April Newsletters – 11.04.16
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Behre Dolbear is sponsoring the 121 Mining Investment, London, 14-15th April 2016.
Tanya Matveeva, Senior Geologist will be speaking at the 7th Central Asian Mining and Exploration Forum, 19-21 April, Astana, on behalf of Behre Dollar.
Behre Dolbear is sponsoring the SME’s 4th Current Trends in Mining Finance Conference on April 24-27th in New York City.
TOP NEWS
Anglo American Just Won’t Sell the Mines Its Rivals Really Want
Agnieszka De Sousa Thomas Biesheuvel Bloomberg April 5, 2016
- El Soldado mine sale hampered by current copper market
- Anglo’s head of copper speaks in interview in Santiago
For Anglo American Plc, life would have to get a whole lot worse before it considers selling its best copper mines.
“We don’t need to sell them. Anglo is not in that position,” Hennie Faul, Anglo’s copper chief, said in an interview in Santiago, Chile on Monday. The entire industry would be in turmoil for Anglo to have to sell its prime assets, he said.
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Revealed: Kazakhstan tilt at West
Richard Wachman Mining Journal 05 Apr 2016
Kazakhstan has been hit by the economic slowdown with Control Risks telling Mining Journal the giant Central Asian country (it’s larger than the whole of western Europe) could be in recession this year for the first time since 1998.
The slump in oil and gas prices is a sizeable blow for a country that derives 57% of export income from a sector that has been hammered over the past nine months.
No wonder president Nursultan Nazarbayev has launched an offensive to make his country more attractive to foreign directive investment (FDI) from the West.
A big focus this year is on publishing a new mining code, one based more on the Western Australia model, experts told Mining Journal.
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Responsible mining standards published ahead of global certification programme launch
Samantha Herbst Creamer Media 5th April 2016
The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) has published the second and revised draft of its Standard for Responsible Mining, which it released on Tuesday for public comment and a sixty-day review.The standard would form part of a multisector effort to certify the social and environmental performance of industrial-scale mine sites. This would be the first-ever global certification programme of its kind, planned to get under way later this year. The draft of revised standards reflected input from more than 1 400 points of comment contributed by over 70 organisations and individuals worldwide, including mining industry stakeholders and technical experts.
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Polymetal Buys Kazakhstan Gold Deposit From Glencore Unit
Anatoly Medetsky Bloomberg April 4, 2016
Polymetal International Plc bought a gold mine in Kazakhstan from a unit of Glencore Plc for $100 million.
Payment for the Komarovskoye deposit will come from Polymetal’s existing cash and available credit lines, the company said in a Russian regulatory filing. The deposit’s inferred resources are estimated at 28 metric tons, according to the filing.
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COMMODITIES
Potash Corp. may reduce 2016 guidance: CIBC
Peter Koven Financial Post April 4, 2016
Potash prices have continued to decline in recent weeks, putting significant pressure on the producers. As a result, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.’s 2016 earnings guidance — which was announced barely two months ago — is already looking shaky, according to CIBC World Markets analyst Jacob Bout.
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China’s coming for your copper project
Frik Els
“We all know there are not many Las Bambas out there, it’s not easy to develop a huge mine”
While global copper production was up 3.5% in 2015, Chinese output declined.
At 1.66 million tonnes, China’s mine production accounts for 8.7% of global supply of just over 19 million tonnes last year. That contrasts with Chinese demand for the metal which is expected to grow to 46% of worldwide copper consumption by 2018.
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Precious metal: Is Nevada on the verge of a lithium rush?
Daniel Rothberg, VegasInc
About five years ago, prospectors rushed to Nevada seeking a key component of the batteries that power the modern economy, one reliant on cellphones and laptops.
The rush made sense, at first. The state was home to the only active lithium extraction operation in North America. Unlike in other regions with known lithium deposits, like South America and Australia, Nevada’s deposits are easier to reach for executives at mining companies, most of which are headquartered in Canada. The state also has a stable regulatory process.
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LEGAL AND REGULATORY
Canada unveils final anti-corruption law for the extractive sector
Cecilia Jamasmie, April 7, 2016
Canada has released a final version of its rules governing extractive sector transparency, which forces all publicly listed local miners to report payments including taxes, royalties, fees and production entitlements of $100,000 or more to governments both home and abroad.
The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, which came into force in June last year, requires large Canadian oil, gas and mining companies to publish detailed records of the payments they make overseas and locally.
Sums paid to aboriginal governments in Canada will not fall under the law until June 1, 2017.
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Venezuela ordered to pay Crystallex US$1.386 billion in arbitration ruling
Peter Koven Finanical Post April 5, 2016
An arbitration tribunal has ordered the Venezuelan government to pay a whopping US$1.386 billion to Canadian miner Crystallex International Corp., saying the state caused all of Crystallex’s investments “to become worthless.”
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Firm owned by Zuma friends seeks new auditor after KPMG South Africa walks away
Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng Reuters Apr 5, 2016
Oakbay Resources and Energy, a South African firm owned by friends of Jacob Zuma, has started searching for new auditors after KPMG resigned due to a scandal over their relationship with the president, the company said on Tuesday.
Oakbay, which is owned by the Guptas, a family of Indian-born businessmen, also lost investment bank Sasfin as an advisor in March, two days after a newspaper suggested the Guptas may have had a hand in Zuma’s sacking of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in December.
Sasfin’s relationship with Oakbay will formally end on June 1 while KPMG stopped auditing the 16 billion rand ($1.1 bln) company’s books from March 29.
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FINANCIAL
GB Minerals arranges $11.18M (U.S.) private placement
ET – News Release
Mr. Luis da Silva reports
GB MINERALS LTD. ANNOUNCES PROPOSED US$11,185,000 PRIVATE PLACEMENT
The company intends to use the net proceeds from the placement for expenses and development of the company’s Farim phosphate mineral property, to meet the company’s financial obligations and operational commitments, and to finance litigation involving GBM Minerals Engineering Consultants Ltd.
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PROJECTS
New Saudi gold mine starts producing 180,000-oz operation about 450 km southwest of Riyadh
Andrew Topf
The Ad Duwayhi gold mine in Saudi Arabia has begun commercial production, Saudi Arabian Mining Co. (Ma’aden) (TADAWUL:1211) said on Sunday.
The mine will produce an estimated 180,000 ounces per year, with output reaching full capacity by the end of this year, said Ma’aden, Saudi Arabia’s largest mining group.
In a statement, the company said the mine in western Saudi Arabia had 1.9 million ounces in reserves, as of December 31.
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Vancouver junior off to the races on Red Lake drilling
Frik Els
Pure Gold Mining Inc. (CVE:PGM) stock jumped 14.6% on Monday after releasing results from drilling at its Madsen Gold Project in northwest Ontario.
By the close the small-cap changed hands at $0.275, on the Toronto Stock Exchange in higher than usual volumes, affording the company a market worth just over $33 million on the venture board.
Pure Gold has more than doubled in value over the past two months following impressive drilling at its 100%-owned property in the Red Lake District.
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NexGen to drill continuously throughout spring break-up at Arrow and commences construction on all-season rook i access road
Canada NewsWire VANCOUVER, April 4, 2016
VANCOUVER, April 4, 2016 /CNW/ – NexGen Energy Ltd. (“NexGen” or the “Company”) (TSXV:NXE, OTCQX:NXGEF) is pleased to announce that drilling in 2016 will continue uninterrupted from the end of the winter through to the commencement of summer. Additionally, the Company has been approved and issued a permit to construct an all-season access road to our project located on our 100% owned Rook I Property, Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan.
As a result of the winter 2016 program success, the Company has decided to continue its drill program uninterrupted through the shoulder season of mid-April to early-June before the summer 2016 program is scheduled to begin. This shoulder season program will comprise 7,500 m drilled with three diamond drill rigs that will all be utilizing TECH directional drilling. This program will focus on the 180 m southwest extension of Arrow (see News Releases dated March 15 and 30, 2016) and the infilling the A2 High Grade Domain (which includes the higher grade A2 sub-zone). The budget for this program is $3 million.
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MMC NORILSK NICKEL: SBERBANK AGREES $800M PROJECT FINANCE
Moscow, Mining Business Media, Apr 4
Russian banker Sberbank has approved a $US800M credit facility over 8 years to finance construction of Norilsk Nickel’s Bystrinskiy mining and concentration complex in Zabaykalsky Kray.
Norilsk CFO Sergey Malyshev says the Sberbank project financing deal is without recourse to the miner, and builds on their close cooperation over several years. The company aims to begin production in 2017 at its proposed 10Mtpa copper-gold-iron project.
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Testing times for DRC mining firms
Jean Kassongo in Kinshasa, DRC April 5, 2016
KINSHASA, (CAJ News) -The mining industry in the Democratic Republic of Congo has to cut costs and embrace innovation and technology to overcome the incessant challenges besetting the sector.
Ahead of a major summit in the industry, the mining sector is going through a challenging year amid structural and financial issues as well as energy woes that have hampered the viability and the productivity of companies’ current operations.
“There is no doubt that 2016 is a challenging year for the mining sector and therefore, also for the DRC,” said Elodie Delagneau, event director for the upcoming DRC Mining Week that is scheduled for June in Lubumbashi, the heart of DRC’s Katanga mining region.
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INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Meet the new system that could cut coal-plant emissions in half
Cecilia Jamasmie
Only three months after world leaders meeting in Paris signed a sweeping deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a team of American scientists has designed a hybrid system that could boost efficiency of coal-powered plants, cutting emissions in half.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are proposing a combined system that has the potential to generate electricity from coal with much greater efficiency — possibly reaching as much as twice the fuel-to-electricity efficiency of today’s conventional coal plants, according to the paper to be published in the May edition of The Journal of Power Sources.
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In mining slump, used equipment dealers stockpile in rebound bet
Rod Nickel and Anthony Esposito, April 6, 2016 Reuters
Dealers of used mining equipment, from the United States to Chile and Australia, are making a risky bet that an end to the industry’s four-year slump may be in sight, stocking up on a glut of crushers and conveyors.
Inventory is piling up as mines close or production slows. Buyers are especially scarce for highly specialized mineral-processing equipment, dealers say.
“We’re being flooded with machinery,” said Eduardo Bennett, business manager for Chilean used equipment seller Copal.
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