Новости за 01.11.2019

Brazilian miner Vale said on Friday it had been authorised by local regulator ANM to resume operations at its Alegria mining site, which were interrupted last March after a "stress test" failed to guarantee its stability. In a securities filing, the company added the resumption of mining activities at Alegria will allow the iron-ore exporter to restore eight-million tonnes of 50 million in capacity lost after the deadly Brumadinho dam collapse caused a series of shutdowns.

Control of Bindura Nickel Corp, Zimbabwe’s biggest nickel operation, has been sold to a company linked to an adviser of President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Sotic International., a Mauritius-based firm, bought a 74.73% stake in the company from Asa Resource Group, said Muchadeyi Masunda, Bindura’s chairperson. Sotic owns Zimbabwe’s Landela Mining Venture and is linked to Kudakwashe Tagwireyi, one of Mnangagwa’s advisers and the owner of chrome, fuel and agricultural assets in the country.

Europe-focused lead, zinc and silver developer Europa Metals has completed the first round of engagement meetings with representatives of local mayors in the region of Castilla y León, north-west Spain, where the Toral project is located. The stakeholder consultation initiative, stipulated by the Junta of Castilla y León, is required to as part of the company's mine development application.

Aim-listed exploration and mine development company Arc Minerals has appointed Rémy Welschinger to succeed John Forrest as FD. Forrest is retiring.

Production at Aim-listed Firestone Diamonds' Liqhobong mine, in Lesotho, has resumed, after the company successfully installed rented diesel generators to power the mine's processing plant. The diamond miner last month reported that the mine was struggling amid insufficient power supply from the Lesotho grid, as a result of a two-month maintenance shutdown of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), which supplies water to South Africa and generates electricity for Lesotho.

The world’s largest gold miner, Newmont Goldcorp, has brought its fourth project for the year into operation, with Quecher Main at Yanacocha, Peru, hitting commercial production. The project was completed at a cost of about $275-million, which the mining major said on Thursday was below its initial estimate. It was also completed ahead of schedule.

Coal miner Whitehaven Coal has welcomed a ruling by the Queensland Court of Appeal to dismiss an appeal against the grant of a mining license for the Stage 3 operation at the New Acland coal project. Greens group Oakey Coal Action Alliance had appealed a September decision in which the Supreme Court set aside a ruling from the Land Court, which refused to grant a mining lease application for the Stage 3 project.

The first ore from the Saramacca openpit has been delivered to the Rosebel gold mill, in Suriname, using an alternate road while construction of the haul road continued. The new Saramacca openpit, located about 25 km from the Rosebel mill, would contributed nominal production in the fourth quarter, TSX-listed Iamgold said on Thursday.

Metals miner Independence Group has taken the decision to continue selling nickel from its Nova operation, in Western Australia, rather than investing in a downstream processing center. The company earlier this year launched parallel work streams to investigate a new tender process for the nickel product from Nova, along with a prefeasibility study (PFS) into potential downstream processing to create a battery-grade nickel sulphate product.

Mining major BHP has approved $44-million in funding to restart one of the Samarco concentrators, in Brazil. The announcement comes just days after the Samarco joint venture (JV), with iron-ore major Vale, was granted all the necessary environmental licenses to restart operations in the state of Minas Gerais, following the 2015 collapse of a tailings dam which claimed the lives of 19 people and displaced numerous others.

South African explosives company BME is taking its MP2 mobile mechanised emulsion pump technology for underground blasting applications to international markets. BME product manager Neil Alberts tells Engineering News that demonstrations of the MP2 emulsion pump technology are being planned for mining clients in Canada in the coming months, with demonstrations performed for mining clients in Australia in November last year.

With the mining sector accounting for about 30% of its business, generator and compressor rental company Rand-Air notes that it has proven its ability to mitigate some of the challenges that local mines face during scheduled and unscheduled shutdowns. Rand-Air supplies various equipment items to the mining sector, ranging from 7 bar diesel compressors and high-pressure compressors for exploration to electric compressors for long-term rental in underground operations. The company also supplies generators for mine shutdowns... Читать дальше...

PT Borneo Alumina Indonesia, a subsidiary of State-owned enterprise PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium has appointed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company Black & Veatch-led project management consortium (PMC) as a technical consultant to lead its alumina refinery project. The investment in a downstream processing facility – which will be the first of its kind in Indonesia – will add value to the Indonesian mining industry by creating mining and minerals processing infrastructure. Читать дальше...

The global tin market has entered what has been described as an interesting phase with the diversification of applications in existing and new technologies, amid market dynamics that are shaking stability in the short term. Tin has long been prized for its application in solders and traditional lead-acid batteries, however, it is predicted the metal will most be impacted by the development of future technologies.

Australian technology startup Emesent has introduced its Hovermap drone payload to Africa by finalising a distribution agreement with local mining technology company Dwyka Mining Services last month, Emesent CEO and co-founder Dr Stefan Hrabar tells Mining Weekly. Although new to the continent, the autonomous drone mapping technology has been shipped to a gold mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Coal cutting machinery and gearbox supplier Eickhoff South Africa was recognised for operational excellence as a supplier of mechanised equipment at the inaugural Exxaro Supplier Excellence Awards, held in Johannesburg, last month. The other two finalists nominated in this category were industrial gearbox repair and maintenance company Ultragear and asset management solutions provider Pragma.

Swiss-Swedish multinational technology group ABB has announced that it has commissioned six gearless mill drives (GMDs) at the open pit Mina de Cobre copper mine, in the Central American Republic of Panama, ahead of schedule. Installation of the GMDs started late last year. ABB describes them as the most powerful mill drive systems for semi-autogenous (SAG), ball and autogenous mills, that are currently on the market.

Global engineering group Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology is commissioning a comprehensive data analytics and information management system called OptiMine for base metals miner Vedanta Zinc International’s Black Mountain Mining (BMM) operation, in the Northern Cape. The OptiMine platform will assist BMM in accelerating its data-driven operation to achieve higher levels of safety, efficiency and productivity.