August Newsletter – 02.08.2021
HEADLINES
- Sediment plumes from deep-sea mining become turbulent cloud
- African rare earth projects moving forward despite challenges – report
- Rio Tinto readies to ship trial lithium plant to Serbia
- La Mancha unveils mining fund to hold existing assets and onboards new strategic investor
- Australia’s Jervois Mining to buy Finland-based Freeport Cobalt for $160 million
- Top Australian capital raises seek to create mining value
- UK could bar China firm from nuclear projects: report
Sediment plumes from deep-sea mining become turbulent cloud
Midwater sediment plumes that are discharged through pipes used by mining machinery that descend 1,000 meters or more into the ocean’s aphotic zone become a highly turbulent cloud of suspended particles that mix rapidly with the surrounding ocean water, when initially pumped out.
New research by oceanographers at MIT, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and other institutions made this discovery after carrying out the first-ever experiment to study the sediment plume that mining vessels would potentially release back into the ocean.
Based on their observations, they developed a model that makes realistic predictions of how a sediment plume generated by mining operations would be transported through the ocean.
In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications: Earth and Environment, the scientists explain that the model predicts the size, concentration, and evolution of sediment plumes under various marine and mining conditions. These predictions, they say, can now be used by biologists and environmental regulators to gauge whether and to what extent such plumes would impact surrounding sea life.
https://www.mining.com/sediment-plumes-from-deep-sea-mining-become-turbulent-cloud/
African rare earth projects moving forward despite challenges – report
A recent report by Roskill commends the efforts by a number of African countries to establish a diversified rare earths supply chain but points out that developing projects that satisfy all parties involved comes with several challenges.
According to the market analyst, it is likely that most of such emerging projects will involve the export of rare earth mineral concentrates to other refining and separation facilities around the world.
As examples, Roskill put the spotlight on Rainbow Rare Earths’ Gakara development in Burundi which, despite being small scale (262-375,000 tonnes high-grade veins at 7-12% TREO and 252-342,000 tonnes low-grade Breccia at 1.0-1.5% TREO), has made encouraging announcements, such as their distribution agreement with ThyssenKrupp Material Trading and their co-operation agreement for downstream processing with TechMet.
Similarly, the market analyst brought to the forefront Australia’s Peak Resources, whose management announced on July 22, 2021, that the Tanzanian government has approved the special mining licence application needed to go ahead with the Ngualla rare earth project, considered one of the largest and highest grade undeveloped neodymium and praseodymium projects in the world.
https://www.mining.com/african-rare-earth-projects-moving-forward-despite-challenges-report/
Rio Tinto readies to ship trial lithium plant to Serbia
Jadarite, a lithium sodium borosilicate mineral Rio Tinto found in Serbia.
Rio Tinto Ltd is set to ship a pilot lithium processing plant to Serbia from Melbourne in the coming weeks, the culmination of a decade’s research to catapult the world’s largest iron ore miner into battery minerals.
The work, undertaken at a science hub on the outskirts of Melbourne, has found a way to economically extract lithium from jadarite, a mineral that has only been found in a Serbian valley.
Rio last week hit the go button on the $2.4-billion project that will diversify the producer of iron ore, copper, aluminium and specialty minerals into a top ten lithium producer, just as demand from electric vehicle makers booms.
“It’s not a huge mine but from a lithium perspective, it’s going to be the largest producer in Europe for at least ten years and bring lithium to the market at scale,” Sinead Kaufman, Chief Executive of Rio’s Minerals division, told reporters.
https://www.mining.com/web/rio-tinto-readies-to-ship-trial-lithium-plant-to-serbia/
La Mancha unveils mining fund to hold existing assets and onboards new strategic investor
Luxembourg, 26 July 2021 – La Mancha Holding S.à.r.l. (“La Mancha”) is pleased to announce the creation of La Mancha Fund SCSp (“the Fund”), a Luxembourg-based deep value, longonly fund dedicated primarily to gold mining, which will be advised by La Mancha Capital Advisory LLP (“LMCA”)1
The first closing has just been completed with the receipt of all of La Mancha’s gold mining assets2 as well as an investment of USD 100 million from a strategic partner now investing alongside the Sawiris family. As of today’s date, the Fund is invested in excess of USD 1.4 billion in assets and is assessing a number of new opportunities. The Fund will in due course be open to other qualified investors.
Naguib Sawiris, Chairman of the Board of Managers of La Mancha, said: “Creating a fund is the natural consequence of what we have been doing since we vended-in our operational assets into Evolution and Endeavour in 2015. Transitioning to a fund structure and welcoming new investors is timely when we are seeing opportunities in a gold mining sector which is fragmented and needs further consolidation.
“LMCA will be supported by an advisory committee which I will chair and that will include a number of well-known personalities in the mining sector, many of whom have a long history of working with and advising La Mancha”.
https://enterprise.press/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Phoenix-Press-Release-20210723-vdef8.pdf
Australia’s Jervois Mining to buy Finland-based Freeport Cobalt for $160 million
(Reuters) – Australian miner Jervois Mining said on Tuesday it would buy Finland-based Freeport Cobalt for $160 million in a deal that could make it the second largest cobalt producer outside China.
The miner said the acquisition would be funded through an A$313 million ($230.90 million) underwritten equity raising, with Jervois’ largest shareholder, AustralianSuper, committing to invest about A$50 million.
Geneva-based commodity trading giant Mercuria is also set to invest up to $40 million as part of the equity raise, Jervois added.
The deal comes close on the heels of a $100 million bond offering by Jervois last week to help fund the construction of its Idaho cobalt operation in the United States, which is slated to start production in mid-2022.
Top Australian capital raises seek to create mining value
Regis Resources’ 30%-owned Tropicana gold mine site. View of southern end of Havana Pit with 793F haulers and other large mining equipment. Photo courtesy of AngloGold Ashanti.
Australia-headquartered miners have been tapping the capital markets in the year to July 14 to raise a total of $2.33 billion in capital, according to an analysis by the Northern Miner’s sister company Mining Intelligence. The financings offer the companies firepower to execute their respective value creation strategies.
The Mining Intelligence data shows the money was raised via 36 rights offerings that attracted $1.15 billion in capital and 81 private placements raising $965.52 million, among other methods of capital raising.
Leading the lineup is Regis Resources (ASX: RRL), which raised about $155 million in April and another $348.5 million in May.
https://www.mining.com/top-australian-capital-raises-seek-to-create-mining-value/
UK could bar China firm from nuclear projects: report
It comes as UK-China relations have become increasingly strained on issues ranging from espionage and cyberattacks to human rights and Hong Kong.
Britain is investigating ways to block China’s state-owned nuclear energy company from all future power projects in the UK, amid chilling relations between London and Beijing, according to reports Monday.
The move could see China General Nuclear (CGN) excluded from several projects, including a consortium planning to build a nuclear plant on the Suffolk coast in eastern England, according to the Financial Times.
British government sources told the newspaper ministers and officials’ discussions to bar CGN could also impact another planned plant in Essex, southeast England.
It comes as UK-China relations have become increasingly strained on issues ranging from espionage and cyberattacks to human rights and Hong Kong.
Under pressure from some within his own ruling Conservative party to be tougher on Beijing, Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier this year told MPs Britain must have a “clear-eyed relationship” with the rising power.
London angered Beijing by last year banning Chinese telecoms group Huawei from involvement in its 5G network after the United States raised spying fears.
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