Tokyo Olympics: Canadian Diver Pamela Ware Scores Rare 0.0 at Olympics After Landing Feet First

Canadian Diver Pamela Ware crashed out of the semifinal event at the Tokyo Olympics
Pamela took a misstep while approaching for a 3.5 difficulty dive and was forced to abort her planned attempt the second she jumped. As a result, she landed in the pool on her feet and scored a rare 0.0 at the Olympics.

Updated: August 03, 2021, 20:47 IST

Athletes train all their lives for that one chance to represent their country and showcase their talent on the world stage during the Olympics. However, when the stage is bigger, even the smallest mistakes and accidents can overshadow your hard work for years. Something similar happened to Canadian Diver Pamela Ware who crashed out of the semifinal event at the Tokyo Olympics after a rare score of 0.0 in her last attempt at the semifinal event.

Pamela took a misstep while approaching for a 3.5 difficulty dive and was forced to abort her planned attempt the second she jumped. As a result, she landed in the pool on her feet and scored a rare 0.0 at the Olympics. Her low dive score eliminated her from the race to podium finish and she exited the tournament after this miscue.

Speaking to Canadian broadcaster CBC, the athlete said that had she gone for the dive, she would have ended up hurting herself. Pamela later posted an Instagram video thanking her fans for the support and said that she was proud of her journey despite the failure at Tokyo Olympics 2020.

She started off the video by thanking her fans for their encouragement during this time and said that she was proud to have come some far. Overwhelmed by emotions, Pamela’s voice choked, and she added that what people see at the competition is only a fraction of the effort it takes to reach this point and she was completely ready for the big day. However, she made a mistake and that could have happened to anyone. She reemphasized fact that she was proud of her journey and hoped to make a comeback soon.

Pamela's video has so far got over 70 thousand views along with several comments on the platform. Her fans and fellow athletes expressed their solidarity with her and said that it was just bad luck, and she would soon make a comeback like a champion.

Canadian Pamela Ware botches dive in spectacular fashion

Daniel Rainbird
·Writer
Wed., August 4, 2021, 

Pamela Ware's podium dreams were squashed in the blink of an eye. (Photo via @EmilyBenammar/Twitter)

The Olympic Games are a collection of events filled with Herculean athletes who can run faster, jump higher and throw further than seems humanly possible.

But Canadian diver Pamela Ware just reminded us that Olympians are mortals, after all.

Ware entered the 3-metre seminal at Tokyo 2020 in fourth place, but all hopes of a podium finish sank after the 28-year-old scored 0.0 on her final dive.

The Greenfield, Que., native ran up the plank, bounced twice, and just as she was about to spring into action… aborted mission.

Ware explained after the competition that attempting the dive could have put her at risk of injury.

Despite the devastating result, the 2019 Pan American gold medalist kept a positive mindset, thanked fans for “beautiful messages of encouragement” and promised to come back stronger.

"I am very proud of myself,” Ware said in an Instagram video. “What you see in the competition is just a tiny factor of what we actually do to get to where we are. I was so ready for this competition and I made a mistake, it could have happened to anybody, but it happened to me at the wrong time.

"I hope you guys are gonna get used to having me around because I’m not going anywhere. I’m not giving up. This competition doesn’t define me, and I’m not letting it defeat me."

Ware was right, it could have happened to anybody, and it actually did before she even failed that dive. Mexican Arantxa Chavez scored zero in the earlier preliminary round after messing up in nearly identical fashion

DISAPPERANCE OF BC ORCAS

 

Opinion

Our leaders look climate change in the eyes, and shrug

It is not good to be too pessimistic on the climate crisis.

 That said, it sure does seem like we’re screwed

Hamilton Nolan

Wed 4 Aug 2021 11.12 BST

If you have cultivated an Edgar Allen Poe-like appreciation for the macabre, there is a certain sort of amusement to be had in watching the developed world deal with the insistent onslaught of climate change. Like many horror stories, this one features a main character full of futile determination to maintain a sense of normalcy even as the ominous signs of doom become ever more impossible to ignore. We can chuckle knowing that the monster is going to come for our designated protectors. We stop chuckling knowing that it’s coming for all of us next.Wildfire fighters advance against biggest US blaze amid dire warnings

It is easy to imagine that a real live existential threat to our way of life would prompt any society to assume war footing and marshal everything it has to fight for survival. Unfortunately, this response only takes hold in actual war situations, where the threat is “other people that we can shoot and kill in glorious fashion”. When the threat comes not from enemy people, but from our own nature, we find it much harder to rise to the occasion. Where is the glory in recognizing the folly of our own greed and profligacy? Leaders are not elected on such things. We want leaders who will give us more, leading us ever onwards, upwards and into the grave.


The latest demonstration of this comes from the G20, that coalition that is as good a proxy as any for the combined will of the world’s richest countries. The latest G20 meeting wrapped up last week without firm commitments on phasing out coal power, or on what steps nations will promise to take to try to hold global warming to 1.5C. This goal is both necessary and, perhaps, unlikely – a report by scientists found that China, Russia, Brazil and Australia are all pursuing policies that could lead to a cataclysmic five degrees of warming.

The G20 is a perfect model of our collective failure to build institutions capable of coping with deep, long-term, existential problems that cannot be solved by building more weapons. On the one hand, the head of the United Nations says that there is no way for the world to meet its 1.5C warming goal without the leadership of the G20; on the other hand, a recent analysis found that G20 members have, in the past five years, paid $3.3tn in subsidies for fossil fuel production and consumption. The same group that claims to be bailing out humanity’s sinking ship with one hand is busily setting it aflame with the other hand. It is not good to be too pessimistic on climate change, because we must maintain the belief that we can win this battle if we are to have any hope at all. That said, it sure does seem like we’re screwed.

As overwhelming and omnipresent as the climate crisis is, it is not the core issue. The core issue is capitalism. Capitalism’s unfettered pursuit of economic growth is what caused climate change, and capitalism’s inability to reckon with externalities – the economic term for a cost that falls onto third parties – is what is preventing us from solving climate change. Indeed, climate change itself is the ultimate negative externality: fossil-fuel companies and assorted polluting corporations and their investors get all the benefits, and the rest of the world pays the price. Now the entire globe finds itself trapped in the gruesome logic of capitalism, where it is perfectly rational for the rich to continue doing something that is destroying the earth, as long as the profits they reap will allow them to insulate themselves from the consequences. Capitalism is a machine made to squeeze every last cent out of this planet until there is nothing left

Congratulations, free market evangelists: this is the system you have built. It doesn’t work. I don’t want to lean too heavily on the touchy-feely, Gaia-esque interpretation of global warming as the inevitable wounds of an omniscient Mother Earth, but you must admit that viewing humanity and its pollution as a malicious virus set to be eradicated by nature is now a fairly compelling metaphor. Homo sapiens rose above the lesser animals thanks to our ability to wield logic and reason, yet we have somehow gotten ourselves to a place where the knowledge of what is driving all these wildfires and floods is not enough to enable us to do anything meaningful to stop it. The keystone experience of global capitalism is to gape at a drought-fueled fire as it consumes your home, and then go buy a bigger SUV to console yourself.

This year, the G20 is patting itself on the back for “[recognizing] carbon pricing as a potential tool to address climate change for the first time in an official communique”. This would have been encouraging 30 years ago, when we should have established a carbon tax after it became clear that carbon emissions cause tangible damage to the environment. In 2021, this sort of diplomatic marginalia is the equivalent of a child on the Titanic proudly showing his parents his completed homework, just as the ship slips beneath the waves.

Of course we need a price on carbon. Of course we need extremely strict emissions regulations, massive green energy investments, and a maniacal focus on sustainability fierce enough to radically change a society that is built to promote unlimited consumption. But, to be honest, there is little indication that we will get those things any time soon. The path we are on, still, is not one that leads to a happy ending. Rather, it is one that leads to the last billionaire standing on dry land blasting off in his private rocket as the rest of us drown in rising seas.

Capitalism is a machine made to squeeze every last cent out of this planet until there is nothing left. We can either fool ourselves about that until it kills us, or we can change it.

Hamilton Nolan is a writer based in New York

Here is why the EU should sanction Lebanon’s bankers

The banking sector is responsible for the current crisis in Lebanon. Sanctioning its leaders can help effect a solution.


Sami Halabi
Director of Policy at the Beirut-based think tank Triangle
4 Aug 2021

This picture taken on November 27, 2019 shows a banner in Arabic, reading "we will not pay the price", hanging outside the headquarters of the Banque du Liban in Beirut [File: AFP/Joseph Eid]

One year has passed since the Beirut Port explosion of August 4, 2020. As summer temperatures are hitting record highs, so is the political temperature in Lebanon. The families of explosion victims have endured 12 months of lack of accountability and blatant interference in the judicial process. Public anger is simmering and threatening to boil over into another wave of unrest.

As the painful anniversary was drawing nearer, the European Union announced a framework that “provides for the possibility of imposing sanctions against persons and entities who are responsible for undermining democracy or the rule of law in Lebanon”. The long-anticipated move is effectively a warning shot aimed at pressuring Lebanon’s intransigent elites into undertaking reforms.

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Those same elites who presided over the explosion have shirked responsibility for Lebanon’s spiralling economic crisis – assessed by the World Bank as among the worst ever recorded. Political leaders have prioritised partisan squabbles over rebuilding the country, failing to replace the government that resigned after the explosion.

While pressure from the West is welcome, targeted sanctions on Lebanon’s politicians risk missing the mark unless they are more effective in their attack on the actual power structure of the country. And in Lebanon, true power – and culpability – lies in the nation’s banking sector, which is responsible for the ongoing economic demise of the country.

Together with the Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon’s central bank, commercial banks engaged in a regulated national Ponzi scheme that dug an $80bn public debt hole in the country’s finances. Instead of instituting capital controls and enacting a recovery plan, the BDL and the banking sector devised their own shadow financial plan, which employed blatantly illegal multiple exchange rates, informal capital controls, and the printing of vast amounts of local currency.

This current arrangement, which would surely qualify as misconduct under the EU sanctions framework, shunts the crushing burden of the crisis onto ordinary Lebanese, who have to take an up to 80-percent cut on their cash withdrawals.

These non-solutions have obliterated the life savings of the Lebanese people and left them struggling with chronic shortages of electricity, food, and pharmaceuticals – the import of which the BDL can no longer afford to subsidise from the country’s fast-dwindling foreign currency reserves. Yet, those with sufficient connections to the banking sector have already moved their money offshore, with an estimated $30bn leaving the country since mid-2019.

Sanctioning the banking sector would offer Western policymakers a technically sound and more effective regime than the “framework” proposed by the EU. That is because, to function effectively, sanctions need to be directed at a clearly defined group of individuals and entities that are culpable, have the power to influence change, and feel threatened by sanctions.

At present, the proposed EU sanctions target Lebanon’s political leaders, many of whom do not necessarily meet those criteria or who have demonstrated that they are unwilling to challenge the BDL or the banking sector, not least because of current or previous business ties to the industry.

A seminal study from 2016 found that individuals closely linked to the political elite controlled 43 percent of assets in Lebanon’s commercial banking sector. The same research found that eight families controlled 29 percent of the banking sector’s assets, led by the family of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

Through the investment company GroupMed Holding, the Hariri family currently controls the majority stake in BankMed, one of the largest banks in Lebanon. Saad Hariri’s successor as premier-designate, fellow billionaire Najib Mikati, who was under investigation for embezzling a state-backed housing fund, has close ties to Bank Audi, Lebanon’s largest bank by assets. Mikati’s brother and business associate, Taha, has a stake in Bank Audi through his investment company, Investment & Business Holding.

Both Hariri and Mikati have had ample chances to reform the banking sector and public finances when they were premiers. They did not do so and there is no reason to think they will do it in the future.

That is why direct sanctions on financial leaders might be more effective. For example, sanctions on BDL officials could help Lebanon strike a fair bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund. Currently, the main stumbling block before securing a loan programme is the need for an audit of the BDL. In the past, the central bank has repeatedly obstructed this process and would continue to do so until the current BDL governor and commercial banks have a real incentive to facilitate it – something which targeted EU sanctions could provide.

Smarter sanctions against Lebanese banks and bankers would also compel foreign institutions and businesses to stay away from Lebanon’s tainted banks. Years of soaring, irresponsible interest rates have attracted all sorts of hungry investors, including Arabian Gulf royals, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the World Bank-affiliated International Finance Corporation (IFC), and France’s official development agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD).


At least for Western institutions, retaining stakes in banks directly involved in the “deliberate” economic meltdown of an entire nation should be an obvious moral hazard. The threat of Western sanctions would surely encourage them to pull out of Lebanon’s banking system.

While sanctions as an international pressure tool have sometimes been criticised for resulting in unfair collective punishment of whole nations, fears that the Lebanese people would suffer from such measures imposed on their financial leaders are also unfounded. It is hard to conceive how sanctioning the banks that devour people’s deposits could worsen the situation. If the sanctions are targeting specific individuals within the country’s financial elite, this would prevent any spillover that could affect the Lebanese public.

Furthermore, sanctions on the Lebanese financial sector have already proven effective in immediately producing change in the country. Over the past decade, two Lebanese banks were brought down by a simple edict from the US Department of the Treasury over suspected money laundering for Hezbollah.

Pressure from the US also cracked open Lebanon’s antiquated banking secrecy regime for the first time, as Lebanese banks sought to comply with Washington’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. The law requires banking institutions to provide information to US tax investigators about American customers.


Without decisive action, the future looks incredibly bleak for Lebanon, which is fast becoming a failed state. Should that happen, a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis is not inconceivable; neither is another wave of radicalisation akin to the one which spawned ISIS.

Instead of watching on the sidelines as another political and humanitarian crisis unravels, the West could impose sanctions on the financial sector to turn the tide of Lebanon’s collapse. And the only cost of such measures would be making some already well-off bankers and politicians just a little less rich.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Sami Halabi

Director of Policy at the Beirut-based think tank Triangle

Bacteria help extract rare earths from mine slag heaps

MINING.COM Staff Writer | August 4, 2021 | 

Klondyke lead mine slag heaps. (Reference image by Terry Hughes, Flickr).

Researchers at the French Geological Survey are looking at ways to extract rare earth elements from mine slag heaps using bacteria found in the subsoil.


According to a report by the agency AFP, the process starts by pulverizing mine tailings and dissolving them in liquid.

Then, the scientists inject different bacteria depending on the metal they are looking for. They also inject oxygen and nutrients like potassium or nitrogen to feed the microorganisms.

These solutions are immediately heated at between 30 and 50 degrees Celsius and agitated by a bioreactor, which kicks off the extraction process without the need for pressurizing.

Given that they have achieved success in the lab, the French group said it is now ready to launch tests for large-scale production, extracting rare earths, as well as cobalt, copper, and nickel from slag heaps in Finland and New Caledonia.

They said the process can be used anywhere there are piles of ore that contain metal. However, since specialized equipment is required to remove the metals from the liquid using electrolysis, the key now is for industrial partners to step in.

Barrick agrees to independent environmental studies for Pueblo Viejo expansion
Northern Miner Staff | August 3, 2021 | 

Pueblo Viejo gold mine, a joint venture between Barrick (60%) and Newmont Goldcorp (40%). (Image courtesy of RoyaldGold Inc.)

Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) and its key stakeholders have agreed on independent government-led oversight of the environmental and social impact studies for the Pueblo Viejo gold mine expansion in Dominican Republic.


The $1.3 billion project will extend the mine life until 2040 and beyond by expanding the mill and the tailings management facility. The expansion will also enable the mining of lower grades in the existing deposit.

The expansion has been under study since May 2019. The decision to proceed was made in March last year, and the company has been working with nearby communities since then. The studies will be conducted by a leading international firm and run in parallel with Barrick’s engineering and environmental studies.

“The expansion project has the potential to allow Pueblo Viejo to convert approximately 9 million oz. of measured and indicated resources to proven and probable reserves,” Barrick president and chief executive Mark Bristow said in a press release.

Bristow also said that with the expansion, Pueblo Viejo’s total economic contribution to the Dominican government in direct and indirect taxes is expected to be over $9 billion since the beginning of production in 2013 through 2040. The mine is the Dominican Republic’s largest corporate taxpayer.

The Pueblo Viejo mine is a joint venture between Barrick (60%) and Newmont (TSX: NGT; NYSE: NEM) (40%). The mine is forecast to produce between 470,000 and 510,000 oz. of gold this year at an all-in sustaining cost of $760-$810 per ounce.

(This article first appeared in The Northern Miner)

QUE.INC.
ALL CAPITALI$M IS $TATE CAPITALI$M


Quebec injects $10.7m into Monarch to help reopen Beaufor gold mine

Cecilia Jamasmie | August 4, 2021 | 

Beaufor includes two leases, a mining concession and 23 mining claims covering an area of 6.91 km². (Image courtesy of Monarch Mining.)

The Canadian province of Quebec has granted Monarch Mining (TSX-V: GBAR) a C$13.5 million (almost $11m) senior secured term loan agreement to help the company restart the Beaufor gold mine and Beacon mill, 20 km east of Val-d’Or.


The three-year term loan agreement with Investissement Quebec bears interest at a rate of 6% a year until the restart of the mine and mill, 5% during the first year of production and 4% for the subsequent years.

Currently on care and maintenance, Beaufor has produced over 1.1 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 7.5 grams gold per tonne since first production in the 1930s.

Before suspending operations in June 2019, it employed 150 people at the mine and 30 at the 750 tonne-per-day mill.

CURRENTLY ON CARE AND MAINTENANCE, BEAUFOR PRODUCED OVER 1.1 MILLION OUNCES OF GOLD SINCE FIRST PRODUCTION IN THE 1930S

Monarch, which acquired the operation in 2017, estimates that it will be creating more than 100 new jobs when its facilities become fully operational next year.

“The revival of the Beaufor mine and Beacon mill is an initiative that will support the economic recovery in Abitibi-Témiscamingue while continuing to develop our expertise in the gold sector,” Quebec Finance, Economy and Innovation Minister Eric Girard, said in the statement.

Beaufor has measured and indicated resources of 431,100 tonnes grading 6.68 grams gold per tonne for 92,700 ounces. An updated resource, based on an ongoing 42,500-metre drill program, is slated to be released in the third quarter.

Monarch Mining is a spinout of assets from Monarch Gold, which Yamana Gold (TSX: YRI) (NYSE, LON: AUY) acquired in a C$152-million cash and shares deal last November. The transaction gave Yamana the Wasamac property, which is about 100 km from its 50%-owned Canadian Malartic mine, as well as Camflo mill, also in Quebec.

Monarch Mining’s other assets include the McKenzie Break project and the Croinor past-producing mine, both in the Val-d’Or area.

MORE GREENWASHING WITH MYTHICAL TECHNOLOGY

Anglo American, Salzgitter to jointly advance green steel

Cecilia Jamasmie | August 4, 2021 | 

The production of steel is one of the largest sources of carbon emissions, responsible for between 7% and 9% of the world’s total. (Image courtesy of Acero AHMSA | YouTube.)

Anglo American (LON: AAL) and German steel producer Salzgitter Flachstahl will work together on decarbonizing the steel sector by exploring ways to reduce carbon emissions.


The partners intend to conduct research into feed materials, including iron ore pellets and lump iron ores, suitable for use in direct reduction (DR) steelmaking based on natural gas and hydrogen.

“This is a significantly less carbon-intensive method than the conventionally used blast furnace (BF) process,” Anglo American said.

Anglo American, which produces iron ore concentrates and fines at its operations in Brazil and South Africa, has a target to achieve carbon neutrality across its operations by 2040.

THE PROCESS OF PRODUCING STEEL INVOLVES ADDING COKING COAL TO IRON ORE TO MAKE THE ALLOY, WHICH MAKES THE STEELMAKING SECTOR A HEAVY POLLUTER, RESPONSIBLE FOR UP TO 9% OF GLOBAL GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS

Iron ore is vital in the production of steel. The process involves adding coking coal to iron ore to make the alloy, which makes the steelmaking sector one of the world’s heaviest polluters, responsible for up to 9% of global greenhouse emissions.

“While steel is a critical building block of our modern lives, and itself a critically needed material for the energy transition, the steel industry is a significant producer of carbon dioxide,” chief executive of Anglo American’s marketing business Peter Whitcutt said in the statement.

The European steel industry has been developing new steelmaking technologies to reduce its carbon footprint, with Salzgitter working to produce steel as resource-efficiently as possible under its SALCOS (Salzgitter Low CO2 Steelmaking) project. The initiative is targeting a switch from the use of BF based on coal to wholly DR steelmaking.

Technology over targets

Rather than set hard targets to reduce so-called Scope 3 emissions, the ones generated by customers, major iron ore producers including Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) and BHP (ASX, LON, NYSE: BHP) have committed to working with the steel sector to help develop new technologies instead.

Rio is already working with and POSCO (NYSE: PKX), South Korea’s largest steel producer to explore a range of technologies for decarbonization across the value chain from iron ore mining to steelmaking.

The company has also teamed up in February with two European companies to explore production of low-emissions hot briquetted iron (HBI) in Canada.

The two initiatives build on Rio’s decision, unveiled in December, to invest $10 million in low-carbon steelmaking projects over the next two years, as part of its partnership with China Baowu Steel Group, the nation’s largest steel producer.

Vale (NYSE: VALE) and BHP, the no. 1 and no. 3 iron ore producers respectively, have both invested in Boston Metal, a startup seeking to develop less-polluting ways of making steel.

Anglo American produced 15.7 million tonnes of iron ore in the April-June quarter, up 6% compared to the same period last year. The company expects to produce between 64.5 million tonnes and 66.5 million tonnes this year.

BHP joins Komatsu’s GHG Alliance
MINING.com Editor | August 4, 2021 | 

Image from Komatsu.

To accelerate its push to become a net-zero operator by 2050, BHP announced it will become a founding member of Komatsu’s GHG Alliance, which aims to develop commercially viable zero-greenhouse gas emissions haul trucks.


As a founding partner of the Alliance, the world’s no.1 miner plans to operate one of the first batches of zero-emission trucks upon commercial release.

BHP will provide engineering and technical resources to Komatsu to support the development phase as required, which in turn will provide BHP with real-time access to technology in development.

In the media statement, BHP said it will collaborate with Komatsu through the BHP FutureFit Academy to develop the future-facing skills within its teams to operate and maintain the pioneering equipment.

“Tackling climate change requires strong collaboration and collective effort across the supply chain,” BHP’s Chief Commercial Officer, Vandita Pant, said in the statement.

“Reducing vehicle emissions is key to our climate strategy, and we are thrilled to join with Komatsu and our peers in the global mining sector on real, tangible action to help accelerate our transition to a low carbon future,” Pant said.

Chilean lawmakers postpone vote on controversial mining royalty bill
Cecilia Jamasmie | August 4, 2021 | 

Chile’s capital, Santiago. (Stock image. )

Chile’s senate has postponed for almost three weeks a vote on an opposition-sponsored bill that could hike taxes on miners by up to 75% depending on the price of copper, the country’s main export.


The bill, first introduced in 2018, calls for a 3% royalty on sales of over 12,000 tonnes of copper productions a year and 50,000t/y of lithium.

BILL COULD HIKE TAXES ON MINERS BY UP TO 75% DEPENDING ON THE PRICE OF COPPER, CHILE’S MAIN EXPORT

Half the funds obtained from the royalty would go into a convergence fund to finance regional and communal development projects. The other half would directly finance projects to mitigate, compensate or repair environmental impacts from mining activity in communities near mining projects.

The legislation, which faces multiple procedural hurdles, could risk some 1 million tonnes of annual copper output, representing around 4% of global production, Goldman Sachs said in May.

The bank noted that more than half of the foreign-owned copper mines in Chile have tax stability agreements that expire in 2023, limiting immediate exposure to the bill’s eventual passage. But future mine development would be in jeopardy.

Chile’s current tax regime for miners includes a corporate tax of 27% and a special tax or royalty of up to 14% on operating profits, depending on production rates. Below 50,000 tonnes of copper a year, miners pay 9%.

No vote date

The mining and energy committee has been discussing the bill for seven weeks and has not set a date for the vote. The proposal was already accepted by the lower house.

Proponents of the bill argue that provincial governments do not receive enough compensation for the extraction of mineral resources and that the new taxes will change that. Mining representatives and analysts, in turn, warn the proposed law would drive away new investments and some mining operations and expansions would become economically unviable.

If the royalty bill does get through senate, Sebastian Piñera’s administration is likely to block its passage via the constitutional court. Ruling coalition lawmakers laid the groundwork for taking the bill to court by presenting a so-called constitutional reservation.

Chile, the world’s top copper producer, also holds about 52% of the world’s known lithium reserves. The nation aims at making the white metal its second-largest mining asset. Lithium is currently the country’s fourth-biggest overall export.

WHERE WOULD THEY GO? PERU PERHAPS?

NOT LIKELY THEY ARE LOOKING AT ROYALTIES TOO

Foreign miners in Chile warn lawmakers fresh royalties would hammer competitiveness

Reuters | August 4, 2021

The El Abra mine in northern Chile. (Credit: Consejo Minero)

Foreign companies operating in world top copper miner Chile on Wednesday asked lawmakers to rewrite a controversial bill that would slap royalties on their sales, warning the fresh taxes could squander their competitiveness and future investment plans.


The royalty bill has gained momentum this year as prices of the red metal – critical for its use in construction and automaking industries – have soared amid a nascent global recovery following the coronavirus pandemic.

Smaller miners with annual production under 100,000 tonnes in particular warned that they would be disproportionately impacted given their higher operating costs.

Giancarlo Bruno, chief executive of Mantos Copper – a consortium run by UK investment firm Audley Capital Advisors and Orion Mine Finance – warned the bill as written could force the closure some such projects, and urged lawmakers to consider a “new formula,” noting that there was still room for higher taxes on margins rather than sales.

CHILE CURRENTLY CHURNS OUT 28% OF THE WORLD’S COPPER BUT HAS FOR MORE THAN A DECADE LOST MARKETSHARE

Proponents of the bill, which proposes a base rate royalty of 3% on copper and lithium sales that would increase alongside global prices, say proceeds are urgently needed to underwrite social programs for Chileans suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.

Luis Sánchez, president of Minera Candelaria – owned by Canada’s Lundin Mining Corp – said his firm was open to discussion but that the bill as written would put royalties well over those paid by miners elsewhere.

“An increase in the mining royalty would leave us in a position less competitive in world industry,” Sanchez said.

Chile currently churns out 28% of the world’s copper but has for more than a decade lost marketshare, hobbled by declining ore grades and ageing projects.

Francisco Costabal, of U.S.-owned Freeport-McMoran, said the bill could ratchet up their tax burden to an unsustainable 65.3% to 68%.

“The royalty project seriously affects operational continuity from El Abra,” he said. The company’s small El Abra mine in northern Chile produced 71,900 tonnes of copper in 2020.

Official government statistics show miners currently pay 27% of pre-tax profits, in addition to other levies.

The legislation to hike royalties has previously been labeled a death knell “akin to expropriation” by Chile’s National Mining Society, which encompasses all of the country’s largest miners.

(By Fabian Cambero and Dave Sherwood; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Global copper supply at risk as workers vote to strike
Bloomberg News | August 2, 2021 | 

Escondida mine in Chile. (Image courtesy of BHP)

A tightening global copper market is facing the real possibility of simultaneous strike disruptions at three mines in Chile, the top producer.


By far the most serious threat to global supplies comes from Escondida, the biggest copper mine in the world, where workers rejected owner BHP Group’s final wage offer in voting last week. Unless the two sides can reach a deal in government-mediated talks this week, the market may be left without production from a project that last year churned out 1.2 million metric tonnes.

Two other smaller mines — Codelco’s Andina and JX Nippon Mining & Metals’ Caserones — are at the same stage in their collective bargaining. That puts upwards of 7% of world production at risk in a particularly sensitive moment in the metal cycle and in Chilean politics.

Labor tensions are intensifying just as trillions of dollars in government stimulus fuel demand for industrial metals. Copper futures have gained over the past two weeks after retreating from an all-time high in May.

THE WINDFALL ENJOYED BY PRODUCERS IS EMBOLDENING MINE WORKERS, WITH HOST NATIONS ALSO LOOKING AT RATCHETING UP TAXES TO HELP RESOLVE INEQUALITIES EXACERBATED BY THE PANDEMIC

On Monday, prices advanced as much as 0.8% to $9,810 a tonne on the LME, and traded at $9,771.50 at 1:37 p.m. in London.

The windfall enjoyed by producers is emboldening mine workers, with host nations also looking at ratcheting up taxes to help resolve inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic. In Chile, that’s all playing out as the nation drafts a new constitution that may lead to tougher rules on water, glaciers, mineral and community rights, with presidential elections in November.

At the same time, companies are striving to keep labor costs in check in a cyclical business and as ore quality deteriorates and input prices start to rise.

Click here for an interactive chart of copper prices


In last week’s vote, members rejected BHP’s proposal by an overwhelming 99.5%. Union leaders say the company is dangling large one-time bonuses in exchange for longer hours and new demands in a bid to boost productivity and profit. BHP said its proposal included better conditions and new benefits and that it remains open to dialog.

“We hope that this strong vote will be the decisive wake-up call for BHP to initiate substantive discussions to reach satisfactory agreements, if it wants to avoid a lengthy conflict that could be the costliest in the country’s union history,” the union said.

(By James Attwood, with assistance from Alejandra Salgado)

Now read: Goldman recapitulates $5 a pound copper price by end of 2021