Новости за 06.02.2020

Barrick Gold is not looking to merge with copper miner Freeport-McMoran, CEO Mark Bristow said on Thursday, although he is interested in the company's Grasberg mine in Indonesia, and indicated he wants to expand in the Pacific Rim. Rumours the world's second-largest gold miner planned to combine with Freeport are "completely wrong", Bristow told Reuters on the sidelines of the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town.

The Finnish government gave the green light on Thursday for state-owned Terrafame to extract and refine uranium in eastern Finland, paving the way for the country to become the European Union's only uranium producer. Terrafame is backed by commodities house Trafigura. It plans to produce uranium at a mine in the Kainuu region that has been producing nickel and other metals for batteries for years, and was previously known as Talvivaara. Terrafame took over the mine in 2015 after environmental hurdles had led the mine to file for bankruptcy.

JSE- and NYSE-listed Harmony Gold its headline earnings per share (HEPS) and earnings per share (EPS) for the six months ended December 31, to be 249c, or 6 325%, higher year-on-year. In dollar terms, HEPS and EPS are expected to be $0.17 a share, compared with $0.00 for the six months ended December 31, 2018.

Vancouver-headquartered South Star Mining has announced the results of a prefeasibility study (PFS) for its Santa Cruz graphite project, in Bahia, Brazil, which the company plans to develop in a two-phase approach. Phase 1 will be a pilot plant operation with the capacity to produce 5 000 t/y of concentrate, which will provide South Star with short-term cash flow and allow it to qualify bulk samples in the market place.

An appeal hearing against the integrated water-use licence (Iwul) granted to Aim-listed emerging phosphate producer Kropz’s Elandsfontein project, in the Western Cape, resumed on Thursday.

Canadian mining company Ivanhoe Mines co-chairperson Robert Friedland this week told delegates at the Investing in African Mining Indaba that the world was shifting towards zero emissions transportation and that this will likely result in shortages of 'green' metals, like platinum and copper. He pointed out that global automotive manufacturers were investing $300-billion in electric vehicles (EVs) as the world moves away from internal combustion engines.

Canadian gold miner Iamgold has published an updated mineral resource estimate for the Pitangui project – a grass roots discovery made by the company’s Brazilian exploration team. The updated resource estimate, based on an underground mining scenario, comprises an indicated resource of 3.33-million tonnes grading 4.39 g/t gold for 0.47-million contained ounces and an inferred resource of 3.56-million tonnes grading 3.78 g/t for 0.43-million contained ounces, at a cut-off grade of 2.5 g/t.

Angolan State-owned diamond mining company Endiama plans to sell as much as 30% of its shares in an initial public offering in 2022. The sale is part of a government plan to increase transparency in the diamond sector and bolster production, chairperson Jose Manuel Ganga Junior said in an interview in Cape Town. Angola is the world’s seventh-biggest diamond producer.

Nigeria expects its mining sector to grow to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) within the next five years from just 0.3% currently as the government seeks to diversify the economy away from oil, the minister for mines and steel development said on Wednesday. Nigeria has been trying to boost the sector as part of efforts to diversify its economy. Gold, lead, zinc, limestone and coal are among seven strategic minerals Nigeria has identified for investment.

The Minerals Council South Africa is no longer just the voice of the mining majors, Grant Mitchell, who heads up the council's Junior and Emerging Miners Desk pointed out in a briefing at the 2020 Investing in African Mining Indaba, this week. He highlighted that 40% of the Minerals Council's members were junior miners.

Mining companies and host governments have been urged to take a long-term view when investing in the natural resources sector in Africa. In a panel discussion on why investors should consider investing in Africa, Vedanta Resources CEO Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan (Venkat) highlighted the continent's "phenomenal potential" given its natural resources endowment.

The president and CEO of German multinational conglomerate Siemens, Joe Kaeser, has told a press conference in Munich that the company might have taken the decision not to get involved in the Carmichael coal project had it been aware of anti-coal sentiments in the region. Siemens in December last year inked a contract with Indian major Adani to provide signalling for the project, a move which has caused a significant backlash from environmental groups. Siemens in January decided to uphold the contract... Читать дальше...

ASX-listed coal miner Universal Coal has urged shareholders not to take any action around a proposed takeover offer from fellow-listed TerraCom. TerraCom earlier this week announced its intentions to buy the South Africa-focused Universal for A$175-million, offering Universal shareholders 10c in cash and 0.6062 of its own shares for every Universal share held. The offer valued Universal shares at 33.5c each, and represented a premium of 42.6% to Universal’s last closing price.

Diversified mining company Teck Resources says bad weather in British Columbia will slash its first-quarter steelmaking coal sales by one-million tonnes. Steelmaking coal sales will be in a range of 5.1-million to 5.4-million tonnes for the first three months of the year, Teck said on Wednesday. Among other issues, heavy snow and extreme cold in January and rock and mud slides have affected rail lines and adjacent highways, the mining company said, adding that ongoing heavy rains had delayed remediation work.

China’s copper buyers are asking Chilean miners to delay shipments due to port shutdowns, adding to tumult in global commodity trade in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. While the suppliers haven’t reported any contract breaches, they have verbally agreed with clients to reschedule some deliveries, according to Victor Garay, market coordinator for Cochilco, the copper commission in Chile -- the world’s biggest miner of the metal. “Just like airlines don’t want to go to China, ocean freight... Читать дальше...

State-owned Transnet says it is planning to ramp up the amount of coal it transports by rail to power utility Eskom's power stations to 32.5-million tonnes over the next five years, starting with a small increase over the next year. Chief customer officer Mike Fanucchi on Wednesday said Transnet currently transported about 7.6-million tonnes of coal by rail to Eskom's power stations.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the country’s biggest labour federation, said significant progress was made on Wednesday in its talks with government and business over its proposed plan to cut Eskom Holdings' debt. “There were broad in-principle agreements” said Matthew Parks, Cosatu’s parliamentary coordinator, in an interview. There was a agreement “there needs to be a big bang intervention,” he said, adding that that applied to other areas of the economy as well as Eskom.

Diamond miner Lucara Diamond Corporation has recovered an unbroken 549 ct white diamond "of exceptional purity" from its Karowe mine, in Botswana. The diamond was recovered from direct milling of ore sourced from the EM/PK(S) unit of the South Lobe. This follows the recent recovery of a gem-quality 176 ct diamond from the same ore block.