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

Good news from Congo. And perhaps even more unexpectedly, it has come about with the help of users of mobile phones, legislators in Washington and corporate giants such as Apple and Intel. That is the finding of an investigation by the Enough Project, an anti-genocide campaign group, which says Congolese warlords have lost their grip on most of the country’s mines and lucrative conflict minerals.

Read more at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/congo-mines-no-longer-grip-warlords-militias-report-enough-project

Siemens AG (SIE) is in talks with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011) about a joint bid to buy Alstom SA’s energy business and counter a $17 billion offer by General Electric Co. (GE:US)

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy and Munich-based Siemens will decide whether to submit a joint proposal to Alstom’s board of directors by June 16, the two companies said in a statement today, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News. The companies didn’t give further details.

Read more at:  http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-06-11/siemens-said-in-talks-with-mitsubishi-on-joint-alstom-bid

Canada’s first industrial-scale wind power facility is being installed in two phases at Glencore Xstrata‘s Raglan nickel-copper mine near the tip of the Ungava Peninsula. The mine is well sited to take advantage of the wind because it sits on a plateau 600 metres high with few trees in the area.

Read more at: http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/news/nickel-copper-canadas-first-industrial-scale-wind-power-facility-at-raglan-mine/1003105914/?&er=NA

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and nickel miner PT Vale Indonesia are still hammering out issues relating to Vale’s contract renegotiation.

The ministry’s director general for minerals and coal, R. Sukhyar, recently said Vale had agreed to return around 83,000 hectares (ha) of its concession area to the government.

However, he said, both parties were still negotiating to accommodate requests by the local administration regarding the utilization of areas that had not been mined or explored. These areas have been left idle.

Read more at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/06/10/non-mining-areas-key-issue-vale-s-contract-renegotiation.html

Russia’s Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium, is paying dividends totaling 74 billion rubles ($2.15 billion) for 2013 — 17 percent higher than in 2012, Itar-Tass reported.

The company set its final dividend for 2013 at 39 billion rubles ($1.15 billion) at its annual shareholders’ meeting on Friday, having already paid interim dividends worth 35 billion rubles ($1 billion) in December.

Read more at: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/norilsk-nickels-dividend-payout-17-higher-for-2013/501700.html

Jakarta. Indonesia is seen as a high-priority growth market for Deutsche Bank and the election year would not distract the lender from staying on course with its objective to become the leading global universal bank in the country.

“Deutsche Bank wants to continue its focus on Indonesia, which has significant importance and potential for the Bank,” Kunardy Lie, the new chief country officer at the Indonesian branch of Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday.

Read more at:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/indonesia-high-priority-growth-market-deutsche-bank/

Chinese investors have expressed their intention to build an aluminum smelting plant in West Kalimantan and develop an industrial park in Bekasi, West Java, which would both absorb investments of up to US$1.6 billion, a minister has said.

Industry Minister MS Hidayat said on Friday that the Chinese firms were seeking local partners to jointly build and operate the smelter.

Read more at:  http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/06/07/chinese-firms-spend-16b-alumina-smelter-industrial-park.html

(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Energy said on Wednesday it will study the environmental risk of importing spent nuclear fuel from Germany that contains highly enriched uranium, a move believed to be the first for the United States.

The department said it is considering a plan to ship the nuclear waste from Germany to the Savannah River Site, a federal facility in South Carolina.

The 310-acre site already holds millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste in tanks. The waste came from reactors in South Carolina that produced plutonium for nuclear weapons from 1953 to 1989.

Read more at:  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/04/usa-scarolina-nuclear-idUKL1N0OL27P20140604