Canadian mining industry rallies to support Afghanistan women scholars at risk

Amanda Stutt | May 17, 2024 | 

Stock image by By Axel Bueckert

Some of the biggest names in the Canadian mining industry have come together in a remarkable initiative that brought 10 women scholars from Afghanistan to pursue graduate studies in mining and geology at University of the British Columbia (UBC).


After completing undergraduate degrees at universities in Kazakhstan in 2022, and with their student visas expiring, the women were about to be deported back to Afghanistan, which is ruled by the Taliban.

Under its interpretation of Islamic law, the Taliban notoriously banned girls from attending school past grade six after taking control of the country in 2021.

In Afghanistan it is illegal for women to attend university, and it is also illegal for women to travel alone, so approaching passport control checkpoints in the country unaccompanied by male guardians would have placed the young women at great risk.
Creating the Scholars at Risk cohort

David Awram, senior vice president and Imola Gotz, VP Mining & Engineering at Sandstorm Gold Royalties learned about 11 students’ plight that year. They teamed up with Friba Rezayee, founder of the non-profit Women Leaders of Tomorrow (WLOT) to work with UBC to get the women emergency acceptances and student visas and liaise with Kazakh officials and the Canadian Embassy to manage deadlines for the cohorts’ existing visas and with the Canadian Embassy.

They joined forces with Nadine Miller, VP, operational technologies at JDS Mining, who rallied financial support from the industry.

Miners stepped up, and nearly C$500,000 was raised with support from founding donors Osisko Gold Royalties, Wheaton Precious Metals, Teck Resources, which also provided internships for the students, Pan American Silver, Hecla Mining, and others. Every department at UBC that was asked for support said yes, and 20 staff at the university are dedicated to the initiative.

10 of the women were issued student visas to travel to Canada, and one woman returned to Afghanistan alone. She has not been heard from since.

“Despite the uncertainty, everyone who heard the story immediately became engaged, sympathetic, and aware of the short timeline,” Awram told MINING.com. “It was very heartwarming and rewarding to have so many volunteer their time and energy to help.”

“It is amazing to help these scholars achieve their desire for education in the mining industry,” Awram said. “Having motivated students chasing technical degrees in mining that have their perspectives is exactly what our industry requires. I really hope that the industry can provide a community and support network that allows them and future female scholars from Afghanistan to enter the world of mining.”
Celebrating student successes

The cohort completing this month their first semesters in graduate studies at UBC was celebrated at an event in Vancouver last Friday.

WLOT founder Friba Rezayee, who was the first Afghan female Olympian, competing in Judo in Athens in 2004, and now a Canadian, delivered a moving speech on the importance of removing barriers to accessing education for female scholars that have been banned from academia in their homelands.

“The only way to fight the Taliban is to educate girls,” Rezayee said.

The women, who are not being named to protect their privacy and safety, cannot return to Afghanistan.

Opportunities are available in the mining industry, Nadine Miller said, emphasizing that the women scholars’ academic accomplishments are already adding up.

One of the scholars, during her master’s in mining engineering at UBC, is studying how minerals processing can reduce plastic usage. Her goal is to pursue project management in sustainable mining practices, and she has secured an internship at Teck Resources.

Another student is working on a project on water efficiency in the mining industry, which has been approved for presentation at SME’s IMPC in Washington DC, and on a paper on ASM gold mining’s impact on water resources.

UBC has now formalized the program started two years ago, naming it the Female Scholars at Risk initiative. In addition to Afghan women, the newly established program will offer a safe haven at the University of British Columbia for women from around the world who are looking for an opportunity to enter graduate studies but are trapped in situations of armed conflict, disaster, or other dangerous environments.

In parallel with UBC’s initiative, Friba Rezayee established a partnership with Laurentian University to create the WLOT Mining Engineering Program, which will open the door to five Afghan women to embark on a two-year study program leading to either a Masters of Geology or Masters of Mine Engineering in the fall of 2024.

After successfully securing funding for entire two-year programs, Nadine Miller is now raising funds for the next cohort together with WLOT and the Former Minister of mining for Afghanistan, who is a refugee in Canada.

“These are all women who have selected mining as their industry,” Miller said in an interview. “These are women that as soon as the Taliban took over, can never go home.”

“All these women already have degrees in mining or geology. They’re unbelievable. They are so excited. They are they’re all going to be graduating by December and need to find jobs.”

The students are all doing their internships this summer at Teck Resources working the maximum number of hours that their visas will allow.

Miller is currently working on getting transportation funded for students to do research in the Yukon Territory. She emphasized that WLOT and the former Afghanistan mining minister have identified about 600 women around the world that are displaced as candidates for future cohorts.

“Our limitation on how many women we can bring in is money and space,” Miller said.

“This is a case for diversity beyond gender. Right now, topics at board levels are diversity beyond gender. And this is it. These are our future board members.”

For more information or to donate, email Nadinem@jdsmining.ca.

CUTE LITILE CREATURES

Chinchillas throw new wrench in Gold Fields’ Chile plans

Cecilia Jamasmie | May 16, 2024 | 

Hunted for centuries for their thick, soft pelt, chinchillas are now only found in the wild in parts of Chile and are protected by law. (Image by Pablo Díaz Rubio |Wirestock.)

Gold Fields (JSE: GFI)(NYSE: GFI) may see its $1 billion Salares Norte mine in northern Chile affected again after the country’s environmental watchdog (SMA) said there was no certainty the miner had captured and relocated a population of 25 critically endangered chinchillas living in the area, as asked.


The regulator’s latest order, issued late on Wednesday, forces Gold Field to stop activities around the mine plant area. The miner has 10 days to present prove of the absence of chinchillas in the rocky area or may face sanctions.

Chilean authorities stopped the initial rescue operation, launched in 2020, after two of the first four rodents being relocated died shortly after. SMA laid charges against the South African gold producer and asked it to made adjustments to the original plan to guarantee the safety of the remainder short-tailed chinchillas.

The regulator approved the new strategy late last year, and “Operation Chinchilla” resumed in February. Since then, however, Gold Fields has been unable to locate any.

In an operational update earlier this month, the company said the rodents appeared to have left on their own, without any human intervention.

“We have been working with the authorities on the capture and relocation of the chinchillas, and we have gone through the sequencing. And to date we have not captured any,” chief executive Mike Fraser said during the presentation.

“It is quite conceivable that the chinchillas moved on; that’s a plausible scenario,” he added.

Hunted for centuries for their thick, soft pelt, chinchillas are now only found in the wild and are protected by law. Former chief executive Nick Holland acknowledged in 2017 the tiny animals were among the main obstacles for bringing Salares Norte into production.

The relocation of these critters is a key component of Salares Norte’s environmental licence.

$8 billion worth of gold at stake

According to Gold Fields’ latest estimations, the Salares Norte mine’s mineral reserves are at 3.4 million ounces of gold and almost 42 million ounces of silver.

At current prices of around $2,380 per ounce per gold ounce, the asset is worth roughly $8 billion.

The mine, which cost Gold Fields over $1 billion to build, produced its first gold in late March, as planned. Getting to this point has not been easy, as on top of dealing with the relocation of chinchillas, construction of the mine was hit by increasing costs and the global pandemic.

Felipe Sanchez, head of SMA’s regional office told MINING.COM that the Salares Norte mine, Gold Fields’ newest operation, was constantly being monitored due to its environmental impact on the fauna of Atacama Region’s mountain range, where the gold mine is located

.

Chinchilla around Salares Norte gold mine. (Image provided by SMA.)

“This project has a sanctioning procedure that began in December 2021, in which Gold Fields was accused of deficient implementation of rescue measures for the rodents present in rocky areas of the mining licence,” Sanchez said.

The SMA official noted that while the miner was allowed to resume activities in the area to complete the mine on time, the issue of moving the rodents is pending.

Salares Norte, located 4,500m above sea level in an area where winter temperatures can be as low as -20 degrees Celsius, is key to the company’s goal of churning out 2.8 million ounces of gold by 2025.

Production at the mine is expected to reach about 250,000 ounces of gold this year, ramping up to full-year production of 580,000 ounces next year.

___________________________
THROWBACK THURSDAY: 25 chinchillas stand between Gold Fields and billions of dollars in gold

Mali signs agreement with China’s Ganfeng to operate Goulamina lithium mine

Reuters | May 17, 2024 |\

Goulamina project in Mali. (Image: Leo Lithium)

Mali has signed an agreement with China’s Ganfeng Lithium to operate the Goulamina lithium mine and increase its share in the project in accordance with a new mining code, the West African country’s economy ministry said in a statement.


The mining code, adopted last year, allows the military-led government to increase its ownership of mining projects and recoup what it says is a major shortfall in production revenue.

Mali’s share in the Goulamina project will increase to 35% from 20%, according to the economy ministry’s statement dated May 16 and seen by Reuters on Friday.

“With this win-win agreement, which defends the vital interests of the Malian people, the State of Mali enters into a new partnership with the Chinese group Ganfeng Lithium Co for the development and operation of the Goulamina lithium project,” the statement said.

Ganfeng Lithium will set up a spodumene plant which will start production by the end of the year, it added.

Mali’s Economy Minister, Alousseni Sanou, said earlier this week that the deal could bring Mali between 110 billion and 115 billion CFA francs ($191.51 million) per year.

Ganfeng Lithium bought Australia’s Leo Lithium’s 40% stake in the Goulamina mine for $342.7 million earlier this month.

Leo Lithium said at the time that the risks associated with operating in Mali and the impact of new mining code meant selling the stake was in the best interests of its shareholders.

($1 = 600.5000 CFA francs)

(Reporting by by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Aluminum group steps up call on EU to bar imports of the Russian metal

Reuters | May 17, 2024 | 

Credit: Rusal

Industry group European Aluminium has stepped up its long-running call for the European Union to expand its sanctions regime on Moscow, saying the EU could live comfortably without major Russian aluminum products.


Russia’s Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer outside China, said the main victims of such measure would be the European consumers.

“It’s getting harder and harder to justify the continued exclusion of aluminum ingots from the scope of EU sanctions on Russia,” Paul Voss, director general at European Aluminum, said in a statement on Friday.

“We could live comfortably without it, and we should.”

The EU has been discussing a planned 14th package of Russian sanctions this month, but aluminum has not been mentioned in the European Commission’s proposals so far.

The EU already has bans in place on Russian-made aluminum wire, foil, tubes and pipes, but imports of Russian aluminum ingots, slabs and billets – 85% of the EU’s aluminum imports from Russia – remain excluded from the measures. The US and Britain previously banned Russian aluminum imports.

European Aluminium has been lobbying the EU for a ban on Russian-made aluminum over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, while stressing that sanctions should avoid Rusal, which has operations in Ireland, Sweden and some other countries.


EU’s 2023 imports of Russian-made primary aluminum fell by 45% to 1.25 billion euros ($1.35 billion), according to the group. Russia accounts for 8% of the EU’s ingot imports, it added.

The group is calling for an EU import ban of Russian aluminum ingots, slabs, and billets and proposes the measures include indirect imports of Russian ingots via semi-finished products from third countries.

Rusal said the proposed measures would hit EU’s small- and mid-sized downstream companies.

“Rusal has been operating in Europe for more than 20 years,” it said in an emailed comment. “We hope for a balanced and reasonable approach from the EU authorities.”

($1 = 0.9226 euro)

(Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Jonathan Oatis)


US lukewarm on G7 Russian diamond ban after industry backlash

Reuters | May 17, 2024 | 

Image from Alrosa.

The United States is re-evaluating the strictest elements of a ban on Russian diamonds from the Group of Seven major democracies, after opposition from African countries, Indian gem polishers and New York jewellers, seven sources said.


The sanctions package, agreed in December and including a ban across the European Union, represents one of the industry’s biggest shakeups in decades.

Two of the sources familiar with the negotiations said the Americans had disconnected from G7 working groups on the stringent controls, with one describing them as “there but not engaging”.

The US State Department declined to comment.

A senior Biden administration official said Washington had not changed its position and that the United States would keep working with the G7.

“We will want to make sure that we strike the right balance between hurting Russia and making sure that everything is implementable,” said the official who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the negotiations.

The G7 sanctions aim to hit another stream of revenue for the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine, even though at around $3.5 billion, according to Russian state-run miner Alrosa’s 2023 results, diamonds represent a small fraction of the profits Moscow earns from oil and gas.

Since March, importers to G7 countries must self-certify that diamonds do not originate from Russia, the world’s leading producer of rough diamonds. Sanctions were imposed on direct imports of Russian gems in January.

From September, the EU ban will require diamonds of 0.5 carats and above to pass through Antwerp, a centuries-old diamond hub in Belgium, for traceability certification using blockchain – the digital ledger used by cryptocurrencies.

Sources said G7 powers had agreed that Antwerp would be the logical first hub, with others to be added later.

But three of the sources said Washington had cooled on enforcing traceability and that discussions on implementing tracing had stalled.

The Biden administration official said the commitment to implementing a traceability mechanism by Sept. 1 applied to the European Union, not the United States, citing the language in a G7 leaders’ statement in December.

“We need to do this in a way that takes into account concerns from African partners and African producers, takes into account Indian and UAE partners … and makes sure we can also make it workable for U.S. industry,” said the official.

“Is there a traceability mechanism that satisfies all of that? We haven’t walked away from the idea… on the other hand, we couldn’t sign up to definitely having this in place by Sept. 1st.”

The presidents of Angola, Botswana and Namibia wrote to G7 leaders in February to say that a pre-determined entry point for the G7 market would be unfair, impinge on freedoms, and hurt revenues. The three nations account for 30% of diamond output.

Italy, which holds the presidency of the G7, declined to comment on the U.S. position.

Any softening of the phased ban risks leaving loopholes and allowing Russian diamonds into boutiques in New York, London and Tokyo – a threat highlighted when Belgian authorities seized suspected Russian stones worth millions of dollars in February.

Advocates of the sanctions say a traceability mechanism is needed to deliver a robust ban and that without the full engagement of the United States, which accounts for 50% of the G7 diamond jewellery market, it cannot be effective. They blamed some of the industry pushback on fears of greater market transparency.

A Belgian official familiar with the negotiations said it was paramount to maintain the determination to keep loopholes firmly closed.
Certifying at Source

A previous US ban on Russian diamonds excluded stones polished elsewhere, allowing diamonds processed in India and traded in hubs like Dubai to reach the U.S. market.

The G7 ban followed months of wrangling between Western capitals.

Diamond miners such as De Beers, a unit of Anglo American, Indian cutters and jewellery retailers have strongly lobbied against the ban. They say the measures are poorly designed, will increase bureaucracy and inflate prices.

De Beers told Reuters it supported a ban but that diamond-producing countries should certify origin at the source.

“The opportunities for, and likelihood, of Russian diamonds infiltrating the legitimate supply chain are in fact higher when you move further away from the source,” the company said.

Virginia Drosos, chief executive of Signet, the world’s largest retailer of diamond jewellery, urged the US government in a letter seen by Reuters to “stand against… the G7 Belgian solution.”

Belgium has introduced a pilot tracing scheme based in Antwerp in which some 20 diamond buyers are participating, among them French luxury groups LVMH and Kering as well as Switzerland’s Richemont, one of the sources said.

An LVMH spokesperson said its Tiffany & Co brand was participating. Kering and Richemont did not comment.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told Reuters in March that he was open to additional hubs being established for certification if they matched Antwerp’s standards, and that concerns were inevitable.

“If you implement something that is changing the game, (it) takes some time to iron out some issues.”

(Reporting by Julia Payne in Brussels and Dmitry Zhdannikov in London; additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis in Washington, Brian Benza in Gaborone, Miguel Gomes in Luanda and Mimosa Spencer in Paris; editing by Richard Lough and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

US to offer up to $3.4 billion for nuclear fuel makers in June

Bloomberg News | May 16, 2024 

Credit: Centrus Energy Corp.

The US plans to start soliciting bids worth as much as $3.4 billion to buy domestically produced nuclear reactor fuel as soon as next month, according to a government notice.


The funding includes $2.7 billion requested by the White House as part of a broader plan to help restart the domestic nuclear fuel production industry through direct purchases of the low-enriched uranium used in reactors. The government aid was unlocked after President Joe Biden signed a ban on imports of enriched uranium from Russia, which provides about a quarter of the reactor fuel in the US, making it the nation’s top supplier.

The US was once a leading supplier of enriched uranium but lost its edge in the industry decades ago. The country now has just one commercial enrichment facility in New Mexico, owned by Urenco Ltd., a British, Dutch and German consortium.

Bethesda, Maryland-based Centrus Energy Corp. has said it will compete for the funding. The fuel supplier, which currently gets the majority of its uranium from Russia, plans to produce its own low-enriched uranium and has reported securing about $900 million in conditional sales commitments. Centrus also began production in October at a pilot plant that makes specialized, highly enriched uranium to be used in new breed of advanced reactors.

In addition to Centrus, companies that could benefit from the spending include ConverDyn, a joint venture between Honeywell International Inc. and General Atomics that provides uranium conversion services, and Global Laser Enrichment, jointly owned by Silex Systems LTD and Cameco Corp.

Domestic uranium mining companies could see a benefit from the funding as well, said Scott Melbye, president of the Uranium Producers of America, which represents such companies as Cameco Corp., Energy Fuels, Inc., Ur-Energy, Inc., and Uranium Energy Corp.

“US enrichment is going to favor and support western sources of uranium, so any sort of expansion of western enrichment over Russian enrichment is good for our business,” Melbye said in an interview.

(By Ari Natter)

Anglo American has sought fertilizer partners for months, says CEO

Reuters | May 16, 2024 | 

Woodsmith is the UK’s biggest mining project in decades. (Image: Sirius Metals.)

Anglo American has been looking for partners for its fertilizer project in North Yorkshire for around six months, chief executive Duncan Wanblad told Reuters, reiterating the business will be one of three pillars of the revamped miner, even as work there stalls.


The London-listed miner outlined a radical plan on Tuesday to shrink by divesting less profitable coal, nickel, diamond and platinum businesses, as it moves to fend off BHP Group’s $43 billion takeover offer.

As part of the plan, Anglo said it would slow the development of its Woodsmith fertilizer project in northeast England, pushing back first production from 2027.

“We have been in the market looking for partners for the better part of six months now and we have to stall to get the partners to the point where they are prepared to invest,” Wanblad said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday.

Woodsmith, on which the miner announced a $1.7 billion writedown a year ago, has the world’s largest known deposit of polyhalite, a naturally-occurring mineral containing nutrients including potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulphur, which it is marketing as POLY4.

A feasibility study for the project is only expected to be ready by the beginning of 2025. This would have been followed by a board full notice to proceed in the first half of the year if the wider assets restructuring had not got in the way.

“(When) we’re de-levered materially compared to where we are now, we’re going to be in a much stronger position to move this forward and that’s the plan,” Wanblad said.

Anglo American freezes hiring amid global shake-up

The company’s net debt swelled to $10.6 billion by the end of 2023, from $6.9 billion a year earlier.

Analysts estimated total spending on Woodsmith at around $9 billion.

Wanblad also said a plan to spin off the company’s platinum unit in South Africa, sell off or demerge the diamonds and coking coal businesses wasn’t rushed by the takeover threat from BHP.

Anglo last week rejected a second proposal from the world’s No. 1 miner.

“I started an operational restructure last year …in May, it was completed in December,” Wanblad told Reuters.

In February, Anglo announced an asset review having earlier outlined plans to implement deeper cost cuts to preserve cash.

“None of this is a response that we’ve caught up or concocted up in the last 10 days,” Wanblad added.

“You can see the clarity of the thinking and the depth of the thinking that’s gone into this, it’s not days’ worth of work, it’s many months’ worth of work.”

(By Clara Denina and Felix Njini; Editing by Susan Fenton)

WORKERS CAPITAL

Australia’s top pension boosts critical minerals to $8 billion

P3 

PUBLIC PENSIONS FUND PRIVATIZATION

Bloomberg News | May 15, 2024 |

Pilbara Minerals’ Pilgangoora lithium tantalum mine. Credit: Pilbara Minerals

AustralianSuper, the nation’s largest pension fund, has amassed a A$12 billion ($7.9 billion) critical minerals portfolio that it plans to increase in the next five years.


The A$335 billion fund is poised to “expand in that sector” with more investments in Australian companies, senior portfolio manager Luke Smith said in an interview Tuesday. That would build its already overweight position in lithium, vanadium, rare earths and other critical minerals vital for the energy transition.

“We will have out-sized investments in that space for the next five years-plus,” Smith said. “It’s absolutely still a great thematic to invest in, the energy transition.”

Smith was speaking before the federal government pledged later Tuesday to spend A$22.7 billion on its Future Made in Australia program. Industries involved in critical minerals, hydrogen and green metals will be among key beneficiaries.

Australia is among allies of the US seeking to break China’s dominance in producing and processing critical minerals that are becoming increasingly essential in the world’s bid to decarbonize. The measures are designed to stimulate high-end and green manufacturing, similar to President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA.

AustralianSuper already holds double-digit stakes in copper and gold miner Sandfire Resources Ltd. and 29Metals Ltd., while it has built a 7% stake in Pilbara Minerals Ltd. Its suite of investments includes lithium, cobalt and graphite, while the fund also counts its copper holdings as among its critical-minerals assets.

In January, AustralianSuper said it would double its lithium exposure in the next five years, from about A$1 billion to between A$2.5 billion and A$3 billion.

Australia’s fast-growing A$3.7 trillion pension industry is hunting for investments domestically and abroad as the sector racks up A$2 billion of inflows each week.

More critical minerals companies are likely to be listed on Australia’s stock exchange, Smith said.

“There are opportunities across the various sectors,” he said. “Lithium: clearly there’s plenty.” The fund was also looking offshore for investments, with Smith adding there were some high-quality companies listed in London.

Like other large investors, Smith said the fund liked policy certainty.

“With policy certainty, you can get better investment and that’s a good thing for members,” he said, adding the IRA — enacted in 2022 and which offers tax credits on electric vehicles that are built with materials produced by free-trade partners such as Australia — was still in its early days. “We’re actually now starting to see action, which is great.”

(By Amy Bainbridge and Paul-Alain Hunt)

Winning over public key to EU’s mineral supply push, says industry

Reuters | May 15, 2024 |

Rio’s Jadar project has an estimated production capacity of 55,000 tonnes per year. (Image courtesy of Rio Tinto.)

Europe’s efforts to ensure supplies of critical minerals needed for its green and digital transitions and to reduce its reliance on China are struggling to gain public acceptance, leading industry officials said on Wednesday.


The EU Critical Raw Materials Act, due to enter force next week, sets targets for the bloc to mine, recycle and process minerals including lithium and copper by 2030.

It also sets timeframes for strategic projects to secure permits, but it will not fall to 27 months for a mine from the current 15-year norm without winning over a sceptical public.

Bernd Schaefer, the CEO of EIT RawMaterials, an EU-funded group leading a sector alliance, said in an interview that permitting for mining and recycling were a challenge.

“This is still the major concern, together with the social licence to operate, which is absolutely necessary to get the permit,” he said on the sidelines of a conference in Brussels.

Schaefer said the key to social acceptance was active engagement with local communities and pro-active communicating, citing the Nordics as examples of where this had tended to work.

One of the greatest battles has come over Rio Tinto’s planned $2.4 billion Jadar lithium project in EU candidate country Serbia, which revoked licences in January 2022 after massive environmental protests before a general election.

Chad Blewitt, Rio Tinto’s managing director of the project, said the company was waiting out another election cycle, including local elections on June 2, for its mine that could produce enough lithium for one million electric vehicles batteries per year.

The company, he said, was fighting “a lot of disinformation”, such as that the mine will be opencast and pollute the water supply. In fact, it will be underground and Rio Tinto says the waste will end up as brick-like blocks that could be used in road construction, rather than sit in a tailings dam that has the potential to collapse.

Blewitt said Rio Tinto had initially thought people would not believe more outlandish claims on social media and had come to understand that projects needed more stakeholder engagement and communication at an earlier stage.

(By Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Mark Potter)

Biden open to easing sanctions on billionaire Gertler in return for Congo exit

Bloomberg News | May 16, 2024 | 

Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler, pictured here. (Image: Bloomberg Markets via YouTube.)

The US government is open to easing sanctions on billionaire mining magnate Dan Gertler if he gives up his business operations and assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Washington’s interest in critical minerals has run up against his problematic royalties ownership.


The Treasury Department is willing to grant limited sanctions relief to Gertler, an Israeli citizen, as a way to get him to exit from Congo completely, including relinquishing his royalty streams on three strategic projects, according to two US officials, who asked not to be identified as the talks are ongoing.

The mines are rich in copper and cobalt, a key ingredient in most electric vehicle batteries and which is almost exclusively mined in Congo. While Chinese miners have thrived in the Central African country, Western investors have been reluctant, in part because of a legacy of corruption.

The US sanctioned Gertler in 2017 for what it said were hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals in Congo under the previous administration of President Joseph Kabila. In the waning days of his presidency, Donald Trump granted Gertler a one-year reprieve after repeated requests from the Israeli government, but that was canceled early in the Biden administration.

The willingness to loosen sanctions to purge Gertler from the projects stems in part from the US push to boost investments in critical minerals needed for electric vehicles from sources not tied to Chinese firms that dominate the industry. The US stance was first reported by the New York Times.

Biden reimposes sanctions on mining magnate Dan Gertler

Gertler has never been charged with a crime and denies any wrongdoing. Gertler and his US-based lawyers didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment.

He cut a deal with Congo in 2022 to give back some of his assets in exchange for help lobbying the US government to lift his sanctions. But as part of the agreement, he retained his royalties in the world’s biggest non-Chinese sources of cobalt.

Those royalty streams have enriched Gertler by hundreds of millions of dollars from metal projects owned by Eurasian Resources Group and Glencore Plc, according to calculations made by Congo Is Not For Sale, a consortium of Congolese and international anti-corruption groups.

The difficulty stopping the ongoing royalty payments and the inevitable depletion of the mining assets prompted the US to make the offer after long debate, according to an official with direct knowledge of the talks who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations.

Glencore declined to comment, while ERG didn’t respond to emails requesting comment. Congo’s government didn’t immediately provide comment when contacted Thursday by text message, and the office of President Felix Tshisekedi didn’t respond to text messages requesting comment.

“To pay him again for things he acquired illegally and from which he’s already profited, for me, truly, it’s rewarding corruption,” said Jean Claude Mputu, spokesman for Congo is Not for Sale. “We should not being paying Gertler any more,” and Congo’s government should claw back previous payments, he said.

Mputu, who received a State Department international anti-corruption award in December, is one of several people and organizations facing lawsuits from Gertler for their investigations into him.

Gertler will be required to drop those cases as part of any sanctions relief, according to the official with knowledge of the offer. He will also need to submit to an audit of his assets and put half of any proceeds of his royalty sales in escrow, the person said.

The license is not a full lifting of sanctions and will allow the US government to reinstate them.

Gertler grew up in one of Israel’s most prominent diamond families. He first came to Congo in 1997 to trade diamonds and struck up a friendship with Kabila that led to billions of dollars worth of investments in minerals and oil blocks.

(By Iain Marlow, Daniel Flatley and Michael J. Kavanagh)

Congo demands international embargo on Rwandan mineral exports

Bloomberg News | May 15, 2024 | 

M23 troops in Bunagana, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Democratic Republic of Congo called for an international embargo of metal exports from neighboring Rwanda, whose government it accuses of using rebel groups to steal its natural resources.


All mining products from Rwanda should be considered “blood minerals,” because their sale allegedly supports conflict in eastern Congo, Mines Minister Antoinette N’Samba Kalambayi said in a May 8 statement released on Tuesday. “All stakeholders, including end consumers of mining products,” should commit to a responsible supply chain, and “an embargo be decreed against Rwanda,” she said.

The minister’s plea follows the takeover earlier this month of Congo’s largest mines of tantalum, a key mineral in portable electronics, by the M23 rebel group. Congo and United Nations experts say M23 is backed by Rwanda, which is now receiving the smuggled tantalum and warehousing it for future sale, she said.

Rwanda’s government has repeatedly denied it supports M23. Last month, government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told Bloomberg that accusations that Rwanda is stealing minerals is “a scapegoating strategy” by the Congolese government to cover up its own “security and governance failures.” Makolo didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Eastern Congo’s minerals have fueled conflict for decades and international efforts to stop it have had limited success.

Exports of tin ore, tantalum, tungsten ore and gold from the region are supposed to be certified and tagged through several initiatives to enable buyers to identify the source of their metal purchases. In reality, many of those tracing systems are collapsing as conflicts proliferate throughout eastern Congo, leading to the displacement of more than 6 million people.

Last month, lawyers for Congo’s government complained to Apple Inc. that it was supporting the war by indirectly buying stolen minerals through Rwanda for its products. Apple said it did due diligence on its supply chain and found no links to conflict.

The M23 has been Congo’s chief concern since the group launched its most recent rebellion in late 2021 amid worries that the rights of ethnic Tutsis were under threat in the country. The group has surrounded the city of Goma since the beginning of the year, blocking key trade routes and expanding its territory.

The trade in minerals from the region is worth billions of dollars annually. A large share escapes formal export channels. In some cases, armed groups profit from the sales.

Minerals have become a pillar of Rwanda’s formal economy in recent years, with exports nearing $1 billion over the past fiscal year, Rwandan central bank data shows. Rwanda’s entire gross domestic product is about $14 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund.

(By Michael J. Kavanagh)

Indigenous group to take fight against Arizona copper mine to Supreme Court

Reuters | May 14, 2024 

Credit: Resolution Copper

A Native American group said on Tuesday it will take its fight against Rio Tinto’s proposed Arizona copper mine to the US Supreme Court, after a federal appeals court refused to reconsider whether the US government may have improperly transferred land to the developer.


The group said they would ask the high court to weigh in after the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a longshot bid to have the full 29-judge court reconsider earlier decisions not to block a land grant for the project. The court did not provide an explanation for its decision.

The Resolution Copper project, a partnership between Rio and BHP, would supply more than a quarter of US copper, which is needed to build electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels. Those are key to federal plans to combat climate change.

Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit group comprised of San Carlos Apache tribe members and others, claim the land swap in a federal forest northeast of Phoenix violates religious protection law because it would destroy a site where indigenous ceremonies have been held for generations.

Luke Goodrich, an attorney for Apache Stronghold, said the Supreme Court has taken 25 religious liberty cases since 2011, and ruled in favor of religious liberty arguments in 24 of those.

“Blasting the central sacred site of Western Apaches to oblivion is a great violation of religious liberty,” he said.

A spokesperson for Resolution Copper said the mine plan was developed in collaboration with various levels of government, Native American communities and others. The spokesperson said they will continue engaging with those groups going forward.

The US government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 2,422-acre (980-hectare) plot of land in question was authorized to be transferred in 2014 by Congress as part of a defense bill, in exchange for 5,459 acres of private land elsewhere in Arizona.

An Arizona district court refused to preliminarily block the land swap in 2021, and the 9th Circuit had twice affirmed that decision before denying the latest request on Tuesday.

(By Clark Mindock; Editing by Marguerita Choy)