Новости за 02.08.2019

Dual-listed Pretium Resources (Pretivm) has attributed its profitable second quarter, with “significant” cash flows, to the “robust economics” of its Brucejack mine, in northern British Columbia, allowing the miner to eliminate $65-million of its debt during the first half of 2019. This strengthened the company’s balance sheet and advanced its debt repayment goals as it continued to target debt reduction of $140-million this year, president and CEO Joseph Ovsenek said on Thursday.

Gold mining major Gold Fields said on Friday that it could report an up to 15% drop in headline earnings a share when it presents its interim financial results on August 15, despite reporting higher gold production. In a trading update, the South Africa-headquartered miner, which operates globally, said that its headline earnings a share would be between 10% and 15% lower than that of the first half of 2018.

Australia’s financing of cleaner power is slowing because the country’s aging grid isn’t being upgraded quick enough to accept new, intermittent generation and transport it efficiently to demand centers. That’s curbing the profitability of existing projects and making future ones more expensive. For instance, the addition of more renewable generation near the Broken Hill Solar Plant in remote New South Wales has increased the facility’s marginal loss factor -- a measure of the difference between... Читать дальше...

Aim-listed diamond mining company BlueRock has completed the upgrade to the crushing circuit, including the installation of a larger cone crusher, at the Kareevlei mine in the Kimberley region of South Africa. In addition to the installation of the new crusher, the crushing circuit has been upgraded and reconfigured to handle the expected increase in material flows and is now set up to be able to operate the new crusher alongside the existing cone crusher.

Mining Weekly editor Martin Creamer unpacks platinum 3D printing, Tharisa’s chrome project and fuel cell opportunities.

BHP Group plans to start production of nickel sulphate in the second quarter of next year, as it ramps up sales of its nickel products to the battery industry, asset president Eddie Haegel said on Friday. BHP currently produces around 75 000 tonnes of nickel metal at its Kwinana refinery on the outskirts of Perth, which it sells mostly to chemicals makers in Asia who turn it into nickel sulphate, used to make batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).

Base metals developer Galena Mining has received a A$10-million cash investment from international smelting company Toho Zinc as part of it’s greater A$90-million investment. Galena in January this year struck an agreement with Toho which would see the smelting company gain a 40% interest in Galena subsidiary Abra Mining, which holds the Abra base metals project, in Western Australia.

The number of women working in the South African mining sector has increased significantly over the past 17 years, from 11 400 in 2002 to more than 53 100 to date. This represents about 12% of the entire mining workforce of 464 667, according to a report by industry employers’ organisation, Minerals Council South Africa.

The new RockSpot radar of Italian manufacturer IDS GeoRadar, a subsidiary of sensor and software group Hexagon, can locate, track and signal alerts on the slightest rockfalls and slope failures as they happen in real time. Introduced to the global market in the second quarter of this year, the RockSpot is designed to fill the gap in critical monitoring, with its aiming to be an extension of – rather than a replacement for – existing interferometric radars and laser scanners that may already be on site... Читать дальше...

Increasing pressure on mining companies to publicly disclose information on their tailings dams highlights the need for improved technology to more accurately test dam stability and more reliably predict potential failures. This was highlighted by the Brumadinho tailings dam failure in January, in Brazil, which resulted in the deaths of about 300 people at the Córrego do Feijão iron-ore mine, owned by Brazilian miner Vale.

The gender gap in the mining industry will widen if it does not invest in attracting more women to associated careers, owing to the quickly evolving roles and skills required by the industry, particularly owing to Industry 4.0, says diamond company De Beers Group. “There is no doubt that the mining industry will benefit from being more diverse and inclusive, as this leads to greater resilience, agility, innovation and productivity,” emphasises De Beers social impact senior VP Katie Fergusson.

Global diamond producer De Beers Group is most proud of the “energy change” its inclusion and diversity strategy has instigated throughout its value chain – from mining to retail, says De Beers social impact senior VP Katie Fergusson. “We are still early in the journey, but we are making visible progress,” she tells Mining Weekly, noting that more than 30% – four members – of De Beers’ executive committee are women, covering a range of key commercial and operational roles.

Historically, the mining industry has been “extremely” male dominated, but there has been a substantial drive locally to increase the number of women working in the industry, says women-owned vibrating equipment manufacturer Kwatani CEO Kim Schoepflin. However, many other African countries are less progressive, she says.

More women are needed in the mining sector, says Makole Group’s junior coal mining company Black Royalty Minerals (BRM) GM in training Tshidi Tshola. “Currently, it is still a male-dominated industry. Though there are more women entering the picture, in certain meetings I still find myself as the only woman in a room full of men. On a good day, there are two or three women.”

The Angolan Government is to launch a public tender process during the remainder of this year for five mining concessions. These will be for diamonds, iron ore and phosphates. This was announced late last month by the country’s Mineral Resources and Petroleum Minister Diamantino Azevedo during a visit to the city of Moçamedes (capital of Namibe province), the Macauhub news agency reported.

Small to medium-sized South African geological consulting firms continue to struggle amid a prolonged downturn in exploration opportunities in the country – a situation that has been exacerbated by unhelpful bureaucratic policy – according to local geological consulting group VP3 Geoservices director Peter Walker. There has been a growing lack of confidence from potential mining investors because of government policies that seem to have undermined the wellbeing of the industry over the past four years, he tells Mining Weekly.