Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, has began shipping lithium to China in what is considered the first step towards fulfilling its ambitions to becoming the world's No. 1 exporter of the commodity, used in high tech devices such as smart phones and electric cars, as well as in the pharmaceutical industry.With a price tag of barely $70,000, Bolivia's lithium shipment to China...Read More
China is the leader in extracting gold, zinc, lead, molybdenum, coal, tin, tungsten, rare earths, graphite, vanadium, antimony and phosphate, and holds second place in mine production of copper, silver, cobalt, bauxite and manganese.A new report from BMI Research shows the country's domestic mining output growth has slowed dramatically and will average far below levels attained in the last decade...Read More
London HQ'ed Capital Economics, an independent research and consulting firm, has launched a new publication tracking China's industrial metals demand. In the grand tradition of the economics discipline, the July report has some good news and bad news.Parts of industry key to metals demand continued to strengthen last monthCapital Economics says industrial production data from China for the mo...Read More
South Africa's Harmony Gold (JSE:HAR) (NYSE:HMY) is said to be considering the acquisition of Barrick Gold's stake in Acacia Mining (LON:ACA), as the miner looks to expand operations across Africa.Reporting annual results for the year ended in June, Harmony - the world's fifth-largest gold producer and South Africa No. 3 miner of the precious metal - revealed Wednesday that it was on a hunt for ac...Read More
With mining company BHP Billiton reporting a record loss for the past year, you could be forgiven for thinking it was all doom and gloom for the sector. But all is not as it seems.In fact, data from the FTSE 100 shows quite the opposite. The seven mining companies account for close to 5.5% of the value of the index."At the end of 2015 they accounted for around 2.5%, so they've more than doubled in...Read More
Zinc is the best performing base metal so far this year and measured from its multi-year low struck mid-January the zinc prize is up 54%.Zinc's prospects brightened considerably after the shutdown of two major mines last year - Australia's Century and the Lisheen mine in Ireland. The two mines had a combined output of more than 630,000.Top zinc producer Glencore has been out in front when it comes...Read More
Bolivia has nationalized three Glencore operations in nine years. Bloomberg reports Glencore has announced: "after almost nine years of negotiations without receiving any compensation for the nationalization of three of its operations, Glencore had no other option but to initiate arbitration proceedings to enforce its rights under international law."From a total of four operations in Bolivia, Glen...Read More
An aerial view of the Mount Polley mine tailings pond shows the area where the dam wall gave way early on the morning of August 4. (Image from archives)Two years after a dam containing a small lake of water and mine slurry at the Mount Polley copper mine near Likely, B.C. gave way, the tarnished Golden Triangle environmental and economic fallout continues.The trees in the flood's path weren't the...Read More
World's largest mining company BHP Billiton (ASX, NYSE:BHP) (LON:BLT) poured some very cold water on the resources sector Tuesday by posting its worst-ever annual loss, just when the industry was gaining some confidence back as commodity prices have recovered from multi-year lows.The Melbourne, Australia-based firm logged a net loss of $6.4 billion for the year to June, compared with a 2015 net pr...Read More
Metso has won a significant deal to support the conversion of the largest open-pit copper mine in the world to a large-scale underground mining operation. The Chuquicamata mine, located 1,650 kilometres north of Santiago, Chile, is owned and operated by Chile's National Copper Corporation, Codelco. Metso's scope in the contract includes the engineering, supply of equipment and materials, and site...Read More
Chile's Codelco, the world's top copper miner, may soon change its focus from cost reductions to output cuts, as the state-owned miner faces what its chief executive called the "worst crisis ever" since created in 1976.Announcing fresh cost-cutting measures to save $242 million this year, CEO Nelson Pizarro said last week (in Spanish) that slumping copper prices, high debt, rising costs and lower...Read More
The world's number five diversified mining company, Anglo American announced a "radical portfolio restructuring" at the end of last year. The company with roots going back more than a hundred years to South Africa's gold and diamond fields said it would cut around 85,000 employees, almost two-thirds of its workforce.London-listed Anglo also said it's reducing the number of mines it operates from 5...Read More
Canadian junior Strongbow Exploration Inc (CVE:SBW) last month closed the acquisition of the South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall and local media reports operations could restart within two years.South Crofty, approximately 390km drive west of London on the Celtic Sea Coast, was the last tin mine in Europe when it closed in 1998. Several companies attempted to revive the mines between 2001 and 20...Read More
Every junior commodity market has its share of pretenders to go along with the contenders as prices and demand move up.In striking contrast to internationally traded bellwether metals such as copper and gold, the market for lithium is murky. Analysts have noted recent variances in spot prices in China ranging to $20,000 a tonne. There's barely a handful of producers and buyers and a popular produc...Read More
Gold has enjoyed its best first half of the year performance since 1908 and silver's 48% surge is a big swing even for such a volatile metal, but the 2016 rally in industrial metals has been just as remarkable.Base metals are showing across the board gains year-to-date. Bellwether copper has been unable to break $5,000 decisively but is still ahead year-to-date while the likes of zinc (+41% at $2,...Read More
According to the World Bank, together the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) consume 40% of global energy and food commodities and over half of the world's metals. China alone accounted for virtually all the increase in metals (aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, tin and zinc) consumption of the BRICs since 1994.India's consumption of metals almost doubled over the past 20 years. But it's...Read More
Mining and commodities giant Glencore (LON:GLEN) is not selling its Lomas Bayas copper mine, after offers for the property in Chile's Atacama desert came in below expectations according to media reports.Reuters reports the mine was expected to fetch about $500 million, but "according to people familiar with the situation" Glencore is ditching disposal plans for the moment partly because even aft...Read More
An increased number of mergers and acquisitions in the mining industry was the main reason why more than 10% of the companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Toronto Venture Exchange vanished between 2014 and 2015, a new report shows.According to Ernst & Young's latest study, 49 mining and metals companies delisted from the TSX and TSX-V in 2014 and a further 172 companies delisted in 20...Read More
Shares in Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) were up more than 3.6% Thursday morning after the Canadian miner released fresh drilling results from the Kakula section at its giant Kamoa copper project in Congo, which the company says could prove the discovery to be Africa's most significant deposit of the red metal ever found."Given the remarkable exploration success we have had to date at the Kakula Discove...Read More
The Jesse Creek porphyry copper property, located north of Merritt, BC (pictured).Junior exploration and development firm, Wealth Minerals (CVE:WML), has signed an option agreement for a 100% interest in porphyry copper deposits located in British Columbia, Canada.Under the option agreement Wealth must pay US$1 million in cash and issue 3 million shares to the property owners over a four-year peri...Read More