South African construction group Aveng said on Monday it has ended talks on the sale of its Aveng Trident Steel business due to a failure to reach agreement on price. Work for South Africa’s construction industry has slowed sharply as government contracts stall and weak commodity prices hit demand from the mining industry. Companies have had to employ new strategies to survive in a sector stunted by an economy that is not expected to grow at all.
An expected upward movement in zinc and copper prices bodes well for UK-based Anglesey Mining, which is planning on building a zinc/copper/lead mine in north Wales.
Chairperson John Kearney said on Monday that there were “real signs of resurgence” in the mining industry and that there was a “strong expectation of upward movement in metal prices”, particularly for the metals underpinning the revenue stream of the Parys Mountain copper/zinc/lead project.
Gold prices hit their highest in almost seven weeks on Monday, boosted by a struggling dollar and US economic data that has cast doubt on whether the Federal Reserve will raise rates again this year. Spot gold was down 0.1% at $1 266.99 an ounce at 0846 GMT from an earlier $1 270.98, its highest since June 14. It is on course for a two% rise this month. US gold futures fell 0.2% to $1 265.90 an ounce.
CLEVELAND–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE:CLF) announced today the commencement of a tender offer to purchase (the “Tender Offer”), subject to certain terms and conditions, any and all of its outstanding 8.250% Senior Secured Notes due 2020 (the “Notes”), at the price set forth below. The Tender Offer is scheduled to expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on August 4, 2017 (the “Expiration Time”), unless extended or earlier terminated by the Company. The Tender Offer is
CLEVELAND–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE:CLF) announced today that it intends to offer to sell, subject to market and other conditions, $575 million aggregate principal amount of its 5.75 percent senior guaranteed notes due 2025 (the “Additional Notes”) in an offering that is exempt from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”). The Additional Notes will constitute an additional issuance of the Company’s 5.75 percent senior guaran
The Kiziltepe mine in Turkey has completed its transition in to commercial production and is operating at levels exceeding feasibility expectations, 50%-owner Ariana Resources reported on Monday.
The mine, which Ariana owns in a joint venture with Proccea Construction, delivered 1 929 oz of gold and 14 519 oz of silver during the ramp-up period from mid-March to the end of June. A further 1 370 oz of gold and 6 780 oz of silver were produced in July, beating planned production.
TULSA, Okla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ: ARLP) today reported financial and operating results in line with its expectations for the quarter ended June 30, 2017 (the “2017 Quarter”). Total revenues were $398.7 million in the 2017 Quarter compared to $439.2 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 (the “2016 Quarter”), as coal sales revenues declined due to the anticipated reduction in coal sales prices. Lower coal sales prices were offset in part by increased s
Triple-listed Coal of Africa Limited (CoAL) will review the development plan for its Makhado project, in Limpopo, which may result in reduced capital expenditure (capex), a lower production rate, a shorter construction period and an extended mine life. Makhado’s initial development plan included a 26-month construction phase, followed by a four-month ramp-up to a production rate of 5.5-million tonnes a year of coal. The initial capex requirement was estimated at $281-million.
Aim-listed Sylvania Platinum has achieved a new yearly production record after another strong quarter pushed output from the Sylvania Dump Operations (SDO) beyond the upper end of the revised 65 000 oz guidance for 2017 to 70 869 oz. The low-cost platinum-group metal (PGM) processor and developer highlighted that it had consistently achieved strong production over the course of the year, with 17 954 oz produced in the fourth quarter, a 5% increase on the previous quarter and the second highest quarterly production achieved by the company.
Gold-focused mining company Pan African has successfully concluded a conditional agreement with Sylvania Platinum for the disposal of all of its shares and loan accounts in its wholly-owned subsidiary Phoenix Platinum to Sylvania for R89-million cash. The disposal of Phoenix, which for some time has been noncore to Pan African, enables the London Aim- and Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company, headed by CEO Cobus Loots, to strengthen its financial position further and to focus on existing gold operations and the construction of the Elikhulu gold tailings project, which is on track to contribute low-cost gold ounces and profits in the next 18 months.
Russian miner Norilsk Nickel has substantially increased its second-quarter platinum group metals (PMGs) production, while nickel volumes decreased in the three months under review.
Group palladium production increased by 41% quarter-on-quarter to 781 000 oz and platinum production rose by 46% quarter-on-quarter to 190 000 oz, the miner reported on Monday.
Graphite developer Syrah Resources has warned of more cost increases at its Balama project, in Mozambique, along with delays in the commissioning timeline.
Syrah on Monday said that capital costs for the project had increased from $200-million to $205-million on the back of delays in completing the construction of the processing plant.
Mining and development company Atalaya Mining is confident of meeting its 34 000 t to 40 000 t copper production target at the Proyecto Riotinto mine in Andalucía, Spain, as the mine produced in line with its second-quarter targets.
Second-quarter copper production increased to 9 058 t, from 8 805 t in the first quarter of 2017 and 4 442 t in the June quarter of 2016.
Junior Explaurum will raise up to A$4.5-million through a share placement to fund work at its Tampia gold project, in Western Australia.
The company on Monday announced that it had completed a bookbuild to place up to 42.9-million shares, at a price of 10.5c each, to a number of sophisticated and institutional investors.
Northern Territory Government support for fracking is misplaced and “like following a rabbit down a hole”, an energy analyst says.
ASX-listed Karoon Gas has struck a deal with German oil and gas company DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG to hunt for oil and gas assets offshore Brazil.
“This agreement is significant in the context of realising Karoon’s strategic ambitions to acquire meaningful oil production in Brazil. Having such a high quality, well capitalized partner in our corner will significantly assis the company to achieve this goal,” said Karoon MD Robert Hosking.
A new generation of electric cars is driving WA’s next mining boom, with the state now producing more than half of the world’s supply of the lithium needed to manufacture batteries.
It is one thing to find big flawless diamonds, but an entirely different ball-game to sell such large diamonds as the ‘Lesedi La Rona’ stone that Lucara Diamond Corp recovered from its Karowe mine, in Botswana.
“It’s difficult for people to understand what a rough diamond would yield. It’s hard for people to commit $70-million dollars to something when they don’t know what they’re going to get. It is a real problem,” Lucara president and CEO William Lamb told delegates at a mining symposium in Vancouver this week.
Chile’s Codelco, the world’s No 2 copper producer, expects second-quarter output to decrease about 1% or 2% from the year-ago period, its chief executive said Friday.
“Our production is a little below last year’s,” Nelson Pizarro told journalists at the opening of Antofagasta’s new Antucoya mine in Chile’s northern copper belt.
Bamboo may be suitable as potential cover to remediate asbestos related mine waste in semi-arid regions of South Africa, states South African State-owned mineral and metallurgical innovation company Mintek mineral economics and strategic unit manager Godfrey Mothapo. He was speaking at the Fossil Fuel Foundation’s workshop on mine land rehabilitation and phytoremediation, in Johannesburg earlier this month.
Canada’s largest diversified miner Teck Resources has reported a remarkable jump in headline earnings for the three months ended June, with the company’s steelmaking coal division benefiting from higher prices and sales volumes. Adjusted profit attributable to shareholders in the period under review was an eye-popping C$577-million, or C$1.00 a share, compared with C$3-million, or C$0.01 a share, in the same period last year.
Changing global macro-economic trends are increasingly making more space for nuclear power to support renewable energy rollouts, boding well for the uranium market that has been dealing with unsustainably low prices for nearly a decade, a mining symposium in Vancouver heard this week.
“Nuclear power is increasingly being thrown into the mix as states prepare to implement renewable energy strategies, and will result in new-build projects on a state level in the US. I see substantial state-level law changes coming that increasingly equates nuclear generation with renewable energy options,” former US secretary of energy and current chairperson of Uranium Energy Corp Spencer Abraham told the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium held in Vancouver this week.
Eskom’s chief financial officer Anoj Singh was placed on special leave on Thursday, amid mounting allegations of improper financial dealings by the power utility with companies in the Gupta business empire, “The Board of Directors of Eskom has taken a decision to grant Chief Financial Officer, Mr Anoj Singh, special leave pending an investigation,” Eskom said in a statement.
TULSA, Okla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ: ARLP) and Alliance Holdings GP, L.P. (NASDAQ: AHGP) (collectively, the “Alliance Partnerships”) jointly announced today an agreement pursuant to which AHGP’s incentive distribution rights (“IDRs”) in ARLP have been eliminated and its approximate one percent general partner interest in ARLP has been converted into a non-economic general partner interest, in exchange for the issuance to AHGP of 56,100,000 ARLP common units (
Barrick Gold’s majority-owned African business segment Acacia Mining has reported that a senior international employee of its subsidiary Pangea Minerals has been detained by Tanzania authorities.
The official was prevented from leaving Tanzania on Friday morning and had his passport confiscated at the Dar-es-Salaam airport for a while, before legal intervention resulted in the official’s release and the return of his passport.
SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Bill Prince, a partner in Dorsey’s Regulatory Affairs Group, has been elected to be the next president-elect of RMMLF.
Lithium developer Altura Mining has secured a $110-million senior debt facility to fund the construction and commissioning of its Pilgangoora project, in Western Australia.
The company has signed a loan note subscription agreement with US- and Swiss-based investment management groups Magy, Pala Investments and CarVal Investors to raise the funds.
The Productivity Commission sounds the alarm on politicians misusing the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
ASX-listed Aurora Funds Management has warned of a possible defeating condition for its proposed bid for fellow-listed Molopo Energy of 18c a share.
Molopo on Thursday went into a trading halt pending the announcement of a strategic investment, which the company said it had already completed, an was now finalising a technical announcement on the transaction.
ASX-listed Carpentaria Exploration has delivered an attractive development case of its Hawsons iron-ore project, in New South Wales, with the release of the results of a prefeasibility study, MD Quentin Hill said on Friday.
The PFS estimated that the 10-million-tonne-a-year operation would have a post-tax net present value of $867-million and an internal rate of return of 17.8%.
Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan has broken soil at the Browns Range rare earths project, marking the start of work at the pilot plant operation.
The proposed A$56-million pilot plant is a tenth of the scale of the full operation, and has a 60 000 t/y crushing beneficiation circuit, and 3 200 t/y hydrometallurgical plant, which will produce 590 t of total rare-earth oxide in a mixed rare-earth carbonate.
Australian oil and gas resources major Origin Energy on Friday reported that it had completed the 90-day operational phase of the two-train project finance lenders’ test at the Australia Pacific liquefied natural gas (APLNG) project, in Queensland. Origin noted that all other elements of the project finance completion tests were on track, and formal certification that the finance lenders requirements had been satisfied would be provided during the first quarter of 2018.
Coal developer Aspire Mining has flagged a $4-million to $5-million capital reduction at its proposed Nuurstei project, in Mongolia.
The company on Friday told shareholders that it had received capital estimates of between $10-million and $12-million for its 150 t/h wash plant at the Nuurstei project, while mining contractor Ferrostaal Mining Services has provided an indicative estimate of between $5.75-million and $7.75-million for local infrastructure and services to support the development of the project.
Gold miner Saracen Mineral Holdings has awarded preferred tenderer status to contracter Byrnecut Australia for the A$440-million underground mining contract at its Carosue Dam operation, in Western Australia.
The formal award of the contract was subject to agreement on final terms and conditions.
JSE-listed Northam Platinum is marking its entry into platinum-group metals (PGM) recycling through an aggregate $10.7-million acquisition of PGM recycling equipment and property in the US. Entering into binding transaction agreements, Northam will acquire multiple ceramic catalytic converter processing lines and ancillary equipment, including sampling and separation systems, transportation and a materials handling fleet from automotive catalysts PGMs recycler A-1 Specialized Services.
