De Beers eyes five-year agreement as 

diamond strike looms

Compiled by Karl Gernetzky

The De Beers Venetia mine in Limpopo.
Supplied

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Anglo American subsidiary De Beers said on Friday it is looking to secure a five-year wage deal with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), with that union considering an offer amid the looming threat of a strike at its Venetia Mine and its sorting and sales business.

"We believe that a five-year agreement will provide a measure of certainty, particularly against the backdrop of the transition from open pit mining to the underground mine at Venetia Mine and the recent move of our sorting and valuation business from Kimberley to Johannesburg," it said in a statement.

"As the diamond industry, we are also faced with challenging market conditions that are continuing to have an adverse impact on our business."

NUM said on Tuesday it had begun a mobilisation process among its 1 500 members, with the union demanding a wage increase of 9%, while De Beers was offering 6%. After four months of talks, a dispute has been declared with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, the union said, adding that members would not accept less than 9%, and had progressively moved down from a demand of 25%.

The union said that food, fuel and general inflation had skyrocketed, leaving no room for "peanuts," and that it was prepared for the "mother of all strikes."

De Beers said on Friday the only outstanding issue is wages, with the union considering its offer after a meeting under the auspices of the CCMA on Wednesday. "We are confident that through continued engagement with the union and our employees we will reach a sustainable settlement with the NUM," it said. SA labour laws require a dispute to be referred to the CCMA, which starts a 30-day conciliation process, although this can be extended with the consent of the parties.

De Beers has had reached the bottom of its open pit at Venetia in Limpopo in 2022, and has since transitioned to underground mining, delivering its first stones in July.

READ | De Beers' new mine in Limpopo delivers first diamonds 

Venetia continues to process lower-grade surface stockpiles, which will result in temporary lower production levels as it transitions to underground operations, where first production was recently achieved. It will ramp-up over the next few years as development continues, the mining group said in its half-year results to end-June.

RUSSIAN MINER
Nornickel says cash flow not yet stable enough to resume dividends

Reuters | September 8, 2023 | 

Vladimir Potanin. (Image: The Kremlin.)

Russian metals and mining giant Norilsk Nickel is not yet generating free cash flow on a stable enough basis to resume dividend payments, but does not rule out doing so in future, head of investor relations Mikhail Borovikov told reporters on Thursday.


Nornickel this year failed to pay dividends on its 2022 results for the first time in 14 years, citing “negative geopolitics” without explicitly mentioning the Ukraine conflict and the Western economic sanctions it has triggered.

Borovikov said the decision on dividends rested with the two key shareholders.

“What could influence [their decision] is, of course, the company’s ability to generate free cash flow without jeopardising capital investment, jeopardising debt, jeopardising normal operations,” he said.

“Now the situation with cash flow is improving, but we would not say that all the risks are behind us … When we understand that we have reached a normal cash flow track, then we would, of course, like to use cash flow as a basis for the payment of dividends.”

Free cash flow increased by 28% in the first half, year-on-year, to $1.3 billion. In all of 2022, it decreased by 25% to $1.1 billion.

Dividends are a sensitive subject for Nornickel.

Disagreements on the issue have for years been the main reason for on-and-off rows between its powerful main owners, chief executive and largest shareholder Vladimir Potanin and aluminum producer Rusal.

A decade-old shareholder agreement protecting dividend payouts expired at the end of 2022, again putting them at odds.

Borovikov said it was a sound idea to buy back shares from non-residents, following the example of Russia’s Magnit, but that Nornickel was not considering the issue since it required the diversion of significant funds.

It is, however, seriously considering a share split to boost market liquidity, Borovikov said.

Nornickel’s shares were trading down around 1.8% at 1647 GMT in Moscow at 16,592 roubles, off an earlier low at 16,376.

(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Kevin Liffey; Editing by David Evans and Alexandra Hudson)

Receiver puts abandoned Minto mine in the Yukon up for sale

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Receiver PriceWaterhouseCoopers officially started the sale process last week

Jackie Hong · CBC News · Posted: Sep 07, 2023

A file photo of the Minto mine. Receiver PriceWaterhouseCoopers has put the since-abandoned property up for sale. (Capstone Mining Corp.)

The abandoned Minto mine in central Yukon is officially up for sale. 

Receiver PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which has been managing the Minto Metal Corp.'s affairs since July, issued a sales and investment solicitation document on its website for the property last week.

Potential buyers can place bids for either the entire Minto property — located approximately 240 kilometres north of Whitehorse, near Pelly Crossing — or pieces of it, with initial bids accepted until Oct. 6. 

A timeline in the sale document states binding bids will be due Oct. 30, with an assessment period to follow. The firm hopes to select a successful bid — assuming there are any — before Dec. 31 and to have it approved by a judge within 60 days, anticipated to be Jan. 26, 2024. 

The launch of the sale process is the latest in the growing saga of the most recently-abandoned mine in the territory; Minto Metal Corp. suddenly ceased operations at the site in May, leaving dozens of contractors, workers and Selkirk First Nation, on whose territory the mine sits, in the lurch. 

Dozens of lawsuits and liens have been filed in the aftermath. The most recent figures from PriceWaterhouseCoopers say that while Minto has $75 million in assets, it also owes approximately $64 million-and-counting to a variety of creditors. 

That debt, along with other costs such as paying outstanding financial security for the property — Minto Metals owed the Yukon government an additional $18 million before its collapse — and getting the mine up and running again, may make Minto a hard sell, Yukon Conservation Society mining analyst Lewis Rifkind said in an interview. 

"There's a lot of money that's going to be required just to financially stabilize the site, let alone, you know, once you put boots on the ground, the environmental work [and] all that sort of stuff," he said. 

"Was it Mark Twain that said, you know, a mine is nothing more than a hole in the ground owned by a liar? Unfortunately we, as in Yukoners and the government, are the owners of this particular hole so it'll be interesting to see if anyone actually does put a bid in for the entire project."

"If someone buys this mine," he added, "maybe we can sell them the bridge to Riverdale."

• Minto Metals hasn't paid mining royalties in two years, says Yukon gov't

• Selkirk First Nation sues Minto Metals Corp. alleging company owes $1.3M+ in royalties

The Yukon government, in the meantime, continues to pay for water treatment and other environmental protection activities at the site. 

No one from the territorial Department of Energy, Mines and Resources was available for an interview. In an email, department spokesperson John Thompson wrote that the government has spent $5.92 million to date on contracts at the Minto mine since the site was abandoned in May, including for site operation, water treatment and technical support. 

In total, the Yukon government has signed $20.5 million-worth of contracts for work that may be needed at the site up to the end of May 2024, though Thompson noted that there was "no certainty at this point that we would spend the entire amount."

"Our focus at Minto mine is on ensuring the environment is protected and on beginning reclamation and closure activities," he wrote.

"Water management continues to be a major focus at the site and will continue to be through all stages of reclamation and closure. We're also working on the plan to reclaim the underground workings, one of the early and priority tasks associated with reclamation and closure."

Before its collapse, Minto Metals had furnished just more than $75 million in financial security; Thompson said the Yukon government intends to access that money to cover its costs.  

Orano halts uranium treatment in Niger because of sanctions on junta

Bloomberg News | September 8, 2023 | 

Credit: Orano SA

French nuclear group Orano SA is halting the processing of uranium ore at one of its facilities in Niger because international sanctions against the military junta are hampering logistics.


The crisis that’s affecting the African nation, which has about 5% of the world’s uranium, may potentially tighten supplies of the material used to fuel nuclear reactors in the US, China and Europe. That may force utilities to become more dependent on other producers such as Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia.

The maintenance of Orano’s uranium-treatment plant in Niger — initially planned to start early next year — has been moved forward amid dwindling stockpiles of the chemicals needed for processing, the company said in a statement Friday.

Operations continue at the group’s Somair mine, which is 37% owned by the Niger government, the company said.

Orano usually exports uranium concentrate to Benin, where it’s either shipped back to France or to Canada. There typically are about 4-6 shipments a year.

To ensure supply for its customers, Orano is also sourcing material from mines in Canada and Kazakhstan where it has stakes, the company said. There’s no emergency in the short term, it said.

Ties between Niger and France, its former colonial ruler, have frayed since soldiers seized control of the country in July and ousted President Mohamed Bazoum. French President Emmanuel Macron has strongly condemned the coup, saying it poses a threat to the entire region.

(By Francois de Beaupuy)

G20 GREENWASHING
India forges global biofuel alliance in push toward net-zero aim

Bloomberg News | September 9, 2023 | 

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Image by COP26, Flickr.)

India launched a global alliance for promoting biofuels adoption at the Group of 20 leaders meeting in New Delhi, aimed at reducing emissions in the transportation and industrial sectors.


The Global Biofuel Alliance, which include top producers Brazil and the US, has been one of India’s key priorities for the G-20 presidency. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on G-20 members to collaborate on the fuel-blending initiative as the South Asian nation aspires to increase ethanol mix in gasoline to as much as 20%.

This is the second major global initiative on green energy pioneered by the country after the launch of International Solar Alliance in 2015 and is expected to boost Modi’s credentials as global climate leader. During Modi’s nine-year tenure, India added renewable capacity at a record pace, but still pushes back on coal phase-down demands, citing its growing energy needs.

The global alliance will help build the worldwide market in biofuel trade, and fuels obtained from biomass could serve multiple purposes for India. India wants to tap into Brazil’s experience in running vehicles on blended ethanol, and it can use pellets made of crop waste to displace a certain amount of coal in its power plants.

Turning biomass into fuel will help India use up the thousands of tons of crop waste that farmers are currently forced to burn every harvest season, enveloping much of northern India in smog for weeks.

Adding ethanol to conventional fuels reduces the need for crude oil, the biggest component of India’s import bill. Refiners, such as Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum Corp. currently mix 12% ethanol in gasoline, and the government plans to raise the target to 20% blending by 2025. Federal Oil Minister Hardeep Puri, who during his time as a diplomat served as India’s ambassador to Brazil, is leading the push.

Globally, the use of biofuels reduced the consumption of 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2022, equivalent to 4% of the global transport sector oil demand, according to the International Energy Agency. Local production in emerging markets, mainly Brazil, India and Indonesia, avoided $38 billion of import costs, the agency said.

(By Rakesh Sharma and Simone Iglesias, with assistance from Debjit Chakraborty)

SEE

 LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BIOFUEL 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BIOFUELS 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CORN 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ETHANOL 

GEMOLOGY
Alrosa says mines largest gem-quality diamond in Russia in decade

Reuters | September 9, 2023 |

Udachny, Alrosa’s biggest diamond mine near city of Udachny, Yakutia. 

(Reference image by Alrosa).

Sanctions-hit Alrosa, the world’s biggest diamond producing company, said on Sunday it has mined the largest gem-quality diamond in Russia in the past decade.


The 390.7-carat diamond was mined at one of the company’s mines in the Republic of Sakha, Alrosa said in a statement. The region, commonly known as Yakutia, lies in Russia’s Far East along the Arctic Ocean.

“The found diamond is a light crystal of an irregular shape, bordered by a yellow-brown halo – a combination of mass, shape and colour that is unique today,” Alrosa said.

The company mined the largest gem-quality diamond in Russia in 2013, weighing 401 carats, Alrosa said.

The word’s largest gem-quality diamond ever mined – the 3,106 carat Cullinan stone – was recovered in South Africa in 1905.

Alrosa was last year placed under sanctions by the United States, which cut it off from its banking system and banned direct sales to the US market after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Last month the company reported a rise of 0.2% in revenue for the first half of the year but said net profit fell 35% year-on-year to 55.6 billion roubles.

(By Lidia Kelly; Editing by Michael Perry)

Four killed in blast at Chinese-owned quarry in Ghana

CHINA SHIPS BAD MINING PRACTICES ABROAD

Reuters | September 10, 2023 | 

Granite boulder. (Reference image by Tuan Lifecolor, Pixnio.)

At least four people were killed, including one Chinese national, in an explosion at a granite quarry in western Ghana owned by Chinese company Omni Quarries late on Saturday, local officials said on Sunday.


It was not immediately clear what caused the blast, which destroyed buildings near the quarry in Shama district and left rubble strewn across swathes of agricultural land, said local disaster management official Michael Nyah

Four more people are still missing while two are in a critical condition and being treated at a regional hospital, he told Reuters.

“Farmland around has been destroyed and the buildings that are not destroyed have ripped-off ceilings or cracked walls,” he said.

It was not immediately possible to reach Omni for comment.

Community assemblyman Emmanuel Owu-Ewie said he was woken late on Saturday by parts of his ceiling collapsing.

“Everything has come down; all you see around are electricity poles and trees but the area has been flattened,” he said.

He said rescue efforts were still underway.

(By Maxwell Akalaare Adombila, Christian Akorlie and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Frances Kerry)

US, Saudi Arabia in talks to secure metals in Africa – WSJ

Reuters | September 10, 2023 | 

US President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz. (Image by the Saudi Press Agency, Wikimedia Commons.)

The United States and Saudi Arabia are in talks to secure metals in Africa needed to help them with their energy transitions, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people with knowledge of the talks.


A state-backed Saudi venture would buy stakes in mining assets worth $15 billion in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea and Namibia, which will permit US companies to have rights to buy some of the production, the report added.

The US is in a race to catch up with China for supplies of cobalt, lithium and other metals that are used in electric car batteries, laptops and smartphones.

In a similar arrangement in July, Saudi Arabian Mining Co (Ma’aden) and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) acquired 10% of Brazilian Vale’s base metal unit, while US investment firm Engine No. 1 acquired 3%.

The newspaper said the PIF approached Congo in June about investing in cobalt, copper and tantalum in the country via its $3 billion joint venture with Ma’aden called Manara Minerals

Manara is also focusing on iron ore, nickel and lithium.

The White House is seeking the financial backing of other sovereign-wealth funds in the region, but talks with Saudi Arabia have progressed the farthest, the Journal added.

The Saudi government and The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(By Urvi Dugar; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince looks to metals as new source of wealth

Bloomberg News | September 7, 2023 | \

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the Chairman of the Public Investment Fund (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

In scorching summer heat, Renier Swiegers marches through the desert toward a drilling rig. He’s not looking for oil, the dynamo of Saudi Arabia’s economy the past 80 years, though. It’s another potential source of wealth and influence the kingdom now has its eye on.


Having already used its energy riches to upend the worlds of sports, tourism and movies, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is prepared to pour billions of dollars into tapping the more than $1.3 trillion of metals his government says is buried in places like this.

The plan may be among the less glamorous components of his grand Vision 2030 to transform the Saudi economy. The prospect of turning the country into a metals hub that can make a dent in a global industry also has no shortage of skeptics. But Saudi Arabia’s 38-year-old de-facto leader has no shortage of wealth or ambition. Key will be convincing international mining companies it’s worth their while.

If only partially successful, the dream would have implications beyond the Middle East, not just for metals mining but also Saudi Arabia’s relations with the US, China and the emerging markets the kingdom is inching closer to.

Swiegers, a Namibian who works for British mining firm Moxico Resources Plc, is a believer. He’s helping establish a new zinc and copper open pit mine about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

“I’ve done projects all over Africa, and I know the geology and where is good to mine,” said Swiegers, extracting earth samples from the rig from as deep as 200 meters and pointing to copper deposits glittering in the sun. “This site is just like those.”

If everything comes to fruition, by 2025 the Khnaiguiyah site he’s working on will be producing metals including 100,000 tons a year of zinc and 10,000 tons of copper in its first phase. That’s miniscule by global standards — equivalent to Chile’s copper output in about 18 hours — but the aim is to double the volume. It’s one of several projects in the kingdom.


As well as developing local mines, there’s also another element to the plan that industry insiders say is less speculative and quicker to get up and running. Saudi Arabia wants to buy up resources from elsewhere to be refined and processed at new facilities inside the kingdom.

In July, the country announced its first big push into international mining. It took part in a $3.4 billion deal in Brazil, buying a stake in Vale SA’s base metals unit alongside investment fund Engine No. 1.

The transaction was the first by Manara Minerals, a vehicle established by Saudi Arabia’s powerful sovereign wealth fund — the Public Investment Fund, or PIF — and Saudi Mining Co., also known as Maaden. The agreement gives the kingdom, which beat off competition from Japan and Qatar, a 10% slice in one of the world’s crucial suppliers of nickel and copper — essential metals needed to decarbonize.

There will be more. Manara’s two shareholders will initially provide about $3 billion for two or three international deals a year, and more funding will be provided if needed, people familiar with the strategy said. It’s part of Maaden’s aim to ramp up its role in domestic production, while also buying access to global resources.
Pillar of the new Saudi economy

Using government subsidies and lending by state-controlled funds, the overarching goal is to position Saudi Arabia as an alternative supplier to China for the metals and minerals vital to the global energy transition, such as batteries for electric cars. In short, dirty old mining is one of the pillars of the clean new future.

“Saudi Arabia needs more than one engine to achieve its vision,” Khalid Al Mudaifer, vice minister of mining affairs, said in an interview. The kingdom’s plan is to transform itself into an economic and industrial powerhouse, he said. “For that we need minerals.”

The main metal of interest to companies is copper, but Saudi Arabia also wants to mine uranium and phosphates for its nascent nuclear program. That’s drawn the attention of Western powers and the United Nations, who are wary of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly pledged that its atomic program is strictly for peaceful purposes, but Prince Mohammed has said the kingdom would develop a bomb if the other big Middle Eastern power, Iran, did so.

Some executives and advisers at the world’s biggest miners, though, have doubts about the kingdom’s domestic mining plans and point first to its geology. Its uranium reserves have been called “severely uneconomic.” The copper deposits — the most desirable metal for most miners — were mainly formed by volcanic activity.


That means they will likely only be found in small to medium-sized areas. It makes them less attractive to mine than the deposits that stretch down the through the Andes in Latin America and provide the bulk of the world’s supplies or the sedimentary-rock formations in places like Central Africa.

These jurisdictions — and even the largely undeveloped copper crescent that runs through Iran and Pakistan — are seen as much more prospective for the large, long-life mines many of the major global companies are looking to develop.

There’s also the problem of water, something in scarce supply in Saudi Arabia, which is around 95% desert. “There is also the challenge of availability of infrastructure, particularly for deposits located in remote desert areas,” said Carole Nakhle, founder and chief executive officer of London-based consultancy Crystol Energy.

Much of the Saudi plan will hinge on how successful projects like the one at Khnaiguiyah are at getting from identifying specific locations of mineral deposits to commercial production. Ajlan & Bros, the local investor developing Khnaiguiyah along with UK-based Moxico Resources, has earmarked $14 billion to invest in developing mines and processing facilities by 2030.

The firm, controlled by a wealthy Saudi family that built its fortune on selling traditional Arab headdresses, is betting that “Saudi Arabia can become a new source of minerals and rare earths away from China,” said Fahad Alenezi, CEO for the metals and mining group at Ajlan & Bros. As China and the US compete for access to resources “this is healthy for us,” he said.

Ajlan is planning to develop the largest zinc and copper processing plant in the Middle East at Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s west coast. Most of the focus will be domestic demand, but the firm is already getting offers from Chinese and European trading houses to take any commodities it can produce.

Saudi Arabia is partnering with the Chinese Geological Survey on a $207 million contract to help identify minerals in the so-called Arabian Shield area of the kingdom where most deposits are, officials said at a Saudi-China business conference in June. The government in Beijing has also led efforts to identify the kingdom’s uranium deposits.

“The bottom line is that Saudi is exceptionally prospective,” Mark Bristow, CEO of Barrick Gold Corp, said in an interview during a visit to Riyadh in January. As for the estimate of more than $1 trillion of metals in the ground, “Whatever that number is, it’s worth an investment,” said Bristow, whose company took a risk on Mali more than 25 years ago and helped to turn it into a top African gold producer.

Canada’s Barrick operates a copper mine on Saudi Arabia’s southwestern coast near the Red Sea. It’s also been in talks with the PIF about a potential stake in a copper project in Pakistan, which would bring in Saudi money and political influence, people familiar with the matter said recently.

Vision 2030 eyes $75 billion

The government is offering big incentives for companies to start mining. The Saudi Industrial Development Fund will offer financing for up to 75% of a project. There’s a five year grace period on royalty payments, a cap on taxation levels, and a commitment not to levy windfall taxes. All government income from mining will go into a special fund to be reinvested in the industry.

Mining is the so-called “third pillar” of the economy in Vision 2030. The others are petroleum and petrochemicals, meaning mining would become the biggest part of the economy after oil and gas. The industry would eventually employ more than 250,000 people and contribute some $75 billion to Saudi gross domestic product by 2030, according to the targets.

A metals refining and processing industry could have potential to draw interest from international partners looking to provide more competition with China, which currently dominates minerals processing and battery manufacturing. That, of course, is if it all goes to plan.

So far, Saudi auctions for exploration licenses in the country have attracted only smaller players. The kingdom in August announced another bid round for investment and development of eight mining areas across the country.

Doubts among the big miners, though, don’t mean they aren’t closely following the Saudi efforts. Under the crown prince, Saudi Arabia is willing to take the kind of commercial risks other countries with mining ambitions might balk at, and his futuristic new city in the desert, called Neom, and the recent lavish spending on football shows the kingdom’s belief in its aims.

“Others in the industry were telling me that this is real and it’s something you need to get closer to,” Mike Henry, CEO of BHP Group Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, said during a trip to Saudi Arabia. “It’s definitely the real deal.” That was in January when he attended the country’s annual mining conference. Whether giants like BHP get involved remains to be seen.

(By Matthew Martin, Fahad Abuljadayel and Thomas Biesheuvel, with assistance from Anthony Di Paola, Tiffany Tsoi, Paul Wallace, Jonathan Tirone and Samuel Dodge)

US lags behind China, India, EU when it comes to battery recycling - report

Chart: China is trouncing the US on battery recycling

In Asia and Europe, policy is driving the growth of lithium-ion battery recycling. The U.S. still lacks rules that would spur industry momentum.

Supported by

Maria Virginia Olano


Canary Media’s chart of the week translates crucial data about the clean energy transition into a visual format. Canary thanks Natural Power for its support of this feature.

China is the global leader in recycling of lithium-ion batteries, far outpacing all other nations. As of late 2021, China had more than three times as much existing and planned lithium-ion battery recycling capacity as the U.S., according to a recent paper.

Deployment of lithium-ion batteries is expected to skyrocket in the coming years — in electric vehicles and in energy storage systems for homes, businesses and the grid. Recycling these batteries at the end of their useful lives is important to keep hazardous waste out of the environment. But there are critical national-security and economic reasons to do it too, as Canary’s Julian Spector recently discussed on The Carbon Copy podcast. Countries that can reclaim valuable minerals and metals from spent batteries — notably lithium, cobalt, copper and nickel — can lessen their reliance on foreign sources and potentially cut materials costs. It’s better to mine a waste stream than to mine the earth.

In the U.S., lithium-ion battery recycling is a nascent industry, but it’s starting to develop, as Spector reports. Policies that would support or even super-charge the industry have not yet been adopted, however — and in most states and Congress, they’re barely even being considered.

Meanwhile, the European Union has banned landfilling of batteries since 2006, and it’s poised to implement new rules to make auto manufacturers responsible for recycling old batteries from their EVs, require new lithium-ion batteries to contain certain amounts of recycled content, and require new batteries to be designed in ways that make them easier to recycle.

China too has rules that have spurred the creation of its lithium-ion battery recycling sector. The country began promoting lithium-ion battery recycling through policy in 2012 and has adopted more measures since, including one in 2018 that requires manufacturers to collaborate with recycling companies to improve the recycling process.

***

Natural Power is a global consultancy that supports its clients to deliver a wide range of renewable energy projects. Its independent engineering experience covers all phases of the project lifecycle, from feasibility through construction to operations, and all stages of the transaction. Learn more.

First Quantum reaches deal with Panama copper mine union, avoids strike

Reuters | September 10, 2023 

Cobre Panamá operation. (Image by Minera Panama.)

The Panamanian unit of Canada’s First Quantum Minerals and a workers union at the company’s key copper mine in Panama said on Saturday they had reached an agreement, avoiding a planned strike over profit sharing and wage increases.


The worker’s union, Utramipa, had threatened on Thursday to stop work on Saturday, alleging an impasse in negotiation with the directors of Minera Panama, the miner’s local unit. The company indicated on Friday that it was negotiating with workers.

“Utramipa has reached an agreement where we have completed the negotiation processes with the Minera Panama company, we have complied with the corresponding deadlines,” union leader Michael Camacho said early Saturday in a video sent to Reuters. “There is no strike,” he stated later.

Minera Panama confirmed in a Saturday statement that it had reached a deal with the workers.

“This agreement has been possible thanks to the collaboration, open dialogue and shared commitment to the collective wellbeing of our collaborators,” the statement said, without disclosing further details.

Cobre Panama, a huge open-pit copper project located in the Panama jungle, is First Quantum’s flagship operation, accounting for nearly half of its earnings. It also accounts for about 4% of Panama’s gross domestic product.

“We have successfully obtained all the clauses that were presented in this new project,” Camacho said.

He added that a salary increase had been agreed upon, but did not specify the amount, as well as several bonuses and improvements in retirement benefits.

Camacho said the union will provide more details about the agreement soon.

In a statement Thursday, the workers said there were disagreements over profit sharing and wage increases, and that the company was proposing an incentive instead of benefits, which would not be included in the collective bargaining agreement.

(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire and Raul Cortes; Translation by Jackie Botts; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Richard Chang)