The mining industry briefing
The latest news, trends, and data from the mining industry
News in Numbers
48
Curtin University’s Western Australian School of Mines is hosting 48 secondary school aged girls at the annual Girls’ Focus on Mining Camp in the Goldfields , more than twice the number of previous attendees.
37.08
China's aluminium production in 2020 rose 4.9% from the prior year, to a record 37.08-million tonnes. Output in December alone saw a monthly all-time high of 3.27 million tonnes.
30
BHP plans to build a first-of-its-kind, 30m-high wind fence to mitigate dust issues in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
$100/t
Analysts are forecasting prices of $100/t a for coal in the first half of 2021 as China looks to replace its detoriating Australian relationship with South African imports.
$20,000
Rhodium's price has increased 19% this month, reaching values of $20,000 an ounce. In just five years, the value of the mineral has increased by 3,000%.
Project updates
Midas Gold reports that, after three years of extensive discussions, federal agencies have authorised and directed it to perform immediate clean-up actions in the Stibnite mining district, addressing legacy contamination issues that are impacting on water quality.
Having been on care and maintenance since March 2020, Trevali Mining has announced the planned restart of operations at its Caribou mine near Bathurst, New Brunswick.
Production at Vedanta Zinc International’s Gamsberg mine in the Northern Cape of South Africa had resumed following an accident in November in which an employee died. The body of another has yet to be recovered.
Laneway Resources has started processing the first ore from the current mining campaign at its Agate Creek gold mine in Queensland, at the Lorena gold mine carbon-in-leach plant.
FURTHER READING
Norilsk Nickel becomes first miner to launch metals ETPs
Norilsk Nickel, one of the mining industry’s most serious polluters (having been involved in two recent, catastrophic fuel spills), is pivoting to asset management, launching a range of exchange traded products that will track the price of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium.
This marks the first time that a mining company has launched tracker products. The tracker has started trading on Deutsche Börse and the actual running of the exchange traded commodities will be handled by the Global Palladium Fund, establish by Norilsk in 2016.
Source: Financial Times
