European central banks recommit to gold, price won't budge |
- European central banks recommit to gold, price won't budge
- $20bn Rio Tinto-Guinea deal on Simandou close
- Expected Indian iron ore exports just not happening
- Degussa acquires world’s largest collection of gold bars
- Iron ore price drops to double digits
- MIT developing platinum replacement
| European central banks recommit to gold, price won't budge Posted: 19 May 2014 02:03 PM PDT The price of gold briefly scaled the $1,300 an ounce level on Monday after Europe's largest central banks renewed an agreement not to sell "significant" holdings of the precious metal for another five years. In a joint statement, the signatories to the Central Bank Gold Agreement said they "will continue to co-ordinate their gold transactions so as to avoid market disturbances" and pledged that "they do not have any plans to sell significant amounts of gold". The further extension of the original 1999 agreement did however do away with the cap on sales by Europe's 17 central banks which had been pegged at a maximum 400 tonnes over a five-year period. "This is extremely positive news for the global gold market, especially against a backdrop of ongoing gold purchases by emerging market countries," said Natalie Dempster, the World Gold Council's managing director for central banks and public policy. "It underlines the commitment to gold that European central banks continue to have with regard to their monetary reserves. Of equal importance is the message it sends to gold-producing countries, who can be reassured that their economic development will not be undermined by uncoordinated sales of gold." In 1999 gold was trading at around $240 an ounce, and persistent central bank sales took much of the blame for the low price. But in recent years the official sector have become net buyers, making the agreement largely superfluous. Click here for the World Gold Council's big page on everything to do with gold and the official sector.  |
| $20bn Rio Tinto-Guinea deal on Simandou close Posted: 19 May 2014 01:12 PM PDT A deal between the Guinea government and Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) regarding the Simandou iron ore development will be signed before the end of the month says the CEO of the Anglo-Australian giant. Rio and its partner – China's Chalco together with the World Bank – have been in negotiations with the government of the West Africa nation for months over funding and the structure of the associated infrastructure for the ambitious $20 billion project. "This has taken some time to bring to fruition, and I think this signing will inject the project with renewed momentum," CEO Sam Walsh said in a speech in Washington reports The Australian: "The infrastructure that brings Guinea's natural resource wealth to global markets can do so much more for the country," Mr Walsh said, pointing out that once Simandou is fully operational, it will contribute an estimated $US7.6bn to the Guinean economy each year, dwarfing the amount of aid payments the country receives. Initially scheduled for next year, even with the new deal in place initial exports would only by the end of 2018. Rio acquired the rights for the vast mountain deposit more than 15 years ago. Rio Tinto is developing the southern part of Simandou and has already spent more than $3 billion building open pits, but the scale and scope of the development had been placed in doubt by the fall in the price of iron ore and a looming supply glut. At full production Rio's Simandou mine would export up to 95 million tonnes per year – that's a third of Rio's total capacity at the moment. A sticking point in the negotiations was the route and funding of a railway to get the Simandou area ore to port. According to previous reports the project plan calls for a new 700km railway across the country to the northern port of Conakry, Guinea's capital. Because of the economic benefit to Guinea this route was chosen in stead of a much shorter and cheaper railway to the deep Buchanan port in neighbouring Liberia to the south. The northern part of the Simandou concession was held by BSG Resources and Brazilian giant Vale (NYSE:VALE), but the Guinea government withdrew the mining permit in April, accusing BSGR of obtaining its rights through corruption in 2008. Rio Tinto has filed its own lawsuit against both Vale and BSGR for what it qualifies as a "steal" of its previously-owned concessions. Fellow Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton has decided to pull out of the country and is in the process of selling its stake in a nearby iron ore project called Nimba. |
| Expected Indian iron ore exports just not happening Posted: 19 May 2014 11:46 AM PDT The India iron ore trade with China in many ways laid the foundation for the today's spot market in the steelmaking ingredient. A decade ago, With steel output growing by a staggering 23% per year, Chinese buyers desperate for ore were forced to chase tonnage on the sidelines of the global trade. India's swing suppliers from Goa and Karnataka quickly step into the breach. From 42mt in 2003 India's exports peaked at 120mt in 2009. Then the Indian industry collapsed amid a government corruption crackdown and miners from the subcontinent abandoned the export market now dominated by seaborne ore from Australia, South Africa and Brazil. India briefly became a net importer of ore as a result, but with some restriction lifted last year and the state of Orissa taking the gap left by traditional producers exports starting picking up again. Indian exports were forecast to rise to 22mt this year. Now WSJ reports India's iron ore production could fall by nearly a third this year due to a new court decision that ordered an additional 26 mines in Orissa with output of 40 million tonnes to be shut down. A top government mining official said India's exports this financial year probably now won't rise and could end up near last year's level of 15mt. The benchmark import price of iron ore in northern China fell through the $100 a tonne level for the first time since September 2010 on Monday. |
| Degussa acquires world’s largest collection of gold bars Posted: 19 May 2014 11:38 AM PDT Frankfurt/Main, 19 May 2014 – Degussa Goldhandel GmbH has acquired "The Industry Collection of Gold Bars Worldwide", the largest and most important collection of contemporary gold bars worldwide. It includes over one thousand culturally and historically important bars of 145 manufacturers from 35 countries and was founded in 1993 by N.M. Rothschild & Sons (Australia) Limited. The collection, which is also often referred to as the "Rothschild Collection", is of important historical and cultural significance for the gold industry as it illustrates the extraordinary variety of gold bars from all over the world. The total weight of the collection is slightly more than 230 kilogrammes of fine gold, with a pure market value of approximately seven million Euros (approximately ten million US Dollar). The Australian arm of legendary merchant bank N.M. Rothschild & Sons had been the owner and administrator of the Industry Collection since its establishment in 1993 and held that role until the Rothschild Group withdrew from the gold market in 2004. In 2005 the collection moved into the custodianship of the Western Australian Mint, widely known as "The Perth Mint", with Grendon International Research Pty Ltd acting as the curator, as it had done since 1993. In addition to the presentations at "The Perth Mint" in Western Australia, the collection has been shown at various exhibitions across Europe, North and South America and Asia during the last twenty years. The acquisition of the collection will reinforce Degussa's role as a leading player in the German and international gold and precious metals trading world and further arouse public interest in the topic of gold and precious metals. "By acquiring this extraordinary collection, Degussa has made a significant step in expanding the already existing 'Degussa Collection'", says Wolfgang Wrzesniok- Rossbach, CEO of Degussa. "We had already accumulated a wide variety of historical bars in the last three years, ranging from artefacts that originate in the Bronze Age, the Roman Empire, the Dark Age and – as one of the highlights – from a number of treasures recovered from sunken ships such as the Atocha, a Spanish galleon that sank in a hurricane off the coast of Florida in 1622." As a result of the recent acquisition the Degussa Collection now also offers a most valuable insight in the area of contemporary investment bars from the 20th century. In addition to the Rothschild Collection Degussa has also added a wide variety of other items, like crucibles, doré samples, bar moulds and other periphery objects that illustrate the world of gold production and fabrication per se. Selected pieces from the collection will be shown, among others, at temporary exhibitions in Degussa offices in Germany, Switzerland and England in the future. Besides that, the collection will also be made available on a loan-basis to national and international exhibitors who would be interested in this varied assemblage. Goldhandel (Gold trading) Degussa as a brand is a synonym for quality and reliability in the field of precious metals. Degussa office of the company is located in Frankfurt am Main. Degussa products and services are available at branch offices in Stuttgart, Munich (2), Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin and Nuremberg as well as at Degussa Goldhandel AG in Zurich. The comprehensive portfolio of Degussa is completed by an online shop, available to customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which offers constantly updated prices, high availability and fast processing. Products and Services: Apart from its worldwide known precious metal bars made of gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium with the characteristic diamond-shaped Sun / Moon logo, Degussa also offers a wide range of bullion and collector coins. Top-class experts are available to customers in the field of numismatics for the assessment as well as for sale and purchase of historical coins ranging from antiques to those of recent times. Clients have the possibility of storing their precious metals stocks at Degussa's high-value storage facility and at certain branches Degussa offers safe-deposit lockers. Furthermore, Degussa has a "VAT-free" storage facility which is also available to its customers. Purchase of scrap precious metals: Jewellery no longer being used, silverware, damaged precious metal bars and coins as well as industrially utilized precious metal products are purchased at reasonable prices and recycled. |
| Iron ore price drops to double digits Posted: 19 May 2014 11:09 AM PDT Benchmark iron ore fell more than 2% on Monday to its lowest level since September 2012 when the steelmaking raw material spent two weeks below $100 a tonne. According to data from the The Steel Index, the import price of 62% iron ore fines at China's Tianjin port was pegged at $98.50 per tonne on Monday, down 2.2% or $2.20 on the day. Apart from that quick gap down in 2012 ore hasn't traded below $100 at all since 2009. Reuters reports iron ore futures on the Dalian exchange at 703 yuan are now at the lowest since the launch of the first domestic Chinese contract in October. "Now that we broke through $100, I think that's a very bearish sign. It shows you there's a lot of supply around," said a trader in Singapore. China forges as much steel as the rest of the world combined and the globe's most active steel future – Shanghai rebar – dropped through the Rmb3,130 ($500) per tonne level last week and on Monday continued to hover near record lows of $490. A slowdown in the world's second largest economy – particularly the property sector that accounts for almost half of all steel demand – has seen the steel price down nearly 16% this year while iron ore has lost 25.4% in value in 2014. Iron ore has been impacted severely by the upheaval in China's steel industry where demand has weakened sharply. China, responsible for two-thirds of the 1.2 billion tonne seaborne trade, imported 83.39 million tonnes of iron ore in April, the second highest monthly figure on record. That figure is somewhat misleading and do not reflect strong end-user demand as some estimates put the portion of iron ore inventories that is used as collateral for trade credit – a common practice in credit scarce China – at 40%. At the same time inventories of iron ore at Chinese ports surging 25% in 2014 to just under 110 million tonnes.  Source: Capital Economics, Thomson Datastream |
| MIT developing platinum replacement Posted: 18 May 2014 11:53 AM PDT  Platinum under the microscope. Courtesy of Visual News. Fears of a looming crunch in platinum supply, driven mainly by a four-month-long ongoing strike at the world's top producers of the metal in South Africa, may be about to fade. MIT graduate student Sean Hunt, postdoc Tarit Nimmandwudipong, and Yuriy Román, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, are working on a new process to replace platinum-group metals (PGMs) with more widely available elements in renewable energy technologies. In a paper published last week in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the team explains their proposed new method for synthesizing alternative catalysts. "Because the PGMs tend to be the most active and stable catalysts in virtually all relevant thermal and electrocatalytic processes, our research sought to answer an exciting question," they say. "Rather than finding new materials to replace PGMs in specific reactions, is it possible to modify the electron density of earth-abundant early transition metals [groups IV to VI on the periodic table] to catalytically mimic the PGMs?"  Studies show alternatives to platinum, such as tungsten, are more available and equally efficient. Image by Paul Fleet | Shuttterstock.com As a way to simplify their idea, the scientists use tungsten as an example. The element, with six valence electrons, they say, can be electronically modified to mimic platinum, which has 10 valence electrons, by reacting it with carbon (four valence electrons) to give the ceramic material tungsten carbide (WC). Numerous studies have shown that WC is indeed platinum-like, and able to catalyze important thermo- and electrocatalytic reactions that tungsten metal cannot — such as biomass conversion, hydrogen evolution, oxygen reduction, and alcohol electro-oxidation. They highlight that tungsten is three times more abundant than platinum in the Earth's crust, making it a viable material for a global renewable-energy economy. "While our research focuses mainly on the sustainable replacement of PGMs in thermal and electrocatalytic applications, we also anticipate broader impacts of our new TMC and TMN technologies outside catalysis," says Román in a news release published by the MIT. Stockpiling, recycling and long production times have prevented the prolonged South African platinum strike from causing a spike in global prices, but analysts warn volatility is coming, with consequences for the auto industry and other sectors. The African nation accounts for 80% of the world's platinum supply and nearly a third of the world's palladium. The longest and costlier strike ever by about 80,000 workers has halted nearly 40% of global platinum production at the top three producers – Anglo American Platinum (LON:AAL), Impala Platinum (JSE:IMP) and Lonmin (LON:LMI). Further, the strike has also resulted in a supply crunch for palladium, which prices hit a three-year high last week. |
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