Новости за 12.05.2022

South Africa's mining production decreased by 9.3% year-on-year in March, with the largest negative contributors being gold, iron-ore, manganese ore and platinum group metals. Diamond production, which increased by 44.3% year-on-year, made a significant positive contribution to the overall figure.

The energy crisis in Zambia had created a situation in which the country could combine increasing its electricity generation capacity with a simultaneous transition to low-carbon renewable energy sources. This was pointed out to Mining Weekly Online by Zambian State-owned group ZCCM Investments Holdings board chairperson Dolika Banda in an exclusive interview at the Mining Indaba 2022 conference in Cape Town, on Thursday. “Our energy situation is untenable,” she affirmed. “Electricity is unreliable and power outages are frequent. Читать дальше...

Uzbek copper, silver and gold producer Almalyk Mining and Metals Combine (AGMK) announced a tender on Thursday to hire an underwriter to conduct an IPO on the local stock exchange this year. According to the announcement on the Uzbek Republican Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange, the deadline to submit applications is June 7, and its offered starting cost for the service is $9-million.

Any just transition, particularly in Africa and South Africa, needs to be job centered, says World Coal Association CEO Michelle Manook. Speaking at the Just Transition & The Future of Coal in Africa panel at the Investing in African Mining Indaba 2022, held this week, she noted that coal-fired power plants employed 113 000 people directly in South Africa alone, with the sector supporting another 340 000 indirect and induced jobs.

Copper prices tumbled on Thursday to their lowest in seven months and other industrial metals fell as traders worried that a slowing global economy would require less metal. With inflation surging and interest rates rising, growth fears also pushed down oil prices and stock markets hit a one-and-a-half-year low.  The dollar, meanwhile, reached a new 20-year high against a basket of major rivals, making dollar-priced metals costlier for buyers with other currencies.

Junior exploration company Arc Minerals has entered into an agreement with a subsidiary of diversified miner Anglo American, which formalises the parties’ intention to form a joint venture (JV) with respect to Arc’s copper/cobalt project in the North-Western province of Zambia. Under the agreement, Anglo will have the right to earn a 70% interest in the JV for an aggregate investment of up to $88.5-million, including a cash consideration of up to $14.5-million, while Arc will retain the remaining 30%.

While a large proportion of artisanal or small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Africa is illegitimate, companies operating in the large-scale gold mining (LSGM) sector in Africa should work to support responsible and legitimate ASGM operations wherever feasible and help them access the formal global gold market, market development organisation World Gold Council (WGC) CFO Terry Heymann told Mining Weekly on May 11. Flows of illicit product are increased by the inability of some legitimate ASGM production... Читать дальше...

FutureSmart Mining, together with its longstanding innovation and technology programmes, is part of what makes diamond company De Beers stand out as “the world’s leading diamond company”, says De Beers Group managed operations MD Moses Madondo. “De Beers has been an industry leader in innovation and technology, whether it’s in exploration, recovery, the sale of rough diamonds, consumer confidence or marketing and research,” he says, adding that he has been “impressed by the amount of technological... Читать дальше...

Hochschild Mining plans to invest about $200-million in the construction of a gold mine in Brazil, a project it will launch in the second quarter of the year, CEO Ignacio Bustamante told Reuters on Wednesday. The construction of the Mara Rosa mine, a project it acquired last year for $120-million, will be ready to start production in the first half of 2024, the executive said during a mining business forum in Lima.

A strong resources sector, which has continued to operate through much of the Covid-19 pandemic, along with higher commodity prices has assisted in Western Australia in reporting an expected operating surplus of A$5.7-billion for 2021-22. Premier Mark McGowan on Thursday pointed out that the domestic economy grew by 7.2% over the two years of the pandemic, the strongest in the nation, with more than two and a half times the growth of the rest of the country - among the best performing in the world.

Rio Tinto, Freeport-McMoRan and other global miners, spurred by rising prices and demand, are deploying a raft of new leaching technologies that can extract low concentrations of copper from waste rock and help avoid lengthy mine permitting delays. Copper prices have nearly doubled in the past two years largely due to the electric vehicle industry's growth, with the demand prompting miners to find faster ways to produce the metal.

Mining majors BHP, Rio Tinto and Vale have selected eight technology innovators’ submissions to progress beyond the Charge On Innovation Challenge. The global challenge is aimed at accelerating the commercialisation of effective solutions for charging large electric haul trucks while simultaneously demonstrating there is an emerging market for these solutions in mining.