Precious metals refiner Asahi has won an auction for the assets of bankrupt Miami-based refiner Republic Metals Corporation (RMC), outbidding its Swiss rival Valcambi, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.RMC was one North America's largest precious metals refineries before it filed for bankruptcy in November.Asahi won the auction in a New York bankruptcy court on Thursday with a...Read More
Commodities love a tragedy.Last week's burst of a tailings dam at a Vale SA iron ore mine in Brazil's Minas Gerais state has left close to a hundred, and possibly approaching 400, people dead. Far from wilting at the news, iron ore has been surging - up 12 percent in the last five days, its biggest five-day jump in about 18 months.That seeming cold-heartedness is only natural. Vale produces about...Read More
* Xinfa Group, one of China's top aluminium producers, has reduced output at its alumina plant in southern China's Guangxi region due to tight bauxite supply, according to a company official and a consultancy.* Production has been reduced by 500,000 tonnes on an annual basis, said the Xinfa official, who put the plant's total capacity at 3 million tonnes per year.* Consultancy Baiinfo said the dai...Read More
In the aftermath of Brazil's deadliest mine disaster, a nasty and familiar feud has broken out.Green groups and community activists blamed avaricious industrialists, free-market fundamentalists and their official enablers for gutting safety protocols that led to last week's collapse of a tailings dam at Vale SA's Feijao iron ore mine, in Minas Gerais state, which has claimed at least 110 lives, wi...Read More
First it was the Libor-rigging cartel, then the FX exchange-rate manipulation cartel, now, European regulators have moved on to prosecutingRead full newsRead More
Mitsui & Co on Friday cut full-year profit forecast by 2 percent due to the absence of a dividend from Vale, but the Japanese trading house does not plan to change its holding in the Brazilian miner, a company executive said.With 110 people confirmed dead and another 238 missing, according to firefighters' count on Thursday evening, the collapse of tailings dam, which belongs to top iron ore miner...Read More
Residents of Brumadinho, Brazil, where a mining dam ruptured last week leaving at least 110 dead, 238 missing and an environmental disaster of epic proportions, claim a law-enforced alarm didn't go off on time to save lives, local media report.According to O Globo, one of the most respected Brazilian publications, mining giant Vale (NYSE:VALE) acknowledged that warning sirens at its C??rrego do...Read More
Residents of Brumadinho, Brazil, where a mining dam ruptured last week leaving at least 110 dead, 238 missing and an environmental disaster of epic proportions, claim a law-enforced alarm didn't go off on time to save lives, local media report.According to O Globo, one of the most respected Brazilian publications, mining giant Vale (NYSE:VALE) acknowledged that warning sirens at its C??rrego do...Read More
Sokoman Iron (TSXV: SIC) announced that it now owns a 100% interest in the Moosehead gold property, located in central Newfoundland, Canada.In a press release, Sokoman said, as required in the option agreement it signed with Altius Resources (TSX: ALS), the company invested $500,000 in exploration expenditures as an operator within the first year of the closing of the deal.Core from one of the hol...Read More
MAX Resource (TSXV: MXR) announced this week that, following sampling work at five conglomerate trial pits on its Choc?? project, free gold was observed in the test concentrates obtained from each of the hard rock pits.In a press release, MAX said that initial results suggest potential gold continuity throughout a surface area of approximately eight square kilometers, open in all directions.The Va...Read More
Teck Resources, (TSX:TECK.A | TECK.B)(NYSE:TCK), Canada's largest diversified miner, announced late on Thursday it expected fourth-quarter profits to be significantly below estimates, due to the low price of Canadian oil at the end of 2018, issues at its operations in Trail, B.C., and a decline in commodity prices.The Vancouver-based mining giant said all those factors combined, plus inventory v...Read More
In my Thursday Howe Street interview with Jim Goddard, I recap our latest US and Canadian market comments. For regular readers of those reports, the interview covered familiar territory. We also dug into the question of the marijuana legalization roll-out which covered a bit of new ground (click here to listen to the interview).The interview starts off with a challenge for listeners as we jump ri...Read More
"Should Lena Gold-Mining Public Joint Stock Company Lenzoloto's (MCX:LNZL) Weak Investment Returns Worry You? https://t.co/FkU71SE0Rq"Read full newsRead More
"$DEO - Diageo's (DEO) CEO Ivan Menezes on 2019 Interim Results, Half Year Ended 31 December 2018 - Earnings Call Transcript https://t.co/Ck4RSt235j"Read full newsRead More
The aftermath of last weeks catastrophic dam collapse in Brazil continues to be felt among the junior mining stocks as investors weigh the contrasting forces of lower iron ore production and a potential environmental and legislative backlash. With hundreds of people still missing and presumed dead, there is understandable anger in Brazil at Vale SA, the company whose Feijao iron ore mine...Read More
Last month the Government's Bureau of Lies And Statistics served up an employment report purporting 312,000 new jobs in December. This despite massive seasonal retail lay-offs in the latter half of the month. The BLS happily counts those jobs when hired in October but forgets to remove them when are dismissed at the end of the holiday shopping season. As John Williams (Shadow Government Sta...Read More
Craig Crosbie and Michael Fung of PwC were appointed as administrators on December 19. Laguna was producing zinc and gold from the small-scale El Toqui mine in Peru.Read More
Nemaska Lithium Project (Mine and Hydromet Plant)Nemaska Lithium Inc. [NMX-TSX; NMKEF-OTCQX; NOT-Frankfurt] said Friday February 1 that it plans to resume construction at the Whabouchi lithium mine site in Quebec on February 5, 2019.The company said construction activities were put on hold on the morning of January 31, 2019, following a fire in the cafeteria of the Nemiscau work camp. The facility...Read More
Teck's Fort Hills oil sands project in Alberta. Source: Teck Resources Ltd.Teck Resources Ltd. [TECK.B-TSX; TECK-NYSE] issued a profit warning Friday saying it expects to report fourth quarter earnings and EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) to be well below consensus estimates.Analyst said many of the issues raised appear to be associated with isolated incidents...Read More
The grinding circuit at the Kamoto concentrator. Source: Katanga Mining Ltd.Cobalt sales by Glencore AG's Katanga Mining Ltd. [KAT-TSX] unit are facing further delays after the Democratic Republic of Congo requested a suspension of Katanga's KCC ion-exchange project. The project is being developed to remove uranium from cobalt.Katanga Mining's Kamoto Copper Co. unit received a letter on January 30...Read More