Close to 40,000 cubic meters of wastewater from a copper mine in northern Mexico spilled into rivers in 2014, forcing authorities to restrict water supply to urban areas.The leak, which is now considered the worst environmental disaster in the country's history, came from Grupo Mexico's (BMV:GMEXICOB) Buenavista copper mine, located only about 40 km from the U.S. border, and contaminated the Baca...Read More
Eritrea expects to have four mines in operation by 2018 producing gold, copper, zinc and potash as one of Africa's poorest nations looks to build an industry that can kick-start its economy, a top mining official told Reuters.Eritrea's artisanal miners have long scratched for gold nuggets on deposits that stretch along the Red Sea, a geological formation known as the Arabian Nubian Shield, but the...Read More
Now that Exploration Insights founder Brent Cook is starting to see the bright side of the mining equity cycle, he brought in former Canaccord Genuity Analyst Joe Mazumdar to cover developers and producers at the newsletter. In this interview with The Gold Report, the pair share observations from their recent travels and a short list of companies they are compiling to take advantage of a possible...Read More
Perth - ASX-listed Sandfire Resources has seen its interim profit after tax halved during the six months to December, compared with the previous corresponding period, as lower copper prices impacted on its earnings.Profits after tax for the interim period declined from A$30.6-million in the first half of 2015 to A$15.7-million, as sales revenue declined from A$261.8-million to A$228.3-million duri...Read More
BHP Billiton's spin-off South32 (ASX, LON, JSE:S32) confirmed Thursday it is looking for assets, mainly copper ones, despite reporting a significant loss for the half-year and announcing it will cut more than 770 jobs across Australia.In the six months to the end of December, the Perth-based company lost $1.75 billion due to write-downs of its manganese and coal assets.The loss represents a dramat...Read More
Rio Tinto, the world's number two miner in terms of revenues, suffered the same fate as many of its peers on Wednesday with a downgrade by Moody's Investor Services.The credit ratings agency downgraded the senior unsecured ratings of Melbourne-based Rio and its subsidiaries one notch from to Baa1 from A3 with a negative outlook.Moody's said the downgrade reflects its view "that there has been...Read More
Copper prices fell the most in two weeks in London, as investors' worries over China's deepening economic slowdown and collapsing oil prices dampened sentiment across commodities markets.The London Metal Exchange's three-month copper contract fell as much as 1.4%, the most since Feb. 10, to $4,580 a metric ton and was at $4,591.50 by 12:11 p.m. on the London Metal Exchange. Other industrial metals...Read More
TRIPLING its copper exports over the next two decades is the cornerstone of an Australian state's plan to bolster its mining industry.The South Australian Government has launched its long-term Copper Strategy to produce and export more than $8 billion of copper a year and entrench the state as one of the world's major suppliers of the metal.South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill said the strategy...Read More
Ontario, Canada's second largest province, has become one of the of the country's main mining districts where it takes the longest to obtain exploration permits, a new report released Tuesday shows.According to a survey of mining executives by the Fraser Institute, growing wait times for permits across Canada, and particularly in Ontario, add to the cost of exploration and may ultimately hinder t...Read More
BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) cut its dividend for the first time since 1988 years on Tuesday, becoming the latest company to do so in a sector struggling with the worst slump in commodity prices in a decade and high debt loads.In a statement, the world's biggest mining company saw its first-half underlying profits tumble 92% coming in way below expectations at $412 million for the 6 months to end Dece...Read More
Investors piled into to the metals and mining sector in a big way on Monday after a strong start to the Chinese new year commodities demand and a rally on the country's stock markets.On the Comex market in New York copper for delivery in May climbed 2.5% to $2.1325 a pound or $4,700 a tonne. The red metal is up more than 10% from a six-year low hit mid-December. Other industrial metals also ga...Read More
Like his father before him, Alberto Carrizo has worked in Chile's copper mines since he was a teenager, supporting his family as prices for the metal boomed in recent decades.But as copper prices have slid to a more than six-year low, Carrizo and his colleagues laboring away at the countless smaller mines that pock mark the Atacama desert are finding the buckets of ore they spend all day digging f...Read More
The Casino project in the Canadian Yukon Territory passed a major milestone last Thursday with the announcement that the project will move to a higher level of environmental assessment.In a press conference, Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB) said it will send the copper-gold project, considered to be Yukon's largest mine, for its highest level of review. It's the fi...Read More
Ratings agency's have got it in for the mining sector where all companies are struggling with low commodity prices and many have to cope with high debt loads.Within the last few weeks Moody's Investor Services cut the ratings of seven large miners. Two majors - Anglo American and Freeport McMoRan - were cut to below investment grade for the first time.Moody's took Freeport McMoRan down a full fo...Read More
When the worst collapse of commodity prices in nearly two decades finally ends, mining companies left standing probably will have more robots on their side.Automated drills and driver-less trucks are among the new technology already employed by some of top mining companies, including BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) and Rio Tinto (LON:RIO). But a new study by BMI Research says that miners, big and small, ar...Read More
Dramatic daily moves in the U.S. dollar, gold prices and the larger markets are pointing to a global banking collapse that will send resource prices higher in 2016, according to 321gold.com founder Bob Moriarty. In this interview with The Gold Report, he shares his insights on how mining equities will react and five names he is watching.The Gold Report: Last year at this time we talked about the S...Read More
Mining scene newcomer and BHP spin-off South32 (ASX, LON, JSE:S32) may soon make an offer for Anglo American's (LON:AAL) stake in their manganese joint venture, if the price was right.South32 indicated negotiations had already started. "We have a good relationship with our joint venture partner and they've communicated their intentions," the company said in a statement sent to Reuters.Samancor...Read More
Since its peak in 2012, mining capital expenditures has decreased almost 25%. Greenfield and brownfield development has decreased in aggregate by 43%, while sustaining capex has gone down 34%. Intuitively, the decline is more prominent in growth spending, as companies are simply just trying to survive, resulting in major project delays and deferrals across the globe.During the last major bear ma...Read More
On Wednesday another ratings agency downgraded Anglo American's credit to junk status. Fitch Ratings follows Moody's rating and also believe the outlook for the company is negative.Yesterday the London-listed miner said it's exiting the coal sector by selling its remaining operations in Australia, South Africa and Colombia. Anglo also said it would extract itself, over time, from its iron ore busi...Read More
Increased Chinese mineral production is just as much a cause for the slide in prices as the aggressive expansions by western mining companies, says Investec's global mining strategist Jeremy Wrathall.The difference in this dramatic downswing in global mineral prices compared to other troughs in the cycle was the enormous amount of debt firms took on to build new mines and processing capacity afte...Read More