Новости за 17.10.2022

Aluminium prices dropped on Monday as inventories in London Metal Exchange (LME) warehouses jumped, fuelling fears of unwanted Russian-origin metal in the LME system, traders said. Benchmark aluminium on the LME was down 2.3% at $2 252 a tonne at 10:37 GMT.

Zambia, Africa's second-largest copper producer, said on Monday the number of mining licences that a company can hold at a time will be restricted to five to curb speculative purchases within the country's licensing system. The ministry of mines in February suspended the issuance of mining licences and commissioned an audit in response to public complaints about a lack of transparency.

Junior Pacific Nickel will raise A$5.2-million in a share placement to advance the development of its Kolosori nickel project, in the Solomon Islands. The ASX-listed company on Monday announced that it had successfully arranged for the placement of more than 75.3-million shares, at a price of 7c each. The issue price represents a 21.3% discount to the company’s last traded price on the ASX.

Toronto-based Sherritt International on Friday announced that it had reached an agreement with its Cuban partners to settle C$361.9-million of outstanding receivables over the next five years. Under the agreements, the Moa joint venture (Moa JV) would prioritise payment of dividends in the form of finished cobalt to each partner, up to a yearly maximum volume of cobalt, with any additional dividends in a given year to be distributed in cash.

Aim- and TSX-listed Horizonte Minerals has awarded engineering services company Wood the contract to undertake the feasibility study for the Vermelho nickel/cobalt project, in Brazil. Vermelho is a large high-grade, long mine life, scalable resource, designed to produce 25 000 t/y of nickel and 1 250 t/y of cobalt over a 38-year mine life.

Base metals miner Consolidated Zinc on Monday announced that Industrias Penoles had exercised its option to purchase all of the zinc concentrate produced at the Plomosas operation, in Mexico, between January and December next year. As part of the zinc concentrate offtake agreement, Penoles has an additional one-year option to extend the zinc concentrate purchases to the end of December 2023.

Vale Canada, a subsidiary of Brazil’s Vale Group, last week opened the initial phase of its C$945-million Copper Cliff Complex South mine project, in Sudbury, enhancing its supply of nickel and other critical minerals. The first phase will nearly double the ore production at the Copper Cliff mine, adding about 10 000 t/y of contained nickel and 13 000 t/y of copper.

Supervisors at Antofagasta Los Pelambres copper mine in Chile have reached a new contract agreement with the firm that includes wage increases, bonuses and various benefits, the union said late on Thursday, avoiding the risk of a strike. Two weeks ago, 94% of the union members voted in favor of a walk-off after failing to reach an agreement in the formal negotiation period. Local law requires a five-day government mediation period, which can be extended to 10 days, to find a solution.

ASX-listed Equus Mining will suspend stockpile processing operations at its Cerro Bayo gold/silver project, in Chile, placing the processing infrastructure on care and maintenance. The company on Monday said that this decision has been made after significant effort over the last few months to optimise the project to generate positive cashflow. Processing will continue over the next week as remaining relatively higher grade stockpile ore is fed to the processing plant.

A scoping study for the Alaska Range copper/gold project, in the US, has proven positive for ASX-listed PolarX, with the company saying the study results justified additional investment on drilling to increase the mineral resource base. The scoping study is based on the sequential mining of the Zackly and Caribou Dome deposits, using one plant modified for each. Mining will start underground at Zackly and at Caribou Dome would start as a shallow, high-grade openpit, prior to moving underground.

The definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the Cabinda phosphate project, in Angola, has estimated a capital requirement of $48.5-million to develop the project, with owner Minbos Resources saying it would only require some $40-million in funding after allocating existing cash. The DFS is based on a 187 500 t/y operating capacity, delivering 236 000 t/y of fertilizer over a project life of some 20 years, based on a maiden ore reserve of 4.72-million tonnes at 30.1% phosphates at the Cácata Phosphate mine.