World's largest miner BHP (ASX, NYSE:BHP) (LON:BLT) expects to fully divest its US oil and gas business, which it acquired in a $20 billion deals spree in 2011, and is also seeking a buyer for its nickel business in Australia.The announcements, made by chief executive Andrew Mackenzie during a conference call with investors and media on Thursday, come on the heels of global fund manager Aberdeen S...Read More
Former Xstrata chief executive Mick Davis, the current leader of Britain's ruling Conservative Party, is said to be the frontrunner to become Rio Tinto's new chairman.People familiar with the matter told Sky News the South African-born businessman has held talks with Rio over the position held until the end of the year by retiring chairman Jan du Plessis.Davis could face competition from internal...Read More
(Bloomberg) - China's dilemma of how to feed its booming population will partially be answered by fancier fertilizers, according to one of the world's richest billionaires.EuroChem Group AG, owned by Russian commodities tycoon Andrey Melnichenko, is spending over $6 billion on two mines to produce potash, a reddish mineral found deep in the Earth that's prized for its ability as a soil fertilizer....Read More
Rio Tinto (ASX, LON:RIO) is said to be weighing an investment in Chile's Chemical and Mining Society (SQM), the world's largest lithium producer, becoming the latest in a long line of companies interested in grabbing a stake in the Santiago-based miner.According to Chilean news site El Mostrador (in Spanish), the Anglo-Australian giant is eying the 32% interest in SQM that Canada's Potash Corp. of...Read More
The rising number of exploration projects, equity and debt financings, as well as mergers and acquisitions, indicates a renewed confidence in the junior sector. (Image: Pure Gold Mining's Madsen gold project in Ontario's Red Lake gold camp.)After years of struggling following a drop in commodity prices, Canadian junior miners are seeing renewed confidence in the sector with valuations rising for t...Read More
Sirius Minerals PLC (LON:SXX) shares advanced around 5% on Thursday as the company sealed a 7-year commercial deal with Wilmar Group, a Singapore listed agribusiness firm, which will have exclusive rights for the use and resale of POLY4 in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Myanmar.POLY4 is the fertiliser product that will be made at Sirius' Woodsmith Mine in North Yorkshire,...Read More
By Jake SpringBRASILIA, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Brazilian congressional committees approved one plank of sweeping mining reforms on Tuesday, amending President Michel Temer's proposals to favor smaller miners, with votes on the two other measures delayed to Wednesday.Temer proposed the policies raising royalties, overhauling regulations and creating a new government agency in three separate decrees in...Read More
The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) is gearing up to launch the Exploration Assessment Digital Data Formats (EADDF) guidelines, a practice that is expected to improve discovery rates of mineral exploration in Canada.The guidelines propose a uniform national standard for digital data submission for jurisdictional mine recording offices."The idea behind the guidelines is to hav...Read More
As the global population continues to grow, potash, one of the key ingredients in agricultural fertilizer, will play an increasingly important role in the world's future. To meet the growing demand, Mosaic, the world's leading producer of potash and phosphate crop nutrients, has selected Nexans to supply power cables and support services for their $1.7 billion expansion project which will make its...Read More
Canada's federal government has chosen a mining sector's clean resources project as one of the nine so-called "supercluster" proposals that could qualify for a piece of a $950-million federal fund Ottawa hopes will boost the country's economy and job creation.CLEER (Clean, Low-energy, Effective, Engaged and Remediated) was short-listed in recognition of its potential to generate significant enviro...Read More
German minerals company K+S plans to combine its salt and potash businesses to make savings and target customers more effectively, it said on Monday, disappointing investors hoping for a more far-reaching overhaul.Shares in the world's biggest salt producer and No.5 seller of potash fell as much as 7 percent after it also delayed by a year to 2019 a goal to return to positive free cash flow.K+S ha...Read More
Brazilian President Michel Temer has yielded to global pressure from environmentalists, artists and a number of NGOs and revoked Tuesday a controversial decree that would have opened up a vast national reserve in the country's Amazon, larger than the size of Switzerland, to mining.The order, published in the government's gazette (in Portuguese), also keeps the protected status of the National Rese...Read More
Canada's Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (TSX, NYSE:POT), the world's largest producer of the fertilizer by capacity, is said to have hired Goldman Sachs and BofA Merrill Lynch to explore selling its stake in a Chilean lithium producer.PotashCorp, which holds 32% of Chile's Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM) and has three of eight board seats, is evaluating selling its part in the company to secure appr...Read More
Last month, BHP gave into demands from activist investor Elliott Advisors announcing that it's actively seeking to exit oil and gas, a business it acquired just six years ago for $20 billion (and worth much less today).Elliot - and other investors - also had harsh words for BHP when it come to potash after the Anglo-Australian giant made the crop nutrient a pillar of its longer-term ambitions.BHP'...Read More
BHP Billiton Foundation announced Tuesday its financial support for two new global projects launched at an event held in Washington DC. The projects focus on enhancing corporate and government transparency to reduce corruption and contribute to sustainable development.Speakers at the event, which was held at the Brooking Institution, included Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the Internation...Read More
Shareholders of world's number one miner BHP (ASX, NYSE:BHP) (LON:BLT) will decide next month whether the company should quit Australia's top mining lobby group, following a resolution submitted by a local ethical investing group.The motions, put forward by the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR), argue that BHP should terminate paid annual membership in any industry groups who...Read More
Canadian Pacific Railway says it's not yet clear what caused about 35 train cars carrying potash to derail southeast of Saskatoon Friday morning.Nobody was injured in the derailment just west of Blucher, Sask., at about 7:55 a.m. CST.CP media spokesperson Martin Cej said the internal investigation has already started."Obviously we take this incident extremely seriously and we will be focused on sa...Read More
Canada's Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (TSX, NYSE:POT), the world's largest producer of the fertilizer by capacity, may sell its stake in Chilean lithium miner SQM to secure approval for its friendly merger with smaller rival Agrium (TSX, NYSE:AGU).PotashCorp, which holds 32% percent of SQM and has three of eight board seats, said earlier this week the Canadian competition bureau had okayed the mer...Read More
India's very first uranium mine, the Jaduguda mine located in the state of Jharkhand, now hosts a laboratory for conducting experiments in fundamental physics. The Jaduguda Underground Science Laboratory 550, built in a 37-square-meter cavern buried 905 metres and formerly used for storage, will focus on the search for dark matter. It was built by the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and it is ex...Read More
A Brazilian court blocked Wednesday a controversial decree by President Michel Temer that would have opened up a vast national reserve in the Amazon, larger than the size of Switzerland, to mining.The order, signed by federal judge Rolando Spanholo, "suspends possible administrative acts based on the decree," signed by Temer, local O'Globo reports (in Portuguese).It also determines that abolishing...Read More