Pollution de l’air : 600.000 enfants meurent chaque année dans le monde

D'après l’Unicef, environ 300 millions d’enfants dans le monde vivent dans des régions où l’air est toxique. Or, la pollution atmosphérique favorise des pathologies potentiellement mortelles chez les enfants.

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Shares of Canadian zinc producer Trevali are soaring and here’s why

Shares in Canadian zinc producer Trevali Mining (TSX:TV) jumped more than 4% Monday after the company announced the discovery of a new high-grade zinc-lead-silver mineralization at its Santander mine, located in Peru.

The stock was trading at Cdn$1.03 at 11:48 am ET, ore 4.04% more than its closing price on Friday and year to date it has more than double in value.

The new high-grade zinc-lead-silver mineralization is close to existing mine workings (just 95 metres from the main 4370 level) and readily accessible.

The new mineralization, discovered after analyzing samples from three diamond drill holes that are part of the ongoing 2016 underground exploration drill program at its 100%-owned Santander mine, is close to existing mine workings (just 95 metres from the main 4370 level) and readily accessible, Trevali said.

It's been a busy, but positive year for the company. In July, it raised its 2016 zinc output guidance at the Peruvian mine, in production since early 2014, following record output in the second quarter.

The company expects zinc production of 57 million to 60 million pounds of payable zinc in concentrate grading approximately 50% Zn, up from 52 million to 55 million pounds before. Santander, located around 200km north east of Lima, produced a record 15.2 million pounds zinc, 5.6 million pounds lead and 222,100 ounces of silver in the second quarter of the year.

Trevali's 100%-owned Caribou zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold mine in New Brunswick, Canada achieved commercial production also in July and is forecast to produce roughly 37 million to 41 million pounds of zinc, 14 million to 15 million pounds lead and 380,000-420,000 ounces of silver through the end of this year.

Zinc is the best performing metal in 2016 with a 35% rise in price so far this year from the six-year lows struck in January. The metal has benefited from major mine closures like Lisheen in Ireland and Century in Australia and suspension of some production at Glencore and Nyrstar.

 

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Aussie iron ore magnate Rinehart invests in UK's biggest potash mine

Australia's wealthiest woman and mining tycoon, Gina Rinehart, is diversifying into potash, an industry severely affected by a global oversupply that has caused prices to tumble in the past year, leading to layoffs and mine closures across the sector.

Her company Hancock Prospecting announced last week it was investing £245 million (about US$298m) in Sirius Minerals’ (LON:SXX) project on the edge of the North York Moors national park, the UK’s biggest potash mine.

Sirius Minerals’ York mine is expected to be one of the world’s largest in terms of the amount of resources extracted, generating an initial 10 million tonnes of polyhalite per year.

Under the deal, Rinehart will buy $50m of Sirius shares and pay $250m for a 5% royalty stream on the first 13 million tonnes of fertilizer produced by the mine every year. She’ll also pay 5% for the right to purchase up to 20,000 tonnes of product each year for use on her expanding Australian agricultural holdings.

Sirius’ York mine, expected to be one of the world’s largest in terms of the amount of resources extracted, will generate an initial 10 million tonnes per year of polyhalite – a form of potash that is used in plant fertilizers –, before it enters a second phase that will double that production to 20 million tonnes a year.

In terms of jobs, the operation will create about 1,800 vacancies during construction and 1,000 permanent positions once opened.

Sirius had originally expected to begin production in late 2016, with initial output of 5 million tonnes per year, and had signed a few future supply agreements. The current development schedule, however, points at 2018 as the most likely time for production to begin.

Meanwhile, potash prices continue to tumble. They began their decline four years ago, as weak crop prices and currencies weakness pinched demand. Potash has also suffered from increased competition following the breakup in 2013 of a Russian-Belarusian marketing cartel that previously helped limit supply.

The industry's woes have seen a pick-up in M&A and last month Canada’s Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (TSX:POT) (NYSE: POT), the world’s largest producer of the fertilizer by capacity, and smaller rival Agrium (TSX:AGU) (NYSE: AGU) agreed to an all-share merger, creating the world’s largest crop-nutrient supplier worth about $36 billion.

Gina Rinehart is considered the 51st most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. Her wealth is estimated at $11.4 billion, down from $12.2 billion last year.

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Comment Frankenstein a sauvé l’humanité de l’extinction

Ce soir, les enfants arpenteront les rues pour fêter Halloween et ramasser un maximum de sucreries. Certains seront peut-être déguisés en Frankenstein, sans savoir qu’ils porteront alors l’image d’une créature qui aurait pu mener l’humanité à sa perte...

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Endeavour Mining expects fourth quarter to be strongest yet

West Africa-focused Endeavour Mining  (TSX:EDV)  (OTCQX:EDVMF) said Monday gold production for the three month ended Sep. 30 jumped 6% to 146,000 ounces with increases forecast across its operating mines during the fourth quarter of the year, expected to be the strongest yet.

The miner attributed the output increase to the first-time contribution of Karma, a newly built mine in Burkina Faso, which Endeavour inherited earlier this year after acquiring fellow Canadian miner True Gold Mining for about Cdn$240 million.

Year to date, the company has produced 408,000 ounces of gold, which represents a 8% increase compared to the same period in 2015.

Year to date, the miner has produced 408,000 ounces of gold from five operations in Mali, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, including the now sold Youga mine.

“Our results year-to-date, combined with our expectation for stronger performance from each of our five operating mines in the fourth quarter have us well positioned to meet our key guidance metrics in 2016,” said chief executive and president, Sébastien de Montessus in the statement.

The company plans to summon its shareholders next month to unveil a new growth strategy that Africa Mining Intelligence (subs. required) recently called both “ambitious and costly.”

But management is optimistic. It said free cash flow was “well on-track” to meet 2016 full year guidance of $135 million owing to the improvement in operating performance, including the now operating Karma mine, lower non-sustaining working capital, and the close of a hedge at Nzema, which lost $9 million on forward gold sales.

In total, Endeavour now owns five mines in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso, and could produce between 575,000 and 600,000 ounces of gold this year at all-in sustaining costs ranging from $870 to $920 per ounce.

That amount will increase significantly next year, once its new mine in Burkina Faso, Houndé, is fully operational. The operation is expected to add 190,000 ounces to Endeavour’s total annual gold output.

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Mining jobs finally picking up in Australia

The great unwinding of the once-in-a-century mining boom may finally be coming to an end in Australia as recent figures show that job vacancies across the mining sector — a top economic indicator on employment growth — are beginning to rise.

According to data supplied to Business Insider by economists at the Commonwealth Bank, the coal sector is — not surprisingly — leading the way. Most of these positions, however, are temporary jobs.

“Whether this translates to a lift in permanent positions will likely be determined by future movements in the Australian dollar and commodity prices,” Michael Workman, senior economist at the CBA told the Insider.

Data from the Commonwealth Bank shows that job vacancies across the mining sector — a top economic indicator on employment growth — are beginning to rise.

The news comes as an ongoing and sharp increase in coal prices has began triggering a series of mine reopenings, particularly in Queensland and New South Wales.

Prices for coking coal price — the steelmaking kind — recently reached $230 a tonne, up from $75 a tonne just a few months ago. And thermal coal, used in power generation, has doubled to more than $100 a tonne last week, up 27% just since the start of October.

Mining investment in Australia, the world’s second-biggest coal exporter, accounted for around two-thirds of the county’s economic growth between 2011 and 2012. That was when investment was at its peak and represented around 8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) compared to 4.25% currently.

CBA experts believe the upturn in mining-related employment will add to the largely positive trend in job openings, leading to a positions growth able to keep mild downward pressure on Australia’s unemployment rate.

Experts at HSBC agree. In a recent report they wrote that the coal prices rally could translate into a A$29bn (US$22bn) boost in the country’s export values, equivalent to 1.8% of nominal gross domestic product. Tax revenues and wage growth, which have both been under pressure during a five-year slide in commodity prices, should both receive a lift and help address a persistently low inflation rate, they noted.

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Traitée par cryothérapie, elle devient championne du monde de plongée sous la glace

Lorsqu’elle se glisse sous la glace, Johanna Nordblad, n’a que sa combinaison de néoprène, son masque et sa monopalme. Sans bouteille ni filin de sécurité, cette championne du monde se promène. Simplement. Sa passion du froid lui est venue à cause de cruelles blessures traitées par cryothérapie.

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La sonde Juno est à la peine autour de Jupiter

À quelques jours d’une importante manœuvre orbitale de Juno, deux imprévus (un dysfonctionnement du moteur principal et un mode sans échec) ont perturbé le bon fonctionnement de la sonde, en orbite autour de Jupiter depuis le 4 juillet.

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Infertilité : le vin rouge, un remède contre le syndrome des ovaires polykystiques ?

Le resvératrol, présent en petites qantités dans le vin rouge, mais aussi les raisins et les noix, pourrait aider les femmes souffrant du syndrome des ovaires polykystiques : la molécule limite les taux d’hormones androgènes, comme la testostérone, et a un effet préventif contre les troubles...

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Equity markets all but closed for mining IPOs

Management consultants E&Y's latest report on mergers and acquisition and financing in the mining industry shows the environment for raising capital has been in steady decline since 2013 and the trend is likely to continue.

Total capital raised during the quarter was $49.9 billion, down 17% from $60 billion in Q2. Capital raised was also down 3% to $172.2 billion in the first nine months of the year, compared to the same period in 2015.

"There is still a long way to go before we see a return of significant risk capital to the sector"

According to the authors "this doesn’t necessarily reflect worsening conditions in the sector as the decline could indicate an improvement in commodity prices over the last two quarters, which has eased the need for refinancing":

Consistent with trends in recent years, there has been relatively little capital raised via equity markets, representing just 14% of total proceeds. The vast majority were follow-on issuances, with the major exchanges still seemingly closed for IPOs across the sector. The largest portion of new capital raised was via loans and bonds.

The outlook remains very challenging for equity markets, with no sign of change in investor sentiment on the horizon. This will restrict growth capital to debt markets, alternative forms of finance (such as streaming, offtake and pre-pays) and private capital.

E&Y believes outlook for the sector is improving but "we believe there is still a long way to go before we see a return of significant risk capital to the sector."

Source: E&Y

The third quarter showed a modest increase in M&A activity in the third quarter thanks to a pick-up commodity prices and improvement in broader market sentiment, but year to date volumes and values are still down substantially.

According to the report there deal value in Q3 was flat at $7.9 billion but volume was up 12% to 121 deals compared to 2Q16. Overall value in the first nine months of the year has fallen steeply compared to 2015, retreating 43% year-on-year.

Source: E&Y

The authors say "most traditional industry acquirers are still focused on portfolio realignment rather than acquisitions for future growth." Divestments also continued during the quarter:

We also expect to see greater vertical integration and possibly diversification deals as smaller companies seek other opportunities — up, down and even outside of their existing value chain.

Source: E&Y

Click here for full report

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Glencore closes another zinc mine

Looking south east over the Black Star Open Cut pit towards Glencore Mount Isa Mines surface infrastructure and the city of Mount Isa

Apart from steelmaking raw materials iron ore and coking coal, zinc is the best performing mined commodity in 2016. Trading at $2,374 a tonne, the metal is up 47% year to date.

Zinc's prospects brightened considerably after the shutdown of two major mines last year – Australia's Century and the Lisheen mine in Ireland. The two mines had a combined output of more than 630,000. The shuttering of top zinc producer Glencore’s depleted Brunswick and Perseverance mines in Canada in 2012 brings total tonnes going offline since 2013 to more than one million tonnes.

Glencore has been out in front when it comes to curtailing production to shore up prices and the Swiss giants' announcement of cutbacks inspired another leg up in the price. Glencore's first half production numbers showed a 31% output decline to 506,000 tonnes after the company idled mines in Peru and downscaled its Australia operations.

On Monday announced another zinc and lead mine closure due to depletion of reserves. According to the company the mine began production in 2004 with an initial expectation of an eight year life but it lasted 13 years producing 40m tonnes of ore, 1.75m tonnes of contained zinc metal and nearly one million tonnes of contained lead metal.

Glencore said it has implemented a staged workforce transition program over the past three years with many employees redeployed to other operations.

In a statement Glencore’s Chief Operating Officer for Zinc Assets Australia Greg Ashe as saying Black Star’s workforce "overcame a number of unique geotechnical and mining challenges presented by an old expansive network of abandoned underground workings":

“The team adopted an innovative approach to void analysis, which enabled the safe and sustainable recovery of a valuable mineral resource that would otherwise have been inaccessible.”

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Dossier spécial : à quoi ressemblera la ville du futur ?

Depuis 2014, la Journée mondiale des villes promeut un développement urbain plus harmonieux. Un objectif important car en 2050, près de 70 % de la population mondiale vivra en ville. Et des armadas d’ingénieurs, architectes et autres urbanistes cherchent à inventer des villes toujours plus...

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Renewables beat coal as largest source of power capacity

While coal continues to crank out electricity for millions of people in developing nations, renewable energy is rapidly catching up and last year, overtook coal as the world's largest source of installed power capacity.

About half a million solar panels were installed every day last year and two wind turbines went up ever hour in 2015 – which may be seen as a turning point for renewables, led by solar power and wind. The astonishing figures come via the International Energy Agency (IEA), which in a recent report, raised its renewable growth forecast.

In 2015 over half of new power capacity came from renewable energy – reaching 153 gigawatts, or 15% more than last year. The amount of solar and wind added in 2015 were both record-setting; PV additions reached 49 GW and wind achieved 66 GW.

About half a million solar panels were installed every day last year and two wind turbines went up ever hour in 2015

"‌There are many factors behind this remarkable achievement: more competition, enhanced policy support in key markets, and technology improvements. While climate change mitigation is a powerful driver for renewables, it is not the only one. In many countries, cutting deadly air pollution and diversifying energy supplies to improve energy security play an equally strong role in growing low-carbon energy sources, especially in emerging Asia," states the latest edition of the IEA’s Medium-Term Renewable Market Report.

The 153 GW of installed green energy was more than the total power capacity of Canada and greater than the amount of conventional fossil fuel or nuclear power added in 2015. While renewables surpassed coal in their cumulative share of power capacity, they have not yet knocked fossil fuels from the top of the heap when it comes to electricity generation. That's because renewables, due to their intermittency, cannot produce power at the same constant level as coal or nuclear.

According to the IEA in 2015 coal power plants produced close to 39% of the world's power while renewables, including hydroelectric dams, accounted for 23%. However the IEA expects that number to climb to 28% by 2021, when renewables will supply the equivalent of all the power produced currently in the US and the EU combined.

The IEA now sees renewables growing 13% more between 2015 and 2021 than it did in last year’s forecast, due mostly to "stronger policy backing in the United States, China, India and Mexico." The costs of installing solar and wind have dropped, and expected to drop considerably – 25% less for PV solar and a decrease of 15% for onshore wind, for the forecasted period, according to the agency.

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12 schools in Salzburg evacuated after radioactive rock discovered

Educators in the Austrian city of Salzburg hit the panic button after the unintended discovery of a radioactive rock in a science classroom.

More than 300 schools were notified and a dozen were evacuated after a presentation by anti-nuclear campaigner Thomas Neff revealed a lump of uranium showing radiation levels at 1,700 times the normal value.

According to UK publication The Mirror, the revelation occurred while Neff was showing students a wristwatch from the 1960s whose dial contained radium – a radioactive element with the symbol Ra in the Periodic Table of the Elements:

The numerals on the watch contain the material to help them to glow in the dark and were created when little was known about the damage caused by radiation.

But as he passed a collection of rocks, minerals and fossils that were on display in the classroom, Neff's Geiger counter almost "exploded".

The device showed the rock had radiation levels of 102,000 counts per minute – 10 times the counts per minute measured in the watch containing radium.

Or to measure the exposure in terms of millisieverts, 75 times the normal level of radiation exposure:

"If you had this rock the whole year in your bag, you would get around 210 millisievert exposure. The exposure to radiation from natural sources is only 2.8 millisievert in a whole year in Austria," The Mirror quotes Neff saying. It adds the maximum allowable radiation dose in an occupational setting is 50 millisievert, while 100 millisievert is considered to put a person at risk of cancer and severe radiation poisoning would occur at 2,000 millisievert.

According to the World Nuclear Association, the average dose, globally, of background radiation is about 2.4 millisievert a year. The amount of exposure of course depends on geology and altitude. While lifetime doses of radiation could be up to several thousand millisievert, "there is no evidence of increased cancers or other health problems arising from these high natural levels. The millions of nuclear workers that have been monitored closely for 50 years have no higher cancer mortality than the general population but have had up to ten times the average dose," states the association.

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Météorologie : le satellite MetOp-A fête ses 10 ans

Les 10 ans du satellite MetOp-A méritent d’être annoncés. Ce satellite a en quelque sorte révolutionné la façon de faire de la météorologie depuis l’espace.

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Physique : les pouvoirs de Doctor Strange, super-héros de Marvel, sont-ils crédibles ?

Les maîtres de la théorie quantique s'interrogent depuis des décennies sur les rapports entre l'esprit et la matière. Leurs spéculations ont été abusivement détournées par les mouvements New Age mais elles peuvent servir à donner un peu de crédibilité aux films fantastiques, comme l'actuel...

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WiGig : du Wi-Fi haut débit pour nous libérer des câbles

Télécharger un film Ultra HD en quelques secondes ou utiliser un casque de réalité virtuelle sans le moindre câble. Voici quelques-unes des promesses du WiGig. Cette technologie de transmission sans fil Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11ad) utilise les hautes fréquences pour offrir un débit pouvant aller...

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Chronique : Avec Antoine, découvrez les Grenadines, Sainte-Lucie, Saint-Vincent...

Au sud des Antilles, dans la mer des Caraïbes, Antoine nous fait visiter les Grenadines, un chapelet d'îles superbes qu'il connaît depuis longtemps. Ce grand voyageur révèle des lieux moins connus, comme le récif du bout du monde, ou le — vrai — décor de la saga des Pirates des Caraïbes.

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Canadian miners trapped in elevator

Four employees at Agrium's Vanscoy potash mine, located 30 kilometres southwest of Saskatoon, were trapped in an industrial elevator for six hours on Wednesday evening.

According to CTV, the workers were coming up the mine shaft in the lift at about 10:30 p.m., when an object fell down the shaft. The incident activated a safety device and caused the elevator to come to a stop.

In order to get it moving again, operators had to bring in a winch system that raised the stuck elevator up the shaft, the CBC reports.

This is not the first accident at the Saskatchewan site. In 2014, 54 workers had to spend the night in emergency shelters after a fire broke out underground. In August this year, a worker was killed after being trapped by two pieces of heavy machinery and another worker was seriously hurt underground.

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Clinton, Australian anti-coal activists, and Wikileaks

A series of emails made public by Wikileaks shows that activists opposing Adani Group’s $12 billion Carmichael coal mine and rail project in Queensland, Australia have been receiving funding from an American organization and were not keen to disclose who was financing their activities.

Although the electronic correspondence dates back to 2015, it was circulated this week as part of the electoral battle taking place in the United States. The logic behind the move was that a couple of the emails were forwarded, at the time, to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.

Podesta received the emails from Herbert Sandler, founder of the Sandler Foundation. This U.S.-based charitable trust is one of the main funders for the Sunrise Project in Australia, which ran an intense campaign against the Carmichael mine.

Sunrise’s head and former Greenpeace activist John Hepburn told The Guardian that he didn’t want to disclose his donors because that could trigger attacks from the mining industry.

He also posted a statement on the NGOs website saying that “it is no surprise that the ongoing expansion of coal mining in Australia is on the radar of Clinton’s most senior advisor.”

If built, Carmichael would be Australia's largest coal mine (Image from archives).

“What a week!”

The emails show the groups discussing their victory over Adani, after the project was temporarily halted due to some delays in approvals and legal challenges.

“Wow. What a huge week. The Adani Carmichael mine and the whole Galilee Basin fossil fuel industrial complex is in its death throes,” Hepburn wrote to funders and colleagues.

Hepburn went on to say that he was convinced the federal court’s decision to stop the project alleging that the environment minister, Greg Hunt, failed to consider all departmental advice on protecting two vulnerable species when approving it, was only going to spur the federal government's and the mining industry’s resolve to attack conservationists.

“The industry have also dusted off the old 2012 leaked coal strategy to try to claim that there is some kind of foreign funded and tightly orchestrated conspiracy to systematically destroy the Australian coal industry. (I seriously don't know where they get these whacky ideas from!),” he wrote.

Indeed, miners’ say

Coming back to the present, the Wikileaks revelations strengthened the aforementioned allegations cited by John Hepburn.

According to Business Insider, Adani Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj said the leaked emails were “evidence that these are broader well-funded activist campaigns as part of a wider anti-coal campaign that is being financially backed and influenced a long way from workers in Australia and those suffering energy poverty in India.”

Government officials were also quick to react: “These groups appear to have misused their domestic tax-deductible status and green credentials to engage in a shameless political campaign designed to damage our national interest by shutting down the Adani coal mine,” conservative senator Cory Bernardi wrote in a newsletter to his supporters.  

But according to The Guardian, Hepburn says that these reactions are nothing less but hypocritical. “They’re saying that we need to guard our sovereignty from environmental organisations, when the mining in Australia is 80% foreign-owned (…) And international foreign-owned mining companies dropped $20m into a campaign to prevent a new tax on their industry and, in doing so, destabilised a prime minister. And that is the big issue in terms of national sovereignty,” he is quoted as saying.

Galilee Basin coal export projects map. (Courtesy of GalileeBasin.org)

What’s at stake

After spending over $120 million in legal costs and cutting its way through environmental hurdles, Adani was able to get approval for its project subject to 36 conditions.

Carmichael is one of the world’s largest coal mines. It is expected to produce and transport about 60 million tonnes of coal a year for export, mostly to India.

However, it is also expected to impact the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. According to UNESCO, the area is already experiencing “a continuing decline in the quality of some parts” of the reef, and resource extraction would only worsen the situation.

More than 150 marine scientists from 33 institutions around the world agree with the UN agency. In a letter sent to the Australian government back in 2013, they warned that new coal ports and other industrial projects pose mounting threats to the reef’s habitat.

In the wake of these reports, the Deutsche Bank refused to fund Adani’s plans to expand the port, and later the Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s largest financial institution, decided to cut ties with the Indian miner.

The Wikileaks emails reveal the Sunrise Project’s leader congratulating the environmental movement over the banks’ decisions.   

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Activists urge Congo government to pass new mining code

Activists in the Democratic Republic of Congo are pressing the government to revive plans for a new mining code, claiming the country, which is Africa’s top copper producer and the world’s largest source of cobalt, needs the higher revenues a revised legislation would generate.

Congo began reviewing the 2002 mining code in 2012 and last year it proposed hiking profit taxes to 35% from 30%, raising the state’s free share of new mining projects to 10% from 5% and royalties on copper and cobalt revenue to 3.5% from 2%.

Congo began reviewing its mining code in 2012, aiming to increase state revenues and tighten environmental and social regulations.

In February, however, authorities dropped the planned changes as the move could have driven away investors at a time of historically low commodity prices and energy shortages that were driving down output in the country.

The chamber of mines, an industry lobby group, welcomed the decision at the time. The association had opposed revisions to the code because of the potential negative impact it could have on investment in mining.

Randgold Resources (LON:RRS) chief executive officer, Mark Bristow, even said last year that the planned changes risked destroying the industry in Congo.

But in a report released Thursday, anti-genocide campaign group ENOUGH Project, echoed other non-governmental organizations request by asking the government to complete the mining code review.

“The United States, the African Development Bank, European states, and the World Bank should strengthen Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) implementation in Congo by pressing for EITI reports to disclose the expenditures of state-owned companies, as required by EITI, pushing for full beneficial ownership disclosure, particularly for partners of state-owned companies, and following up on contract transparency,” the document, which analyzes Congo’s political economy over the past 130 years, reads.

“Also, the United States, European Union, World Bank, African Development Bank, and mining companies investing in Congo should urge the Congolese government to complete the Mining Code review with the full participation of civil society,” it adds.

Low copper prices have affected the country’s economy and driven some companies, such as Glencore (LON:GLEN), to suspend operations. As a result, copper production in DRC fell by 3% to 995,805 metric tons in 2015, the first drop in six years.

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Ariane 6 : son comportement en vol à l'étude

Ariane 6, le futur lanceur de l'ESA, est en cours de conception. Par rapport à Ariane 5, il peut paraître modeste mais sa réalisation est pourtant complexe, comme nous l'explique, Gérard Ordonneau, chargé des affaires lanceurs à l'Onera, l'organisme français de recherche spatial qui travaille...

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Peabody Energy in restructuring talks with lenders, stakeholders — sources

Peabody Energy (OTCMKTS:BTUUQ), the world's largest privately owned coal producer which filed for bankruptcy in April, is said to have taken the first steps towards a major restructuring following the release last week of a preliminary plan, sources familiar with the matter said.

The company’s lawyers plan to hold a call with lenders before the end of the week to inform them of the steps taken towards creating a formal steering committee for reorganization talks, an analyst at corporate debt specialist Debtwire told MINING.com.

A surge in met coal prices has allowed Peabody settle fourth quarter contracts at $200 per tonne, far outstripping expectations for around $120 a tonne for the period.

Peabody circulated a term sheet last week that implied the first lien debt would be impaired, prompting the organizational push, Debtwire’s sources said. A lien is the legal right of a creditor to sell collateral property of a debtor who has failed to meet the obligations of a loan or other contract.

The valuations embedded in the plan, however, are expected to change, as they incorporate the rapidly rising outlooks for coal prices, the sources added.

Coal miners in the US have been have been struck by a range of structural and cyclical factors that hit consumption hard and forced many of them to seek bankruptcy protection during 2015 and this year.

Coal has also fallen victim to the shale revolution, which unlocked an enormous quantity of cheap natural gas from previously impermeable rock formations. According to a report by the US Energy Information Administration 2016 will be the first year that natural gas overtakes coal as the largest energy source in the US.

However, an ongoing sharp increase in coal prices is prompting miners to restart projects and resume operations at mines that were shut only a few months ago, when both the commodity were trading close to 10 years-lows.

Last week, prices for coking coal price — the steelmaking kind — reached $230 a tonne, up from $75 a tonne just a few months ago. And thermal coal, used in power generation, has doubled to more than $100 a tonne last week, up 27% just since the start of October.

The surge in met coal prices has allowed the St. Louis-based company, which traces its history back to 1883, to settle fourth quarter contracts for the steelmaking commodity at $200 per tonne, far outstripping expectations for around $120 a tonne for the period. That is why, according to Debtwire, the company’s Australian met coal-producing assets — which back the company’s secured debt — are now expected to be key in its restructuring.

The company's over-the-counter stock was trading almost 11% higher Friday morning at $9.24.

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Six months after wildfires, Canada’s oil sands now hit by DiCaprio’s new film

Nearly six months after massive wildfires close to Canada’s oil sands forced one of the largest evacuations in the country’s history, affecting production, Leonardo DiCaprio’s new climate-change documentary threatens to bring unwanted, negative attention to the industry.

Critics are already referring to the scenes shown in the film, particularly an aerial of the oil sands, as “terrifying”.

Fisher Stevens, director of Before The Flood, which has been in the works since 2014, recently told Canadian Press he was "really horrified" by how the landscape looked in north-eastern Alberta.

"It does employ a lot of people," Stevens acknowledged. “Look, we all want work, we all need jobs — God knows. And it would be great if it was like: ‘Now, we take all of these people and we replant all of that forest.’ Wouldn’t that be amazing?,” he said.

Last year, the Church of England threatened to dump about  £3m ($3.7 million) in oil shares after the release of Virunga, DiCaprio’s documentary that shows alleged SOCO International representatives taking bribes to rangers to access the park of the same name.

In Before The Flood, to be screened this weekend in 171 countries, in 45 languages, DiCaprio (in a producer role) travels to several continents and the Arctic, meeting with political and religious leaders, scientists and activists.

The Oscar-winning actor, a leading figure in Hollywood’s environmental movement, has said he doesn’t want to point fingers at anyone, but some movie critics are already referring to the scenes shown in the film, particularly an aerial of the oil sands, as “terrifying”.

"My hope is that this film provides a global wakeup call about our inevitable fate should we fail to act," Stevens said in a statement.

Here’s’ a preview:

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Un cerveau de dinosaure fossilisé découvert pour la première fois !

Une équipe internationale de chercheurs dirigée par des paléontologues des universités d’Oxford et de Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) vient de faire état d’une étonnante découverte, celle du reste fossilisé d’une partie d’un cerveau de dinosaure. Rien de moins. L'animal en question serait un herbivore...

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Chinese buy world's largest mining project

World number two miner Rio Tinto is exiting the world's largest mining project, by selling its stake in Guinea's Simandou iron ore to partner Chinalco, potentially opening up a new path to development.

According to a statement by Melbourne-based Rio the deal is worth between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion payable when Simandou starts commercial production and based on output. Rio says a final agreement could be inked within six months. In February this year Rio wrote down the value of Simandou by $1.1 billion, before deciding to shelve the project.

Rio owns  46.6% of Simandou south; Chinalco's stake is 41.3% and the Guinea government holds 7.5%. Earlier this month the World Bank's financing arm – the International Finance Corporation – sold its its 4.6% interest.

With complete control, Beijing-based Chinalco may revive the stalled project with the backing of the Chinese government

Rio has already spent more than $3 billion on the project having first acquired the property in the late nineties. With complete control, Beijing-based Chinalco may revive the stalled project, no doubt with the backing of the central government.

China consumes more than 70% of the world's seaborne iron ore and is on track to import one billion tonnes of the steelmaking raw material this year. Imports have gradually displaced domestic production, pushing dozens of Chinese iron ore mines into bankruptcy.

The shelving of the project has been devastating news for Guinea. Simandou by itself would've been the world's fifth-largest producer at 95 million tonnes per year.

Simandou with over two billion tonnes of reserves and some of the highest grades for direct-shipping-ore in the industry (66% – 68% Fe which attracts premium pricing) has a back-of-the-envelope calculation value of more than $110 billion at today's prices.

At full production it would have doubled the size of the economy of the West African state and provided much needed infrastructure to develop other parts of the industry, particularly the export of bauxite, the primary ore used to manufacture aluminum. Bauxite represents some 80% of the country's export earnings.

 

Simandou's chequered history

Rio Tinto held the licence for the entire deposit since the early 1990s, but was stripped of the northern blocks in 2008 by a former dictator of the country.

BSG Resources, a company associated with Israeli diamond billionaire Beny Steinmetz acquired the concession later that year after spending $160 million exploring the property.

Rio filed a lawsuit for billions of dollars against both Vale and BSGR for what it called a "steal" of its concession

In 2010 BSGR sold 51% to Vale for $2.5 billion. The Rio de Janeiro-based company stopped paying after the first $500 million after missing a number of development milestones. Then the new Guinean government under Conde launched a review of all mining contracts awarded under previous regimes and launched an investigation into the Vale-BSGR joint venture.

The Guinea government withdrew the mining permit in April last year, accusing BSGR of obtaining its rights through corruption. BSGR has denied wrongdoing and filed an arbitration request in an attempt to win compensation from the Western African nation.

Shortly after BSGR's rights were stripped Rio filed a lawsuit for billions of dollars against both Vale and BSGR in New York courts for what it called a "steal" of its previously-owned concession. Rio alleged BSGR paid a $200 million bribe to Guinea's former minister using funds from Vale's initial payment.

The US district court threw out the case in November last year saying Rio "had waited too long to file the lawsuit" under the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, which calls for a four year time limit.

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Gold price back on the defensive after US growth surprise

On Monday gold was on the back foot with December futures trading on the Comex market in New York exchanging hands at $1,262.00 an ounce in early morning trade, down more than $7 from Wednesday's close.

Gold has been on the defensive since the start of October and is down $50 for the month after falling to a four month low of $1,243 on October 7.

Data released on Friday showed the pace of US economic growth picked up sharply in the third quarter, boosting chances of a rate hike before the end of the year. Higher interest rates  in the world's largest economy would underpin the dollar which usually moves in the opposite direction of the gold price.

US GDP expanded at a 2.9% clip, up from 1.4% in the previous three months, and above consensus forecasts of a 2.6% rate of growth.

Year to date the metal is still managing gains of nearly 20% or more than $200 an ounce, one of its best annual performances since 1980.

 

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Deal to snatch gold mining crown eluding Newmont

For Barrick Gold, 2015 year was the last period of 6m-plus ounces of production which was already substantially down from its peak of 7.7 million ounces in 2010 and 2011.

The Toronto-based company increased its annual output forecast for 2016 to between 5.25 million and 5.55 million ounces when it released third quarter results this week.

Number two gold miner in terms of output, Newmont Mining, this week also had good news for investors, indicating attributable production could be as high as 5 million ounces for the full year.

Newmont's been working the mine hard, adding 86,000 ounces of production during the first half of 2016, at the same making deep cuts to costs.

That puts Denver-based Newmont within striking distance of  Barrick which has been shedding assets at a clip in an effort to tackle its heavy debt load. Apart from offloading its stake in Tanzania's Acacia Mining, the largest operation still on the block is Australia's Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines.

With the release of third quarter results, Barrick President Kelvin Dushnisky said the process to sell Kalgoorlie is "robust" with "interest from inside and outside Australia."

Newmont Mining owns the other half and Barrick handed over operational control of the the iconic mine called the Super Pit to Newmont in May last year.

Newmont would be the natural buyer and has expressed interest in the mine in the past where output could reach as much as 800,000 ounces this year.  The company sports one of the stronger balance sheets in the sector having embarked on a debt reduction program earlier than its rivals.

It's been working the mine hard, adding 86,000 ounces of production during the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year while at the same making deep cuts to costs.

Newmont’s chief executive officer Gary Goldberg said in a recent  interview with Bloomberg TV Canada that the two companies "are not misaligned in terms of where we see some of the value of the resource that’s there, but people have different assumptions on exchange rates, and gold price, those sorts of things.”

Newmont has first right of refusal on the stake sale, but Barrick could circumvent that by selling shares in Kalgoorlie's holding company.  Valuation of Kalgoorlie is all over the place with analyst estimates varying between $400 million to about $1.5 billion. Reserves at the mine top 7.5 million ounces.

Unlike many of its rivals Newmont has been building its portfolio and is expanding the Cripple Creek & Victor gold mine in Colorado in acquire last year. Its Merian mine in South America with annual production of 300–375,000 an ounce started production this month. Middle next-year it expects to complete an expansion that would add around 80,000 ounces to its Tanami mine in Australia. Newmont's Long Canyon will add 100–150,000 ounces per year starting next month.

In addition unapproved projects mainly in Africa "represent upside of between 200,000 and 300,000 ounces of gold production beginning in 2018."

 

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Les volcans de Vénus seraient toujours actifs (MAJ)

Des coulées de lave pourraient bien avoir eu lieu récemment sur Vénus, il y a moins d'un million d'années. Des chercheurs ayant comparé les données des sondes Magellan et Venus Express le confirment. L'activité volcanique de la planète pourrait même encore se poursuivre actuellement.

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La pilule contraceptive bientôt disponible pour les hommes ? (MAJ)

Des chercheurs ont trouvé des peptides qui entrent dans les spermatozoïdes et les rendent moins mobiles, dévoilant ainsi une nouvelle piste pour mettre au point une pilule contraceptive masculine. D'autres projets suivant ce même objectif sont en cours ; un essai clinique a été suspendu en...

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L'effondrement de la civilisation maya bientôt expliqué grâce à des tombes ?

La découverte de deux tombeaux mayas intacts au Guatemala n'est pas équivalente à celle de la tombe de Toutânkhamon mais elle est tout de même significative. Elle pourrait en effet nous aider à préciser l'existence possible d'une guerre civile ayant contribué à l'effondrement de la...

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Spaniards to protest against Berkeley’s Retortillo-Santidad uranium mine

An activist group called Plataforma Stop Uranio (Stop Uranium Platform) is calling for a protest action to be held on October 30, 2016 in the town of Retortillo, located in Spain’s western province of Salamanca.

According to La Vanguardia newspaper, the group opposes the development of Berkeley Resources' Retortillo mine, which is part of the company’s flagship Salamanca uranium project.

Activists are planning to gather at the company’s headquarters with the idea of expressing their disapproval towards the open-pit project which, they say, would affect nearby farms and hot springs, as well as residents’ health.

“The worst part is the environmental damage that’s being caused in the area, which has been declared a protected Red Natura 2000 zone by Castilla and León authorities. Centenary oaks are being uprooted in order to build a road, despite the miner’s promise to transplant them,” their statement reads.

Source: Berkeley Resources.

Tensions have been boiling over since October 18, 2016, when the City of Retortillo declared a couple of members from the Stop Uranium Platform as personas non gratas, due to their activities against the mine.

Also last week, the Portuguese group Os Verdes de Portugal (Portugal’s Greens) held public assemblies to discuss the possible effects of the Salamanca uranium project in the bordering municipalities of Guarda and Freixo de Espada a Cinta.

Together with representatives from the Stop Uranium Platform, Os Verdes de Portugal expressed concerns about the consequences of radioactive resource exploitation for the Yeltes and Douro rivers, which support farming operations in the area.

The Retortillo-Santidad uranium deposit is expected to produce an average of 4.4 million pounds of uranium per year. Berkeley’s mining licence for the site is valid for an initial period of 30 years, renewable for two further periods of 30 years.

The Australian company states on its website that it has developed “a good neighbour and business partner relationship with the local community,” given the fact that it plans to create 450 direct jobs and up to 2,000 indirect jobs. Nevertheless, according to the local press, people from adjacent towns seem to be divided in terms of their support towards the project.

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How a wireless mesh tech company entered the mining world

Rajant is a U.S. company that offers mobile mesh technology for private wireless networks.

From initial military applications, its technology rapidly made its entrance into the mining world. In a few years, over 100 mines are making use of its Kinetic Mesh Network to monitor, manage and control large fleets of high-value equipment, vehicles, and staff.

Interviewed by MINING.COM at MINExpo International 2016, Rajant's CEO, Bob Schena, explained how mining customers face the difficulty of operating in environments that tend to lack mobility, scalability, and bandwidth, and how they benefit from having a robust mobile system that allows them to track performance 24/7.

Full interview transcribed for clarity:

Bob Schena: Rajant is a company that makes extremely rugged wireless networking equipment for the mining industry, military, oil and gas, rail industries around the world.

MINING.COM: What is the origin of Rajant?

Bob Schena: Rajant was founded, I and a couple of other folks, founded it as a response to 9/11, to those towers being destroyed, and in particular the significant communication problems that happened that day and then for months afterward.

Our idea was to create a networking capability that could be set up quickly in an emergency and be set up by people who didn’t know much about networks. Often in remote or rugged places there is not a lot of networking people around, so our idea was that we would create technology that you would turn it on and it would be smart enough to figure out how to integrate an operating self, and that’s what we set up to do and that’s what we did.

MINING.COM: How did you expand into mining?

Bob Schena: We started out as a first-responder emergency response technology, then captured the attention of the U.S. military, from there we were able to learn how to scale our technology so that hundreds and hundreds of wireless nodes, which we call breadcrumbs, could be installed and build a network with little or no administration.

Additionally, the military wanted our networks to be able to move, so we worked hard and developed a technology that could go on vehicles, aircraft, people, they are all meshed together in a system that we call “Kinetic Meshing” and that all aspects of the network can be in motion.

Once we were able to scale the network to hundreds of nodes and have them all moving simultaneously, where the network kind of moves on its own, we caught the attention of a large mine operator down the States and we deployed in the mine on 160 vehicles, probably eight or nine years ago now. Our network has been operating for eight or nine years with no network downtime, at least from the application perspective.

So, that was our first foray into the mining industry and from that one mine we are close to 100 mines now on six continents. We have yet to install a mine in Antarctica, but it is a goal.

Photo: Rajant.

MINING.COM: Why is it important that control towers move at a mine?

Bob Schena: Well, mines are very dynamic places. The environment changes, the physical aspect changes, which is very unique, and one day there’s a mountain to your right and the next day the mountain is gone. It has moved to your left and now is blocking a tower or blocking a trailer. So the topography itself changes, the vehicles are in motion continuously, the mine changes. One day it is going north and couple of months later is going west. So given the dynamic aspect of the mining industry and the fact that our technology handles change so well is why we focused on making a network technology that could move and that all elements are able to move.

MINING.COM: What are the other aspects that miners are looking for?

Bob Schena: I think the biggest aspect is reliability, so that’s something that, as you can imagine, would be of interest for the military. So the military requirements for reliability—relative to our technology—are that the network really doesn’t go down. So we use different frequencies, multiple radios on the same device, that we switch back and forth between frequencies. We have a network that doesn’t have a controller. If you have a controller and you lose contact with the controller, your network goes down. We eliminated some of the points of failure, such as controllers, such as radio designed for backcall. We use odd frequencies and odd directions all the time with the bias towards being a network that is really hard to fail.

Diagram of a mine. Rajant shows the success of a mesh network when mobile nodes are able to route.

MINING.COM: And now you are using drones…

Bob Schena: Yes, our technology originally was designed for ground-based vehicles, for mining vehicles or military vehicles, so it is a terrestrial-based network. But as drone technology has advanced, what we’ve done recently is taking our InstaMesh software, which drives our meshing on mining vehicles and other vehicles, and we’ve adapted it to drone platforms, so we’ve taken InstaMesh from ground-based vehicles and put it in the air.

Our products are called breadcrumbs and we are now flying breadcrumbs, so the same scaling that we did with trucks, we can now do it with aerial platforms and fly 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 drones, all with nobody really flying them, we just instruct the drone as to what to do, where to go, how long to stay and when to come home. We can send the network’s mesh, the drones take off, they do what they have to do, and then they come back.

MINING.COM: You also have a satellite program you’re planning?

Bob Schena: We have an ongoing project with Morehead State University, down in Kentucky. Morehead is one in five universities with a space and science program, where the students actually hand build satellites. And in Morehead, five of their satellites have actually been to space, they are sending one to the moon, in a project with NASA, will go to the moon in 2018, and will orbit around the moon.

Our plan is to take our meshing software, that started on the ground, now is on drones in the air, our plan is to take it next to space-based platforms and mesh satellites together.

MINING.COM: Is the economics of that allowing it now?

Bob Schena: Think of them as throw-away satellites. A large satellite—if you’re lucky—for the military might cost $200 million. It is going to last in space for 15 years and all the components are hardened. A $5 chip on your cellphone aimed at space might become a $20,000 chip. So these throw-away satellites are designed to only last for 6-12 months in space. They don’t have to be hardened, so the expenses associated with them are dramatically lower than traditional satellite technology, plus, they don’t need a giant launch vehicle. They hitchhike a ride with something else going into space so launch costs are low and hardening costs are low. So what was traditionally hundreds or tens of millions of dollars, is now in the tens of thousands of dollars. So the cost for satellites is dropping dramatically, slightly behind that of drone technology, but rapidly declining.

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Liebherr extolls feature set of its 200-tonne excavator

Liebherr's two-year old 9200 excavator is probably the most efficient in the field due to new hydraulics and electronics, says Dave Pichanick, General Manager, North American Sales, Liebherr.

"The hydraulics and the electrics are within the close-loop system, which is Liebherr’s generic system, and allows a lot cooler system so the energy that is saved on cooling hydraulics goes to other functions of the machine, which makes it quicker," says Pichanick who was interviewed by MINING.com at MINExpo.

Transcript edited for clarity.

MINING.COM: Can you tell me something about the 9200 excavator?

Dave Pichanick: The 9200 excavator is part of our new releases, is part of the large range excavators that we market now, is in the 200-tonne class, and is probably the most productive excavator in the market today because of the new hydraulics and electronics we’ve put in the machine.

MINING.COM:  Can you tell me something about how you’re are getting productivity out of the hydraulics?

Dave Pichanick: Well, the hydraulics and the electrics within the close-loop system that we have, which is Liebherr’s generic system, allows a lot cooler system so the energy that is saved on cooling hydraulics goes to other functions of the machine, which makes it quicker.

MINING.COM: Can you tell me something about the bucket? I believe it has a higher capacity.

Yes, this machine does have a slightly higher capacity than the current competition, that’s because of some of the design features in the boom and stick and also it has a very smart design on the bucket, saving some weight in the bucket, and allowing more capacity for material.

Liebherr R 9200 mining excavator at work in a platinum mine.

MINING.COM: Why did Liebherr see a market niche for the 9200?

The 9200 has been in our for a long time. Since we developed the new 9100 on the 100-tonne class and then we put the 9150 in 150-tonner, we had a bit of a void so we really wanted to complete the whole range giving from 100-tonne all the way to a 210-tonner, so we put the 9200. But with a quicker machine, it does create problems now that the 9250, being a slightly older generation, the customers are better off buying the 9200 and getting better value for money and the same production.

MINING.COM: Is this excavator in the field right now?

Yes, it is. It has actually been on trial for over two years. We had two prototype machines but by now we’ve sold five or six machines that are being delivered right now in the field in different parts of the world and they are doing really well, actually.

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Data contained in diamonds could stay there forever too

It’s said diamonds are forever and if the results of a new study published this week leads to a new, more practical use of the precious stones, data could also be stored on them, virtually forever.

According to a paper available at the journal Science Advances, diamonds can be used as a way to store vast amounts of data using atom-size flaws ordered in 3D arrays.

The authors, a team of physicists from City University of New York, used lasers to encode and read data on diamonds’ atomic-sized imperfections, known as a nitrogen vacancy centres.

They treated those minuscule spaces as magnets that could repel or absorb electrons and encoded simple gray-scale images, such as the faces of Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger by adding an electron and taking another away using lasers.

The scientists encoded images of Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger on a diamond by adding and removing electrons with green and red lasers. (Image: Meriles Group, City College of the City University of New York)

The results of these experiments suggest that diamonds could be used to encode data in the form of negatively and neutrally charged defects, which lasers can read, write, erase and rewrite, the physicists said.

“With these advanced protocols, the storage capacity of a diamond would surpass what existing technologies can achieve,” the authors wrote in a blog. “This is just a beginning, but these initial results provide us a potential way of storing huge amount of data in a brand new way. We’re looking forward to transform this beautiful quirk of physics into a vastly useful technology.”

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Liebherr introduces 100-tonne mining truck

At MINExpo 2016 Liebherr introduced its own version of the one of the industry's most common haul truck, the T236

It is the company's first 100-tonne truck, says Burkhard Richthammer, General Manager of New Product Development at Liebherr. Richthammer says the truck benefits from an electrical drive, which allows superior performance on a variety of road grades.

"It’s building for us the perfect market," says Richthammer who notes that the company already has a 9100 and 9350 excavators.

"We can now supply a complete package to our customers."

Interview is edited for clarity.

MINING.COM: Can you tell me something about the T236?

Burkhard Richthammer: The T236 is our latest development. It’s a diesel-electrical driven 100-tonne truck.

MINING.COM: What are the advantages of this particular truck?

Burkhard Richthammer: The particular advantages with this truck are an electrical drive so we allow a constant transmission of the power to the ground, which gives us a superior speed on grades. We are not depending on a specific mine grade. We are also reducing damage due to any shift changes.

MINING.COM: Can you tell me about the other features of this truck?

Burkhard Richthammer: We have a completely newly-designed cabin, which gives the operator a superior view in a possible self-driving environment. Additionally, we have installed into our power ram many safety features like an external grounding and short-circuiting devices, allowing a safe maintenance of our system.

MINING.COM: Can you tell me anything about safety features with this truck?

Burkhard Richthammer: Well, the safety features with this truck are a lock-out option, so we can allow maintenance people to inspect the engine and, at the same time, do the electrical work to the drive system if necessary.

And secondly, all maintenance points are ground-level access or top-deck accessible, which also improves the safety substantially during maintenance work.

Liebherr's T 236 truck.

MINING.COM: What is the market opportunity that Liebherr saw for this particular kind of truck?

Burkhard Richthammer: With this truck here we are entering the 100-tonne truck market. This is the most commonly used mining haul truck, and it’s building for us the perfect market for our already existing excavator fleet. So from our 9100 or our 9350 excavator, we can now supply a complete package to our customers.

MINING.COM: Do you have this truck operating in the field?

Burkhard Richthammer: We have this truck currently under an extensive field test and a designated proving ground, so currently, we are running a lot of testing on this machine. We are not running it yet on a field trial on a mine site.

MINING.COM: When will it be available?

Burkhard Richthammer: We have scheduled some units to commence the field trials next year . Subject to the success we will then start in one market and then another. It’s going to be a slow and gradual market entry.

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Otto, un camion autonome de la filiale d'Uber, a effectué sa première livraison

Aux États-Unis, dans le Colorado, un camion sans chauffeur a réalisé la toute première livraison de marchandise sur un trajet de 200 kilomètres. La technologie qui équipe le poids lourd a été développée par Otto, une jeune pousse récemment acquise par le service de transport avec chauffeur Uber...

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Exploration firms the biggest winners of renewables use in mining — study

Most renewable energy players target solar or wind power plants to large-scale miners, but a new study shows that to due to how remote exploration camps usually are, these firms would be the most benefited by the adoption of mobile solar and wind power generation solutions.

Power generation costs could be dramatically reduced by adopting semi-portable, flexible solar and wind energy solution.

Power generation for mineral exploration camps is mostly fuel-based and that diesel needs to be transported over long distances by truck or even by helicopters, which makes it a particularly expensive option.

According to German consulting firm THEnergy, those costs could be dramatically reduced by the adoption of semi-portable, flexible solar and wind energy solutions, which cost has declined in the last 10 years.

One of the main challenges consists of dealing with the relatively long lifetime of traditional renewable energy power plants, which are normally laid out for operations of 25 years or more, the authors write.

But Mineral exploration camps typically cover only a relatively short part of the mining value chain, so power requirements are still low in comparison to the consequent extraction operations, the note.

Finally, at the exploration stage, there is no guarantee of finding enough mineral deposits to justify setting up a mining infrastructure.

That is why the authors suggest that exploration companies would benefit from solutions that minimize the effort of dismantling power-generation plants and rebuilding them at a new location.

The full study can be downloaded here.

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Biodiversité : plus de la moitié des vertébrés ont disparu depuis 1970 (MAJ)

Le Fonds mondial pour la nature (WWF) vient de publier son rapport biennal sur la dégradation des écosystèmes de la planète. Cette année, l’organisation s’alarme du déclin rapide des effectifs parmi les populations de vertébrés, un phénomène qui commence à ressembler à une extinction de masse.

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Vale board OK’s sale of fertilizer unit — report

The board of directors at Brazilian mining giant Vale (NYSE:VALE), the world’s largest iron ore producer, have approved the sale of the firm’s fertilizer business, amid global oversupply of potash that has caused prices to tumble in the past year, leading to layoffs and mine closures across the sector.

According to local newspaper Valor Economico (in Portuguese) most of the division’s assets will be acquired by US-based Mosaic Co. (NYSE:MOS), the world’s largest producer of phosphate fertilizer.

Vale had long vowed to hold on to world-class operations in these and other key areas.

But in February, the Rio de Janeiro-based firm announced it was putting its core assets on the block in a bid to reduce its net debt to $15 billion within 18 months, from $25.23 billion at the end of 2015.

The company will also go ahead with the sale of its Carborough Downs coal mine, the company's last operating mine in Australia, Valor said.

More to come …

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BattleDev, un concours de programmation en ligne ouvert à tous

Le 8 novembre prochain, le site Regionjobs.com, partenaire de Futura, organise la huitième édition du concours de programmation BattleDev. Les inscriptions sont ouvertes et on dénombre déjà 2.000 participants qui s’affronteront à coup de code C, C++, Java, PHP… À la clé, des récompenses et...

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Découverte d'un nouveau mille-pattes à 4 pénis et 414 pattes

414 pattes, 200 glandes sécrétant du poison et 4 pénis ! Voici les attributs de l'Illacme tobini, un mille-pattes découvert dans une caverne du sud de la Sierra Nevada, aux États-Unis.

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Canyon uranium mine may also be a vast copper operation — report

Energy Fuels Resources resumed shaft sinking operations at Canyon Mine in November last year. (Image courtesy of US Forest Service)

Canada’s Energy Fuels (NYSE MKT: UUUU; TSX: EFR), the largest conventional uranium producer in the US, has discovered high-grade copper at its Canyon project in northern Arizona, which is already the highest grade uranium mine being developed in the country.

With this discovery, says Rob Chang, analyst at investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, the potential uranium production cost profile for this operation may go down significantly.

Based on uranium recovery alone, Energy Fuels expects production costs from the Canyon Mine to be competitive with the best underground mines of the commodity, including those in Canada, based on industry-published cost estimates.

Highlights from Cantor Fitzgerald’s report:

BOTTOM LINE: Positive – The discovery of high-grade copper may lead to valuable by-product credits that will further reduce the uranium cost production profile of this mine.  We reiterate our Buy recommendation and a C$7.05 per share target price.

• Exploration results to date average 8.75% Cu with one intercept hitting 31.69% Cu over five feet.
• The Canyon mine is the highest grade uranium mine in the U.S. at a grade of 0.98% U₃O₈.
  • Energy Fuels is currently evaluating the mine to upgrade and expand the uranium resource.
  • A production shaft to a depth of 1,470 feet is being completed and underground drilling program is underway.
    • The shaft is currently at a depth of 1,250 feet and underground drilling is occurring at the second of three planned levels.
    • Drilling at level 1 intercepted previously announced mineralization of 6.88% U₃O₈ over 8.5 ft., 1.02% U₃O₈ over 48 ft., and 1.39% over 35 ft.
• Of the three uranium bearing zones at Canyon (upper, middle, and lower), the high grade copper mineralization appears to be located in the middle zone at this point but management believes that there is potential in the upper and lower zones as well
• The copper occurs inside and outside the mineralized uranium envelope, which suggests that there may be larger copper tonnage at Canyon. Generally the copper occurs within the physical boundaries of the uranium deposit, which indicates that the potential recovery of copper may not add significant additional costs to the company.
• Upcoming drill programs will be expanded to identify copper, uranium, silver, and other mineral resources. The Company plans to complete percussion and core drilling programs on the 2nd level at the Canyon deposit during Q4/16. The cost of the additional drilling is not expected to be significant.
• A 43-101 technical report for Canyon is expected in Q1/17 that will update the uranium resource as well as add any other mineral resources if applicable.

The Canyon uranium project is slated to begin production next year, with ore to be shipped to Energy Fuels’s White Mesa mill for processing. It holds inferred resources equivalent to 1.6 million pounds of uranium, at an average grade of .98 % U3O8.

The Toronto-based company is an uranium and vanadium exploration and mine development firm with projects located in the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming and New Mexico.

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Coal rally, cost cuts help Teck Resources swing to profit

Canada's largest diversified miner, Teck Resources (TSX:TCK.B) (NYSE:TCK) logged Thursday better-then-expected quarterly revenue thanks mainly to a sustained rally in coking coal as well as the firm’s cost-cutting measures implemented in the three months to Sept. 30

Teck’s shares have climbed five-fold to a market value of $16.2-billion, the biggest year-to-date gain of any Canadian stock since 2009.

The Vancouver-based company, the best-performing Canadian stock in seven years, swung to a profit of Cdn$234 million ($174.9 million), or 40 cents per share in third quarter of the year, compared with a loss of Cdn$2.15 billion, or C$3.73 per share, in 2015.

The miner, with operations and projects in Canada, the US, Chile and Peru, has risen five-fold on the S&P/TSX Composite Index to a market value of $16.2-billion, the biggest year-to-date gain of any Canadian stock since 2009.

Teck’s bonds are also the best-performing debt on the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Index, returning 104%, according to Bloomberg TV.

Key to the company’s success has been the ongoing rally of coking coal prices, as it is the largest producer of the steel-making kind in North America. Only last week, the commodity reached $230 a tonne, up from $75 a tonne just a few months ago.

As a result, Teck has lifted its production forecast for the year. Now it expects to generate about 27-27.5 million tonnes, compared with its previous forecast of 26-27 million tonnes.

Since early 2015 the company has been implementing a series of cost-cutting measures, including placing projects in the back burner and the reduction of about 9% its global workforce, through a combination of layoffs and attrition.

Now that the company’s finances have improved, Teck said it expected unit costs to rise in the fourth quarter as it plans to hire more contractors and use higher-cost equipment to maximize production while the bonanza brought by skyrocketing met coal and zinc prices lasts.

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Patient zéro : le Sida n'est pas arrivé aux États-Unis par Gaëtan Dugas

Une nouvelle étude clarifie les conditions dans lesquelles le VIH est entré aux États-Unis. Ses conclusions discréditent le mythe selon lequel un seul homme, le « patient zéro », a causé l’épidémie de Sida en Amérique du Nord.

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Physical gold market in largest surplus in a decade

Gold continued to tread water on Thursday, trading at $1,270 an ounce in early morning trade in New York. The gold price has been on the defensive since the start of October when it crashed through the $1,300 an ounce level and is now down more than 8% from two-year highs reached in July.

A new report by the GFMS team at Thomson Reuters makes it clear what has been behind recent weakness with third quarter data showing the global gold market jumping to a surplus of 250 tonnes, the largest quarterly surplus since the final quarter of 2005.

"With prices stabilizing at these lower levels physical demand, particularly in Asia will spark to life and underpin gold prices"
According to the report, slipping mine production (822 tonnes, down 2.1%) and still healthy demand for physically-backed gold ETFs  in the West (over 100 tonnes for the third quarter in a row) was not enough to offset a surge in scrap supply and plummeting sales of jewellery in Asia:

The two largest markets, India and China, saw jewellery consumption down 41% and 27% respectively year-on-year despite an improvement in demand compared to the prior quarter.

This relative improvement though is largely just a reflection of seasonal factors and jewellery consumption in 2016 appears set to record a seven-year low in China and a 13-year low in India. This is despite the fact that in both cases the country’s GDP was less than half this year’s level back then.

Global scrap supply responded quickly to higher gold prices over the summer months in the northern hemisphere, jumping more than 20% to 336 tonnes. In India, scrap sales were the highest since GFMS started collecting the data in 1999.

Retail investors also pulled back purchases sharply with the global tally falling 29% year-on-year. The GFMS team at Thomson Reuters found that in contrast to jewellery, the sharpest declines were often in western markets, "with price sensitive coin buyers reducing purchases appreciably" compared to 2015's banner year.

The authors of the report are of the view that the recent price fall is "a healthy correction for the market" and believe the gold price is unlikely to fall below $1,240.

Next year the price is set to rally, averaging $1,420 an ounce says GFMS. That matches 2010's annual average gold price and the third highest ever yearly performance for the metal:

We forecast that with prices stabilising at these lower levels physical demand, particularly in Asia will spark to life and underpin gold prices. ETF demand in the west is also set to remain at healthy levels with a growing number of financial institutions recommending gold purchases in a world with trillions of dollars of negative yielding bonds.

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Torre Reforma, le gratte-ciel conçu pour résister aux séismes

Des murs extérieurs en béton armé reliés par des poutres de couplage : voilà les bases d’un gratte-ciel censé résister à tous les séismes susceptibles de survenir dans les… 2.500 années à venir ! Située à Mexico, la Torre Reforma, achevée en juillet dernier, se...

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Champs magnétiques intergalactiques : une fenêtre sur l'avant-Big Bang ? (MAJ)

Des simulations numériques montrent, pour la première fois, que des ondes de choc se sont formées pendant le Big Bang. Cela expliquerait d'où viennent les champs magnétiques galactiques et intergalactiques primitifs.

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Animaux sauvages : les 10 plus belles photos primées en 2016

Voici une sélection de dix photos récompensées lors de la 52e Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards (compétition internationale pour le meilleur photographe de la vie sauvage de l’année) organisée par le Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Londres. Des images saisissantes...

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How Joy Smart prevented a $2 million conveyor failure

Advanced monitoring and analytics helped head off conveyor failure at a customer's underground mine, says Jason Knuth, Senior Prognostics Engineer and Data Scientist at Joy Global.

Knuth says supplier's machines are equipped with thousands of sensors that are constantly monitoring the performance of the system. The data is then transformed by algorithms into visual information that predict changes in operating conditions.

The data saved a client from a costly transmission failure at an underground mine when monitoring found unusual vibration. The field staff was able to take preventative action.

One of Joy Global's 12HM Series Continuous Miner

Interview is edited for clarity.

MINING.COM: Can you tell me about Joy Smart?

Jason Knuth: Joy Smart is a new paradigm in service engagement between our customers and us. At its core is the commitment to deliver value to the customers and it's three parts: it is our direct services, it is our smart-connected products, and it is our analytics.

The three components are key because information by itself isn't useful if it can't be acted upon. So, we just have these analytics and we have these reports and data coming out of the machine. You can create reports but if you can't get it the right hands, or they can't do anything about it, it's pretty useless. So having initial engagement with our customers; direct services and a closed loop—a feedback loop—with our customers; and having a very close engagement with them allows for any information to get to the right person's hands so actions on it can be made as fast as possible.

Joy Global's P&H 2650CX hybrid shovel

MINING.COM: Can you give me some examples of Joy Smart working?

Jason Knuth: One example of Joy Smart is in our longwall application in Illinois. We utilized Joy Smart solutions to increase the availability of a system that often gets overlooked: the conveyor system. Well, initially during the commission of the conveyor system, I used benchmark recordings—and what I mean by benchmark recordings is the startup sequences: the stopping, shut down, run time and understanding the key deliverables. I took all those recordings and I worked with on the site personnel to fine tune the starting, stopping and shutting down sequences. The customer had a better insight of knowing the configurations, customization, to meet the production goals.

Joy Global's 4LD

Then, during that time period, I used those benchmark recordings to create anomaly algorithms, which would track the normal behaviour and find if there's any issue with the conveyor. Within that first week of the longwall starting up, I noticed excessive vibration on one of those gearboxes, which was detected by those algorithms. I called the local field service rep, which is part of our direct service component. The sales rep went to the mine to look at the gearbox. He put his hand on the equipment to confirm what I saw on the computer, and through those recordings we were able to determine that corrective action could happen on the next scheduled maintenance period. It was a big positive for the mine because there wasn't any unexpected downtime.

If this algorithm wouldn't have been there, it could have cost a failure for transmission, at a cost of about $2 million.

Image from JoySmart Solutions brochure.

MINING.COM: What is the advantage of having the data coming from your own machines?

Jason Knuth: Analytics is a data science type of program where you have machine-learning and all these different algorithms and models. It sounds all fancy, but at its true core it's truly just math. Pretty much anyone can do it but what really sets us apart is the fact that we actually have the knowledge of the machine and equipment to confirm that the models that we have created actually represent the technical requirements of our machines. I have a direct line to all of the engineers—surface and underground—to confirm my data. Actually I was a design engineer for eight years—designing and developing these machines in the R&D department. Using engineering-based principles—along with physics-based models and statistics—we can actually go beyond what other competitors can do.

JoyGlobal's booth at MINExpo 2016. Photo by Joy Global.

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