Killing Bazaars: The Land Forces Expo Down Under

by Binoy Kampmark / September 2nd, 2024

Between September 11 and 13, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) will play host to a bazaar of networking and deal making as part of a show that really ought to be called The Merchants of Death Down Under.  And the times for these merchants are positively bullish, given that total global military expenditure exceeded US$2.4 trillion in 2023, an increase of 6.8% in real terms from 2022.

The introductory note to the event is, typically in the lingo of the industry, mildly innocuous, even dull.  “The Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition is the premier platform for interaction between defence, industry and government of all levels, to meet, to do business and discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the global land defence markets.”

In greater detail, the website goes on to describe the Land Defence Exposition as “the premier gateway to the land defence markets of Australia and the region, and a platform for interaction with major prime contractors from the United States and Europe.”  When it was held in 2022 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, the event attracted 20,000 attendees, 810 “exhibitor organisations” from 25 countries, and ran 40 conferences, symposia and presentations.  From 30 nations came 159 defence, government, industry and scientific delegations.

Land Forces 2024 is instructive into how the military-industrial complex manifests.  Featured background reading for the event involves, for instance, news about cultivating budding militarists and numb any disturbing tendencies towards peacemaking.  And where better to start than in school, where things have yet to even bud?  From August 6, much approval is shown for the A$5.1 million Federation Funding Agreement between the Australian government and the state governments of South Australian and West Australia to deliver “the Schools Pathways Program (SPP)” as part of the Australian government’s Defence Industry Development Strategy.  The program offers school children a chance to taste the pungent trimmings of industrial militarism: visits to military facilities, “project-based learning”, and attend presentations.

Rather cynically, the SPP co-opts the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) aspect of government policy, carving up a direct link between school study and the defence industry.  “We need more young Australians studying STEM subjects in schools and develop skills for our future workforce,” insists the Australian Minister for Education, Jason Clare.  Hard to disagree with the proposition, but why make things so blatantly easy for the Merchants of Death?

Mutterings of discontent have registered against the Land Forces exposition.  Ellen Sandell, a Victorian member of parliament and leader of the Victorian Greens, and Adam Bandt, the federal member for Melbourne and leader of the Australian Greens, have written to the state Premier Jacinta Allan to call off the arms event.  The party notes that such companies as Elbit Systems “and others that are currently fuelling … Israel’s genocide in Palestine, where 40,000 people have now been killed – will showcase and sell their products there.”  Like most state premiers in Australia, Allan sees dollars before principles, icily dismissing such demands.

The protest outfit Disrupt Land Forces, one that so far boasts 50 different activist collectives, has been gathering some steam.  As early as June 4, the publishing outlet Defence Connect reported movement on the activist front, with groups such as Wage Peace – Disrupt War and Whistleblowers, Activists & Communities Alliance planning to rally against the Land Force exposition.

On its website the group writes that it “hassled Land Forces out of Magandjin (Brisbane)” in 2022.  The prospects look even better now for a re-run.  “Imagine what we can do now, in Narrm (Melbourne).”  Various activities are anticipated stretching over a week, a usual mix of carnival, activism, harrying – especially the arms dealers – with the goal of gathering 25,000 people who will ultimately encircle the MCEC and cause a halt to proceedings.

Ahead of the event, the Victorian Labor government, the event’s satisfied sponsor, is already anticipating trouble, seeing the threat to peace from protestors as far more profound than boardroom arms dealers making deals in the shadow of death.  A further 1,800 police officers are being mobilised, drawn from the regional areas of the state.

The Victorian Minister for Police, Anthony Carbines, did his best to set the mood.  “If you are not going to abide by the law, if you’re not going to protest peacefully, if you’re not going to show respect and decency, then you’ll be met with the full force of the law.”  Let’s hope the police observe those same standards.

Warmongering press outlets, The Herald Sun being a perennial stalwart, warn of the “risks” that “Australia’s protest capital” will again be “held hostage to disruption and confrontation” given the diversion of police.  Its editorial of August 15 gives the protestors a flatteringly demon tinge, treating the projected number of 25,000 attendees quite literally, swallowing whole the optimistic incitements on the website of Disrupt Land Force group.

The editorial also notes the concerns of unnamed senior members of the police force who fret about “the potential chaos outside MCEC at South Wharf and across central Melbourne”, one that compelled the forces to mount “one of the biggest security operations since the anti-vaccine/anti-lockdown protests at the height of Covid in 2021-21 or the World Economic Forum chaos in 2000.”

Were it up to the editors, protesting activists would do far better to stay at home and let the Victorian economy, arms and all, hum along.  The merchants of death could go about negotiating the mechanics of murder in broad daylight; the Victorian government would get its blood fill; and Melbournians could turn a blind eye to what oils the mechanics of global conflict.  The forthcoming protests will, hopefully, shock the city into recognition that the arms trade is global, nefarious and indifferent to the casualty count.Facebook

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

Exclusive

Biden administration weighs price support for US critical minerals amid Chinese pressure

The effort comes in response to delays and cancellations of many U.S. minerals processing projects.


President Joe Biden's efforts to boost domestic production of minerals have been challenged by China's stranglehold on the industry. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

By James Bikales
POLITICO
08/29/2024 

The Biden administration is considering using federal dollars to prop up U.S. critical minerals projects being hammered by an influx of cheaper Chinese materials, an Energy Department official familiar with the potential move told POLITICO.

Under the policy, the department would set a price floor and agree to pay the difference when market prices fall below that threshold for critical minerals produced by certain U.S. projects. The effort comes in response to delays and cancellations of many U.S. minerals processing projects, including those that were set to receive a collective $1 billion in grants from the Biden administration.

Such a federal backstop would help meet a major goal of the Biden administration’s climate and manufacturing agenda — boosting the domestic production of minerals for clean energy technologies such as electric vehicles, a global supply chain that China now dominates. It would add to a growing trend of bipartisan support for government intervention in the economy, including former President Donald Trump’s call for widespread tariffs and Vice President Kamala Harris’ push for tougher penalties on price gouging.

The official, who works in the department’s Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains Office, was granted anonymity to discuss a policy that is still under consideration.

Chinese oversupply has crashed the price of lithium, nickel and other minerals key to the clean energy transition, making it harder for owners of U.S. minerals projects to secure financing despite grants and other support they’re receiving from President Joe Biden’s administration. Those struggles have led some in the industry and the administration to believe the government must do more than provide an initial capital investment.

The goal of the policy under consideration would be to help reassure investors and customers that domestic suppliers can overcome China’s efforts to maintain its stranglehold on the critical minerals industry.

It’s unclear how much the policy would cost. The details are still being discussed, but the backstop would likely be available for a limited time and apply only to projects that the department has determined are close to being competitive in pricing but are being challenged by foreign market manipulation.

“If we move forward on anything like this, the intent would be to give the nudge that is needed to set off the flywheel, versus create a permanent subsidy or cushion for a particular sector or company going forward,” the Energy Department official said.

Such a federal backstop would help meet the Biden administration's goal of boosting the domestic production of minerals for clean energy technologies such as electric vehicles. | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Even if minerals prices stay high enough that the government never needs to disburse the funds, the promise to do so can help projects secure purchase agreements from customers that are crucial to financing their construction.

The official said most of what the MESC office has done revolves around investing in the construction side. “But it feels warranted, given what we’re hearing from the market, to think through, are there more creative ways where we can support projects so that they can … have the financial certainty to actually scale up?” the official said.

Companies and industry groups have launched a quiet push for a backstop in recent months, though some in the sector remain skeptical of the government wading into complex commodities markets. There’s also the question of whether DOE can set up — and fund — such an effort without explicit authorization from Congress, especially after the Supreme Court limited federal agencies’ discretion earlier this year by overturning a decades-old legal doctrine.

The DOE official said the agency is looking at what it can do within its existing authorities, which could include repurposing some grant funding intended for minerals projects, such as leftover funds from struggling projects that dropped out of grant negotiations.

The industry laid out its predicament to DOE in response to a request for information that the MESC office published this spring, seeking feedback on the dynamics of the critical minerals market. Companies expressed “strong support” for the department to implement “demand-side tools,” such as a price floor or contract for differences, to address the market concerns, according to a summary of the responses the agency released on Friday.

To secure financing, minerals project owners typically need to sign agreements with potential buyers such as automakers or battery cell manufacturers that show they will generate enough revenue to pay back investors.

But those customers have been loath to sign long-term purchase agreements with U.S. suppliers given the possibility that mineral prices will keep falling, and the fact that American-made minerals are more expensive than Chinese ones to begin with, companies say. One estimate last year put the price of North American graphite at more than double that of imported material, for example.

“You can’t have the facility built or the money to buy the equipment without having commitments from customers because you can’t get the financing without it,” said Chip Dunn, chair of Anovion Technologies, which is developing a $1 billion synthetic graphite plant in Georgia. “This is where the government needs to play a role.”

U.S. producers and government officials have accused China of subsidizing its producers to flood the global market with cheap minerals produced with lower social and environmental standards. A top State Department official, Jose Fernandez, told POLITICO this month that China is engaged in “predatory pricing” to frustrate U.S. efforts to develop its own high-standard sources of minerals.

American projects also face significantly longer timelines to get to market due to permitting delays. And some U.S. minerals suppliers argue that the Biden administration’s rules implementing Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for electric vehicles and clean energy manufacturing have left too much leeway for upstream customers to continue purchasing minerals from China.

The Biden administration has already spent billions trying to kick-start a domestic critical minerals industry, particularly in the processing sector that is overwhelmingly dominated by Beijing.

In late 2022, when minerals prices were near their peak, DOE selected 21 processing and recycling projects to receive a collective $2.8 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law. But in 2023, as the projects were negotiating terms of the grants, the price of lithium fell by 75 percent, and the price of cobalt, nickel and graphite each dropped by between 30 and 45 percent, according to the International Energy Agency.

A third of the projects, which were set to receive a collective $1 billion, failed to make it through the negotiations to receive the awards, according to the Energy Department’s website.

The projects faced a “perfect storm” of pricing pressures, said Ben Steinberg, who represents several of the grant recipients as executive vice president at Venn Strategies and spokesperson for the Battery Materials and Technology Coalition.

“High interest rates, inflationary pressures and oversupply of minerals from China put a lot of additional burden on these companies, who have the monumental task of raising or finding private capital for three quarters of these investments,” Steinberg said.

Several of the companies in the grant round have instead sought loans from DOE’s Loan Programs Office, which has more than $200 billion in estimated loan authority and can provide a greater share of a project’s financing. That office announced in May that critical minerals mining and extraction projects are now eligible for loans, and it also indicated to companies in a memo and webinar that month that it may allow projects to receive both a grant and a loan on a “project specific” basis.

But some companies say the Energy Department needs to go beyond supporting capital construction by implementing a backstop mechanism, which would guarantee that specific producers can receive a minimum price for their minerals even if market prices slip.

Chinese oversupply has crashed the price of lithium, nickel and other minerals key to the clean energy transition and electric vehicle production. | STR/AFP via Getty Images

“Offtake backstops help derisk project development and enable developers to access project financing,” the think tank Federation of American Scientists, which researches science-based policy solutions, wrote in a recent report calling on DOE to create such a mechanism.

The idea may be able to find some traction on both sides of the aisle in Congress and in Europe, which is also seeking to wean itself off Chinese minerals.

In its bipartisan policy report last year, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said the U.S. is “dangerously dependent” on Chinese minerals and recommended creating a national mineral strategic reserve. That would go a step further than a backstop by physically purchasing and selling the minerals to stabilize prices, as the U.S. does with oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The committee has convened several workshops with companies to discuss the issue this summer.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency also announced plans in February for a critical minerals security program, similar to a program it operates for oil that requires member countries to stockpile at least 90 days’ supply to stabilize prices in the event of a market disruption.

Still, some industry watchers remain skeptical about whether a government backstop is the right strategy to support the industry.

Abigail Hunter, executive director of the Center for Critical Minerals Strategy at the think tank SAFE, said she has reservations about the government “getting their hands into commodity market pricing, which is very cyclical and complex.”

“Policies need to be carefully calibrated to the specific commodity price dynamics, potentially peter off after projects reach economies of scale in production, and [be] coupled with other government support, all so taxpayers don’t end up supporting projects — especially unviable ones — indefinitely,” Hunter said in an email.

Alex Fitzsimmons, head of government affairs at Sila Nanotechnologies — which is building a plant in Washington state to produce silicon anode material for EV batteries — said a government backstop should be “on the table as part of a suite of market signals,” but that companies also need to improve their products to stay competitive.

“Especially in this funding environment, companies have to find ways to separate themselves from a technology standpoint and a performance standpoint if they’re expecting to have customers pay a premium,” Fitzsimmons said.

REST IN POWER

Betty Jean Hall, lawyer who championed female miners, dies at 78

As a young lawyer in the 1970s, she helped open the coal industry to women and fought on their behalf for workplace equality and safety.

By Emily Langer

WASHINGTON POST
August 28, 2024

Betty Jean Hall grew up in the coal country of eastern Kentucky, a place where thousands of men braved the heavy darkness of the mines, the gruesome injuries that often befell them deep inside the earth and the agony of one of their occupation’s most infamous hazards, black lung disease. The men emerged from the mines at the end of a shift dirty and exhausted but proud, having provided for their families with another day’s work.

Never, Ms. Hall later reflected, did she ever encounter a woman who worked in the mines or even entertained such a possibility. Mining was a man’s job. The mere presence of a women in a mine, as on a ship at sea, was reputed to bring bad luck. Even the vast majority of clerks and secretaries employed by coal companies were men.

Only a few years out of law school in the 1970s, Ms. Hall — who died Aug. 16 at 78 — helped change the mining industry in ways that coal country scarcely could have imagined when she was a girl.

As the founder of the Coal Employment Project (CEP) based in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Ms. Hall filed a federal complaint in 1978 against 153 coal companies, alleging that together they embodied “one of the most blatantly discriminatory” industries in the United States and demanding that the companies open their ranks to women.

In the years that followed, Ms. Hall and her fellow organizers won legal settlements providing back pay for women who had been denied mining jobs — as well as future hiring commitments from mining companies. For essentially the first time, women in Appalachia and other coal-producing regions could pursue the jobs that in many cases offered their only hope of supporting themselves and their families.

Ms. Hall, who later helped female miners organize a national network of advocacy groups and chaired a U.S. Labor Department review board that handled compensation claims related to black lung disease, died at a hospital in Cary, N.C. Her daughter, Tiffany Olsen, confirmed her death and said she did not know the cause.

Women have ventured into mines in small numbers for generations, posing as men by necessity to earn a paycheck. During World War II, they took on jobs previously held by men who were away at war. But not until 1973 or 1974 — accounts vary — was a woman officially hired as a mine worker in the United States.

In the early years of her legal practice, Ms. Hall was drawn to both public-interest law and the feminist movement, and she combined her interests in a campaign on behalf of female miners.

She confessed that she at first doubted many women would be interested in mining, which was one of the country’s most dangerous professions. But, as she learned, in many places mining offered the only path to gainful employment.

“Sure, coal mining is hard work,” Ms. Hall told the New York Times in 1979, “but so is housework and so is working in sewing factories for minimum wages. Just about all the women I’ve talked to agree that if they have to choose between making $6,000 a year in a factory and mining coal for $60 or more a day, they’ll go into the mines.”

Mine worker Charlene Griggs operates a roof bolter in Alabama in 1983. (Marat Moore)

She recalled one person in particular, a woman named Mavis from eastern Kentucky, who convinced her, as Ms. Hall later wrote, that “we were really on to something.” Mavis was a single mother of four who had been turned down for a mining job on the grounds that the work was too hard for a woman.

“I thought back to when my two youngest were still in diapers and we lived on top of a hill with no running water,” Ms. Hall recalled Mavis saying. “Every morning, even in the dead of winter, I had to bundle up those two babies and all their dirty diapers and carry them down the hill to wash out the diapers in the creek. And I had to carry those two babies, and all those wet diapers, back up the hill. I figured if I could do that, there wasn’t any job in the mines I couldn’t do.”

The federal complaint accused coal companies of violating an executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 that prohibited federal contractors from discriminating in employment on the basis of sex, among other factors. Most of the country’s largest coal companies had federal contracts.

Statistics on the numbers of female miners vary. But by Ms. Hall’s count, within five years of the complaint’s filing there were 3,370 women working in mines. That figure, which represented less than 2 percent of all miners, was still a momentous gain.

“She really spearheaded the most massive influx [of women] into underground coal mining historically,” said Suzanne Tallichet, a professor of sociology at Morehead State University in Kentucky and the author of the book “Daughters of the Mountain: Women Coal Miners in Central Appalachia.”

In addition to helping women obtain mining work, Ms. Hall cultivated a national movement to demand equal treatment on the job, where women were often assigned the most taxing duties, such as shoveling coal onto a conveyor belt, and were frequently passed over for promotions.

At first, many coal companies failed to provide for even the most basic needs of their female employees. Steel-toed boots were not made in women’s sizes, forcing female miners to stuff their shoes and putting them at risk of falls, said Marat Moore, who worked in a West Virginia coal mine and later wrote the book “Women in the Mines.” Rubber gloves, oversized because they were made for men, sometimes got caught in machinery, causing the women who wore them to lose a finger or an arm.

Sexual harassment was rampant, with lewd graffiti often scrawled on the walls of mines. Ms. Hall documented cases of male workers drilling peepholes into the showers of their female colleagues. In the most extreme cases, women were sexually assaulted underground, where they had no way to escape.

The National Conference of Women Miners, which Ms. Hall helped grow, addressed risks posed to pregnant women working underground as well as the health hazards borne by all miners, male and female. The group also was credited with rallying support for the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, a measure that protected employees who previously might have risked losing their jobs by missing work to care for a sick family member.

By the end of the 1980s, many female mine workers had been laid off as demand for coal decreased and technological advances made some of their jobs obsolete. Under the “last hired, first fired” union principle, the women, who had less seniority than their male co-workers, were often the first to go.

Among the thousands of miners who benefited from Ms. Hall’s work is Libby Lindsay, who worked for 21 years for a Bethlehem Steel coal mine in Boone County, W.Va. Lindsay, the daughter of a coal miner, grew up listening to her father speak about the camaraderie he found in his union and among the men who went down into the mines together. She begged to go with him to union meetings, only to be told that girls weren’t allowed.

By founding the CEP and by encouraging the women to organize on behalf of one another, Lindsay said in an interview, Ms. Hall “helped to forge a sisterhood that continues today.”

Betty Jean Hall was born on July 12, 1946, in Richmond, Ky., and grew up farther to the state’s east in Buckhorn. Her father, a woodworker, became a professor of industrial arts at Berea College in Berea, Ky., and her mother managed the home.

Ms. Hall received a bachelor’s degree in history from Berea College in 1968. She worked at the Appalachian Regional Commission before enrolling at the Antioch School of Law in Washington, a predecessor to the University of the District of Columbia’s law school, where she graduated in 1976.

She was running a law practice in Washington when she was contacted by a public-interest group that had asked to tour a Tennessee mine and was told that only men would be permitted to go because they “can’t have no woman going underground.”

“That one incident really started us thinking,” Ms. Hall told the Times. “If men won’t even let a woman tour a mine, how does she go about finding a job in one?”

One of the CEP’s first grants came from the Ms. Foundation for Women, the fledging organization co-founded by feminist activist Gloria Steinem.

Ms. Hall’s legal strategies were applied to highway construction and other professions that, like the coal industry, had traditionally excluded women, said Barbara Ellen Smith, who worked with Ms. Hall at the Southeast Women’s Employment Coalition and later became a professor of women’s and gender studies at Virginia Tech.

Ms. Hall served for years on the Labor Department’s Benefits Review Board, including 10 years as chair and chief administrative appeals judge, before retiring in 2019.

She was separated from her husband, Thomas Burke, when he died in 2022. Her twin children — her daughter, of Cary, and her son, Timothy Burke, of Carrboro, N.C. — survive her, as do a sister and two grandchildren.

Although mines remain largely the domain of male workers, the success of Ms. Hall’s campaign was captured in a remark that labor leader Richard Trumka, then president of the United Mine Workers of America and later the president of the AFL-CIO, made to a gathering of the National Conference of Women Miners in 1983.


“Male miners believed that for a woman to go in a mine was bad luck,” he said. “I think most men in the mines today would agree it’s been our good luck, not our bad luck, that you joined our ranks in the mines.”




By Emily LangerEmily Langer is a reporter on The Washington Post’s obituaries desk. She writes about extraordinary lives in national and international affairs, science and the arts, sports, culture, and beyond. She previously worked for the Outlook and Local Living sections. Twitter

ERG Africa’s Frontier SA gifts 30 solar boreholes to local communities in the DRC

Staff Writer | August 31, 2024 | 

Madame Nathalie-Aziza Munana, Minister of Social Affairs, DRC; Jacques Leclerc, Head of SHS, ERG Africa; Patient Kabela, Senior Social Manager, ERG Africa’s Frontier; Emmanuel Henry, Deputy CEO, ERG Africa.

 Image: ERG.

ERG Africa’s subsidiary, Frontier SA, participated in a ceremony at the Sakania General Referral Hospital this week to mark the handover of 30 solar-powered boreholes, which offer a long-term solution to water scarcity, to six local communities in the Sakania territory in the Haut-Katanga province of the DRC.


Frontier SA has a mission to improve living conditions in neighbouring communities through funding various pivotal community development projects.

In compliance with the social obligations outlined in the DRC mining code and regulations, Frontier SA allocates 0.3% of its annual turnover to DOT-Frontier, a fund designated for community development projects as part of its corporate social responsibility.

As of 2023, Frontier SA has disbursed over $5.8 million to DOT-Frontier out of a total provision of over $9.2 million earmarked for the cumulative period spanning 2018 to 2023.

“Supporting this initiative for improved access to drinking water aligns perfectly with ERG Africa’s mission to develop impactful projects that sustainably benefit local populations,” ERG Africa CEO Nicolas Treand said in a news release.

Through DOT-Frontier, 10 community development projects are currently underway in Sakania for 2024, primarily focusing on health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure sectors.

The DOT-Frontier management mechanism is designed to foster community involvement and ensure transparent governance. It is administered by a specialized body comprising 12 members representing local communities, grassroots organizations, government entities and Frontier SA.

Investigation of Eagle gold mine incident underway, says Yukon gov’t

Staff Writer | September 1, 2024 | 

The Eagle mine’s leaching pad is at left centre in this photo shot from a plane on Saturday. Credit: Blair McBride

An investigation into the cause of the the heap leach incident at Victoria Gold’s (TSXV: VGCX) eagle mine in Canada’s Yukon Territory is now underway, the CBC reported on Friday afternoon.


The mine had been suspended since the heap leach pad failure on June 24 that caused a massive landslide and unleashed 280,000-300,000 cubic metres of cyanide-containing solution into the environment, according to government estimates.

The investigation is led by a three-person independent review board appointed by the Yukon government, consisting of a geotechnical expert who has consulted on permafrost engineering and dam construction, a senior civil engineer with experience in mine development and reclamation, and an engineer with experience in gold heap leaching.

The review is being funded through the receivership of Victoria, which was announced in mid-August after the Yukon government requested to take greater control over cleanup and impact mitigation efforts after the Eagle mine incident.

The review is part of the government’s response to what it calls a “catastrophic failure and its impact on the environment and human health and safety.” Among the items under review are the design, construction, operation, maintenance and monitoring of the heap leach facility.

“Understanding the causes of the failure will help inform remediation of the failure, possible options for a future restart of mine operations at Eagle Gold, as well as other future operations in the Yukon,” the Yukon government stated in a news release Friday.

The First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun, which had previously expressed concerns about being left out of the review given that the mine is situated within its traditional territory, also has an “open invitation” to join the independent review board at any time, it added.

The review is expected to take six to eight months and the results will be made public.

GM delays additional $330m investment in Thacker Pass, Lithium Americas says

Reuters | August 30, 2024 | 

Thacker Pass in Nevada. (Image: Lithium Americas)

Lithium Americas said on Friday automaker General Motors has delayed the second tranche of investment, worth $330 million, in the miner until the end of the year.


GM had announced an investment of $650 million, in two tranches, in Lithium Americas last year to help it develop the Thacker Pass lithium mining project in Nevada, which holds enough of the battery metal to build 1 million electric vehicles annually.

The lithium miner said it is exploring alternative structures for the investment and extended the date for deal closure to Dec. 20. In case, the deal is not closed on their end by that date, Lithium Americas will have to grant additional rights to the automaker.

GM did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The investment conditions for the second tranche included the successful execution of a $2.26 billion loan agreement with the US Energy Department, which the company is rushing to finish by the end of the year amid uncertainties regarding the results of the US presidential election.

Given Donald Trump’s pledge to “end the electric vehicle mandate” and plans laid out by former Trump administration officials in the Project 2025 document to shutter the Loans Program Office, mining companies and others are rushing to close loan agreements before Joe Biden leaves office in five months.

(By Sourasis Bose; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)

CEO of Korea’s No. 2 zinc producer arrested after fatal accident

Bloomberg News | August 30, 2024

Zinc smelter. Stock image.

The chief executive officer of South Korean zinc producer Young Poong Corp. and another senior staff member were arrested over a fatal accident last year at the company’s Seokpo smelter.


The District Court of Daegu approved the arrest of CEO Park Young-min, and Bae Sang-yoon, the head of the smelter, on Thursday. Prosecutors allege the executives violated the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, and are criminally liable for the accident that occurred in December


A spokesman at Young Poong confirmed Park and Bae had been arrested, but said the firm doesn’t expect any disruption to production.

Young Poong, Korea’s No. 2 zinc producer, has been rattled by a series of industrial accidents in recent years, including a fatal arsenic poisoning and a worker getting heatstroke. It’s also involved with legal disputes with its decades-long partner Korea Zinc Co., as well as the government over allegedly breaching environmental regulations.

The company was hit with a plant suspension order in 2020 for violating the Water Environment Conservation Act, although that’s since been put on hold while it appeals the decision.

Young Poong’s shares have plunged almost 40% this year, dropping 3.3% on Thursday and then partially rebounding to close at 315,500 won on Friday.

(By Heesu Lee)

Mexico’s Tizapa mine offline due to strike, Penoles says

Reuters | August 30, 2024

 |

Credit: Industrias Peñoles

Industrias Penoles announced an indefinite halt to operations at its Minera Tizapa unit in the State of Mexico on Friday due to a strike called by the national mining union.


The union, which represents the mining, metallurgical, and steel industries, is citing violations of a collective labor agreement signed in April, Penoles said in a filing.

The company, Mexico’s top silver miner, stated that it fully complies with the obligations of the labor agreement and local labor laws. It also said it will adhere to the appropriate legal and administrative procedures to resolve the conflict.

The mine, which Penoles holds a 51% stake in, extracts lead, zinc and copper.

In May, US trade authorities said Penoles and Mexican authorities had resolved alleged workers rights violations at Tizapa after Washington requested a review through the USMCA trade deal.

(By Kylie Madry and Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez)

 WWIII

Video: Third Collision Incident Between Chinese and Philippine Coast Guards

The Philippines asserts a Chinese vessel collided three or four times today with its Coast Guard cutter (PCG)

Published Aug 31, 2024 3:38 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

For the third time over the last two weeks, Chinese and Philippine forces have faced down each other’s vessels resulting in a collision and accusations from both sides. The Chinese Coast Guard vessel 5205 and the Philippine Coast Guard vessel BRP Teresa Magbunua were involved in today’s altercations. No injuries were reported to personnel, but the Philippines released pictures of a hole in its coast guard vessel and several dents they said were caused by the deliberate actions of the Chinese vessel.

Tensions continue to be high between China and the Philippines focusing on the region around Sabina Shoal, a small rock outcrop in the Spratly Islands approximately 85 miles west of the Philippine province of Palawan. Internationally, it is recognized as in the Philippine EEZ while China also lays claim to the area rejecting international declarations.

Since April 2024, the Philippines has been maintaining a presence in the area which is east of Second Thomas Shoal which has been the previous area of contention. The Philippines asserts that China was planning on building an outpost on Sabina Shoal while the Chinese assert the Philippines does not have a right to be in the area. Last week, China filed an international protest citing approximately five months of Philippine presence in the region.

According to the reports, today’s incident began after the Philippine Coast Guard cutter Teresa Magbanua, a 320-foot cutter which is also the largest in the Philippine fleet, raised anchor and began maneuvering in the disputed region. The vessel has been anchored in the area since April. The Chinese Coast Guard detected the movement of the Philippine vessel and placed its vessels in the area to block the Philippines.

 

 

China issued a statement after the incident saying it had made repeated warnings to Teresa Magbanua. The Chinese said the vessel was maneuvering and acted “in an unprofessional and dangerous manner.” They assert the Philippines vessel “deliberately collided” with the Chinese Coast Guard vessel 5205.

The Philippines released a series of videos to back up its accusations that it was the Chinese who were the aggressors. In a briefing, the Philippines presented its case asserting the Chinese vessel approached Teresa Magbanua and carried out a series of dangerous maneuvers. They claim the Chinese Coast Guard was crowding the vessel resulting in the first collision. They assert the Chinese vessel 5205 turned around and reached the other side of the Philippine vessel again colliding and then maneuvered and deliberately rammed the Philippine vessel. The Philippines seems to be asserting there were three or four collisions during today’s altercation before both sides withdrew.

 

 

The incident took place at midday local time and was followed by the statements and accusations from both sides. The U.S. Ambassador quickly issued a new statement of support for the Philippines and condemned the actions of the Chinese Coast Guard vessel.

It was the third altercation in August with the Philippines also accusing the Chinese of ramming their vessel on August 19. Last week they asserted the Chinese rammed a Philippine vessel, used a siren and horn, and water cannons. The Philippines contends it was conducting humanitarian missions to bring supplies to its fishermen in the waters of Sabina Shoal. Last week, the Philippine Coast Guard vessels withdrew and the resupply was conducted days later with a helicopter.

The Philippines and China came to an agreement for the resupply of the Coast Guard vessel at Second Thomas Shoal. However, the Chinese have repeatedly demanded that the Philippines immediately withdraw BRP Teresa Magbanua from Sabina Shoal. Last week, the Philippines said it has no intention of removing its vessel.

Today‘s altercation between the Chinese and the Philippines came as Japan was also protesting Chinese incursions. Japan filed a formal protest saying Chinese vessels had entered Japan’s territorial waters and that a Chinese aircraft also entered Japan’s airspace. The Chinese denied the Japanese claims saying it has no intention to violate any country’s airspace

The Philippines Disrupts China’s Scientific Research in Xianbin Jiao

by Global Times / August 31st, 2024

The video obtained by GT shows how the Philippine side dangerously disrupted and intervened in China’s scientific research in waters off China’s Xianbin Jiao in the #SouthChinaSea. Similar actions occurred when China conducted marine ecosystem research in Ren’ai Jiao.

 

Australia Conducts First Nuclear-Powered Sub Maintenance with USS Hawaii

USS Hawaii off Diamond Head crater while transiting to Pearl Harbor in 2009 (USN)

Published Sep 2, 2024 12:18 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

The Royal Australian Navy recently participated in the first maintenance of a nuclear-powered submarine in Australia using local personnel. It is being hailed as the next key step in the AUKUS partnership designed to bring nuclear-powered submarines into the Australian fleet.

USS Hawaii, a Virginia class submarine commissioned in 2007 was recently sent to HMAS Stirling in Western Australia for a maintenance period. She was accompanied by USS Emory S. Land, a U.S. service ship with equipment and crew dedicated to providing maintenance work for U.S. submarines.

Personnel from the Australian Navy were working alongside the U.S. Navy counterparts and contractors from Australia for the Submarine Tendered Maintenance Period. In preparation for the project, over 30 Australian Navy officers and sailors were embedded as part of the crew of USS Emory S. Land since January 2024 to build the skills, knowledge, and experience in nuclear-powered submarine maintenance. One of the Royal Australian Navy officers to graduate from the Submarine Officer Basic Course and naval nuclear training in the U.S. is also part of the crew of USS Hawaii.

 

Accompanying USS Hawaii was the sub tender Emory S. Land (USN)

 

The Australian Navy called the effort “the most practical demonstration of progress to implement the AUKUS Pathway to date.” Its personnel directly participated in the maintenance of the nuclear-powered submarine. The Australians were to undertake hands-on learning, and conduct, and observe the maintenance with the U.S. Navy personnel.

Port visits by U.S. and UK nuclear-powered submarines for projects such as this maintenance the Australian Navy said are a vital part of building Australia’s capability and capacity to support maintenance on nuclear-powered submarines in the lead-up to Submarine Rotational Force – West (SRF-West) commencing in 2027. 

“The rotational presence of one UK Astute class and up to four U.S. Virginia class submarines at HMAS Stirling as part of SRF-West will further accelerate Australia’s ability to be sovereign ready to safely and securely own, operate and maintain Australia’s future fleet of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines from the early 2030s,” writes the Australian Royal Navy.

They noted that during World War II, the U.S. Navy routinely conducted maintenance on U.S., UK, and Dutch submarines in Fremantle.