Новости за 13.02.2019

Colombia's coal production and exports are likely to remain steady this year, companies said on Wednesday, amid predictions international prices for the fuel will fall in 2019. The Andean nation is the world's fifth-largest exporter of coal.

Brazil’s government intends to make the mining giant Vale "private again" by pushing out pension funds of State-controlled companies, a senior official said on Wednesday. Shares rose. "Vale is a State company. Pension funds controlled by the government control Vale," Privatisation Secretary Salim Mattar said on Wednesday at an event in Brasilia. "We’re here to reprivatise Vale."

Peru's environmental regulator OEFA has concluded that mining waste from Southern Copper Corp's Cuajone unit did not spill into the environment during heavy rains last week. OEFA said in a statement late Tuesday that it was still supervising operations at Cuajone but had ruled out any tailings spill.

Since merging with Randgold Resources six weeks ago, Barrick Gold Corporation on Wednesday said it has made progress in achieving its short-term priority goals and its full-year objectives. Barrick expects to produce between 5.1-million and 5.6-million ounces of gold and between 375-million and 430-million pounds of copper this year, compared with the 4.53-million ounces of gold and 383-million pounds of copper produced in 2018.

A deficit in the palladium market that has driven prices of the autocatalyst metal to record highs will widen dramatically this year, specialist materials company Johnson Matthey said in a report on Wednesday. The company, a leading autocatalyst manufacturer, said the shortfall in the roughly ten-million-ounce-a-year palladium market narrowed in 2018 to 29 000 ounces from 787 000 ounces in 2017, its widest in three years.

The National Environmental Certification Service of Peru has now granted Toronto-headquartered Sierra Metals environmental approval for its Youricocha tailings expansion project, reversing a previous rejection of the environmental impact assessment (EIA). With an approved EIA study in hand, the dual listed miner will now proceed to obtain a construction permit for the next phase of the tailings deposition facility and will start planning for an expanded waste rock facility.

Canadian miner Taseko is expecting increased copper prices in 2019 and a rebound in gross revenues and margins, after the fluctuations of the copper price last year resulted in a “challenging” operating environment. The company reported weaker production at its Gibraltar mine, in British Columbia, with copper output falling from 141.2-million pounds in 2017, to 125.2-million pounds in 2018, and molybdenum production decreasing from 2.64-million pounds to 2.37-million pounds.

Aim- and TSX-listed Serabi Gold has set its 2019 production guidance at between 40 000 oz and 44 000 oz, with 3 671 oz already produced in January. CEO Mike Hodgson said in a statement on Wednesday that the step up from the production levels achieved in 2017 and 2018 will be driven by improved efficiencies in both orebodies and the processing of about 40 000 t of flotation tails, grading 3 g/t gold, which will supplement the normal run-of-mine production.

Canada's Teck Resources, the world's second-biggest exporter of steel-making coal, posted a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday, hurt by weak prices for heavy crude and base metals. Transportation bottlenecks in the country have pushed prices of Canadian oil lower, hurting the company's energy business unit, while the US-China trade dispute has roiled the commodities markets.

The shares in junior coal developer Prairie Mining increased by nearly 24% on Wednesday, after the company confirmed potential international legal proceedings against the government of Poland. Prairie in December 2016, applied to the Ministry of Environment to amend the 50-year concession of its then newly-acquired Debiensko mine, to extend the stipulated time for first production from 2018 to 2025.

London-listed lithium exploration and development company Bacanora Lithium CEO Peter Secker said on Wednesday that the company is in for a busy six months, as it works to finalise the funding package for its Sonora project, in Mexico, and complete a feasibility study for the Zinnwald project, in Germany. The lithium carbonate operation at Sonora will require nearly $800-million for a phased project. Stage 1 will cost about $420-million and will produce 17 500 t/y, followed by Stage 2 that will cost $380-million... Читать дальше...

Mining major BHP on Wednesday approved $696-million in funding to develop the Atlantis Phase 3 project, in the Gulf of Mexico, after project partner BP in January approved a $1.3-billion expansion of the project. The Atlantis Phase 3 development will include the construction of a new subsea production system from eight new wells that will be tied into the current platform, off the US coast.

London-listed Hochschild Mining said on Wednesday that it would suspend operations at its first mining operation, Arcata, and place the mine in care-and-maintenance in the second quarter. The company said that the low silver price had left it with no option, but to suspend operation.

Livent on Tuesday forecast a drop in Chinese lithium sales for the year because of uncertainty about the country's electric vehicle subsidies, a worrisome sign for other producers of the key battery component. The Philadelphia-based company, among the first major global lithium producers to post results this quarter, said Chinese sales will drop below 20% of total revenue in 2019, from 25% last year.