TOP NEWS
MMG boosts Q4, FY'16 copper output with Las Bambas mine
MMG Ltd.'s output of copper contained in concentrate in the fourth quarter of 2016 jumped 1,537% year over year to 110,097 tonnes, with the Las Bambas mine in Peru contributing 105,491 tonnes. On an annualized basis, MMG's total copper production, including copper cathode and copper in concentrate, also jumped to 503,510 tonnes in 2016, exceeding the guidance range of 415,000 tonnes to 477,000 tonnes. This year, the company expects to produce between 560,000 tonnes to 615,000 tonnes of copper and between 65,000 tonnes and 72,000 tonnes of zinc.
Polyus lifts Q4 gold output, beats FY'16 output guidance
PJSC Polyus posted fourth-quarter gold production of 573,000 ounces, up 23% year over year. Full-year 2016 gold output, meanwhile, totaled 1.97 million ounces, representing a 12% increase on a yearly basis and beating the production guidance for the third consecutive year.
The London Metal Exchange's Chief Executive Garry Jones is stepping down from his role and will serve as an adviser until the end of the year. He will also retire as the executive director of LME and LME Clear. LME's COO Matthew Chamberlain has been appointed interim chief executive, effective immediately, while Andrew Dodsworth, LME's head of market operations, has been appointed interim COO.
DIVERSIFIED
* Rio Tinto Chairman Jan du Plessis defended the company's move to sack two senior executives over the Simandou bribery case, saying the decision followed a "thorough review of the comprehensive internal investigation, supported by external counsel," The Australian reported. The response came after Guinean President Alpha Conde claimed that CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques authorized the terminations to settle scores and "get rid" of Alan Davies.
* Anglo American Plc, which set up a focused commercial trading unit in 2013, expects modest improvements ahead after an early increase to profits, as it gets closer to clients, even offering shelter from volatile markets with fixed-price contracts, Reuters reported.
BASE METALS
* Teck Resources Ltd. held talks with Anglo American Plc with regard to sharing port infrastructure at their neighboring copper mines in Chile, Reuters reported, citing Teck CEO Don Lindsay. Sharing infrastructure between Teck's Quebrada Blanca mine and Anglo's Collahuasi mine would help both companies curb costs as well as reduce their environmental footprint, Lindsay added.
* Chile anticipates boosting its copper output by 4.3% year over year to 5.79 million tonnes in 2017 on the back of increased output at the BHP Billiton Group majority-owned massive Escondida mine, Reuters reported, citing state copper commission Cochilco.
* Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. said recent step-out drilling extended the length of the Kakula copper discovery by approximately 1.6 kilometers, or 40%, to about 5.5 kilometers. The Kakula deposit, which forms part of the company's Kamoa-Kakula joint venture property in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, remains open along strike.
* China produced 6.27 million tonnes of zinc in 2016, reflecting a year-over-year increase of 2%, while copper output rose 6% on a yearly basis to 8.44 million tonnes in the period, Metal Bulletin reported, citing statistics released by China's National Bureau of Statistics.
* Gowest Gold Ltd. entered a nonbinding letter of intent with Northern Sun Mining Corp. to jointly own and operate the latter's Redstone mill in Ontario, which has a capacity of 1,500 tonnes per day of ore.
* Rokmaster Resources Corp. completed its acquisition of a 100% interest in the Duncan Lake zinc-lead property in the Slocan Mining district in southeast British Columbia.
* ZincOx Resources Plc decided to jointly develop a recycling plant to treat up to 100,000 tonnes per annum of the waste dust in Vietnam with Korea Zinc Co. Ltd. Korea Zinc will fund 100% of a definitive development study, expected to cost about US$2.5 million, and will own a 51% stake in a special-purpose company established to develop the plant.
PRECIOUS METALS
* Endeavour Mining Corp. achieved record gold production of 583,712 ounces in 2016, meeting its upgraded 2016 guidance range of 575,000 ounces to 610,000 ounces of gold and beating its 2015 output of 516,646 ounces by 13%. The company also set a record low for all-in sustaining costs for the year at about US$895 per ounce of gold, 3% lower year over year.
* Centamin Plc is not participating in the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority's gold exploration tender due to nonviable commercial terms, Josef El-Raghy, the company's chairman, told Bloomberg News in an emailed statement. El-Raghy noted that the offered terms result in one of the highest effective tax rates in the world. Two Canadian firms, Thani Stratex Resources Ltd. and Aton Resources Inc. also said they will not participate in the tender process and will instead focus on existing operations.
* Serabi Gold Plc expects to produce 40,000 ounces of gold in 2017 at all-in sustaining costs of between US$950 per ounce and US$975 per ounce. The company's full-year production in 2016 beat the increased guidance after achieving a 19% year-over-year increase in output which totaled 39,390 ounces.
* Sibanye Gold Ltd. held talks for some time with fellow South African miner Lonmin Plc for a potential merger before eventually deciding to acquire Stillwater Mining Co. in a US$2.2 billion deal, Business Day reported, citing two people close to the talks.
* As sanctions and restrictions discouraged bidders, Russia is expected to sell discounted rights to the Sukhoi Log gold deposit to a joint venture of PJSC Polyus and a state conglomerate, Reuters reported. According to an analyst, the Jan. 26 auction of Sukhoi Log is US$145 million, valuing gold at US$2 per ounce, around 10 times cheaper than deposits of a similar size elsewhere in the world.
* Bolivia's state-miner Comibol plans to build a 200 kilograms-per-day gold processing plant in 2018 as part of the country's industrialization drive, Business News Americas reported, citing CEO Marcelo Quispe.
* Australian gold and nickel explorer Blackstone Minerals Ltd. closed its first day on the ASX up 2.5% at 20.5 cents.
* Heron Resources Ltd. said all the conditions for the spinoff of Ardea Resources Ltd. have been met and that Ardea closed its IPO, raising A$5.2 million, below its maximum targeted proceeds of A$6 million but more than the minimum A$3.5 million subscription condition.
* Eastern Goldfields Ltd. signed an agreement with Heron Resources and its Ardea Resources spinoff to acquire the title and mining rights to the gold tenements within Heron's Siberia property in Western Australia.
* MX Gold Corp. paid all remaining installments and earned a 50% ownership stake and 45% net profit participating interest in the Magistral Del Oro gold tailings project in Mexico.
* Centenera Mining Corp. inked a binding letter of intent with an arm's length vendor, pursuant to which it secured an exclusive option to acquire a 100% interest in the Huachi copper-gold porphyry deposit in Argentina.
* Hochschild Mining Plc resolved a dispute with a local community at its Pallancata mine in Peru, and the mine will restart operations by Jan. 25. Pallancata's 2017 production forecast is not affected, the company said.
* WPG Resources Ltd. said it trucked the first ore from its Tarcoola gold mine in South Australia to the Challenger project for treatment. The company was previously aiming to transport first ore from Tarcoola in mid-December 2016.
* Red Rock Resources Plc submitted a request for arbitration to the International Chamber of Commerce after Colombia Milling Ltd. failed to acknowledge Red Rock's exercise of the conversion of a US$1.0 million Colombia Milling promissory note and failed to rectify a gold royalty calculation formula.
* Inca One Gold Corp. subsidiary Chala One SAC completed the 90-day ramp-up at the Chala One mill site in Peru at the end of December 2016 and achieved the highest level of processing since the start of commercial operations in February 2015. The company processed 2,885 tonnes of gold-bearing material during the month, compared to an average of 875 tonnes per month from January through September, reflecting a 230% jump.
* Blackham Resources Ltd. is considering the installation of an additional 1.5 million-tonnes-per-annum crushing and grinding circuit at its Matilda/Wiluna gold operation in Western Australia in a bid to increase production to over 200,000 ounces per year.
BULK COMMODITIES
* Brazilian Bank Banco Safra SA filed a class action lawsuit in New York, on behalf of itself and other unnamed noteholders of A$2.2 billion used to fund the Samarco project, alleging BHP Billiton and Vale SA joint venture Samarco Mineração SA of breaching disclosure requirements, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Samarco CEO Ricardo Vescovi was named as a defendant alongside the company, while Vale and BHP are not listed as defendants.
* The Indian government decided to off-load a 10% stake in its 75.58%-owned manganese miner, MOIL Ltd., which is expected to fetch about 4.50 billion rupees, Press Trust of India reported Jan. 23, citing an official. The two-day offer for sale will open for institutional bidding Jan. 24 at a floor price of 365 rupees per share.
* BlueScope Steel Ltd. raised its first half earnings forecast for fiscal 2017, on the back of stronger steel prices, higher iron ore export prices and cost reductions. The company now expects its EBIT to reach around A$600 million, compared to A$510 million projected earlier.
* For the year ended Dec. 31, 2016, Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal Co. Ltd. expects to post net profit attributable to the shareholders of about 2.0 billion Chinese yuan, representing a 2,110% jump on a yearly basis.
* Based on preliminary calculations, Kinetic Mines & Energy Ltd. expects to report a pretax profit of over 100 million Chinese yuan for 2016, swinging from a loss of 2.6 million yuan booked in 2015. The swing to profit was attributed to higher gross profit margin due to the increase in coal prices during the second half of 2016.
* Moody's considers Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. Ltd.'s forecast of an expected increase of over 770% in consolidated net profit for 2016 from 1.0 billion Chinese yuan a year ago, to be credit positive.
* Beny Steinmetz, the owner of BSG Resources Ltd., will be questioned by Swiss prosecutors by the end of this month regarding allegations that he paid bribes in Guinea for his company to earn a stake in the Simandou iron ore project, Bloomberg News reported. Steinmetz rejects the bribery allegations.
* PAO Severstal unit JSC Severstal agreed to sell its Austria's Redaelli Tecna S.p.A subsidiary to Austria's Teufelberger Wirerope GmbH, for an undisclosed amount. The transaction is expected to close during the first half of this year.
* Czech Industry Minister Jan Mladek said he would recommend that state-miner Diamo acquire mining group OKD as, the insolvent operating unit of New World Resources Plc, for the symbolic price of 1 Czech koruna, Reuters reported.
* Rehabilitation work at Highveld Structural Mill Pty. Ltd.'s heavy structural mill is under way to prepare the facility for recommissioning, following a deal execution in December 2016 with ArcelorMittal's ArcelorMittal South Africa Ltd. unit to reopen the mill, Mining Weekly reported.
* Edenville Energy Plc signed a memorandum of understanding with China's Sinohydro Corp., giving the companies an 18-month exclusivity period to work together on Edenville's Rukwa coal-to-power project in Tanzania.
* An integrated bankable feasibility study for Kibo Mining Plc's Mbeya coal-to-power project in Tanzania reduced total CapEx by 21% from the March 2015 integrated pre-feasibility study.
SPECIALTY
* Petra Diamonds Ltd.'s diamond production in the first half of fiscal 2017 jumped 24% year over year to more than 2 million carats due to increased contribution from undiluted run-of-mine ore leading to improved grades, and additional tailings production from Kimberley Ekapa mining.
* Birimian Ltd.'s A$107.5 million potential sale of its wholly owned Bougouni lithium project in Mali to Shandong Mingrui Group fell through.
* Manhattan Corp. Ltd. estimated maiden mineral resources for three deposits at its flagship Ponton project in Western Australia. The deposits host inferred resources of 21.5 million tonnes at 137 parts per million to 151 ppm uranium for 6.97 million pounds of uranium.
INDUSTRY NEWS
* Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump told business leaders he wants to cut federal regulations by 75% or more and repeated plans to slash taxes to encourage more manufacturing in the U.S.
The Daily Dose is updated as of 7 a.m. Hong Kong time, and scans news sources published in Chinese, English, Indonesian, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai and Ukrainian. Some external links may require a subscription.