A Blog for Browsing Mining, Mineral Processing, and Metals Info

An SK Innovation employee examines a machine inside the company’s electric car battery plant in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province. (SK Innovation)

SEOSAN, South Korea, July 29 (Yonhap) — SK Innovation Co., South Korea’s top refiner, vowed Wednesday to further bolster its electric vehicle (EV) battery business by expanding its global outreach as part of efforts to find a new income source.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2015/07/29/0501000000AEN20150729007500320.html

It’s a strange time to be in mining.

Irrational exuberance has been replaced by irrational despondency.

Just four-five short years ago even the flimsiest prospect or project could look forward to lavish funding and a fat market cap.

Today even those juniors doing the right thing at the right time still cannot attract investors to take it to the next level.

Read more at: http://www.mining.com/the-nickel-price-can-only-go-up/

Thirteen technologies from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been selected as finalists for R&D 100 Awards, the annual technology prizes given by R&D Magazine.

via ORNL has 13 finalists for R&D 100 Award.

Ferronickel imports also more than doubled in the first half of this year and were running at a record pace of over 60,000 tonnes per month in both May and June.

So is that import demand now spilling into the refined metal market, offering bulls the tantalizing hope that the seemingly endless rise in London Metal Exchange stocks might be about to turn?

Read more at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/23/us-china-imports-ahome-idUSKCN0PX1GR20150723

Read more at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-commodities-tumble-asia-pacific-economies-grasp-for-growth-1437480942

Hundreds of Chinese investors protested outside of the Fanya Metal Exchange, in the south of the country last week, after finding that the minor rare earth metals exchange was unable pay out on investment products.

Read more at: http://www.mining.com/chinese-rare-earth-metals-exchange-to-pay-6-4bn-owed-to-investors/

Chinese stainless steel mills shows more interest in refined nickel than NPI following sharp losses in the nickel market, Shanghai Metals Market survey finds.

Read more at: http://www.metal.com/newscontent/75176_ni-price-chinese-stainless-steel-mills-prefer-refined-nickel-over-npi

Workers prepare to unload Australian iron ore at the Chinese port of Tianjin

“This [China’s stock market turmoil] is more unwinding of the supercycle — there was a positive demand shock caused by China on the way up and now China is delivering negative demand shocks on the way down,” says David Butler, head of European metals and mining research at Barclays in London. “Institutional investors are extremely cautious and those that have been a bit more confident in recent months will be completely dismayed by what is going on . . . the volatility can only be inflicting serious permanent damage on funds’ desire to come into the sector.”

Read more at: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3de55ed6-262c-11e5-9c4e-a775d2b173ca.html#axzz3fUGKZnm0