Seriti Resources, a South African mining company, won a bid to acquire South32's thermal-coal assets in the country, according to two people familiar with the process. Final offers were in a range of $300-million to $350-million, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
Australia’s Talga Resources is hunting for development partners for its northern Sweden copper/cobalt project, which now has a maiden resource estimate. The company on Wednesday announced a maiden Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource estimate for Kiskama, 40 km east of Kiruna, of 7.7-million tonnes at 0.25% copper, 0.04% cobalt or 0.36% copper-equivalent.
While many market participants continue to forecast long-run prices for lithium-carbonate equivalent (LCE) in the mid-teens, analysts at commodity research group CRU remain unconvinced and believe that prices will remain in the single-digit figures. In a CRU Insights report, published this week, analysts say that the “hype” has met “reality”, noting that lithium prices have crashed through the $10/kg LCE mark at the end of July, owing to plentiful supply.
On the back of generally better trading conditions, JSE-listed Assore expects its headline earnings a share for the financial year ended June 30, to be between 20% and 28% higher year-on-year at between R59.33 and R63.31. Attributable earnings a share are likely to increase by between 11% and 19% to between R55.16 and R58.85, headline earnings by between 20% and 28% to between R6.1-billion and R6.5-billion and attributable earnings by between 11% and 19% to between R5.6-billion and R6-billion.
Sustainable mining service provider EESTech has appointed South African environmental and wildlife management consultancy EkoInfo to assist with the environmental-impact assessment process for the Samancor Ferrochrome slag reclamation project. Chrome miner Samancor Chrome in April signed a ten-year agreement with EESTech to undertake the reclamation of 12.5-million tons of ferrochrome slag waste at Samancor’s ferrometals processing facility in eMalahleni, Mpumalanga.
Canada is moving forward with a long-term plan to clean up contaminated sites and has announced a C$2.2-billion investment over 15 years to address remediation of large abandoned mine projects in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. The Northern Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program will tackle the eight largest and highest-risk abandoned mines, while the remediation of other smaller mines or contaminated sites in the north will be funded through the Environment and Climate Change Canada’s federal contaminated sites action plan.
The shareholders of Africa-focused copper developer MOD Resources will meet on October 1 to vote on the A$167-million takeover offer from fellow-listed Sandfire Resources, after the Supreme Court of Western Australia approved the transaction. Sandfire is offering each MOD shareholder either 45c in cash for each of their shares, capped at A$41.6-million or 25% of the overall consideration, or 0.0664 Sandfire shares for each MOD share held.
Aim-listed Edenville Energy has taken delivery of two 30 t trucks that will be used for loading and hauling at its Rukwa coal-to-power project, in Tanzania. The company used a modest part of proceeds from fundraising undertaken in May to acquire the trucks.
Zambian President Edgar Lungu will not meet the chairman of Vedanta Resources to discuss the disputed liquidation of its Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) on his visit to India this week, a statement from the Zambian State House said on Tuesday. Mumbai-listed Vedanta said earlier on Tuesday it would meet Lungu and his team for further discussions on KCM, but the Zambian State House said there was no meeting planned between the president and Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal or his representatives.
The Queensland Resources Council (QRC) has called on the industry not to give in to intimidation from activists, after engineering firm Aurecon ended its two-decade business relationship with Indian major Adani. A spokesperson for Adani on Wednesday said that Aurecon notified the company that it would finalise its working association with Adani, despite there being no commercial issues or disputes between the two companies.
Canadian miner Iamgold Corp has dismissed 325 contractors from its Rosebel gold mine in Suriname while it works to restore security after a clash between illegal miners and police, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday. The mining industry is grappling with a rising number of illegal miners, also known as artisanal miners, who break into sites in search of metals. At least 43 illegal miners died at a Glencore facility last month in Congo after a landslide.
