Newmont becomes sole owner of Yanacocha gold mine in Peru

Cecilia Jamasmie | April 12, 2022 

Yanacocha mine, in Peru’s northern Cajamarca region. (Image courtesy of Newmont.)

Newmont (NYSE: NEM) (TSX: NGT), the world’s no. 1 gold miner by output, is buying Sumitomo Corp’s 5% stake in the Yanacocha mine in Peru for $48 million.


The deal makes of the Denver, Colorado-based company the sole owner and operator of the vast gold mine, located in northern Peru’s Cajamarca region.

Newmont had announced in February that it was acquiring partner Buenaventura’s 43.65% interest in Yanacocha, in a transaction valued at $300 million.

Buying Buenaventura’s and Sumitomo’s stakes in the asset is consistent with Newmont’s district consolidation strategy, the company said.

Yanacocha is South America’s largest gold mine, producing about 350,000 ounces of the precious metal a year. The company is advancing a feasibility study for what it calls the “Yanacocha sulphides” project, which would extend the mine life beyond 2040.

As the oxide resources of the open pit Yanacocha mine are close to being depleted, the project is designed to continue mining sulfide material underground.

The first phase focuses on developing the Yanacocha Verde and Chaquicocha deposits to extend operations beyond 2040. The second and third phases, Palmer said, have the potential to extend the mine life for “multiple decades.”

One of Peru’s top mining projects

Newmont had said the sulfides project is one of the most important ones planned in Peru for the next five years.

“We’ve been in Peru for 30 years. The Yanacocha Sulphides project will ultimately position us to be in Peru for at least another 30 or 40 years,” chief executive Tom Palmer said in an investors update last year.

The company says Yanacocha has provided over $1 billion in environmental and social responsibility projects since it started operations in the 1990s.

About two-thirds of the mine’s revenue is ploughed back into the local economy in wages, taxes, goods and services, as the operation employs 1,400 workers directly and supports a further 40,000 Peruvian jobs. Two-thirds of workers at the mine are residents of Cajamarca.

Guinea junta turns up the heat on bauxite miners

Henry Lazenby | April 12, 2022 | 

Bauxite, aluminium hydroxide. (Photo by JJ Harrison, Wikimedia Commons).

The military junta that took control of Guinea in September is heaping pressure on multinational miners to refine raw bauxite, a raw material used to make aluminium, to more advanced materials before export.


In a recent research note released by CRU Group’s senior analyst, Anthony Everiss, the junta has asked the companies to present the mines ministry with proposals by the end of May with a precise timetable for constructing refineries. The junta appears to be doubling down, turning the nation’s mineral wealth into a means of economic development.

Bauxite miners in Guinea have reportedly previously committed to developing them.

According to CRU data, the announcement comes when Guinea bauxite shipments to China are at an all-time high, surpassing 6 million tonnes in a single month for the first time.

However, there is currently just one alumina refinery in operation, which was built several decades ago.

Everiss said the drive for value-added investment has been in place for some time and has always been a common theme when international mining companies, industry partners, and government officials gather at the annual Guinea Mining Symposium.

However, Everiss noted this recent announcement might have more significant rhetoric as it was the first time Guinea’s junta had shown its hand and was the strongest sign of intent yet that the new military regime was determined to pursue a policy of resource nationalism.

“The message to the international mining community in recent times is that Guinea is now much more aware of the value of their resources, has better control and understanding of the mining industry and exports, and would be ensuring a more equitable share of the revenue and profits from international mining endeavours. This was coupled with a focus on social inclusion, agriculture, infrastructure spending and sustainability,” said Everiss.

CRU currently does not expect a greenfield alumina refinery to be built in the country before 2026. “Technical limitations alongside higher capital costs versus China may lead to disappointment for the government’s expectations. Running costs also are likely higher than competing nations,” said Everiss.

According to CRU, six companies have planned 11 million tonnes per year of alumina refining capacity in Guinea. “However, unlike the significant progress in bauxite mining, the progress of the alumina refineries is very slow at present. Only SMB’s alumina project has made some progress,” said Everiss.

CRU notes, however, that significant hurdles remained when it came to building greenfields alumina refineries in the country, namely that inputs such as all the other raw material needs, such as energy and caustic soda, need to be imported.

“The key issue is whether the projects can control the other raw material costs. Compared to Indonesia, for example, the mining cost in Guinea is lower. But Guinea refineries also contend with a longer distance if opting to transport the alumina back to China,” said Everiss.

“Nevertheless, new permits for mining will need to be accompanied by a clear investment plan for a downstream plant, depending on the scale of the project. In bauxite, the ruling military regime had remained firmly committed to continuing resource mining and export, but now requires ‘partnership’ with industry for longevity.”

“The latest announcement shows that it will be increasingly important for mining companies to build on verbal commitments and set into motion the actions needed to construct alumina refineries, rail, roads, and port infrastructure, alongside community spending,” said Everiss.

Barrick bets big on Pakistan with $7 billion copper mine project

Bloomberg News | April 12, 2022 |

The Reko Diq deposit is located in the Balochistan province, whose landscape is pictured here. (Image by Michael Foley, Flickr)

Barrick Gold Corp.’s first crack at building a copper mine in Pakistan was thwarted when the government denied it permits. A decade later, the company is making another — much bolder — attempt.


The Toronto-based miner laid out revised plans Tuesday for developing the giant Reko Diq copper-gold deposit in a desert region close to the borders of Iran and Afghanistan. Barrick shares rose 0.7% to C$32.33 at 2:05 p.m. in Toronto.


The conceptual design calls for the $7 billion project to be built in two phases, with each able to process about 40 million metric tons of ore a year and production starting as soon as 2027, Barrick said in a presentation on its website. The latest plan is double the annual throughput capacity and more than twice the investment estimated in a 2010 feasibility study.

Barrick is increasing bets on Pakistan while its Chilean partner, Antofagasta Plc, exists the project in preference for safer and closer jurisdictions in the Americas.

Among Barrick’s reasons are juicy returns: annual production of about 200,000 tons of copper would start just as the world faces a shortfall of a commodity that’s key to the the clean-energy transition, given how much is used in electric vehicles and renewable energy.

In addition, mines are getting trickier and pricer to build throughout the world with political risk on the rise, even in traditionally safer nations like Chile and Peru. As a result, Pakistan looks relatively less risky, just as a new centrist prime minister takes office.

Pakistan is now a 50% partner in Reko Diq, a type of arrangement that Barrick also had to adopt in Papua New Guinea, and one that gives host nations a more direct interest in seeing projects succeed. Barrick plans a full update of the Reko Diq feasibility study following last month’s agreement with Pakistan.

Barrick’s two-phase approach in the conceptual design gives the company a way to speed up first production while minimizing risk. A $4 billion first phase would cover initial crush, milling and flotation circuit, with output set to start in 2027-2028. A $3 billion second phase would encompass a parallel circuit that would fire up in five-plus years after phase one starts.

The latest design shows a mine life of 40-plus years, compared to the 56 years identified in the 2010 study that pegged initial costs at $3.3 billion.

Barrick also sees the project in southwestern Balochistan as “a springboard for further exploration and other mineral discoveries along the highly prospective Tethyan Metallogenic Belt.”

The company expects to close a definitive agreement with Pakistan in the second half and complete the feasibility update in 2023-2024. In the meantime, Barrick and its partners are seeking to raise “limited” recourse financing for the first phase.

(By James Attwood)

New lithium technology can help the world go green — if it works

Reuters | April 7, 2022

(Image courtesy of Lilac Solutions).

Rio Tinto, General Motors and even the US Energy Department are investing heavily in a crop of newer technologies that could revolutionize the way lithium is produced for electric vehicle batteries.


Now those technologies just have to prove they work on a commercial scale.

If they do, miners will be able to boost global lithium production with a footprint far smaller than open-pit mines and evaporation ponds, which often are the size of multiple football fields and unpopular with local communities.

These so-called direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies extract the white metal from brine using filters, membranes, ceramic beads or other equipment that can typically be housed in a small warehouse. But they often use lots of potable water and electricity, and none have worked at commercial scale.

Global automakers, mining companies and investors are pouring millions of dollars into DLE companies, betting they can supply the bulk of the lithium needed to power the electric vehicle revolution.

“It’s such a game changer. There’s huge opportunities,” US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told an energy conference last month about DLE.

Granholm’s department has given Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc a $15 million grant to test DLE technology at California’s Salton Sea, under which sit large geothermal lithium deposits, and is considering funding other DLE projects.

DLE technologies would challenge traditional miners such as Albemarle Corp, the world’s largest lithium producer, and prospective miners such as Lithium Americas Corp, ioneer Ltd and Piedmont Lithium Inc.

Albemarle is studying various DLE technologies but its executives have said DLE likely works best when engineered for a specific lithium deposit, which could curb enthusiasm.

Large water usage by several types of DLE technologies has raised eyebrows. The technology General Motors Co is relying on to supply a “sizeable amount” of its lithium from the Salton Sea region uses 10 tonnes of water for every tonne of lithium produced.

Privately held Lilac Solutions Inc, backed by BMW and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, developed that technology and said it could use a desalination plant to filter brackish water to avoid using potable water.

“If needed, we’re willing to make those capital investments to ensure we’re not jeopardizing anyone’s freshwater,” said Lilac CEO Dave Snydacker. “New technology is absolutely essential for society to obtain the volumes of lithium that are necessary for electric vehicles.”

Prominent short seller Hindenburg Research issued a 59-page report in February questioning whether the DLE technology from Standard Lithium Ltd even works, despite backing for its Arkansas project from chemical giants Koch Industries Inc and Lanxess AG.

“DLE is one of those technologies that’s been a hope and a prayer, Hail Mary for most, so that’s fertile ground for stock promoters,” said Nathan Anderson of Hindenburg.

Standard disputed the allegations in the report, which erased more than $300 million in Standard’s market value in one day and stoked fears about the DLE movement. The stock has partially recovered.
‘I’m a skeptic’

There are dozens of DLE-focused companies worldwide, some with their own technologies, some with brine-rich acreage and some with both.

“Direct lithium extraction is becoming a hot subject,” said Olivier Le Peuch, chief executive of Schlumberger Inc, which is developing DLE technology with Panasonic Corp. It hopes to supply Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory, but has acknowledged it must find a way to produce the metal without potable water.

US and global ambitions to go green are at stake. At least 70% of the US lithium deposits are held in brine reserves, according to the Energy Department. Elsewhere, DLE offers a chance to produce lithium in areas where open-pit mines face strong opposition.

In Germany, Vulcan Energy Resources Ltd aims to use DLE the produce the metal for Renault SA and other automakers from Germany’s Black Forest.

“As the EV transition accelerates, we can grow with that market,” said Horst Kreuter, Vulcan’s CEO.

Privately held Luna Lithium Ltd plans to use DLE in Nevada, CEO Emily Hersh said. In Utah’s Great Salt Lake, Compass Minerals International Inc has been trying to chose a DLE technology for more than a year and hopes to make a decision this summer.

Galvanic Energy LLC aims to sell to sell the 100,000 brine-rich acres it controls in Arkansas if it finds a DLE technology that works.

“These companies promote and talk about what they can do, but I’m a skeptic until proven otherwise,” said Brent Wilson, a former Chesapeake Energy Corp geologist who formed Galvanic in 2018.

Rio Tinto Ltd paid $825 million last December for an Argentina DLE project, which it said “has the potential to significantly increase lithium recoveries as compared to solar evaporation ponds.”

Privately held Energy Exploration Technologies Inc, known as EnergyX, has developed a DLE technology that uses membranes to filter lithium, but in some cases, EnergyX’s DLE membrane technology may have to be paired with another DLE technology, said CEO Teague Egan.

“Our DLE membrane technology is very good, but DLE doesn’t have to mean one technology or another. I think that’s what people fail to see,” said Egan, who aims to take EnergyX public by mid-2023.

EnergyX recently sent a pilot version of its technology to Bolivia in the hopes of convincing La Paz to chose it to develop the Uyuni salt flat, one of the world’s largest lithium deposits.

Lilac, as well as several Chinese and Russian companies, are also competing for the Bolivian project, pointing to the rising global attention paid to the industry.

“DLE is not a magic wand, but it is a very valuable tool in the toolkit,” said Luna Lithium’s Hersh.

(By Ernest Scheyder and Victoria Waldersee; Editing by David Gregorio)

Direct lithium extraction technique for greener batteries gains traction

Special method for production gets cash injection from govt, vendors

Dan Robinson®

Fri 8 Apr 2022 


New techniques for producing lithium could play a vital part in making batteries for applications ranging from smartphones to electric vehicles that are more environmentally friendly than current methods of extraction.

According to a Reuters report, car makers, mining companies and investors including the US Energy Department are pouring money into direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies that hold out the promise of boosting global lithium production, which is mostly sourced from just a handful of countries today.

There are a number of DLE technologies which all revolve around extracting the metal from brine in various ways, such as using filters, membranes, or ceramic beads. These are touted as more sustainable solutions than existing ways of obtaining lithium, such as pumping lithium-containing saltwater from underground lakes to the surface in desert areas of Chile or Argentina, and extracting it through evaporation in large basins.

However, while DLE techniques do not require the use of enormous evaporation basins, some critics have argued that they still consume large volumes of water and electricity to produce the lithium.

For example, General Motors is aiming to use a DLE technique to supply a considerable amount of the lithium it needs from the Salton Sea region in southern California, which reportedly uses 10 tons of water for every ton of lithium produced.

But one company in Cornwall, UK, believes it has found a more environmentally responsible method of getting lithium from brine. Cornish Lithium said it aims to extract lithium from geothermal waters, and also power the extraction process with geothermal energy from the same source.

Cornish Lithium said it is planning to directly extract the lithium from the fluids in a processing unit that is expected to have a footprint the size of a supermarket or medium sized industrial unit.

The company said it has already received £9m ($11.7m) of a package of up to £18m ($23.5 million) from metals-focused investment company TechMet Limited to develop its technology, and has recently begun drilling a research borehole at Twelveheads, near Redruth.

Elsewhere, an Australian firm, Ekosolve Lithium Limited, announced this week that its DLE pilot plant has processed lithium brines from the Incahuasi Salar, a salt basin in the Catamarca region of north-western Argentina, and achieved a recovery of greater than 90 percent of the lithium present.

It claimed that 200 liters of brine was processed, with high-grade lithium chloride produced. This can then be converted to battery-grade lithium carbonate or used as feeder stock for other lithium compounds, according to the firm.

In Canada, E3 Metals recently announced it had received $1.1m of a $1.8m grant from the Alberta Innovates research agency following completion of its lab-based pilot DLE prototype that uses a proprietary ion-exchange process to extract lithium.

It now aims to build and operate a field pilot plant that will operate continuously within the Clearwater area to extract lithium directly from the brine produced from the Leduc Aquifer, in order to demonstrate that it can scale up to a projected commercial scale of 20,000 tons per year of lithium hydroxide monohydrate.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US is also researching DLE methods, and said they could potentially deliver 10 times the current US lithium demand from the Salton Sea.

"Lithium-rich geothermal brines represent a vast, untapped resource that can potentially be developed into a robust domestic supply while adding to a well-paying workforce," said NREL senior geoscientist Ian Warren, in an announcement last year about its research into DLE.

"The increasing global demand and the need for a secure supply of lithium has created a deep interest - and urgency - in fully developing DLE that is considered environmentally safe," he added. ®

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Ford inks Argentina lithium supply deal with Lake Resources
Reuters | April 11, 2022 | 

Kachi lithium brine project. Photo by Lake Resources.

Ford Motor Co said on Monday it has signed a preliminary deal to buy lithium from a Lake Resources NL facility in Argentina, marking the first time the automaker has publicly announced where it will procure the electric vehicle battery metal.


The deal is a major bet by Ford on direct lithium extraction (DLE), a relatively new breed of technologies that filter the metal from brines and use far less acreage than open-pit mines and evaporation ponds.

General Motors Co, BMW, Stellantis and other Ford rivals have inked supply deals of their own with companies planning to use DLE technology.

Ford aims to buy 25,000 tonnes annually of the white metal from Lake’s Kachi project in northern Argentina, which is being developed with privately held extraction startup Lilac Solutions Inc.

Lilac’s technology, like all DLE technologies, has yet to work commercially, though it has the support of Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and other high-profile investors.

The agreement between Lake and Ford is nonbinding and would need to be finalized to include a specific delivery timetable.

Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley said in February that his company was working on deals to secure supply of key raw materials for batteries such as lithium, nickel, rare earths and copper.

“This is one of several agreements we’re exploring to help Ford secure raw materials to support our aggressive EV acceleration plan,” said Ford spokesperson Jennifer Flake.

Sydney-based Lake Resources is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, which requires supply deals to be publicly disclosed.

The Kachi project, in northern Argentina near the Chilean border, is expected to cost about $540 million and open by 2024.

Lilac’s technology uses 10 tonnes of water for every tonne of lithium produced. Lilac has said it could use a desalination plant to filter brackish water to avoid using potable water.

(By Ernest Scheyder and Ben Klayman; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

LITHIUM 

EV AND BATTERY BIG TALK MUST NOW SWITCH TO MINING AS SUPPLY CHAIN BITES
8th April 2022 

By Simon Moores and Morgan Bazilian

The lithium ion battery is in the midst of its transition from niche industry to mainstream platform technology for the 21st century.

The coming of age of electric vehicles has seen demand for these batteries surge from 59 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2015 to 400 GWh in 2021. This is forecast to grow by a significant 50% to 600 GWh in 2022, according to analysis by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

This sheer scale of battery output has been made possible through the rise of so called gigafactories, battery plants an order of magnitude bigger than their predecessors.

Sparked by Elon Musk’s first Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada in 2017, the rest of the world has now followed in building super-sized battery plants.

From 3 such plants in 2015, we now have 285 gigafactories globally at various stages of planning and construction.

This has allowed output to increase exponentially and costs to fall significantly from $280/kWh in 2015 to $115/kWh.

However, for the last few years these cell costs have been flatlining and last year experienced their first increase in this giga-era.

Why? Because the critical raw material inputs have been neglected.
NEGLECT AT YOUR PERIL

In 2015, 40% of the cost of a lithium ion battery was raw materials, the critical minerals that get transformed into chemicals to make a battery’s main components, the cathodes and anodes.

At less than half of the cost of the whole battery, cathode and anode raw materials were deemed not worthy of priority attention.

In 2022, the dynamics have shifted: raw materials now account for upwards of 80% of the cost of a lithium ion battery.

Therefore, if EVs mean lithium ion batteries, EVs must now mean critical minerals and mining.

As a result of surging EV battery demand and a lack of new supply, pressure on the critical minerals that fuel lithium ion battery production have been increasing.

Since January 2020, Benchmark’s lithium prices have increased by over 700%, nickel by 250%, cobalt and manganese by 100%, and graphite by over 25%.

And right now, there is not enough of these raw materials in the pipeline to take the majority of EV makers beyond 2030.

While upwards of $500bn has flowed into building the 285 gigafactories around the world – and $150bn last year alone – critical mineral mines and mid stream processing plants have not seen anywhere like this type of investment.
THE GREAT RAW MATERIAL DISCONNECT

This great EV raw material disconnect has OEMs, the ultimate end users of these battery cells, concerned.

An industry that is used to dominating a supply chain is suddenly coming to the realisation that it has to build these new energy supply chains from scratch after the capital markets failure to step up.

It’s a similar realisation that automakers had around 2018 when they were forced to get involved in battery cell making.

A handful of EV makers are taking the supply chain strategy a few steps further but the examples are isolated.

Tesla wants to build its own cathode, nickel chemical and lithium hydroxide plants in Austin, Texas, feeding its new 4680 battery cell factory.

VW announced only a few weeks ago that it wants to begin nickel and cobalt refining in China.

General Motors has committed $400m to build cathode material in Canada.

But to have the ultimate sway of industrial power you need to own the mines, in part or in full.

This is the only way to guarantee the raw material to make your batteries and EVs.
ECHOES OF HENRY FORD

OEMs are right to be fearful and hesitant to want to “become miners”.

Echoes of an ill-fated venture by Henry Ford to build rubber plantations in Brazil in the 1920s after the industry ran out of rubber tyres loom large.

One hundred years on the industry faces an eerily similar problem.

The reality is that this global EV blueprint is yet to be built out to a scale needed to reach surging consumer demand and increasing aggressive OEM and government targets… We are nowhere close.

Critical mineral mines will need to be built, existing mines expanded, stockpiles and waste heaps revisited, and battery recycling needed.

The significance of the situation is not lost on global leaders.

Only last week, The White House enacted the Defense Production Act Title III to zero in on domestic battery minerals production of lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and manganese.

The most recent DPA determination focused on the covid pandemic and it had previously been used for metals during times of war.

This clearly shows the US government becoming actively involved in investing in its domestic battery raw materials production both via co-production and to help fund bankable feasibility studies for exploration stage miners – a major bottleneck for institutional money.

This is a major step forward for US production of critical battery minerals and a move that it hopes will drag the finance community into 21st century mining.

Big talk on EVs must now mean equally as big statements on mining.

After all, a gigafactory without secure raw materials is as useful to an OEM as a grain silo.

Simon Moores is CEO of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and Morgan Bazilian is Director of the Payne Institute and Professor of Public Policy at Colorado School of Mines.

Second staff rotation at Chernobyl

11 April 2022

The first staff rotation at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant in three weeks and only the second since late February when Russian forces seized the site has been carried out. The workers were transported by boat as the plant remains inaccessible by road.

The Pripyat River (Image: Energoatom)

Nuclear power plant operator Energoatom announced on 9 April that it provided its boat for the change of staff at the Chernobyl plant. It said 49 employees were taken by the boat along the Pripyat River to the plant from the city of Slavutych, which lies outside the 30-kilometre exclusion zone. 51 workers were then taken from the plant back to Slavutych. "There are currently no other ways of delivering people to the station from Slavutych," the company noted.

Most of the workers at Chernobyl, including 46 volunteers, had been there since 20 March. However, 13 workers had been on site since 24 February.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi welcomed the second staff rotation as a much-needed positive step for the well-being of the plant's personnel and their families. He said the shift change was also important for the safe and secure operation of the Chernobyl plant, which was controlled by the Russian military for five weeks until they withdrew on 31 March.

However, he said the fact that those taking part in the latest staff rotation had to be transported to and from the site by boat underlined that the situation at the plant and the exclusion zone around it remained far from normal.

"While it is very positive that Ukrainian authorities are gradually restoring regulatory control of the Chernobyl site, it is clear that a lot of work remains to return the site to normality," Grossi said. "As soon as it is possible, I will head an IAEA mission to Chernobyl to conduct a radiological assessment there, resume remote safeguards monitoring of the facility and its nuclear material and deliver equipment, including spare parts and components, for the plant's safe and secure operation. I'm in close consultations with Ukraine on setting a date and organising a programme of work for the visit, which is expected to take place soon."

The IAEA said on 8 April that it will be the "single point of contact" for international technical assistance to Ukraine and it is in discussions with the many countries that have expressed interest in backing its efforts to help ensure the safety and security of Ukraine's nuclear facilities.

In a 10 April update, the IAEA said it had been informed by Ukraine that the site's analytical laboratories for radiation monitoring were destroyed and the analytical instruments stolen, broken or otherwise disabled. In addition, an associated Information and Communication Centre had been looted, parts of its communication lines destroyed, and the automated transmission of radiation monitoring data disabled.

Ukraine said that following the departure of Russian troops last week, despite "the increase in the level of radioactive contamination ... due to non-conformity with requirements of radiation safety and strict access procedures", the radiation situation is "within the limits" for the site.

In a 9 April IAEA update, Grossi said its experts can only conduct a radiological assessment at the site and deliver required safety-related equipment to the plant when they go there.

Whilst the IAEA has not been receiving remote data transmission from its monitoring systems installed at Chernobyl, it said such data was being received from Ukraine's other nuclear power plant sites.

Regarding the country's 15 operational reactors at four sites, eight are currently connected to the grid, including two at the Russian-controlled Zaporozhe plant, three at Rivne, two at the South Ukraine plant and one at Khmelnitsky. The seven other reactors are shut down for regular maintenance or held in reserve.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

US nuclear generation down but share remains the same

12 April 2022

Total US nuclear electricity generation declined slightly for the second consecutive year in 2021, although nuclear's share of electricity generation has remained similar to its average share over the previous decade, according to figures from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

(Image: EIA)

Output from US nuclear power plants totalled 778 million MWh in 2021, 1.5% less than the previous year. Nuclear's share of US electricity generation across all sectors was 19%.

Since 2017, the EIA has included all US generating plant retirements since 2002 in its Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory. Six nuclear units with a total capacity of 4736 MWe have retired since the end of 2017, and three more, with a combined capacity of 3009 MWe, are scheduled to retire in the coming years. These are: Palisades, in Michigan, which is scheduled to retire later this year; and Diablo Canyon, in California, where one unit is scheduled to retire 2024 and one in 2025.

Only one of the five 2021 nuclear retirements that EIA expected, of January that year, actually took place. Exelon Generation reversed the decision to retire the Byron and Dresden plants - each home to two units - following the passage by Illinois of energy legislation supporting their continued operation.

The loss of electricity generation from the only retirement of the year - Entergy Corporation's Indian Point unit 3, which closed in April after nearly 60 years of nuclear power generation at the site in New York state - was partially offset by an increase in the generation of the remaining nuclear fleet at a higher capacity factor, EIA said. The US fleet achieved an average nuclear capacity factor 93% in 2021.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, enacted in November 2021, includes the allocation of some USD6 billion to prevent the premature retirement of existing nuclear power plants.

Vogtle units 3 and 4 in Georgia remain the only nuclear units currently under construction in the USA. The two AP1000 units - each rated at 1114 MWe - are scheduled to come online by the end of 2023.

UEC launches Wyoming hub-and-spoke project

08 April 2022

US uranium mining company Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) has disclosed mineral resources totalling over 69 million pounds U3O8 (26,541 tU) in the first technical filing for its Wyoming hub-and-spoke uranium in-situ leach project.

UEC's Wyoming hub-and-spoke concept (Image: UEC)

The project is centred on the fully licensed Irigaray Central Processing Plant as the "hub" with seven satellite projects - four of which are fully permitted - forming the "spokes". The satellites include assets purchased by UEC through its acquisition of Uranium One Americas (U1A), completed in December 2021, and the Reno Creek project, which it acquired in 2017.

The project consists of the Irigaray, Christensen Ranch, Moore Ranch, Reno Creek, Ludeman, Allemand-Ross, Barge and the Jab/West Jab project areas. Total measured and indicated resources across all the assets total 61,956,200 pounds U3O8, with total inferred resources of 7,105,700 pounds U3O8.

Texas-based UEC reports its mineral resources in accordance with the US Security and Exchange Commission's S-K 1300 regulation. With the exception of Reno Creek, the Technical Report Summary (TRS) filed by the company is the first time these resources have been reported under the S-K 1300 format.

Irigaray and Christensen Ranch have previously collectively been referred to as the Willow Creek project, with  Irigaray plant as the processing plant for that project. Christensen Ranch is currently under care and maintenance and Irigaray is operating in a toll processing capacity. The Christensen Ranch satellite plant is also fully licensed, and Moore Ranch, Reno Creek and Ludeman are fully permitted.

UEC President and CEO Amir Adnani said the technical data from the conversion of U1A’s historical resources into fully compliant S-K 1300 resources would be employed in implementing the company's uranium extraction plans. The resources outlined in the TRS filing also represent the largest S-K 1300 resource summary completed and filed to date, he added. "These considerable permitted Wyoming resources coupled with our Texas permitted projects, positions UEC to lead the resurgence of US uranium production," he said.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Samsung, Seaborg partnership on floating nuclear reactors


The Memorandum of Understanding is to manufacture and sell turnkey power plants combining Samsung Heavy Industry’s ship-building expertise and the Danish company’s Compact Molten Salt Reactor (CMSR). It also covers development of hydrogen production plants and ammonia plants.

How a 200 MWe Power Barge could look (Image: Seaborg)

08 April 2022

Seaborg’s design is for modular CMSR power barges that can produce between 200 MW and 800 MW of electricity, with an operational life of 24 years. Instead of having solid fuel rods that need constant cooling, the CMSR’s fuel is mixed in a liquid salt that acts as a coolant, which means that it will simply shut down and solidify in case of emergency.

Jin-Taek Jeong, president and CEO of Samsung Heavy Industries, said: "CMSR is a carbon-free energy source that can efficiently respond to climate change issues and is a next-generation technology that meets the vision of Samsung Heavy Industries.

"Through this agreement, we plan to pioneer the CMSR-based floating nuclear power plant market as part of strengthening its future new business opportunity."

The partnership agreement was signed at an online event, with Seaborg CEO and co-founder Troels Schönfeldt saying: "We are honoured and proud to have formed this partnership with Samsung Heavy Industries, one of the world’s largest and most experienced shipyards. It is another step forward in our quest to introduce a new generation of nuclear reactors that are clean and safe and can be built using industrial technology with all the benefits of scalability, speed, and lower costs."

The signing of the partnership agreement took place on 7 April (Image: Samsung Heavy Industries)

The timeline for Seaborg, which was founded in 2014, has been for commercial prototypes to be built in 2024 with commercial production of Power Barges beginning from 2026.

Samsung Heavy Industries signed an agreement in June last year with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute for offshore molten-salt-cooled reactors development and research.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

The West Is Suffering The Consequences Of Poor Energy Decisions

By Irina Slav - Apr 10, 2022, 

• The EU has doubled down on becoming the world’s first net-zero region.
• The West hasn’t done enough to secure crucial supply chains to provide raw materials for their energy transition plans.
• Import dependency has made Western economies more vulnerable.

There has been an unspoken assumption that the West knows what it’s doing because it has been doing it longer than the East. Almost all developed economies are in Western Europe and North America. Yet recently, the tables have turned in one vital respect: energy policy. During the last few years, the EU has doubled down on its ambition to become the world’s first net-zero region. It has built up massive amounts of renewable energy, has slated huge investments in green hydrogen, and has been adopting policy after policy to discourage the consumption of fossil fuels.

In the U.S., the big push into renewables started two years ago as President Joe Biden took office. The transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to one based on and fueled by renewable energy was a central tenet in his campaign, and he got to work from day one, banning the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada and soon after temporarily banning oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

Meanwhile, far, far, away in the East, OPEC+ was formed to include two of the world’s largest oil producers—Russia and Saudi Arabia—as well as the Central Asian oil producers from the former Soviet Union, including Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. The expanded cartel hasn’t always seen eye to eye, and just before the pandemic really blew up, the Russians and the Saudis engaged in a brief price war. Yet since then, OPEC+ has worked like a well-oiled machine.

The EU, the UK, and the United States have raced to install more wind turbines, more solar panels, and more storage, and carmakers, almost all based in either Europe or the U.S., have equally raced to commit tens of billions of dollars to the electrification of transport. Those races are both based on the Paris Agreement and the goal of reducing the rise in global average temperatures by 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

Related: JP Morgan: Commodities Could Surge By Another 40%
While the West has been busy with that, OPEC+, headed by Russia and Saudi Arabia, has been pumping as much oil as it has seen fit at any given moment. In addition to that, Russia has kept its metals and uranium industry going and has continued to forge closer ties with the Far East, with a focus on China. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has staked a claim in the mining world and has allocated tens of billions on renewable energy and smart tech investment.

What this means, basically, is while the West has enthusiastically focused on the final section of the energy supply chain—the wind turbines, the panels, and the EVs—the East, in the face of Russia and Saudi Arabia, has focused on the start and the middle of the process, on the raw materials without which no energy transition would be possible. While doing that, they have also continued what they have done for decades: supply the world, including transition-happy economies, with fossil fuels.

Right now, the West is discovering how important the raw materials part is for the energy industry as a whole. U.S. shale drillers cannot boost production as fast as the Biden administration would like because it has been plagued by shortages. The EU is struggling under a growing electricity cost burden because renewables have under-delivered while the EU has been trying to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels. Now, this consumption is on the rise, but it’s also a lot more expensive than it was because of the tight supply. Ironically, emissions are also on the rise.Related: Outlook For China Oil Demand Darkens

The Biden administration wants to bring in more Canadian oil into the U.S., but the Keystone XL pipeline that could’ve done that has been killed by that very same administration. The administration also wants more local critical mineral production but appears to not want the mines that would be necessary to do that. What it doesn’t want, apparently, is Russian oil and fuels amid the Ukraine war, but it will only suspend these imports beginning on April 22, so it can stock up before that.

In Europe, politicians have been equally active in punishing Russia for Ukraine with, so far, five rounds of sanctions that many have joked have hurt the EU more than they have hurt Russia. There is some truth in these jokes: EU energy prices have skyrocketed and stayed in the sky, industries are warning they might have to close if the EU sanctions Russian gas or if Russia decides to turn the tap off in retaliation, and people are beginning to protest.

Even so, Brussels officials are talking about oil and gas sanctions, and they just this week voted for a ban on Russian coal imports... to take effect in August. That last part is a sliver of common sense. Russia supplies 45 percent of Europe’s thermal coal, used for electricity and heat generation. The EU is now scrambling to find a replacement, while the world’s biggest coal exporter Indonesia is hiking its prices massively and Australia, another coal giant, is warning it will not have enough for Europe.

The West is beginning its painful awakening to one very simple fact. This fact is that whoever controls the raw materials controls everything. And if those who control the raw materials play their cards right, they are likely to remain in control while the consumers of these raw materials deepen their dependence on these external suppliers.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine’s energy sector

The aim is to make the country uninhabitable

Mattia Nelles

THE SPECTATOR

11 April 2022

We are seven weeks into the war and the level of destruction in Ukraine is mounting. Every single day we learn more about Russia’s scorched earth tactics and about the atrocities its forces have committed in the areas they once occupied.

But with another Russian surge in Ukraine’s east looming, one trend is not sufficiently understood in the West. Over the past weeks, Russian air and missile strikes have deliberately targeted and destroyed key components of Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure, especially in the energy sector, in a bid to make the country collapse.

In late March the Pentagon estimated that Russia had fired over 1,200 precision guided missiles into Ukraine. The cost of direct damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure in the month since Russia invaded the country has reached $63 billion, according to the Kyiv School of Economics. Ninety-two factories (including food warehouses), 378 educational institutions, 138 healthcare institutions and 12 airports have been damaged, destroyed or seized.

But it may well be the energy sector where Russian missiles will do the most long-term harm. Modern cities and villages cannot survive without a proper supply of electricity, gas and fuel that is needed not only for households and businesses, but also for water supply, sewage systems and heating. Since 24 February the Russians have damaged and destroyed numerous assets of the Ukrainian energy sector. They are systematically targeting and destroying Ukrainian critical infrastructure in order to make villages, towns, cities and eventually entire regions uninhabitable for Ukrainians, forcing people to leave their homes.
The sad reality is that Ukraine lacks the ability to protect its critical infrastructure against air and missile attacks

Since the beginning of the invasion, seven power plants and parts of the electricity grid have been damaged, and one destroyed. Russia has also targeted gas pipelines. Parts of the Soyuz transmission line carrying westbound gas to Europe were seized in the Kharkiv region by Russian forces in March. Forty-four gas distribution stations are now not operating in Ukraine due to the damage to middle and low-pressure gas pipelines at a regional, city and village level, leaving around 300,000 households across the country without gas.

Key targets have included heat and power plants in the cities of Chernihiv, Sumy and Okhtyrka (in the Sumy region). Russians also targeted and damaged over 50 components of electricity grids in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions and damaged the grids of the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), Europe’s largest NPP, which provides 25 per cent of Ukraine’s electricity. In a press briefing this month, the CEO of Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK Group said that despite his company’s efforts, approximately 1.5 million households remain cut off from electricity.

On 3 April, Russian missiles hit and completely destroyed Ukraine’s largest oil refinery in Kremenchuk, in the Poltava region. On the same day, missiles also destroyed a critical oil processing plant in the harbour of Odesa. With the Ukrainian Black Sea blockaded and critical oil storage and processing infrastructure destroyed, the only way to import oil and fuel into Ukraine is now via train and trucks from the EU.

Russia is well aware of that and experts worry that it will soon target the Ukrainian railway system to disrupt fuel supplies. As of now, fuel is already rationed and as evacuations from the eastern regions are underway, civilians and possibly the army will face fuel shortages in the near future.

Even before the beginning of the renewed Russian aggression, the situation was especially acute in the country’s eastern regions of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk – especially in the besieged city of Mariupol.

In Luhansk 132,000 users across more than 35 settlements have been cut off from gas. And as of 5 April, almost 96,000 people in 30 settlements across the Luhansk region are without electricity. Last week the governor of Luhansk wrote on Telegram that every hospital in the Luhansk region was either damaged or destroyed.

In April, fighting in the Kharkiv region damaged energy infrastructure, leaving more than 60,000 residents cut off from their water supply and another 40,000 residents without electricity. Around 20,000 people are still trapped and completely cut off from electricity, gas and water in the besieged city of Izium, in the Kharkiv region.

We have to understand that despite Russia trying to militarily capture large parts of Ukraine’s eastern region, it is highly likely to continue striking energy infrastructure across the country. The sad reality is that Ukraine lacks the ability to protect its critical infrastructure against air and missile attacks. Without more advanced medium and long-range anti-air systems, Russian rockets will continue to damage and destroy peaceful cities and infrastructure. Only some of this infrastructure can be quickly restored once the fighting stops.

Whether Ukraine can effectively deploy defence systems like the S-300 from Slovakia, which recently arrived in Ukraine, will decide whether Putin can realise his goal of punishing and destroying large parts of the country. If the Russians continue to disrupt Ukraine’s energy infrastructure unabated, the number of displaced people (which currently stands at over seven million) will quickly grow. People do want to stay in the country but the Russian plan to make large areas of Ukraine unliveable will force them out. The EU believes that up to eight million refugees will seek shelter in the European Union. Given the Russian ability and desire to wreak havoc on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, millions more may be forced to leave very soon as well.

WRITTEN BY

Mattia Nelles
Mattia Nelles is a political analyst usually based in Kyiv.