Новости за 07.07.2020

Uranium exploration company Baselode Energy has acquired the Hook uranium property, in the Athabasca basin area of northern Saskatchewan, Canada, in line with its Athabasca 2.0 exploration thesis, which is set to target basement hosted uranium near surface deposits. Hook, which covers around 30 000 ha within the basement rocks adjacent to the southeast edge of the Athabasca basin, is Baselode’s second recent uranium property acquisition in the region.

Australia-based minerals company Aura Energy (AEE) has signed a C$4.5-million (A$4.8-million) funding term sheet for the creation of a joint venture (JV) vehicle with TSX-listed Chilean Metals for Aura’s gold, base- and battery-metal tenements in Mauritania. The deal, which is subject to due diligence, is nonbinding and includes Aura’s Tasiast South tenements, which lie over 435 km2 and are in a highly prospective area lying on two lightly explored mineralised greenstone belts.

Gold-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded their seventh consecutive month of positive flows, adding 104 t in June (equivalent to $5.6-billion or 2.7% of assets under management (AUM)) and taking global holdings to new all-time highs of over 3 621 t. This brings the total global net inflows for the first half of the year to 734 t ($39.5-billion), significantly above the highest level of yearly inflows, both in tonnage terms (646 t in 2019) and dollar value ($23-billion in 2016).

Mining Weekly incorrectly reported on July 7 that ASX-listed Kogi Iron had received a large investment from European fund management company Torridon Investments Research to develop its Agbaja cast steel project, in Nigeria. However, Torridon, which is a European fund manager with billions of dollars of resources assets under management, had only expressed, in a research note, Kogi Iron's value proposition.

Despite disruptions during the first quarter, global coal production is expected to reach more than 8.1-billion tonnes this year, says data and analytics company GlobalData. A 7.8% fall in production in the US will be a major factor in the overall limited output, the company says, noting that this will be offset by an increase in production from India (8.3%), Indonesia (5%) and Russia (3%), as coal mines in those countries continued to operate during Covid-19-related lockdowns.

The Australia-Africa Minerals and Energy Group’s (Aameg’s) premier event for recognising best practice in mineral exploration across the African continent will be having its second iteration on November 4 as part of the Africa Down Under (ADU) conference in Perth, Australia. The event was founded in 2019 to celebrate Australian companies in the minerals and energy sector that champion a transparent, equitable and mutually beneficial mineral resources industry in Africa.

Uranium major Kazatomprom is delaying the resumption of higher production volumes by another month, saying that pandemic-related risks remain too high for a full return of production employees to its sites. The company in April reduced its uranium production volumes as it implemented physical distancing measures, reducing the number of employees on site to a minimum. Kazatomprom CEO Galymzhan Pirmatov says the company plans to gradually increase mine site staff levels at the beginning of August, if it is deemed safe to do so.

A recent gold geochemical sampling programme at TSX-V-listed GoviEx Uranium’s Falea uranium/copper/silver project, in Mali, has highlighted significant gold in soil anomalies that show the potential extensions of the Sirabaya West and the Siribaya-Bambadinka gold trends through, and potentially intersecting within, the Falea project. The presence of these gold in soil anomalies occurring along similar structural trends with the Falea project, positively signals the mineral potential of the Falea project, GoviEx said on July 7.

Russia’s ecological watchdog said the diesel spill from a tank owned by MMC Norilsk Nickel in May caused 148-billion rubles ($2-billion) of damage in the Arctic. The vast majority of the damage was to waterways that are linked to the Kara Sea, according to the report from the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources, known as Rosprirodnadzor. The accident was the largest ever in the Arctic region. About 20 000 t (150 000 bbl) of diesel spilled when a fuel tank owned by one of Nornickel’s power plants collapsed... Читать дальше...

Coal companies received at least $170-million in small business loans under the US government’s coronavirus relief programme, according to data released Monday. Ramaco Resources of Kentucky, JRL Coal of Georgia and Knight Hawk Coal of Illinois were among the 449 coal companies that received funds through the $669-billion Paycheck Protection Program, overseen by the US Small Business Administration. About 20 coal companies received at least $5-million. Hundreds of others got $1-million or less.

Lithium miner Galaxy Resources on Tuesday said that it was still on target for Stage 1 ore production at the Sal de Vida project, in Argentina, in 2022, despite the Covid-19 pandemic impacting the development schedule of the project. Galaxy in April this year suspended operations at Sal de Vida after the Argentina government issued a nation-wide lockdown to contain the spread of the virus.