Новости за 22.03.2024

Mining explosives and chemicals company AECI, which turned 100 this week, will be unveiling a digital strategy for the mining market during the course of this year. It is also looking to become greener as it keeps innovation closest to its rapidly internationalising heart.

Independent precious metals authority LBMA has launched a major initiative to support the integration of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) into the legitimate global gold supply chain, through its 66 accredited refiners. The initiative takes the form of a ‘toolkit’ which addresses issues specific to the ASM sector, including legal titles, mining licences, formal regulatory oversight, and the existence of pre-refinery aggregators, as well as environmental issues. “While 20% of global gold production comes from [ASM]... Читать дальше...

Global miner Glencore has announced the retirement of board member Peter Coates effective May 29, after a 30-year association with Glencore. He joined the Glencore board in 2011 and has served as chairperson of the health and safety committee.

Lithium senior executive Brian Talbot is set to join lithium exploration and development company Atlas Lithium Corporation as COO and a member of the company’s board of directors on April 1. This strengthening of the executive team comes on the heels of the company’s early revenue strategy, with anticipated first revenues and production commencing in the first quarter of this year.

Namibia’s first gigawatt scale green hydrogen project – the $10-billion  Hyphen development scheme – this week received a major boost from Germany. The boost came in the form of the German government presenting a letter of intent to Enertrag, confirming the suitability of the project to be designated as a strategic foreign project.

UK-based engineering tech startup Salinity Solutions has secured a $1.27-million initial investment from battery-grade lithium chemicals producer Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile’s (SQM’s) corporate venture capital arm SQM Lithium Ventures to fund the next stage of its growth. SQM Lithium Ventures, in return, will take ownership of a minority stake in the company, with the option to acquire additional equity in the future.

The Biden administration is poised to award as much as $6.3-billion in dozens of grants to help hard-to-decarbonise industries cut emissions, according to people familiar with the matter. Details on the projects that have received funding are expected to be announced as soon as Monday, said the people, who asked not to be named as the information hasn’t been made public yet. The grants will be spread across sectors such as cement, glass, chemicals, metals, and pulp and paper, they said.

Aim-listed Cadence Minerals has completed a capital expenditure optimisation programme at the Amapá iron-ore project, in Brazil, identifying significant savings in processing plant recommissioning, as well as an opportunity to increase production. The optimisation study was conducted at a prefeasibility study (PFS) level and marks an important milestone in the company’s progress towards achieving cost-efficient and sustainable operations, it says in a statement issued on March 22.

Canada-headquartered vanadium miner Largo says its financial results continued to be adversely affected by lower vanadium prices in the year ended December 31, particularly a 22% year-on-year decrease in the European vanadium pentoxide price in the last quarter of the year. The company sold 10 396 t of vanadium pentoxide, from its Maracás Menchen mine, in Brazil, in the year under review.

A growing group of Glencore investors are keen for it to keep mining coal instead of spinning out the soon-to-be enlarged unit, with one eye on its financial outlook and another on the environmental benefits of keeping the fuel in-house. Echoing a demand last week by activist Tribeca Investment Partners, investors said the polluting fossil fuel would be a lucrative option - for a decade or two at least - even as it is phased out in favour of renewable energy.

The US has backed two Australian-listed rare earths projects with up to $850-million of funding as Western nations build a supply chain for the strongly magnetic metals used in sectors from renewable energy to defence. Australian Strategic Materials ASM.AX said on Thursday it has received a letter of interest (LoI) for a debt funding package of up to $600 million from the US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) to support construction of its Dubbo rare earths project northwest of Sydney.

Chilean miner Antofagasta Minerals on Thursday inaugurated a more than $2 billion desalination plant for its flagship copper mine in Chile, Los Pelambres, aimed at relieving the effects of severe drought that has hit production. The mine is the first to operate with desalinated water in an area of the country that has suffered a 15-year drought, sucking water from reservoirs and sparking concern over the fresh water supply.