Can Lavender Save Land Ruined By Coal Mining?

 | World Wide Waste

Aug 18, 2021

A lavender farm in West Virginia is restoring land destroyed by coal mining and providing jobs in a state struggling as the fossil fuel energy is on its way out. There are over 6 million acres of abandoned coal mines across the US, and more could go to waste if coal companies don’t restore their land.

PSST MINING IS NOT SUSTAINABLE

EV makers eye bigger battery metals role by inking mining deals
Bloomberg News | August 16, 2021 | 

Wheaton Precious Metals president and chief executive, Randy Smallwood. (Photo: Wheaton Precious Metals)

Electric vehicle makers are pushing for an intermediary role in mining to secure supplies of key battery metals, according to the head of Wheaton Precious Metals Corp.


“We’ve had discussions on that and Tesla has definitely explored these options,” Chief Executive Officer Randy Smallwood said Friday in a phone interview. “There is a real concern on the battery metal side in terms of supply.”

Smallwood said he’s seeing increasing interest from electric vehicle makers to get more involved in the industry and has even had talks with “potential partners” interested in starting their own streaming companies for battery metals including cobalt, nickel and lithium.

Automakers have been signing supply deals with mining companies to secure metals used in batteries to meet surging demand amid a global push for a cleaner energy economy. Tesla Inc. struck a nickel-supply deal with BHP Group last month after CEO Elon Musk had expressed concern about supply due to challenges in sustainable sourcing.

These companies should “focus on the prominence of where their metals are coming from and making sure that the products they’re buying and investing into to supply their customers are sourced responsibly,” Smallwood said.

Wheaton Precious Metals remains primarily focused on gold and silver production deals, though the Vancouver-based company has a cobalt streaming deal with Vale SA for some output from the Brazilian miner’s Voisey’s Bay mine in Canada. Cobalt has become harder to find with companies like Tesla and Apple Inc. trying to secure their own supplies by signing long-term production deals with miners.

(By Alejandra Salgado, with assistance from James Attwood, Joe Deaux and Yvonne Yue Li)

 

Image credit: Luke Thornton / Unsplash

EXCLUSIVE: Cargill, Microsoft join $17m raise for carbon verification platform Regrow

August 17, 2021

Jack Ellis

Ag software startup Regrow has raised $17 million in Series A funding as it proceeds with the US rollout of its monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) tool for carbon sequestration and monetization.

New investors participating in the round included US agribusiness giant Cargill, US climate-focused VC Ajax Strategies, and Australian agrifoodtech VC Tenacious Ventures.

Among Regrow’s returning investors were Microsoft venture unit M12, AirTree Ventures, the Jeremy & Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust‘s Neglected Climate Opportunities fund, and Main Sequence – the VC arm of Australian national R&D agency CSIRO.

Regrow was formed in February this year following the merger of Australian crop science company FluroSat and US soil health startup Dagan.

The Durham, New Hampshire-based firm claims its MRV platform is “the first and only” such system that allows stakeholders across the emerging ag carbon credits industry to create, and cash in on, carbon strategies. It does this by enabling transparent reporting, historical analysis, and forward-looking projections of carbon sequestration and emissions reductions, with the hope of removing “the most critical challenges standing in the way of ubiquitous adoption of regenerative agriculture practices.”

Regrow “supports delivery of programs initiated by sellers or buyers to the growers, as well as supporting grower decision-making in choosing which practice to adopt by showing them the potential for outcomes and payments,” says CEO Anastasia Volkova, who describes the platform as “the first independent, objective turnkey system” for agriculture.

She tells AFN that it is this ‘independence’ which differentiates Regrow’s solution from those of competing MRV providers.

“It doesn’t combine the MRV capabilities with the market itself. We power sustainability programs of key players without deciding on the price of the credit or making the payment,” she says.

“This ensures that we stay focused on the science and the MRV itself, and are not incentivized by financial outcomes that we help create. Competitive MRV offerings such as CIBO and Indigo have a market attached to them, which creates undesirable conflicts of interest for all parties.”

Cutting the costs of verification

Another advantage of Regrow’s MRV, from Volkova’s perspective, is that it’s able to cut the costs of data collection — including soil sampling — by leveraging integrations with third-party farm management software, as well as the startup’s own satellite imagery-based monitoring and verification product, OpTIS.

“Soil sampling is important and plays a key role in initializing our soil model. Relying on a combination of modeling and remote sensing, however, means that you do not have to redo soil sampling as frequently since your model has known accuracy and uncertainty that you can propagate with time,” she says.

“If markets know the uncertainty of the outcomes then they can appropriately administer payment and simultaneously lower the cost of sampling.”

DNDC — the soil model Regrow uses to quantify carbon credits and other outcomes — “has been scientifically vetted and used internationally,” she adds.

“Again, this means for the food companies, which are the primary funders of sustainability programs at the moment, that the MRV will scale globally and cover their various supply chains.”

Among the companies and organizations that have signed up as paying subscribers to Regrow’s MRV platform and its supporting products are new investor Cargill, agrochemicals major Bayer, food giant General Mills, and environmental nonprofit The Nature Conservancy.

Volkova says there are several new partnerships on the horizon that will help Regrow to expand into new international markets, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Europe in the first instance.

“Not only does agriculture feed our growing population, but we know that, when done sustainably, it can sequester carbon and lead to better environmental outcomes,” Ben Fargher, managing director of sustainability for Cargill Agricultural Supply Chain North America, said in a statement.

“Regrow, with its dedication to science and bias for action, has tremendous potential to enable further transformation of sustainable agricultural systems around the world.”

SASKABOOM 2.0

Uranium tops Morgan Stanley’s  commodity thermometer
MINING.COM Staff Writer | August 15, 2021 |

Autunite, frequently used as uranium ore. (Reference image by Parent Géry, Wikimedia Commons).

Morgan Stanley has placed uranium at the very top of its Metals and Mining Commodity Thermometer.


Uranium was assigned a ‘most bullish’ thesis of 17 mined commodities under the bank’s coverage.

“Further price upside near term as commercial inventories are drawn down, investment demand continues, and mine supply remains below 2019 levels. Longer term, growth continues to push price higher,” reads a slide shared by a social media user.

The gap between uranium spot and contract prices has narrowed for a third consecutive month, reaching $32.40 and $33.50 per lb. at the end of July, respectively.

Benga Mining applies for judicial review following Canada’s coal mine snub

MINING.COM Staff Writer | August 16, 2021

Alberta Rockies. Shutterstock Image.

A unit of Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, Benga Mining, has applied to the Federal Court of Canada for a judicial review of the rejection of the proposed $800 million Grassy Mountain steelmaking coal mine that it plans to build in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains.


Benga has applied for an order that quashes or sets aside Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s decision of August 6, that the project was “likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects” and which referred the project to the Cabinet.

BENGA IS ALSO SEEKING TO QUASH THE CABINET’S DECISION THAT THE “SIGNIFICANT ADVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS” THAT THE PROJECT “IS LIKELY TO CAUSE ARE NOT JUSTIFIED IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES”

Benga is also seeking to quash the Cabinet’s decision that the “significant adverse environmental effects” that the project “is likely to cause are not justified in the circumstances”.

The Minister’s determination was based on a decision by the Joint Review Panel on June 17, to deny the Grassy Mountain project. The determination, Benga said, was made despite applications being filed with the Court of Appeal of Alberta on July 16 and 19, by the company and the Piikani and the Stoney Nakoda First Nations.

Benga said that its legal counsel had written to Wilkinson on June 26, formally requesting that he took no action at this time, in order to allow the company to pursue its legal avenues on appeal.

Benga also wrote to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada on July 6, advising that failure by the Minister to hold the federal process in abeyance pending resolution of Benga’s legal challenges in the Court of Appeal of Alberta would prejudice Benga and potentially those Indigenous groups that might benefit from the project.

“We are dismayed that Canada’s Minister of Environment could render a decision so hastily, and based on a report that is facing multiple legal challenges,” Benga CEO John Wallington said in a statement.

“Not only were the Minister’s and Cabinet’s decisions premature and ill-informed, they were also made without adequate consultation with the relevant First Nations, something that is unconscionable within the rigours of a modern regulatory approval process.”

Benga’s parent company, Riversdale Resources, has spent about $700 million in acquiring the project and in pursuing the necessary regulatory approvals.

“At the time of acquiring the project, we were warmly welcomed and made to feel that Canada was very much open for business and intent upon attracting international investment and capital for the development of large-scale projects that would stimulate the economy and provide employment opportunities.

“We were acutely aware of Canada’s international reputation as a destination of choice for mining projects that could be developed without political interference within an open, transparent and fair regulatory regime. However, the Minister’s and Cabinet’s decisions that we are now seeking to review raise serious questions about sovereign risk and just how open, transparent and fair the regulatory regime actually is.”

Wilkinson said on August 6 the project was “likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects” to surface water quality, including from selenium effluent discharge; Westslope cutthroat trout, listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act, and its habitat; Whitebark Pine, listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act; and Physical and cultural heritage of the Kainai, Piikani and Siksika First Nations.

“The government of Canada must make decisions based on the best available scientific evidence while balancing economic and environmental considerations. It is in Canada’s best interests to safeguard our water ways for healthy fish populations like the Westslope Cutthroat Trout, respect Indigenous peoples’ culture and way of life, and protect the environment for future generations,” the minister said at the time.

The $800 million project is a proposed steelmaking coal mine in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, expected to contribute $1.7 billion in provincial and federal income taxes and royalties. Benga says the project has a Category 4 land use classification (being land on which surface or underground mining may be considered) and that nearly 25% of the project was on previously mined land.

As proposed, the Grassy Mountain coal project’s production capacity would have been up 4.5 million tonnes of processed coal per year, over a mine-life of about 25 years.

Canada is particularly concerned with harmful substances associated with coal mining. Effluent from coal mines in Canada can be a source of pollution that harms aquatic life and specifically fish and fish habitat. As such, Environment and Climate Change Canada is developing the Coal Mining Effluent Regulations under the Fisheries Act. These proposed regulations will establish effluent quality standards for deleterious substances of concern, including selenium, nitrate and suspended solids.

Woodside snares BHP oil, gas business in $28 billion merger

Reuters | August 17, 2021 | 

BHP’s oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. (Image courtesy of BHP)

BHP Group has agreed to sell its petroleum business to Woodside Petroleum in a merger to create a top 10 independent oil and gas producer worth A$38.5 billion ($28 billion) with growth assets in Australia and the Americas.


BHP’s exit from petroleum, which made up just 5% of its annual earnings, speeds up its exit from fossil fuels amid pressure from environmentally conscious investors. BHP CEO Mike Henry, however, said the company remained committed to metallurgical coal used in steel making.

BHP shareholders will be paid in Woodside stock, giving BHP investors a 48% stake in the merged group.

That effectively values BHP’s petroleum arm at about A$18.5 billion ($13 billion) on Tuesday’s close, roughly in the middle of analysts’ valuations between $10 billion and $17 billion.

For Woodside, the deal is transformational, doubling its output, expanding its footprint in liquefied natural gas, removing the main obstacle to its $12 billion Scarborough gas project and giving it near-term growth options in the Gulf of Mexico.

BHP’s assets, including its ageing assets in Australia’s Bass Strait where its petroleum business originated, generate cash that will help Woodside fund the Scarborough project as well as developments in the Gulf of Mexico.

BHP SHAREHOLDERS WILL BE PAID IN WOODSIDE STOCK, GIVING BHP INVESTORS A 48% STAKE IN THE MERGED GROUP

“Merging Woodside with BHP’s oil and gas business delivers a stronger balance sheet, increased cash flow and enduring financial strength to fund planned developments in the near term and new energy sources into the future,” Woodside Chief Executive Meg O’Neill said in a statement.

“We will have more optionality in where we invest and can prioritise the highest return opportunities,” she told analysts.

The merger ratio involved no premium for BHP’s assets, she said.

The deal was announced at the same time as Woodside appointed O’Neill as chief executive, following a stint as acting CEO. Some analysts had speculated BHP’s petroleum chief Geraldine Slattery, would get the job.

“The proposed transaction de-risks and supports Scarborough FID (final investment decision) later this year and enables more flexible capital allocation,” O’Neill said.

The companies said the merger would generate annual savings of more than $400 million from 2023, the year after the deal is expected to close.

Woodside plans to put the share issue to a vote in the second quarter of 2022.

A big Woodside investor, Allan Gray Australia, has raised concerns about a deal, especially if it involved a massive share issue.

“It’s very unlikely that shareholders would jump at that idea. We certainly wouldn’t,” Allan Gray Australia Chief Investment Officer Simon Mawhinney told Reuters last week.

O’Neill played down concerns that many BHP investors who don’t want fossil fuels or an Australian stock might dump the Woodside shares, saying there is already overlap among investors in the company and it would consider secondary listings in London and New York to help keep “high value” investors on board.

Analysts raised concern about the near-term decommissioning liabilities Woodside will be inheriting with BHP’s stake in the Bass Strait oil and gas fields. Analysts have estimated those costs at least $2 billion, but O’Neill would not put a figure on it.

“We feel good about how we’ve valued the decommissioning obligation in setting the merger ratio,” she said.

($1 = 1.3732 Australian dollars)

(By Sonali Paul; Editing by David Evans)

Glencore acquires stake in UK battery maker Britishvolt

Bloomberg News | August 17, 2021 | 

Image: Britishvolt

Mining giant Glencore Plc acquired a stake in Britishvolt Ltd., allowing the U.K. battery maker to secure long-term supplies of key material cobalt.


Britishvolt is building the U.K.’s first giant battery factory in northern England. It will produce batteries for electric vehicles, with demand set to grow as the U.K. bans sales of new gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by the end of the decade.

“This is a huge step in the right direction for Britishvolt,” Chief Executive Officer Orral Nadjari said in a statement, without disclosing the size of Glencore’s stake or the financial terms. “By partnering with Glencore, we are locking in supply and derisking the project.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is trying to avoid falling behind in a transcontinental competition to chip away at the dominance of Asian battery makers and Tesla Inc. Johnson has committed 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) to help build factories that can produce batteries at scale.

Britishvolt’s plant will be built in three phases, with a total capacity of 30 gigawatt-hours from the end of 2027. Its production capability will equate to enough cells for around 300,000 electric-vehicle battery packs a year.

Sales of EVs — both battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models — more than doubled in Europe last year to about 1.3 million units, topping China for the first time.

(By Amanda Jordan, with assistance from Thomas Biesheuvel)

Australian Aboriginal groups to get more say over heritage protection

Reuters | August 18, 2021 | 

Australian Aboriginal groups will be consulted more widely but gain no veto over development projects on their traditional lands, under proposed changes to laws in the state where miner Rio Tinto destroyed ancient rock shelters last year.


Rio’s destruction of the sites at Juukan Gorge, which showed signs of human habitation stretching back 46,000 years, was legal.

Related Article: TIMELINE-Rio Tinto’s sacred Indigenous caves blast scandal

But it sparked a public outcry, cost top executives at the global mining firm their jobs and prompted a national review of industry practices and Australia’s heritage protection laws.

Briefing notes of amendments drafted to existing Aboriginal heritage laws in Western Australia – where the gorge is located and Australia’s most mineral-rich state – were seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

The proposed changes include much heftier fines for damage to Aboriginal heritage and a focus on agreement-making between developers – who will have obtain informed consent and provide full disclosure of all their options – and traditional owners.

But they fail to provide the right to veto development projects damaging to their heritage that Aboriginal groups have demanded.

The bill establishes a new oversight body for the agreement-making process that will be majority Aboriginal and have a male and female co-chair, to account for cultural knowledge protected by gender.

The draft is designed to tackle a system in which development approval rests with the government minister for Aboriginal Affairs, in a process that has broadly rubber stamped such requests and does not now allow Aboriginal groups the right of appeal.

Aboriginal groups say they have not been adequately consulted over the new legislation, and expressed particular concern that the government remains the ultimate decision-making authority in cases where agreement can’t be reached.

The proposed Western Australia revisions state that, in such cases, “an alternate process will provide for Government consideration of these proposals”, without providing further details.

State parliament records showed that for the decade to July 2020, of more than 460 applications to disturb or destroy sites of potential cultural significance in the state by miners, all but one were approved.

The state government is briefing groups on the draft legislation over the coming days.

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by John Stonestreet)

MINING IS UNSUSTAINABLE 

Most miners are falling short of carbon cuts needed for UN goal

Bloomberg News | August 17, 2021 |

Stock image.

The mining industry is falling short on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions enough to limit global warming, even after stepping up efforts to help combat climate change.


Only 11 out of 46 metal and mining companies analyzed by Bloomberg Intelligence have carbon-reduction targets that match levels needed for the United Nations’ goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report.


BIG MINERS HAVE BEEN WORKING TO IMPROVE SUSTAINABILITY REPORTS, SHOWING AWARENESS OF HOW HARD THEIR BUSINESS CAN BE HIT IF THEY IGNORE THOSE CALLS

The group includes global giants such as Anglo American Plc and Newmont Corp., the world’s largest gold producer.

Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group Ltd and Sweden’s Boliden AB are the leaders of the group, indicating better preparedness for a low-carbon transition and suggesting the best combination of current and forecasted performance on curbing emissions, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s carbon score ranking. The top five companies, based on their overall carbon score, are:

Company Name Overall Score

Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. 9.84
Boliden AB 9.75
Kumba Iron Ore Ltd. 9.73
Newmont Corp. 9.53
BHP Group Ltd. 8.84
Source: Bloomberg

The BI ranking measures the companies on reduction trends, current and future carbon-dioxide intensity, planned cuts and positioning to the end of the decade compared to a temperature-aligned benchmark, using data through April 1. Of the companies analyzed, only Fortescue has set a carbon-neutral target for 2030. Fourteen companies aim to zero out emissions with the target date ranging from 2030 to 2050 as part of a long-term transition.

The mining industry faces increasing scrutiny from investors and regulators demanding greater emphasis on environmental, social and governance issues. Big miners have been working to improve sustainability reports, showing awareness of how hard their business can be hit if they ignore those calls, and a number of producers have set goals to reduce emissions or adopted more ambitious targets in the past couple years.

Related read: UN says IPCC’s climate report “code red for humanity”

Aluminum producers face the highest risks due to carbon-intensive operations, according to the BI report. Those companies need to reduce emissions 49% by 2030, compared to the 20% cutback needed by other diversified and precious metals miners.

“Having carbon-reduction goals is important to aluminum companies because they’re more carbon-intensive than most other metals,” Shaheen Contractor, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said. “That might be why for other miners like precious metal companies, few have set carbon emission goals as of April 1.”

European aluminum companies could see costs of as much as 1.5% of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to 2024, according to the report. A proposal to cut emissions in the European Union 55% by the end of the decade “may mean more headwinds”.

(By Mariana Durao)

USACE assigns a new review officer for Pebble appeal

MINING.COM Staff Writer | August 17, 2021 | 

The proposed area where Pebble mine would be built, 320 km southwest of Anchorage, within the Bristol Bay watershed. (Image courtesy of Northern Dynasty Minerals)

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has assigned a new review officer to handle Northern Dynasty Minerals’ (TSX: NDM) appeal of a negative record of decision for the massive Pebble copper-gold project in Alaska.


The new review officer comes after the previous officer was promoted out of the position.

The new officer is expected to set a detailed timeline for the administrative appeal process, including scheduling a potential site visit and appeal conference in the weeks ahead.

THE NEW OFFICER IS EXPECTED TO SET A DETAILED TIMELINE FOR THE ADMINISTRATIVE APPEAL PROCESS, INCLUDING SCHEDULING A POTENTIAL SITE VISIT AND APPEAL CONFERENCE

Northern Dynasty’s US subsidiary, the Pebble Limited Partnership, says it has been advised that the administrative appeal process for Pebble could take a year or more given the complexity of the case. The administrative record contains 200,000 documents to date.

The Pebble Partnership submitted a request for appeal of the federal permitting decision in January.

“We have been, and continue to be, very concerned about USACE’s schedule and timeline for advancing our administrative appeal of the Pebble permitting decision, as we believe this does not accord with regulation,” said Northern Dynasty president and CEO Ron Thiessen in a media release this week.

“The new review officer has the power to help set the US down the path of strategic metals independence, which could enable the US to produce the copper, gold and silver it needs for a successful green economy transition. They can also help ensure that these metals are mined using industry-leading technologies under some of the strictest environmental standards in the world, while helping Alaska realize its right to manage its own resources for the benefit of its population.”

The project is considered one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits and has been through a roller coaster of regulation over the past 13 years.

The USACE in November denied a key water permit for the Pebble mine project. The lead federal regulator found Pebble’s ‘compensatory mitigation plan’ as submitted earlier this month to be ‘non-compliant’, and that the project is ‘not in the public interest’.

Northern Dynasty called the decision “politically motivated” and said it is fundamentally unsupported by the administrative record as developed by the USACE through the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process for the Pebble project.

With resource estimates including 6.5 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated categories containing 57 billion pounds of copper and 71 million ounces of gold, 3.4 billion pounds of molybdenum and 345 million silver ounces, if permitted, Pebble would be North America’s largest mine.

Northern Dynasty shares trading in Toronto have cratered more than 75% over the past 12 months as the Pebble project continues to lay in regulatory limbo. Shares last traded on Tuesday at C$0.475 per share, giving the company a market value of C$243.63 million.