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Incitec Pivot may sell fertilizer unit; Codelco's H1'19 profit plummets

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TOP NEWS

Incitec Pivot cuts FY'19 EBIT guidance; reviewing fertilizer biz

Incitec Pivot Ltd. slashes its fiscal 2019 EBIT guidance to between A$285 million and A$295 million, from A$370 million to A$415 million guided in May, due to lower than forecast ammonia production at its Waggaman facility in Louisiana and lower fertilizer earnings caused by drought in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia. The company also launched a strategic review of its Asia-Pacific fertilizer business, which may lead to a sale.

Codelco's H1'19 profit plummets 74% YOY on lower prices, Chuquicamata strike

Chilean state-owned copper miner Codelco's pretax profit for the first half of 2019 plummeted 74% year over year to US$318 million amid lower copper prices, bad weather and a strike at its flagship Chuquicamata mine in Chile, Reuters reported. Copper production missed guidance of 762,000 tonnes, dropping 13% to 710,000 tonnes, but outgoing CEO Nelson Pizarro said the company is on track to achieve annual guidance of 1.7 million tonnes. Codelco will make an investment decision on its planned Maricunga lithium joint venture with Lithium Power International Ltd.'s 51%-owned Minera Salar Blanco SpA by early 2020, Codelco's vice president for administration and finance Alejandro Rivera said.

Indonesia fast-tracks nickel export restrictions

Indonesia will expedite restrictions on nickel ore exports starting at the end of 2019, instead of January 2020, Reuters reported citing Indonesia's Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan. The government also issued new rules outlining penalties for nickel producers that do not build smelters in the country, a key issue for the Indonesia government.

DIVERSIFIED

* Diversified South African miner African Rainbow Minerals Ltd. posted a 9% yearly rise in fiscal 2019 headline earnings to 5.23 billion rand as solid prices from iron ore, palladium and rhodium offset decreases in platinum, nickel and thermal coal prices. The company plans to ramp down and eventually close its loss-making Nkomati nickel mine, a joint venture with PJSC Norilsk Nickel Co.

BASE METALS

* Three workers were injured in an explosion inside the Chuquicamata mine Sept. 1, Codelco said, according to local TV network 24 Horas. At the time of the accident, one of the workers was operating a hydraulic hammer, the report added, citing a company statement.

* Separately, Codelco is aiming to increase output in the second half by 30% compared to the first half as it expects higher ore grades from Chuquicamata, Bloomberg News reported.

* Western Areas Ltd.'s shares were up 13% in late afternoon trade on the ASX after it reported discovering massive nickel-copper sulfides at shallow depth in the first ever drilling at the Radar prospect of its Mount Alexander property in Western Australia. The company said the discovery opens up an opportunity to drill out a new high-grade prospect, which could add substantial mineralization to a potential resource at Mount Alexander.

* Kasbah Resources Ltd. said the environmental and social impact assessment for its 75%-owned Achmmach tin project in Morocco was renewed for five more years to July 2024.

* Freeport-McMoRan Inc. reassured local villagers that the company will not acquire farmland and other land in order to expand its Cerro Verde copper project in Peru, Mining.com wrote, citing a La República report.

* Anglo Pacific Group PLC struck a deal with a Mantos Copper SA subsidiary to acquire a 1.525% net smelter royalty on the Mantos Blancos copper mine in Chile for some US$50.3 million in cash, with completion expected shortly.

* Local residents are demanding more compensation from China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co. Ltd.'s CNMC Nickel Co. Ltd. unit following allegations that waste from the Tagaung Taung nickel plant in Myanmar's Sagaing region polluted land and water resources in the area, Radio Free Asia reported.

PRECIOUS METALS

* Beacon Minerals Ltd. expects initial gold in bullion production at its Jaurdi project in Western Australia in early September, with commissioning ongoing at the project's 500,000 tonne-per-annum processing facility. Mining activities are expected to restart on Sept. 9.

* Avesoro Resources Inc. entered a loan agreement related to an additional working capital facility of up to US$5.0 million with Avesoro Jersey Ltd. to fund the company's near term cash flow needs, increasing the total of working capital loans provided by the company to US$42.2 million. Avesoro Jersey recently made a nonbinding expression of interest for a full takeover of Avesoro Resources.

* Dundee Precious Metals Inc. received the final operating permits for its Ada Tepe gold mine in Bulgaria, which officially opened Aug. 23.

* Lydian International Ltd. rebuffed claims by Earth Link & Advanced Resources Development about the low quality of data it had access to during an environmental audit of the Amulsar gold project in Armenia. The company said it fully cooperated with the body during the entire process.

* Northam Platinum Ltd. said it acquired an additional 13.7 million preference shares held by its partner, Zambezi Platinum (RF) Ltd., for for 1.0 billion South African rand from Public Investment Corp. (SOC) Ltd.

BULK COMMODITIES

* Flinders Mines Ltd.'s shares climbed almost 17% in afternoon trade on the ASX after saying it signed a non-binding terms sheet with BBI Group Pty Ltd. to jointly develop the Pilbara iron ore project in Western Australia. Meanwhile, an independent review concluded the Balla Balla infrastructure project is the most favorable infrastructure option for the Pilbara project.

* Bathurst Resources Ltd. exercised the option to increase its stake in Jameson Resources Ltd.'s Crown Mountain coal project in British Columbia to 20% from 8%, sending the latter's shares up almost 14% in late afternoon ASX trade. The option, valued at C$7.5 million, is designed to fund permitting and a bankable feasibility study for the project.

* Whitehaven Coal Ltd.'s debut sustainability report will have a section discussing risk factors and steps to mitigate climate change, The Australian reported, citing a company spokesman. The company will likely be the first pure-play coal miner to assess itself against the Financial Stability Board's global climate framework.

* Metallurgical Corp. of China Ltd.'s attributable net profit in the first half climbed 8.59% to 3.16 billion Chinese yuan, or 13 fen per share, from 2.91 billion yuan, or 12 fen per share, posted last year. Total output of nickel, cobalt, copper, lead and zinc rose 25% from a year ago.

* Nippon Steel Corp. intends to slash its planned capital expenditures for the three-year period to March 2021 by 10% to 20%, amounting to ¥170 billion to ¥340 billion, due to slower steel demand amid the U.S.-China trade war, Reuters wrote citing the company's head of investor relations Yuichiro Kaneko.

* The Queensland Government in Australia extinguished native title over 1,385 hectares of indigenous land to give way to Adani Enterprises Ltd.'s Carmichael coal project without any public announcement of the move, The Guardian reported. Representatives from the Wangan and Jagalingou Council said they never gave Adani their greenlight to occupy the land, a claim which an Adani spokesman refuted in the report.

* ArcelorMittal's ArcelorMittal Prijedor d.o.o. unit will suspend the dismissal of 300 workers at its iron ore operations in Bosnia while trying to resolve issues with the country's autonomous Serb Republic, Reuters reported.

* Norsk Hydro ASA petitioned the Federal Court in Belem to lift the embargoes on installing and commissioning activities at the DRS2 bauxite residue deposit area of its Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil.

* South Korean steel giant POSCO reached a tentative wage and collective bargaining agreement with its labor union, with union members to vote on the matter Sept. 9, Yonhap News Agency reported.

* Alcoa Corp. reached a tentative agreement with the United Steelworkers on a new four-year labor agreement covering about 1,700 active employees at the Warrick operations in Indiana, Massena operations in New York, Gum Springs in Arkansas, Wenatchee works in Washington and Point Comfort in Texas.

* British Steel Corp. Ltd.'s real estate and infrastructure design unit TSP Projects Ltd. has been sold to a U.K. subsidiary of French engineering group Systra, which is expected to save more than 400 jobs, Reuters reported, citing the official receiver. The deal will not impact a proposed sale of the insolvent group to an affiliate of the Turkish military's pension fund.

* New Hope Corp. Ltd. threatened to dismiss 150 workers at its New Acland coal mine in Queensland, Australia, on Sept. 2 unless it secures approvals for its planned A$900 million stage-three expansion of the mine, The Australian Financial Review reported.

* Jiuquan Iron & Steel (Group) Co. Ltd. plans to temporarily shut down its Alumina Partners of Jamaica refinery for over a year within two to three months to allow facility upgrades, sources told Fastmarkets MB.

SPECIALTY

* Receivers at Alita Resources Ltd. are planning to place the Bald Hill lithium-tantalum mine in Western Australia on care and maintenance, Mining News reported, citing receiver Andrew Smith. Administrators were appointed to Alita after it failed to extend a standstill agreement for its A$40 million secured loan facility.

* Karelian Diamond Resources PLC shareholders reportedly owning an 11.86% stake in the company requisitioned an extraordinary general meeting to replace Richard Conroy, Maureen Jones, Seamus FitzPatrick, Sorċa Conroy and Louis Maguire as directors, proposing Alan Osborne, Stephen Grimmer, Martin Doyle and Kevin Taylor as replacements. The company said the resolutions are identical to those that were proposed at a recent meeting held in late July, and failed to pass.

* Latrobe Magnesium Ltd.'s feasibility study for its 3,000-tonne-per-annum magnesium plant in Victoria, Australia, outlined capital costs of A$54 million. The company expects to make a final investment decision and start construction of the third stage by December.

* MP Materials wants to break into the rare earth magnet market, on the heels of plans to bring rare earth refining back to the U.S. at its Mountain Pass mine in California, as demand for electric vehicles grows. "We'd like to be leaders in the domestic development of this supply chain," MP Materials Co-Chairman James Litinsky said in an interview with S&P Global Market Intelligence.

* China Minmetals Rare Earth Co. Ltd. paid 780.4 million Chinese yuan as a sole bidder in online auctions to acquire antimony, terbium oxide and dysprosium oxide inventories once held by the now-defunct Fanya Metal Exchange, Reuters reported, noting that the prices paid are below current market value.

INDUSTRY NEWS

* Mineral exploration expenditure in Australia rose 31.1% to A$663.1 million in the June quarter, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Exploration on areas of new deposits climbed 57.1% and expenditure on areas of existing deposits rose 17.4%. The largest increase came from expenditure on selected base metals, which were up 47.3%.

* Mining services provider Mastermyne Group Ltd. completed its A$7.6 million acquisition of Wilson Mining Services Pty. Ltd.

* Using blockchain technology to track products through a supply line could allow mining and metals companies to not only boost efficiency but also offer assurances to investors concerned about ethical or environmental concerns associated with mined materials, according to an exclusive S&P Global Market Intelligence report.

* Saudi Arabia set up a new ministry for industry and mineral resources effective Jan. 1, 2020, headed by Bandar Alkhorayef, separating it from the giant energy ministry, Reuters wrote.

* Chinese trading firm Honors Commodity plans to hire two new metals traders for its Singaporean headquarters as it seeks to expand its global footprint, Reuters reported.

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