SOUTH AFRICA

Anglo American CEO urges public-private fix to Transnet crisis
Reuters | February 6, 2023 

Credit: Transnet SOC Ltd.

Anglo American’s on Monday called for a public-private partnership to improve performance at South Africa’s state-owned rail and port firm Transnet, whose failure to meet demand has hampered miners’ ability to export their products.


“From our perspective, one of the best outcomes might be a public-private partnership that deals with the operation of the system differently from the ownership of the system,” Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad said in an interview on the sidelines of the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town.

Transnet has been unable to meet demand for freight trains to transport iron ore, coal, and other commodities, as a strike and an increase in copper cable theft compounded long-standing maintenance problems and a shortage of locomotives.

Transnet did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Inadequate freight rail services have cost exporters including Anglo’s unit Kumba Iron Ore millions of dollars. Kumba warned profit could fall by as much as 44% last year and cut production estimates for 2023 and 2024.

Africa’s most industrialized nation is also battling the worst power cuts on record by state-owned power utility Eskom, which meant precious metals unit Anglo American Platinum lost 3% of platinum group metals output last year.

“We would like an environment created by the government, underpinned by the policies and regulations of government, and a a committed partnership, not only with the government, but others to bring to bear an outcome that is to the benefit of everyone,” Wanblad said.

“The time it takes to get there and the fact that we find ourselves at the point of a crisis before it energizes everyone to come together … that is the frustration.”
Hunting for copper, cool on lithium

Global mining companies are hunting for minerals, including copper, needed to manufacture batteries, electric cars and renewable infrastructure that will help the world shift to a greener economy.

Anglo is working to finalize a deal agreed in May to take control of junior exploration company Arc Minerals’ copper-cobalt licences in Zambia, marking the miner’s first new investment in the country for 20 years.

“We’d very much like to, that’s going to be down to the commercial terms we can land at the end of the day,” Wanblad said, adding that Anglo was not in talks to invest in any other assets in Africa.

“There is nothing specific that is live at the moment but Africa is a very viable jurisdiction for a company like Anglo American and its sustainability credentials it operates in,” he said.

The miner is however cool on lithium, another raw material in demand for the rapidly growing production of electric vehicles (EVs).

“I wouldn’t say we are not interested in lithium but there are a couple of characteristics that make it quite difficult: it is very available… prices are extremely high for the quality of assets that are around, and … it’s one of the most eminently recyclable materials in the world,” he said.

(By Clara Denina and Helen Reid; Editing by Barbara Lewis)

NioCorp aims for 92% rare earth recoveries at demo plant in Quebec

Cecilia Jamasmie | February 7, 2023 | 

NioCorp’s processing plant in Quebec. (Image courtesy of NioCorp.)

Rare earth miner NioCorp Developments (TSX: NB) (US-OTC: NIOBF) said it had succeeded in producing a high-purity mixed concentrate of the sought-after elements from its demonstration plant in Canada.


The company said the results at the L3 Process Development in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, support the technical feasibility of separating high-purity oxides of several key magnetic rare earths from ore extracted at the Elk Creek project, in southeastern Nebraska.

NioCorp aims to produce at Elk Creek metals including niobium, scandium and titanium, which are in high demand due to their wide-ranging uses in products such as mobile phones and electric vehicles.

“These results are right in line with our expectations and are a reflection of the excellent technical pedigree of the L3 team along with a tremendous amount of hard work to get the demonstration plant built, commissioned and operating,” Scott Honan, NioCorp’s chief operating officer said in the statement.

NioCorp’s patent-pending rare earths extraction and purification process used solutions generated by the upstream operations of the demonstration plant.

The rare earths were then precipitated out of solution, producing a solid that contains 6% praseodymium (Pr) oxide, 25% cent neodymium (Nd) oxide, 0.35% terbium oxide (Tb) and 1.6% dysprosium (Dy) oxide, with the balance of the solids consisting primarily of rare earths with minor base metal impurities.

“We are very pleased to be able to deliver these outstanding results to Niocorp using the demonstration plant equipment,” said Eric Larochelle, co-owner of L3. “We have established a baseline of performance in the demonstration plant solvent extraction system, and expect to maintain or exceed these results as we gain further operating experience with that system.”

Based on these results and subject to additional demonstration testing over the coming weeks, L3’s process engineering team has determined that overall recoveries for these four magnetic rare earths are likely to be greater than 92% and meet commercial purity specifications for magnetic rare earth oxides, the company said.
Defying China’s dominance

Despite limited US efforts to find alternative sources of rare earths, the US remains heavily dependent on China and Chinese-owned companies for these critical materials.

NioCorp is one of several rare earth industry players that lobbied US lawmakers to pass legislation incentivizing the domestic manufacturing of permanent rare earth magnets.

The US government is hoping to find new deposits of minerals and metals by digitizing information from 100-year-old geological maps and by flying survey planes all over the country.

The Biden administration is also financing programs to recover valuable minerals and metals from waste piles of old mines.

The importance of having a domestic supply of critical metals became evident in 2010, after China blocked exports of rare earths to Japan during a dispute over a fishing trawler incident, sending prices soaring. Since then, tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated, prompting fears about politically and economically motivated supply-chain disruptions.

Brazil okays BHP’s $6.6 billion acquisition of OZ Minerals

MINING.COM Editor | February 7, 2023 

Sunset at Prominent Hill, a copper-gold mining operation in northern South Australia. (Image courtesy of Oz Minerals.)

Brazilian regulators have cleared BHP’s (ASX: BHP) intended acquisition of Australian copper-gold producer OZ Minerals (ASX: OZL) for A$9.6 billion ($6.6bn), bringing the world’s no.1 miner closer to securing its biggest deal in more than a decade.


OZ Minerals has a number of operations in Brazil, including the Santa Lúcia iron oxide copper-gold mineral deposit, the Antas copper-gold mine, and CentroGold, one of the country’s largest undeveloped gold projects.

The transaction, unanimously backed by OZ Minerals’ board in November, still requires the approval of Australia’s regulatory bodies and the copper-gold miner shareholders.

If successful, the deal would become the largest mining deal in Australia since BHP’s $12.1 billion purchase of Petrohawk Energy in 2011 and it would consolidate the company’s position as one of the world’s largest producers of copper.

The metal is considered key for the world’s clean energy transition, which is expected to boost demand by almost 60% over the next two decades.

Since BHP first announced its intention of buying OZ Minerals in August last year, copper prices have shot up 20%, from $3.55 per pound up to $4.27. This has led some shareholders to indicate they will vote against the existing deal.

“The reality of the situation is that the BHP offer now looks a little anaemic,” David Franklyn of Argonaut Funds Management wrote on January 30.

In his opinion, the Australian miner has one of the best exposures to the global copper market and sees “no reason to sell out cheaply to BHP.”

OZ Minerals shareholders will vote in early April on the A$28.25-a-share bid, which represents a 49% premium increase on the miner’s share price prior to BHP’s initial offer.

(With files from Reuters and Bloomberg)

Scientists search for dark matter in the depths of an abandoned gold mine

Staff Writer | February 7, 2023 | 

In a South Dakota gold mine, a research team is hunting for a yet-undiscovered particle that could explain dark matter. (Image by Matthew Kapust, courtesy of the Sanford Underground Research Facility).

An interdisciplinary team of researchers is working to lure a hypothesized particle from outer space to the Sanford Underground Research Facility, housed in a former gold mine that operated at the height of the 1870s gold rush in the town of Lead, South Dakota.


In detail, they are prospecting for WIMPs —weakly interacting massive particles— which are thought to have formed when the universe was just a microsecond old and which may exist unseen all around us. The research facility suits this type of search because the depth prevents the intrusion of cosmic rays, which would otherwise interfere with experiments.

If WIMPs are observed, they could hold clues to some of the most perplexing problems in physics: the nature of dark matter and the very structure of the universe itself.

The US-based group is using the Large Underground Xenon-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, the most sensitive WIMP dark matter detector located at the Sanford Lab. Unlike experiments conducted at particle smashers like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, the LZ attempts to directly observe—rather than manufacture—dark matter.

Anwar Bhatti, a research professor at the University of Maryland, said there are pros and cons to both approaches.

In his view, the odds of finding irrefutable proof of WIMPs are slim, but he hopes previously undiscovered particles will show up in their experiment, leaving a trail of clues in their wake.

“There’s a chance we will see hints of dark matter, but whether it’s conclusive remains to be seen,” Bhatti said.
An underground mine – the perfect location

Lead scientist Carter Hall explained that these direct searches for dark matter can only be conducted underground because researchers need to eliminate surface-level cosmic radiation, which can muddle dark matter signals and make them easier to miss.

“Here, on the surface of the earth, we’re constantly being bathed in cosmic particles that are raining down upon us. Some of them have come from across the galaxy and some of them have come across the universe,” Hall explained. “Our experiment is about a mile underground, and that mile of rock absorbs almost all of those conventional cosmic rays. That means that we can look for some exotic component which doesn’t interact very much and would not be absorbed by the rock.”

In the LZ experiment, bursts of light are produced by particle collisions. Scientists then work backward, using the characteristics of these flashes of light to determine the type of particle.

The UMD research group calibrates the instrument that powers the LZ experiment, which involves preparing and injecting tritium—a radioactive form of hydrogen—into a liquefied form of xenon, an extremely dense gas. Once mixed, the radioactive mixture is pumped throughout the instrument, which is where particle collisions can be observed.

The researchers then analyze the mixture’s decay to determine how the instrument responds to background events that are not dark matter. By process of elimination, the researchers learn the types of interactions that are—and aren’t—important.

“That tells us what dark matter does not look like, so what we’re going to be looking for in the dark matter search data are events that don’t fit that pattern,” Hall said.

The researcher also pointed out that they will not know if they found dark matter until their next data set is released. This could take at least a year.

If detected, these WIMP particles would prompt a massive overhaul of the Standard Model of particle physics, which explains the fundamental forces of the universe. While this experiment could answer pressing questions about the universe, there is a good chance it will also create new ones.

“It would mean that a lot of our basic ideas about the fundamental constituents of nature would need to be revised in one way or another,” Hall said.

Canadian miner Centerra says Öksüt mine continuing as normal after Turkey-Syria earthquake

Staff Writer | February 7, 2023

Construction at Öksüt, located in the Kayseri province of south-central Turkey, 295 km to the southeast of the capital city of Ankara. (Image courtesy of Centerra Gold.)

Centerra Gold (TSX: CG) (NYSE: CGAU) says its Öksüt mine located in central Türkiye is continuing to operate normally after two powerful earthquakes occurred approximately 180 km (112 miles) from the mine site Monday morning.


“There were no injuries to our employees or contractors at the mine, or at the company’s other offices within Türkiye, and initial inspections have not detected any damage to the infrastructure at the Öksüt mine,” Centerra confirmed in a news release Monday.

“Centerra offers its condolences to the people of Türkiye and all those that have lost loved ones in this natural disaster,” interim CEO Paul Wright said in the statement.

“The company has mobilized an emergency response team from the Öksüt mine to assist Turkish state emergency preparedness authorities and regional disaster response organizations, and will continue to provide support where possible,” he said.

Located in the Kayseri province of south-central Türkiye, the Öksüt mine is Centerra’s third operating mine, pouring its first gold in January 2020 and achieving commercial production five months later.

According to the Öksüt feasibility study, about 28.2 million tonnes of ore grading 1.3 g/t gold, containing a total of 1.2 million ounces, are expected to be mined and stacked over an eight-year mine life.

Shares of Centerra were up 1.3% by 12:15 p.m. ET Tuesday, giving the Canadian-based gold miner a market capitalization of C$1.92 billion ($1.43 billion).

Anglo CEO warns extreme weather threatens global mine supplies

Bloomberg News | February 7, 2023 | 

Flooded river engulfing buildings and bridges in Lismore, NSW, Australia, 2022. 

Credit: Adobe Stock

Anglo American Plc warned that global commodity supplies will remain vulnerable to severe disruptions, including from extreme weather that’s having a growing impact on operations around the world.


The mining industry has been struggling to hit production targets, hurt by everything from floods and droughts to creaking infrastructure and political instability. Those setbacks are exacerbating already tight supplies in several metals and minerals, at a time when demand in top consumer China is expected to rebound as the country emerges from Covid-19 lockdowns.

Anglo last year warned that output in 2023 and 2024 would be lower than previously expected. While the company wasn’t alone — other big producers also had operational disappointments last year — the setbacks marred new chief executive officer Duncan Wanblad’s first year in charge.

Anglo believes it can get back to more consistent operations, but the industry as a whole faces challenges going forward, the CEO said in an interview in Cape Town on Monday.

“The effects of climate change are very real and we are seeing it,” Wanblad said. “There were weather impacts on operations, pretty much all over the globe, and I think that will continue to happen.”

(By Thomas Biesheuvel)

Australia rejects first coal mine under environmental law

Bloomberg News | February 8, 2023 |

The Great Barrier Reef. (Image: Lock the Gate Alliance | Flickr Commons.)

Top coal exporter Australia has blocked a major mine proposed near the Great Barrier Reef under environmental laws.


Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek announced her final decision on the Central Queensland Coal Project on Twitter on Wednesday, saying in a video that she had received more than 9,000 public submissions on the mine in just 10 business days.

It is the first time that an Australian minister has rejected a proposed coal mine under the country’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. That marks a major turnaround for Australia, long seen as a global climate laggard and one of the world’s biggest per-capita polluters because of its huge coal and natural gas export industries.

“I’ve decided that the adverse environmental impacts are simply too great,” Plibersek said in her Twitter message. “The mine is an open cut coal mine less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Great Barrier Reef and the risk of pollution and irreversible damage to the Reef is very real.”

Coal is Australia’s biggest export after iron ore and the proposed mine was among a raft of projects that would significantly increase emissions in the nation.

Central Queensland Coal proposed extracting as much as 10 million tons of thermal and coking coal a year over a lifespan of about 24 years, according to the Queensland government. The project is owned by Clive Palmer, a vocal businessman who’s used his mining sector fortune to make forays into politics.

Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of metallurgical coal and only trails Indonesia in shipments of thermal coal. The center-left Labor government elected in May has been attempting to step up Australia’s action on climate change, pledging to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030 from 2005 levels.

(By Ben Westcott)

Australia rejects open-pit coal mine near Great Barrier Reef


Thu, February 9, 2023 

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia for the first time has rejected a coal mining application based on environmental law, with the government minister citing the open-pit mine's potential harm to the nearby Great Barrier Reef.

The government is under pressure to curb climate change by blocking all new coal and gas extraction projects. Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of both fossil fuels, which are major sources of the nation’s wealth. But Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said Thursday she would decide individual projects on their merits.

“I will make each decision that comes before me on a case-by-case basis according to the law and according to the science that is available,” Plibersek told Parliament.

On Wednesday, she announced her decision to prevent the Central Queensland Coal Project from being excavated northwest of the Queensland state town of Rockhampton and less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast Australian coast.

The project would have had unacceptable impacts on fresh water in the area and potentially on fragile seagrass meadows that feed dugongs and provide fish breeding grounds, she said.

The open-pit mine has an estimated excavation capacity of 10 million metric tons (11 million U.S. tons) of coal annually for 25 years.

Plibersek said the risk of “pollution and irreversible damage to the reef is very real.”

“The Great Barrier Reef is responsible for about 6 billion Australian dollars’ ($4.2 billion) worth of economic activity every year, about 64,000 jobs,” Plibersek said. “Given the science before me, it became apparent that the risks were simply too great.”

The mine was proposed by mining magnate Clive Palmer, who founded and finances the minor conservative United Australia Party.

Central Queensland Coal, a subsidiary of Palmer's Mineralogy, did not respond to a request for comment.

A United Nations-backed mission recommended in November that the Great Barrier Reef be added to the list of endangered World Heritage sites, warning that without “ambitious, rapid and sustained” climate action, the world’s largest coral reef was in peril.

While warming oceans was the greatest threat to the network of more than 2,500 reefs covering 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles), water quality and runoff from the Queensland coast were also risks.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor Party government has increased Australia’s ambition for reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions since it was elected last year.

The Parliament enshrined in law Labor’s election pledge to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. The previous conservative government had a more modest target to reduce emissions by between 26% and 28% by the end of the decade.

Labor has relied on the minor Greens party’s 12 senators to get legislation through the upper chamber.

The Greens, who lost a senator this week when Sen. Lidia Thorpe became an independent, want Australia to slash emissions by 75% by 2030 and are pressuring the government to ban any further coal and gas projects.

The government faces another contentious energy industry decision when it considers extending an offshore gas exploration license off Sydney’s northern beaches.

In late 2021, the previous conservative government rejected a two-year extension of the PEP-11 drilling license in the face of fierce community opposition only months before an election. The project proponent Asset Energy took the government to court. But that court action has ended last week with Albanese’s government agreeing to reassess the previous government’s decision.

Rod Mcguirk, The Associated Press

At least 9 dead in Burkina Faso mine collapse: association
Reuters | February 8, 2023 | 

Tools utilized by gold digger, Burkina faso. Credit: Adobe Stock

At least nine people were killed when an artisanal gold mine collapsed in Burkina Faso’s western Tuy province on Tuesday, the head of the artisanal mining association for the province said.


The mine caved in on Tuesday evening and rescue operations began around 8 p.m., Abass Dera told Reuters on Wednesday.

“Around 11 p.m. we found four bodies. Then we found five others this morning,” he said, adding that people were still stuck under the rumble.

Burkina Faso is home to major gold mines run by international companies but also hundreds of smaller, informal sites that operate without oversight or regulation.

Accidents are frequent at these so-called artisanal mines.

(By Thiam Ndiaga and Sofia Christensen; Editing by Alexander Winning)

BHP halts Western Australia iron ore operations for a day after worker dies
Reuters | February 8, 2023 |

BHP iron ore train near Port Hedland. Photo by Bahnfrend, Wikimedia Commons.

The world’s largest miner BHP Group has suspended its Western Australian iron ore operations for a day after a worker was struck by a train at its Port Hedland iron ore facility, it said on Wednesday.


“It is with deep sadness that we confirm a member of BHP’s WA team was fatally injured in an incident at our rail yard in Port Hedland last night,” Brandon Craig, BHP’s group president for Western Australia iron ore, said in a statement.

“As a result of this incident, we have suspended WA Iron Ore operations for 24 hours.”

Western Australia police have showed up on the site and BHP has informed safety regulators of the incident as it begins its own investigation, the company said.

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

Two contractors die at Galiano’s gold mine in Ghana
Reuters | February 6, 2023 | 

Credit: Galiano Gold

Galiano Gold Inc said on Monday two contractors were fatally injured at its Asanko mine in Ghana.


The incident took place near the mine’s tailings storage facility, Galiano said, adding that an investigation was underway.

The Asanko mine, managed and operated by Galiano, is equally owned by Galiano and Gold Fields Ltd.

(By Arshreet Singh)

Cobalt’s battery-powered boom has turned to bust
Bloomberg News | February 9, 2023 | 

Credit: Missouri Cobalt

A blistering rally in the cobalt market is turning into a rout, putting pressure on miners and offering tentative cost relief for carmakers after a surge in battery metal prices last year.


Cobalt rallied sharply early in 2022 as demand for electric vehicles surged. But while automotive usage is still rising, there’s been a sharp drop-off in buying from another key sector — Chinese electronics — and cobalt prices have crashed more than 50% since a peak in May.

Pound for pound, the batteries used in laptops, phones and tablets contain much more cobalt than EV batteries, and demand from the industry has fallen about 30% to 40% over the past year, according to researcher Rystad Energy. At the same time, demand growth for use in EVs is moderating as more manufacturers shift to battery chemistries that don’t require cobalt.

For carmakers, cobalt’s boom-to-bust swing will have a minor impact on the cost of batteries, when compared with other materials like lithium, which is used in much greater volumes and is still trading at sky-high levels. Yet the collapse offers a stark illustration of how quickly the balance between buyers and sellers can shift in the small but rapidly expanding markets for battery metals.

“The distinction between cobalt and lithium is that carmakers are very eager to get hold of lithium, while they’re doing everything they can to get rid of cobalt,” Michael Widmer, head of metals research at Bank of America Corp., said by phone. “The individual dynamics are very different, but where we’ve seen commonality in the battery metals markets is in the fact that massive rallies can quickly be followed by massive declines.”

The pressure is particularly evident for producers of cobalt hydroxide, a semi-refined product that accounts for the bulk of global supply. It typically trades at a discount to the pure metal, but the gap has widened dramatically in recent months — in some cases, miners are only getting paid for a little more than half of the cobalt contained in the hydroxide they sell, down from about 90% a year ago.

The crash has also been amplified by changes in the way that cobalt is priced. Until 2018, top producer Glencore Plc typically priced its hydroxide at a fixed discount to metal under annual contracts, but some customers looked to back out of the deals after a wave of new supply caused discounts to widen dramatically in the spot market, according to people familiar with the deals.

Glencore has since been pricing much more of its material with a floating reference to the prevailing discounts in the spot market, in a move that’s likely to reduce the risk that buyers will look to walk away from unprofitable contracts this time around. However, it’s also amplified the miner’s exposure to the slump in prices and demand.

Under some contracts, Glencore has been selling cobalt hydroxide at its steepest-ever discount to the price of the finished metal, according to people familiar with the matter. While the slump is unlikely to be much of a concern at a time when Glencore is reaping huge profits elsewhere, the prices it’s receiving for hydroxide are now approaching a nadir seen in 2019, when its trading business took a $350 million first-half loss on cobalt that was mined, but it couldn’t sell.

The challenges that have come with cobalt’s wild swings are emblematic of broader commercial growing pains being experienced by miners, consumers and financiers in the markets for battery metals. Unlike much larger commodity markets like copper and oil, cobalt has been nearly impossible to hedge in large volumes until recently, and so the gyrations seen in the past few years have been particularly painful for carmakers on the way up, and for miners on the way down.

This time, though, buyers and sellers have been flocking to a CME Group cobalt contract to hedge their exposure, setting the stage for a potentially seismic shift in the way the industry manages its price risks.

Lithium trading has also been picking up on the exchange, and while volumes are still tiny in relation to global supply, advocates say the contracts will have an increasingly large role to play as the electric vehicle industry expands rapidly.

“It’s going to be very important to get the contracts up and running,” said Widmer at Bank of America, which has been making markets for clients who want to trade the CME contracts. “Given the price volatility we have in these markets, risk management tools like this are going to be increasingly helpful.”

(By Thomas Biesheuvel and Mark Burton)

Cobalt from artisanal mines key to global output, study says

Bloomberg News | February 8, 2023

Cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Image by Fairphone, Flickr).

Cobalt buyers must push for changes to formalize operations of unregulated artisanal mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo as they are indispensable in meeting rising demand for the battery metal used electric vehicles and consumer electronics, according to a new report.


Companies that buy cobalt engage in a “futile” exercise when they try to distinguish flows from industrial mines and the significant production from artisanal small-scale mining, or ASM, said a paper published Wednesday by the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights and the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

“Without ASM cobalt, buyers will not be able to meet a global demand that is projected to increase fourfold by 2030,” said Dorothee Baumann-Pauly, director of the Geneva Center and author of the paper.

Congo accounts for nearly 70% of global cobalt supply, which is mainly produced at industrial projects controlled by multinational companies including Glencore Plc and CMOC Group Ltd. But ASM material can make up nearly 20% of Congo’s output when prices are high, according to Darton Commodities. Formalization of ASM practices would help address the root causes of human rights abuses, alleviate extreme poverty in workers’ communities and improve site-safety standards, the paper said.

“It is imperative that companies recognize this opportunity to encourage formalization and the responsible extraction of cobalt to contribute to a global energy transition that is not only green but also just,” Baumann-Pauly said.

The report looked at the results of a pilot project working with artisanal diggers at Mutoshi mine in southeastern Congo from 2018-2020. The initiative was run by Trafigura Group, Congolese miner Chemaf Sarl, the NGO Pact, and a local mining cooperative.

Mutoshi demonstrated how formalization can improve miner safety, encourage female participation and diminish child labor, according to the report, which also said that many practices put in place are no longer being observed and conditions have worsened.

Trafigura and Chemaf shut down the project amid fallout from Covid-19 and Congo’s decision to create a state-owned artisanal cobalt monopoly, though they continue working together through Chemaf’s industrial mining operations in Congo. Chemaf didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment. Trafigura helped fund Congo’s proposed monopoly, known as Entreprise Generale du Cobalt. The project is on hold as the government decides how to structure the company.

“We remain a strong advocate for the formalization of the ASM cobalt sector in the DRC and look forward supporting the government and other committed stakeholders such as major downstream brands in taking formalization to scale,” James Nicholson, Trafigura’s head of social responsibility, said in an email.

(By Richard Annerquaye Abbey, with assistance from Michael J. Kavanagh)

Microsoft calls for ‘coalition’ to improve Congo’s informal cobalt mines

Reuters | February 8, 2023 | 

Congo accounts for three-quarters of the world’s mined cobalt supply. (Stock Image)

Microsoft visited an artisanal cobalt mine in Democratic Republic of Congo in December as part of attempts to jump-start formalization of the little-regulated and dangerous industry that experts say is key to meeting global demand for the battery material.


Congo accounts for three-quarters of the world’s mined cobalt supply. Industrial mines produce most of Congo’s cobalt, but “artisanal” miners, who dig by hand and often die when tunnels cave in, account for up to 30% of production, though that fluctuates depending on price.

In the first known visit by a Microsoft executive to an artisanal cobalt site in Congo, chief of staff for tech and corporate responsibility Michele Burlington met miners at Mutoshi, where commodities trader Trafigura had helped run a formalization scheme that ended in 2020.

Companies that use cobalt in products from electric cars to smartphones should work to improve conditions at artisanal mines instead of seeking to cut artisanal cobalt out of their supply chains, an independent report on the visit argued on Wednesday.

“Electric vehicle manufacturers and electronics companies are operating with one eye open and one eye closed,” said Dorothee Baumann Pauly, director of the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights, who wrote the report.

“In practice it is virtually impossible for them to completely exclude artisanal cobalt, especially when it is sent to smelters and refiners in DRC and China.”

Microsoft declined to reply to Reuters‘ questions about the visit or about its strategy on artisanal cobalt. In the report, Microsoft said that it is “committed to responsible and ethical sourcing”.

“We are continuing to work on this problem. It’s an issue that will take a coalition to solve,” the $1.9 trillion computer manufacturer and software company said.

As consumers become more concerned that the products they buy are tainted by poor working conditions or child labour, global tech firms and carmakers have been using less mined cobalt in their batteries by increasing recycling and switching to lower-cobalt chemistries. Read full story

Apple, for example, aims to massively reduce its use of all materials sourced directly from mines, and has said that 13% of the cobalt shipped in its products in 2021 came from recycling.

The issues around artisanal mining are an existential threat to the cobalt industry, according to Marina Demidova, head of communications at the Cobalt Institute. “If we get this wrong, cobalt probably will cease to be in batteries in 20 years’ time.”

So far, attempts to formalize the industry have fallen flat.

Trafigura and Congo mining firm Chemaf’s formalization scheme at Mutoshi, launched in 2018, ended abruptly in March 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic. Now diggers work in deep tunnels with no personal protective equipment, and women miners said they make less money than before, according to the report.

Entreprise Generale du Cobalt, a unit of state mining company Gecamines, was granted a monopoly on artisanal cobalt by government decree. EGC signed a supply deal with Trafigura in November 2020 and published a sourcing standard, but has yet to start buying cobalt due to political wrangling.

“Greater stakeholder engagement, including from global buyers, will help to overcome this impasse,” Baumann-Pauly said.

(By Helen Reid and Clara Denina; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Congo’s president wants new exploration for green energy metals
Bloomberg News | February 7, 2023 | 

Felix Tshisekedi became DRC’s president in January 2019. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Democratic Republic of Congo wants to position itself as a key source of metals in the green energy transition, and that will mean new exploration for nickel and chrome, according to President Felix Tshisekedi.


Exploration for the two minerals will begin “in the next few days” in Congo’s southern, diamond-rich Kasai region, Tshisekedi said Tuesday at the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town, South Africa. The country is also looking for partners to invest in cobalt, tantalum, tin and lithium processing

The transition to clean-energy technologies is a huge driving force for metals used in batteries, solar components, wind turbines and EVs. Meanwhile, mine output has been limited, helping to send prices for the commodities higher. Copper on the London Metal Exchange is up more than 40% since the end of 2019, while nickel surged more than 90%.

Congo provides more than two-thirds of the key battery mineral cobalt and is tied with Peru as the world’s second-biggest copper producer, according to the US Geological Survey. It also has significant deposits of other minerals including lithium, graphite and manganese. But only 19% of the country — Africa’s second-biggest by landmass — has been properly explored, Tshisekedi said.
‘New deposits’

“The goal is to discover new deposits that can be the subject of calls for bids, with a view to concluding mutually profitable public-private partnerships,” Tshisekedi said according to an emailed transcript of his remarks. The country’s recently created national geologic service will oversee the exploration, he said.

The president is hoping to attract new investment by improving the regulatory environment and through the creation of incentives like a special economic zone around lithium deposits in southeastern Congo, he said.

“Financiers, mining operators, equipment manufacturers, subcontractors, recyclers — everyone can find their part,” he said.

Despite its mineral riches, Congo remains one of the poorest countries in the world, and miners will be expected to ensure Congolese people also benefit, he said. This will include buying insurance from companies registered in Congo and negotiating development projects with local communities during exploration, he said.

(By Michael J. Kavanagh)

The biggest source of cobalt outside Africa is now Indonesia
Bloomberg News | February 8, 2023 |

Reference photo. Battery Pack for BMW-i3 Electric Vehicle.

 (Image by RudolfSimon, Wikimedia Commons)

Indonesia has become the world’s second-largest cobalt producer, bolstering its bid to be a big player in the electric-vehicle supply chain.


Production of the battery material in the Southeast Asian country surged past others including Russia and Australia to grab the No. 2 spot last year, according to US government data. The expansion will continue this decade, easing the world’s reliance on Democratic Republic of Congo for more than two thirds of supplies and staving off potential shortages, analysts say.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has spearheaded the country’s push to build battery and EV industries on the back of the country’s rich mineral resources. It already produces about half of the world’s nickel, and its share of global cobalt output will rise to almost 20% by 2030, from about 1% in 2021, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Indonesia’s expansion is “somewhat reshaping the global supply chain,” Harry Fisher and Greg Miller, analysts at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said in an email. An array of projects have been “on schedule to date and are ramping up successfully” despite initial concerns around over-runs on budget and costs.

The cobalt expansion is largely thanks to billions of dollars of investment by Chinese firms on refineries that dish out a chemical cocktail containing cobalt as well as nickel. The biggest global nickel producer Tsingshan Holding Group Co., cobalt refining giant Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt and the top battery manufacturer known as CATL are among investors.

Cobalt output from the country will more than double again this year, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Game changer

The expansion from Indonesia has also helped soften fears of tight supplies for cobalt, which is used in diverse applications from aerospace materials to magnets as well as batteries. Global benchmark cobalt prices have more than halved since May last year, and are down 13% so far this year.

While softer cobalt prices have provided costs relief to manufacturers and automakers, some are already trying to phase out cobalt from their batteries because of ethical concerns about DRC production, and after bouts of price volatility in recent years. The surge in Indonesian supply could help assuage both concerns.

The global cobalt market will be in surplus this year and prices will remain “bogged down” in the near term as supply expands, Susan Zou, analyst at Rystad Energy said by email.

“Every 3-4 months there is a new announcement about an upcoming project” in Indonesia, she said. “It’s a game changer.”

(By Annie Lee and Mark Burton)

Canada to not permit sea floor mining without ‘rigorous’ regulations

Reuters | February 9, 2023 | 

Stock image.

The Canadian government said on Thursday it would not allow mining in its domestic ocean seabeds without a “rigorous regulatory structure” and that the need for natural resources does not override Ottawa’s environmental commitments.


Sea floor nodules contain critical minerals used in batteries that are needed to fuel the world’s transition to clean energy, but trawling the sea floor for them could disrupt ecosystems.

“Canada does not presently have a domestic legal framework that would permit seabed mining and, in the absence of a rigorous regulatory structure, will not authorize seabed mining in areas under its jurisdiction,” natural resources and oceans and fisheries ministers said in a joint statement.

The decision comes after a report commissioned by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, which includes representatives from 14 countries, in 2020 said mining on sea floors should not begin before full assessments of the likely environmental impacts are made.

Any decision on whether to allow seabed mining needed to be “informed by science” and protect ecosystems while also weighing economic and social effects, according to the joint statement.

Canada is also not exploring the potential for seabed mining outside its jurisdictional waters, it added, citing previous G7 commitments.

Speaking at an event in Vancouver on Thursday, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson noted Canada’s critical minerals strategy, which was unveiled in December, aims to balance economic progress with environmental management.

Canada’s “need for critical minerals and other resources did not override our obligation for science based decision making and high ESG standards,” Wilkinson said, referring to the strategy document.

The joint statement “makes clear our position our economic advancement cannot come at the cost of the health of our oceans,” he added.

(By Denny Thomas, Ismail Shakil and Susan Heavey; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Read more: Canada faces pressure to ban deep-sea mining