BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) announced Tuesday the company exceeded full year 2016 production guidance for petroleum, copper and metallurgical coal, but came in slightly below its iron ore production target.The suspension of its Samarco joint venture with Vale saw BHP's output on attributable basis miss its revised target by 2 million tonnes at 227 tonnes for the year to end June. The world's numb...Read More
Trevali Mining (TSE: TV) jumped 5.1% on Tuesday after the company announced expansion of high-grade silver-lead-zinc mineralization at the Magistral North and Oyon Zones at its Santander zinc mine in Peru.In lunchtime trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange the Vancouver-based mid-tier producer was trading at its highs for the day amid a generally weak day for mining stocks. Around 1 million share...Read More
Canadian companies paid a total of US$32.6 billion for foreign businesses in the Energy, Mining & Utilities (EMU) sector during the first half of the year, which represents a 100.6% rise in value over the total paid in the same period last year, a new report released Tuesday shows.The volume of deals, however, dropped by nearly half in the first six months of the year from 31 transactions in 2015,...Read More
Mick Davis' X2 Resources, the mining fund once touted as the driver of much-needed investment into the mining industry during the worst of the commodities price rout, is set to go under major changes after failing to close a single deal since launched in 2013.Rumours circulated early this year that X2 had lost backers and was facing a looming overhaul. But it wasn't until the WSJ.com reported Fri...Read More
According to a new study by the UN's Conference on Trade and Development some commodity dependent developing countries "are losing as much as 67% of their exports worth billions of dollars to trade misinvoicing".Trade misinvoicing - when export and import data between two countries do not align - is thought to be "one of the largest drivers of illicit financial flows from developing countries, so...Read More
A structural problem detected at the rather new London Metal Exchange (LME) offices in Finsbury Square, has forced traders to momentarily relocate to a Chelmsford business park, east of London.The exchange, where $12 trillion of copper and other metals change hands each year, is one of Europe's last open outcry trading floors.The bourse, the world's oldest and largest market for industrial metals...Read More
Botswana's state-owned BCL, the country's biggest copper and nickel miner, will continue to receive about $130 million (1.4 billion pula) a year, even if the company has to stop mining, the country's vice president said.Speaking to Bloomberg News, Mokgweetsi Masisi said the copper and nickel producer, which employs as many as 5,000 people, noted the country will sell its stake in BCL as soon as...Read More
Choppy seas off the coast of Chile caused widespread delays to copper shipments from the world's top producer in the second half of June, potentially supporting prices in a market grappling with oversupply.Cargoes were stranded at ports as stormy weather prevented ships from loading, said miners in Chile, including world No.1 Codelco.That could buttress prices in the short-term, although any impac...Read More
The U.S. Geological Survey is using a familiar exploration technology to search for copper deposits in remote locations of Alaska.Starting in 2014, researchers with USGS began studying the remote eastern Alaskan Range where copper porphyry deposits are known to exist, using hyperspectral surveying. The technique employs aircraft equipped with instruments that emit light. When the light hits a mat...Read More
The Unites States is seeking the support of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in pressuring China to remove export duties on certain minerals that give it an unfair trade advantage.Saying that China agreed to remove duties ranging from 5% to 20% on antimony, cobalt, copper, graphite, lead, magnesia, talc, tantalum and tin when it joined the WTO 15 years ago, Washington filed a new WTO challenge...Read More
It's a familiar story for mine developers, when their projects overlay or sit near to sensitive ecosystems. Environmental groups state their intention to protect the animal or plant species at risk, sometimes taking legal action to oppose the project. Many times they are successful, especially with the strict regulatory framework found in the United States, where baseline studies are known to tak...Read More
Canada's Hudbay Minerals' (TSX, NYSE:HBM) proposed Rosemont copper mine in Arizona scored a key legal victory this week after a Court of Appeals overturned Tuesday a 2015 ruling blocking its air quality permit.The appeals panel's decision, Tucson.com reports, eliminates one of three pivotal regulatory hurdles still blocking the $1.5 billion mine's go-ahead.While the project is now heading into w...Read More
The recent appointment of a Chinese government official to the board Teck Resources (TSX:TCK.A & TCK.B) (NYSE:TCK), Canada's largest diversified miner, has some worried about sovereignty issues in the country's resource sector.Canada has no regulations regarding members of foreign governments sitting on local companies' boards, but it does require at least 25% of the members to be Canadian citiz...Read More
Gold has consolidated its post-Brexit gains this month and continues to be the best-performing commodity so far this year, filling the pockets of most producers of the precious metal, a new study shows.According to SNL Metals & Mining, gold-focused companies have climbed the most in the ranking of the world's top 25 mining companies by market capitalization from April to June this year, helped b...Read More
It was one of the worst environmental disasters in Canadian history, and now, the company behind the 2014 Mount Polley mine tailings breach is looking to make somebody pay.Imperial Metals (TSX:III) has filed a lawsuit for damages in the Supreme Court of British Columbia alleging negligence and breach of contract by Knight Piesold and AMEC (now Amec Foster Wheeler), two engineering firms in its e...Read More
World's largest miner BHP Billiton (ASX, NYSE:BHP) (LON:BLT) is getting close to finishing key heap leach testing trials to pave the way for a significant copper output increase at its Olympic Dam, Australia's biggest underground mine.While plans for a $30 billion redevelopment of the mine were shelved in 2012, promising results from current trials indicate copper output could increase 40% over t...Read More
New data shows the first six months of 2016 were tough for Chilean copper producers.According to the number one copper producing country's central bank, the value of Chile's copper exports fell 16.1% in the first half, compared to H1 2015, on par with the financial crisis of 2009. Chile exported $13.4 billion worth of copper in H1, including $6.356 billion worth of copper cathodes and $5.805 bill...Read More
SOME of the first geological images of one of the world's last unexplored mineral frontiers have glimpsed the mining potential of Australia's vast Nullarbor Plain.The images of the Earth's crust to a depth of 60 kilometres spanning a 484km stretch follow Australia's transcontinental rail line between Cook in South Australia to Haig in Western Australia.The new images, released this month, have ide...Read More
The $149-billion (U.S.) pipeline to expand the world's copper supply is running into trouble.Producers are counting on expansions and the development of new operations to meet supply shortages they forecast arriving toward the end of the decade.Read moreRead More
China's state-backed Silk Road Fund, a $40 billion venture that invests along the nation's ancient trade routes with Central Asia, is said to be weighing a joint bid with China National Gold for Glencore' gold mine in Kazakhstan.According to sources familiar with the matter, quoted by Bloomberg, the group could pay up to $2 billion for the Vasilkovskoye mine, which is Glencore's largest gold opera...Read More