A 20-year friendship that helped turn Dan Gertler into a billionaire has left the Israeli businessman with a lot fewer places to go.The U.S. government accused Gertler of corrupt mining and oil deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo and said he acted as a middle-man to enrich his longtime buddy, President Joseph Kabila. The two have been close since Gertler arrived as a young diamond merchant...Read More
Mining giant Rio Tinto (LON, ASX:RIO) will seek approval to build a power plant at its giant Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia and so comply with a 2009 investment agreement that calls for local suppliers to power the operation.The move, however, would add further costs to an ongoing $5.3 billion underground expansion of the mine, said Oyu Tolgoi LLC, Mongolia's largest copper and gold...Read More
Power Americas Minerals (TSX-V: PAM) / (OTCQX: PWMRF) is well positioned among roughly 18 juniors exploring for Cobalt ("Co") (and associated gold/silver) in the world-class, past-producing Silver-Cobalt Mining Camp in northeastern Ontario, Canada. Although reports vary, something on the order of 400-750 M ounces of Silver ("Ag") and 40-50 M pounds of Co were produced in the district. Power...Read More
Gold is faring quite well today technically, though you sure wouldn't know it from the rampant bearish sentiment. Gold's price is in a strong uptrend over a year old, high in both its current upleg and young bull market. Gold isn't far from breaking out to its best levels since September 2013, a really big deal. The stock markets even finally sold off after years of unnatural calm. Yet tra...Read More
SHANGHAI, Feb 23 (SMM) –Copper: We see copper continue to rebound after touching a low at 51,000 yuan/mt ahead of Chinese New Year. LME copper is expected to trade at $7,140-7,200/mt today with SHFE copper at 53,200-53,900 yuan/mt. In the physical market, spot discounts are seen smaller at 250-180 yuan/mt as downstream customers resume operations gradually.Aluminium: LME aluminium is expecte...Read More
Being part of the SRK Group we are wholly owned by SRK employees and in addition we ensure our independence by holding no equity in any project. This enables us to provide multi-disciplinary conflict-free and objective recommendations on crucial judgement issues. Though based in the UK we work on projects all over the world. In conditions ranging from the tropics to the permafrost; and on pro...Read More
RESOURCEStocks: First, you've reported a series of strong results from RC drilling at Triumph in south-east Queensland over the past 12 months. You are drilling mostly shallow holes through sub-10m of alluvium/sediment cover and have had success so far at six key targets, plus you've identified the big Au-Cu-Mo anomalies through IP geophysics. So there has been plenty to show for the work you've b...Read More
Core logging at Dumont, the world's largest undeveloped cobalt and nickel sulphide reserve. Image: RNC MineralsInvestors piled into Cobalt 27 Capital Corp (TSX-V:KBLT) and RNC Minerals (TSX:RNX) on Thursday after the companies entered into a royalty deal on all future nickel and cobalt production at RNC Minerals' Dumont project in Quebec in a deal worth $70 million.Shares in Toronto-based Cobalt...Read More
LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan-focused Kaz Minerals on Thursday reported a jump in 2017 sales and production as its main mines ramped up and said it expected its 2018 output to rise as much as 16 percent.The London-listed miner, which mainly mines copper and gold, said 2017 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) excluding special items rose to $503 million f...Read More
LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Record high stocks of copper in land-locked Arizona and Utah are a reflection of soaring transport costs in the United States and weak demand for the industrial metal produced in the Americas, copper industry sources say.Trading sources added that stocks in these two locations are likely to keep rising until prices are high enough to offset costs of transporting the copp...Read More
Barrick Gold (TSX, NYSE:ABX), the world's top bullion producer by volume, is stepping up efforts to hike output of the yellow metal by advancing a number of projects expected to add more than one million ounces a year starting in 2021.The Toronto-based company, which is now only 50,000 ounces - or about 125 gold bars - ahead of rival Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM) in terms of annual production, said C...Read More
Global miner Anglo American (LON:AAL) was full of good news Thursday as it announced it had doubled its net profit in 2017, slashed debt and said it would pay its highest dividend in a decade, thanks mainly to rising commodity prices and lower costs.The company, the last of the world's largest miners to report annual results this month, said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortiz...Read More
Canada is the world's most attractive region for mining investment, based on the combined rankings of all its provinces and territories, the latest annual global survey of mining executives released Thursday by the Fraser Institute shows.While the Maple Leaf country overtook Australia as regional destination number one, many of its provinces and territories did not fair well this year in the po...Read More
SHANGHAI, Feb 22 (SMM) – Nonferrous metals futures saw mixed trading as China reopens after the week-long holiday with SHFE lead, nickel and copper up slightly while aluminium slid over 1%. Both tin and zinc also edged down.In the ferrous complex, both coking coal and coke went up while rebar was down 1.7% and hot-rolled coil slipped 1.4%.Copper: SHFE copper came off from highs registered ea...Read More
By Christian "Boo" Boucousis of Afterburner Australia If there's one thing every fighter pilot is acutely aware of it's the limitations of human beings in the complex environment they operate. At no point is a fighter pilot ever fully in control of "the full picture". They do however understand the importance of creating Situational Awareness or finding the right information at the right time to m...Read More
And pretty soon others who know a thing or two about opportunities in the space were convinced, too.Robins, a founder of Kaminak Gold and Stornoway Diamonds, had preconceptions about the country he admits were mostly wrong.He also thought the Goldcorp project, untouched for five years, might be in a less than pristine state.But it wasn't. Right down to the perfectly manicured office lawns and well...Read More
The Toronto-based company is racing towards development at its brine projects by 2021, just in time for the lithium supply gap forecast by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. This year, LSC has announced the maiden resources for its Rio Grande and Pozuelos projects. Rio Grande has an inferred resource of 2.19 million tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent, over an area of 3 square kilometres, t...Read More
Maptek general manager for North America, Rob Hardman was recently speaking with a senior operations figure at a big gold company when the latter remarked that, "you guys have a unique position here … you can get my geologists and engineers working together because they're all using Maptek products, and there is very little of that in my whole department".And then, says Hardman, the questio...Read More
Southern Copper Corp was declared the winner on Tuesday of the Peruvian government's first auction of the Michiquillay copper project, the first tender in nearly a decade.According to a statement by Southern Copper, controlled by conglomerate Grupo Mexico won the tender with a proposal to transfer $400 million to the government and pay 3% royalties.Southern Copper affirmed Peruvian investmen...Read More
Tech giant Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) is said to be in talks to buy long-term supplies of cobalt directly from miners as a way to ensure sufficient supply of the metal, an essential ingredient in the batteries that power its iPhone.Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reports that the company is trying to secure contracts for several thousand tonnes of cobalt for five years or longer.Electronics and...Read More