Mining Weekly

Local mobile and semi-mobile crushing and screening equipment provider Pilot Crushtec has expanded its product lineup to the Southern African mining market with the addition of Swedish brand Jonsson’s crushers and The range complements the company’s existing offering of Metso equipment, particularly filling the gap of large-scale premium crushing and screening requirements with tracked units in the region.

Legal & General Investment Management, one of the 20 largest shareholders in Anglo American said an approach by BHP Group is "highly opportunistic" and "unattractive". "As with many other UK-listed companies, we believe the valuation of Anglo American to be depressed and regard the proposed exchange ratio as an unattractive proposition for long-term investors," Nick Stansbury, head of climate solutions at Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), told Reuters in an email on Thursday.

South Africa’s 30 years of democracy has changed the character of this country’s mining industry profoundly, Minerals Council South Africa emphasised in a report that highlights the industry’s significant advance since the dawning of democracy in 1994. Importantly, South Africa’s highly regarded mine employees earn among the most competitive wages in the major job sectors, with tens of thousands of employees now direct partners in mining companies through employee share ownership programmes and profit-sharing schemes.

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government notified Apple of concerns that the company’s supply chain may be tainted by conflict minerals sourced from the central African nation. A group of international lawyers engaged on behalf of the Congolese State sent a list of questions to the US tech giant on April 22 and demanded answers within three weeks, according to a statement published on the website of lawyer Robert Amsterdam on Thursday. The statement coincided with the release by the law firm of a report accusing neighbouring Rwanda of laundering tin, tungsten and tantalum — known as 3T minerals — and gold from Congo.

An admirable degree of creativity exists within the South African mining technology and equipment manufacturing sector, giving manufacturers the necessary flexibility to weather the significant challenges over the past few years, Mining Equipment Manufacturers of South Africa CEO Lehlohonolo Molloyi has said. He was speaking as part of a panel in a webinar hosted by Creamer Media and sponsored by ABB, AECI Mining, Astron Energy and Epiroc, on April 24.

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has reappointed Winston Chitando as the Southern African nation’s Mines Minister, a post he held before last year’s elections. Prior to his reappointment, Chitando was the local government minister.

Diversified mining major BHP on Thursday announced a proposed all-share offer that values Anglo American at £31.1-billion. The deal has the potential to transform the mining industry landscape. BHP offered Anglo shareholders £25.08 a share, including £4.86 a share for Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) shares and £3.40 a share for Kumba Iron Ore shares.

Copper needs to reach $12 000/t — a 20% jump from this week’s high — to incentivize large-scale investments in new mines, said Olivia Markham, who co-manages the BlackRock World Mining Fund. The metal’s price hit a two-year high near $10 000, but Markham said further gains are necessary to encourage miners to sign off on projects required to avoid major deficits during the energy transition.

Aim-listed mining development company Ironveld has entered into a further working capital loan facility agreement with shareholder Tracarta, in which Ironveld chairperson John Wardle has a beneficial interest. The facility agreement enables the company to draw down up to £125 000 on equivalent terms to the existing loan facilities with Tracarta and has a term of six months.

The World Diamond Council’s (WDC’s) revised System of Warranties (SoW) is set to reach its first critical deadline on September 21, when it becomes obligatory for all rough diamond sales.   “We strongly urge all companies, but especially . . . rough diamond traders, to transition to the revised SoW, if they have not done so yet, to be ready for the September 21 deadline,” WDC executive director Elodie Daguzan said on April 24.

Fast advancing copper producer Copper 360 has shipped copper concentrate from South Africa’s Northern Cape province for the first time in 21 years. South Africa’s only listed pure copper producer, which delivered record concentrate grades during plant commissioning, is performing way ahead of expectation as a producer of copper concentrate, as well as being the Northern Cape’s only producer of copper cathode.

The green hydrogen sector now has a digital platform on which users can buy and sell green hydrogen by the click of a button, it was announced on Tuesday.  Euronext-listed Lhyfe, the French group devoted to energy transition, has begun taking of orders for green hydrogen in Europe and facilitating contacts between buyers and sellers. (Also watch attached video.)

NYSE- and JSE-listed petrochemicals company Sasol says its energy business benefitted from higher basic fuel prices, as well as improved refining margins towards the end of the nine months ended March 31, which helped to offset operational headwinds at the group’s mining and Secunda operations. Sasol’s mining productivity has improved albeit at a slower pace than expected. The group expects to meet the lower end of its coal productivity guidance range of between 975 t and 1 100 t per continuous miner per shift for the full-year ending on June 30.

Anglo American subsidiary Kumba Iron Ore has reported a 10% year-on-year decrease in sales to 8.5-million tonnes for the quarter ended March 31, on the back of port performance challenges. About 400 000 t of shipments have been rolled over to the second quarter as a result.

JSE-listed copper miner Copper 360 has informed shareholders that it has noticed "unusual and uncommercial" trades in its shares, resulting in a substantial drop in its traded price. "The trades in question have continued on a systematic and sustained basis for a period of several weeks," it says in a notice published on the JSE's Stock Exchange News Service.

Copper production increasing by 11% as Quellaveco achieved its highest plant throughput rate in Peru, and Collahuasi and El Soldado in Chile benefitting from higher copper grades were among the first-quarter performance aspects that pleased diversified mining company Anglo American in the three months ending March 31. “We’re driving operational excellence across our assets, focusing on stability and effective cost management as levers to deliver significant value through the cycle,” Anglo CE Duncan Wanblad highlighted in a release to Mining Weekly on Tuesday.

Platinum group metals (PGM) miner Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) has reported a decrease in 5E metal-in-concentrate production of 7% to 834 100 oz for the quarter ended March 31, compared with the 901 200 oz produced in the same quarter of last year. Notably, the group’s own-managed PGM production decreased by 6% year-on-year to 504 300 oz, while the purchase of PGM concentrate decreased by 10% year-on-year to 329 000 oz.

Diamond miner De Beers, a subsidiary of diversified miner Anglo American, has lowered its production guidance for the 2024 full-year to between 26-million and 29-million carats in response to the higher-than-average levels of inventory in the market and expectations of only a gradual recovery in demand for rough diamonds. It had previously targeted production of 29-million to 32-million carats this year.

Zambia's State-owned electricity utility Zesco said on Monday it is seeking to import power to avert an energy deficit that could affect output in Africa's second-largest copper producer. The southern African country generates 86% of its electricity from hydropower stations. Power generation has been hit by a severe drought induced by El Nino - a weather phenomenon resulting from the abnormal warming of the waters in the eastern Pacific, which raises temperatures globally.

Diversified mining company Anglo American is taking steps to help to restore an Amazon rainforest equivalent of which less than 10% remains intact. The Mata Atlántica carbon forest is located near Anglo’s Minas-Rio iron-ore mine, in Brazil.