investments – June 3, 2016)

https://www.equities.com/

In what was probably the least publicized bidding war in mining history, fifteen companies took part in the sale of Anglo American’s niobium and phosphates operations located in the states Goiás and São Paulo, in Brazil.

In a strategy to alleviate its $26 billion of net debt, Anglo American eventually sold its Brazilian niobium and phosphates businesses to the China Molybdenum Co. Ltd. for a staggering $1.5 billion. The sale was part of a plan to divest more than half of its operations to focus on more prolific projects, and analysts rejoiced as the $1.5 billion price tag was 50% more than the expected sales price.

The niobium and phosphate operations had always been Anglo’s more lucrative divisions, but was a small contributor to the overall bottom line. In aggregate, last year the operations generated $146 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), niobium contributing $40 million.

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Glenn Lazarus takes his message into mining heartlands – the boom is bust – by Joshua Robertson (The Guardian – June 4, 2016)

http://www.theguardian.com/

Glenn Lazarus, as good as his political slogan, is doing the hard yards. The former rugby league prop, known as the Brick with Eyes, is locked in a grassroots battle to hold on to his federal Senate seat for Queensland ahead of Pauline Hanson.

Having cut ties with the party of Clive Palmer – which was bankrolled to the tune of $21.5m by the ill-fated nickel business that accounted for 27% of all Australian political donations in the past two years – there is no TV advertising, private jet or morning television interviews for Lazarus now.

He has already clocked up more than 5,000 km in his vehicle, the Brick with Wheels, across regional Queensland in what he says is a “very ugly itinerary” for the rest of June. “I won’t be at home for a while. I’ll have to get the machete out to cut through the overgrown trees and God knows what else,” he says.

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Duterte to big miners: “you have to stop;” small miners: “we will support you” – by Carolyn O. Arguillas (Minda News.com – June 5, 2016)

http://www.mindanews.com/

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/05 June) — Large-scale firms engaged in destructive mining in Mindanao have no place under the Duterte administration as President-elect Rodrigo Duterte vowed to give priority and assistance to small-scale miners who will band into a cooperative. “The mining people must shape up,” said Duterte, citing the destruction wrought by big mining firms, especially in Surigao. “You have to stop,” he said.

Addressing thousands of residents and out-of-town visitors who attended the “One Love. One Nation” thanksgiving party at the Crocodile Park on Saturday night, Duterte said of these big mining firms, many of them Manila-based but operating in Mindanao: “They’re spoiling the land. They’re destroying Mindanao.”

What is more painful, he added, is that even the Moro people who have been marginalized due to historical injustices, remain along the marginal side of business endeavors in Mindanao.”

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Mining and nuclear decommissioning: Robots in dangerous and dirty areas (Robohub.org – June 3, 2016)

I2Mine Full Promotional Video from MIRO on Vimeo.

http://robohub.org/

Workers have long confronted dangerous and dirty jobs. They’ve had to dig to the bottom of mines, or put themselves in harm’s way to decommission ageing nuclear sites. It’s time to make these jobs safer and more efficient, robots are just starting to provide the necessary tools.

Mining has become much safer, yet workers continue to die every year in accidents across Europe, highlighting the perils of this genuinely needed industry. Everyday products use minerals extracted from mining, and 30 million jobs in the EU depend on their supply. Robots are a way to modernise an industry that is constantly under pressure with the fall in prices of commodities and the lack of safe access to hard-to-reach resources. Making mining greener is also a key concern.

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Documentary: KONELĪNE: our land beautiful (British Columbia’s Golden Triangle)

http://www.canadawildproductions.com/film/koneline/

Celebrated for using art to seek beauty and complexity where you least expect to find them, KONELĪNE(pronounced Ko-na-lee-na) is garnering rave reviews for its fair-minded and sensual exploration of northwest British Columbia and the extraordinary people who move across it. Miners call this land the Golden Triangle, hunters call it the Serengeti of the North, and the Tahltan First Nation call it home.

KONELĪNE’s visual poetry delights in exploding stereotypes. Heidi Gutfrucht, at once a big game hunter and fierce environmentalist, swims her 17 horses across the massive Stikine River; a Tahltan First Nation diamond driller bores deep into the same territory he loves….and that his elders are fighting to protect; white hunters carry bows and arrows while Tahltan elders shoot moose with high-powered rifles; and the world’s biggest chopper flies 16,000-pound transmission towers over mountaintops, their metal struts catching the light like giant gleaming crosses.

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While iron-ore price crawls sideways, Champion readies for Bloom Lake revival – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – June 2, 2016)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

MONTREAL (miningweekly.com) – Despite the price outlook for the steelmaking ingredient iron-ore crawling sideways at best in 2016, TSX- and ASX-listed junior Champion Iron is preparing to restart its recently acquired Bloom Lake mine, near Fermont, Quebec, as soon as markets improve.

Under the leadership of chairperson and CEO Michael O’Keeffe, Champion subsidiary Quebec Iron Ore had on April 11 closed the C$10.5-million acquisition of Cliffs Natural Resources’ Bloom Lake assets and the Quinto claims, located opposite its flagship Fire Lake iron-ore project in the famous high-grade Labrador Trough mining district, straddling the provincial borders of Newfoundland and Quebec.

In contrast, Cliffs had in 2011 bought the mine for about C$4.9-billion from Consolidated Thompson. Under the acquisition, Quebec Iron Ore became responsible for environmental obligations that included environmental reclamation liabilities, which the Quebec government estimated to be about C$41.7-million.

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NEWS RELEASE: Top Mine Rescue Teams to Compete in Sudbury on June 9th and 10th

Seven mine rescue teams from across Ontario will test their emergency response knowledge and skills in the 67th annual Provincial Mine Rescue Competition at the NORCAT Underground Centre (the former Fecunis Mine) in Levack, near Sudbury, Thursday and Friday, June 9 and 10.

The competition organized by Ontario Mine Rescue, a part of Workplace Safety North, will test the teams’ knowledge, firefighting skills, first aid response, use of emergency equipment and decision-making ability under stress in a simulated underground emergency.

The winner of the competition will have the opportunity to represent Ontario and Canada at the International Mines Rescue Competition 2016 – Canada in Sudbury this August (see www.IMRC 2016.ca).

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South African mining firms to appeal silicosis ruling (Reuters U.S. – June 3, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

South African gold mining firms plan to appeal against a High Court ruling that allowed class action suits seeking damages for up to half a million miners who contracted the fatal lung disease silicosis and tuberculosis, they said on Friday.

A High Court decision last month set the stage for protracted proceedings covering cases dating back decades in the largest class action suits yet in Africa’s most industrialized country.

Anglo American, Africa’s top gold producer AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony Gold, Sibanye Gold and African Rainbow Minerals, have formed the Occupational Lung Disease (OLD) group to deal with such issues.

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Iron ore price rout accelerates – by Frik Els (Mining.com – June 2, 2016)

http://www.mining.com/

On Thursday the Northern China benchmark iron ore price dropped 2.8% to $47.90 per dry metric tonne, the lowest since mid-February according to data supplied by The Steel Index. The steelmaking raw material is down 26% over the past month and is now just holding onto double digit gains for the year.

Coking coal also had a torrid month after coming close to triple digits in April, only to fall back to the early $80s by the end of May and wiping out all of 2016’s gains. Steel prices underperformed iron ore in May, cutting further into margins at Chinese blast furnaces which had brought 50m tonnes of capacity back online.

The outlook for Chinese iron ore and steel demand was also crimped by a disappointing reading of Chinese manufacturing activity indicating Beijing’s economic stimulus program is already running out of steam.

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South32 CEO Says Colombia Nickel Mine Needs Cash Flow Plan – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – June 2, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

South32 Ltd., the diversified miner that’s cutting its global workforce on lower commodity prices, says its loss-making and strike-threatened Colombian nickel asset must deliver a plan to return to profits in the coming fiscal year to remain in operation.

Cerro Matoso is facing a deadline of July 2017 to demonstrate how it’ll begin to improve cash flow, Chief Executive Officer Graham Kerr said in an interview Thursday in Melbourne. The Perth-based producer is continuing talks with union members at the asset to avert a planned strike this month amid a dispute over a wage offer, he said.

“If they are not cash flow positive, if they can’t show me a plan to be cash flow positive, well we shouldn’t be running,” Kerr said. “We can’t cross-subsidize across the group, so if we can’t restructure if a way that makes sense, well then we won’t produce.”

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‘Ghost’ Of Woman Coal Sorter Pictured In Lady Victoria Pit Mine – by Sara C Nelson (Huffington Post U.K. – June 3, 2016)

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/

‘It’s an old colliery so there is bound to be something there’

A ghost hunter believes he has captured the spirit of a female coal sorter taking a nighttime walk through a former mine. Jimmy Devlin, 44, says he came across the apparition during a paranormal investigation in April.

He took pictures of the eerie sight at Lady Victoria pit in Newtongrange, Midlothian, which is now home to Scotland’s National Mining Museum. He said: “I have very rarely shared any of my work, more because of ridicule and cyber abuse from closed minded individuals.

“I do however feel I would like to share this image I captured whilst taking random shots before my investigation began. “It was taken whilst standing on one of the high walkways that run over the old bogey tracks that surround the pit head.

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Chinese mining giants join forces to create new industry behemoth – by Zhong Nan (China Daily – June 3, 2016)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

China Minmetals Co, one of the country’s largest mining groups by asset value and overseas projects, merged with China Metallurgical Group Co on Thursday, creating a new conglomerate bigger than the asset value of any of the three global giant mining companies－BHP Billiton Ltd, Rio Tinto Group and Vale SA.

After the merger, China Metallurgical, the largest metallurgical engineering contractor and service provider in the country, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of China Minmetals. The company will no longer be directly administered by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

Before the merger, China Minmetals had overseas operations in 34 countries and regions.The new company will have 240,000 employees, 29 national-level research and development centers and institutes, and different types of mines in Africa, Australia, Latin America and Asia.

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NEWS RELEASE: Iran in talks with giants on mining plans (PressTV – June 2, 2016)

http://www.presstv.ir/

Iran said on Thursday that it is discussing with several global industrial giants over investments in the country’s key mining projects.

Mehdi Karbasian, the managing director of the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), has been quoted by the media as saying that discussions to the same effect are already taking place with Australia’s Rio Tinto as well as European giants Glencore, Trafigura, and Aurubis.

“Glencore and China’s NFC already have business agreements to help develop Iran’s copper industry, Karbasian said earlier this year. Iran hopes to raise its copper concentrates output to as much as 2 million mt/year by 2025 in conjunction with partners, from some 200,000 mt/year at present, as part of a national development plan,” Karbasian has been quoted as telling the reporters in Berlin by Platts.

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Digging for the missing $15 billion of diamond revenue in Zimbabwe – by Elisa Peter (Huffington Post – June 2, 2016)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Elisa Peter is the Executive Director of Publish What You Pay.

When President Mugabe announced on his 92nd birthday, 21st February 2016, that $15 billion worth of revenues generated by the diamond industry had gone missing, the majority of Zimbabweans believed him. Zimbabwe is among the world’s ten largest producers of diamonds.

It is also one of the world’s poorest countries, ranked 156 in the 2014 Human Development Index. Every year, it extracts 4,7 million carats of diamonds, enough to produce millions of engagement rings for enamoured couples around the world. But do people in Zimbabwe benefit from this natural wealth? The answer is a resounding no.

Zimbabwe is not an isolated anomaly. Revenues generated by mining around the world have gone missing for years, the results of a vast and complex web made of illicit financial flaws, tax evasion and disrespect for the rule of law.

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