Новости за 05.04.2019

Norway plans to tighten restrictions on coal investments for its $1-trillion sovereign wealth fund while opening it up for renewable-energy infrastructure assets. The government proposes to expand its coal ban by adding absolute caps on production of thermal coal, or its use in power generation, which would target big companies such as Glencore, Anglo American, BHP Group, RWE and Uniper. The current restrictions, introduced in 2015, have been criticised by politicians from opposition parties and... Читать дальше...

Ethical investors working on a global standard for tailings dams have written to 683 listed resource companies, including major miners, asking for information to be made public within 45 days about every facility they control. The safety of dams used to store mining waste known as tailings has risen in profile after the collapse of a Vale tailings dam in Brazil in January killed an estimated 300 people.

Its high quality and the price is a bargain, but the risk may be too great for Chinese buyers looking for a quick profit. Newcastle thermal coal prices have lost almost $20 a ton, or almost 19 percent, since early March, making supplies from Australia cheaper than Chinese domestic grades for the first time since April 2018, but there’s a catch. Coal from the world’s second-biggest exporter has been subject to delays since January and cargoes are sitting at China’s ports for extended periods as officials slow customs clearance.

The share price of junior explorer Celamin Holdings rose on Friday, after the Tunisian Court of Appeal returned the company’s 51% stake in the Chaketma phosphate project. Celamin has battled its joint venture partner Tunisian Mining Services (TMS) since 2015, after its interest in the project was fraudulently transferred to TMS.

The fate of a $10-billion mega-merger rests with Newmont Mining investors after Goldcorp shareholders overwhelmingly approved what could be the largest deal in gold mining history. Greater than 97% of Goldcorp shareholders voted for the merger at a special meeting in Vancouver, the miner said Thursday in a statement. The deal would see Colorado-based Newmont pay 0.3280 of its shares for each Goldcorp share, plus two cents. The Goldcorp ballot required at least two-thirds of shareholders who voted to approve the deal.

Berkeley Energia has appealed to Spain's Supreme Court against the nomination of new members to the country's nuclear safety council (CSN), which is due to assess the Australian company's uranium mine project near Salamanca. The court, in a document released on Thursday, said it had rejected a request from Berkeley to urgently suspend a government decree last week which named four new members to the CSN's five-strong board, which rules on the safety of nuclear and radioactive facilities.

A group of Mongolian legislators has recommended one of the agreements underpinning Rio Tinto's Oyu Tolgoi copper mine should be scrapped and another changed, adding to the giant project's political problems. The Gobi desert copper deposit promises to become one of Rio Tinto's most lucrative properties, but it has been subject to repeated challenges from politicians who argue the spoils of the country's mining boom are not being evenly shared.

A Brazilian federal court has scheduled an April 12 hearing on the year-long production embargo at Norsk Hydro's Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil, the Norwegian company said on Friday. The plant has operated at half of its capacity since February 2018 after a spill that led regulators and courts to restrict its output.

Australian base water evaporator and ventilation solution provider Minetek has made available its patented secondary mine ventilation system, based on a high output axial fan system. The new technological solution, engineered and manufactured in Australia, categorically offers power savings and control not yet seen in the underground mining industry, according to Minetek.

Uranium developer NexGen Energy’s Arrow uranium project, in Saskatchewan, Canada, is uniquely positioned to rebalance global supply back to more geopolitically sustainable levels, says NexGen Energy corporate development VP Travis McPherson. He tells Mining Weekly that Arrow will be the world’s largest and lowest-cost uranium mine and, “importantly, produced from an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nation”.

With Namibia tipped to become the world’s third-largest uranium producer by 2020, the recent scrapping of a 25% black-ownership clause will boost investor sentiment, says analysis and consultancy company Fitch Solutions commodities analyst Sabrin Chowdhury. The country is currently the world’s fifth-largest uranium producer; Fitch Solutions forecasts that Namibia will produce 7 400 t of uranium this year.

Following the nuclear incident at Fukushima, in Japan, in 2011, there has been a global oversupply of uranium. However, markets now appear to be in the early stages of a rebalancing of supply, says US uranium miner and producer Energy Fuels president and CEO Mark Chalmers. He tells Mining Weekly that the biggest challenge facing the uranium industry has been overproduction, primarily by State-owned enterprises controlled by Russia, Kazakhstan and China.

A feasibility study is being carried out at Canadian uranium company GoviEx Uranium’s flagship Madaouela project, in Niger, and GoviEx CEO Daniel Major says construction could start at the end of the year. The study is being carried out by consulting engineering and science company SRK Consulting and engineering services provider SGS Bateman, which were appointed by GoviEx in September last year.

The shift towards mechanisation in the mining industry has prompted cable anchor supplier M and J Mining to continue developing and enhancing its Flexibolt range of prestressed cable anchor solutions and other technologies necessary to support the ever-changing needs of the deep-level mining industry. “Our Flexibolts are constantly evolving as we push the boundaries of underground support,” says M and J Mining sales director Daniel Mathews.

Despite the challenges of operating in Zimbabwe, exploration and development company Caledonia Mining‘s Blanket mine in Zimbabwe has delivered a “robust” performance, while the mine’s Central shaft has reached a depth of 1 150 m – only 54 m from the planned shaft bottom. “We made good progress on the Central shaft, which I expect to be operational in approximately 15 months, and we continued our track record of growing the resource base at Blanket,” Caledonia Mining Corporation CEO Steve Curtis noted... Читать дальше...

The Executive Council of Macau has developed a proposal for legislation which, if approved by the territory’s Legislative Assembly, would see Macau joining the Kimberley Process Certification System. This was stated in an official communiqué, the Macauhub News Agency has reported.

Minerals Council South Africa has reasserted the need to modernise deep-level mining technologies as part of its people-centred modernisation drive to extend the life of deep-level mines and, subsequently, ensure that the workforce is maintained. The South African mining sector has, for more than 100 years, been considered a labour-intensive industry using physically demanding manual drilling methods, according to the Minerals Council’s 2018 fact sheet, titled Modernisation: Towards the Mine of Tomorrow.