World's second largest miner Rio Tinto (ASX, LON:RIO) injected some much-needed optimism in the markets Monday by saying that while China's short-term demand remains difficult to read, the long-term outlook is looking much brighter than a few months ago.Figures out of China, Rio Tinto's and most mining companies' biggest consumer, show that factory output, investment and retail sales all exceeded...Read More
Harmony Gold (NYSE:HMY)(JSE:HAR), South Africa's third-largest producer of the precious metal, has become the sole owner of the Hidden Valley mine in Papua New Guinea after partner Australia's Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) agreed to sell its 50% stake in the joint venture.Harmony will now assume all liabilities and expenses related to the gold and silver operation, including rehabilitation costs and r...Read More
In January 2016, Cashel Meagher was appointed Hudbay Minerals' senior vice president and chief operating officer, in charge of the company's international operating teams and responsible for business development, technical services, exploration and corporate social responsibility.Prior to his new role, Meagher was Hudbay's vice president, South America business unit from 2011 to 2015, where he led...Read More
Rick Rule says investors should be buying gold, silver, platinum and palladium."Many of our clients are still underweight physical precious metals," said Rule, President and CEO Sprott U.S. Holdings, in an interview with Andrew Nelson."We are urging those clients to position themselves either in the physical precious metals themselves or preferably in the 3 Sprott Physical Precious Metal Trusts, t...Read More
The Natural Resources Defense Council just ran a celebratory ad on Politico.com, after the World Conservation Congress voted almost unanimously to oppose the Pebble Mine proposed for Bristol Bay, Alaska.Pebble Limited Partnerships, whose parent company is Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals, is the firm behind the large scale gold, copper, and molybdenum mine that contains over $300 billion...Read More
Striking miners began returning to work at Anglo American's (LON:AAL) flagship Los Bronces copper mine in Chile on Friday, after two unions accepted the latest wage offer presented by management.The impact of the one-week stoppage was not immediately assessed by Anglo American, which said it would unveil that in its upcoming quarterly results, local daily La Tercera (in Spanish) reports.Hennie Fa...Read More
Despite optimism brought by the ongoing recovery in commodity prices and the mining potential of sub-Saharan Africa, operational challenges and regulatory uncertainty in the region will keep a lead on its resources sector until at least 2020, a new report shows.According BMI Research's latest outlook for the region, risks such as disruption sin the supply chain, labour unrest and intermittent pow...Read More
For commodities, 2016 started with a bang. If history is any guide, it will end with a whimper.The Bloomberg Commodity Index, tracking returns for 22 components, is heading for a third-quarter slump after posting consecutive gains in the first two periods. Since the data begins in 1991, that's only happened in four other years - and the final quarter was a loser for three of them.Continue reading....Read More
Western Editor Matthew Keevil sits down with Joe Mazumdar from Exploration Insights for a wide-ranging discussion on the resource sector. Topics include the recent resource estimation troubles for Orezone Gold (TSXV: ORE; US-OTC: ORZCF) at the Bombor?(C) gold project in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and the murky world of resource estimates and 43-101Read More
Canada's Lundin Mining (TSX:LUN) shares were trading moderately higher Thursday after the company announced it had been granted a two week extension to bid on Freeport-McMoRan's (NYSE:FCX) stake in the Tenke Fungurume copper and cobalt mine, in Congo.The Toronto-based miner originally had until today to decide whether to allow Freeport-McMoRan to proceed with the agreed sale of it stake in Tenk...Read More
Canada's Barrick Gold Corp (TSX, NYSE:ABX) confirmed Thursday a new spill at its Veladero mine in the San Juan province of Argentina and said it has temporarily suspended operations pending further inspections of the mine's heap leach area.The fresh spill happened on Sep. 8, when a pipe carrying process solution in the heap leach area was struck by a large block of ice that had rolled down the he...Read More
A new report by BMI Research, a Fitch company, shows despite South Africa's many setbacks and challenges the country will continue to dominate mining in sub-Sahara Africa.BMI says outlook for mineral production, trade and consumption will vary significantly across the region with C??te d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recording the strongest economic growth rates due to a combin...Read More
Peru's copper output jumped to 207,867 mt in July of 2016, an almost 30% growth from last year's production of 155,313 million tonnes, recent data published by the country's Energy and Mines Ministry shows (in Spanish).The surge, said authorities, was driven by increased activity at different sites: Antamina, Freeport-McMoRan's Cerro Verde mine, Glencore's Antapaccay, Chinalco's Toromocho, Hu...Read More
Global underground mining equipment will reach US$30.5 billion by 2023 according to a market research study published last month by Credence Research. Based on what the firm calls a "comprehensive analysis of market influencing and inhibiting factors related to underground mining equipment industry," the report concludes that growing urbanization in the Asia Pacific region, the Middle East, Af...Read More
Shares in Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE:FCX) reacted positively to news the number one publicly-held copper producer managed to offload oil and gas assets it put up for sale more than a year ago. Year to date the $14 billion company's stock is now up 64%.Anadarko Petroleum said Monday after market close that it would buy deepwater Gulf of Mexico assets from Freeport for a total of $2 billio...Read More
In European trade on Monday copper for delivery in December slipped to a near three-month low after worries about the global economic outlook weighed down the bellwether metal and speculators bet on further weakness ahead. Copper futures exchanged hands for $2.0640 per pound ($4,550 a tonne), down more than 1% from Friday's close and the lowest since June 16.Shipments from the world's number t...Read More
Miners at one of Chile's largest copper operations walked off the job on Friday morning after rejecting the majority-owner's final offer in collective wage talks.Over 1,700 workers at Anglo American's (LON:AAL) Los Bronces copper mine stopped work, after the union and the company failed to reach agreement despite a government-sponsored mediation process during contract negotiations. Anglo had repo...Read More
In 1900, two prospectors spotted a copper outcrop in southern Alaska below the Kennecott glacier, later confirmed to be the richest copper occurrence in the world.The project attracted backing from two of Wall Street's most prominent financiers, JP Morgan and Daniel Guggenheim, and was brought into production by 1909 despite considerable logistical challenges.Five Kennecott mines were built and in...Read More
Cash-strapped Mongolia is planning to bring back to life the long-delayed and massive Tavan Tolgoi coal project in the south Gobi desert, as the land-locked country looks for ways to revive its ailing economy.As a first step, Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi (ETT), the state-owned company that holds the license to the deposit, has already begun evaluating bids and calculating the potential economic benefits o...Read More
Nevsun Resources (TSX:NSU) (NYSE MKT:NSU) announced on Friday that it has sold and shipped the first zinc concentrate product from its Bisha mine in Eritrea.The ten thousand tonne lot was loaded at the Port of Massawa and sailed on September 7, 2016. The concentrate was sold on the spot market, attracting multiple offers and highly competitive treatment charges, the company said in a statement.Nev...Read More