An Australian mining company operating on the West Coast began its litigation against environmental authorities in the Western Cape High Court on Monday and Tuesday, GroundUp reported.
The mining company, Mineral Sands Resources (Pty) Ltd (MSR), was accused of flouting environmental laws and of causing catastrophic environmental damage through its operations to mine mineral sands like zircon, ilmenite, rutile, magnetite and garnet at its Tormin mine. It is on the coast, 400km from Cape Town, near Lutzville.

The national Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) and the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning were in turn criticised for “invading” the mining company’s rights.

They further deliberately suppressed information that should have been included in their joint application to a Vredendal magistrate for a search-and-seizure warrant in September 2016, relating to alleged environmental transgressions.

“To put it colloquially, it was clear that DEA was gunning for the applicant,” Peter Hodes, SC, for MSR, told Judge Owen Rogers.

He argued that the warrant was invalid for several reasons.

An affidavit by a senior DEA official used as part of the application for the warrant was simply “a verbal regurgitation of allegations set out in an anonymous complaint”.

Ron Paschke, for both departments, told the court that the mining company’s application was “an attempt to thwart the implementation of environmental laws”.

MSR violated environmental laws, express instructions to comply with those laws, and its own undertaking to comply with them.

“The applicant’s conduct resulted in substantial degradation of the environment,” Paschke charged.

Part of the dispute centres on a sea cliff directly in front of the Tormin mineral sands mine that disintegrated catastrophically in January 2015.

‘Failing for ages’

Complaints that Tormin’s unauthorised changes to its approved environmental management programme were responsible for the cliff collapse and other alleged environmental transgressions led the departments to conduct the search-and-seizure operation at Tormin.

Criminal charges were then laid.

MSR argues that both departments lack any legal jurisdiction to monitor and enforce compliance at Tormin because of the “One Environmental System” government introduced in December 2014.

This gives the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) sole environmental authority over prospecting and mining.

Hodes pointed out that MSR had still not been formally charged. He said one of the relevant documents that should have been put before the magistrate was Tormin’s amended environmental management programme which the DMR approved in 2015.

Also, the “diametrically opposed” views of DMR and DEA about environmental authorisation at the mine should “surely” have been brought to the magistrate’s attention in the warrant application. They were however “suppressed so as not to create any doubt in the mind of the magistrate”.

The mining company accepted that the sea cliff had collapsed, but believed it had been failing “for ages”. No evidence had been put before the magistrate about whether mining was responsible for this collapse, Hodes said.

Legal distinction

Paschke said part of MSR’s review application was for a declaratory order to the effect that neither the national nor the Western Cape environment ministers and their departments had authority to perform compliance monitoring and enforcement in terms of the National Environmental Management Act (Nema), except for one specific part of this act.

“This seeks to create an exclusion zone where the environmental authorities will not be permitted to monitor compliance with and enforce environmental laws,” he argued.

Paschke argued that there was a legal distinction between an environmental management plan (EMP) approved in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act – as MSR had obtained for Tormin – and environmental authorisation for “listed activities”. These included some aspects of mining, under Nema, that Tormin had not been granted.

Even after December 2014, when EMPs had started being approved in terms of Nema under the new system, this did still not equate to a Nema authorisation.

“That is a different species. An EMP by itself authorises nothing.”

Paschke apologised to Judge Rogers for the complicated legal argument.

“I’m sorry for the complexity of this. It’s a minefield, a labyrinth.”

The application continues on Wednesday.

(Source: News24.com, FEB 22, 2017)

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Brazil’s Vale, the world’s No.1 iron ore miner, reached a new output record last year, producing 349 million tonnes of the steel making ingredient, thanks partly to the opening of its massive S11D mine, its largest-ever operation.

The figure, which beat Vale’s own guidance of 340-350mt, was also a result of a strong performance at its mines in northern Brazil, the company said.

Output for the fourth quarter, in turn, was up 4.5 percent to 92.4 million tonnes, compared to the same period the previous year, which meant full-year production climbed 1 percent, Vale said.

The Rio de Janeiro-based company noted it had continued reducing costs and output at its mines in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais. At the same time, it has boosted production at its operations located in northern Brazil, where costs are lower and quality higher.

Vale, which cut the ribbon on the massive state of Parábased S11D in December, said the mine should be operating at full tilt next year. By then, the amount of iron ore being dug will be enough to fill 225 Valemax ships — the largest cargo carriers in the world.

Just to put that in perspective and quoting Breno Augusto dos Santos, the geologist who helped discover the mine, the massive asset will enable Vale to re-main the iron ore market leader for at least a century.

And that is only considering the “D” block of the deposit. There are three other blocks at S11 that can be exploited later: A, B and C.

The entire S11 deposit has a mineral potential of 10 billion tonnes of iron ore, while blocks C and D have reserves of 4.2bn tonnes, Vale said last month during the mine opening.

S11D, also known as Serra Sul, will add 90m tonnes of annual capacity to Vale’s output by 2020, or about 20 percent of its expected output for that year.

The timing seems perfect, as the commodity has carried last year’s bullish momentum into the start of 2017, with prices rallying amid speculation that China’s demand for overseas ore will hold up even as the world’s largest miners, such as Vale, bring on new capacity.

On Thursday, import price for 62 percent iron content fines at the port of Qingdao traded slightly down than in previous days, losing 99 cents to $90.06 per tonne, according to The Metal Bulletin Index.

The steelmaking has more than doubled its value over the past year following near-decade lows of $38 a tonne in December 2015, but analysts insist a correction is just around the corner.

In a note Thursday, BMI Research said prices will remain high over the next three-to-six months, easing by mid-year due to oversupply and record-high Chinese stocks of both steel and iron ore.

Vale, which is also the world’s largest nickel producer, said output of the metal increased by 7 percent in 2016 from the previous year, a company re-cord attributed to stronger performance at its plants in Canada and New Caledonia.

(Source – Mining.com, 15-February-2017)

After years of delay India's largest generation utility NTPC on Thursday finally realized its coal mining dream, putting on track efforts to secure fuel supplies and transform into an integrated power company.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley and Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das, at a function held in Ranchi, flagged off the rake carrying the first consignemnt of coal produced by the company from its Pakri Barwadih mine in the state. Initially, coal from this block will go to the company's Barh plant in Bihar.

Being a thermal power generator, NTPC is hugely dependent on coal. It has 19 coal-fired power stations, which consumed 161 million tonne of the dry fuel in 2015-16. Absence of captive coal mining has, thus, been a weak link in the company's corporate architecture so far.

The NTPC management knew this only too well as low coal stock at generation units and not knowing when the next rake was coming underlined the vulnerability during the days of fuel shortage plaguing the power sector till 2014.

This forced the company brass to start dreaming about foraying into hydel sector and coal mining to plug a strategic gap as a way to diversify and secure fuel basket. The hydel dream, though plagued by several problems, was realized in 2015. That placed NTPC among a select group of global peers who span the entire fuel chain — coal, gas, hydro power and renewables.

The coal mining foray took longer due to a variety of reasons ranging from squatters obstructing land acquisition, government cancelling allotment of the block and re-allotting it to appointing a new mine developer after cancelling the previous company due to delays.

Pakri Barwadih is just a beginning for NTPC, which will be the largest coal miner in the country after state monopoly Coal India Ltd once it brings to production all the blocks allotted to it. Besides Pakri-Barwadih, NTPC has been allotted Chatti-Bariatu, Kerandari, Dulanga, Talaipalli and Chatti-Bariatu (South), Banai, Bhalumunda in Jahrkhand and Mandakini B in Odisha.

These mines have total geological reserves of around 7.15 billion tonne and production potential of 107 million tonne per annum, good enough to fuel 20,000 MW generation capacity.

Pakri Barwadih has a capacity of 18 million tonne per annum and mineable reserve of 641 million tonne. In the next year, around 2-3 million tonne of coal is likely to be produced.

(Source: Times of India, Feb 16, 2017)

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A coal price spike last year, driven by a Chinese change in regulation that capped local mining operations, has shown how easily markets can swing from oversupply to shortfall.

Many a swan song has been sung for thermal coal markets as renewable power generation and a push towards using more natural gas have gained traction. Yet a coal price spike last year, driven by a Chinese change in regulation that capped local mining operations, has shown how easily markets can swing from oversupply to shortfall. While many analysts and investors see the long-term outlook for coal as bleak due to policies and technological advances that favour cleaner natural gas and renewable in power generation, the shorter-term outlook for the industry has seen a sharp reversal of fortunes.

This year, strong demand growth in Asia’s emerging markets will create a supply shortfall for the first time in at least half a decade. Consumption could even soon rise past the 2014 peak, according to Asia’s largest commodity trading house, Noble Group. Despite coal’s high levels of pollution, utilities and governments in emerging economies, at least for now, largely prefer coal-fired power stations over other fuels including natural gas in order to meet soaring energy demand. While gas and solar prices have fallen sharply, coal remains one of the cheapest, easily available, and most easily maintained sources of electricity.

More than 10 gigawatt (GW) of coal-fired power stations were sanctioned for construction last year in Southeast Asia, where most new demand stems from, compared to just 4.6 GW of gas-fired projects, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. “New markets like the Philippines and Vietnam are starting to seek our coal,” the chief executive of Indonesian coal miner PT Bukit Asam, Arviyan Arifin, told Reuters this week. Rodrigo Echeverri, head of thermal coal analysis at Noble, believes this year’s global thermal coal market will be 13 million tonnes short of meeting 911 million tonnes of demand, compared with a broadly balanced market in the last three years.

The tightness is a result of falling output after some companies including U.S. giant Peabody Energy, filed for bankruptcy, and other miners cut output at unprofitable mines. At the same time, Chinese imports grew by 43 million tonnes as a result of restrictions on local production, while new coal-fired power plants were commissioned in countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Echeverri told a conference in South Africa this month. To meet the imminent shortfall, some miners have again begun ramping up output. Indonesia, the world’s biggest thermal coal exporter, said this month it is targeting production of 470 million tonnes in 2017, compared with its previous goal of 413 million tonnes and up more than 8 percent on last year.

There are also signs that Australian thermal coal output is picking up, with exports from Queensland hitting a record last year. Even so, the shortfall in supply could reach 28 million tonnes by 2020, meaning more new mines would need to be opened by the mid-2020s to meet demand, Echeverri said.

COAL OUTPERFORMS

Most commodities, including thermal coal, crude oil, copper or liquefied natural gas <LNG-AS>, have seen price rises since early 2016 as part of a broad-based rally. Australian thermal coal has performed best, rising 53 percent price versus 48 percent for oil, 25 percent for copper, and just 8 percent for Asian LNG. Because of this, companies focusing on seaborne coal supplies fared better than other miners or oil and gas producers.

“For pure coal players, the rise in prices from June 2016 … provided the catalyst for improved export sales margins given that many producers were actively managing their production costs,” said Patrick Markey, managing director of commodity advisory Sierra Vista Resources in Singapore. his reversal of fortune of an industry that was deeply in trouble just a year ago has been noted by investors.

Shares in thermal coal specialists like Australia’s Whitehaven Coal or Indonesia’s Adaro Energy, are far outperforming their peers in the oil and gas sector like Australia’s Woodside Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell or Chevron. Many oil and gas firms are grappling with cost overruns and production delays at facilities such as Chevron’s Wheatstone condensate and LNG plant or Shell’s Prelude floating LNG unit.

Longer term, the rise of cheap natural gas and increasingly competitively priced renewable power generation is expected to eat away at coal’s power market share.

“We see clear winners for the next 25 years – natural gas but especially wind and solar – replacing the champion of the previous 25 years, coal,” the latest outlook from International Energy Agency (IEA) says. In the meantime, producers are benefiting from Beijing’s ongoing drive to remove dirty and inefficient mines, which is keeping seaborne coal prices in a sweet spot. “Around $80 is a really, really good price for Australian mines,” said Peter O’Connor, resources analyst for brokerage Shaw and Partners in Sydney.

(Source: Financial Express, February 10, 2017) 

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Positive data highlight strength of bloc despite depiction as under performer

Donald Trump’s plans to boost the US growth rate may be getting plenty of attention — but it is the euro zone economy that is quietly exceeding expectations.

Figures for business sentiment, growth rates and unemployment for the single currency area have all provided positive surprises during the start of this year, as business confidence proves resilient despite Britain’s vote to leave the EU.

The euro zone economy has now posted 14 consecutive quarters of growth, the unemployment rate has returned into single digits, and economic sentiment has reached its highest level in six years. The numbers contrast with common depictions of the euro zone economy as stagnant, sclerotic and perennially under performing.

“I certainly continue to be amazed by the skewed negativism towards Europe,” says Erik Nielsen, chief economist of UniCredit, who says such views are “mostly based on what seems like superficial attention to the data — or, maybe, to ‘alternative facts’ .”

In fact, job creation for the euro zone accelerated to a near nine-year record in January, while the rate of output growth maintained a 5½-year high.

The final Markit Euro zone PMI® Composite Output Index — which measures managers’ confidence — was firmly in positive territory, at 54.4, the 43rd straight month in which it has signalled expansion.

Despite deep concerns about Italian banks and Greece’s long running financial crisis, euro zone growth in the fourth quarter of last year was estimated at 0.5 percent, faster than the US rate. For 2016 as a whole, growth in the euro zone outpaced that in the US by 1.7 percent to 1.6 percent.

Analysts agree on the reasons for the relatively robust economic performance of the euro zone: the financial crisis is now nearly a decade old; there is plenty of slack from unemployment to absorb; and the UK’s vote to leave has not proved the shock many feared. Furthermore, the European Central Bank’s ultra loose monetary policy is now finally working, encouraging households and companies to borrow and spend. Domestic demand has fuelled most of the recent growth.

While Peter Navarro, head of President Trump’s new National Trade Council, accused Germany of “continuing to exploit other EU countries”, growth rates have improved across the euro zone, with the important exception of Italy. Spain grew 3.2 percent in 2016 and growth in France has also improved rapidly from a contraction in the second quarter.

Focus Economics, which collates economic forecasts, notes that the biggest upgrades to growth expectations in 2017 are in Europe. Even in 2018, when Mr Trump’s tax cuts and infrastructure spending stimulus are expected to have most effect, recent upgrades to forecasts of euro zone growth are on a par with the US.

Some economists are convinced that Europe is suffering more from a pessimistic narrative about its performance compared with the US than anything much more substantial.

Mr Nielsen of UniCredit points out that, over the past decade, growth of GDP per head in the euro zone averaged 1.9 percent a year, “not a huge difference” to the 2.4 percent rate recorded in the US. He adds more of that growth will have been felt by ordinary families in Europe, since inequality is not rising as fast as in the US.

Nevertheless, with fragmented financial markets and big problems remaining in some peripheral countries, such as Italy and Portugal’s weak banking sectors and high public debt, there are reasons to doubt whether Europe’s recent rise is sustainable.

Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research argues that growth in credit has partly fuelled the surprising improvement — and that since the credit growth began to slow towards the end of last year, the “[eurozone] economy’s latest ‘mini-upswing’ is likely approaching its end.”

Officials are equally cautious, not wanting to high-light the improved prospects for fear this will increase pressure, particularly in Germany, for tighter monetary policy. Peter Praet, chief ECB economist, says: “The current environment still falls short of a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation to levels closer to 2 percent over the medium term”.

The likely consequence of such a view is that the ECB will continue to allow momentum to build in the economy to boost inflation and reduce unemployment — a contrast with the US Federal Reserve’s signals that it will keep slowly raising interest rates.

If the two central banks keep on such divergent paths, with the ECB keen to keep the euro

zone economy humming, Europe might not be able to keep quiet about its surprisingly strong performance for very much longer.

(Source – Financial Times, 05-February-2017)

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Virginia Mining Resources bring to you last week developments and update of Coal India Limited.
please check it out below:

• Coal India Ltd plans to acquire coal assets overseas 

State-run CIL is exploring coking coal assets overseas as the country is faced with constraints of techno-commercially viable domestic metallurgical coal reserves, Parliament was informed today. 

 

“CIL (Coal India Ltd) is scouting for acquiring coking coal assets abroad, as India is faced with constraints for techno-commercially viable domestic coking coal reserves,” Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

“The recent spurt in global coal prices, particularly for coking coal, is expected to create an encouraging scenario for such acquisition process,” the minister said.

Since CIL, at present does not have any asset abroad, the comparative analysis between coal mines in India and coal mines abroad can not be ascertained, he added. The state-owned miner had surrendered two prospecting licences held by its subsidiary Coal India Africana Ltd in Mozambique.

CIL is looking to appoint a merchant banker to assist it in acquiring assets overseas so as to enhance the nation’s energy security.

• Coal India production grows 5.5 percent in January

Coal India Ltd (CIL) on Thursday reported that its production grew by 5.5 percent to 55.99 million tonnes (mt) in January as compared to 52.86 mt in the corresponding month last fiscal, but the production during April 2016 to January 2017 remained flat.

According to provisional data, the production stood at 433.76 mt, up by a meagre 1.7 percent during the first ten months of the current fiscal (2016-17). It achieved 91 percent of the target which was set at 478.57 mt for the period.

CIL, which produces 84 percent of the country’s coal production, was targeting 61.04 mt during the last month of the current fiscal, achieving 92 percent of the target. It also reported that its off-take during this period was up by a marginal 1.3 percent at 443.13 mt as against a target of 489.71 mt. Its off-take for January stood at 51.35 mt achieving 92 per-cent of the target.

In 2015-16, the state miner produced 538.75 mt of coal against a target of 550 mt and its off-take was at 534.5 mt. During the current fiscal, the coal production target has been pegged at 598.61 mt is expected to be 660.7 mt in 2017-18.

The company envisaged production of 908.10 mt in 2019-20 with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 12.98 percent with respect to 2014-15.

In its latest annual report, the coal-mining behemoth said it would invest Rs 7,765 crore as capital expenditure and Rs 5,069 crore in various other projects in 2016-17.

(Source – Assorted with inputs from PTI  & IANS, 02-07, February-2017)

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Global miners, particularly Canadians, are showing increasing signs of optimism as commodity prices are on the rise, shallow growth is returning to different end markets, and most are in better cost positions than in the recent past, the annual “Tracking the Trends” report by Deloitte released Wednesday shows.

However challenges remain, and the industry is still likely to have to deal with cyber-security threats, technological disruption and environmental issues, it warns.

“It is critical that companies are aware that with technological and digital disruption occurring across all industries, comes accelerated threats to the mining industry,” notes Phil Hopwood, Deloitte’s Canadian and Global Mining Leader.

As in the past years, the consultancy firm outlines the top 10 challenges miners are likely to face, as well as the possible solutions to them, which can be summarized as:

• Cyber attacks and other threats: Mining companies are subject to a wide range of risks, and with an evolving threat landscape, leaders must strengthen their cyber-security programs.
• Unlocking productivity through innovation: Think beyond driverless trucks, sensors and advanced analytics to reduce cost, streamline equipment maintenance and prevent safety incidents. Today, new technology such as drones, real-time modeling and geo-coding are driving the next wave of productivity gains.
• Digital revolution: Miners must figure out how to turn the potential benefits of digital thinking into reality.
• Improving shareholder value: Optimizing portfolios, strengthening M&A processes, sustaining focus on cost and making long-term investments are key to improving this performance.

• Creating healthy and inclusive workforces: Miners need to recognize that productivity goes beyond reducing costs and streamlining processes: mental health, wellness and diversity should also be considered and addressed.
• Operating in an ecosystem: Companies will need to shift from a go-it-alone mentality, to one that recognizes the value of operating within an ecosystem.
• Creating a shared vision for the sector: To foster a shared vision for the mining sector, companies and governments could benefit from finding a middle ground that aligns interests and enhances cooperation when it comes to regulations.
• Re-earning the social license to operate: Winning a social license to operate is especially difficult for miners in light of a number of recent, catastrophic mining accidents and as communities continue to raise concerns about the industry’s impact on the environment. By lessening their environmental footprint, miners can foster the community trust needed to regain their social license to operate.
• Supporting strategic priorities: Industry leaders now understand the importance of adopting operating models that can help them respond to challenges and market volatility. Companies that took steps to strengthen their balance sheets in the latest round of cost take-outs are now considering how to align their operating models against these choices.
• Adopting an integrated approach to reporting: With governments demanding greater levels of transparency, the sector is working to strengthen compliance and disclosure practices. By standardizing information, considering the benefits of over-reporting and reviewing IT systems to ensure consistent data measurement and reporting capabilities, companies can adapt to a steep change in the reporting environment. 

No “one-fit-all” solution
Unlike in previous versions of Deloitte’s report, this year’s includes a wide range of case studies and sector-tailored recommendations.

“Companies that mine iron ore or thermal coal, for instance, have an entirely different outlook than those heavily weighted in precious metals,” the study acknowledges. “Diversified miners face different challenges than companies with a niche commodity focus. Major producers are planning for a very different future than the one that appears on the horizon of most junior explorers,” it notes.

However, the analysts conclude that while mining companies’ approaches to the future will (and should) differ, all of them need to be looking for the answer to one common question: “Going forward, where should we play and how can we win?”

The full “Tracking the Trends” report is available here.

(Source: Mining.com, February  02, 2017)

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