TOP NEWS
7 missing after tailings dam collapse at Cieneguita mine in Mexico
Seven people are missing after a tailings dam collapse at the gold-silver complex in Chihuahua, Mexico, The Associated Press reported, citing Mexican authorities. Workers were swept away in the incident, according to local media reports. Two others who got hurt are currently hospitalized.
Aluminum producer China Hongqiao secures US$4.7B to upgrade manufacturing
Aluminum producer China Hongqiao Group Ltd. secured funding of 30 billion Chinese yuan to upgrade its manufacturing facilities, Reuters reported. The financing agreement with Industrial Bank Co. Ltd. will allow the company to construct facilities for production of lightweight automobile parts and other downstream products.
Report: BHP's US shale unit receives bids for up to US$9B
First-round bids for BHP Billiton Group's U.S. shale business from oil majors including BP PLC and Chevron Corp. valued the unit at between US$7 billion and US$9 billion, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The mining major prefers to sell the unit to a single party and expects to invite second-round bids as early as July. However, it could net as much as US$13 billion if it sells the assets piecemeal, the sources said.
DIVERSIFIED
* Rio Tinto awarded a contract for waste management services covering 16 mine sites and two ports in Western Australia's Pilbara region to a Pilbara Aboriginal business North West Alliance.
BASE METALS
* CAP SA is mulling the expansion of its operations in Peru and entering the copper mining business, said the company's finance manager, Raúl Gamonal, as quoted by Bloomberg News. Gamonal said the Chilean steelmaker also "watches with interest" the sale of a stake in Mantos Copper SA, a joint venture that operates the Mantos Blancos copper mine in Chile. If CAP finally acquires this share, it would be its first investment in copper, daily Diario Financiero reported.
* Clive Palmer said his company, QNI Resources Pty. Ltd., should be allowed to reopen the nickel refinery in north Queensland, Australia, and it has approved plans for the restart, The Australian reported. The refinery ceased operations after a separate Palmer-owned company went into voluntary administration.
* PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Persero) President Director Budi Gunadi Sadikin said talks with Rio Tinto for the divestment of shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc. unit PT Freeport Indonesia may not be completed in June, The Jakarta Post reported.
* Trilogy Metals Inc. billed a new cobalt resource of 77 million pounds of contained cobalt at the Bornite copper project in Alaska as "one of the largest cobalt resources in North America," but its projected economic value is still up in the air and will depend in part on how much of the metal is recoverable, which is uncertain at this point, S&P Global Market Intelligence reported.
* Greenfields Exploration Ltd. will have its looming crowd-sourced competition results to find targets for its Frontier project in Greenland assessed by a Center for Exploration Targeting doctorate student, which will be a new step for the mining industry, according to an independent geological expert who has placed third in similar competitions run by Integra Gold Corp. and Endomines AB.
* Automakers spending fortunes on a bet that electric vehicles are the industry's future are virtually silent on the mining risks tied to cobalt, a key metal for the batteries on which their plans depend. Car companies expect evolving technology will eventually reduce or even eliminate their need for the blue metal ore, but, in the meantime, they could face pressure from investors who are asking questions about the new "blood diamond" and wondering why companies are not disclosing more information about their involvement with it.
* Indian state-owned miner Hindustan Copper Ltd. is targeting ramping up its smelting capacity to 100,000 tonnes per annum from the existing 70,000 tonnes, and reaching a turnover of 20 billion Indian rupees by the end of this fiscal year, Mint reported, citing Santosh Sharma, the group's chairman-cum-managing director.
* A feasibility study on the first phase of Trigon Metals Inc.'s restart program for its past-producing Kombat copper project in Namibia defined an after-tax net present value of US$4.6 million, discounted at 7.6%, with a 103.4% internal rate of return.
PRECIOUS METALS
* Orinoco Gold Ltd. expects to lift force majeure and resume normal activities at its Cascavel gold mine in Brazil June 9, following the conclusion of the truck drivers' strike in the country, as well as the completion of plant maintenance and repairs at the site.
* Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd. plans to sell new shares in the company to qualifying investors to raise up to 1.26 billion South African rand, or around US$100 million, through an accelerated book-build. The company will use the proceeds to partially repay a US$150 million bridge loan raised for the Moab Khotsong gold mine acquisition.
* Wishbone Gold Plc said that while its processing plant in Honduras is fully operational and undertaking batch processing, full production is delayed pending certain permits to process large amounts of gold ore. Full production was originally expected to be achieved in May.
* A pre-feasibility study on IAMGOLD Corp.'s proposed heap leach operation at its open pit Essakane gold mine in Burkina Faso estimated initial CapEx at US$155 million. A feasibility study is now underway and scheduled to complete in the first quarter of 2019.
* International Samuel Exploration Corp. will complete the acquisition of the Lucifer gold project in British Columbia via the issuance of 1 million shares to the sellers.
* Petropavlovsk PLC is investigating the mystery shareholders behind a proposal to replace all members of the current board at the next annual general meeting.
* Endomines AB decided to postpone investment to continue production at the Pampalo gold mine in Finland beyond September. As a result, output will be temporarily suspended.
* Altus Strategies plc will start trading on the TSX Venture Exchange today under the symbol ALTS.
BULK COMMODITIES
* Ezz Steel Co.'s net loss in the first quarter shrunk year over year to 67 million Egyptian pounds, compared to 521 million pounds in the year-ago quarter. Net sales in the three months surged 55% year over year to 12.61 billion pounds on the back of higher sales volumes and prices for long steel. Long steel production increased 10% year over year to 857,000 tonnes in the quarter.
* Ryerson Holding Corp. agreed to acquire U.S. metal service center Central Steel & Wire Co. in a deal that values the latter at US$140 million. Central Steel & Wire's portfolio focuses on bar, tube, plate, and sheet products.
* Anglo American PLC Head of Coal Division Tyler Mitchelson said that Aurizon Holdings Ltd. actions related to its dispute with the Queensland Competition Authority are damaging the coal sector, The Australian reported. The rail network operator threatened to cut capacity after the regulator proposed a A$3.89 billion cap on the revenue the rail operator can charge over four years to June 2021.
* The health minister for the Indian state of Goa, Vishwajit Rane, said the issue of how iron ore mining can be revived in the state can only be resolved by the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India's The Economic Times wrote.
* The European Commission is under pressure from domestic steel producers to quickly impose an import quota on the metal from the rest of the world in a potential response to U.S. tariffs, which would heighten fears of a global trade war.
* The London Metal Exchange said it was working "all the parties involved" to see if it could expand access to United Co. Rusal PLC's aluminum, but the exchange needs to be cautious, Reuters reported, citing CEO Matthew Chamberlain.
* Rusal's aluminum exports totaled 197,000 tonnes in May, up almost threefold from April, Reuters reported, citing Interfax news agency. The company's January-May aluminum exports fell 16% on a yearly basis to 972,000 tonnes.
* U.S. Steel Corp. will restart the second of two blast furnaces at its Granite City Works property in Illinois by Oct. 1. The restart will support increased demand for locally made steel, while allowing the company to continue to support customers during planned asset revitalization efforts.
* Analysts believe Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. will have to export iron ore from Port Hedland in Western Australia at a record rate this month to meet its annual guidance of 170 million tonnes, The West Australian wrote. The company shipped 38.7 million tonnes in the March quarter, its poorest export quarter since June 2014.
* The Queensland government is still considering funding an estimated A$100 million upfront cost of road access for Adani Enterprises Ltd.'s Carmichael coal project in the state, despite announcing that it would not commit any taxpayer funds for the project, ABC reported.
* According to The Australian Financial Review's Street Talk, Canada's Montem Resources Corp. is set to talk to institutional investors next week about its planned IPO in a bid to reopen the Tent Mountain coal mine in Alberta. The report said Montem is looking to raise A$20 million later this year for a A$55 million market capitalization.
* An explosion at the Huamei Group Co.-owned iron ore project in China's Liaoning province left 11 dead and injured nine others, Reuters reported, citing state media. Another 25 people remain trapped following the blast.
* Altitude Resources Inc. initiated a strategic review of its assets and also plans to spin out its Altitude Resources Ltd. unit to existing shareholders.
SPECIALTY
* S&P Global Ratings assigned its B- long-term corporate credit rating to vanadium miner Largo Resources Ltd., with a stable outlook. The rating reflects the company's limited operating breadth as a single-asset producer of vanadium, as all of its output is generated from the Maracas Menchen mine in Brazil. The ratings agency assigned a B issue-level rating and 2 recovery rating to US$150 million of senior secured notes due 2021 issued by the company to repay majority of its debt.
* Western Australia's government says the state's eastern goldfields will be put at the forefront of the lithium processing industry, with Neometals Ltd.'s signing of an option agreement with the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder for a proposed 10,000 tonne-per-year lithium hydroxide plant.
* Botswana Diamonds PLC was awarded the 2.5-hectare Mooikloof kimberlite pipe concession, located close to De Beers SA's flagship Venetia mine in South Africa. Meanwhile, the technical economic evaluation report for the Thorny River project estimated a deposit of 1.2 million to 2 million tonnes, a grade of 46 to 74 carats per hundred tonnes, and values of US$120 per carat to US$220 per carat.
* European Metals Holdings Ltd. started the beneficiation process and magnetic separation of a 15-tonne bulk sample representing the ore that will be mined in the first stages of development at the Cinovec lithium-tin project in the Czech Republic.
* Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. plans to stop mining and processing at its Ranger uranium project in Northern Territory, Australia, by January 2021, and final rehabilitation will be completed by January 2026.
* A former investment banker is planning to list uranium venture Yellow Cake in London and raise between US$150 million and US$200 million from investors to buy 8.1 million pounds of uranium for use in nuclear reactors, the Financial Times wrote, citing people familiar with the matter. The vehicle already has a deal to buy US$170 million of the radioactive material from Russia's National Atomic Co. Kazatomprom JSC.
INDUSTRY NEWS
* Data from advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP showed that the top 40 global mining companies booked total net profits of US$61 billion in 2017, rising 126% over the last year, while market capitalization increased 30% to US$926 billion, Mining Weekly wrote.
* The Mexican peso tumbled as the country unveiled a detailed list of tariffs on U.S. food and steel products in retaliation for U.S. levies on aluminum and steel.
* The South African government could release a draft of its revised mining charter June 8, Business Day wrote, citing Mineral Resources Deputy Minister Godfrey Oliphant.
This S&P Global Market Intelligence news article may contain information about credit ratings issued by S&P Global Ratings, a separately managed division of S&P Global. Descriptions in this news article were not prepared by S&P Global Ratings. The original S&P Global Ratings documents referred to in this news brief can be found in the sources section.
The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 7 a.m. London time. Some external links may require a subscription. Links are current as of publication time, and we are not responsible if those links are unavailable later.
