Glencore Plc's billionaire head of copper trading, Aristotelis Mistakidis, was among executives fined and banned from being a director by Canada after admitting that its Congolese copper and cobalt unit misstated how much metal it mined.Mistakidis, who is retiring from Glencore at the end of this year, was hit with a C$2.45 million ($1.8 million) fine and a four-year director ban in Ontario at a p...Read More
JAKARTA, Dec 18 - Indonesia's state-owned miner PT Inalum expects to finalise a deal this week to take majority control of the local unit of global mining giant Freeport McMoRan Inc, the company's chief executive told Reuters on Tuesday.The deal will close "hopefully this week", said Budi Gunadi Sadikin, adding that a conclusion looked "highly likely."Inalum was proposing to sell a 10 percent stak...Read More
WINTHROP, Washington, Dec 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Although the wooden boardwalk and turn-of-the-century saloons reflect Winthrop's Old West history as a mining town, residents these days are counting down to a year-end deadline that could see the government ban extraction there for 20 years.Dec. 29 will mark the culmination of a battle by citizens of the Methow Valley, a constellation of...Read More
Pacific Empire Minerals (TSXV: PEMC) announced that it has entered into an option agreement with a group of vendors and consolidated a land position of over 90 square kilometres in the Babine copper-gold porphyry district in central British Columbia, Canada.In a media statement, the prospect generator said that the staked ground was added to its Paragon project, which also includes the company's W...Read More
Australia's largest gold producer, Newcrest Mining (ASX: NCM) has upped its holdings in Ecuador-focused explorer SolGold (LON, TSX:SOLG), which is developing the Cascabel copper-gold project in the country's north.The deal further bolsters Newcrest's position in SolGold against No.2 shareholder, BHP, as it raises its stake in the junior miner to 15.33% from 13.83%.In September, BHP bought Guyana G...Read More
Jiulian Resources (TSX-V: JLR) announced that it has received a five-year area-based permit from the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources to establish up to 60 drill sites and four kilometres of exploration trail for core drilling on its Big Kidd Property in British Columbia.Big Kidd is a 4,056-hectare property located 25 kilometres east of Merritt. Historic drilling...Read More
SASKATCHEWAN - Fifteen kilometres from the rapidly advancing Wheeler River project, Vancouver's Skyharbour Resources is finding high grades at the Moore uranium project.Drill hole ML18-14 intersected high grade uranium mineralization within the Main Maverick zone consisting of 3.11% uranium oxide over 1.8 metres within an interval of 15.2 metres containing 0.56% uranium oxide. This is one of the b...Read More
The 2019 exploration drilling plan for the Wheler River uranium project. (Image: Denison Mines Corp.)SASKATCHEWAN -Denison Mines Corp. and its partners in the Wheeler River uranium joint venture have agreed to spend $10.3 million to advance the project next year. A major undertaking will be to initiate the environmental assessment and engineering studies.The target of this activity will be the Pho...Read More
A map of Skyharbour's uranium projects in the Athabasca Basin. (Image: Skyharbour Resources)SASKATCHEWAN - Fifteen kilometres from the rapidly advancing Wheeler River project, Vancouver's Skyharbour Resources is finding high grades at the Moore uranium project.Drill hole ML18-14 intersected high grade uranium mineralization within the Main Maverick zone consisting of 3.11% uranium oxide over 1.8 m...Read More
AUSTRALIA - BHP Group has commissioned the new ramp at its Olympic Dam iron ore-copper-gold mine, and it doubles the haulage capacity for its trucks. The Kalta decline is key to reaching the Southern mine area where BHP is mining high grade copper resources.BHP spent A$250 million to develop the Southern mine area, and another $40 million on the ramp. The first ore from the area was produced in mi...Read More
RAPAPORT... Belgium's polished trade dropped in November, according todata from the Antwerp World Diamond Centre. Exports fell 11% amid a loweraverage price, with volumes down 1%. Rough shipments also declined. However,polished trading is up for the year to date, with rough mostly flat. Millions unless stated otherwiseRead More
RAPAPORT... De Beers sold $540 million of rough diamonds in its Decembercycle, buoyed by the return of Indian manufacturers from their seasonal holidayshutdown, the company said Tuesday. Revenue from the 10th cycle, including last week's sight inBotswana, jumped 22% from $442 million during the previous cycle. Proceedsclimbed 19% versus a year ago. Sales "continued to be in line with expectations...Read More
RAPAPORT... The Indian trade fell by most key measures in November,according to data from the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council(GJEPC). Polished exports slid to their lowest level since December 2016, when demand dropped in the aftermath ofIndia's banknote demonetization, while rough shipments alsodropped significantly. The year-on-year slumps come amid weaker demand forsmaller goo...Read More
RAPAPORT... This was the year in which synthetic diamonds wentmainstream. De Beers launched its Lightbox brand, the US Federal TradeCommission (FTC) relaxed its rules for describing lab-grown diamonds, andthe likes of Macy's and JCPenney started stocking synthetics for theholiday. Two of those three stories feature in the top 10 most-read articles onDiamonds.net this year.Martin Rapaport's takes o...Read More
RAPAPORT... A pink diamond recently submitted to the Central GemLaboratory (CGL) in Tokyo was found to be a chemical vapor deposition (CVD)synthetic stone, treated only with Low Pressure-High Temperature (LPHT). The marquise brilliant-cut, 0.192-carat diamond is an unusualfind, as stones of this nature are generally treated with a multistep process thatfirst uses High Pressure-High Temperature (HP...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Russian diamond miner ALROSA reported that global jewelry sales rose 4% overall in the third quarter of 2018. North America, the largest diamond jewelry market, showed a 4% sales increase in Q3 compared to the same period last year. "According to key retailers, stable growth was driven by increased demand from the local population," the firm said. "In the Asia Pacific...Read More
Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), Russia's largest steelmaker, will increase pig iron output at its Lipetsk site to meet own production needs, the company said on Tuesday December 18.NLMK will boost blast furnace (BF) No6 capacity by 8%, to 3.4 million tonnes per year, thus, the company will add around 250,000 tpy of pig iron capacity, Fastmarkets understands. Currently, the company is installing new blas...Read More
(IDEX Online) - De Beers sold rough diamonds with a provisional value of $540 million in the 10th sales cycle (Global Sightholder Sales and Auction Sales) of 2018. The miner's two previous sales had both been below $500 million. The miner reported confirmed sales of $442 million in the ninth cycle, compared with an initial provisional figure of $440 million. Bruce Cleaver...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Sales of fine jewelry and fine watches rose by 5.7 percent in the U.S. market in October, when compared to the same month a year ago, as the graph below illustrates. The rise is the second-lowest seen so far this year, but is nonetheless a solid increase. Overall sales in October, the last month for which figures are available, were an estimated $5.8 billion, accordi...Read More
LONDON – The biggest diamond ever found in North America has been unearthed by Dominion Diamond Mines and Rio Tinto Group at a mine in Canada’s frozen north.The 552 ct yellow gem was found at the Diavik mine in the Northwest Territories, and is almost three times the size of the next largest stone ever found in Canada. While Diavik and the neighboring Ekati mine produce some...Read More