Mining Weekly

JSE- and ASX-listed Orion Minerals has requested an immediate trading halt to be placed on its securities, pending the release of an announcement in relation to exploration results at its Okiep copper project in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. Orion said it expected to make an announcement to the market concerning this matter before the start of trade on April 22.

The world's governments must do more to convince local communities and Indigenous groups to support mines that produce critical minerals needed to power the energy transition and fight climate change, the head of a prominent industry group said. Mines across the globe increasingly face opposition for religious, ecological or other reasons, with pressure seeming to intensify in the past year after officials in Panama, responding to protests, shuttered a mine that supplies 1% of the world's copper.

Standard Bank head of Southern Africa’s oil and gas coverage Paul Eardley-Taylor has suggested that South Africa needs 13 GW of gas-to-power (GtP) capacity, rather than the 7.2 GW to 8.6 GW outlined in the draft Integrated Resource Plan 2023. Speaking at mine ventilation solutions developer Howden’s Technology Day, hosted at Mintek, in Johannesburg, on April 17, he explained that this calculation was made by considering the need to overcome Stage 6 or even Stage 7 loadshedding, when Stage 6 was being regularly achieved, as well as ensure a 15% reserve margin for winter peak demand.

Minerals Council South Africa is focused on increasing the domestic demand for green hydrogen, which it sees as contributing to the kickstarting of the hydrogen economy in South Africa. “The applications that we’re looking at are stationary as well as mobility applications of using hydrogen within the mining industry,” Minerals Council modernisation and safety senior executive Sietse van der Woude outlined during last week’s Hydrogen Economy Discussion covered by Mining Weekly.

ASX-listed Lotus Resources has developed a detailed initial programme of work to maximise the potential of its Letlhakane uranium project, in Botswana. The company is working to update the project’s mineral resource model and is undertaking studies to determine the potential of upgrading the ore for a more efficient processing route.

Australia-headquartered Orion Minerals has made progress with acquiring a controlling interest in the Okiep copper project, in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. Orion and other relevant parties, barring the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) of South Africa, which is still in the process of finalising internal approval, have signed addenda to amend the agreements that will affect Orion’s controlling interest in the project.

Diamond miner De Beers says it generated about $445-million in revenue from its third sales cycle for this year. The figure represents the expected sales value from the company’s latest global sightholder sales and auctions and remains subject to adjustment.

In order to fill a potential supply gap of eight-million tons by 2034, mining companies need prices that are higher than $10 000/t and possibly as high as $12 000/t, says Trafigura Group CEO Jeremy Weir. Weir made his comments Tuesday during a presentation at the CRU World Copper Conference in Santiago, where the copper industry is gathering for one of the industry’s biggest annual events.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has belatedly moved to quell concern that its recent approval of a new loadshedding code of practice, which increases the number of potential stages from eight to 16, represented a signal that the prospect for higher levels of loadshedding was imminent. Following extensive public consultations undertaken by the National Rationalised Specifications (NRS) Association of South Africa, the third edition of the NRS048-9 standard was approved by the regulator for use by Eskom and municipal system operators during times of electricity constraint.

Canada-headquartered Barrick Gold has announced its preliminary figures for the first quarter of 2024, reporting gold output of 940 000 oz and copper output of 40 000 t. Gold production fell by 12% quarter-on-quarter, which Barrick attributed to planned maintenance activities at its Nevada Gold Mines, in the US, and adjustments in mine sequencing across various sites.

The sale by Southern African diamond mining company Petra Diamonds of an exceptional blue diamond in its fifth tender cycle lifted the average prices per carat received 22% higher than those of the prior Tender 4 sale. The London Stock Exchange-listed company, headed by CEO Richard Duffy, reported on Tuesday that the price upliftment was the result of a remarkable14.76 ct exceptional clarity diamond, recovered from Cullinan diamond mine in Gauteng, fetching $8.2-million.

South Africa has fallen to sixty-ninth from sixty-fourth on the World Energy Council’s (WEC’s) latest World Energy Trilemma Index which ranks more than 100 countries against the three key dimensions of energy security, equity, and environmental sustainability. The index is included in the ‘World Energy Trilemma 2024’ report, released on April 16, and which is topped by Denmark and Sweden, with Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the bottom of the standings.

Aim- and ASX-listed Aura Energy and uranium trader and investor Curzon Uranium have agreed to restructure their uranium offtake agreement, materially increasing the price receivable for planned uranium production and releasing significant value for Aura’s Tiris uranium project, in Mauritania. The average fixed-price contract price increases by 70% to $74.75/lb of uranium ore concentrate (U3O8) from $44.09/lb of U3O8, subject to a final investment decision being made by March 31, 2025.

Battery metals miner Marula Mining’s Kenyan representative company has been awarded a mineral dealer’s trading licence, granting it the right to buy, sell and export manganese ores. Marula considers the granting of the licence as an important step in the investment of the Larisoro manganese mine, in Kenya.

New York- and Toronto-listed Platinum Group Metals, which is emerging in South Africa’s Waterberg, on Tuesday provided an update on its new light battery technology that points to increasing potential of palladium and platinum playing a key energy density and weight-lowering role in cumbersome battery electric vehicles (BEVs), where they currently play no part. Amid the market development of platinum group metals (PGMs) being collectively emphasised by South Africa’s PGMs mining industry in unprecedented fashion, Platinum Group Metals restated its goal of this year creating prototypes for commercialisation consideration this year.

Rare earths miner Rainbow Rare Earths has revealed that the results of mineralogy and hydrometallurgical testwork recently carried out on phosphogypsum material from the Mosaic Company’s Uberaba site, in Brazil, indicates similar characteristics to Rainbow’s Phalaborwa project, in South Africa. The Uberaba site is the subject of a memorandum of understanding between Rainbow and Mosaic.

Gold is set to reach $3 000 an ounce over the next six to 18 months on increasing investor inflows amid expectations that the Federal Reserve will eventually cut interest rates, Citigroup said, adding to a roll call of Wall Street banks that have raised forecasts. Analysts led by Aakash Doshi upgraded their estimate for average prices in 2024 to $2 350 and made a “massive 40% upward revision” in their 2025 prediction to $2 875. Trading will “regularly test and breach” $2 500 in the second half, they wrote. Gold traded at $2 387 by 1 p.m. Singapore time Tuesday.

Hydrogen could play a key role in addressing South Africa’s pressing energy challenges and platinum group metals (PGM) will have a pivotal role to play in the hydrogen economy, as the metals are a catalyst in many of the processes in the value chain. It is also critical for the country to act now to undertake projects and build up component manufacturing capacity so that this is in place when demand increases.  

With the platinum group metals (PGM) basket price remaining at low levels, particularly with platinum pricing at about $935/oz currently, investors are looking at how mining companies are able to generate free cash flow, the cost of their operations and their commodity mix. Commenting on investors’ sentiment towards PGMs at the moment, JP Morgan metals and mining equity analyst Catherine Cunningham says investors favour the companies that are best able to weather the storm, should it continue for longer.

Amid significant demand for the production of rare earth oxides (REOs) from magnet recycling, which is currently essentially non-existent in the Western world, Ionic Technologies International, a subsidiary of ASX-listed Ionic Rare Earths (IonicRE), is exploring options to increase the capacity of its demonstration plant, in Belfast, in the UK. IonicRE points out that Ionic Technologies continues to receive numerous requests from various magnet REO supply chain participants and potential strategic partners to run both end-of-life magnet material and swarf and magnet production waste streams trials through the Belfast rare earth recycling plant.