African National Congress (ANC) MPs on Wednesday resolved to call Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane to explain his relationship with the Gupta family “now”. Parliament’s House Chair Cedric Frolick had earlier directed the committee to conduct an inquiry into allegations in the media of Zwane’s supposed corrupt relationship with the family.
DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The “Global Non-ferrous Castings Market 2017-2021” report has been added to Research and Markets’ offering. The global non-ferrous castings market to grow at a CAGR of 5.84% during the period 2017-2021. Global Non-ferrous Castings Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report also includes a discussion of the Key vendors operating in this market. To calculate the market size, the report considers t
Junior gold miner Silver Lake Resources has reported an increase in revenue on the back of higher gold sales for the financial year ended June.
Gold sales reached 137 000 oz, at an average sales price of A$1 654/oz, compared with the 132 400 oz sold during 2016 at an average price of A$1 580/oz.
DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The “Global Continuous Basalt Fiber Market 2017-2021” report has been added to Research and Markets’ offering. The global continuous basalt fiber market to grow at a CAGR of 11.07% during the period 2017-2021. Global Continuous Basalt Fiber Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market. To calculate the market size, the report c
Russian diamond mining group Alrosa has appointed former Sberbank VP Evgeny Agureev as director of its sales division.
Agureev is succeeding Yury Okoemov, who acted as director of the United Selling Organisation of Alrosa (USO).
DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The “Welding Consumables Market by Type – Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2023” report has been added to Research and Markets’ offering. The global welding consumables market was valued at $12,405 million in 2016, and is expected to reach at $18,286 million in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 5.7% from 2017 to 2023. Welding is a fabrication process performed to join materials, such as alloys and metals, efficiently by means of coalescence. It is an eff
Gold miner Saracen Mineral Holdings has reported a 10% increase in net profit after tax for the full year ended June, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 54%.
Saracen on Wednesday reported net profit of A$28.4-million, compared with A$25.9-million in 2016, while EBITDA rose to a record A$113.4-million, up from the A$73.5-million in 2016.
First production from the $1.4-billion Dugald River zinc project, in Queensland, has been brought forward from the first half of 2018 to late 2017, as the project development advances ahead of schedule.
ASX-listed MMG CEO Jerry Jiao on Wednesday said that with production of about 170 000 t/y of zinc-in-concentrate, and an increasingly strong price outlook for zinc, the Dugald River project was well timed and positioned to be within the world’s top ten zinc mines when operational.
Coal miner Atrum Coal has entered into a share sale deed to acquire Canadian firm Elan Coal’s coal properties in Alberta.
Atrum, through its subsidiary Kuro Coal Canada, in 2014 acquired a 70% interest in the Elan properties through a joint venture (JV) agreement, under which it spent C$7-million on exploration and the completion of a scoping study.
Gupta-owned Oakbay Investments has sold Tegeta Exploration and Resources to Swiss-based Charles King SA for R2.97-billion, it announced on Wednesday. This is the second sale announced by the Guptas this week. They announced on Monday that Oakbay would sell its media assets, broadcaster ANN7 and The New Age newspaper, to a firm set up in June by former government spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi.
Niche metal cobalt is leaving bigger names like copper and lithium in its dust, triggering a hunt for new deposits from Idaho to Chile.
As one of the key components in the new breed of rechargeable batteries and with supply dominated by the Democratic Republic of Congo, prices have surged at four times the pace of major metals in the past year.
India’s sole integrated copper producer, Hindustan Copper Limited (HCL), will invest $472-million in a new greenfield copper cathode plant, in central Indian province of Chhattisgarh.
The investment proposal has been submitted to the Mines Ministry and the Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs (CCEA), the apex federal government body for approval, HCL chairman, K D Diwan said this week.
LIMA, Peru–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Graña y Montero S.A.A. (NYSE:GRAM) (BVL:GRAMONC1) (“the Company” or “Graña y Montero”) a leading Engineering and Construction company, announced today that CAM Chile, which is a subsidiary of Graña y Montero Group, was awarded the contract for the maintenance service of lighting and low voltage power systems for the entire Metro network in Santiago de Chile, for an amount of US $ 7.6 million. This important contract includes, among other services, preventive and cor
Following years of complex negotiations and many delays, the Ontario provincial government on Monday made the historic announcement that it will support and fund road proposals that will connect Northern Ontario’s far-flung First Nation communities and provide industrial road access to the emerging Ring of Fire (RoF) mining district.
A political hot potato since its discovery in 2002, the RoF’s rich ores are estimated to hold some C$60-billion worth of nickel/copper/platinum group metals mineral wealth, a figure still touted by both the federal and provincial governments for years, albeit perhaps calculated at a time when metals prices were considerably higher.
Global equity markets rose on Tuesday, lifted by mining companies in Europe and technology shares on Wall Street, while crude oil rebounded on indications supply is gradually tightening, especially in the US.
US Treasury and gold prices fell ahead of an annual meeting this week of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi are due to speak.
Bolstered by booming copper prices, Chile-focused miner Antofagasta has moved to triple its dividend on Tuesday, boosting its London-listed shares to a fresh 52-week and four-year high.
Antofagasta has raised its interim dividend to $0.103 a share, from $0.031 in the same period a year earlier.
Gold’s on track to climb to a four-year high of $1 400/oz by early next year, buoyed by lower long-term US interest rates and lack of progress by President Donald Trump in delivering economic reforms, according to the global head of commodities research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Prices will also rise in dollar terms as a shift in economic cycles between the US and Europe strengthens the euro, Francisco Blanch said in a phone interview on Monday. The Federal Reserve is not tightening as fast as people expected, and the European Central Bank is set to start tapering, so “some of that leads to a higher euro eventually, combined with more stagnant long-term rates in the US, and that’s a tailwind for gold,” he said.
Canadian explorer Savary Gold has discovered three new gold zones at its flagship Karankasso join-venture (JV) gold project, in south-western Burkina Faso, while the latest drilling programme has also extended the known mineralised zones.
The TSX-V-listed company, which owns a 69.5% stake in the property with 30.5% JV partner Sarama Resources, on Monday reported the results from its 6 747-m third phase of drilling that entails 109 holes drilled since the start of June.
LAKE FOREST, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Liquidmetal® Technologies, Inc. (OTCQB: LQMT), the leading developer of amorphous alloy technologies, elected Mr. Tony Chung as a director of the Company. In connection with his appointment to the Board of Directors, Mr. Chung resigned as Chief Financial Officer of the Company, and Mr. Bryce Van, former Corporate Controller, was appointed as Vice President of Finance and will serve as the Company’s principal financial and accounting officer. Mr. Chung serve
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–$NGVT–Ingevity Corporation today announced it has reached an agreement with Georgia-Pacific to acquire Georgia-Pacific’s pine chemicals business.
BHP has finally announced its painful and expensive retreat from US shale oil belt. It has got its strategy wrong before, so what’s to say it hasn’t done it again?
The Constitutional Court has refused an application by several Eastern Cape businesses for leave to appeal a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling relating to implementation of the Regulatory Clearing Account (RCA) mechanism in South Africa’s multiyear price determination (MYPD) electricity tariff-setting methodology. On June 6, the SCA upheld an appeal by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) against an earlier North Gauteng High Court judgment, which had found Nersa’s approval of Eskom’s RCA application for 2013/14 to be unlawful.
JSE-listed Eastern Platinum (Eastplats) has received a written notice from China-based precious metals mining services provider Hebei Zhonghen Tianda Platinum (HZT) terminating, on the basis of breach or default, the share purchase agreement for Barplats Mines. “The company has also been advised of a further notice purportedly being given by HZT seeking the release to it of the escrow and break-fee funds being held by an independent escrow agent in connection with the transactions contemplated under the share purchase agreement,” the group said in an update to shareholders on Tuesday.
On the same day that cobalt posted the highest-ever recorded price at $60 250/t – up some 127% since the start of 2017 – explorer First Cobalt (FCC) on Monday executed a definitive merger agreement with fellow TSX-V-listed CobalTech Mining.
The transaction, in combination with its separate acquisition of ASX-listed Cobalt One, will consolidate the Cobalt, Ontario mining camp under FCC and give the company control of about 10 000 ha for cobalt exploration and mining.
BHP Billiton’s Escondida copper mine, in Chile, has recovered from a six-week strike faster than expected, with output now running at normal levels, an executive with the company said on Tuesday.
The strike at Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, sent shockwaves through the market in February and March. It ended when the union representing the striking workers opted to return to work under the old contract, effectively pushing talks on a new deal into next year.
FORT WORTH, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Black Mountain Sand receives a Certificate of Inclusion into the TCP for the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard.
Careworn alluvial diamond producer Rockwell Diamonds has decided to delist from the TSX, and instead list on the NEX, a third-tier trading forum for listed companies that have fallen below TSX Venture’s ongoing listing standards.
The move follows the company’s South African subsidiaries entering the country’s Business Rescue programme that allows for the orderly restructuring of companies in financial distress.
TSX-V-listed Alphamin Resources is on track to develop the first large commercial tin mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to produce responsibly mined, conflict-free tin concentrate. The company is developing the Bisie mine, in the North Kivu province of the DRC, which is expected to reach steady-state production towards the end of 2019 and raise the DRC’s tin exports by 10 000 t/y.
Commissioned research by advisory firm Eunomix Research has led the South African Chamber of Mines (CoM) to reject the third iteration of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) report on trade misinvoicing, which it dismisses as poor analysis based on incorrect analytical methodologies and incomplete data, according to CoM chief economist Henk Langehoven. Eunomix Group CEO Claude Baissac noted in the Eunomix report that data-collection and commodity classification show critical discrepancies with the Unctad methodology. This reflects the findings in a CoM and Eunomix report published last year, which investigated the gold misinvoicing alleged by Unctad.
The latest date published by the International Lead and Zinc Study Group (ILZSG) has found a 3% year-on-year wider zinc market supply gap for the first six months of 2017.
According to preliminary data recently compiled by the ILZSG, the global market for refined zinc metal was in deficit by 203 000 t, at 6.74-million tonnes, over the first six months of the year, with total reported inventories declining by 212 000 t over the same period.
Diversified miner South32 has appointed Rowena Smith in the newly created role of chief sustainability officer, and Peter Finnimore in the newly created role of chief marketing officer. CEO Graham Kerr said on Tuesday that the two new appointments to the South32 lead team reflected the direction of the company and the importance that South32 placed on its people, the communities in which it operated, and its environment.
Glencore’s Zambian copper mining unit, Mopani Copper Mines, said on Tuesday it would be laying off nearly 5 000 workers due to persistent electricity supply disruptions. “Although we shall work on optimising the use of limited power that we are receiving, we expect that we shall effectively have to close several areas and our scaled back operations may affect a total of 4 700 direct employees,” the company said in a statement.
The implementation of the third iteration of the Mining Charter, or Mining Charter 3, in some form or another, is inevitable and mining companies should start the process of bringing their operations in line with the regulations set out in the charter, law firm Hogan Lovells mining head and partner Warren Beech advises.
