Новости за 11.10.2019

London-listed Sirius Minerals on Friday announced that it had signed a ten-year supply and distribution agreement with a State-owned Qatari company, sending its share price up 3.5% to 3.55p each by 15:30. Qatar Chemical and Petrochemical Marketing and Distribution Company (Muntajat) will sell and distribute POLY4 into Africa, Australia, New Zealand and certain remaining Middle-Eastern and Asian territories.

South America controls about 70% of the world’s reserves of lithium, the metal used in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones and electric vehicles, but none of the infrastructure needed to put it to work. Lithium refining and battery-assembling facilities could help kick start industries in economies that are largely dependent on commodities for revenue, putting them at risk from sharp price swings. But so far, public and private initiatives in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile have failed to deliver even a single lithium cell factory. Читать дальше...

The behind-schedule Sunrise battery materials complex, in central New South Wales, Australia, will be ready for a final investment decision (FID) by the middle of next year, owner CleanTeQ said on Friday, announcing that the project would transition to a conventional engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) execution approach. CleanTeQ explained that the project was behind schedule because it had not been able to agree on a number of design, procurement, contracting and project... Читать дальше...

As he stood outside a coal mine during a campaign stop last month, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki surprisingly touted the project’s green credentials. “Without investments like this one, we wouldn’t have renewable energy and other industries that we are betting on,” Morawiecki told a crowd of miners in Silesia, the country’s coal heartland.

Rio Tinto is looking for copper and zinc-lead deposits in four Chinese regions, including Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, as part of an exploration venture with State-owned China Minmetals, a spokeswoman for the Anglo-Australian Miner said on Friday. The two companies set up a 50:50 joint venture (JV) to explore for what they called world-class mineral deposits in China in June 2018, but it was not previously clear which minerals they were looking for or which regions they were targeting.

China Minmetals, Jiangxi Copper and Zijin Mining Group are among companies considering bids for Barrick Gold’s Zambian copper mine that could fetch about $1-billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. China Molybdenum and Aluminum Corp of China, known as Chinalco, were also invited to bid, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.

Total metals and mining industry deals worth $1.87-billion were announced globally in August, according to London-listed analytics and consulting company GlobalData. The value marked a decrease of 55.2% over the previous month and a drop of 67.5% when compared with the last 12-month average of $5.74-billion.

Australia's New South Wales water authority has lodged a strong objection to a planned extension of the life of a coal mine operated by South 32 because of its predicted impact on water resources that support Sydney. The Dendrobium metallurgical coal mine is part of South 32's Illawarra metallurgical coal division in the southern coalfields of New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, about 75 kilometres (46.6 miles) south of Sydney.

State-owned electricity utility Eskom will apply for urgent interim relief against the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) most recent tariff determination, which it is taking on legal review, arguing that such relief is required to “avoid financial disaster”. The legal action follows the publication of Nersa’s long-awaited reasons for decision relating to the fourth multiyear price determination (MYPD4), covering the three years from 2019/20 to 2021/22, as well as the Regulatory... Читать дальше...

London-listed Vast Resources will next week sign an agreement with Zimbabwe's state diamond mining firm to prospect and mine diamonds in the east of the country, the mines minister and a company official said on Friday. President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government is stepping up efforts to exploit its mineral resources to revive an economy crippled by triple-digit inflation and high unemployment, with Mnangagwa desperate to woo investors, some of whom abandoned the country during the rule of the late Robert Mugabe.

A bankable feasibility study (BFS) into the Lake Way sulphate of potash (SOP) project, in Western Australia, has estimated that the project would require a capital investment of A$254-million to develop. ASX-listed Salt Lake Potash on Friday told shareholders that the BFS estimated a post tax net present value of A$479-million and an internal rate of return of 28%, with steady state earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization estimated at A$111-million.

Zambia owed major mining companies 2.8-billion kwacha ($215-million) in tax refunds as at June 30, 2019, Finance Minister Bwalya Ng'andu said on Thursday, the latest development in a long-running dispute with the miners. In December, the Zambian government withheld payment, saying the correct documentation had not been provided.

With artisanal mining underpinning the livelihoods of many families in Tanzania, the risk remains that informal mining is not conducted safely, says Tanzanian gold mining company Shanta Gold CEO Eric Zurrin.

Regulating efficiency in motors by adopting a minimum efficiency performance standard (MEPS) for electric motors can help stabilise South Africa’s power supply, and mitigate the risk of load-shedding. Zest WEG Group rotating machines manager Fanie Steyn highlights that a MEPS would significantly reduce the peak power demand on the national grid. Importantly, this could be done at no cost to government and would result in substantial savings in electrical energy costs.

Drive components manufacturer SEW-Eurodrive tells Mining Weekly that its projects department has maintained a continual state of growth and that the majority of its project work has been secured in the rest of Africa. In close collaboration with SEW-Eurodrive’s exports department, the projects department, situated at the company’s South Africa head office in Aeroton, Gauteng, has realised several growth opportunities on the continent.

Engineering components supplier Bearing Man Group (BMG) was appointed as an official Danfoss DrivePro service partner for South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa in May. BMG subsequently sought to highlight the suitability of Danfoss’ VLT AutomationDrive FC 300 series to the African mining sector to ensure that clients save on capital and operational expenditure.

German engineers Getriebebau Nord now offer the MAXXDRIVE industrial gear unit, a powerful drive system characterised by “maximum reliability, safety and robustness”, for the transportation of bulk materials using conveyor systems. MAXXDRIVE industrial gear units are suitable for installation on belt conveyors used in the continuous transport of materials in industries such as mining, mechanical engineering or plastic and paper recycling.

The $2-billion Venetia Diamond Mine Underground project remains on track and within budget to achieve first production in 2021. At steady-state production, 5.9-million tonnes of ore will be treated in the existing process plant to produce some 4.5-million carats a year.  Anglo American subsidiary De Beers Group hosted a Young Diamantaires Visit at the mine last month, providing media and visitors with a tour of both the openpit operation and underground development.

Subsequent to the launch of the new VDrivePlus and AlphaDrive-Micro variable speed drives (VSDs) from Hudaco Group company Varispeed, bearings and accessories distributor Bearings International (BI) has embarked on a training and sample-distribution campaign at its 50 BI branches in South Africa. Two training sessions have been conducted at BI’s head office in Boksburg, Gauteng, with a further two scheduled in Cape Town and Durban before the end of this month. Brochures are also handed out during the campaign.

Global major diversified natural resource group Glencore has a solid outlook for the next few years, because, among others things, of its diversified portfolio, its conservative financial policy and likely rising prices for the main metals and coal that it produces. But clouds on the horizon exist in the forms of major legal investigations into its activities and transactions, being undertaken by authorities in the US, Brazil and India. And there is also the risk that trade wars and possible recession could drive commodity prices down. Читать дальше...

The primary trend in Tanzanian mining – as is the case with many African jurisdictions – is resource nationalism, says multinational law practice Eversheds Sutherland mining and infrastructure head Warren Beech.