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

SYDNEY, March 4 (Reuters) – China’s Baoshan Iron & Steel (Baosteel) and Minmetals Development are near deals to buy at least half a million tonnes of coal a year from an Australian firm operating in Kyrgyzstan, sources said.

The bid by the industrial conglomerates to get coal from China’s western neighbor comes amid efforts to curb the burning of the resource in and around the capital Beijing, where air quality has left the city shrouded in a noxious haze at times.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/04/australia-coal-kyrgyzstan-idUKL3N0M114920140304

OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s largest mining company, may be the least affected among its peers by the Ukraine crisis because of its dominant position in global nickel and palladium supplies and financial strength.

Norilsk’s position is fortified by its 17 percent share of worldwide nickel output and 41 percent of palladium, Dmitry Kolomytsyn, a Moscow-based analyst at Morgan Stanley, said by phone. The metals are priced in dollars, which reached a record high against the ruble today.

Read more at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-03/norilsk-nickel-seen-best-placed-as-ukraine-crisis-unfolds.html

Indonesia swung to a trade deficit in January as a controversial government ban on mineral ore shipments by Southeast Asia’s biggest economy crimped overall exports, data showed Monday.

The January deficit of $431 million compared to a $1.5 billion surplus in December, the official Statistics Agency said.

“The 5.75 percent drop in exports is due to the annual pattern and the coming into effect of the mineral law,” said Adi Lumaksono, a senior official at the agency.

Read more at; http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140303/indonesia-trade-deficit-mineral-export-ban

Feb 28 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s January ban on the export of nickel ore is, according to French nickel producer Eramet, “good news and will eventually support nickel prices”.

Eramet Chairman and Chief Executive Patrick Buffet’s view, expressed in the company’s annual results release, that the ban “is a positive step towards restoring market balance” pretty much sums up the consensus view of the market.

After all, the January halt to flows of nickel ore to China’s giant nickel pig iron (NPI) sector puts at risk an estimated 482,000 tonnes, or around 25 percent of global supply, according to estimates by analysts at Macquarie Bank. (“Indonesian Ore Ban – a Q&A”, Jan. 14, 2014)

Read more at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/28/column-home-nickel-idUSL6N0LX2II20140228

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s $840 billion (502 billion pounds) oil fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, will this year review the sustainability of its investments in the mining sector after selling out of 27 gold and coal miners in 2013, its chief told Reuters on Friday.

The fund is a major shareholder in some of the world’s largest mining companies, including BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Glencore Xstrata.

Read more at: http://www.euronews.com/business-newswires/2376202-worlds-largest-wealth-fund-to-review-mining-investments-in-2014/

Zimbabwe mining companies, the government and industry experts are thrashing out their differences over local mineral processing at a two-day conference in Harare.

Zimbabwe is the world’s third largest platinum producer, and the fourth largest diamond producer.

But it’s losing millions of dollars every year when minerals leave its borders for processing in Europe and South Africa.

Read more at:  http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/5e26e4004314394f9c599c45a23ba143/Zim-mining-conference-addresses-mineral-processing-issues

Freeport and Newmont have refused to pay the export tax as they say it is in breach of their work contracts with the government. Both are engaged in talks with officials to resolve the impasse, although Freeport is reportedly planning to build a smelter within three years, according to the Jakarta Post.

Read more at: http://www.bnamericas.com/news/metals/indonesia-may-ease-taxes-on-concentrate-exports

Newmont Mining Corp. said constructing a smelter in Indonesia, a measure being pushed by the country as it tries to eliminate the export of unrefined metal, doesn’t make economic sense.

“Because of the supply of smelting capacity in places like China, the economics of running a smelter just aren’t there,” Chief Executive Officer Gary Goldberg said yesterday.

Read more at: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/content/en/mineweb-gold-news?oid=230514&sn=Detail

If no new smelters are built by 2017, Freeport and Newmont face curbs on their operations since Indonesia’s lone copper smelter, PT Smelting, only has a concentrate capacity of about 660,000 tonnes. Concentrates are an intermediate product between ore and metal, enriched with minerals as a result of processing.

Freeport has said if it could only send shipments to PT Smelting it would have to cut output at its huge Grasberg mine by 60 percent and layoff thousands of employees.

Read more at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/23/indonesia-smelters-idUSL3N0LH33D20140223