This is an annual phenomenon. While many metal fabricators take downtime over the holiday period, most smelters keep operating, leading to a jump in visible inventory.

Copper has experienced the sharpest seasonal stocks build this year, leaving exchange inventory at the highest levels since 2020.

The rise in ShFE zinc inventories has closely matched last year’s pattern, while aluminum has seen a highly muted rebuild by historical standards.

Nickel stocks were increasing before the holiday break and are now at four-year highs. Those of tin are the highest since ShFE launched its tin contract in 2015.

Copper surge

ShFE copper stocks have mushroomed from just 30,905 metric tons at the end of December to 285,090 tons.

The scale of this year’s seasonal surge has been the strongest since 2020, when registered inventory peaked at 380,085 tons. The New Year holiday period that year coincided with the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns and the resulting slump in Chinese manufacturing activity.

This year the jump in exchange stocks likely reflects the combination of fast domestic production growth and higher imports.

The country’s output of refined copper rose by 9.0% year-on-year in January-February, equivalent to an extra 159,000 tons, according to local data provider Shanghai Metal Market. Imports rose by 2.6% over the same period.

Stocks registered with Shanghai’s International Energy Exchange have also jumped from 9,760 tons at the end of last year to a current 40,511 tons. However, this year’s mid-March peak of 45,298 tons fell short of last year’s peak of 82,575 tons.

Muted rise in aluminum stocks

ShFE stocks of aluminum fell to 199,757 tons this week from last week’s year-to-date high of 206,417 tons.

If that turns out to be this year’s seasonal peak, it means the rebuild has been extremely muted relative to the last four years.

Stocks are up by just 100,728 tons on the start of January. By this time last year they had risen by 229,000 tons. The seasonal effect was even stronger over the 2020-2022 period.

Visible inventory remains remarkably low after last year’s high imports of over 1.5 million tons and the bullish optics reinforce the narrative of a tight domestic market.

Seasonal norm for zinc and lead

Exchange stocks of zinc in Shanghai crept a little higher this week to 121,873 tons and are now up by 100,658 tons on the start of January.

This is very close to last year’s seasonal build of 103,441 tons and to that seen in 2021.

Shanghai lead stocks stand at 53,631 tons and are up by just 747 tons since the start of 2024, which is comparable to the 333-ton rise seen over the first three months of last year.

Lead is less exposed to the new year holiday effect, having its own seasonality in the form of car battery kill rates over the northern hemisphere winter months.

China is also exporting ever more refined lead. Shipments rose by 62% year-on-year to 188,000 tons in 2023, the highest annual volume since 2007.

The steady outbound flow has served to keep Shanghai inventory below the 100,000-ton level for the last two years.

Nickel stocks at four-year high

Shanghai nickel stocks dwindled to just 560 tons in May last year, reflecting a shift in domestic production from the refined nickel that trades on the ShFE to nickel sulphate used in electric vehicle batteries.

The dynamic has changed dramatically over the last year. A new generation of Chinese nickel refineries has started up to capitalise on the burgeoning import flow of Indonesian raw materials.

ShFE stocks have grown to 20,713 tons, the highest tally since December 2020. The build has been mirrored on the London market, where the London Metal Exchange (LME) has been fast-tracking Chinese companies wanting to list their brands. LME stocks have risen by 21% so far this year.

Tin stocks hit record high

Global exchange stocks of tin, by contrast, are showing divergent trends.

Those in London have fallen by a third this year to below 5,000 tons as supply is constrained by export delays in Indonesia.

Shanghai tin stocks have been rising steadily since the start of December and now total 12,021 tons, which is the highest inventory in the contract’s nine years of trading history.

The country has been stocking up on refined tin in recent months, imports hitting a record high of 33,470 tons last year.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by David Evans)

Graphic: Congo overtakes Peru on copper output, still behind on exports

In a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, the scientists explain that electronic waste is notoriously difficult to recycle because it’s hard to separate the different metals in the waste from each other.

“Getting the metals in solution is a first step, but the selective recovery of the metals remains a challenge. Compared to processes such as chemical precipitation, biosorption using spent brewer’s yeast presents a cheap and environmentally friendly approach,” Klemens Kremser of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, and corresponding author of the article, said in a media statement.

Several options already exist for separating the different component metals of electronic waste, including other biosorbents—biological materials that can be used to soak up pollution. However, they all have significant downsides. For instance, chemical precipitation produces contaminated slag, while biochar—a biosorbent that is similar to charcoal—is difficult to separate from wastewater.

So the scientists turned to brewer’s yeast.

They acquired 20 litres of spent brewer’s yeast, separated the biomass from leftover brewing residues, and dried out the biomass. Electrostatic interactions on the surface of the yeast allow metal ions to stick to that surface—a process called adsorption. Changing the pH of this solution alters the interactions, which can allow the yeast to adsorb more or different metal ions, depending on the contents of the solution and the specific pH.

The researchers then chose to test the yeast biomass against zinc, aluminum, copper, and nickel, economically important metals. They tested each metal solution at different pHs and temperatures, to gauge whether it was possible to increase the strength of the interactions and recover more metal. They also tested the yeast against a real polymetallic waste stream.

“Using waste biomass for metal recovery is not a completely new process, but the selectivity of biosorption processes is a key factor for efficient metal recovery from polymetallic waste streams,” Anna Sieber, Ph.D. fellow of K1-MET, an Austrian metallurgical research center, and first author of the article, said.

“We demonstrated high metal recovery rates from a complex metal solution using an environmentally friendly and cheap biomass. Yeast biomass is considered a safe organism, and the demonstrated reusability of the biomass makes it an economically feasible approach.”

High recovery rates

The group was able to recover more than 50% of aluminum, more than 40% of copper, and more than 70% of zinc from the test metal solutions. Over 50% of copper and over 90% of zinc were retrieved from the polymetallic waste stream they tested the yeast on.

Changing the temperature had little impact on efficiency, except for zinc, where it raised the recovery rate by 7.6%. Similarly, adjusting the pH had a limited effect on most of the metal solutions, except for aluminum, where it improved the recovery efficiency by 16%.

“The metals can be removed from the yeast surface by acid treatment and thus could be recycled,” Sieber said. “It would be interesting to investigate potential applications for these reclaimed metals.”

The yeast itself could also be recycled without heavily impacting its ability to recover metal: the scientists were able to use it five times to recover different metals.

The team, however, cautions that the new process needs testing with much larger studies in real-life conditions before it can be implemented on an industrial scale.

“The metal removal process in this study was optimized for the four metals in question,” Kremser said. “The concentration of potentially interfering metal ions was very low in our starting solutions, but this would be important to consider when applying this approach to different mixed metal solutions.”

The group has been lobbying the EU for a ban on Russian-origin aluminum for its invasion of Ukraine. So far sanctions have not been imposed but they are still on the agenda.

Rusal sold 4.2 million metric tons of aluminum last year, most of it produced in Russia. The world’s largest aluminum producer outside China also has operations in Ireland, Sweden, Jamaica, Guinea and China. These assets mainly produce alumina or bauxite.

Bauxite is converted into alumina, a raw material to make aluminum used by companies in construction and packaging. It is also a key metal for the transport sector, where it is used for lightweighting electric vehicles to help extend battery range.

“The principle behind EU sanctions has been to try and do as much as possible to undermine the Russian war machine without creating harm to European industrial and by extension, societal interests,” Paul Voss, director general of European Aluminium.

“In a perfect world we would say we don’t need any of Rusal’s material and take a firm moral position regardless of the practical consequences. But European governments do not and cannot afford to reason that way. They have to be pragmatic.”

The EU currently has bans in place on aluminum wire, foil, tubes and pipes manufactured in Russia. But aluminum exports including primary metal, accounting for 85% of the total “remain outside the scope of the measures”, the group said last year.

EU imports of Russian primary aluminum have dropped since 2018, when the United States imposed sanctions on Rusal, but they are still significant. According to Trade Data Monitor, EU imports of Russian aluminum totalled 512,122 tons in 2023 or 8% of the total from 12% in 2022 and 19% in 2018.

Rusal said last week that sales to Europe contributed $3.4 billion to its $12.2-billion revenue in 2023.

Expectations of surpluses driven by low consumption and production increases mean the EU could more easily replace Russian aluminum from other producer countries or by more local production, said European Aluminium’s market intelligence director Djibril René.

(By Pratima Desai; Editing by David Evans)

Although Rusal itself is not a target of Western sanctions, its production costs have surged after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. While there are no sanctions on Russian aluminum, some Western consumers are shunning new deals for metals made in Russia.

Rusal’s aluminum sales rose 6.6% to 4.2 million metric tons in 2023, driven by release of excess inventory accumulated by the end of 2022, while production was largely unchanged at 3.8 million tons.

“The increase in physical sales was driven by successful redirection towards Asian markets,” Rusal said.

Revenue fell 12.6% to $12.2 billion, with Europe contributing $3.4 billion and Asia $4.7 billion. The rest mostly came from sales in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Sales to China, which has become the company’s largest market after Russia, more than doubled to $2.86 billion from $1.19 billion in 2022.

Asia accounted for 38.4% of Rusal’s revenue in 2023, up from 27% in 2022. China’s share was 23.4%, compared with 8% a year earlier. Europe’s contribution fell to 27.8% from 35.7%, but it remained a key market, Rusal said in the report.

“Geopolitical tensions, including the unprecedented regime of external restrictions and supply chain disruptions, as well as a significant drop in aluminum prices, had a negative impact on the сompany’s results,” Rusal said.

The higher sales were offset by an 18% decrease in the weighted-average realized aluminum price to $2,439 per ton.

Rusal’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) slumped 61.2% to $786 million, while costs for sourcing key feedstock alumina jumped 9.9% to $2.03 billion with the loss of supplies from Ukraine and Australia.

That caused annual net profit to fall by 84.3% to $282 million.

Rusal last year bought a 30% stake in a Chinese alumina refinery and plans to build an alumina plant in Russia to reduce its reliance on imported raw materials.

(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Roushni Nair; Editing by Milla Nissi)

On the London Metal Exchange (LME), three-month aluminum touched $2,270 per metric ton, marking its highest level since February 1st.

According to Tom Price, head of commodities strategy at Liberum, there are concerns about demand stemming from increasing inventory levels in China. However, he suggests that this may be attributed to a seasonal trend in anticipation of heightened consumption in the second quarter of this year.

Inventory data reveals that aluminum stocks have surged by 85% this year to 184,358 metric tons in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange. Meanwhile, stocks in LME’s registered warehouses have seen a 2% increase since the start of 2024, climbing to 577,675 tons.

China’s record aluminum production in 2023 has tempered the upside potential for prices of the metal, primarily used in auto parts and power cables manufacturing.

The ongoing property crisis in China has cast a shadow on the demand for industrial metals. Moody’s recent downgrade of China’s second-largest property developer, Vanke, to a “junk” rating further underscores the severity of the situation.

Tom Price suggests that demand for base metals linked to China’s distressed property sector is more likely to gradually decline over the next two to three years, rather than experiencing a sudden collapse.

(With files from Reuters)

Read More: Alcoa to buy Australian partner Alumina in $2.2bn all-stock deal

Shares of Alumina rose as much as 10.4% after Alcoa announced the deal on Monday, hitting their highest since August 2023. Alcoa shares gained 2.1% to $30.5 apiece.

Alcoa’s push for acquiring its joint venture partner can be seen as a gamble for metals which will be an important part of the transition to cleaner sources of energy.

Buying Alumina gives Alcoa full control of their joint venture, which is one of the world’s largest producers of the semi-processed form of aluminum. Aluminum is used to produce renewable infrastructure and electric vehicles.

The global mining sector has seen a recent slew of merger and acquisitions despite rising concerns around the economic outlook of one of the world’s largest metals buyer, China, and slowing EV sales in the United States.

“It could be a win-win for both companies,” Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at trading firm KCM Trade, said.

“The takeover offer could be viewed as a vote of confidence in the resources space despite a cloudy growth outlook for the sector.”

The buyout follows United States Steel’s $14.9 billion deal to buy Japan’s Nippon Steel and Newmont’s $15 billion acquisition of Aussie gold miner Newcrest.

Post the deal, Alumina shareholders will own about 31.6% of the merged entity, while Alcoa shareholders will hold 68.4%.

Alumina’s board, including managing director and CEO, recommended shareholders vote for the deal, in the absence of a superior proposal.

The deal comes months after Alcoa faced operational and permit-realted problems for its bauxite business in Australia. It also disclosed in January plans to halt production at the Kwinana alumina plant in Western Australia in a move to control costs.

($1 = 1.5126 Australian dollars)

(By Roushni Nair and Rishav Chatterjee; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Mrigank Dhaniwala)

It’s still small relative to the London Metal Exchange (LME), which isn’t going to lose its status as benchmark price-setter any time soon. Nor will the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) stop being the dominant futures price reference for China’s giant aluminum sector.

Rather, the significance of CME’s fast-growing aluminum contract is what it says about aluminum’s shifting dynamics.

The global market is becoming less globalized and the US is starting to drift away from everyone else thanks to the combination of import tariffs and penal duties on Russian metal and Chinese products.

The emergence of a North American pricing point is a logical evolution in this tectonic realignment of the market landscape.

Physical drift

The CME’s first aluminum contract was delisted in 2009 after the US exchange failed to lure users away from the dominant London market.

It was ironically the LME itself that opened the door again for its US rival a few years later.

Long load-out queues at LME warehouses in Detroit caused US physical premiums to surge. The LME price stayed low but buyers were paying ever more for their metal and were unable to hedge the pricing gap.

The CME launched a US Midwest premium contract in 2013 followed a couple of years later by European and Japanese premium contracts. Volume last year across the four contracts totalled almost four million tonnes.

The LME’s premium contracts, launched much later, notched up volumes of just 202,000 tonnes last year.

The Midwest premium briefly converged with the rest of the world before ballooning wider again when the Trump Administration imposed 10% import duties in 2018.

The Biden Administration’s policy of de-risking supply by closing the door on Russian imports has cemented the structural divergence with other regions.

US physical buyers are currently paying around $387 per metric ton over the futures price for metal. Those in Europe are paying around $250 and Japanese buyers just $120.

That futures price has until now been set on the LME. But maybe for not much longer.

Growth spurt

The CME tried again in 2014 with a futures contract to match its premium products but it lapsed into disuse late 2017 and didn’t trade at all until July 2019.

The trigger for the renewed interest was the CME’s decision to expand its delivery network from US locations to international ports, particularly those with physical arbitrage opportunities with the LME warehousing network.

Registered stocks were zero prior to June 2019. Today they stand at 45,905 tons, most of it in heavily-used LME locations such as Malaysia’s Port Klang and Gwangyang in South Korea.

With inventory has come trading volume. Activity in the aluminum contract nearly tripled last year to 30.6 million tons. That’s dwarfed by the 1.4 billion tons transacted on the LME, although the difference is accentuated by the LME’s unique trading system.

A more useful comparison is with the ShFE, which like the CME, offers a vanilla cash-settled futures contract.

CME volumes in the first two months of this year came to 9.3 million tonnes, compared with 44.0 million in Shanghai. And the US product is still growing fast.

So too are the number of users, over 600 last year compared with 357 in 2022, according to the exchange.

CME has also launched aluminum options, which just recorded their best volume month in February.

CME all-in aluminum

Although the CME’s rising aluminum fortunes have until now been linked via arbitrage with those of its competitor across the Atlantic, there are signs that the contract’s success is generating domestic traction.

A key development came in April last year, when price reporting agency Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, began publishing a CME-basis all-in price.

Whereas physical buyers would previously hedge their basis risk on the LME and their premium risk on the CME, the new pricing tool allows both components to be executed on the CME.

Domestic players such as PerenniAL Aluminum are now offering buyers a CME all-in price reference in this year’s term supply contracts, according to CEO Brian Hesse, quoted in a CME update on the contract.

Industrial users are being joined by investors.

United States Commodity Fund (USCF) announced the launch of the USCF Aluminum Strategy Fund in October. It will trade basis the CME contract, hoping to attract investors looking for exposure to aluminum as a critical energy transition metal.

Although included in all the major commodity indices, aluminum has to date failed to attract much retail speculative interest. CME, which offers investor friendly micro products in both precious metals and copper, would seem a good fit for smaller players unable to access the wholesale market in London.

CME is assembling the building blocks to become an aluminum price-setter for the North American market.

Regional splits

This is not necessarily bad news for either London or Shanghai. Three regional futures exchanges can be mutually beneficial thanks to increased arbitrage possibilities.

Copper, which has traded on US exchanges since the nineteenth century, is a good example of profitable co-existence.

But for aluminum, shifting from London dominance to regional price formation is a completely new development.

It is, though, no more than a reflection of geopolitical reality as what was a highly globalized supply chain drifts apart into trading blocs.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by David Evans)

Rio Tinto also said it was checking with energy provider Jemena to understand how its alumina and aluminum operations would be affected by the disruption.

“We are working with Jemena and the Australian Energy Market operator to understand the impact to our Gladstone operations,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Australian media had reported that a fire had broken out on Tuesday at a section of the pipeline and that industrial gas users had been asked to lower consumption so that residential users were not impacted.

“Preliminary work is underway to prepare the impacted section of the Queensland gas pipeline for repairs,” energy provider Jemena said in a statement. “We will be in a position to provide more detail on our restoration plan and timeframe once this initial stage is completed.”

A spokesperson for Orica, which manufactures explosives for Rio and runs alumina projects in Gladstone, said it had worked closely with Jemena to safely reduce its cyanide production at the site until the incident was resolved.

“Ammonium nitrate production is continuing as normal and we don’t expect any supply disruption to our customers at this stage and will provide further updates as they become available,” the spokesperson said in an emailed response.

Rio’s Gladstone operations include its Yarwun and Queensland alumina refineries and its Boyne aluminum smelter.

(By Renju Jose, Melanie Burton and Poonam Behura; Editing by Jamie Freed, Miral Fahmy and Sohini Goswami)

First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) inked a $500-million deal last month to supply Jiangxi Copper from the Kansanshi mine in Zambia as the Vancouver-based miner strives to shore up finances after authorities shut its Cobre Panama mine in the Central American country.

“There are active conversations going on about how best to approach some of those kinds of issues,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told reporters in Toronto. “What you’re going to find increasingly moving forward is democratic countries around the world coming together to try to find pathways through which we actually are ensured of access of the minerals we’re going to need.”

The largest shareholder in First Quantum is Jiangxi Copper, but Wilkinson said the government won’t pursue investments that pre-date its critical minerals divestment strategy. It began in November 2022 by targeting three TSX-listed lithium companies. Ottawa hasn’t changed its stance on reviewing Chinese investments in Canadian critical mineral companies, he said, even as recent deals highlight continued interest from the mining and processing behemoth.

“We’ve been pretty clear that we are not interested in investment generally from state-owned enterprises,” Wilkinson said in reply to a question from The Northern Miner at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada annual conference in Toronto. “Certainly the ones that are raising significant flags would be those that actually require some kind of offtake agreements, those that require control – effectively controlling shareholders – or provide for significant board representation.”

Competing interests

The federal reviews must walk a line between competing interests. On one side are mining companies, especially at the junior level, who are facing what they believe is an unprecedented funding crunch from lack of stock markets investing in the industry and who turn to industrial power China for backing. On the other side is the rising trend of resource nationalism for security as countries in the West try to diminish China’s dominance in critical mineral mining and processing.

China’s Yintai said last month it would buy Osino Resources (TSXV: OSI; US-OTC: OSIIF) for C$368 million, Zijin Mining invested $97 million for 15% of Solaris Resources (TSX: SLS; US-OTC: SLSSF) in January and Vital Metals (ASX: VML) said in December that Shenghe Resources was buying stockpiles of rare earth elements mined at its Nechalacho project in the Northwest Territories.

Each of those deals might have some wiggle room under a review. Osino’s primary asset is the Twin Hills gold project in Namibia. Gold is not one of Canada’s 31 critical minerals. Solaris is digging for copper, a critical mineral, but 15% isn’t regarded as a controlling stake. Vital is an Australian company, so Ottawa doesn’t have direct recourse under Canada’s Investment Act, though it does have a say in permits for the project.

On Tuesday, Montreal-based SRG Mining (TSXV: SRG) said it’s cancelling a $12.5 million deal with China’s Carbon ONE New Energy Group to take a 19.4% stake in the graphite miner. It had said last week it would incorporate in Abu Dhabi while maintaining its Toronto listing.

“That was a helpful decision that they would essentially not re-domicile in order to accept Chinese investment,” Wilkinson said. “But certainly we will be looking at all transactions that involve Chinese state owned enterprises and those companies related to them.”

The DOC calculated countervailing duties from each country in the following ranges: imports from China at rates of 15.41% to 169.66%, imports from Indonesia at rates of 6.69% to 43.56%, imports from Mexico at rates of 1.68% to 77.80%, and imports from Turkey at rates of 1.45% to 147.53%.

The US Aluminum Extruders Coalition and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union were petitioners in the case.

Following the publication of a preliminary determination in the Federal Register in approximately one week, the DOC will instruct US Customs and Border Protection to begin suspending liquidation and collecting preliminary duties (in the form of cash deposits) on entries of aluminum extrusions from China, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey.

In October 2023, the DOC initiated antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations of aluminum extrusions from the four countries, as well as AD investigations from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Italy, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

The preliminary determinations are just the beginning of a broader investigation into the subsidy practices of these countries, it said.

The DOC said it is yet to investigate all potential subsidies thoroughly, including new allegations of subsidy and creditworthiness. The final determination, expected later this year, may adjust these rates, potentially increasing the financial burden on importers of aluminum extrusions from these countries.

“We are encouraged that the Commerce Department has taken preliminary action to remedy the unfair and illegal subsidization of aluminum extrusions from China, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey,” said Robert E. DeFrancesco, trade counsel to the petitioners and a partner in the International Trade Practice at Wiley Rein LLP.

“The widespread subsidization confirms that foreign governments are willing to provide meaningful and unfair support to boost aluminum extrusion exports, and it is, therefore, critical that Commerce continue to rigorously counter these harms to the US aluminum extrusion industry,” he added.

According to the scientists, diamond is known for its high thermal conductivity, which is four to five times higher than that of copper. For this reason, it is a particularly interesting material when it comes to cooling power electronics in electric transportation, photovoltaics or storage systems.

Until now, heat sinks made of copper or aluminum plates have increased the heat-emitting surface of components that produce heat, thus preventing damage due to overheating. But the new nano-membranes made from synthetic diamonds that are thinner than a human hair can be integrated directly into electronic components to cool the power electronics in electric vehicles, which transfer traction energy from the battery to the electric motor and convert the current from direct current to alternating current.

These flexible, electrically insulating nano-membranes have the potential to reduce the local heat load of electronic components, such as current regulators in electric motors, thus increasing the energy efficiency, service life and road performance of electric vehicles.

When used in the charging infrastructure, the diamond membranes also contribute to charging speeds that are five times higher than the current average.

The researchers pointed out that, generally speaking, applying a copper layer underneath the component improves the heat flow. However, there is an electrically insulating oxide or nitride layer between the copper and the component, which has poor thermal conductivity.

“We want to replace this intermediate layer with our diamond nanomembrane, which is extremely effective at transferring heat to the copper, as diamonds can be processed into conductive paths,” Matthias Mühle, head of the Diamond Technologies group at the Fraunhofer US Center Midwest CMW, said in a media statement. “As our membrane is flexible and free-standing, it can be positioned anywhere on the component or the copper or integrated directly into the cooling circuit.”

Mühle and his team achieved this by growing the polycrystalline diamond nanomembrane on a separate silicon wafer, then detaching it, turning it over and etching away the back of the diamond layer. This results in a free-standing, smooth diamond that can be heated at a low temperature of 80°C and subsequently attached to the component.

“The heat treatment automatically bonds the micrometre-thick membrane to the electronic component. The diamond is then no longer free-standing but integrated into the system,” the expert said.

The nanomembrane can be produced on a wafer scale four inches and larger, making it well-suited for industrial applications.

According to Mühle, a patent has already been filed for the development. Application tests with inverters and transformers in application fields such as electric transportation and telecommunications are due to start this year.

In a paper published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, researchers from the Colorado School of Mines explain that such streams are also better at detoxifying specific forms of aluminum, cadmium, arsenic and zinc already present.

According to the scientists, under favourable conditions, the zone lining a stream channel stores nutrients and oxygen that meet the nutritional and respiratory needs of local invertebrates and fish. That zone also serves as a filter in which chemical processes and microbes reduce the toxicity and mobility of metals.

However, the research group also found that when mining-related contaminants enter a stream, they reduce the filtration capacity of this reactive zone. That’s because inflows of acidic, metal-rich abandoned mine drainage create an iron-rich mineral barrier—notable for its rust colour—that blocks the entry of stream water into the streambed, where the filtration occurs.

Such barrier reduces the species diversity of microorganisms inhabiting the streambed, and the types of micro-organisms that thrive under these conditions convert metals dissolved in the water to minerals that further clog the stream channel, limiting the exchange of nutrients between the stream and groundwater beneath it.

“This was an important finding because the lack of exchange between the stream and groundwater also prevented this stream from serving as a natural filter for toxic metals,” Beth Hoagland, corresponding author of the article, said in a media statement. “Metals such as aluminum and copper accumulated in this stream to levels that are harmful to aquatic species.”

The research was conducted in two streams in the San Juan mountains of southwestern Colorado, a region that saw extensive mining starting in the late 1800s and continuing for more than a century. The region is now the US Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site known as the Bonita Peak Mining District.

“Our research highlights the dynamic interplay between hydrology, geochemistry and microbiology at the groundwater-surface water interface of acid mine drainage streams,” Hoagland said.

The researcher pointed out that streams, such as Cement Creek, that receive flows from the abandoned mines are particularly vulnerable to becoming acidic and containing toxic levels of metals that are harmful to fish, invertebrates and other living organisms that live in or interact with them. In such streams, exchange between groundwater and streamwater is limited due to higher concentrations of dissolved metal, which clogs the connections of the two water sources. That and higher acidity result in a low diversity of microbiota.

The research also shows that streams that have ample exchange between stream water and shallow groundwater may harbour microorganisms that reduce the release of toxic forms of metals to downstream ecosystems.

“This finding can help regulators and scientists develop remediation strategies that will enhance this stream function thereby reducing toxic metal loads from mine waste,” Hoagland said.

The offer marks a premium of about 13% to Alumina’s closing share price on Friday. The Australian company’s board plans to support the deal, under which Alumina shareholders will receive Alcoa stock, if the sides get to a definitive agreement following further discussions, it said in an exchange filing on Monday.

Alumina’s shares rose as much as 9.3% in Sydney before closing 6.9% higher at A$1.09. Alcoa was down 3.4% during premarket trading at 8:06 a.m. in New York.

Buying its junior partner would give Alcoa full control of Alcoa World Alumina and Chemicals, one of the world’s largest producers of the semi-processed form of the metal. The offer comes about five months after Alcoa shook up its management amid struggles with operational and permitting setbacks in Australia for its bauxite mining business. It also announced plans in January to halt production at its Kwinana alumina plant in Western Australia to cut costs.

Aluminum has a wide variety of uses including beverage cans, window frames and airplane parts. Over the longer term, consumption is expected to be supported by the transition to cleaner sources of energy including electric vehicles and wind and solar power.

“Globally, growth in aluminum intensive EVs and renewable power infrastructure will continue to support this positive trend,” Alcoa chief executive officer William F. Oplinger said on an earnings call last month.

Alcoa offered 0.02854 of its shares for each of the remaining shares in Alumina, which owns 40% of AWAC. The US company has also agreed to buy Allan Gray Australia’s 19.9% stake in Alumina. Citic Group Corp.’s Australian resources arm holds 9.6% of the Australian producer.

“The stars are aligned for the process to progress to completion, as Alumina is recommending the deal,” Morgan Stanley analysts including Rahul Anand said in a note. “There are unlikely to be other interested parties given the commodity being niche and also the underlying business shareholding being a minority (40%), of which Alcoa already owns the majority.”

AWAC has an international network of alumina refineries in Australia, Brazil, and Spain, and is responsible for almost 10% of world alumina production, according to Alumina’s website.

Refinery problems

Alcoa last month warned investors that it now plans to mine lower grades of bauxite, a key raw material needed to make aluminum, in Western Australia until it gets to its next mining phase, which could be around 2027. The plant was the first of the company’s three alumina refineries in the state that have been operating for around 60 years.

If approved, the takeover will increase its exposure to “tier-1” bauxite and alumina businesses and boost its global position as a pure-play upstream aluminum producer, the US company said in a separate statement.

“We recognize the value creation opportunities possible under a simplified ownership structure, including the ability to implement AWAC’s operational and strategic decisions on an accelerated basis,” Oplinger said in the statement. “We believe now is the right time to consolidate ownership in AWAC.”

Alumina has hired Flagstaff Partners and BofA Securities to act as financial advisers and King & Wood Mallesons as legal adviser it said. JPMorgan Securities LLC and UBS Investment Bank are acting as financial advisers to Alcoa, and Ashurst and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP are acting as its legal counsel, the company said.

(By Harry Brumpton and Joe Deaux)

Canada’s eight largest pension funds hold some C$2.1 trillion in assets but only a quarter was even invested in the country last year, according to research by Montreal-based fund manager Letko Brosseau. The so-called Maple Eight devoted just 3% to domestic equities, the lowest of a group of six countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan, data show.

“They’ve taken the vast majority of this money – 75% of it – and invested it outside Canada to create jobs outside of Canada to the detriment of Canadians,” Lassonde, a founder of Franco-Nevada (TSX: FNV; NYSE: FNV) and a former president of Newmont (NYSE: NEM; TSX: NGT), said in a phone interview this month. “Essentially, the mining industry has been ignored.”

Pension funds are not investing in large Canadian mining companies, which may in turn invest in juniors, in part because few domestic options remain. Switzerland-based Glencore’s (LSE: GLEN) acquisition of most of Teck Resources’ (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) coking coal assets in November for about C$9 billion is the latest large deal scooping up Canadian assets.

Xstrata, now part of Glencore, bought nickel giant Falconbridge for C$39 billion in 2006, the same year Brazil’s Vale (NYSE: VALE) purchased the country’s other main nickel producer, Inco, for C$19 billion. Australia’s Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO; LSE: RIO; ASX: RIO) followed a year later in acquiring aluminum producer Alcan for C$38 billion. Lassonde and Giustra say pension fund investing might have helped them stay.

“We’re talking about very large companies, mining giants that we lost to foreigners,” said Giustra, who founded Lions Gate Entertainment (Fahrenheit 9/11, The Hunger Games) and helped start Wheaton Precious Metals (TSX: WPM, NYSE: WPM; LSE: WPM) and Endeavour Mining (TSX: EDV; LSE: EDV).

“These aren’t risky companies. This was the backbone of our mining industry in this country.”

Rules eroded

Indeed, Canadian pensions were required to invest 90% of their assets domestically in 1990, but federal governments gradually reduced the limit before removing it entirely in 2005. Total domestic exposure as a percentage of assets ranges from 55% held by the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan to 13% run by Public Sector Pension Investments (PSP). The average of other pension funds around the world is 52%, according to Letko Brosseau.   

Pensions are the largest repository of wealth in many countries and globally hold nearly $50 trillion. Reaching net zero emissions by 2050 will require annual clean energy investment worldwide to more than triple by 2030 to around $4 trillion, according to the International Energy Agency. Just mining enough battery metals over the next three years will cost as much as $450 billion, the agency said. In 2022, Ottawa budgeted nearly C$4 billion in spending on critical minerals by 2030 but it’s not clear how pension funds are being engaged to support projects.  

“The government of Canada continues to engage with critical minerals stakeholders, including pension plans and other institutional, arms-length investors,” Michael MacDonald, a spokesman for the federal Natural Resources Ministry, said in an emailed reply to questions.

It was MacDonald’s only reference to pension funds in what was otherwise a page-long list of government programs stemming from its critical minerals strategy. He suggested the Canada Development Investment Corp. (CDEV), a federal Crown corporation that advises the government on financial matters, might explain how mining companies could seek funding from the C$15 billion Canada Growth Fund. CDEV didn’t reply in time for this story.

Pensions mum

Pension funds themselves were even more reticent to discuss the issue. Only the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), which Lassonde praised for its resource funding, replied to emails seeking comment. The Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), and the PSP didn’t reply or declined to speak.

“CDPQ is active in the mining sector in Quebec and Canada and has an investment team dedicated to the sector,” Kate Monfette, the pension’s media director, said by email. “Among other things, with a fund like Sodémex which supports exploration projects, we remain on the lookout for developments and opportunities in the mining and materials ecosystem. Our priority is to focus on the most promising companies in order to help them develop while generating a return for our depositors.”

British Columbia Investment Management (BCI) said it invests 29.4% in Canada and referred other inquiries to its annual report. OMERS said it wouldn’t comment on the topic.

Canada should consider Australia’s example, Lassonde and Giustra said. Its pensions, which are called superannuation funds, hold A$3.5 trillion (C$3.1 trillion), the third-largest amount behind the US and the UK. Domestic equities make up 21.9% of their assets. The large stakes prevent foreign takeovers, the entrepreneurs argued.

“That’s what keeps their domestic mining industry alive,” Giustra said. “We’re a comparable country in terms of how prolific our mining opportunities are, same as Australia, and we don’t have that same opportunity.”

Letko Brosseau says Canada’s top eight pension funds have invested more in China than in Canadian companies: C$88 billion versus C$81 billion. CPP has 2% in domestic shares, BCI has 0.5% and OTPP has 0.1%, the firm says.  

Economics urged

Giustra said mining CEOs must lobby pension funds with moral suasion for why they should invest in Canada and make an economic argument. With China’s current woes from property market turmoil and a long-term population decline in motion, its boom years are over and it’s time for Canadian pension funds to repatriate funds to the world’s second-largest country by landmass that has top-tier mining regulations.

Lassonde went further and said federal and provincial governments must legislate pension funds to increase their investments in Canadian resource companies. He’s backed Letko Brosseau’s presentations to finance ministers in BC and Ontario as well as to officials in Ottawa.

“We’re trying to get to the decision makers and trying to make them understand what Canada is losing by doing nothing,” he said. “They created these funds, it’s in their power to legislate how these funds are managed.”

Giustra, who heads private equity firm Fiore Group invested in Aris Gold (TSX: ARIS) with mines in Colombia, and Ontario-focused explorer West Red Lake Gold Mines (TSXV: WRLG), said Canadian asset managers slashed their non-pension dedicated mining funds to C$2.8 billion in 2022 from C$16 billion in 2010.

“There’s just no source of capital, the industry starves,” he said. “You don’t have the seniors funding them, the pension funds aren’t there and we’ve lost the traditional mining funds here as well.”

Lassonde, who led a group of investors assembling an offer in May for Teck’s coking coal assets that was later beat by Glencore, said he approached BCI and Ontario pensions for input but got no response.

“If you want steel and you want the lowest carbon-emitting steel in the world, it’s that coal, OK, and there was nobody to talk to,” he said. “In Australia, we could have done this deal in about five days.”

The action announced on Friday included measures against more than 500 people and entities linked to Russia’s war machine, but left the country’s base metals industries unscathed. The two metals had been buoyed this week by expectations that the package might put pressure on supplies.

Nickel, which had steadily gained this week in anticipation of the sanctions news, pared an earlier advance of as much as 1.2% to trade just 0.3% higher. Aluminum retreated as much as 1.1% on Friday.

In the aluminum market, prices had touched the highest since early February on Wednesday, following US President Joe Biden’s earlier announcement that new sanctions would be imposed in response to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. The latest wave of US measures also comes on the eve of the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The absence of new measures turned the focus back to market fundamentals.

“Aluminium has erased all the gains this afternoon after being buoyed this week by speculation of sanctions,” ING Groep NV commodities strategist Ewa Manthey said.

“Now the focus moves back to demand side woes including the challenging macro backdrop in China and higher borrowing costs and the uncertain path of US Fed’s easing cycle. We believe global economic uncertainty will continue to weigh on the outlook for aluminium.”

Nickel was still set for a gain of more than 6% this week, the biggest weekly advance since July. The bounce in nickel may have been fueled by earlier short covering from wrong-footed hedge funds, according to Saxo Bank A/S commodity strategist Ole Hansen.

Still, that market remains oversupplied, Manthey said earlier.

Russia’s metals and mining industry escaped blanket restrictions until last December, when the UK — home of the London Metal Exchange — announced its own curbs. But some consumers and traders have balked at buying Russian metal for some time, and the UK’s steps just added to the growing complexity of handling material from the country.

Nickel traded at $17,450 a ton on the LME at 4:09 p.m. London time. Aluminum slid 0.9% to $2,178.50 a ton, while copper fell 0.4%.

MOFs are porous materials that can selectively absorb carbon dioxide and have three kinds of building blocks in their molecules—inorganic nodes, organic nodes, and organic linkers. These can be arranged in different relative positions and configurations. As a result, there are countless potential MOF configurations for scientists to design and test.

To quickly determine which configurations work, the scientific team comprised of researchers from the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Chicago, is using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to dream up previously unknown building block candidates.

They are also testing a form of AI called machine learning and a third pathway that is high-throughput screening of candidate materials. The last is theory-based simulations using a method called molecular dynamics.

By exploring the MOF design space with generative AI, the team was able to quickly assemble, building block by building block, over 120,000 new MOF candidates within 30 minutes. They ran these calculations on the Polaris supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF).

They then turned to the Delta supercomputer at UIUC to carry out time-intensive molecular dynamics simulations using only the most promising candidates. The goal is to screen them for stability, chemical properties, and capacity for carbon capture. Delta is a joint effort of Illinois and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

The team’s approach could ultimately allow scientists to synthesize just the very best MOF contenders.

“People have been thinking about MOFs for at least two decades,” Argonne computational scientist Eliu Huerta said in a media statement. “The traditional methods have typically involved experimental synthesis and computational modeling with molecular dynamics simulations. But trying to survey the vast MOF landscape in this way is just impractical.”

A supercomputer may provide the answer

Even more advanced computing will soon be available for the team to employ. With the power of the ALCF’s Aurora exascale supercomputer, scientists could survey billions of MOF candidates at once, including many that have never even been proposed before. What’s more, the team is taking chemical inspiration from past work on molecular design to discover new ways in which the different building blocks of a MOF could fit together.

“We wanted to add new flavors to the MOFs that we were designing,” Huerta said. “We needed new ingredients for the AI recipe.”

The group’s algorithm can make improvements to MOFs for carbon capture by learning chemistry from biophysics, physiology and physical chemistry experimental datasets that have not been considered for MOF design before.

To Huerta, looking beyond traditional approaches holds the promise of a transformative MOF material—one that could be good at carbon capture, cost-effective, and easy to produce.

“We are now connecting generative AI, high-throughput screening, molecular dynamics, and Monte Carlo simulations into a standalone workflow,” Huerta said. “This workflow incorporates online learning using past experimental and computational research to accelerate and improve the precision of AI to create new MOFs.”

The atom-by-atom approach to MOF design enabled by AI will allow scientists to have what Argonne senior scientist Ian Foster called a “wider lens” on these kinds of porous structures.

“Work is being done so that, for the new AI-assembled MOFs that are being predicted, we incorporate insights from autonomous labs to experimentally validate their ability to be synthesized and capacity to capture carbon,” Foster said. “With the model fine-tuned, our predictions are just going to get better and better.”

US President Joe Biden said the US plans to unveil a “major” sanctions package against Moscow on Friday, although he wasn’t specific about which industries would be affected. Traders have been on the lookout for new restrictions on Russian metals, which had escaped broad sanctions until the UK announced its own curbs in December.

The proposed curbs would be designed to “hold Russia responsible” for the death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, White House spokesperson John Kirby said.

[Click here for interactive aluminum price chart]

Aluminum futures rose more than 2% in on Wednesday, after spiking in response to Biden’s comments on Tuesday. Nickel was up nearly 2%.

“Prices are rising on the Biden news as investors are assessing the potential measures and impact,” Li Jiahui, an analyst at Shanghai Metals Market, said by phone. “Investors are awaiting for the specific measures to land.”

In December, the United Kingdom moved to block British individuals and entities from trading physical metals including aluminum, copper and nickel from Russia. At the time, the UK also hinted at the possibility of coordinated action with international partners. UK policy is important because of the significant role played by the London Metal Exchange in global metals markets.

Aluminum was up 2.6% to $2,251.50 a ton on the LME at 9:50 a.m. in London. Nickel rose 1.8%, and copper was up 0.4%.

Rio said its underlying earnings came in at $11.8 billion for 2023, down from $13.4 billion a year earlier, mostly due to lower prices for aluminium and its minerals division. That was largely in line with the LSEG consensus estimate of $11.7 billion.

Rio declared a final dividend of 258.0 cents per share, up from 225.0 cents per share in 2022 and ahead of the LSEG estimate of 247.0 cents per share.

The world’s largest iron ore producer said it expects Pilbara production costs to rise in 2024 due to persistent labour and parts inflation in Western Australia.

However, the worst of the inflation pressure is likely in the past, chief financial officer Peter Cunningham told reporters.

“We are starting to see them (costs) moderate now as we go into 2024,” he said.

“The reality is we remain in a very strong financial position and can afford to undertake our growth agenda and continue to pay out at 60%.”

At Rio’s iron ore division, which accounted for around 80% of its profits, underlying earnings grew by 6%, outpacing a 2% increase in prices of iron ore.

However Rio warned that it sees unit production costs rising to between $21.75 and $23.50 per metric ton from $21.50 in 2023.

“While inflation has eased, we continued to see lag effects in its impact on our third party costs, such as contractor rates, consumables and some raw materials; we expect this to stabilize in 2024,” the company said in a statement.

Average prices Rio Tinto received for aluminum sold in 2023 slipped from Covid-era peaks, as supply chains normalized and demand from Western markets weakened. This offset a boost from production growth across major commodities including copper.

The miner booked net impairment charges of $0.7 billion, after tax, mainly related to its alumina refineries in Queensland, taken in the first half of 2023, as the assets faced challenging market conditions.

Inorganic growth

Rio’s net debt remained low at $4.2 billion, which has spurred expectations that it may look to grow via acquisition.

CEO Jakob Stausholm said last August that Rio Tinto was open to small, bolt-on acquisitions to shape its portfolio including in Canadium lithium but that valuations were too high.

He stuck to that view on Wednesday, even following a slide in lithium prices that has hit company valuations.

“I have seen that prices of lithium companies have come down but they still remain at the high end so it’s not something that I get super excited about at this point in time,” Stausholm told media on a call after the results were released.

For now, Rio Tinto is focusing on developing its Argentine Rincon lithium project and seeking government approval to develop its Jadar mine in Serbia, he said.

It was unlikely to move into other battery minerals such as nickel or cobalt given the rising market share of lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP) which don’t use them, he added.

Its biggest growth project for now is the massive Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea, on which it expects to spend another $5.7 billion over the next three years.

(By Melanie Burton, Himanshi Akhand and Archishma Iyer; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Sonali Paul)

The application marks the latest flare-up in relations between two of Russia’s biggest metal companies.

Nornickel is the world’s largest palladium producer and a major miner of refined nickel. Potanin holds a 37% stake in it, while Rusal holds 26.4% and former Chelsea Football Club owner Abramovich has a 4% stake.

The aluminum giant claims that Potanin violated a shareholder agreement signed in December 2012, causing losses for Rusal. Abramovich and his investment company Millhouse, later replaced by Crispian Investments, were parties to the deal.

Crispian Investments objected to Rusal’s application, while Abramovich did not respond to it, said David Mumford, KC for Rusal at Friday’s hearing.

Judge Sean O’Sullivan, however, ruled that Abramovich and Crispin could be added to the case, after the hearing.

“The joining of Crispian Investments Limited and Mr. Roman Abramovich as parties to the case is another step for the implementation of Rusal’s claims against Mr. Vladimir Potanin and his company Whiteleave Holdings Limited,” Rusal said in an emailed statement.

Potanin’s Interros holding company declined to comment.

Nornickel has not been directly targeted by Western sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Britain has placed sanctions on Potanin and Abramovich.

Oleg Deripaska, founder of Rusal and also sanctioned by Britain, is not a party to the litigation.

The dispute that led to the lawsuit, first filed in October 2022, and Rusal’s further claims, centre on the 2012 framework agreement between Nornickel’s two largest shareholders, which protected dividend payouts among other things.

Disagreements over dividends and governance have been the main reason for on-and-off rows. At the time of the 2012 framework agreement, Abramovich helped to cool a dispute over how much profit should be returned to investors and how much should be invested in Nornickel.

Rusal alleges in court filings that Potanin “had overseen the transfer of crucial assets out of the NN Group (Nornickel) under false pretences and/or at undervalues to the advantage of himself and his associates, dishonestly procured the transfer out of …the NN Group of hundreds of millions of dollars and mismanaged the NN Group, which has led directly to certain industrial accidents.”

(By Clara Denina, Sam Tobin and Polina Devitt; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

The government is studying the modalities of implementing such a tax to defray the cost of emissions and removal of vegetative cover by mining firms, Prime Minister Bernard Goumou said during an investor forum organized by the West African nation in Dubai on Thursday.

Guinea is among the world’s top producers of bauxite, a raw material used to produce aluminum. The country also produces gold and has the world’s largest untapped deposit of iron ore. Mining companies produce most of their own energy using fossil fuel-fired thermal plants and transport the mineral by road to ports.

“The objective is to manage the potential for pollution and risks affecting the health of the population,” Goumou said. “The authorities aim to ensure the conservation of Guinea’s ecological potential and the promotion of a blue and green economy.”

Guinea Alumina Corp., a unit of Emirates Global Aluminium and China-backed Societe Miniere de Boke are among companies that produce bauxite in the country. Societe Aurifere de Guinee, a unit of AngloGold Ashanti and Societe Miniere de Dinguiraye mine gold there.

The country, which earlier sought to raise $3.4 billion to meet the financing deficit of so-called transition projects captured in its development program, has increased the target to $4.3 billion after taking into account the cost of new projects, Goumou said.

The $16.6 billion program aims to finance dozens of infrastructure projects as well as the electoral process supposed to end a military transition underway since September 2021.

(By Ougna Camara)

In a paper published in the journal Nature, the researchers point out that the feasibility of their technique relies on the fact that the production of aluminium generates millions of tonnes of toxic red mud every year.

In an electric arc furnace similar to those used in the steel industry for decades, they were able to convert the iron oxide contained in red mud into iron using hydrogen plasma. With this process, almost 700 million tonnes of CO2-free steel could be produced from the four billion tonnes of red mud that have accumulated worldwide to date – which corresponds to a third of annual steel production worldwide.

Dealing with an environmental passive

According to forecasts, demand for steel and aluminium will increase by up to 60% by 2050. However, 8% of global CO2 emissions come from the steel industry, making it the sector with the highest greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the aluminium industry produces around 180 million tonnes of red mud every year, which is highly alkaline and contains traces of heavy metals such as chromium.

In Australia, Brazil and China, among others, this waste is at best dried and disposed of in gigantic landfill sites, resulting in high processing costs. When it rains heavily, the red mud is often washed out of the landfill, and when it dries, the wind can blow it into the environment as dust.

The highly alkaline red mud corrodes the concrete walls of the landfills, resulting in red mud leaks that have already triggered environmental disasters on several occasions, for example in Hungary in 2010 and in China in 2012. In addition, large quantities of red mud are also simply disposed of in nature.

“Our process could simultaneously solve the waste problem of aluminium production and improve the steel industry’s carbon footprint,” Matic Jovičevič-Klug, co-author of the study, said in a media statement.

The reason why the new process works is because red mud from aluminium production consists of up to 60% iron oxide and the transformation it goes through, known in technical jargon as plasma reduction, takes just 10 minutes, during which the liquid iron separates from the liquid oxides and can then be extracted easily. The iron is so pure that it can be processed directly into steel.

The remaining metal oxides are no longer corrosive and solidify on cooling to form a glass-like material that can be used as filling in the construction industry, for example. Other research groups have produced iron from red mud using a similar approach and employing coke, but this produces highly contaminated iron and large quantities of CO2. Using green hydrogen as a reducing agent avoids these greenhouse gas emissions.

“If green hydrogen would be used to produce iron from the four billion tonnes of red mud that have been generated in global aluminium production to date, the steel industry could save almost 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2,” head researcher Isnaldi Souza Filho said.

Green hydrogen in the mix

In addition to the prior, the research team discovered that the heavy metals in the red mud can also be virtually neutralized using the process.

“After reduction, we detected chromium in the iron,” Jovičevič-Klug said. “Other heavy and precious metals are also likely to go into the iron or a separate area. That’s something we’ll investigate in further studies. Valuable metals could then be separated and reused.”

Heavy metals that remain in the metal oxides are firmly bound within them and can no longer be washed out with water, as can happen with red mud.

The scientists note that producing iron from red mud directly using hydrogen not only benefits the environment twice over, but it pays off economically too. With hydrogen and an electricity mix for the electric arc furnace from only partially renewable sources, the process is worthwhile, if the red mud contains 50% iron oxide or more.

If the costs for the disposal of the red mud are also considered, only 35% iron oxide is sufficient to make the process economical. With green hydrogen and electricity, at today’s costs – also taking into account the cost of landfilling the red mud – a proportion of 30 to 40% iron oxide is required for the resulting iron to be competitive on the market.

“These are conservative estimates because the costs for the disposal of the red mud are probably calculated rather low,” Souza Filho said.

And there is another advantage from a practical point of view: electric arc furnaces are widely used in the metal industry – including in aluminium smelters – as they are used to melt down scrap metal. In many cases, the industry would need to invest only a little to become more sustainable.

“Now it’s up to the industry to decide whether it will utilize the plasma reduction of red mud to iron,” Dierk Raabe, director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, said.

China consumes more than half the world’s metals and an even greater proportion of iron ore and battery raw materials – and gloom about the country’s economic prospects amid a property and stock market crisis have only added to bearish mining sentiment. 

In a new trading desk note Marcus Garvey, head of Macquarie commodities strategy based in Singapore, and a team of analysts have identified the first green shoots for the sector (and 34 charts to back it up):   

“January’s full set of PMIs (World manufacturing new orders up 1.2pp to 49.8) looks like a potential turning point for the global industrial cycle, with bullish implications for industrial commodities demand.”

Expectations of a smaller reduction in US interest rates this year than previously anticipated have supported the dollar and put metal prices under pressure which usually move in the opposite direction. 

Nevertheless, says Macquarie: “Commodity prices have a far more consistent relationship with global growth than with FX.”

The investment bank also points to US goods demand which it says “increasingly looks to be reaccelerating,” and from a higher base. Macquarie also sees the potential of a developed market manufacturing recovery and a restocking cycle in Europe.”

And while China has so far held off on broad based economic stimulus, fixed asset investment in infrastructure, led by renewables, and certain sectors including autos (particularly electric cars) have shown notable strength.

“Ultimately, if commodity prices are lifted by a pick-up in global industrial production, the implications for goods inflation may become self-inhibiting, by reducing the scope for further central bank easing. 

“But that is an ex-post problem, not an ex-ante one, suggesting to us that dips should now be bought. 

“Selectively at least, in those markets where fundamentals are already relatively tight or have the potential to tighten quickly. Especially if positioning gets short.”

“We can expect to increase exports by 10 million (metric tons) a year, starting at the end of this year,” Frederic Bouzigues, CEO at SMB told Reuters on the sidelines of an African mining conference.

Last year the company produced and exported a record 48 million tons of bauxite ore, helping the West African country, ranked among the world’s top producers, to increase output six-fold to 126 million tons in total. A decade ago Guinea’s total bauxite output was in the region of 20 million tons.

Bauxite ore is refined to make alumina used in aluminum products needed for the energy transition that has focused global attention and investment on critical metals in Africa.

The extension of capacity at Dapilon river terminal will entail fully automatic barge loading, a larger barge fleet as well as more Cape-size vessels. The barges use the river to transport ore to ships anchored in deeper sea waters.

“We have 50 Cape-size in house so we intend to have 10 more Cape-size,” he said, adding the infrastructure upgrade costs could range between $500 to $1 billion over the next five years.

The ore is exclusively sold to SMB’s Chinese shareholder, Shandong Weiqiao, he said, adding SMB would look to cooperate with other bauxite producers in the region.

“The European Union has officially declared aluminium as a critical material … so because of that, demand will increase,” Ismael Diakite, chief representative of the SMB-Winning Consortium, said at the same meeting.

The SMB-Winning consortium is separately developing the massive Simandou iron ore deposit through a new company, Winning Consortium Simandou.

(By Wendell Roelf; Editing by Barbara Lewis)

Rigorous laboratory testing has shown that PNNL’s Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion Process (ShAPE) can transform 100% post-consumer scrap aluminum into usable extrusions that meet or exceed stringent ASTM standards for strength and flexibility for common building-grade alloys 6061 and 6063. 

According to the researchers behind the development, the ShAPE technology unlocks the possibility of creating circularity in aluminum scrap markets, thus reducing dependency on imported primary aluminum.

The process also conserves nearly all of the energy required to manufacture new aluminum products. The International Aluminum Organization has estimated that producing one tonne of molten aluminum requires 16.6-megawatt hours of electricity, much of which comes from fossil fuels like coal.

“With approximately 55% of the global aluminum extrusion market servicing the building and construction industry, the evolution of ShAPE to include aluminum recycling for building structures is an enormous opportunity for decarbonizing the built environment,” lead researcher Scott Whalen said in a media statement.

“We are finding that the unique microstructures within the metal are more tolerant to impurities than previously thought. This enables us to reach even deeper into the aluminum scrap market while maintaining material performance.”

Low-carbon extruded parts

The latest round of patented ShAPE technology prompted technology entrepreneur Eric Donsky to form a start-up manufacturing company to scale a ShAPE-based process into vertically integrated manufacturing facilities that upcycle scrap aluminum into a portfolio of low-carbon extruded parts initially targeting the building and construction industry.

Atomic13 has signed an exclusive agreement with PNNL to commercialize the technology in certain fields of use and aims to move rapidly to create a myriad of custom-extruded aluminum parts for the building and consumer product industries, relying entirely on scrap. 

“The ShAPE technology is an amazing opportunity for US manufacturing and the build-out of our critical infrastructure,” Donsky said. “We believe there is tremendous environmental and commercial value to building circularity in the aluminum extrusion industry while helping the building and construction industry significantly reduce the embodied carbon of their products.”

“ShAPE technology enables companies like Atomic13 to produce aluminum extrusions made from 100% post-consumer scrap with 90% lower carbon,” he said. “At the same time, the low feedstock costs result in lower costs for consumers. We look forward to continuing to work with PNNL engineers to advance this promising technology.”

Aluminum extrusions are already a mainstay of the building industry. What’s different about the ShAPE manufacturing process is that the scrap aluminum bricks or rod-shaped billets are deformed using heat generated by high shear forces to pulverize impurities in scrap aluminum into tiny particles and uniformly disperse them within the aluminum microstructure.

The dispersion eliminates, for example, microscopic iron clumps that can generate microfractures in recycled aluminum products manufactured using conventional methods. ShAPE aluminum extrusion, thus, offers massive energy savings by eliminating the need to dilute impurities found in recycled aluminum with 25% to 40% newly mined aluminum before processing.

The PNNL team evaluated the mechanical properties of rods, tubes and irregular hollow, multichannel trapezoids under mechanical stress. The team tested 540 unique conditions products, made from post-consumer scrap briquettes, some with high iron content (0.2 to 0.34% iron). All performed at or above ASTM standards for yield strength and ultimate tensile strength.

Australia responded to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine with wide-ranging sanctions, including a ban on exports of the aluminum raw material to Russia.

Shortly after the ban was imposed in March 2022, Rio Tinto took sole control of Queensland Alumina Ltd (QAL), sidelining Rusal and cutting its access to the refinery’s output. Rio owns 80% of the refinery and Rusal the remaining 20%.

“Rusal is disappointed in the outcome and is considering the court’s decision,” the company said in an emailed comment, adding that it had 28 days to file an appeal.

“It is necessary to emphasise that this decision does not deprive Rusal of the share ownership in the asset. It also does not affect current Rusal operations worldwide,” it added.

In the suit, Rusal’s Australian unit, Alumina and Bauxite Company (ABC), was seeking to restore its rights at QAL.

“Rio Tinto and QAL plan to continue to operate on this basis for as long as the sanctions continue,” a Rio’s spokesperson said after acknowledging the court decision.

Australia’s alumina export ban and suspended operations of a refinery in Ukraine prompted Rusal to seek more alumina in China and other countries to ensure adequate supply to its Siberian aluminum smelters in 2022.

In 2023 it bought a 30% stake in a Chinese alumina refinery to support the feed coming from its alumina assets in Russia, Ireland, Jamaica and Guinea.

(By Polina Devitt and Clara Denina; Editing by Mark Potter and David Goodman)

The US central bank held interest rates steady for a fourth straight meeting on Wednesday. While Fed Chair Jerome Powell did signal an openness to monetary easing, he said he didn’t think it’s likely that the Open Market Committee will be confident inflation is moving sustainably toward 2% by next month’s meeting.

“The macro fundamentals have returned to neutral with tempered expectations for US rate cuts combining with frequent roll-outs of domestic measures for China’s economy,” Holly Futures Co. wrote in a note. “Still, overseas copper demand is weak and China is entering an off-peak season. Price volatility could continue before the Lunar New Year holiday.”

The world’s second-largest economy has been struggling to regain momentum even after the government introduced some stimulus measures. Manufacturing activity usually slows ahead of the week-long holiday, while the metals-intensive property sector is still mired in a prolonged slump.

Industrial metals have had a soft start to the year, with aluminum on the London Metal Exchange dropping 4.4% in January, the biggest monthly loss in eight months. Zinc also tumbled 4.9% last month, while copper gained just 0.6%.

On Thursday, copper slipped 0.9% to settle at $8,534.50 a ton on the London Metal Exchange, while aluminum dropped more than 1%. Zinc fell 2%.

(By Annie Lee)

Last year, the European Union included aluminum on its critical raw material list due to it being a key material for electric vehicles where it is used to reduce weight to help extend the driving range.

Primary aluminum production needs large amounts of electricity, making it extremely carbon-intensive. Reliance on coal in China to produce power means one metric ton of aluminum can involve emitting up to 20 metric tons of carbon, while in Europe the number is less than seven tons

Hydro’s Torija facility in northeastern Spain will emit four tons of carbon for one ton of aluminum when operational in 2026. Construction of the plant will start in the second half of 2024.

“We see increasing demand for low-carbon aluminum from consumers and increasing interest in how our material is produced,” Hydro Executive Vice President Eivind Kallevik told Reuters. “It’s an important shift from five years ago. Companies are now more interested in the embedded carbon footprint of the cars they produce.”

Recycled or secondary aluminum uses 95% less energy than primary metal.

Hydro will be able to recycle up to 70,000 tonnes of scrap aluminum, collected in Europe, at the new facility in Torija for the region’s electric vehicle, renewable energy and construction industries.

The Torija recycling project, Hydro’s second in Spain, follows the opening of Hydro’s Cassopolis plant in the United States last year. Cassopolis is expected to produce 120,000 tons of recycled aluminum annually.

Hydro is aiming to cut the carbon footprint of some of its aluminum to near zero by 2030 with technologies including renewable energy and carbon capture storage (CCS).

($1 = 0.9212 euros)

(By Pratima Desai; Editing by Sharon Singleton)

On the London Metal Exchange, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has stepped in to buy Russian aluminum even as Citigroup Inc. is abandoning the trade, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Chinese-owned metals trader IXM has requested some Russian aluminum since the new rules were announced, while larger rival Trafigura Group has become more cautious.

The divergence between some of the biggest players in metals markets highlights how an ever-expanding array of sanctions is entangling more and more of Russia’s commodity trade.

It’s also causing a headache for the LME, where Russian aluminum now accounts for more than 90% of the live metal inventories. The latest news has revived a debate over whether it should ban Russian supplies to avoid unwanted metal piling up, which threatens to undermine the value of the world’s benchmark aluminum price if fewer traders are willing — or allowed — to handle Russian stocks.

The country’s metals and mining industry had escaped blanket sanctions until last month, when the UK introduced measures prohibiting British companies and individuals from trading a wide range of Russian metals. While an exemption allowed them to continue trading on the LME, the sanctions mean that “UK persons” can’t request delivery of Russian metal from the exchange if it was bought after Dec. 15. The UK government also hinted at future action “in concert with international partners.”

The announcement was met with confusion over which companies and individuals would be affected by the rules — while most large metal traders and banks are headquartered outside of the UK, many have senior British staff and almost all of them have some presence in London.

The biggest participants in metals markets are now responding in different ways.

JPMorgan, for example, has bought some Russian aluminum on the LME in South Korea and requested delivery of the metal, according to people familiar with the matter.

The new restrictions mean that such a trade would be illegal for a UK person. But while some of JPMorgan’s key metal trading staff are British and based in London, the bank believes that the deals are not covered by the UK sanctions because it has been trading through a non-UK entity, the people said.

IXM, the third-largest metals trading house that’s headquartered in Geneva and owned by China’s CMOC Group, has also bought and requested delivery of some Russian aluminum from the LME since Dec. 15, other people familiar with the matter said. Its British executives and traders, including chief executive officer Kenny Ives, have recused themselves from trades involving Russian metal, the people said. Still, IXM is likely to be less active after the company on Monday announced plans to step back from the aluminum market more broadly to focus on its core business in other metals.

Wound down

Meanwhile, Citi, which had been one of the main buyers of Russian aluminum on LME in the past year, has wound down the trade in the wake of the sanctions, delivering large volumes of Russian aluminum into LME warehouses in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, separate people familiar with the matter said.

Earlier this month, the LME said it was “actively monitoring” the market after a flood of Russian aluminum in the wake of the UK sanctions, but noted that Russian metal was continuing to be requested for delivery out as well as being delivered in.

Orders to withdraw aluminum jumped by 8.7% on Wednesday, driven by requests for metal in Kaohsiung. LME aluminum prices were little changed at $2,270 a ton in a mixed session for metals.

Trafigura, which had been actively seeking new deals in Russian metals, has been more cautious since the UK sanctions were introduced, other people said. The trading house, which last year struck a deal to buy several hundred thousand tons of aluminum from United Co. Rusal International PJSC, is unlikely to renew the deal this year, they said, as the two sides couldn’t agree on the terms of the deal.

Glencore Plc, which is one of the biggest traders of Russian metal thanks to a long-term contract with Rusal, continues to buy aluminum under it, people familiar with the matter said. A Glencore spokesperson said the company complies with all applicable sanctions.

Spokespeople for JPMorgan, IXM, Citi and Trafigura declined to comment.

(By Jack Farchy, Mark Burton, Archie Hunter and Alfred Cang)

At the end of 2023, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners reached a combined $1.42 trillion, up a healthy, if far from spectacular $48.7 billion over the course of 2023. Mining’s top tier is also worth $330 billion less than in March 2022.

Metal and mineral markets are volatile at the best of times – the nickel, cobalt and lithium price collapse in 2023 was extreme but not entirely unprecedented. Rare earth producers, platinum group metal watchers, iron ore followers, and gold and silver bugs for that matter, have been through worse.

Mining companies have become better at navigating choppy waters and as a whole the majors performed fairly consistently last year despite geopolitical and market turmoil, but within the ranking, 2023 fortunes were made and lost over what seemed like days.

The forced closure of one of the world’s biggest copper mines – and the subsequent collapse of owner First Quantum Minerals stock – served as a stark reminder of the outsized risks miners face over and above market swings.

Panama root canal

After months of protests and political pressure, at the end of November the Panama government ordered the closure of First Quantum Minerals’ Cobre Panama mine following a ruling by the Supreme Court that declared the mining contract for the operation unconstitutional.

Public figures, including climate activist Greta Thunberg and Hollywood actor Leonardo Di Caprio backed the protests and shared a video calling for the “mega mine” to cease operations, which quickly went viral. 

That mining cobre is at the nexus of the green energy transition is clearly an irony lost on those trying to save the world.  FQM is seeking arbitration and completely winding down operations will take time, but a reopening of Cobre Panama is not on the cards. 

From 25th position in the ranking at the end of March 2022 and a valuation well above $20 billion, the November-December sell off saw FQM drop out of the top tier altogether, ending 2023 at number 58 with a market cap below $6 billion. 

Cobre Panama supplied more than 40% of the company’s revenue, and with nickel prices plummeting FQM has also been forced to suspend operations at its Raventhorpe mine in Australia. 

Amid the inevitable takeover rumours now in circulation, shares in the Vancouver-based company have rallied in 2024, but still not enough to reenter the top 50.

No. 12 with a bullet 

If 2023 was an annus horribilis for FQM it was mirabilis for Amman Mineral Internasional. Stock in the Indonesian firm surged by 269% from its July debut in Jakarta to reach a market capitalisation of more than $30 billion at the end of last year – and number 12 in the ranking. 

That valuation is quite an achievement on annual revenue of $2 billion no matter how fat margins are at the company’s Batu Hijau copper and gold mine.  Batu Hijau is the third largest mine worldwide in terms of copper equivalent output (but no match for Cobre Panama when it comes to the orange metal alone)  and has been in production since the turn of the millennium. Amman is also developing the adjacent Elang project on the island of Sumbawa. 

Amman Minerals’ ascent has minted at least six new billionaires and the stock appears to be building on its success in 2024, rising by double digits in January already.

Indonesia’s other major mining IPO, Harita Nickel, was on a different trajectory altogether. After listing in April and raising $672m, the company has had a tough go of it and the stock has shed more than 38% since then as nickel prices continue to decline.

Shiny gold, dull silver, tarnished PGMs

The price of gold hit an all-time record on December 1, 2023.  But bullion’s best ever level passed without the usual fanfare and despite bullish indications for 2024, gold mining stocks did not exactly storm the rankings of the most valuable miners.

Over the course of 2023 gold and royalty companies on the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners added a collective $20.8 billion in market cap. 

And judging by gold miners’ performance so far this year, gold above $2,000 is not providing enough support. Newmont is already down 17%, Barrick has shed 13% and Agnico Eagle shareholders are 9% poorer. 

The number of precious metals companies in the top 50 has also been relatively stable over the years. With Newmont’s absorption of Newcrest now complete, the open slot was taken up by Kinross, which spent a few years in the wilderness. 

Anglogold Ashanti was just edged out by Jiangxi Copper for position number 50 on the last trading days of 2023, but based on its performance so far in 2024 the London-listed company is already back among the top tier. Indeed Anglogold is the only major gold player in the black year to date.

Silver has not been able to ride gold’s coattails and the top 50 has not had a silver specialist for a few years after Fresnillo dropped out (now at #61) and while Pan American Silver has come close in recent years at the end of last year it made it to #58 only. 

The exit of platinum and palladium majors like Sibanye Stillwater and Impala Platinum, now both valued at less than $4 billion, made space for Royal Gold to reenter at 47 at the end of last year, up from 57th in 2022. 

After a dismal 2023, the sole remaining PGM specialist Anglo American Platinum looks likely to lose more ground this quarter as palladium and platinum prices continue to slide into the new year.

Not too tough at the top 

London-listed Anglo American has had a rough year in part due to its exposure to platinum group metals and control of AngloPlat, and is now valued at $30 billion after peaking at $70 billion in March 2021.  

Were it not for the London-listed company’s iron ore operations, the 40%-plus slump in share value may have been deeper. Rumours that Glencore may be sniffing around now that the Swiss behemoth’s bid for all of Teck Resources has soured is also keeping Anglo from falling further down the rankings .  

Investors in Anglo, with a history going back more than a hundred years on the South African gold and diamond fields, have had a particularly wild ride over the last few years. In January 2016, Anglo’s market cap fell below $5 billion after it came close to suffocating under a pile of debt.  

Against expectations, iron ore seems to be holding above $120 a tonne, Chinese property bankruptcies and Beijing’s tepid stimulus response notwithstanding. 

Iron ore’s resilience despite Chinese troubles has also kept the share prices of the other diversified majors, which make their fattest profits from the steelmaking ingredient, from skidding. 

The top 10 mining companies have been able to keep their share of the total above 50% for a few years now. Not quite the magnificent seven, but size does matter in mining, particularly when access to capital is no longer a headache but a migraine. 

Expectations of another active year of M&A in the sector is likely to make the Top 50 top-heavier, especially now that it’s painfully obvious just how one-commodity companies like the lithium stocks can so easily be derailed. Coal miners’ strong 2023 suggests there are still exceptional minerals that prove the rule.   

Lithium losers 

After defying gravity early on, the combined losses for lithium miners in the top 50 climbed to nearly $30 billion in market cap over the 12 month period. Four counters occupy the worst performance table for 2023. 

The M&A drama surrounding Liontown, Albermarle and Hancock Prospecting turned out to be a soap opera and Chile’s move to take control of its lithium industry now appears far less consequential than feared.

Despite the precipitous decline in lithium prices in 2023, after hitting all time highs above $80,000 a tonne in November 2022, none of the battery metal miners’ stock performance was dire enough to drop out of the Top 50.

The merger of Livent and Allkem to form Arcadium Lithium could in fact up lithium mining’s representation in the ranking to seven should Pilbara Minerals’ January bleeding be stanched. But with lithium prices far from stabilizing, the battery metal’s presence in the top 50 may fade further. 

Pilbara Minerals, which unlike its peers was still able to show share price gains last year,  joined the Top 50 last year, bringing the number of companies based in the Western Australia capital to five, surpassing the tally of Vancouver, BC as the top home base in the ranking. 

With the exit of First Quantum, three mining companies in the top 50 call Vancouver home while the return of Kinross saw the ranks of Toronto-headquartered miners move back up to four.  

Nuclear options

Uranium prices more than doubled during 2023 and recently hit triple digits for the first time in 16 years. The breakthrough for the nuclear fuel comes after a decade in the doldrums following the Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Canada’s Cameco made the best quarterly performer list once again in Q4 and after doubling in market worth in 2023.  The Saskatoon-based company now sits at no 23 in the ranking after jumping 22 places since end-2022.    

The value of shares in Kazatomprom, the world number one uranium producer, topped $10 billion at the end of 2023, placing it at position 38.  Until last year the state-owned Kazakh company was outside earshot of the Top 50 since its dual-listing in London and Astana in 2018.  

None of the smaller uranium companies are likely to pierce the top 50 by themselves, but combinations among the rank and file may edge in when countries aiming to ditch fossil fuels stop thinking they can have their yellowcake and eat it too.

*NOTES:

Source: MINING.COM, Morningstar, GoogleFinance, company reports. Trading data from primary-listed exchange at December 28 2023 to January 2, 2024 where applicable, currency cross-rates January 2, 2024. 

Percentage change based on US$ market cap difference, not share price change in local currency.

As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious. We decided to exclude unlisted and state-owned enterprises at the outset due to a lack of information. That, of course, excludes giants like Chile’s Codelco, Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining, which owns the world’s largest gold mine, Eurochem, a major potash firm, and a number of entities in China and developing countries around the world.

Another central criterion was the depth of involvement in the industry before an enterprise can rightfully be called a mining company.

For instance, should smelter companies or commodity traders that own minority stakes in mining assets be included, especially if these investments have no operational component or warrant a seat on the board?

This is a common structure in Asia and excluding these types of companies removed well-known names like Japan’s Marubeni and Mitsui, Korea Zinc and Chile’s Copec. 

Levels of operational or strategic involvement and size of shareholding were other central considerations. Do streaming and royalty companies that receive metals from mining operations without shareholding qualify or are they just specialised financing vehicles? We included Franco Nevada, Royal Gold and Wheaton Precious Metals on the basis of their deep involvement in the industry.

Vertically integrated concerns like Alcoa and energy companies such as Shenhua Energy or Bayan Resources where power, ports and railways make up a large portion of revenues pose a problem. The revenue mix also tends to change alongside volatile coal prices. Same goes for battery makers like CATL which is increasingly moving upstream, but where mining still makes up a small portion of its valuation.  

Another consideration is diversified companies such as Anglo American with separately listed majority-owned subsidiaries. We’ve included Angloplat in the ranking but excluded Kumba Iron Ore in which Anglo has a 70% stake to avoid double counting. Similarly we excluded Hindustan Zinc which is listed separately but majority owned by Vedanta.

Many steelmakers own and often operate iron ore and other metal mines, but in the interest of balance and diversity we excluded the steel industry, and with that many companies that have substantial mining assets including giants like ArcelorMittal, Magnitogorsk, Ternium, Baosteel and many others.

Head office refers to operational headquarters wherever applicable, for example BHP and Rio Tinto are shown as Melbourne, Australia, but Antofagasta is the exception that proves the rule. We consider the company’s HQ to be in London, where it has been listed since the late 1800s.

Please let us know of any errors, omissions, deletions or additions to the ranking or suggest a different methodology.

Registering warehouses in China, the world’s largest consumer of industrial metals, to store metal traded on the LME has been a strategic aim since Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx), opens new tab bought the LME in 2012 for $2.2 billion.

In a presentation made to the LME’s warehousing committee in December, seen by Reuters, the exchange said companies in the region had indicated interest in Hong Kong as a place to store industrial metals as an alternative to mainland China.

“Around ten domestic and regional LME market participants … have recently expressed interest in this initiative directly to the LME or through the HKEMCA (Hong Kong Energy, Mining and Commodities Association),” the LME’s presentation said.

“An LME warehouse in Hong Kong could be seen as a showcase for in-depth cooperation between Mainland China and Hong Kong,” the presentation said. It also said Hong Kong as a good delivery location (GDL) “closes gaps in the LME’s delivery network that have frustrated some Chinese customers”.

HKEMCA did not respond to a request for comment.

“The LME actively engages with industry participants worldwide to ensure the LME warehouse network continues to provide maximum global connectivity for the metals community,” the LME said in response to a request for comment.

“When assessing potential new delivery points, we consider a number of important criteria … we also discuss these with the relevant LME advisory committees before communicating with the market.”

No timeline for the proposal was given by any of the sources, but several hurdles stand in the way of listing Hong Kong as a (GDL), the sources said.

Two sources said they were wary of the idea of investing in Hong Kong because of the risks associated with China’s growing influence over foreign firms and individuals in the territory.

Concern about China’s power in Hong Kong could be reinforced or eased by whether China respects a decision by a Hong Kong court to order the liquidation of property giant China Evergrande Group, opens new tab.

Three of the sources said the idea was flawed due to the prohibitive costs of storage space in Hong Kong and the fact that its imports of industrial metals such as copper and aluminum traded on the 147-year-old LME are insignificant.

“The LME sees this as a potential gateway into China, but the political situation isn’t healthy, people don’t want to invest in Hong Kong. It is de facto China,” one of the sources said.

“Hong Kong authorities would need a green light from China, where they will come up against the same issue they have had all these years; local resistance and regulatory hurdles.”

Chinese rules and regulations alongside resistance from local competitor Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE), have frustrated the LME’s attempts to expand its network of warehouses to China.

However, things have changed due to pressure on Chinese exchanges to innovate and expand throughout Asia. ShFE is looking at expanding its metals warehousing network outside China, while the LME is planning to launch new metals contracts using prices from the Shanghai Exchange.

ShFE and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, which would approve LME warehouses in China, did not respond to requests for comment.

Typically the LME would only approve locations in countries which consume and import large amounts of industrial metal.

Hong Kong’s imports of industrial metals such as copper and aluminum are a small fraction of global supplies.

“Hong Kong is not a traditional centre for base metals storage and does not currently attract significant inflows of metal due to cheaper nearby ports,” the LME said.

Good delivery locations in the LME’s Asian network include ports in Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia which are all cheaper places to store metal, the sources said.

Singapore is also included in the LME’s network, but it is more expensive and though it doesn’t consume large amounts of metal, it is used as a transit location.

Two of the sources said rent in Hong Kong could potentially amount to four times the maximum rent warehouses in the LME’s system can charge, which for aluminum, copper, zinc and nickel is around 50 US cents a metric ton.

This the LME acknowledged by saying in the presentation that warehouse rents would have to be subsidized by the Hong Kong government “to be a commercially viable option”.

Other support for LME warehousing from the Hong Kong government could include “recently warranted LME metal given “fast tracked” customs status across the mainland border”.

The Hong Kong government referred Reuters to HKEx in response to a request for comment. HKEx said “this is an LME matter”.

(By Pratima Desai, Siyi Liu, Farah Master and Mai Nguyen; Editing by Veronica Brown and David Evans)

Consolidated profit after tax dropped 18% to 20.13 billion rupees (nearly $242 million), ahead of analysts’ average estimate of a 23.5% fall, as per LSEG data.

Domestic sales and production for zinc rose 9.8% and 7% respectively, while that of aluminum rose 1.4% and 6%, respectively.

As a result, revenue from operations rose 4% to 349.68 rupees during the quarter, beating analysts’ expectations of an 8% fall.

Grappling with falling metal prices, the metals and mining company has reported profit falls since the first quarter of 2022 and a loss in the July-September quarter last year.

Prices of key base metals – zinc and lead – were down on the London Metal Exchange during the quarter, lower than in the year ago quarter despite sequential improvement.

While aluminum prices improved year-on-year, they are down from their record high levels in March 2022.

In September last year, billionaire Anil Agarwal launched a sweeping overhaul that would carve up the metals-to-oil conglomerate into six separate businesses, a move aimed at shoring up parent Vedanta Group’s financial performance.

Last week, the Vedanta Group-owned Hindustan Zinc reported its fifth consecutive decline in quarterly profit as the company was also hit by lower zinc prices and sales.

($1 = 83.0810 Indian rupees)

(By Kashish Tandon; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)

Prices rose as much as 3.6% on the London Metal Exchange as the report raised fresh concerns about the flow of Russian metal into western markets, and US and European aluminum stocks jumped.

However, while some EU member states are pushing for aluminum sanctions as the bloc shapes plans for a 13th package, the idea remains controversial in several capitals, people familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg. Any sanctions would require unanimous support of the EU’s 27 members.

Russian metals had escaped broad sanctions until December, when the UK moved to block British individuals and entities from trading physical Russian metals, including aluminum, copper and nickel. At the time, the UK hinted at the possibility of coordinated action with international partners in a statement announcing the sanctions.

Politico reported on Tuesday that EU countries will soon start discussing measures that could lead to a full ban on Russian aluminum, citing EU diplomats.

The LME said after the UK measures that its members and clients had been granted a license allowing the continued trade of Russian metals on the exchange, and it expected that the sanctions wouldn’t impact trading access to the LME. Still, the rules potentially may prevent UK persons from withdrawing Russian metal they buy on the exchange.

The LME said earlier this month it was “actively monitoring for market orderliness” after a flood of Russian aluminum onto the exchange in the wake of UK sanctions.

Aluminum rose 3.2% on Tuesday, the biggest daily increase in a month. Alcoa Corp., the largest US aluminum producer, jumped as much as 10% before paring gains. Other metals were also higher, with zinc climbing 2.6% and copper up 0.7%.

(By Mark Burton)

The company has signed a 25-year agreement with green energy firm European Energy Australia, which is building the 1.1 gigawatt Upper Calliope solar farm in Queensland which when complete will be the country’s largest, Rio said.

Once developed and approved, the solar farm will have the potential to cut down Rio’s operating carbon emissions by 1.8 million tonnes per year.

Rio Tinto is Australia’s 10th biggest emitter, according to data from the Clean Energy Regulator. In 2022, it reported direct and indirect emissions at 30.3Mt CO2 equivalent, around two-thirds of which came from its aluminum division.

The company tried for years last decade to sell the aging division, before it considered closure, under former chief Jean-Sébastien Jacques.

The construction of the Upper Calliope plant is targeted to start in 2025 or 2026 and will be built at a site about 50 kilometres southwest of Gladstone.

The solar power deal is also expected to provide ways to repower Rio’s three production assets in Gladstone — the Boyne aluminum smelter, the Yarwun alumina refinery and the Queensland Alumina refinery, the company said in a statement.

The mining giant in June 2022 asked for proposals to develop wind and solar energy plants in Australia’s Queensland state to power three of its aluminum projects by 2030.

Upper Calliope is the first successful applicant in a formal request for proposals made by Rio for renewable power and firming projects in Central and Southern Queensland, it said.

(By Rishav Chatterjee; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

My aim would be to have the pilot contracts out this year, or, at the very least, a clear roadmap of which contracts and their specifications,” LME CEO Matthew Chamberlain told the Reuters Global Markets Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Reuters exclusively reported last month that the LME was planning new metals contracts using ShFE prices.

The specific contacts to be launched with ShFE were still under discussion, but the steel complex would have the most potential as it was a very-growth area, Chamberlain added.

“Steel is a very high-growth area for us, our Turkey steel scrap volumes are up 88% year-on-year,” he said.

On the issue of Russian metals in warehouses, Chamberlain said that he saw it exiting, as well as coming in.

“That backs up the anecdotal messages from the market, namely that much of the world is still consuming Russian metal.”

The share of available aluminum stocks of Russian origin in LME warehouses rose to 90.4% in December, from 78.8% in November, data on the exchange’s website showed.

(By Divya Chowdhury, Savio Shetty and Eric Onstad; Editing by Alexander Smith)

The rise follows a restriction imposed by Britain from Dec. 15 on UK entities and individuals taking physical delivery of Russian-made base metals, part of wider sanctions on Moscow for its war in Ukraine.

The crackdown along with muted demand in the physical market contributed to additional deliveries to the LME-registered warehouses, dubbed as a market of last resort.

“People are getting more nervous about holding the Russian inventory,” said an analyst.

On-warrant aluminum inventories – those which have not been earmarked for removal and are available to the market – in LME-registered warehouses rose by 74% since the UK sanctions were announced. Warrants are title documents conferring ownership of metal.

“With regard to recent UK government sanctions, the LME is actively monitoring for market orderliness in respect of Russian metal,” the LME, the world’s oldest and largest metals market, said in a separate comment.

The exchange added that “Russian metal continued to flow through the warehousing network during December”.

The amount of Russian primary aluminum stocks on LME warrant rose to 338,375 metric tons in December from 154,775 in November, the data showed.

The high share of Russian-origin metal in LME inventories has been a concern for some producers, which compete with Russia’s Rusal , and some Western consumers who have been avoiding the Russian metal since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The share of Russian-origin copper stocks increased to 43% in December from 40% the previous month, the LME said. The amount of Russian copper in inventories rose to 59,725 tons from 55,825.

The Russian nickel share rose to 31% from 26% as the amount increased to 17,772 tons in December from 11,106 tons in November.

(By Polina Devitt; Editing by Pratima Desai, Jan Harvey and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

The kingdom is pushing to expand its mining sector and tap vast reserves of phosphate, gold, copper and bauxite.

“This program will de-risk investments in our exploration, securing to enable new commodities, green field projects and junior miners,” Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef said, speaking at the Future Minerals Forum.

Deals worth 75 billion riyals ($20 billion) are expected to be signed in Riyadh during this week’s industry event, he added, announcing the fifth and sixth rounds of a licensing program offering access to 33 exploration sites this year.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, is midway through an economic transformation plan known as Vision 2030 to diversify income sources away from hydrocarbons and develop sectors such as tourism, industry, and mining among others, to bolster non-oil GDP.

The Gulf state has revised upwards estimates for its untapped mineral resources to $2.5 trillion, from a 2016 forecast of $1.3 trillion. Alkhorayef said this was based on 30% of the Arabian shields exploration, suggesting there is more to be discovered.

Ma’aden, the flagship Saudi mining company, is 67% owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, and is at the forefront of developing the sector domestically as well as investing in assets abroad.

“We have the largest exploration program in the world…we look at mining not only (as) mining for minerals and mining resources but also data mining,” Yasir Al Rumayyan, governor of PIF, said at the forum on Wednesday.

Separately, the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources announced its list of preferred bidders in the fourth series of mining licensing rounds, part of the Accelerated Exploration Program initiative, according to state news agency, SPA.

Saudi Arabia plans to award over 30 mining exploration licences to international investors this year, and could offer larger exploration areas of more than 2,000 kilometres for each licence.

($1 = 3.7502 riyals)

(By Aziz El Yaakoubi, Federico Maccioni, Ahmed Elimam, Nayera Abdallah and Rachna Uppal; Editing by Louise Heavens and Ros Russell)