It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, November 01, 2023
QUE INC. FAIL
Stornoway Diamond files for bankruptcy for second time, stops operations at Quebec site
Stornoway is owned by Osisko Gold Royalties, Investissement Québec, pension fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and TF R&S Canada Ltd.
Stornoway Diamond Inc. is filing for bankruptcy protection for the second time in four years as the miner struggles to deal with volatile pricing on global markets.
The privately-held company said Friday it is immediately suspending operations at its Renard site in Northern Quebec while it plots a path forward. About 75 employees will work on maintaining equipment and other assets for a return to operations, the company said.
Renard is Quebec’s first and only diamond mine, opened in 2017.
“The growing uncertainty of the diamond price in the short and medium term, coupled with the significant and sudden drop in the price of the resource on the world market, have had a major impact on the Company’s long-term financial situation,” Stornoway said in a statement.
“This was in part due to the halt in the import of rough diamonds to India and by the global geopolitical climate.”
India is the world’s biggest cutter and polisher of diamonds. Stornoway has been hit hard in the past when the market has been flooded by smaller and lower-quality stones because smaller diamonds account for a significant portion of its production by weight.
The company said it has launched a process to file for bankruptcy protection under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in a bid to restructure and turn around its finances. It is seeking investment and sale proposals.
Stornoway Diamond dealt another blow Stornoway is owned by Osisko Gold Royalties, Investissement Québec, pension fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and TF R&S Canada Ltd.
Stornoway built Renard, its main asset, in Quebec’s Otish Mountains, a range of hills north of Lac Mistassini, in the summer of 2016 with a C$946-million financing package.
The construction came in under budget and five months ahead of schedule, igniting hopes that it would lead to other resource development in the province’s vast northern territory. But the project suffered some early snags, notably in the fall of 2017, when Renard diamonds were found to be breaking in processing at a higher frequency than the company expected.
Stornoway fixed the breakage, but that and other production and pricing problems forced the company to go to its lenders and key stakeholders in 2018 for additional funds and loan flexibility because it could not generate positive free cash flow. The year after, Osisko and other creditors took control of Stornoway after it filed for bankruptcy protection.
Burkina Faso targets bigger royalties as gold production drops
Bloomberg News | October 27, 2023 | Bissa mine in Burkina Faso. Image: Nordgold
Burkina Faso has revised its mining code to enable it to take more in royalties in boom times after gold production fell.
The West African nation increased the minimum royalty rate for spot price above $1,500 an ounce to 6% from 5%, the military government said in a decree seen by Bloomberg. The rate will rise to 6.5% for spot higher than $1,700 to $2,000 and further to 7% for spot above $2,000, it said.
Gold output in one of Africa’s biggest producers dropped 13% to 58.2 tons in 2022, according to government data. At least five mines closed down amid deteriorating security followed by two coups that year.
While the stake the state can take in mining operations is regulated by stability clauses, there are no such provisions for royalties, which apply to all existing and new contracts. A spokesperson for Endeavour Mining Plc, Burkina Faso’s largest gold producer, declined to comment. Miners in the country, including Iamgold Corp. and Nord Gold SE, are faced with a constantly volatile security situation as the ruling junta battles a mounting Islamist insurgency. Military leader Colonel Ibrahim Traore came to power in September 2022 after toppling the regime of fellow soldier Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who seized power in January of the same year.
Traore’s pledge to restore control over territories lost to the militants has seen attacks by armed actors continue unabated.
International partners such as the US and France have suspended aid and budgetary assistance following the coups.
(By Katarina Hoije and William Clowes)
The energy chief trying to get the UK to speed up carbon capture
Bloomberg News | October 28, 2023 | Spirit Energy’s North and South Morecambe gas fields. (Image by Centrica Plc).
Centrica Plc boss Chris O’Shea is on a mission to show the UK government that it needs to rapidly speed up carbon capture projects, which could become crucial if the country is to reach its net zero ambitions.
The company’s aging Morecambe gas site, off the west coast of England, wasn’t selected for a support scheme this summer that’s backed by billions of pounds of government funding. Even after that disappointment, the energy business still plans to start burying carbon emissions from its own gas processing site nearby around early 2025.
The idea is to prove viability and then fully commercialize the operation, selling the carbon storage service to other industries. That will require about £1 billion ($1.2 billion) of investment, as well as government backing which O’Shea says isn’t moving fast enough.
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, involves taking CO2 emissions, transporting them to a site — usually an old oil and gas field — and burying them.
It’s controversial, with critics saying it can help to extend the life of fossil fuels that should be winding down faster. It’s also expensive, and there’s a risk of environmental damage from leakage at storage sites.
But CCS remains in focus as a decarbonization tool because of slow global progress in reducing emissions. In the UK, worries about energy security and fuel prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government to issue new permits for oil and gas production in the North Sea. Other policy shifts have also raised questions about the UK’s ability to meet green targets, particularly its 2050 net zero goal.
Centrica’s CCS plans are centered on Morecambe in the Irish Sea, operated by joint venture Spirit Energy. Over the past four decades, Spirit Energy says the field has pumped out enough gas — more than 6.5 trillion cubic feet — to fill Scotland’s famous Loch Ness 25 times over.
Centrica currently expects to continue production until the end of the decade, having previous planned to stop in the mid-2020s.
The platforms there — mazes of pipes, bridges and rigging dotted with workers in bright orange overalls — are inextricably linked to the era of dirty energy that the world is trying to put behind it. But carbon storage, once it comes online, will give the facilities a new function.
Chief executive O’Shea, who’s out to prove a point, describes the project as “truly huge.”
“It can store more carbon dioxide molecules than there are grains of sand in the Sahara desert,” he said in an interview during a recent visit to the site. “We need to speed up timelines massively, but we also need the support of government.”
The plan for Morecambe looks straight forward. Gas will contine to flow and be brought onshore for processing. Then, rather than venting the CO2 from the production, a pipeline will bring it back offshore in a “closed loop system” that allows simultaneous injection and extraction.
While Morecambe didn’t get support under the UK CCUS program, it already has a carbon storage license. And Centrica owns all the assets — the terminal, the pipeline — so it can press ahead with capturing its own emissions. (CCUS is a related concept, where CO2 is reused — the “U” in the acronym — rather than stored.)
The next stage is getting other industries involved, and heavy emitters, like the cement industry located in Britain’s Peak District, have signed up. But that means much more infrastructure investment, and it’s where government funding and support comes in.
“What you’ve really got is this kind of chicken and egg thing, which is who builds a pipeline across from the cement industry to Morecambe, from the emitters to Morecambe? And how do we make that work? ” O’Shea said. “The government, regulators have got to realize that you’ve got to be making decisions quickly because it can usually take you two years to do the engineering.”
Spirit Energy estimates the project could store more than 5 million tons of CO2 per year at the start, rising in time to 25 million tons.
“Overall, the evidence is clear that the UK would have minimal chance of reaching net zero by 2050 without employing CCUS,” Esin Serin, a policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, wrote in a recent blog. But it “should be part of, not an excuse to delay, an overarching push for clean technologies,” she said.
The government has said CCUS will play a “critical role” in the move to net zero. There are currently more than 90 carbon capture and storage projects planned, enough for about 94 million tons of CO2 per year — equivalent to more than a quarter of total UK emissions, according to the UK’s CCS Association.
Yet, only a few industrial clusters have been selected across England and Scotland in a bid to kick start the industry.
Bas Sudmeijer, managing director and partner at the Boston Consulting Group, says the UK strategy has some benefits, but it “comes with trade-offs on pace.”
“It remains to be seen what model is ultimately most successful,” he said. “But the first CCUS Final Investment Decisions have now been taken in both Europe and the US, whereas in the UK that is not yet the case.”
The UK government has committed £20 billion for early deployment of CCS technology, including a £1 billion CCUS infrastructure fund. But though the underlying technology has been around for decades, high capital costs remain an issue.
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security said the government is committed to further development of carbon capture, utilization and storage.
“Everybody’s trying to do their best — the government, regulators, businesses,” said Jon Butterworth, CEO of grid operator National Gas Transmission Plc. But the UK needs a network to capture, transport and store carbon, and the issue needs a “bigger conversation.”
(By Priscila Azevedo Rocha and Elena Mazneva)
Ottawa’s interim plan to regulate large resource projects causing confusion for Ring of Fire stakeholders
The federal government’s plan to continue to regulate major resource projects despite a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that says those powers are largely unconstitutional is creating confusion and uncertainty in Ontario’s Ring of Fire.
A significant Indigenous stakeholder is making a plea for regulatory certainty, while a major mining company is warning that Canada’s weak standing on the global critical-minerals stage will only get worse.
The Supreme Court said earlier this month that the federal government’s broad-based environmental reviews around large mines and major infrastructure associated with those mines are unconstitutional. Ottawa must limit its oversight to certain defined areas clearly defined in the Constitution, the court said, such as fisheries, the bird population, species at risk and certain Indigenous rights.
The decision means that the provinces and territories have primary jurisdiction over regulating mining projects.
Since the ruling from the Supreme Court was in a reference case, one in which a province asked for an opinion, it is non-binding, but governments historically take such rulings seriously.
This week the federal government reiterated that because of the ruling, it intends to introduce legislation to change the 2019 Impact Assessment Act that will limit its oversight over resource projects. But Ottawa has not provided details on when that will happen and what the new regime will look like.
Companies with projects that are already subject to federal impact assessments are now facing major unknowns. The federal government said Thursday it will look at each individual case and determine whether it has jurisdiction over it or not.
Situated in Ontario’s far north, the undeveloped Ring of Fire is one of Canada’s highest-profile critical minerals projects and one of the projects most affected by the uncertainty. Three Ring of Fire road proposals are going through federal impact assessment studies.
Marten Falls, a remote First Nations community located 430 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, is involved in two proposals – leading one of the studies on a road project in the Ring of Fire corridor and co-leading another with Webequie First Nation.
The division of regulatory powers between the federal and provincial governments over the Ring of Fire “has to be clarified,” Marten Falls Chief Bruce Achneepineskum said in an interview.
His community has been working on one of the federal impact assessments for four years, and has been toiling for almost as long on an additional federally mandated regional assessment study on the Ring of Fire.
The regional assessment has been “daunting,” he said, given the huge demands on the community to provide large amounts of data and respond to countless requests around environmental impacts.
Amid confusion over whether some of the bureaucracy was even needed in the first place, Mr. Achneepineskum stressed the importance of timeliness around a massive resource project that could bring significant economic benefits to the community.
But rather than both levels of government working together to clarify the regulatory system in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, they appear instead to be on a “collision course,” he said.
Earlier this week, Ontario applied for judicial review around two large resource projects that are going through the Federal Impact Assessment system. The legal move is an attempt to prevent the federal government from making any further decisions in the areas the Supreme Court has deemed unconstitutional.
The federal government, however, is not backing down. Steven Guilbeault, the federal Environment Minister, said in a news conference on Thursday that the Ring of Fire is “clearly a federal area of jurisdiction,” as he vowed to assert Ottawa’s powers, particularly when it comes toIndigenous land.
Ontario’s legal moves, he said, are a “waste of time,” and something that “will only delay the approval of these projects.”
Both the Supreme Court ruling and the subsequent dispute between Ottawa and Ontario over resource jurisdiction is creating consternation at Ring of Fire Metals, the Australian-owned company hoping to build a nickel mine that could one day feed Canadian battery metals plants.
“It just brings more uncertainty,” said Kristan Straub, chief executive of Ring of Fire Metals. “Specifically at a time when Canada is trying to position itself, and we’re failing to position ourselves, as a safe, reliable supplier of critical minerals.”
Mr. Straub is particularly concerned about the federal government, indicating it may still exert discretionary powers over “designated projects” – large-scale resource projects – even though Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner expressly said Ottawa doesn’t have any constitutional powers in that area.
Earlier this week, Ottawa said it was pausing the environment minister’s power on new designated projects, but stopped short of saying it would do so permanently. Instead, the government said that consideration of new designated-project requests could potentially resume once amended legislation is in place.
“I don’t even think that there’s an ability to understand where the government is positioning themselves,” Mr. Straub said.
Last year, Australian resources giant Wyloo Metals Pty Ltd., which is controlled by billionaire Andrew Forrest, bought Canada’s Noront Resources Ltd. (now Ring of Fire Metals). The company’s Eagle’s Nest project was discovered in 2006 and has been held out repeatedly as Exhibit A for the languid pace of mining development and red tape in Canada.
Robin Junger, who is a partner of Indigenous law and environment with McMillan LLP, said the federal government’s primary focus should be moving forward with new legislation to rewrite fundamentally the Impact Assessment Act, rather than limping along with “unconstitutional legislation,” which opens it up to more legal challenges by the provinces.
“The Supreme Court’s decision is a more profound denunciation of the federal scheme than the government seems to be accepting,” he said.
Australian mining red tape hurts its global investment case, says Hancock
RED TAPE ARE REGS TO PROTECT US, THE WORKERS AND THE ENVIRONMENT Reuters | October 31, 2023 | BHP’s Western Australia iron ore operation. (Image courtesy of BHP).
Australia’s slow pace of mining approvals is diminishing its attraction as a global investment destination, Hancock Prospecting, owned by Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart, said on Tuesday.
Hancock joins BHP Group and Rio Tinto in flagging red tape around mining projects as hurting Australia’s drive to secure major investment into its minerals industry.
“The current policy environment, duplication of processes, overreach from all departments and delays to approvals is negatively impacting new investment into the mining industry and is reducing Australia’s competitiveness in the international resource sector,” said Hancock.
The comments came as privately held Hancock Prospecting recorded a 13% fall in profits to A$5.04 billion ($3.2 billion)in the financial year 2023, mostly from its Roy Hill iron ore operations in Western Australia.
That was a smaller drop than Australia’s other big miners BHP, Rio and Fortescue whose profits fell by between a quarter and a third over the period amid weaker prices for the steel-making ingredient.
Roy Hill accounted for more than half of Hancock’s profits after tax at $2.7 billion, on record shipments of 63.3 million tonnes of iron ore.
Hancock has been busy diversifying its portfolio this year.
Earlier this month it amassed a 19.9% stake in lithium miner Liontown Resources, thwarting its planned buyout by top global lithium maker Albemarle. Last week, Hancock took a near blocking stake in lithium developer Azure Minerals, which had just agreed to be taken over by Chile’s SQM.
Hancock also completed a buyout of Warrego Energy in February, securing exposure to Western Australian gas assets that could offer low cost gas to its iron ore operations, and said it was looking to grow its footprint in the agricultural sector.
($1 = 1.5743 Australian dollars)
(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
THE BIG MINERS SAY THIS SAME CRAP IN EVERY JURISDICTION
African lithium project boosts US drive to close EV gap on China
Bloomberg News | October 31, 2023 | Atlantic Lithium has expanded reserves at its Ewoyaa project in Ghana. (Credit: Atlantic Lithium)
Africa’s first major lithium project without Chinese funding is set to bolster US ambitions of developing its own battery-making industry. Half of the output from Ghana’s Ewoyaa mine, being built by Australia’s Atlantic Lithium Ltd., is earmarked for a refinery that Piedmont Lithium Ltd. plans to construct in Tennessee. Piedmont is Atlantic Lithium’s second-largest shareholder and has agreed to provide most of the funds for the project.
“Our investment in Ewoyaa will help alleviate potential future US supply constraints and provide crucial resources to help reduce America’s dependence on foreign nations, like China,” Piedmont chief executive officer Keith Phillips said in an emailed response to questions.
China is pouring investment into lithium mines in Zimbabwe, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo to secure the battery metals for its dominant electric-vehicle industry. The supply of critical battery materials — including lithium, nickel and cobalt — is gaining greater urgency amid wild swings in prices and the US administration’s push for companies to reduce their reliance on China.
While lithium prices have fallen back from last year’s peak, the race for the battery metal has lured mining heavyweights, automakers and even oil majors. A projected shortfall from 2025, as demand from EVs surges, is driving the search for new supplies.
Piedmont was prepared to accept an equal share in the Ghanaian project, whereas potential Chinese backers wanted a controlling stake, Atlantic Lithium CEO Keith Muller told Bloomberg in an interview last week.
The US firm, which supplies Tesla Inc. and LG Chem, exercised an option in August to acquire an initial 22.5% stake in Ewoyaa and committed to fund the first $70 million required to develop the asset. It will also provide half of the additional costs thereafter.
Ewoyaa, Africa’s third-biggest lithium project under development, will take advantage of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which offers tax credits to support the EV supply chain in the US.
“What the IRA does for me is it gives me certainty that 50% of my offtake is going into a hydroxide facility that’s destined for incentivized battery conversion,” Muller said. African supply
Mines across Africa are forecast to increase lithium output more than 70-fold by 2030, compared with last year’s volume, according to BloombergNEF. That would increase Africa’s share of global supply to 14% from 1%.
Atlantic Lithium, which is still awaiting an environmental permit, aims to produce its first concentrate at Ewoyaa in the second quarter of 2025. Industrial scale output will only start in 2026 with a projected production of 36,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent — enough to power about 800,000 Tesla Model 3s.
The company is considering processing feldspar — a byproduct of mining that’s used in ceramics and tiles — as well as producing higher-value lithium chemicals from the output not destined for Piedmont, Muller said.
(By Yinka Ibukun and William Clowes)
Zimbabwe lithium export earnings treble as projects take off
Reuters | November 1, 2023 | Zimbabwe is one of the top 10 lithium producers but currently produces only a fraction of the worldwide total.
Zimbabwe earned $209 million from lithium exports in the first nine months of 2023, nearly treble last year’s earnings, Mines Minister Zhemu Soda said on Wednesday, as Chinese-driven mining and processing projects take off. Africa’s top lithium producer, Zimbabwe hopes demand for the mineral, which is key for renewable energy storage, will help revive its ailing economy.
Lithium is set to become Zimbabwe’s third biggest mineral export after gold and platinum group metals, which registered $2.46 billion and $2.27 billion in export receipts last year. “The revenue generated from the export of lithium grew from $1.8 million in 2018 to $70 million in 2022. By September 2023, a total of $209 million had been realised from lithium exports,” Soda said at a mining conference in Bulawayo.
Chinese firms, including Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group, Chengxin Lithium Group, Yahua Group and Canmax Technologies, have spent more than $1 billion over the past two years to acquire and develop lithium projects in Zimbabwe.
Most of these companies have built processing plants commissioned this year and are shipping lithium concentrates to China for further processing.
Zimbabwe’s government banned raw lithium exports last year, as it seeks to get more value from the mineral.
Other major producers are expected to start operations in Zimbabwe in 2024 as the country seeks to expand output, Soda said.
Lithium prices in China, the top consumer of the battery metal, have been on a downtrend for much of this year.
(Reporting by Nyasha Chingono — editing by Nelson Banya and Mark Potter)
China to invest $2.8 billion in Zimbabwe in lithium, energy
Bloomberg News | November 1, 2023 | China Mining Resources bought Bikita Minerals in 2022 and has spent $300 million to expand petalite, a lithium aluminum phyllosilicate mineral, and spodumene capacity. (Image courtesy of Sinomine Zimbabwe Bikita Mining.)
Chinese companies were awarded licenses in the third quarter that could see $2.79 billion of investment flow into Zimbabwe, mostly in mining and energy as the government pushes to develop some of Africa’s biggest lithium deposits and end power outages. The planned investment, a tenfold increase on the $271 million pledged in the same period last year, dwarfs that of its closest rival, the United Arab Emirates, which eon licenses to invest $498.5 million. The total value of investment licenses awarded was $3.41 billion.
Chinese applications “were the most by number and investment value with mining being their most preferred sector followed by the manufacturing sector,” the Zimbabwe Development Agency, the state-owned unit tasked with securing investment, said in a report on Wednesday. China accounted for more than two thirds of the 180 applications.
Chinese companies have been buying lithium mines, which supply a key component for the batteries used in electric vehicles. They are also involved in revamping and building power plants in the country. Of the planned investment $2.8 billion is slated for energy projects and $411 million for mining.
One China-backed project is a $2.3 billion planned energy and mining complex that will process minerals in Mapinga while another is 500 megawatt solar energy project
The mines ministry said Wednesday the country has earned $209 million in revenue from lithium exports in the nine months to September.
(By Ray Ndlovu and Godfrey Marawanyika)
3D scans will uncover the secrets of Iron Age gold treasure
Object from the gold treasure from Vindelev, which spent some time at DTU in an attempt to better understand its origin and importance. Credit: Conservation Centre Vejle
Photographers and journalists from the BBC, TV 2, and DR were ready when an armored car drove up to the front of DTU's 3D Imaging Center on 10 February 2022. All cameras were pointed directly at a brown shoebox, which an archaeologist from the Danish National Museum carefully took out of the armored car and carried through the revolving door to the 3D Imaging Center.
Inside the shoebox was the world's largest gold bracteate. The bracteate, which is a medallion-like necklace measuring 13.5cm, was found along with 15 other bracteates and four Roman medallions by an amateur archaeologist the year before in a field near the town of Vindelev in Denmark. Weighing 794 grams combined, the gold treasure is estimated to have been buried in the 6th century, and experts have compared the discovery to that of the Golden Horns of Gallehus.
The problem, however, is that many of the bracteates are folded to a point where the archaeologists are unable to see the motifs and runic inscriptions on them. It is too risky to unfold the gold by hand, as it may break, which is why the National Museum and the Vejle Museums have sought the help of modern technology at DTU.
"Sometimes technology can open doors that we can't. In this case, we want to get a better look at the inscriptions and images on the bracteates so we can learn more about the nobleman who owned the treasure. What was his position? What was his domain? If we succeed, we will gain a better understanding of the structure of society in the 5th and 6th century," says Mads Ravn, archaeologist and Head of Research at the Vejle Museums.
To unfold the gold bracteate, you must first fold the white "sheet" so that it follows the folds in the bracteate. The local surface pattern from the data of the gold bracteate scan is transferred to the sheet. Unfolding the sheet then reveals what is hidden on the surface of the bracteate. Credit: Technical University of Denmark
The technology Ravn is hoping can provide new answers is known as CT scanning in hospitals, where it is used to create detailed X-ray images of a patient's internal organs. In recent times, this technology has also been used by physicists to scan material objects and recreate them as digital 3D models. For example, DTU has used it to scan and reconstruct a 66-million-year-old T. rex skull.
However, the bracteates from the National Museum were not only brought to DTU's 3D Imaging Center in February 2022 to be scanned and reconstructed—they also needed to be digitally unfolded. After completing the scan, DTU's researchers were thus left with an ancient mystery and 9,600 CT images to unfold it.
Gold thickness causes problems
One of the challenges in solving the mystery was the varying thickness of the gold. Where the gold on the bracteates is thin due to stamp pressure and engravings, the scans have produced what is called CT artifacts, which are visual discrepancies between the real bracteate and the resulting CT image.
The entire gold treasure, which was found just 8 km from the Jelling monuments. Credit: Conservation Centre Vejle
"In hospitals, artifacts occur when, for example, you're performing a CT scan on a patient with surgical screws in their leg. The screws will create lines in the image, and the same thing has happened in this project. Our images are full of lines that wouldn't be there if the bracteates had had the same thickness everywhere," explains Carsten Gundlach, Senior Executive Research Officer at DTU Physics.
He used the data from the hundreds of 360-degree scans of each bracteate for calculations for the spatial 3D images. Gundlach says that this method has resulted in fairly accurate 3D reconstructions of the bracteates in their folded condition. Nevertheless, the artifacts still caused trouble for Gundlach's DTU Compute colleague, Hans Martin Kjer, who tried to digitally unfold the bracteates.
"We've tried to unfold one of the smaller bracteates called X17, but it's difficult for us to define the edge of the bracteate and the exact line between two surfaces. When the gold has many tight folds, it makes it difficult for us to separate the surfaces from each other. Ultimately, it makes it very difficult to produce a perfect unfolding where you can see all the details," says Kjer.
However, the two researchers refused to give up. Through conversations with the archaeologists, they have gained an idea of which motifs are of special interest in a historical context. The focus of the project has therefore shifted from unfolding the entire bracteate to unfolding the individual parts that can give archaeologists new knowledge about Denmark in the 5th and 6th century.
Getting a bracteat ready to be CT scanned at the DTU Imaging Center in an attempt to solve the mystery of where the Vindelev treasure originates. Credit: Mikal Schlosser
Treasure may have changed owners
Ravn says that Denmark at the time of bracteates can best be described as what the Romans called "wild Germania." Here, autocratic clan leaders ruled marked territories according to the same rules now used by biker gangs or the Mafia.
"The more wars they won, the stronger clan leaders they became. And the more gold and riches they could get for their followers, the more followers they got," says Ravn.
Judging by the size of the treasure from Vindelev, he believes that its owner must have been a very powerful, but previously unknown, clan leader. This gives the site around Vindelev, located 8km east of Jelling, the cradle of Denmark, a new and significant status as a center of power.
At the same time, the treasure from Vindelev bears a close resemblance to other gold treasures found near the town of Gudme on Funen, which is considered to have been Denmark's most important center of power from the 3rd to the 6th century. This leads archaeologists to believe that some of the bracteates from Vindelev may have been made by a blacksmith in Gudme. If that is the case, the gold must have changed owners at some point.
A 3D visualization from the reconstruction of bracteate X19. The red surface shows the specific area the researchers have focused on unfolding. The holes illustrate the artifacts that have occurred due to the thickness of the gold. Credit: Technical University of Denmark
The theory is therefore that there was a close connection—perhaps an alliance—between the clan leaders of the two centers of power. "It's possible that the gold was handed over as a gift in connection with weddings between daughters and sons from each clan," says Ravn.
In order to confirm this theory, Ravn is particularly interested in seeing the motifs on the largest of the gold bracteates, which seems to have a folded twin motif in the middle. The stamps around the motif can also tell the researchers something about the origin of the bracteate and how old it is. If they turn out to bear the same stamps as the ones found in Gudme, then they were made by the same goldsmith, and the archaeologists can continue working with the theory of the close connection between Vindelev and Gudme.
"It's a bit like a court case where the more circumstantial evidence we find, the stronger the case will be. We can't exactly ask the witnesses who were there at the time. We rely on circumstantial evidence, and this is where DTU can help," explains Ravn.
Here you can see the surface unfolded. The unfolding reveals a motif of a man in the centre of the bracteate who may well have been a Roman emperor, according to archaeologists. Ancient Danes copied the portraits of Roman emperors on their jewellery and also added their own symbols to the portrait. Credit: Technical University of Denmark
Research never ends
In the digital treasure hunt for answers, DTU's researchers have come closer to finding the evidence than before. They have succeeded in unfolding a small area with fewer folds on one of the smaller bracteates called X19.
"It's a significantly better result than when we tried unfolding the entire bracteate. With this method, we can optimize the individual areas," says Gundlach. However, while he still believes that the results can be improved, he thinks that the method has potential worth pursuing.
"The method opens up the possibility of piecing together the individual parts after they've been unfolded," he says.
The Vejle Museums are very enthusiastic about the new results, not just because the method can provide new insight into the power dynasties of the Iron Age, but also because it may help archaeologists determine why some of the bracteates appear to have been folded by hand while others have probably been destroyed by a modern plow centuries after being buried.
"It would be interesting to see if DTU can distinguish between the randomly destroyed bracteates and the deliberately folded ones using the mathematical algorithms that they're already working with. We expect that the deliberately destroyed bracteates will be more symmetrically folded," says Ravn. He explains that if the clan leader himself has folded the bracteates, it indicates that the treasure was used as a sacrifice to the gods.
The next step is to unfold the twin motif and the stamps on the world's largest bracteate. The DTU researchers are hoping that the work with the treasure will open up a new string of collaborations with archaeologists and museum professionals. But when the goal has been reached and the researchers will be satisfied remains just as unanswered as many of the riddles that still surround the treasure from Vindelev.
"There are still many challenges to solve. Of course it's annoying that you can't just finish things up and move on. But you can always do more," says Kjer and adds, "Research never ends."
China’s fraying ties to Myanmar’s tin hub threaten key supply
Bloomberg News | October 30, 2023 | Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar (Stock Image)
Ties between China and a powerful Myanmar armed group that controls a key source of tin are fraying, threatening to prolong what have already been months of supply disruption for the key metal.
China has long had a warm relationship with the group that rules the self-proclaimed Wa state in the country’s north, an inaccessible corner known as a hub for illegal narcotics trade — but links have been tested by the Wa decision earlier this year to suspend mining, cutting off nearly a third of China’s total tin ore supply.
Tensions have now been exacerbated by Beijing’s efforts to shut down cyber-scam operations in the border region, a flourishing enterprise that funds organized crime and often targets Chinese nationals. Beijing’s crackdown has targeted United Wa State Army officials it says are ringleaders. Xinhua recently reported more than 2,300 suspects have been captured in Myanmar as part of a broader crackdown and escorted across the border.
“We anticipate that prices will edge higher in 2024 as the seaborne tin market starts to see a fall in supplies as the mining ban of Myanmar rolls on and export ban of Indonesia comes into effect,” BMI, a unit of Fitch Group, said in a note earlier this month.
The Chinese crackdown might delay moves by the Wa state and the ruling Pao family to review mining rules to allow operations to resume, according to five tin traders and industry executives, who declined to be identified as they aren’t allowed to speak to the media. They had anticipated mining would restart this year, but expectations have now been pushed out until the first quarter of 2024.
Semiconductor demand
Some Wa state ore processors — which turn the raw material into concentrate — have resumed working, the people said. But they are operating at low efficiency because of insufficient stockpiles.
That might create short-term supply disruption as demand from the semiconductor industry — which uses tin in electronic circuits — improves.
Tin is not yet in crisis: inventories are rising in London Metal Exchange warehouses. But supply has already faced repeated blows this year from protests in Peru and expectations that Indonesia, the world’s largest exporter, will ban overseas sales as part of its campaign to develop processing capacity for metals at home.
Since the discovery of large deposits in Wa State, Myanmar has become a crucial tin producer, and a driver of the benchmark price on the LME. That has handed considerable power to the UWSA. the largest ethnic armed group in a nation in the throes of civil war since the military seized power in a coup in 2021.
The tin ban earlier this year sent prices 12% higher to their strongest level in nine months. Prices jumped again in August when Wa began enforcing an exploration and extraction halt. At that point, almost two-thirds of China’s imports of tin-in-concentrate were coming from Myanmar, with Wa accounting for some 70% of that.
(By Alfred Cang and Philip J. Heijmans)
Hedge funds pile into uranium stocks set for ‘dramatic’ rise
Several hedge fund managers have started ratcheting up their exposure to uranium stocks, as they bet on significant price gains.
Terra Capital’s Matthew Langsford, Segra Capital’s Arthur Hyde, Argonaut Capital Partners’ Barry Norris and Anaconda Invest’s Renaud Saleur are among managers building bets on uranium companies such as Cameco Corp., Energy Fuels Inc., Ur-Energy Inc. and NexGen Energy Ltd.
Langsford, who runs a A$175 million ($110 million) natural resources fund at Sydney-based Terra Capital, says the outlook for uranium prices means “the equities could see dramatic upside, 50%, 100%, possibly more.”
More than a decade after the shock of Fukushima led a number of countries to review their reliance on nuclear power, it’s cemented itself as a vital plank in the transition toward a low-carbon future. That’s driven up uranium valuations, with prices having risen 125% since 2020.
The International Energy Agency estimates that global nuclear capacity needs to double by mid-century from 2020 levels, to help the world meet net zero commitments.
That target is underpinned by demand in Europe, Asia and Africa for nuclear reactors. Old facilities are getting their lifespans extended, while China is continuing to build out its nuclear fleet, all of which is fanning demand for the uranium needed to power those plants.
Such investments remain controversial. Germany famously wound down its nuclear energy program after 2011, as then Chancellor Angela Merkel responded to the global trauma caused by the Fukushima meltdown. That decision has since drawn criticism, with Germany subsequently finding itself deeply reliant on high-emitting fossil fuels supplied by Russia.
Uranium’s appeal has grown as Europe works to wean itself off Russian gas. However, with Russia sitting on roughly 8% of the world’s recoverable conventional uranium resources, the West has found itself needing to perform an even bigger energy-supply pivot.
“We’re most focused on uranium miners in public markets,” Hyde, a portfolio manager at Segra Capital, said in an interview. “For the supply and demand of this market to balance, we need new assets to come online.”
He added that, “if you’re going to insulate the US, Europe and Canada from the global fuel cycle, which is heavily dependent on Russia and China, the best way to do that is to build new mines, new conversion capacity, new enrichment capacity.”
Nuclear power doesn’t emit carbon dioxide, and has even been defined as green in the European Union’s taxonomy of sustainable assets. But it comes with a number of risks.
“There are two main barriers to it being considered a serious contender in the race to net zero: skepticism around the safety of reactors and radioactive waste disposal, and cost,” said Nilushi Karunaratne of BloombergNEF. That skepticism is part of the reason why “the number of reactors in operation today has changed little since the immediate fallout of the 2011 Fukushima accident, as retirements have outpaced new facilities coming online,” she said.
Uranium goes through several stages of processing before it’s ready to use as fuel in nuclear power stations. After it’s mined and milled, the uranium ore is converted into a fluorine gas, which is then enriched and made into fuel rods. These get loaded into reactors, after which the fission that releases energy occurs.
The whole process, called the nuclear fuel cycle, can take years and may rely on supply chains that stretch across several countries. Hyde says political sensitivity around those supply chains is set to drive the West to look for new ways to achieve independence.
Norris, who’s the founder and chief investment officer of Argonaut, says he bought shares in Cameco and Kazatomprom this year. “Once governments wake up to how useless weather-dependent power is, they will go next to nuclear,” said Norris, who has shorted solar, wind and hydrogen stocks.
Not all uranium stocks are equal, though, and a nearly 30% gain in the Global X Uranium ETF this year has some hedge fund managers looking for opportunities to short companies they think are less likely to do well. Saleur of Anaconda, for example, says he’s now looking into shorting Cameco Corp. as a hedge, after it gained more than 70% this year. But he’s long miners including Energy Fuels Inc. and Ur-Energy Inc., he said.
Segra’s Hyde says there’s some “relatively lazy capital investing in a compelling macro story without doing much company level work.” And as the number of buyers grows, some will target the wrong stocks, he said. “Many of the nuances of the nuclear fuel markets remain misunderstood,” Hyde said.
“Nuclear may become the key driving force in the decades-long energy transition. New demand in Europe, Asia and Africa for nuclear reactors and old reactor life-time extensions aligned to net-zero aspirations from governments — and the continued build-out of China’s nuclear fleet — have driven spot uranium prices 125% higher since 2020.”Mike Dennis, Bloomberg Intelligence
Langsford at Terra has been adding to positions in NexGen Energy Ltd. and Denison Mines Corp. NexGen is exploring a new uranium mine in Canada with the potential to produce 25% of global supply.
That would make it “very important for the nuclear industry in the 2030s, which could end up being the golden age of nuclear power,” Langsford said.
