Trevali halts trading as Burkina Faso managers face trial following fatal mine flooding

Reuters | August 22, 2022 

Drillers underground at Trevali Mining’s Perkoa zinc mine in Burkina Faso.

 Credit: Trevali Mining

Canada-based Trevali Mining halted trading on Monday and said two of its managers were being held in Burkina Faso following an April flood that killed eight miners.


The company did not give a reason for the trading halt on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It said it also expected trading to be halted on the Lima Stock Exchange, OTCQX and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and that its common shares may be delisted.

One of Trevali’s three main operating assets is the Perkoa zinc mine in Burkina Faso, where operations have been suspended since torrential rainfall caused flash flooding on April 16.

The floodwaters breached the mine’s safety controls and submerged the site with eight workers deep underground. Their bodies were found after a long search.

A Perkoa mine manager and a manager from the company’s contractor Byrnecut have been detained and face charges relating to the flood, the company said in a statement. It did not provide further detail.

Burkina Faso’s public prosecutor could not immediately be reached for comment.

Burkina Faso’s prime minister said shortly after the flood that managers of the mine were banned from leaving the country while investigations were underway into the cause of the accident.

Trevali has said it was caught unawares by the flood, which occurred during the West African country’s usual dry season.

(By Thiam Ndiaga and Nellie Peyton; Editing by Edward McAllister and Mike Harrison)

Colombia’s new president threatens to blow up illegal mining operations

Staff Writer | August 21, 2022 | 

Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro. (Image by Petro’s press team, Flickr).

Colombia’s new leftist president Gustavo Petro said that the armed forces will dynamite every dredge that is being used across the country to mine gold illegally.


During a meeting of Colombia’s Security Council, which was held in the Bolívar department – one of the areas affected by illegal mining operations – Petro mentioned that his government will push for a mining policy that greatly differs from what’s already in place based on the existing Mining Code. Thus, a new bill is to be introduced before Congress.

“This new mining policy implies that the small, traditional miner can obtain long-term concessions granted by the State, which will allow him to develop his activity in a sustainable manner without affecting the environment,” the president said.

Gustavo Petro emphasized that the bill will have an environmental focus and that local communities should be at the centre of all relevant civil, military and police operations that are carried out to combat illegal mining.

Zijin restarting production at Colombia gold mine after blockade

Reuters | August 22, 2022 |

Buritica project, Colombia. Image: Continental Gold

Zijin Mining is restarting normal production at its Colombia gold mine, a spokesperson said on Monday, after people from the surrounding community ended more than a week of road blockades.


The blockades were set up near the mine in Buritica municipality, in Antioquia province, on Aug. 12 as community members demanded a rescue mission to find informal miners allegedly trapped in a tunnel.

Despite several rescue missions, no bodies were handed over to authorities, but the town’s mayor has said two miners are believed to have died. The blockade was lifted on Sunday.

Normal work was being restarted, a Zijin spokesperson said in a message to Reuters, though they did not have information on when the mine would be back at full production.

Thousands of wildcat miners work in sometimes-deadly conditions in dozens of informal tunnels in Buritica, including many within or adjoining Zijin’s concession.

The activities, controlled by the Clan del Golfo crime gang, are a safety issue for the surrounding community and affect Zijin’s output, a Reuters investigation last year showed.

Zijin produced 196,493 ounces of gold last year and 294,581 of silver, according to its website.

Blockade at Zijin’s Colombia gold mine is lifted
Reuters | August 22, 2022

The Buriticá project. Image by Continental Gold

Road blockades set up by community members around Zijin Mining’s Colombia gold mine were lifted, a government official said on Sunday, after more than a week of protests which hit the Chinese company’s production.


The blockades were set up around the mine in Buritica municipality on Aug. 12 to demand a rescue mission to find informal miners allegedly trapped in a tunnel.

It was not clear how many miners were presumed to be trapped or killed or what incident may have occurred in the tunnel, and despite several rescue missions, no bodies have been found.

“Mayor Hernando Graciano of the municipality of Buritica informs me that the blockade of the roads to the municipality and to the mine has been lifted,” Luis Fernando Suarez, security secretary of the Antioquia department, said on Twitter.

Production was stopped because of the blockades, the company had said.

A Zijin spokesperson said they had received the news and would later inform when “normal activities will resume.”

Thousands of wildcat miners work in sometimes-deadly conditions in dozens of informal tunnels in Buritica, including many within or adjoining Zijin’s concession.

The activities, controlled by the Clan del Golfo crime gang, are a safety issue for the surrounding community and affect Zijin’s output, a Reuters investigation last year showed.

(By Julia Symmes Cobb and Anthony Esposito; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Electric vehicle industry prizes steel over aluminum, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO says

Bloomberg News | August 22, 2022 | 

Assembly line (Adobe Stock)

A Detroit automaker and US steel producer sparred at an industry gathering this week on whether steel or aluminum is the preferred metal for electric-vehicle bodies.


The top executive of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., the second largest US steelmaker, said that EV companies were preferring steel over aluminum. But an executive director from General Motors Co., the biggest US automaker, said there’s no broad brush.

“It’s hard to say we’re going to have more steel, we’re going to have more aluminum, because every application will be specific to that vehicle,” Thomas Hosea, who oversees GM’s global purchasing and supply chain, said Tuesday at a steel conference in Atlanta. “If you have a vehicle with a bigger battery you’ll need to lightweight it more than a lower-range vehicle.”

The debate on whether to use more steel or aluminum in automobiles took center stage a decade ago as automakers moved to lighten cars to meet new government requirements to extend how far vehicles must travel on a gallon of gas. Aluminum seized a watershed moment when Ford Motor Co. chose to outfit the nation’s top-selling F-150 truck with the metal, improving its per-gallon efficiency on the highway by 29% from the older steel-bodied model.

Steel has traditionally been a favored metal due to its high strength and low cost. The benchmark steel price is 39 cents a pound, whereas aluminum costs almost three times that at $1.10 per pound. Still, the metals discourse is being revived as automakers shift to produce more EVs amid a global push to transition economies from fossil fuels toward cleaner energy sources to help fight climate change.

Batteries are the heaviest part of EVs and generate a massive amount of heat, which makes aluminum an attractive material to both lighten the vehicle and encase the battery with a metal that can withstand high temperatures without melting. But the steel industry made major adjustments years ago in response to the light-weighting revolution by developing so-called advanced high-strength steels that are stronger than aluminum and can match it in weight.

Cleveland-Cliffs Chief Executive Officer Lourenco Goncalves said Monday that EV companies are going “all-in” on steel as they build out plans for the transition away from combustion-engine vehicles. The comment carries significance given that Cliffs is the largest steel provider to the US auto market, and a metal supplier to GM, Ford, Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Mercedes-Benz AG.

(By Joe Deaux)

Green economy may lead to sulfur shortages – study

Staff Writer | August 23, 2022 | 

Sulfur. (Image by Raymond M. Coveney, Wikimedia Commons).

A projected shortage of sulfuric acid could stifle green technology advancement and threaten global food security, according to a paper published in The Geographical Journal.


Sulfuric acid is required for the production of phosphorus fertilizers and for extracting battery metals such as nickel and cobalt from ores.

The recent study points out that global demand for sulfuric acid is set to rise significantly from 246 to 400 million metric tons by 2040—a result of more intensive agriculture and the world moving away from fossil fuels.

The authors estimate that this will result in a shortfall in annual supply of between 100 and 320 million metric tonnes—between 40% and 130% of the current supply—depending on how quickly decarbonization occurs.

Currently, over 80% of the global sulfur supply is in the form of sulfur waste from the desulfurization of crude oil and natural gas, which reduces the sulfur dioxide gas emissions that cause acid rain. However, decarbonization of the global economy to deal with climate change will significantly reduce the production of fossil fuels—and subsequently the supply of sulfur.

The paper, led by researchers at University College London, is the first to identify this issue. The authors suggest that unless action is taken to reduce the need for this chemical, a massive increase in mining will be required to fill the resulting resource demand.

“Sulfur shortages have occurred before, but what makes this different is that the source of the element is shifting away from being a waste product of the fossil fuel industry,” lead researcher Mark Maslin said in a media statement.

“What we’re predicting is that as supplies of this cheap, plentiful, and easily accessible form of sulfur dry up, demand may be met by a massive increase in direct mining of elemental sulfur. This, by contrast, will be dirty, toxic, destructive, and expensive.”

In Maslin’s view, research is urgently needed to develop low-cost, low-environmental impact methods of extracting large quantities of elemental sulfur from the abundant deposits of sulfate minerals in the earth’s crust.

He believes the international community should consider supporting and regulating sulfur mining to minimize the impacts of the transition and also to avoid cheap unethical production from distorting the market.

“Our concern is that the dwindling supply could lead to a transition period when green tech outbids the fertilizer industry for the limited more expensive sulfur supply, creating an issue with food production, particularly in developing countries,” said co-author Simon Day.
How the estimations were made

To determine their findings, the researchers estimated three sulfuric acid demand scenarios from 2021 to 2040, based on historic and forecast demand, with annual growth rates ranging from 1.8% to 2.4%.

The authors also explored several ways in which demand for sulfur could be reduced as part of the transition to post-fossil fuel economies, including recycling phosphorus in wastewater for the fertilizer industry, increasing the recycling of lithium batteries, or using lower energy capacity/weight ratio batteries, as these require less sulfur for their production.

They also prompt crucial questions about whether it would make economic sense to invest in alternative production methods, given it is not currently possible to predict how quickly the supply of sulfur as a waste product from oil and gas desulfurization will decrease as the decarbonization of the global economy is only just starting.

South32 in talks with Appin coal mine workers over pay

Reuters | August 23, 2022

(Image: Illawarra Metallurgical Coal operation in Australia, courtesy of South32.)

South32 Ltd said on Wednesday it was in pay-related negotiations with its Appin coal mine workers following their threat to stage a partial strike for a week.


Australia’s Mining & Energy Union had earlier announced Appin workers’ intention to stop work for five to six hours across all shifts at the metallurgical coal mine starting Wednesday night till Aug. 31.


The union’s plan to take strike action comes as Australian coal miners are seeing a boom in business, thanks to a surge in demand from Europe, which is trying to cut its reliance on Russian coal.

“South32 Illawarra Metallurgical Coal is currently engaged in enterprise bargaining with employees and their representatives in relation to a proposed new Appin Enterprise Agreement,” the Perth-based miner said.

South32 is expected to show a huge jump in underlying profit when it reports its earnings on Thursday, according to Refinitiv data.

“Now that coal prices and profits are booming and inflation is rising, workers are seeking to have these changed conditions reflected in their new Enterprise Agreement,” said Bob Timbs, the union’s South Western District vice president said in a statement.

Inflation in Australia sped to a 21-year high last quarter and is expected to pile more pressure on food and energy costs, prompting the central bank to take an aggressive rate-hike stance to temper its effect on the cost of living.

(By Jaskiran Singh and Indranil Sarkar; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Anil D’Silva)

Boliden declares force majeure on zinc amid Norway strike
Reuters | August 23, 2022 | 8:20 am Europe Zinc

Harjavalta nickel smelter in Finland (Credit: Boliden)

Swedish miner Boliden has declared force majeure on zinc deliveries to Europe due to a strike among Norwegian electrochemical industry workers, although some production is still running, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.


The strike, which started on Monday, is targeting several electrochemical plants, including Boliden’s zinc smelter in Odda and Glencore’s nickel refinery in Kristiansand as well as aluminum output at Norsk Hydro and Alcoa.

“Zinc production is still running to a certain extent but of course we wish for the situation to return to normal, not least to be able to meet demand from our customers,” a Boliden spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“The situation is however out of Boliden’s control and difficult to foresee the development of,” he added.

(By Stine Jacobsen; Editing by Terje Solsvik)

Russian diamonds are quietly flowing again after sanctions chaos

Bloomberg News | August 23, 2022 | 

Sorting diamonds. Image from Alrosa.

The panic that gripped the diamond world this year is starting to unwind as sanctioned Russian mining giant Alrosa PJSC has quietly revived exports to near pre-war levels.


Alrosa accounts for about a third of global rough-diamond supply, and the $80 billion industry was thrown into turmoil as cutters, polishers and traders hunted for ways to keep buying from Russia while their banks couldn’t or wouldn’t finance payments. The sudden shortage of stones sent diamond prices surging, especially for the smaller and cheaper gems that Alrosa specializes in.

Now, after months of paralysis when it was hit with US sanctions, Alrosa is back selling more than $250 million of diamonds a month, with sales currently only about $50 to $100 million a month below pre-war levels, according to people familiar with the matter. The sales have restarted as some Indian banks become more comfortable with how to facilitate transactions in currencies other than US dollars, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

Most of the Russian stones are heading to manufacturers in India — the biggest among a handful of industry hubs, where hundreds of mostly family-owned businesses cut and polish rough stones into the finished products, ready to be used in earrings and engagement rings. Alrosa has been selling diamonds to buyers in India and Europe, mostly in exchange for rupees, the people said.

There is no indication that any sales have breached sanctions or laws. But there is still a widespread unease about the implications of dealing in Russian goods, said the people. The deals are being done quietly — even by the closed-doors standards of the famously secretive diamond world — and Alrosa has stopped publishing any information on its sales or financial performance.

A spokesperson for Alrosa declined to comment.

The return of one of the world’s main sources of precious gems will be a relief to the manufacturers and traders who rely on its stones. However, rough-diamond prices were already showing signs of softening in response to a worsening economic outlook, and the increased supply is adding further weakness.

The restarted sales show how buyers of Russian products, from oil and gas to coal and aluminum, have found ways to keep its raw materials flowing despite the fallout from the war.

For the diamond trade, there is a bigger reputational threat as well. If consumers want to avoid Russian diamonds they may simply stop buying altogether as the nature of the industry means it’s hard to keep track of any specific stone, with millions of interchangeable gems flowing between dozens of traders and manufacturers before eventually ending up in the display window of a jewelry store.

Some parts of the diamond industry have been pushing to exclude Russian production — US jewelers Tiffany & Co. and Signet Jewelers Ltd. have said they will stop buying new diamonds mined in Russia, while countries including the US have sought to have the gems labeled as “conflict diamonds,” the New York Times reported.

Seeking solutions

However, Indian and Belgian buyers and jewelry retailers from key markets such as China and the Middle East remain keen to buy Russian diamonds, and have been seeking solutions after banks became unable or unwilling to process payments once the sanctions hit.

Alrosa is effectively state controlled: the federal government owns 33% and another 25% is held by local authorities. The company competes globally with De Beers, owned by Anglo American Plc, and the two companies produce about the same amount of diamonds annually.

After the initial chaos in the wake of the US sanctions on Alrosa, the fresh flow of Russian gems is quickly easing tightness in the market.

In recent months, accredited De Beers buyers could make a profit of about 10% by trading their purchases to other gem manufacturers facing tight supplies.

Now, prices for some goods in the “secondary” market — where traders and manufacturers sell among themselves — have fallen sharply in the past month and that margin has now disappeared, the people said.

De Beers held prices steady at its latest sale last week, and with the steep correction in market prices that discount has now evaporated, removing most profit margins for its buyers, the people said.

 

Diamonds are Forever ( Live 2022 BAFTA's HD)

Mar 13, 2022

Dame Shirley Bassey Performances

On Sunday the 13th of March 2022, Dame Shirley opened the BAFTA awards with a spine-tingling rendition of one of her most beloved Bond songs, Diamonds Are Forever. This is the first time Dame Shirley had appeared live on the British stage since 2019 (When she last sang with Alfie Boe and Michael Ball). At 85 years young, she proved that she HAS STILL GOT IT! She demonstrated such amazing control over her voice and showed that she still has her upper register intact! This performance is truly such a treat. Please enjoy!

NO MAKING FOSSIL FUELS EXTINCT
New coal-to-product project aims to produce asphalt, building materials
Staff Writer | August 24, 2022 | 

Coal trains in Wyoming. (Image by KimonBerlin, Wikimedia Commons).

The Center for Carbon Capture and Conversion at the University of Wyoming announced a partnership with Wood and Atlas Carbon, LLC to launch a coal-to-product demonstration facility at the Fort Union Industrial Park near Gillette.

The goal of the project is to decompose Wyoming coal, yielding beneficial liquids and solids used to create valuable non-energy products, such as building and construction materials, asphalt products and agricultural soil amendments.

Phase I of the project involves site preparations at Fort Union, making the process demonstration ready.


Phase II entails the installation of the flash pyrolysis process plant, which rapidly subjects coal to extremely high temperatures for very short periods of time.

The byproduct of the pyrolysis process yields coal char. Construction for this phase of the project is anticipated to start in 2023 and will be completed in 2024.

Phase III, on the other hand, involves the setting up of the solvent extraction portion of the process, which yields a high-value coal extract that can be used in the production of asphalts and polymers.

Although this phase will only be realized if additional funding is directed towards the project, it is considered the part of the system that allows to fully integrate the technology.

In a press release, the university pointed out that this recent coal byproduct development project is among several in the US’ top coal-producing region exploring new options to address the entire life cycle of carbon – including the Wyoming Integrated Test Center (ITC), the Wyoming Innovation Center (WyIC) and the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources’ CarbonSAFE project.

Climate disasters risk putting a damper on electric car making

Bloomberg News | August 22, 2022 

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Automakers racing to make more electric vehicles have a problem: climate change is catching up with the industry.


On Monday, authorities in China’s Sichuan province — the source of about a fifth of the country’s lithium production — extended electricity cuts to some industrial users as the most intense heat wave in more than 60 years depletes reservoirs used for hydropower


Volkswagen said last week its factory in the region was affected by the power shortage and that it expected a slight delay in deliveries to customers. Toyota and battery maker CATL have temporarily closed factories. Tesla and China’s SAIC Motor told authorities in Shanghai — roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) to the east of Sichuan’s capital city of Chengdu — that they may have difficulty maintaining production if the power crunch continues to impact suppliers.

In Europe, a drought has threatened to make the Rhine river — a crucial waterway for German, Dutch and Swiss trade for centuries — impassable at a key waypoint. While rainfall over the weekend alleviated risk of disruption to diesel and coal shipments to power stations and industrial plants, Shell already cut production at Germany’s biggest oil-processing complex due to the issue. And in the German states of Brandenburg and Saxony, where Tesla and BMW operate car factories, authorities had to ask the military for help fighting several forest fires this summer.

Many carmakers list climate change as business risk factors. Tesla, for instance, warns that if climate-related disasters occur, its headquarters and production facilities “may be seriously damaged, or we may have to stop or delay production and shipment of our products.”

While manufacturers clearly realize climate change may hit their production networks, their actions don’t always line up with the severity of the threats. Companies continue to set up water-intensive manufacturing sites in regions where supply is increasingly scarce.

Tesla ran into opposition in Germany when building its factory in a region dealing with falling groundwater levels and prolonged droughts. Fremont, California, where Tesla has been producing electric cars for more than a decade, gets around 16 inches of rain per year, less than half the US average. The battery plant Tesla runs with Panasonic in Reno, Nevada, and Lucid Motors’ factory south of Phoenix are located in even drier regions.

Lucid, which is part-owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, plans to build an EV factory in the kingdom near the city of Jeddah, where temperatures can top 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) in the summer.

Several carmakers including Tesla are equipping factories with renewable-energy generators and say they’re working to make their sites more resource-efficient, including by reducing water consumption. At its plant in Chennai, India, BMW collects rainwater in basins during the monsoon season, covering 60% to 90% of the plant’s annual water requirement. To further increase this share, more reservoirs for the retention of rainwater are under construction, a BMW spokesperson said.

While the surge in demand for EVs is poised to reduce carbon emissions from transport, it’s sparked a mining boom for battery metals, including lithium. The silvery-white metal generally comes from open-pit mines in Australia or from South America, where there are concerns about water waste and toxic materials released from massive evaporation pools. The raw materials are then shipped to Asia for processing. By the time the lithium ends up in European or American EVs, a lot of CO2 has been released into the atmosphere. There are efforts underway to mine lithium without emitting greenhouse gases, but those are still in their infancy.

Volkswagen has set up a facility in Germany to eventually reuse 90% of battery components. It was also an early backer of QuantumScape, the US-listed firm working on solid-state batteries, a potential alternative to widely used lithium-ion technology. The automaker is expected to sign an agreement with Canada to secure access to raw materials including nickel, cobalt and lithium for vehicle and battery production as part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to the country this week.

VW said the Rhine’s low water levels haven’t impacted its production, and that its crisis management team has proven itself during extreme weather events and challenges including the Suez canal blockage and the war in Ukraine. The company has also set up a supplier management system to spot signs of disruptions early and work with parts makers to defuse them.

One thing is clear, a spokesperson said: new challenges within its supply chain can only be mastered together.

(By Stefan Nicola)