GEMOLOGY

De Beers Merges Two Auctions Amid Slow Market

MAY 17, 2023  |  JOSHUA FREEDMAN

De Beers has combined its May and July auctions as weak consumer spending in the US and China has dampened manufacturers’ demand for rough.

“This reflects our sustainable and responsible approach to rough-diamond supply and acknowledges the business needs of auctions customers,” a De Beers spokesperson said Tuesday

The miner’s fifth auction of the year was previously set for May 30 to 31, while the sixth edition was supposed to take place from July 4 to 5. The company has not scheduled the new sale and will communicate the date in due course, the spokesperson added. The company holds 10 auction cycles each year.

The change applies to both the interim auctions — sales of smaller and lower-quality goods — and the main auctions, which include rough above 2 carats.

Diamond trading has slowed in recent weeks amid economic caution across the world. Cutting firms in India have reduced polished production and are trying to limit their inventories.

Botswana’s Okavango Diamond Company (ODC), which has access to 25% of goods from the country’s Debswana joint venture with De Beers, saw 62 out of 148 lots go unsold at its May spot auction. ODC had not responded to a request for comment at press time Wednesday.

“The [second] quarter looks bad, but we are all focused on the [JCK Las] Vegas show, and hopefully we will see some kind of demand taking place [ahead of] Christmas and Thanksgiving…that will help the [third] quarter,” commented Vipul Shah, chairman of India’s Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). “China is also very slow, and that is where we’re all feeling the pinch.”

Image: Rough diamonds on display at De Beers in Kimberley, South Africa. Ben Perry/Armoury Films/De Beers

COMMODITY FETISH

28-Piece JAR Jewelry Collection Sells Out at Christie’s

MAY 18, 2023  |  LEAH MEIROVICH

The largest private collection of jewels by designer JAR to be offered at auction raked in $6.7 million at Christie’s Geneva Wednesday

The top lot of the 28-piece group was a sapphire, spinel and diamond Eye bangle, which pulled in $956,965, more than three times its high estimate, Christie’s said. In total, the Magnificent Jewels auction achieved $45.8 million, with 94% of items finding buyers.

“The Magnificent Jewels sale…reflects the demand for spectacular jewels and colored gemstones, demonstrating the strength of the jewelry market amongst collectors around the world,” said Max Fawcett, head of jewelry for Christie’s in Geneva.

Some 11 lots realized more than $1 million, Christie’s noted. The auction featured jewels from Chaumet, Harry Winston, and other well-known designers and saw participation from bidders in 29 countries. Of those, 38% were located in the Americas, 34% in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, and 28% in Asia Pacific.

Here are four of the other most valuable items:

A Chaumet ring centering an oval-shaped, 13.07-carat Burmese ruby, surrounded by pear-shaped diamonds, brought in $5.3 million, more than six times its upper price tag.

This cushion-shaped, 28.55-carat Kashmir sapphire ring, called the Royal Blue, also features kite-shaped diamonds. It sold for $3.7 million, above its high estimate.

Known as the Star of Egypt, this unmounted cut-cornered rectangular step-cut, 105.52-carat, L-color, VS2-clarity diamond fetched $3 million, within its range.

A pair of earrings by Harry Winston, with oval-shaped sapphire pendants weighing 52.08 and 51.26 carats hanging from marquise and pear-shaped diamonds, garnered $2.7 million, surpassing its high estimate.

Image: The JAR Eye bangle. (Christie’s)

Bulgari Blue Diamond Rakes In over $25 Million

MAY 17, 2023  |  LEAH MEIROVICH

A blue diamond weighing 11.16 carats sold for $25.2 million on Tuesday, becoming the most valuable jewel at this year’s Geneva auctions, according to Sotheby’s.

The Bulgari Laguna Blu, a pear-shaped, fancy-vivid-blue stone, surpassed its $25 million high presale estimate after a four-minute bidding battle between several buyers, Sotheby’s noted. It was the lead item in the Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels sale, which realized $85.4 million — Sotheby’s highest total for that auction in five years.

“The sale of the Laguna Blu tops the remarkable performance of our Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels sale that saw exceptional colored gemstones, in particular emeralds and yellow diamonds, punch through their high estimates,” said Olivier Wagner, head of jewelry for Sotheby’s Geneva.

These are the other lots rounding out the top 10:

This ring is set with a cut-cornered rectangular modified brilliant-cut, 21.94-carat, fancy-intense-pink diamond bracketed by half-moon fancy-deep-greyish-blue diamonds weighing 0.51 and 0.46 carats. It sold for $11.8 million, near the top of its presale estimate.

A ring with a round-cornered rectangular modified brilliant-cut, 5.01-carat, fancy-vivid-purplish-pink diamond surrounded by white diamonds garnered $6.3 million, just missing its lower price tag.

A pendant bearing a cushion-shaped, 132.83-carat sapphire and diamonds brought in $4.4 million, exceeding its high estimate.

Sotheby’s sold this Harry Winston ring featuring a cushion modified brilliant-cut, 51.52-carat, F-color, internally flawless diamond for $2.1 million, within its presale range.

This step-cut, 18.78-carat, D-color, VVS2-clarity diamond ring by Bulgari went for $1.7 million, soaring over its upper estimate.

A step-cut, 11.57-carat, fancy-vivid-yellow diamond ring brought in $1.3 million, more than doubling its $613,242 upper target price.

Nearly quadrupling its $306,543 upper estimate, this necklace featuring two rows of graduated natural pearls with a diamond clasp, from the collection of a princess, scored $1.2 million at the sale.

A Harry Winston necklace from the collection of a princess brought in $1.1 million. The price for the piece, which is set with an oval, 37.92-carat Padparadscha sapphire, surpassed its high estimate.

This marquise-shaped, 15.05-carat, D-color, VVS1-clarity diamond ring sold for $1.1 million, more than three times its upper price.

Main image: The Bulgari Laguna Blu diamond. (Sotheby’s)

UK’s first centre for rare earth magnet recycling to open in Birmingham

Staff Writer | May 17, 2023 | 

Rare earths. Stock image.

Rare earth recycling company HyProMag, formed by researchers from the University of Birmingham’s School of Metallurgy and Materials, is being acquired by Maginito Ltd.


It is a deal that aims to catalyse the scale-up and international roll-out of technology first piloted at the University of Birmingham and forming the basis for the UK’s first full scale remanufacturing facility for rare earth magnets at Birmingham’s Tyseley Energy Park being developed later this year.

HyProMag’s core technology is the based upon the patented process – Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap (HPMS), which was originally developed within the University’s Magnetic Materials Group to extract rare earth magnets from scrap and redundant equipment and subsequently licensed to HyProMag.

Rare earth magnets play a key role in clean energy technologies including electric vehicles and wind turbine generators. They are also a key component in electronic devices including mobile phones.

“Rare earth magnets are one of the building block materials for clean growth, but the recycling rates for these magnets are very low, less than 5%,” Professor Allan Walton, Head of the Magnetic Materials Group at the University, and co-founder of HyProMag, said in a statement.

“The technologies developed in the MMG target the key challenges in order to efficiently extract these materials from a wide range of scrap sources, and to re-process these materials with a minimal environmental impact compared to primary production.”

Mkango / Maginito have been a strategic partner for both the University and Hypromag since 2018, with multiple joint research projects in the UK and EU. Over the last two years these projects have taken the HPMS process up the TRL levels to de-risk the technology.

“The investment from Maginito paves the way to fully commercialise the HPMS process and to take this technology to the global market,” Walton said.

The companies said they have a shared vision to create a large-scale, international business focused on downstream rare earth technologies, with major competitive advantages in the rare earth recycling sector, including the patented energy-efficient technology for recycling magnet scrap.

HPMS is used to reduce permanent magnets containing neodymium (Nd) iron (Fe) and boron (B) to a demagnetised powder. The technology was developed by the late Professor Emeritus Rex Harris, former Head of the University’s Magnetic Materials Group, with Professor Walton.

A pilot plant for HPMS recycling opened at the University of Birmingham last year, and work is now underway to build a large scale ‘short loop’ recycling facility at Tyseley and other locations.

The Tyseley plant is being developed with the University of Birmingham and is expected to have a minimum production capacity of 100 tonnes a year.

The £4.3 million project is being funded by Driving the Electric Revolution, an Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund delivered by UK Research and Innovation.

Codelco launches subsidiaries to manage lithium takeover plan

Reuters | May 19, 2023 | 

Image provided by Samuel Cohen | Shutterstock.

Chilean state miner Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, said on Friday it had created two subsidiaries to run a newly mandated lithium business amid a government plan to increase state control over the industry.


The government instructed Codelco in April to begin talks with companies running lithium mining operations in Chile’s Atacama salt flats as part of a new lithium strategy that will see the state take majority stakes in all “strategic” projects.

As well as talks with the world’s two largest lithium miners, Albemarle and SQM, Codelco has also been tasked by President Gabriel Boric’s government with developing new alliances.

In a statement Codelco said a new subsidiary, Salares de Chile SpA, would operate its lithium activities while another, Minera Tarar SpA, would focus on the Atacama salt flats and possible partnerships with private firms operating there.

Maximo Pachecho, the current chair of Codelco’s board of directors, was named chairman of both companies, with Eduardo Bitran, who had led negotiations over contracts with Albemarle and SQM some years earlier, as vice-president.

Economy Minister Nicolas Grau said in an interview with Reuters that the government expects to close negotiations with the existing Atacama miners before March 2026, when the current government’s term comes to an end.

On Thursday, SQM said it expected to begin talks with Codelco in the coming weeks.

(By Fabian Andres Cambero and Sarah Morland; Editing by Jan Harvey)

Chile’s Cochilco to oversee lithium strategy to boost state control

Reuters | May 17, 2023

Lithium reserves in the salar de atacama at the Atacama desert in Chile. 

The Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco) will evaluate and manage investments of Chile’s planned national lithium company, Mining Minister Marcela Hernando said on Wednesday.


Cochilco currently regulates and oversees the country’s copper industry and will expand its mandate to lithium, used in batteries and electric vehicles.


President Gabriel Boric announced in April that the state will nationalize lithium projects considered strategic and instructed state-owned Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, to start discussions with the two companies currently operating in the coveted Salar de Atacama salt flats, Albemarle and SQM.

The bill creating the new national lithium company will be submitted to congress in the second half of the year, she said.

Economy Minister Nicolas Grau told Reuters that negotiations are expected to be completed before the end of the government term in 2026.

(By Fabian Andrés Cambero; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Congo President heads to China amid mining contract negotiations

IMPERIALISM;

THE HIGHEST STAGE OF FINANCE CAPITALI$M

Bloomberg News | May 19, 2023 | 

Congo President Felix Tshisekedi. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi will visit China next week as the two nations look to conclude the re-negotiation of a $6.2 billion mineral-for-infrastructure deal, people with direct knowledge of the trip said.


It’s the president’s first visit to the country, Congo’s biggest trading partner. The two nations did $21.7 billion of trade in 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The trip comes as Tshisekedi prepares for elections scheduled for December. Spokespeople for the president and the government didn’t respond to text messages requesting comment. China’s Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that Congolese Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula would visit China May 21-24.

Tshisekedi is scheduled to travel to Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen May 24 through May 29 with a contingent of government officials including his ministers of mines, hydropower and defense. Besides meeting with counterpart Xi Jinping, Tshisekedi is also scheduled to visit a number of battery, energy, mining and tech companies.

China is the primary destination for most of Congo’s copper and cobalt, a key ingredient in electric-vehicle batteries. The central African nation produces 70% of the world’s cobalt and was tied with Peru as the second-biggest source of copper last year.

In 2008, Congo signed a deal with Chinese state companies to finance $3 billion of infrastructure projects using the proceeds from a $3.2 billion copper and cobalt mine. The landmark agreement was signed at a time when Congo was struggling to secure financing after years of war.

‘Bad contract’

In January, Tshisekedi told Bloomberg the contract was “badly drawn up” and that Congo had “derived no benefit from it.” The president said the deal needed to be “rebalanced.”

While the mine is pumping out metal, the Chinese partners have only disbursed about $822 million of infrastructure funding over 14 years, the country’s inspector general said in a report in February.

The watchdog accused the Chinese companies of financial malfeasance, including transfer pricing and dumping, and called for them to be fined $100 million for breaching capital controls under the nation’s mining code by not repatriating more than $2 billion in export revenue.

The inspector general called on the Chinese partners to release $1 billion in infrastructure funding this year and amend the contract to ensure half of future infrastructure contracts go to Congolese companies.

China’s embassy dismissed the report’s conclusions at the time.

Royalty billions

Congo is also negotiating a final deal with China’s CMOC Group Ltd., which is in a dispute with its partner, state-owned Gecamines, over the Tenke Fungurume copper and cobalt mine. Gecamines says CMOC owes billions in royalties and a court-appointed administrator blocked Tenke’s exports last July.

While CMOC and Gecamines have agreed on the outlines of a resolution, they’ve yet to sign a final agreement, Gecamines Chairman Guy-Robert Lukama told Bloomberg Thursday in an interview in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital. In the interim, the joint venture has re-started exports of copper mined in 2022, but is still blocked by the finance ministry from exporting cobalt, he said.

CMOC didn’t respond to emailed questions on Friday. Officials from Gecamines, which is also a partner in the minerals-for-infrastructure contract, are also traveling to China.

(By Michael J. Kavanagh)

Coal country to carbon innovation: Wyoming rare earths discovery could be a game changer for US

Amanda Stutt | May 18, 2023 | 

Brook mine property in Wyoming. 

Image from Ramaco Resources.

While many majors are walking away from the coal business to improve ESG metrics and appease investors, some savvy miners are looking at ways to advance clean energy projects on current and former coal mine sites.


Rare earths, essential elements to realizing an electrified economy, are being discovered latent in some old coal mines – which are seen as environmental legacy liabilities all over North America.

Ramaco Resources, (NASDAQ: METC) a Kentucky-headquartered pure play metallurgic coal miner with operations in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, has this month discovered new potential magnetic rare earth elements (REEs) at its Brook mine in Wyoming, the state which produces about 47% of the country’s coal and where virtually all coal is thermal.

Ramaco’s subsidiary, Ramaco Carbon, is partnering with laboratories, researchers, and manufacturers and is privately investing to create an ecosystem of carbon tech innovation — building what it calls Carbon Valley in Wyoming.

The discovery was made in a partnership with a federal research team from the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), with validation from independent analysts at mining consultancy Weir International — and could pose a potential solution to growing demand that has eluded the US.

There is only one active mine for magnetic REEs in the United States, Mountain Pass in California, which is part owned by Chinese interests and exports its materials to China to be refined. Meanwhile, in recent years, China has come to control 91% of refining activity, 87% of oxide separation and 94% of magnet production, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Undersupply of magnet rare earths is projected to hit 60,000 tonnes by 2030. Adamas Intelligence predicts that from 2023 through 2040 global demand for NdFeB magnets will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 7.5%, bolstered by double-digit growth from electric vehicle and wind power sectors.
‘A new carbon age’

The Biden administration has already begun to look at coal ash, coal waste, and acid mine drainage as feedstock for rare earths. The United States government announced in April it has set aside $450 million to advance clean energy projects on current and former coal mine sites, giving special attention to those that can provide new economic opportunities for coal communities.

Following eighteen months of core drilling and independent chemical analysis, NETL researchers and Ramaco now believe that the Brook mine property contains what could be the largest unconventional deposit of REEs discovered in the United States.

The mine’s reserves are also low in any form of radioactive materials such as thorium, and the deposits are found at reasonably shallow depths — mainly in softer clay and related strata above and below coal seams, which makes rare earths easier and more economic to extract than from hard rock deposits.

Most rare earth is found in conventional hard mineral deposits such as cobalt, uranium, or lithium.

“Unconventional deposits are found in softer substances like clays — and clay- like stratus, which is what we’ve got. About 80% of the value of Chinese rare earth is found in ionic clay deposits — it is much less expensive to process because it’s a softer processing technique and it’s also less environmentally intrusive,” Ramaco founder and CEO Randy Atkins said in an interview with MINING.com.

The mine ranks among the highest relative concentrations yet discovered of magnetic rare earths (MREE) such as heavy REEs terbium and dysprosium, as well as lighter REEs such neodymium and praseodymium. Initial estimates are that about 28% of deposit concentrations may be in the form of MREEs.

These observations were from an assessment of 4,500 acres, less than one third of the total 15,800-acre area of the Brook mine.

Ramaco Resources acquired the Brook mine, near the town of Sheridan at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains in 2011. It was in operations from 1890s to about 1930. Atkins has proposed a fundamentally new, environmentally positive use for carbon derived from its coal. Atkins is a past chairman of the National Coal Council, which is an arm of the Department of Energy.

“Our approach is to use the commodity as a low-cost carbon feedstock to make high-value advanced carbon products and materials that we call “coal to products. ”We have coined the phrase “carbon ore” to refer to coal used in this manner,” Atkins said in a testimony to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 2021, which he called “The New Carbon Age”.

Randy Atkins, chairman and CEO, Ramaco Resources.

 Image from LinkedIn.

Ramaco bought Brook mine from Pittston Coal, which was owned by Brinks, the armored car company.

“Brinks was trying to get out of the coal business, so we rather opportunistically bought this reserve in 2011 — it was the last reserve they’d had. They owned it since 1912,” Atkins told MINING.com.

“Until the catalytic converter was made to convert petroleum into refined products, all the chemistry came from coal,” Atkins said.

“So we’re going back to that and using obviously a centuries worth of new technologies and advances in material and manufacturing to come up with a whole different way to look at it.”

“We bought it with the notion that we would develop it and see what we could make of it,” Atkins said. “I began to explore alternative uses of coal. We had started our permit mine planning and it became apparent to me that even though we were going to continue on the trajectory of planning and permitting the mine that the idea of opening a brand new thermal coal mine was a difficult proposition to justify deploying a lot of capital toward.”

“One of the areas that we highlighted was that critical minerals was a possibility of being derived from coal because there had been some work done actually in China and really not much had been done in the US,” he said.

Ramaco has already completed the permitting process for Brook mine, which took eight years — it is fully permitted to begin mining, and the company is aiming to begin in Q4 this year.

With the area already permitted, mine development could be initiated later this year, after the full year of water monitoring ends at the third quarter. More drilling and testing will continue to determine the ultimate size and character of the REE opportunity over the entire area, including the property that has not yet been assessed.

Ramaco entered into a cooperative research and development agreement with a National Energy Technology Lab trying to create an assessment of where rare earths might be found in the US —including everything from lignite to acid mine drainage to coal deposits in every basin, including uranium and cobalt and any other hard mineral they could be found in.

Innovating Carbon Advanced Materials Center in Wyoming. 

Image from Ramaco Resources.

“They were frankly shocked that they had found concentrations and mostly concentrations in heavy rare earths that were higher than they’d found any place else in the world except outside of Western China and certainly higher than anything they’ve found in the US,” Atkins said.

In the last two years Ramaco focussed on more intense drilling and chemical assessment.

“We put down about 100 drill holes to try to define the nature of the of the deposit,” Atkins said. “We finalized our exploration report and it determined that we have what’s really the largest unconventional RE deposit in the US from their opinion and that it clearly also one of the ones that has the highest concentration of magnetic rare earths.”
Processing partnerships

With a clay deposit like at the Brook mine, physical separation and a light flotation process with a mild solvent separates the rare earths.

“We’re doing more testing to determine if these are ionic in character and if they are, then that makes it even easier to process, because then you just do an ion substitution, and the rare earths fall off — that’s why it’s kind of a big deal to have an ionic deposit because you don’t have to go through either a very expensive processing technique or ship it over to China.”

“As a result of this, we can instead probably look at the coal almost as a as a by-product of mining for the rare earths because the value is all going be of course in the rare earths and not in coal.”

Ramaco is working with the University of North Dakota, which has been doing processing on lignite and with the University of Kentucky, where testing on various terms of types of rare earth conversions from coal is being done to determine best practices.

“I’ve kind of been the only one waving the flag for the third leg of the stool, which is to use coal for alternative purposes, and I think it has a great future in a more technologic use than what people have looked at before,” Atkins said.

“We have financial capability to develop this without having to go get government loans. It’s nice to have Washington on your side and by virtue of doing this alongside a technology lab we have gotten a lot of good reality checks along the way because they have testing and assessment capabilities that nobody else has got — and we won’t be dependent upon China if we get this mine in.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M ECOCIDE

Teck Coal named in US legal action over selenium contamination from BC coal mines

Staff Writer | May 19, 2023 | 

Elkview is one of Teck’s main steelmaking coal operations. (Image courtesy of Teck Resources.)

A legal action filed Thursday in Montana names Teck Coal Ltd. as one of three defendants in a request for judicial review by environmental groups in Montana and Idaho over levels of a contaminant from its British Columbia mines in US waters.


Montana Environmental Information Center, Clark Fork Coalition, Idaho Conservation League, and Idaho Rivers United petitioned the court, seeking declaratory relief from the Board of Environmental Review’s administrative ruling, saying that Montana state authorities illegally struck down a regulation that set limits for selenium in Lake Koocanusa, a lake crossing the border from British Columbia into Montana.

The other two defendants are the Montana Board of Environmental Review and the Board of County Commissioners of Lincoln County, reportedly petitioned by Teck over the regulation on limits.

The selenium, toxic to fish, reportedly originates in Teck’s coal mines in BC’s Elk Valley. The legal action states the boards exceeded their authority when they decreased selenium limits.

“For decades, coal mines in Canada’s Elk River Valley have leached harmful selenium into Lake Koocanusa—a 90-mile reservoir that stretches across the Montana-Canada border. Since 1986, selenium levels have more than quadrupled in the Elk River, contributing to more than 95 percent of the selenium pollution in Lake Koocanusa. The pollution in the lake is worsening as coal mining continues to expand,” court documents read.

Millions in environmental fines

Canada’s largest diversified miner has been slapped with millions in fines this year for at its operations in the Province.

In January Teck was fined C$2.2million ($1.6m) for an acid spill into Columbia River at its Trail smelter operations. A Rossland provincial court judge made the order after the company pleaded guilty to two charges laid under the federal Fisheries Act and one charge laid under the provincial Environmental Management Act. The charges resulted from an effluent release in February 2019.

In February, the government of British Columbia fined Teck Coal Limited C$15.4 million ($11.3m) for exceeding pollution thresholds and failing to build an active water treatment facility on time at its Fording River Operations in southeastern BC.

US Forest Service pauses timeline for Rio Tinto Arizona copper mine

Reuters | May 19, 2023 | 

Image from Resolution Copper.

The US Forest Service has told a federal court it is not sure when it could approve a land swap allowing Rio Tinto Plc to develop the Resolution Copper mine in Arizona, a surprising reversal that boosts several Native American groups opposed to the project.


The complex case involves a long-running conflict between a mining company hoping to supply more than a quarter of US copper demand for the green energy transition and Indigenous groups seeking to preserve Arizona’s Oak Flat campground, a site of religious importance that would be destroyed by the mine’s construction.


In 2014, the US Congress approved a land swap that required an environmental report to be published, which former President Donald Trump’s administration did shortly before leaving office. President Joe Biden unpublished that report in March 2021 to give his administration time to review concerns from Native Americans, though he was not able to permanently block the mine.

The case has wound its way through several courts. Joan Pepin, an attorney for the Forest Service, told judges during a March hearing the report would be republished “this spring.”

Rumors have swirled in recent weeks that the Biden administration was on the verge of re-publishing that report, and several Rio executives made plans to travel to Arizona next week.

Late Thursday night, though, Pepin sent a letter to the court saying government officials were still meeting with Native American tribes.

“The department has not yet identified a timeframe for completing its review,” Pepin said.

Neither Pepin nor other US Forest Service officials could be reached for additional comment.

Previously, officials had said they would alert the court at least 60 days before re-publishing the report. Once re-published, officials would have an additional 60 days to transfer the land to Rio Tinto.

Rio Tinto said it would continue to try to talk with tribes and believes there is significant local support for the mine. “Our team is ready to advance the project in collaboration with Native American tribes, local communities, and labor,” said Vicky Peacey, general manager of the Resolution project.

BHP Group Ltd, which is helping Rio develop the mine, declined to comment.

“It’s quite unusual for the government to have to take back something their attorney told the court under questioning,” said Luke Goodrich of Becket Law, a religious liberty legal group involved in the case.

Representatives for the San Carlos Apache tribe have vowed that if they lose, they will appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court.

“There is overwhelming opposition in Indian Country to the Resolution mine and that will not change,” said Terry Rambler, San Carlos Apache tribal chairman.

Local officials who support the project said they were angered by Pepin’s letter.

“Every time there’s another delay to this process means that investors in our community may decide this isn’t the place to invest because the federal government can’t make up its mind,” said Mila Besich, the Democratic mayor of Superior, a town of 2,500 that abuts the mine site.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by David Gregorio)

 

Canadian Shipbuilder Seaspan Imports Electric Tug

Seaspan/Sanmar

PUBLISHED MAY 18, 2023 4:00 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Canadian shipbuilder Seaspan has imported an all-electric tugboat from Turkish yard Sanmar, a well-known shipyard with a global presence and hundreds of harbor tugs to its name.

The new electric tug will be one of three for the new HaiSea Marine fleet. The tugs were designed by prolific naval architecture firm Robert Allan Ltd. and will be owned and operated in partnership with the Haisla Nation.

HaiSea will provide five escort and harbor tugs for the Shell/Petronas joint venture LNG Canada, a 14 million tonne per annum LNG export terminal to the southeast of Prince Rupert. The route will see large LNG carriers transit up the Douglas Channel to and from the isolated port of Kitimat, B.C.

The final module for the facility's construction was delivered in April, and the project is about 80 percent complete. Commissioning and startup are scheduled for 2025, and all going well, the facility could double in size with a second phase of future construction. 

The two escort tugs are dual-fuel diesel/LNG powered, and the three harbor tugs will be all-electric. The berth for the tug operation is under construction by a Haisla Nation joint venture, including the docks and a new breakwater, and should be completed in early 2024.

According to LNG Canada, the project has awarded $4 billion in contracts to B.C. businesses out of a total estimated budget of $40 billion, including $3 billion to local and first nations-owned enterprises. 

The project's sponsors are also underwriting the construction of a new Marine Emergency Response and Research Facility (MERRF) in Hartley Bay, which will serve as a base for first nation-led marine activities, including rescue operations, training, and environmental research.

 

Port of LA Projects Build Back in Volumes Saying Labor Deal is Close

Port of Los Angeles and Yusen Terminal reprot volumes have stabilized and are beginning to increase (YTI/Los Angeles)

PUBLISHED MAY 18, 2023 7:08 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The Port of Los Angeles provided a tempered but positive outlook for volumes at the port for the remainder of 2023 while admitting that they expected the year would be significantly below 2022 levels. While confirming that 2023 so far has been a “challenging year,” they pointed to both a stabilizing and beginning of a recovery saying that the port is optimistic that it will see a better second half of the year.

“The bright spot is an upward trajectory,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka in his monthly update on the port’s performance. Saying that the port expects improving conditions going forward, he noted that March volumes were up 28 percent versus February and that April added another 10 percent increase in volume. April was less than two percent below the port’s forecast for the month with Seroka projecting May would reach or exceed the forecasted level of 700,000 TEU versus the 688,000 TEU total in April.

The port’s volume so far in 2023 is down 25 percent from the record levels of 2022. In addition, at the end of four months, they are 18 percent below the port’s five-year running average. Seroka points to a cooling global economy, lingering concerns in the U.S. over inflation and rising interest rates, warehouses laden with aging inventory, and prolonged West Coast labor negotiations, all contributing to the volume declines. Shippers he repeated since last summer have also been rerouting volumes away from the Pacific Coast due to the uncertainties over the labor negotiations.

“I am optimistic that we will hear good news soon,” Seroka said discussing the ongoing contract talks which are entering their 13th month. “We are on the doorstep of a labor agreement,” he predicted noting that both sides are spending a lot of time at the negotiating table. The Wall Street Journal recently citing people familiar with the negotiations reported that an agreement was close with many key issues resolved and now focusing on wages.

Seroka said however it could take months for volumes to shift back to the West Coast noting that transportation under the contracts is set at least 30 to 45 days in advance. He said the port would be launching a concerted effort to bring volume back and while it was still early in the year, however admitted they expected 2023 to be below 9 million TEU versus 9.9 million in 2022, and exceeding 10 million the prior year.

The Port of Los Angeles’ forecast for stabilizing and slow growth in volumes mirrors the earlier projections by the National Retail Federation. Alan McCorkle, President and CEO of Yusen Terminals (YTI), one of the large marine container terminals at the Port of Los Angeles, echoed the port’s views saying that volumes had stabilized at its terminal. YTI is also expecting some build-back in volumes as the year progresses. 

The port is using the current period to strengthen systems to ensure it is prepared for future volume as well as address challenges, including California’s new emissions regulations that target operations at the ports as among the first locations for the new limits. As an example of the steps being taken, McCorkle noted that YTI is set to receive the first five commercially available zero-emissions top handlers later this year. The battery-electric top handlers, essential to container terminal operations, have been in demonstration mode at the port complex. They are also planning a hydrogen demonstration project with Toyota due to start in 2024.

 

ABS Uses Simulation and Modeling to Tackle Ammonia’s Safety Challenge

ABS Used CFD techniques to model the behavior of ammonia leaks.

PUBLISHED MAY 20, 2023 4:17 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

[By: ABS]

In a pioneering safety development, ABS is using advanced modeling and simulation technologies to develop emergency response methods to assist ports and crew in responding to ammonia leaks or spills.

It is the first step towards a comprehensive and fast ammonia release response system, capable of predicting the behavior of an ammonia plume and directing emergency mitigation services accordingly.

Thanks to its potential for zero-carbon emissions, ammonia is widely viewed as a promising fuel solution for a more sustainable industry but its high toxicity presents significant operational challenges on board and ashore.

“ABS has always been a safety pioneer, so we are well placed to tackle the significant operational risks presented by this critical piece of the net-zero jigsaw puzzle. Our advanced simulation and modeling approach is already shining a light on the unique behaviors of this fuel in a range of scenarios. This will inform the strategies of ports, crews and emergency services and enable immediate and informed response to an ammonia release.   This is the sweet spot for ABS, the nexus of advanced technology, regulation and safety and we are on course to deliver a significant safety development for the industry,” said Christopher J. Wiernicki, ABS Chairman, President and CEO.

An industry leader in modeling and simulation, ABS combined those techniques with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to create a high-fidelity model designed to replicate ammonia dispersion patterns in the engine room. Using this new model, ABS specialists studied the impact of various ventilation approaches on the behavior of ammonia plumes resulting from leakages from the fuel lines, revealing optimum methods to vent the ammonia plume.

Leveraging this industry-leading approach, a dynamic model will be able to swiftly predict the response of an ammonia plume to a range of parameters such as wind speed and direction, humidity, cubic meters per second and relationship of the vessel to port. In addition to dispersion analysis, agent-based discrete event simulations to study the response of crew, port authorities, and emergency services after dispersion will be conducted.

More information from ABS on the potential of ammonia as a marine fuel is available here. ABS requirements for ammonia-fueled vessels are available here.

The products and services herein described in this press release are not endorsed by The Maritime Executive.

Project Explores Ammonia Power Refit for Offshore Vessel

Skansi operates five PSVs and will explore retrofitting one to ammonia power (Skansi)

PUBLISHED MAY 19, 2023 6:21 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Amogy, a U.S.-based startup that seeks to commercialize ammonia-fueled power systems, announced that it has signed an agreement to explore the installation of its ammonia-fuel system aboard an offshore vessel.  This comes as the company is currently working on a project to demonstrate an ammonia-fueled tugboat by the end of 2023 after it has already demonstrated ammonia-fueled operations with a drone, heavy-duty tractor, and semi-truck.

Calling its newest project another important step toward decarbonizing sustainable technology in the maritime industry, the start-up which has investors including Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, AP Ventures, SK, Saudi Aramco, and DCVC, entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Skansi Offshore, a shipping company headquartered in the Faroe Islands, and Norwegian system developer and integrator SEAM.

"Given the whole industry's strong commitment to clean fuels, it is crucial for us to make a positive impact here," said Christian W. Berg, Managing Director of Amogy Norway. "We believe our partnership with Skansi and SEAM can serve as a compelling inspiration for other maritime operators to follow."

The three companies will investigate a potential technology collaboration in the field of ammonia application, with the goal of decarbonizing the offshore industry. The first focus of this collaboration is a possible retrofit of Amogy's ammonia-to-power system on one of Skansi's existing vessels.

"Integrating Amogy's ammonia-to-hydrogen technology in our vessel is a significant step in the right direction, bringing us closer to our long-term goal of decarbonizing the maritime industry and reducing greenhouse gas emissions," said Jens Meinhard Rasmussen, CEO of Skansi Offshore. 

Skansi owns and operates five platform supply vessels. The company provides offshore support and transportation services for the international offshore oil and gas industry.

Amogy though its operations in Norway is working to test larger systems including a 200 kW ammonia-to-power platform that would be used for the demonstrations on the tugboat. The company acquired a tug built in 1957 and said it would be refitting it with a 1-megawatt version of the company’s system, three times larger than what has been field-tested on an ammonia-fueled semi-truck earlier this year. Amogy's ammonia-to-power technology feeds liquid ammonia through its cracking modules integrated into a hybrid fuel cell system, which powers the electric motors.

The company has said it plans to continue the testing in Norway and also plans a demonstration for an inland barge retrofit in partnership with Southern Devall.