Proposed bill to ban China's rare earths in US defense; BHP buys electric trains

TOP NEWS IN METALS & MINING

* A proposed legislation in the U.S. Senate aims to prevent defense contractors from purchasing rare earths from China by 2026, with the Department of Defense to create a permanent stockpile, to weaken China's grip over the supply chain for the commodities and boost local production, Reuters reported.

* BHP Group purchased two battery-electric trains from Wabtec Corp., which will be used at its iron ore operations in Western Australia's Pilbara region. The locomotives, which will be delivered in 2023, is part of the mining giant's larger plan to decarbonize its rail network.

➤ JL Mag Rare-Earth makes sluggish Hong Kong debut

China's top producer of magnetic rare earth materials saw shares plunge 17% in its Hong Kong debut.

➤ Gold Mined Supply — Supply up in Q3'21 despite lower prices, higher costs

S&P Global Market Intelligence's Metals and Mining Research team examined asset-level gold production in the September 2021 quarter, together with national and regional trends, to derive its most recent forecast for full-year 2021 production.

➤ IM January 2022 — Fundraisings up 5%, fueled by large jump in lithium financings

Fundraising increased 5% month over month in December 2021 to US$2.06 billion, a nine-month high. This was fueled by a fourfold jump in specialty commodities financings to US$1.27 billion, the highest monthly total based on S&P Global Market Intelligence's Metals and Mining Research team's data, led by lithium.

DIVERSIFIED

* A pre-feasibility study on the Taylor zinc-lead-silver deposit at South32 Ltd.'s Hermosa project in Arizona estimated average annual production of 111,000 tonnes of zinc, 138,000 tonnes of lead and 7.3 million ounces of silver, with an initial resource life of about 22 years.

* Poland's KGHM Polska Miedz SA aims for domestic production of about 600,000 tonnes of electrolytic copper by 2030, and to maintain its position as one of the top three silver producers in the world with output of about 1,200 tonnes of silver per year.

BASE METALS

* Lundin Mining Corp.'s copper production in the fourth quarter of 2021 totaled 76,996 tonnes, jumping from 41,885 tonnes in the same period of 2020. Full-year production in 2021 was 262,884 tonnes, versus 230,781 tonnes in full year 2020.

PRECIOUS METALS

* Sibanye Stillwater Ltd. faces a strike from workers unions after the parties failed to reach an agreement on a wage increase, Mining.com reported.

* KPMG LLP's final investigation report into an estimated US$302.4 million of transactions in the three years to August 2020 by Petropavlovsk PLC flagged potential issues, including apparent inflated costs of mining licenses through pre-acquisitions, transactions with entities related to Petropavlovsk and IRC Ltd.'s senior management, and expenses paid by Petropavlovsk potentially for the benefit of entities related to senior management.

* OreCorp Ltd. plans to demerge its Western Australian assets into a new company that would subsequently list on the ASX. This will allow OreCorp to focus on the Nyanzaga gold project in Tanzania.

BULK COMMODITIES

* China Coal Energy Co. Ltd. expects full-year 2021 attributable net profit to range from 13.38 billion Chinese yuan to 16.35 billion yuan, an increase of between 150.0% to 205.5% from 5.35 billion yuan in 2020, primarily due to higher coal sales prices.

* Leigh Creek Energy Ltd. will exclusively negotiate with Antofagasta PLC's Antofagasta Minerals SA for the potential acquisition of the Mulpun ISG project in Chile.

SPECIALTY

* Activists again blocked main roads in Serbia, including a border crossing into Bosnia, to protest against Rio Tinto Group's proposed Jadar lithium mine due to environmental concerns, Reuters reported.

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