Новости за 09.03.2020

Investment in gold and coal exploration in Canada’s British Columbia continued to decrease in 2019, as investors are shifting their focus to base metals, particularly copper. However, with C$127-million put towards gold exploration, the yellow precious metal continues to attract the largest exploration spending out of the province’s total exploration spend of C$329-million in 2019. In its ‘British Columbia Mineral and Coal Exploration Survey’, published on Monday, advisory group EY reported that... Читать дальше...

Mining company Assore, which has been listed on the JSE since 1950, has announced a transaction that will result in the minorities in the company being bought out and the company delisting from the exchange. Commenting on the transaction, Assore CEO Charles Walters said that the very low liquidity of the share meant that many institutional shareholders could not easily invest in the company and those who were invested could not easily trade out of the share.

The reduction in the consumption of mined products that the coronavirus was causing would likely result in a drastic fall in prices, Menar MD Vuslat Bayoğlu said on Monday. Metals and minerals like manganese, chrome, iron-ore and metallurgical coal were not being consumed at the rate they were before the virus spread.

Research Agency Fitch Solutions has revised its 2020 copper price forecast upwards from $5 700/t to $5 900/t. This is on the back of the agency’s expectation that increased stimulus from the Chinese government will lift prices higher over the second half of the year.

JSE-listed Merafe Resources says low global demand and lower prices for ferrochrome had dampened its financial performance in the year ended December 31. The company reported a headline loss a share of 1.8c apiece, compared with headline earnings a share of 27.2c in the year ended December 31, 2018.

Development of TSX-listed Ivanhoe Mines’ Kakula mine, the first of multiple planned mining areas at Kamoa-Kakula, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is said to be making “excellent progress”, with civil works advancing rapidly and initial copper concentrate production from the mine on schedule for the third quarter of 2021. In parallel with the construction of Kamua-Kakula’s Phase 1 Kakula mine, work progressed on the independent Kakula definitive feasibility study (DFS) and an integrated... Читать дальше...

TSX-listed Nevada Copper has appointed investment professional Ricardo De Armas, from Castlelake, to its board of directors. Castlelake is a significant shareholder of the company. “Our recent emergence as a US copper producer, and our continued advancement of the Pumpkin Hollow project, means Nevada Copper is in a very exciting phase of growth and we look forward to working closely with Mr. De Armas,” comments nonexecutive chairperson Stephen Gill.

Moves by some of the world’s biggest banks to end coal financing for the sake of the planet was supposed to create major headaches for companies like Whitehaven Coal. Yet there was the Australian miner on a conference call last month announcing the refinancing and extension of a A$1-billion credit line, backed mostly by Chinese and Japanese lenders. “Our banking relationships are strong, we are really well supported,” CFO Kevin Ball said. “That might come as a little bit of a surprise to people... Читать дальше...

Copper developer Orion Minerals has been granted environmental authorisation (EA) for mining the Vardocube resource at its Prieska copper/zinc project, in the Northern Cape. The company told shareholders on Monday that the grant of the EA for the Vardocube resource, which covers the south-eastern strike extension of the Prieska orebody, followed the 2019 grant of a mining right at Prieska.

Cerrejon, one of Colombia's biggest coal producers, and its largest workers union on Friday concluded contract negotiations without reaching an agreement, the parties said. Union members will now vote on whether to strike or to go to arbitration with the company. "There was no agreement. We will call a vote between a strike and an arbitration," Igor Diaz, president of Sintracarbon, told Reuters in a message. "Right now we are closer to a strike than we are to a solution." "Negotiations remain ongoing," Cerrejon said in a message... Читать дальше...