The waning reputation of Mongolia has been hit by a freezing order, filed in London, against one of the country’s biggest mining companies.

Late last week, a judge in London granted an order freezing the UK assets of Erdenet Mining Corp up to the value of US$7.115 million, plus £637,818 (US$841,855) in incurred costs, related to a failed copper supply contract between it and Switzerland-based MRI Trading. This ruling restricted the company’s ability to transact sales of copper and other metals in England’s capital.

Notice of the order has been served on a number of banks and trading houses in London, freezing payables to Erdenet pending recovery of the amounts due to MRI.

The ruling is not good news for Mongolia, which has an economy starved of resource investment following falling commodity prices and delays to key mining projects – the underground development of Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project being the standout example.

Last week’s ruling relates to a long-running dispute over the failure by Erdenet to honour a contract, dated January 30, 2009, between it and MRI Trading to deliver 40,000 tonnes (wet) of copper concentrate produced at Erdenet’s mine in Mongolia.

MRI, which specialises in the trading of non-ferrous ores, concentrates, refined and precious metals for its global smelting and processing customer base, has been trying to recover this money since, going through arbitration proceedings at the London Metal Exchange and having its case heard at the UK High Court, the latter of which found in its favour.

Erdenet, which produces copper and molybdenum concentrates from its deposit on the Erdenetiin-Ovoo region of Mongolia, recently became a 100% state-owned entity after Russia’s Rostech Corp, which previously owned 49% of the company, sold its minority stake back to the Mongolia government.

On its website, the Mongolia company states it has previously concluded long-term agreements with the likes of Trafigura and Samsung to supply its products to leading Chinese smelters.
 

NEW DELHI: Steel and Mines Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has invited Australian companies to partner with their Indian counterparts to develop the domestic mining and exploration sector.

Tomar in his inaugural address at the Asia Pacific International Mining Exhibition (AIMEX) 2015 in Sydney said that India and Australia can forge mutually beneficial relationships, an official statement said.

The Minister is leading a delegation, comprising heads of mining organisations and ministry officials to AIMEX 2015 -- the world's largest mining exhibition, it added.

"The total trade between India and Australia in 2013-14 was to the tune of 15 billion Australian dollars. We are hopeful that by forging mutually beneficial alliances, India will go on to feature in the top ten trade partners of Australia," the statement quoted the Minister as saying.

India Day event was organised at the four-day exhibition with the objective of inviting proactive partnership of miners and explorers from across the world in the Indian mining industry, the statement said.

Geo Science Australia (GSA) and its Indian counterpart, Geological Survey of India (GSI) have signed a MoU (memorandum of understanding) for 'Cooperation to develop short term and medium term roadmap for GSI in technology infusion, capacity building and efficiency improvement', it stated.

Under the collaboration, GSA will work closely with GSI to help it attain global benchmarks in exploration work. Acting CEO of GSA James Johnson and GSI Director-General Harbans Singh exchanged the MoU document in the presence of Tomar.

India's High Commissioner in Australia Navdeep Suri was also present at the inaugural event.

Tomar also launched an e-book on exploration, which can serve as a detailed guidebook for investors looking at India.

Presentations were also made by chiefs and senior representatives of NMDC, Coal India, MECL, NALCO, MOIL, HCL and Rio Tinto.

Together, 'Team India' presented the prospects of investment and partnership to a galaxy of participants attending AIMEX 2015, the statement said.

The Minister also inaugurated the Indian pavilion, which showcases the 'Make in India' campaign of the present government.

By Rebecca Curtin

The City of Kalgoorlie has taken a hit to its budget bottom line, as the mining boom goes bust in Western Australia. 

Hundreds of thousands of dollars of infrastructure projects have been put on hold in Western Australia's mining heartland, as the local council grapples with a massive budget hole caused by surrendered tenements.

The WA Department of Mines and Petroleum said 622 "dead" tenements were recorded in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, in the state's Goldfields region, in the last year.

Explorers pay rent to the State Government and rates to local councils for the land they lease.

Local councils are required by law to reimburse the balance of rates miners have paid if tenements are surrendered.

Kalgoorlie Mayor Ron Yuryevich said in trying to refund tenement holders the council had been forced to put more than $800,000 worth of projects on the back burner.

"That does have a dramatic effect on our bottom line when you have a severe amount, and that's never happened before," he said.

"We have to have certainty going forward in our budget process, so if we've got an expectation of $23 million coming in rates, we shouldn't be subject to five, six, seven hundred thousand dollars in mining leases being handed back."

The council has voted to ask the WA Local Government Association (WALGA) to petition the State Government for a change to legislation requiring refunding of mining tenement rates.

The region has 2,737 tenements still active.


READ MORE ON THIS AT: 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-18/kalgoorlie-takes-hit-after-mining-tenement-numbers-collapse/6705876

Scotgold Says Cononish Study Backs Robust Economics Of Project

Wed, 5th Aug 2015 08:33


LONDON (Alliance News) - Scotgold Resources Ltd on Wednesday said it has received the bankable feasibility study for the Cononish gold and silver project in Scotland, with the study backing the robust economics of the project, sending shares in the company higher in early trade.

Scotgold said the study showed the economics of the project are strong, with a low average operating cost. The study estimated average annual gold production from the site would be 23,370 ounces equivalent, with peak production to hit 28,540 ounces.

Completion of the study will allow Scotgold to work on securing its preferred financing route for the project and the signing of a financing deal is set to follow in the near future, it said.

"The study illustrates the robustness of the Cononish Project with the mine profitable down to USD700 per ounce and provides a very solid base for our ongoing discussions with potential project finance providers," said Richard Gray, Scotgold's chief executive.

Scotgold shares were up 4.7% to 0.7849 pence on the news.

By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance




Scotgold Resources Says Progress Made At Cononish, Grampian Projects

Mon, 3rd Aug 2015 08:25

LONDON (Alliance News) - Scotgold Resources Ltd shares were trading higher Monday morning after the company reported good progress in the past quarter on the Cononish gold project in Scotland.

Scotgold said the ore reserve estimate for Cononish was upgraded in the quarter to the end of June and said the bankable feasibility study for the project is now complete and awaiting final sign off by the consultants working on the project.

It is considering a range of parallel financing options in order to secure the necessary capital to bring the project into production.

The company is also awaiting the results of the structural and geochemical survey being conducted at the Grampian gold project, also in Scotland.

Scotgold shares were up 9.9% to 0.8241 pence in early trade, one of the best performers in the AIM All-Share.

By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance

Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.

 

Zijin Mining Group, the world's biggest gold producer by market value, will press ahead with mine acquisitions to improve its portfolio quality, adding to the $1bn of deals it agreed in the past year.

"We will not stop," vice president George Fang said yesterday in an interview in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. "In terms of how much we will need to spend, that depends on the opportunity and on the funding strategy."

While China is the biggest producer of gold, it lacks large individual mines, which means producers including Zijin are searching overseas to add operations, said Greg Foulis, chief executive officer of Kingsgate Consolidated, which operates mines in Thailand and Australia.

"China's gold mines are very small on a world scale," Mr Foulis said. "If Zijin wants to be a global gold miner, it needs to operate global gold mines."

Gold producers proposed or completed deals valued at $9.6bn in the six months to June 30, up 7pc on the previous half, as asset prices fell in the wake of tumbling bullion prices. The metal fell to $1,077.40 on July 24, the lowest level in five years.

Growth in demand for gold in China, also the biggest consumer, will continue to rise as the nation's middle class swells by about 500 million people in the next five years.

Mr Fang declined to comment on whether Zijin had discussed a potential acquisition of a stake in Kalgoorlie's Superpit, Australia's largest open-pit mine. (Bloomberg)





Irish Independent 05.08.2015.

There was an incident in Bremerhaven in May when a gantry crane collapsed on to the ship Maersk Karachi.  A couple of weeks after that, during the repair-work, there was a fire in the hold and consequently the fire services flooded holds three and four.


General Average is a process whereby the parties whose interests have been sacrificed, or who have incurred extra expenses, are recompensed by the contribution of those whose interests have been saved.


As General Average has been declared, you will be asked for an indemnity or a deposit.  Any standard Marine Insurance policy will include General Average losses, so if the goods have been insured the insured party should obtain a General Average guarantee from the insurers.


Whatever the position, your first action upon receiving notification that a General Average has been declared for a vessel, is to give immediate notice to your customer.


This is one superb reason to have Marine Insurance in place and therefor limit your liability should anything go wrong.

Operation Stack remains in place with the M20 closed between coast-bound junctions 8 to 11 and the M20 London-bound closed between junctions 9-8, due to ongoing disruptions in Calais and earlier problems at the Channel Tunnel.

All freight traffic wanting to use the Port of Dover or Channel Tunnel must join Operation Stack at junction 8 and collect a ticket.

Any freight drivers who arrive at the port or tunnel without an Operation Stack ticket will be sent to the back of the queue at junction 8.

Kent Police currently anticipate Operation Stack continuing into the weekend.

Please find attached additional multilingual information for drivers, released by the Port of Dover.


"The English language does not apportion gender to farm machinery nouns but check out French and you'll find that tractor is male and the combine harvester is female. 

When it comes to farm machinery, English is a very simple language. I met with a French farm machinery friend of mine recently and we drifted into a discussion about the gender of farm machinery. This was the first time that I considered any machine to have a gender.

And while here in Ireland we might refer to a tractor using language such as, “she has plenty of power”, do we really consider machines in gender sense? Why do we say 'she' instead of 'he' when our written language does not define a machine as male or female in terms of gender? In truth there is no distinction here between masculine and feminine in English language nouns that describe farm machinery.

So that forced me to look at how tractors and farm machines are treated in other languages. And here are some examples of what I found when it comes to farm machinery genders. I can only imagine they would be impossible to learn if you were not born into the language.
In French, for example, a tractor is male, while a combine harvester is female and so too is a self-propelled silage harvester and even a square baler. The confusion comes when a round baler is male.

Just imagine the confusion to find that a plough is female, but once it becomes a reversible model, it instantly changes gender to be male. And a fertilizer spreader and sprayer are male, while a slurry tanker is female.

In the Irish language farm machinery tends to be male dominated. The tractor is called a tarracóir and it’s a male, and the combine harvester, called the inneall bainte or comhbhuainteoir is also male. The Irish for a plough is a céachta and that too is defined as a male noun.

In German, the tractor, called traktor, is male, while the combine harvester, called a Mähdrescher, is also male as is the plough called a pflug.

In Spanish the tractor is male, while the combine harvester, called the cosechadora, is female. The plough, called arado is a male, while the sprayer, called the rociada, is female. Much of the reason for the gender differences is due to the last letter in the word; often a vowel is female and a consonant ending word is a male. But not always, as I’ve found!


Is it because tractors, as part of the development of agricultural technology, are seen as a symbol of male power on the farm that the male gender influence seems to dominate the farming language in some countries? If the tractor is considered as a symbol of male domination, is it time for tractor designers to give more female expression to the appearance of the tractors of the future?"


By Michael Moroney on 28 July 2015

As the gates were finally slammed shut at Hatfield Colliery near Doncaster last week, Britain’s coal mining industry appears to be on its last breath.

Hatfield Colliery has finally stopped producing coal, one of the last deep mines in the country to do so.

The closure of the employee-owned mine in South Yorkshire, with around 500 workers, will be followed by Britain’s remaining deep mines, Kellingley in North Yorkshire and Thoresby in Nottinghamshire. Owned by UK Coal, they are both due to close later this year.

Coal mining has suffered from competition from cheaper markets from South America to Russia, while also being crippled by the move to reduce the carbon footprint of developed nations.

But while traditional coal mining is dying, there are some rays of hope for Britain’s mining heritage. Last month, at a meeting attended by hundreds in Sneaton Castle in Whitby, a £1.7bn potash mine under the North York Moors National Park controversially got the go-ahead. There could still be an appeal, but AIM-listed Sirius, run by Australian Chris Fraser, is in the process of putting together a financing plan with investment bank Moelis to get the complex project started.

Sirius said the first phase of the financing aims to raise around £650m in equity and debt.

This won’t be easy: building a mile-deep shaft under the North York Moors as well as a 23-mile tunnel to take the fertiliser product to Teesside for export will cost up to £2bn.

The firm may need to issue new shares, which could dilute existing shareholders and it could be years away before it is actually completed. Sirius isn’t the only potash mine in the area.

Boulby Potash Mine has been producing potash for 40 years but on a small scale. But Sirius’ plan to mine polyhalite – a largely untested version of potash for fertiliser – is risky.

John Meyer, analyst at SP Angel, says: ‘We think Sirius will get financed and should start construction in the next few years. The key risk, for us, is the need to develop the end market for the particular type of fertilizer product they plan to produce. I am sure the product will sell in time but sometimes it is not the best idea to be the first to develop this type of market.’ But Sirius’ York Potash Project is just one example of the mines that could thrive in the 21st century.

Tin mining in Devon and Cornwall traces its roots back to the 16th century but had pretty much disappeared by the 1930s. But Wolf Minerals is about to put its tungsten and tin mine into full production – the first tungsten mine in the UK since the Second World War. Meyer says the UK ‘is a mining friendly destination.’

Numis mining expert Matthew Hasson agrees: ‘Mining is making a comeback in the UK. The UK has highly skilled workers and a workforce that is cheaper than Australia and equipment can be ordered and delivered quickly. Wolf Minerals’ tungsten mine in Devon has shown that it is possible to build a mine in the UK and has demonstrated the UK is open for business.’

Wolf boss, Australian Russell Clark, went to school and university here in Britain. He said: ‘When we were raising £100m last March interest was limited. People thought it was a joke. People thought mining had departed the UK under [Margaret] Thatcher.’

He added: ‘You have to be tenacious, it takes time but there a considerable benefits.

‘Workforce costs are 30 per cent cheaper than in Australia. Unlike in somewhere like Africa or China there are not security, language or food and drink issues.’

Wolf employs 500 on its site at present. There was plenty of demand for jobs with 900 applications for just 50 jobs recently.

In Northern Ireland there are two gold projects in the making.

Galantas Gold is developing an underground gold mine in Omagh, County Tyrone, which was until recently worked by open-pit methods. They got planning consent for underground mining in June and are raising money.

Dalradian Resources, also based in Tyrone, is also hoping to get permission to mine at its Curraghinalt project.

The UK still has around 2000 active mines but mainly mining aggregates and other construction minerals for the building industry. The numbers employed in the British mining industry are just a fraction compared to the industrial boom years. But as Wolf begins production this month with the first new metal mine on these shores in 45 years a new era has begun.

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-3159553/A-new-age-mining-Historic-UK-industry-verge-renaissance.html#ixzz3g23sTI7d