Taseko upbeat on New Prosperity after land ruling |
- Taseko upbeat on New Prosperity after land ruling
- Gold industry admits fix must be fixed
- Freeport, Indonesia reach preliminary deal over copper exports
- India's coal power plants about to run out of stocks
- Massive layoffs expected in Zimbabwe as diamond deposits run out
- CME/Thomson Reuters to run the silver fix— reports
| Taseko upbeat on New Prosperity after land ruling Posted: 07 Jul 2014 01:33 PM PDT
 Taseko Mines (TSX:TKO) has expressed optimism about its twice-rejected New Prosperity gold and copper project in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court ruling. The June 26 land-claim decision in favour of a BC First Nation clears a major obstacle to the mine's development, according to the company. "The question of whether and to what extent aboriginal rights and title exists has been a complicating factor in advancing the New Prosperity Project," the Vancouver-based miner says. The court decision resolves that complication, according to Taseko, by confirming that the proposed project is located in a place where no aboriginal title exists. "As such, New Prosperity is the only proposed mine in BC that people know for sure is not in an area of aboriginal title," the company says. Although the BC government approved the project near Williams Lake, two federal panels and the federal government rejected it on the grounds that it would harm the environment, citing damage to fish and fish habitat. The Tsillhqot'in Nation, the First Nation in question, has long opposed the New Prosperity mine and continues to resist efforts to advance it. "I think Taseko has a very twisted view of things," chief Joe Alphonse, Tsillhqot'in tribal chairman, was quoted by the Vancouver Sun as saying. "I think it's very, very irresponsible." Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself was critical of the project, calling the environmental assessment "extremely negative." The mine's fate continues to be tied up in court, with Taseko claiming the evaluation was neither fair nor transparent. But the miner remains confident that New Prosperity will move forward, expecting the legal proceedings to turn out favorably for it. "I think that, in combination with the clarity on there is no aboriginal title, is positive for the future of the project," Brian Battison, Taseko's vice-president of corporate affairs, was quoted by the Vancouver daily as saying.  |
| Gold industry admits fix must be fixed Posted: 07 Jul 2014 01:03 PM PDT
 The mechanism for setting the gold-price benchmark must be reformed to restore faith in the market, the industry body for the precious metal said Monday. But members of the World Gold Council, which convened in London for talks on overhauling or even replacing the price benchmark, appeared not to have reached an agreement. "There was no real view from anyone in the room that the gold fix should be abandoned and we should start redesigning it from scratch," WGC managing director Natalie Dempster told Reuters. Dempster said in a statement earlier the industry was at the start of a process that "will lead to a reformed and modernised gold benchmark which attracts a broader range of market participants." Those taking part in Monday's WGC meeting included exchanges, central banks, bullion banks, mining companies, refiners, traders and other industry groups. Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) watchdog observed the proceedings, the results of which could move the gold price higher. The current gold-price fixing process, initiated in 1919, affects billions of dollars in gold trading around the world daily. It involves the benchmark being set via teleconference in the morning and afternoon each day by the Gold Fixing Company, which consists of four banks. The four are Barclays, HSBC, Societe Generale and Scotiabank. Deutsche Bank used to belong to the panel but quit earlier this year. The fix came under fire in May, when the FCA fined Barclays about US$44.5 million (26 million pounds) in connection with one of its ex-traders having admitted to trying to manipulate the price of gold. Critics describe the co-called "London fix" as old-fashioned and ripe for abuse. Last week, the WGC suffered a blow when two top South African miners, Gold Fields (NYSE:GFI) and AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU), said they would not renew their memberships. |
| Freeport, Indonesia reach preliminary deal over copper exports Posted: 07 Jul 2014 10:39 AM PDT  Freeport-McMoRan's Grasberg mine — world's largest gold and fifth-largest copper mine. Image from archives. Talks between Indonesia and US miner Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE:FCX) to resolve a dispute over a mineral export tax are giving their first fruits, as the parts agreed Monday on Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Shares in the company jumped on the news, hitting a new 52-week high. The stock was trading at US$38.74 in New York at 3:30 pm ET. Today's agreement is considered a major step forward in the Arizona-based firm quest for resuming copper exports from the country, which imposed new rules on Jan. 12 and introduced a progressive tax on concentrates, a semi-processed ore that's shipped to smelters for processing into finished metal. "We are happy and expect it will be finalised with an MoU signing," Indonesia's chief economic minister, Chairul Tanjung, told Reuters, referring to the contract renegotiations. The draft MoU still needs to be approved by both the cabinet and outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Freeport is not alone in the battle against Indonesia's exports rules, which are aimed to encourage construction of domestic smelters and refineries. The country's top copper producer and fellow US miner Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM) is also pushing for a resolution, as it claims the new laws, including an escalating export tax, conflict with initially signed mining contracts. The company's Indonesian unit filed for international arbitration last week, after failing to resolve a six-month-long dispute that pushed Newmont to declare force majeure last month at its Batu Hijau copper mine. Negotiate or face the consequences Indonesian authorities asked the miner's subsidiary PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara Monday to drop its international plea against the ban and return to the negotiation table. According to AntaraNews.com, Economic Chief Minister Chairul Tanjung said the company would, otherwise, face a "serious impact" of its legal action. "In principle, the government wants to protect investors, onshore and offshore investors, including Newmont," he was quoted as saying. Both Freeport and Newmont, which account for 97% of Indonesia's copper output, have previously argued they should be exempt from the tax, which kicks in at 25% and increases to 60% in the second half of 2016, before a total concentrate export ban in 2017.
Global copper prices, which approached a four-month high of $7,028.50 per tonne on July 2, continue to be underpinned by the disruption to supplies from Indonesia, home to Grasberg mine, the world's No.3 copper operation, owned by Freeport. |
| India's coal power plants about to run out of stocks Posted: 07 Jul 2014 09:12 AM PDT  Workers walk on a heap of coal at a stockyard of an underground coal mine in the Mahanadi coal fields in Orissa. Indian coal-based power plants are struggling to keep up with daily demand and almost have of them only have enough stocks to last a week, the minister of state for power, coal and new and renewable energy said Monday. Speaking to the upper house of parliament, Piyush Goyal called power utilities to increase coal imports to meet fuel shortages and avoid the every day more frequent blackouts, The Economic Times reports. He also said state-run Coal India Limited (CIL), the world's biggest producer of the fossil fuel, has been asked to enhance production of domestic coal. "The availability of coal in the country has been adversely affected due to coal scams during the previous government," the authority said, adding the current shortage at coal-powered plants was estimated in 84.71 million mt in the fiscal year to March 31, 2015. According to the authority, demand for coal-based power in the year will require 551.60 million mt of the mineral, whereas coal supplies are projected to be 466.89 million mt. The minister blamed the numerous coal scams during the previous government for the penurious situation, with 65,000 MW of power generation projects currently shut down. A total of 44 plants, including the super critical ones, have "critical coal stocks" sufficient for less than a week, with the majority in the state of Maharashtra, home to India's financial capital Mumbai. Despite sitting on the world's fifth largest coal reserves, India is only the No.3 importer, due mainly to delays in securing environmental clearances to add new mines and to build facilities to transport coal from remote mines. Image by Biswarup Ganguly|Wikimedia Commons. |
| Massive layoffs expected in Zimbabwe as diamond deposits run out Posted: 07 Jul 2014 07:00 AM PDT  Despite being the world's fourth-largest diamond miner, Zimbabwe is still one of the poorest countries in the world. Now things can only get worse. Diamond mining firms operating in Zimbabwe's Marange deposit are expected to cut around 400 jobs this week as it has become economically unviable for them to dig any deeper for the precious stones. According to AllAfrica.com, Chinese firms Anjin and Jinan are among the miners that have already ceased operations and will be shutting down mines because Marange has run out of alluvial diamond deposits. These rocks are those close to the surface and so easily extractable through open cast mining. The news doesn't come as a surprise. Late last year the country's Mines Minister, Walter Chidhakwa, acknowledged the issue and warned the existing miners had neither the expertise nor the resources to search for new deposits underground the country's current major diamond source.  Some experts believe that Marange is the largest diamond discovery in generations but the find has been dogged by allegations of human rights abuses and corruption going right to the heart of Robert Mugabe's government. If more firms follow Anjin and Jinan's steps, the southern African nation's economy, which is counting on its diamonds to boost its weak economy, may never recover from the impact, experts believe. The Marange fields, 400 km east of the capital Harare, have been a constant focus of controversy ever since 20,000 small-scale miners invaded the area in 2008, being violently removed later by soldiers and police. They are controlled by the government's affiliate Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), which has partnership agreements with seven private entities, most of which are speculated to have ties with Zimbabwe ex-military and political officials. The country, one of the world's top diamond-producing nations, holds about 25% of the world's reserves of opencast extractable diamonds. Image: Zimbabwe's diamonds miners, screenshot from VOAvideo. |
| CME/Thomson Reuters to run the silver fix— reports Posted: 07 Jul 2014 04:15 AM PDT
The race to replace the London silver price fix seems to be finally over as members of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) are said to have chosen the joint Chicago Mercantile Exchange/Thomson Reuters bid to replace the current price process, which formally ends on August 14. According to FastMarkets.com, the LBMA made its decision Friday in a closed meeting at the Royal Exchange, and it is expected to make an official announcement later today or Tuesday. The LBMA had been working to find a new silver fixing process since May 14, when the London Silver Market Fixing Limited surprised the market and announced that it would stop administering the 117-year old London silver fixing by mid-August. A new system is supposed to go from being an obscure process conducted via conference call between a handful of banks to a "robust transaction-based electronic system" to set the daily spot price. Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest financial institution by assets, quit its seat on both the London Gold Fixing and Silver Fixing panels in early May amid investigations of manipulation and price misshandling. The lawsuits piling up and the ongoing probe by the UK financial regulator – and the first of what could be a slew of fines – meant that the German banking giant could not find any buyers for the seats. There has been no shortage of parties interested in taking over the silver spot pricing mechanism, with names including market information provider Platts, and the joint bid news and financial data provider Reuters, the LME and the CME, among the most broadcasted. Talks on how to overhaul the London Gold fix, which has been used as a benchmark for the global physical trade in the precious metal for the past 95 years is still under discussion. |
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