During a two-week meeting of the ISA’s policymaking Council that kicked off on Monday, Brazil’s delegate — speaking on behalf of 29 Latin American and Caribbean member nations — announced the candidacy of Brazilian oceanographer Leticia Carvalho for the position of secretary-general of the organization’s administrative arm, known as the Secretariat. The ISA’s 168 member nations and the European Union will decide on the next secretary-general at what is expected to be a pivotal meeting in July.

“I do believe that this is the most important year for the Authority,” said Olav Myklebust of Norway upon his election Thursday as the president of the ISA Council for 2024.

If elected, Carvalho would likely represent a marked change from the administration of current Secretary-General Michael Lodge, whose second four-year term ends in December. A UK lawyer, Lodge has disparaged environmental opposition to mining deep ocean ecosystems for valuable minerals and drawn criticism for his closeness to mining contractors the ISA regulates.

The choice of the next secretary-general could have significant economic and environmental consequences for deep sea mining, if regulations are ultimately approved. The ISA’s charter gives the person in that role authority over the Secretariat’s operations and its dealings with mining companies. Since member states usually only meet twice a year, the secretary-general would handle day-to-day decisions about how to respond to a mining accident, for example. The secretary-general also personally negotiates the terms of confidential contracts with mining companies.

Pressure is mounting on the ISA to finish its decade-long effort to enact regulations amid growing opposition to mining fragile and biodiverse deep sea habitats for cobalt, nickel and other metals. Lodge, who has worked at the ISA since its establishment in 1994, has not yet indicated whether he’ll seek re-election.

Carvalho runs the marine and freshwater branch of the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi and previously served as a Brazilian federal environmental official.

Greenpeace and other accredited ISA observers haven’t taken a position on Carvalho’s candidacy. “As the regulator of deep sea mining, the head of the ISA — as well as all its members — need to focus on what is threatening the oceans and take action to stop these threats,” Louisa Casson, a Greenpeace deep sea mining campaigner, said from ISA headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica.

The 36-member-state Council is meeting this month amid a flurry of recent developments around seabed mining. On the first day of the gathering, Denmark became the 25th ISA member nation to call for a pause or moratorium on mining due to a lack of scientific knowledge about seafloor ecosystems.

While the US only attends ISA meetings as an observer — it declined to ratify the 1982 UN treaty that gives the ISA jurisdiction over the seabed in international waters — US interest in deep sea mining is growing. The Metals Company (TMC), an ISA mining contractor, has been lobbying US politicians, some of whom are in turn framing deep sea mining as necessary to reduce reliance on China for critical minerals. China controls five ISA exploration contracts that allow it to prospect for minerals, the most of any nation.

There are already signs that the US may be keen to follow in the footsteps of countries like Norway, which in January approved seabed mining exploration in its territorial waters to lessen dependence on China, contravening the advice of government scientists. In the US, Congress included a provision in its most recent defense budget that requires the Pentagon to issue a report on the nation’s capacity to process seabed minerals.

In November, seven Republican congressmen from Texas wrote a letter to Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Taylor-Kale expressing support for TMC’s proposal to build a seabed minerals facility in the state. A month later, 31 Republican representatives sent a letter urging Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “to develop a plan to address the national security ramifications of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) interest and investment in seabed mining.”

On March 11, more than 300 former political and military leaders, including Hillary Clinton and three former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff, signed a letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations urging ratification of the UN treaty that established the ISA so that “American businesses can harvest the strategic critical minerals of the deep ocean floor.” A day after that, two Republican congresspeople introduced the Responsible Use of Seafloor Resources Act of 2024, which would require the federal government to support domestic seabed minerals processing.

At the ISA’s meeting this month, tensions may flare with another accredited observer: Greenpeace, whose activists last year boarded and occupied a ship conducting scientific research for a TMC subsidiary in the Pacific Ocean. After that subsidiary sued Greenpeace, a Dutch judge ultimately ordered the activists to leave the vessel, but preserved their right to protest alongside it.

The incident underscores the role of the secretary-general in handling disputes. Lodge responded to the protest by ordering Greenpeace to stay 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the TMC vessel, but the Dutch judge ruled that the ISA lacked jurisdiction over Greenpeace. Lodge nonetheless doubled down on his claim of authority over protesters in the Pacific in a report to the Council ahead of this month’s meeting.

In a video message shown Tuesday at an ISA side event organized by Greenpeace, UN Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders Michel Forst said international law protects the right to protest seabed mining. “The ISA Secretary General seeking to prevent Greenpeace activists from protesting at sea is yet again another example of the ongoing crackdown on environmental defenders,” he said. “But what is even more shocking is that this happens in an international organization.”

The March Council meeting is the last ISA gathering before the organization’s annual meeting in July, at which the next secretary-general will be elected. At that gathering, all eyes will be on TMC, which has aggressively pushed for the completion of regulations and mounted a global campaign to gain support for deep sea mining.

If regulations are greenlit, TMC would likely be the first company to mine the seabed. One of the company’s ISA contracts is sponsored by the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, which in 2021 triggered a provision requiring the ISA to enact mining regulations by 2023. The ISA missed that deadline, and so must start accepting applications.

TMC has said it reserves the right to apply for a mining license after the July meeting, even in the absence of regulations. But any application will require analyzing enormous volumes of scientific data on potential environmental impacts. TMC only recently completed its latest scientific expedition to the area targeted for mining; processing all that data will take time.

“The real goal is to ensure that the mining code and final rules, regulations and procedures are in place before mining would begin,” Craig Shesky, TMC’s chief financial officer, said Tuesday during a company presentation.

(By Todd Woody)

Of the 500 million crowns, 200 million is due to reduced production and 300 million to delayed deliveries to customers, Boliden said in a statement.

Finland’s industrial, logistics and electrical workers said on Wednesday they would extend their ongoing two-week strikes by one week until March 31 in protest against government labour reforms and welfare cuts.

Boliden now expects a negative cash flow impact in the first quarter of around 1 billion crowns, up from its previously communicated 500 million crowns.

It expects the impact of delayed deliveries to be temporary and to be regained in the second quarter, it added.

“Some impact on production is also expected during the second quarter, based on currently assumed circumstances,” the company said.

($1 = 10.5079 Swedish crowns)

(By Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Louise Rasmussen and Mark Potter)

The London-based company, which has a 6.54% stake in South African platinum group miner Sedibelo Resources, said that plummeting prices for platinum group metals (PGMs) has affected its bottom line.

Since the beginning of 2023, prices for palladium and rhodium, used mainly in the catalytic converters that clean exhaust fumes in vehicles, have dropped by 44% and 63% respectively. This collapse is attributed to inventory reductions and a sluggish global economy. 

While the decrease in platinum has been less significant, the overall decline in PGMs has had a severe impact on producers’ profits.

Gemfields said it had reduced the value of its Sedibelo investment, which will result in a write-down ranging between $4 million and $28 million. This would translate in a loss of $0.8 US cents per share for 2023, a significant change from 4.8 US cents in earnings per share of achieved in 2022. 

Headline loss per share, which includes Sedibelo Resources’ fair value loss, is likely to be 0.9 cents compared with the prior year’s headline earnings per share of 4.8 US cents.

When it comes to its core business, Gemfields saw revenue from its 75%-owned Kagem emerald mine in Zambia drop 40% to $89.9 million in 2023, from $148.6 million the previous year. Top-line revenue at its Montepuez ruby mine in Mozambique decreased by 9.2% to $151.4 million from $166.7 million in 2022.

“Production of premium rough gemstones has been weaker at both Kagem and Montepuez Rompared to 2022, and resulted in November 2023’s planned higher quality emerald auction being withdrawn from our schedule,” chief executive Sean Gilbertson said.

“We look forward to completing our first auction of the year later on today, with a commercial-quality emerald auction taking place in Jaipur, and our next higher-quality emerald and mixed-quality ruby auctions to take place in Q2,” Gilbertson added.

Gemfields’ luxury brand Fabergé also disappointed, recording revenue of $15.7 million, which is 11% lower than the $17.6 million it had in 2022, mainly due to softer demand for precious stones.

Echoing a demand last week by activist Tribeca Investment Partners, investors said the polluting fossil fuel would be a lucrative option – for a decade or two at least – even as it is phased out in favour of renewable energy.

The Swiss-based miner and trader is set to see its coal unit grow sharply after it completes a $6.9 billion deal to buy the majority of Canadian miner Teck’s one, but said it plans to list the combined assets separately in New York.

Glencore is already a top producer of thermal coal with output of around 110 million tonnes a year, and also has coking coal assets.

By buying Teck’s business, in a deal set to close by the third quarter this year, it will add 20 million tons of annual steelmaking coal capacity and create a powerhouse that analysts say should generate $5-$6 billion a year in free cash flow.

A greater focus on climate risk in recent years has seen a number of pension and investment funds, financiers and insurers cut support for coal companies, leading some including Rio Tinto and Anglo American to sell or spin theirs out.

While doing so can lead to a share price bump, critics say the assets are often shifted into the private markets and run for longer with no investor oversight, potentially leading to a worse climate outcome.

For a long time, Glencore had adopted the same line, and said ditching coal would do little to cut its emissions, only to change its mind after the Teck deal was agreed, with chief executive Gary Nagle saying it would consult shareholders for their views on spinning off once the acquisition is concluded.

Ahead of any vote on the plan, though, three top-15 investors spoken to by Reuters said they would oppose the attempt to spin off its coal assets.

One top-10 shareholder said they ‘strongly disagree’ with the idea and had already told the company. The shareholder declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak publicly.

Andrew Mason, head of active ownership at Abrdn, which holds shares in Glencore, said: “In most circumstances, we do not believe that simply divesting as quickly as possible will achieve the best outcome.”

“Companies need to have credible strategies that support real-world decarbonisation,” he said, adding that a timed phase-out would facilitate a “just transition” to a greener future that minimised the impact on workers and communities.

A responsible wind down of coal is better than a divestment, given the “rapidly diminishing” global carbon budget, the emissions allowed before the world breaches its goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, said Naomi Hogan at non-profit climate group Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR).

“Fundamentally, good corporate governance requires Glencore to take responsibility for the emissions from its coal portfolio,” Hogan added.

Glencore’s carbon emissions rose 8.8% in 2023 from the previous year partly due to higher coal production, but were still down 21.8% from a 2019 baseline, according to its annual report.

“This is an extremely concerning step backwards for Glencore,” Hogan said in a note.

According to the Climate Action 100+ investor group, Glencore’s efforts to-date are mixed, as it failed to meet or partially meet their climate expectations on issues including capital expenditure and decarbonisation strategy.

Data from LSEG, however, places it among the best-performing of its peer group on a range of environmental, social and governance-related metrics, ranking it 4th out of 455 companies.

As well as the environmental argument, Tribeca said the coal assets would continue to be profitable as long as they were active and could benefit the rest of the portfolio – something the top-10 investor echoed, citing a likely surge in demand for cheap electricity from data centres in the years ahead.

Ian Woodley, portfolio manager at Old Mutual, agreed: “The likelihood is in 10 to 12 years, we’ll have another big upcycle, maybe once, maybe twice. And you see just how much cash the assets generate.”

After hitting an all time high above $400 a ton in 2022 when countries sought alternatives to Russian gas after the start of the war in Ukraine, thermal coal prices now trade around $130, while coking coal rose to above $300 a ton last year.

“In a private company, that would be paid out as dividends, but Glencore can take that cash and invest it in the rest of their portfolio,” Woodley added.

(By Clara Denina and Simon Jessop; Editing by Veronica Brown and David Evans)

But are customers willing to pay more for low-carbon nickel? Some analysts say yes — under certain conditions.

“If the market sees a benefit in paying a premium for certain supplies then it will,” Jim Lennon, managing director of commodities at Macquarie Group, told The Northern Miner in an interview. “A buyer would be willing to pay a premium if they can see an economic benefit in using that product, such as receiving a government subsidy or securing a sale of a ‘greener’ electric vehicle.”

The price of nickel has been on a downtrend since late 2022 when it was $33,575 per tonne ($15.23 per pound). The price on Tuesday was $17,678 per tonne ($8.02 per lb.) and in February dipped as low as $15,850 per tonne ($7.19 per pound).

The price doldrums have prompted Wyloo Metals and BHP (ASX: BHP) to suspend operations in Australia, with BHP announcing it would take a $2.5 billion impairment on its assets.

Given the devastation to its nickel sector, Australia has been the most vocal in creating new variable price brackets for low-carbon emissions nickel.

The idea for premium ESG pricing isn’t new. In fact, some experts argue that there’s already a premium.

Canada Nickel (TSX: CNC) CEO Mark Selby says people might be surprised to learn that price premia have already been paid for various North American products perceived as cleaner on Asian markets.

Selby notes that domestic premiums for certain materials have been sustained over several years, which might not be directly attributable to lower carbon footprints or ESG factors alone but could be influenced by a combination of factors, including local supply.

But this type of premium isn’t helping Australian nickel miners. And deliberately imposing an ESG premium would be a different story.

“The main challenge is defining what ‘ESG-compliant’ actually means,” Macquarie’s Lennon said.

It’s an obstacle that the London Metal Exchange (LME) is facing as it investigates and prepares for the potential emergence of premium pricing for low-carbon products on separate trading contracts.

Georgina Hallett, LME’s chief sustainability officer, says that there’s increasing interest from producers, consumers, and investors in establishing a price premium for metals produced with lower carbon footprints. However, defining what constitutes ‘low carbon’ or ‘green’ metals isn’t easy due to the lack of a standardized, universally accepted framework for measuring and verifying the environmental impact of metal production processes.

“The aim is to build a robust framework that supports the gradual introduction of sustainability-linked pricing mechanisms while ensuring broad market participation and avoiding undue disruption,” Hallett told The Northern Miner. “By taking a step-by-step approach, the LME hopes to align the interests of various stakeholders and drive meaningful progress toward the integration of sustainability into the global metals market.”

Free market forces

Lennon suggests that establishing a special low-carbon contract for metals on the LME is unnecessary. This is because the prices for different products are already determined by normal market activities, such as supply and demand. Just like prices for different metal shapes and origins adjust based on market conditions, the prices for products with various ESG qualities would naturally adjust in the same way.

“Exchanges don’t need necessarily to get involved since they can focus on ‘objective criteria for delivery (shapes, metal purity, etcetera) and leave the market to decide on ‘subjective’ factors such as value-in-use of different products/shapes and ESG,” Lennon said.

From an exchange perspective, like the LME, there is also a risk of damaging liquidity if they were to introduce multiple contracts. Compared with large commodity derivative markets, nickel is not particularly liquid and dividing this liquidity could reduce the usability of the market for some participants.

Lennon says markets will ultimately determine the outcome. Currently, nickel prices vary significantly between products depending on supply and demand.

Today’s primary nickel products that are LME deliverable include metal rounds, pellets, cut cathode, and full plate cathode. When delivered to LME warehouses, each product is assigned a associated warrant. When buyers want to take delivery from the LME, they are often willing to pay LME brokers a premium for warrants of a particular material shape or origin.

Similarly, other non-LME deliverable products, including intermediates (concentrates, mattes, MHP, MSP, etc.) or finished products (ferronickel, nickel pig iron, nickel sulphates, nickel chlorides, etc.) also sell at varying discounts or premiums to LME base prices. Lennon said these premiums/discounts can shift dramatically due to changes in supply and demand.

For example, nickel pig iron was selling at a premium to the LME price at the start of 2022 and then had fallen to a discount of 40% to the LME by the first half of last year.

“Product type, ESG, and country of origin are all important properties and presumably were factors that led major automakers to agree to term supply contracts with BHP and Vale in recent years. ESG was no doubt a factor in these negotiations,” Lennon said.

Canada Nickel’s Selby emphasized the importance of provenance tracing rather than setting up a formal two-tiered pricing system.

He points out that imposing a pricing mechanism before the market is ready can lead to inefficiencies, such as a benchmark that does not accurately reflect market conditions. He suggests letting the market sort it out.

“We will continue to observe the distinction between Western-supplied, clean, green nickel and the high-carbon, less ESG-compliant nickel from China and Indonesia,” he said. “As for the necessity of a formal pricing mechanism, it’s typically better if such mechanisms emerge naturally in the marketplace before establishing a formal platform for trading them.”

Aussie nickel rout

An increase in supply from Indonesia has cratered nickel prices, as the southeast Asian nation boosted production of refined and semi-refined nickel, mainly on the back of an export ban on raw ore, which led to massive investment from China in new processing plants, according to Lennon.

Indonesia has become the dominant nickel producer, accounting for 55% of global supply, up from 7% in 2015, according to Bank of America data. But it relies on coal-fired power.

Higher-cost Australian supply can’t compete. Australia’s federal resources minister Madeline King responded to the raft of nickel suspensions by adding nickel to the country’s critical minerals list, enabling industry access to part of the A$4 billion ($2.6 billion) federal funding earmarked for critical energy transition minerals exploration and development.

“Prices paid for Australian minerals need to recognize the high ESG standards the Australian industry adheres to and the fact that Australian workers enjoy good working conditions and the highest safety standards.”

At PDAC, she noted that Canada and Australia have agreed to jointly advocate for robust ESG credentials to be built into global, transparent and traceable critical minerals supply chains.

Laying foundations

The LME has been considering introducing a premium for green or sustainable metals since it released a 2020 white paper on the topic, Hallett noted.

In 2021, the LME collaborated with Metalshub, a digital metals procurement platform which facilitates buyers’ access to the physical metal that meets specific attributes including carbon intensity and other ESG criteria. The LME said that low-carbon nickel, classified as producing 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide or less per tonne of nickel, could already be traded on Metalshub’s system.

The platform aims to allow market participants to specify and search for metals that meet specific sustainability standards, thereby fostering the emergence of a market-driven definition of ‘green’ metals.

Hallett says the critical missing component to formalizing a new price bracket is doing the less sexy but foundational work around how one measures emissions the same way across the industry. The point is to create an equal playing field for products in the value chain included in that new contract.

The LME has initiated several measures to promote sustainability within the metals market. One of the key initiatives is the development of metal-specific measurement methodologies, in collaboration with metal industry associations, to standardize measuring carbon emissions across different metals.

However, the LME’s taking a deliberate approach to implementing a low-carbon pricing mechanism for nickel and other metals, given the still-evolving market for low-carbon metals.

“Our approach remains one of cautious optimism and pragmatic progression,” Hallett says. “We are committed to leading the industry towards a more sustainable future, understanding that real change is achieved not by rushing but by thoughtful, collective action.”

Norway is one of the first countries to formally authorize seabed mining activities in its waters after its parliament backed plans in January to prospect for minerals across 280,000 square kilometers (108,000 square miles) of its Arctic continental shelf.

“We will be attentive to the developments of deep sea mining in Norway and also around the world,” Maros Sefcovic, the bloc’s green deal chief, said at a press briefing. “Norway is one of the countries which is very careful when it comes to the protection of the environment.”

The nation meanwhile signed a memorandum of understanding with the EU on Thursday to develop land-based raw materials and Sefcovic didn’t rule out potential further collaboration in the future.

Sefcovic added that in May the EU would open a call for proposals for prospective mining projects for key raw materials from friendly countries as part of its plans to protect its supply chains during the transition to net zero by the middle of the century.

In trying to shift away from Russia for fossil fuels and China for key raw materials, the EU has boosted its reliance on Norway, which has an abundance of both.

But scientists have condemned sea bed mining and caused for a moratorium, citing a lack of data on its environmental and climate impacts. Jan Christian Vestre, Norway’s trade minister, defended the move.

“We need to extract more minerals for the green and digital transition,” he said. “We’re also talking about our resilience and strategic autonomy. We don’t want to be so dependent on countries from other parts of the world.”

(By John Ainger)

Prices rose as much as 2.5% to $2,571.50 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange after the mining site experienced heavy rain that made landfall on Monday.

Rainfall at the site this week exceeded a previous record set in 1974, according to a statement from Glencore. The company is monitoring flooding in the area and assessing impacts on its operations.

Copper pared gains late Thursday, after hitting an 11-month high earlier this week. The market has been supported by the Federal Reserve’s signals on future rate cuts, which bolstered risk appetite and weakened the US dollar.

The metal has gained more than 10% over the past six weeks, boosted by supply risks, along with a generally more positive global economic outlook. Open-interest, or the number of outstanding contracts, for copper on the Shanghai Futures Exchange has soared to a record of more than 500,000 since last week as investors increased bullish bets.

The US dollar steadied following a decline on Wednesday, as Fed policymakers kept their outlook for three cuts this year and moved toward slowing the pace of reducing their bond holdings, suggesting they aren’t alarmed by a recent uptick in inflation. A weaker greenback makes commodities from copper to iron ore cheaper to other currency holders.

The copper market remains very tight, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a note. “The combination of record low copper stocks, our expectation of peak mine supply next year, rapid green demand growth, and low price elasticity of both demand and supply will, in our view lead to copper scarcity pricing in 2025,” analysts led by Lina Thomas said.

Copper climbed 0.3% to $8,955.50 a ton on the London Metal Exchange as of 4:42 p.m. local time, after gaining as much as 1.8% earlier.

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 French government has been holding talks to salvage the South Pacific territory’s loss-making nickel industry and has drawn up a deal to continue providing support.

“I’m calling for the nickel pact to be signed by the end of March … as it was drafted,” Le Maire told journalists. “Let there be no ambiguities, there is no question of changes.”

New Caledonia President Louis Mapou has criticized the deal as being insufficient, but has nonetheless put it to the territory’s congress for a vote on March 28.

Under the proposed deal, the French state would in particular subsidize energy prices alongside local authorities up to 200 million euros a year and invest in electricity production benefiting local nickel plants.

With local producers facing cheaper competition from Indonesia, the state aid would help lower their production costs and allow them to become profitable, Le Maire said.

The nickel firms would also commit to supplying more of their output to Europe, Le Maire said, as the region tries to secure minerals such as nickel to make electric vehicle batteries.

New Caledonia has three nickel processors – KNS, Prony Resources and SLN – that have been on the verge of collapse due to high costs, political tensions and weak international prices linked to Indonesian competition.

Mining group Eramet, the majority shareholder of SLN, this month reached an agreement with Paris to remove from its balance sheet hundreds of million of euros of debt related to SLN.

Paris had been seeking to finalize a deal with the nickel companies and local authorities in January to overhaul the industry but an agreement has proved elusive, partly due to parallel negotiations over constitutional reform.

France has offered loans to help avert the collapse of the nickel processing firms. But Eramet has refused to inject more funds into SLN while KNS co-owner Glencore last month suspended output at the KNS processing plant while it seeks a buyer for its stake.

(By Gus Trompiz and Leigh Thomas; Editing by Alison Williams)

The Swiss company totalled 432.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent last year, compared with in 2022, reversing the downward trend of recent years.

In its 2024-2026 Climate Action Transition Plan (CATP), Glencore noted it was still “on track” to meet its 15% reduction of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for its industrial assets from 2019 levels by the end of 2026, and of 50% by the end of 2035.

The rest of Glencore’s revised climate plan is much like a previous plan it released — but this time includes the interim 2030 target.

“[The new plan] reflects a wide range of inputs, including analysis of the evolving market landscape, new regulatory requirements, mining and energy peer approaches, the IEA’s latest modelling, stakeholder inputs, and emerging insights from the most recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) dialogue,” chief executive officer Gary Nagle said in a statement.

“We have also undertaken extensive engagement with our shareholders and appreciate their time and support as we have developed this CATP,” Nagle noted.

Glencore, like most of the world’s biggest listed companies, published its first climate action plans in 2020 in a bid to help with reaching the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of capping temperatures within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The Baar, Switzerland-based firm, one of the top global thermal coal exporters, has faced backlash for being one of the few top miners still involved in the extraction of the fossil fuel used to generate electricity.

After facing pressure from major investors and shareholders, Glencore committed to run down its coal mines by the mid-2040s, closing at least 12 by 2035.

“We recognize the different roles of thermal coal and steelmaking coal – and the different transition pathways for both,” Nagle said while presenting the new strategy.

The executive noted the company “remains committed” to the responsible phase-down of its coal portfolio and is not progressing any greenfield thermal coal investments. 

The company continues to produce and recycle commodities considered key for today’s cleaner transition technologies. Nagle said the speed and direction of Glencore’s decarbonization efforts are significantly shaped by geopolitics, policy decisions, and technological advancements.

Tackling Scope 3 emissions

Glencore plans to cut “Scope 3” emissions — those produced when customers burn or process a company’s raw materials — by 30% by 2035 and achieving net zero Scope 3 emissions by 2050.

The company did not include its marketing activities in the these goals. It justified the decision by saying that, by trading in the third party volumes, its activities do not generate additional Scope 3 emissions, “which in the ordinary course are associated with the transformation or use of the product by third parties”.

Glencore recently acquired a 77% interest in Teck’s (TSX: TECK.A, TECK.B)(NYSE: TECK) steelmaking coal business, Elk Valley Resources (EVR). The transaction remains subject to mandatory regulatory approvals and is expected to close by no later than Q3 2024.  

The discovery in the emerging Sore area returned significant intercepts such as 26.45 grams gold per tonne over 2.5 metres, including a higher-grade segment of 108.5 grams gold per tonne over 0.5 metre, including 1.05 grams gold over 40.7 metres and 1.33 grams over 17.9 metres. This area has not seen any previous diamond drilling within 1 km, the company said in a release.

“A new discovery, greenfield and on a blind target, further highlights the prospectivity of the Aurion-B2Gold 290 sq. km JV property and the quality of B2Gold’s exploration team,” Aurion CEO Matti Talikka said.

Company shares reached an intra-day high of C$0.62 apiece before settling at C$0.59. Aurion has a market capitalization of C$79.5 million.

Results are pending for about 4,000 metres of diamond drilling completed this year.

However, the drilling program was halted after Rupert Resources (TSX: RUP) entered discussions on March 11 to buy B2Gold‘s 70% interest in the JV. Aurion says it is considering its options regarding its right of first refusal. It will have until May 9 to decide whether to exercise the right, granted under a 2019 shareholders agreement between the partners.

The discovery is located 1.7 km northwest of the Kettukuusikko prospect and 38 km northwest of the Helmi discovery.

Rupert is also focused on the Central Lapland belt. Its Rupert Lapland project contains the multi-million-ounce Ikkari discovery, located 50 km southeast of Agnico Eagle Mines’ (TSX: AEM; NYSE: AEM) Kittila gold mine and the Pahtavaara mine and mill.

The JV between and B2Gold covers about 290 sq. km along the Sirkka Shear Zone, which is a significant structural feature in the region known for hosting various gold occurrences. The area has yielded numerous discoveries, showcasing the high prospectivity and potential for further discoveries within the belt.

On Tuesday, Salinity announced it has secured an initial investment of $1.27 million to fund the next stage of its growth. It now joins industry-leading companies like Altilium Clean Technology and Electric Era under the SQM Lithium Ventures portfolio.

Salinity is the developer of a groundbreaking “batch reverse osmosis” water treatment technology – the first in the world to be manufactured commercially – to dramatically reduce the environmental impact of water treatment.

This technology uses less energy, purifies a higher amount of wastewater, generates less waste, and is more compact and portable than traditional reverse osmosis systems. The first of Salinity’s five registered patents has been approved in the European Union, China and the United States.

Since launching in 2021, Salinity has completed trials in multiple industries, including lithium mining, industrial and municipal wastewater, and food production. The company has built a strong sales pipeline across multiple sectors and geographies.

“SQM’s investment will help us accelerate Salinity’s growth and achieve our 2024 goals of increasing unit sales and securing our first licensing agreement. Their strategic interests in lithium and water, combined with their geographical reach from Chile to China, offer a perfect fit to support our ambitious growth plans,” Salinity Solutions CEO Richard Bruges said in a news release.

The investment, according to SQM, goes hand-in-hand with the Chilean group’s ongoing drive to improve efficiency and reduce its environmental impact as part of its sustainability goals. These include reducing the use of groundwater by 40% by 2030, decreasing brine extraction in the Salar de Atacama by 20% in 2023 and 50% by 2030, and becoming carbon neutral in lithium production by 2030.

As part of their collaboration with SQM, the Salinity Solutions team will run a pilot project in the Salar de Atacama, with its team members based in Antofagasta and other locations in the north of Chile.

 “SQM Lithium Ventures is investing in Salinity Solutions in hopes that the company, through its revolutionary technology, will be capable of scaling and making an impact across different industries and geographies,” said Angeles Romo, director of SQM Lithium Ventures.

“This marks our first investment in water, one of our core focus areas for investment along with lithium and electromobility.”

The London Metal Exchange (LME) plans to list Jeddah, a Saudi Arabian Red Sea port city, as a new delivery point for copper and zinc subject to consultation on a technical change to the LME’s warehouse location framework, it said on Tuesday.

The warehouses, registered with the LME, the world’s largest and oldest metals trading venue, are usually located in areas of net metals consumption or top transit hubs such as Rotterdam.

“Saudi Arabia is an increasingly important global metals hub and Jeddah fully meets with the operational and logistical criteria for new warehouse locations – such as being an important area of net consumption and having an effective transport network,” Matthew Chamberlain, LME chief executive, said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia is planning an ambitious industrial development and logistics program, part of its wider Vision 2030 reform plan, which aims to make the kingdom a major global player in the energy, mining, logistics and industry sectors.

“We look forward to a long future of cooperation with LME and to further developing our relationships with the international metals community,” said Farooq Shaikh, chief executive at LogiPoint, which operates a network of logistics parks in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi hub would service the Middle East, North and East Africa regions, he added.

The proposal is subject to a consultation among LME members, warehouse companies and their London agents, which will run until April 30, to amend a clause in the LME’s policy on the approval of locations as delivery points related to warehouse insolvency.

The proposed amendment would clarify that some jurisdictions may require a court order to allow the withdrawal of metal in an event of a warehouse operator insolvency.

Subject to the proposal passing the consultation, Jeddah will become active as a delivery point three months after the approval of the first warehouse company in this location.

(By Polina Devitt; Editing by David Goodman and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the UB scientists present a global atlas of unburnable oil. This map was designed with environmental and social criteria that warn which oil resources should not be exploited to meet the commitments of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015 to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The atlas reveals that to limit global warming to 1.5°C, it is essential to avoid the exploitation of oil resources in the most socio-environmentally sensitive areas of the planet, such as natural protected areas, priority areas for biodiversity conservation, areas of high endemic species richness, urban areas and the territories of Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation.

It also warns that not extracting oil/coal resources in these vulnerable places would not be enough to keep global warming below 1.5°C as indicated in the Paris Agreement.

New roadmap

In this context, the unburnable oil atlas provides a new roadmap to complement the demands of international climate policy—based primarily on demand for fossil fuels—and to enhance socio-environmental safeguards in the exploitation of energy resources.

“Our study reveals which oil resources should be kept underground and not commercially exploited, with special attention to those deposits that overlap with areas of high endemic richness or coincide with outstanding socio-environmental values in different regions of the planet,” lead researcher Martí Orta-Martínez said in a media statement. “The results show that the exploitation of the selected resources and reserves is totally incompatible with the achievement of the Paris Agreement commitments.”

Orta-Martínez pointed out that there is now a broad consensus among the scientific community to limit global warming to 1.5°C to avoid reaching the tipping points of the earth’s climate system, such as melting permafrost, loss of Arctic sea ice and the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and forest fires in boreal forests.

“If these thresholds are exceeded, this could lead to an abrupt release of carbon into the atmosphere – climate feedback – and amplify the effects of climate change and trigger a cascade of effects that commit the world to large-scale, irreversible changes,” he said.

Carbon budget nearly exhausted

To limit average global warming to 1.5°C, the total amount of CO2 emissions that must not be exceeded is known as the remaining carbon budget. In January 2023, the remaining carbon budget for the 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5°C was about 250 gigatonnes of CO2 (GtCO2).

“This budget is steadily decreasing at current rates of human-induced emissions—about 42 GtCO2 per year—and will be completely used up by 2028,” Lorenzo Pellegrini, first author of the article, said.

Pellegrini noted that the combustion of the world’s known fossil fuel resources would result in the emission of about 10,000 GtCO2, 40 times more than the carbon budget of 1.5°C.

“In addition, the combustion of developed fossil fuel reserves – that is, those reserves of oil and gas fields and coal mines currently in production or under construction – will emit 936 GtCO2, four times more than the remaining carbon budget for a global warming of 1.5°C,” co-author Gorka Muñoa said. “The goal of no more than 1.5°C global warming requires a complete halt to exploration for new fossil fuel deposits, a halt to the licensing of new fossil fuel extraction, and the premature closure of a very significant share (75%) of oil, gas and coal extraction projects currently in production or already developed.”

With this prospect, the authors call for urgent action by governments, corporations, citizens and large investors such as pension funds to immediately halt any investment in the fossil fuel industry and infrastructure if socio-environmental criteria are not applied.

”Massive investment in clean energy sources is needed to secure global energy demand, enact and support suspensions and bans on fossil fuel exploration and extraction, and adhere to the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty,” the team concluded.

The Dutch suit is being pursued by law firms Pogust Goodhead and Lemstra Van der Korst against Vale and Samarco Iron Ore Europe, a marketing unit of the Samarco JV, which was responsible for operating the dam. 

Pogust Goodhead, which is also involved in the UK case against BHP, told the Financial Times on Tuesday the firm was acting on behalf of 77,000 individuals, nearly 1,000 businesses, and seven municipalities.

BHP is already dealing with a major class action lawsuit from around 700,000 claimants in the UK related to the same incident. The rupture of the Fundão mining waste facility on November 2015 resulted in 19 fatalities and pollution of waterways that reached the Atlantic Ocean, more than 650 km (400 miles) away. 

According to Vale, the Renova foundation, which the companies have been using to pay for some of the damages caused by the fatal dam collapse, had recieved 34.7 billion reais ($6.9 billion) in socioeconomic and environmental compensation as of December 2023.

A Brazilian court ruled in January that Samarco, Vale, and BHP had to pay $47.6 billion reals ($9.44bn) in compensation for the dam collapse. Both Vale and BHP have stated that they may appeal this decision.

That ruling did not apply to individual victims, Pogust Goodhead said in January.

Refineries vetted by the LBMA still source gold from “questionable suppliers and mines” and are not tackling “serious human rights violations and environmental degradation,” a collection of eight organizations that analyze mining, led by Swissaid, said in a letter to the LBMA, seen by Reuters.

In an emailed statement in response to questions, the LBMA said it looked forward to discussing various proposals at an event in London later this week.

The LBMA, which governs access to the world’s largest bullion market, has, in common with other organizations, established initiatives to try to prevent problematic gold from passing through the LBMA’s refiners and into the vaults of banks.

One of these is the LBMA’s Good Delivery List (GDL), which catalogues refiners the body considers responsible sources of gold because of the due diligence systems they have in place.

Once accepted into a vault as Good Delivery, gold can be freely traded between players on the gold market.

The NGOs said that there had been “some slight improvements” in the LBMA’s systems since 2021, but that “many” refiners on list have, in recent years, sourced gold from suppliers linked to money laundering, land and water pollution, or human rights abuses.

This, in turn, allows problematic gold to enter the global market.

The letter cited cases that had been exposed by media or researchers across countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East but did not name any of the refiners.

“The LBMA has a key role to play in setting standards for the industry and holding its members accountable,” the groups said in their letter.

Refiners do not engage enough with the communities where the gold they process comes from, the groups said. The voluntary nature of the guidance on what information refiners publish leads to a lack of transparency over the origins of gold.

The letter cited the example of the United Arab Emirates being named in a 2023 report as the country of origin of nearly 150 metric tons of gold sold to GDL refiners in 2021. The UAE does not mine any gold but it has established itself as a hub for gold from all over the world.

“The origin of this gold is not the UAE, it was merely transited through this country,” the letter said, calling for refineries to report the origins of gold publicly.

The LBMA said it would address specific concerns brought up by the groups after a summit on the responsible sourcing of minerals this week.

(By Reade Levinson and David Lewis; Editing by Barbara Lewis)

Greenpeace activists in late 2023 disrupted a research expedition when they boarded sea explorer The Metals Company’s vessel in the remote Pacific. Five Greenpeace activists boarded the MV Coco on November 25 and disabled its A-frame hoist/crane.

The vessel, engaged by TMC’s subsidiary, Nauru Ocean Resources (NORI) for environmental assessments, faced a week of disruptions from Nov. 23 by Greenpeace activities, which a Dutch court deemed unsafe and unlawful.

In December, a Dutch court ordered the activists to vacate the research vessel after the deep-sea mining company sued Greenpeace in the Netherlands, where the organization is headquartered.

The Metals Company says the research trip interrupted by Greenpeace was for scientific research aimed at improving knowledge of the effects of nodule collection.

It says the work had been requested by the ISA as part of an impact assessment, and that Greenpeace deliberately hampered those efforts when its activists boarded the company’s research vessel.

Greenpeace says the action was justified because The Metals Company has stated its plans to proceed with mining before regulations have been agreed upon.

Minerals and metals such as cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese can be found in potato-sized nodules on the ocean floor. Reserves are estimated to be worth anywhere from $8 trillion to more than $16 trillion, and they are in areas where companies, including The Metals Company, plan to target.

Many NGOs and environmental groups, however, argue that mining the seafloor could have a devastating impact on the planet.

A recent report by the non-profit Planet Tracker says mining the seafloor for key minerals and metals could negatively impact the mining industry, resulting in $500 billion of lost value and causing damages to the world’s biodiversity estimated to be up to 25 times greater than land-based mining.

Read More: US bill supporting seafloor mining lifts The Metals Company

While earnings fell from 2022’s blockbuster records, profits across the sector still easily eclipsed prior highlights such as in 2008-2009, according to analysis from consultancy Oliver Wyman LLC.

“We saw pretty good margins overall and that is practically because things continue to be a little bit tight on the supply-demand side,” consultant Adam Perkins said in an interview.

Results for many players across the industry are not yet public, but profits at the biggest independent trading houses are expected to show an average drop of over 30% from 2022’s record levels, the report shows.

Still, disruptions and supply shortages of diesel and fuel oil offset lower Russia-related volatility in crude oil, while margins trading gas and power also remained relatively high.

The firms that buy, store and ship the world’s resources are coming out of what was the most profitable period in their history with a huge war chest to cement their role as strategic providers of energy, metals and food as the West continues a stuttering transition away from fossil fuels — demand for which continues to grow the world over.

They’ve already bought oil refineries, storage assets, power plants, and even other trading companies, while receiving large amounts of backing from countries like Italy, Germany, the US and Saudi Arabia to guarantee supplies of essential commodities like gas and copper.

“Traditionally this position in energy security wouldn’t have been held by an independent trader,” Perkins said, but they’re being “drawn into that role.”

Meanwhile, through share buybacks and dividend pay-outs, the executives who own shares or are partners in these mostly private companies, have also become multi-millionaires in the process. That’s helping accelerate a shift at the top of some of these firms’ as minted traders retire, passing management on to a new guard.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for those people who are coming in, it’s also a little bit nerve wracking – there’s an increased amount of scrutiny – everyone wants to continue the legacy,” said Perkins.

(By Archie Hunter)

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)

The new tank house will gradually push Boliden’s production of copper cathodes and precious metals up to full capacity in the second half of 2026 at the Ronnskar facility, the company said in a statement.

The investment will be partially financed by a potential insurance payout with a maximum amount of 3.4 billion crowns, Boliden said, and will begin this year.

Boliden expects its investments this year to amount to 15.5 billion Swedish crowns, 1.5 billion higher than previously communicated, of which 1 billion is related to Ronnskar.

The remaining 500 million will be spent on expanding its Odda zinc smelter in Norway, the company said, adding that the project had suffered from increased costs related to integration between new and existing facilities and delivery delays.

($1 = 10.3511 Swedish crowns)

(By Louise Breusch Rasmussen; Editing by Terje Solsvik)

According to the study, confidence in the world’s ability to achieve net zero by 2050 seems to be eroding as it becomes more difficult to ensure adequate investment returns and progress diverges in a fragmenting world. This view is consistent across most regions and is most strongly held among people working in the oil and gas sector.

Bain & Company surveyed over 600 industry executives in mining, oil and gas, utilities, chemicals and agribusinesses across the globe to better understand their views on the energy transition, new technologies, and investment opportunities, and where they see the greatest challenges for decarbonization.

“This year’s survey found that energy and natural resource companies have not dampened ambitions for their transition-oriented growth businesses. However, customers’ willingness to pay is a growing issue, as is the ability to generate adequate return on investment (ROI) in energy transition-oriented projects. As a result, companies are focusing on projects with a viable ROI path,” said Joe Scalise, head of Bain & Company’s energy and natural resource practice. “The longer the executives are at the front lines of the energy transition, the more sober they are getting about the transition’s practical realities.”

The survey points out that executives in the Middle East (61%), Asia-Pacific (55%), and Latin America (51%) are feeling more optimistic about the prospects of their transition-oriented growth such as renewables, hydrogen, bio-based products, and lithium and other transition commodities that will contribute to their company’s valuation and profits by 2030. Hence, they are maintaining or increasing green investments. Only 4%, 12% and 10%, respectively, of executives from the three regions expressed less optimism, while the remainder showed no significant change.

The survey revealed a more balanced picture in Europe where 30% of executives revealed more optimism vs. 27% who were less optimistic about their new energy growth business areas contributing to the bottom line.

In North America, 29% of executives were more positive compared to 17% who were less positive on their transition-related growth areas.

Returns to scale-up

“Like last year, executives say the greatest obstacle to scaling up their transition-oriented businesses is finding enough customers willing to pay higher prices (or having equivalent policy support) to create sufficient return on investment,” the report states. “In fact, the share of executives identifying this as a very significant roadblock jumped 14 percentage points from 2023 to 2024, to 70% of executives.”

The experts behind the study note that the direct impact of higher interest rates on the cost of transition projects is likely shaping executives’ perspective on the challenges associated with customer willingness to pay. 

Bain has found that higher rates put upward pressure on the effective cost of low-carbon projects and a 500-basis-point increase in the cost of capital can increase the total annual revenue required to finance a project by as much as 50%.

Trendy North America

The survey presents North America as an emerging leader for green investments as 79% of all executives view it as an attractive region for energy transition investments. The next most attractive region is Europe at 65%. 

Australia and New Zealand come in as second runner-ups at 43%. 

Even as increasing government subsidies make some regions, such as North America, more attractive for investment, executives have growing concerns about policy stability.

The US Inflation Reduction Act is a major factor in North America’s investment attractiveness, but factors such as the availability of relatively low-cost natural gas feedstock also influenced the result. 

“However, while almost two-thirds of US executives surveyed agree that the IRA’s subsidies target the right areas, less than one-quarter believe that the policy regime will remain stable over the next five to 10 years,” the dossier states. “Furthermore, 42% of US executives think the IRA’s subsidies are unclear and that the rules are not easy to follow.”

About 70% of executives worldwide say that reducing policy uncertainty would very significantly improve their ability to scale up transition-oriented businesses.

A suspected arson attack caused production at the plant near Berlin to be halted for a week earlier this month, prompting Tesla chief executive Elon Musk to visit this week.

The elections for the new works council, to be held on March 18-20, are aimed at filling 39 seats, according to IG Metall, the top German trade union which has put forward 106 candidates in an attempt to get a majority.

That would enable it to elect the council’s chairperson and gain greater control over areas where the union has taken issue with the carmaker, which is known for its critical stance towards unions.

Among IG Metall demands is to hire new employees, better planning of working hours, at least 20 days of freely available vacation, better health protection, more security, higher pay and shorter working hours.

“Too often, savings are made on accident protection for ‘Tesla Speed’. That has to change,” IG Metall district manager Dirk Schulze said in a statement.

In order to end the understaffing of shifts, temporary workers should be hired, the union added.

Michaela Schmitz, the plant’s current works council head, told Reuters in e-mailed comments that much had been achieved over the last two years, including pay increases of up to 18%, improvements in occupational health and safety and benefits, including bike sharing and free bus rides.

“All of the aforementioned successes were achieved without the union or a collective bargaining agreement, quickly, easily and customised to Giga Berlin,” she said, adding that meant there was no need for “external influences in the future” – implying IG Metall.

In October, Tesla rejected IG Metall claims that health and safety provisions at its gigafactory near Berlin were inadequate, saying protecting workers was a top priority.

The company also last year raised salaries for the plant’s 12,500 workers, which regional IG Metall head Dirk Schulze welcomed at the time, while still calling for better working conditions at the plant.

(By Christoph Steitz; Editing by Barbara Lewis and Clelia Oziel)

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. The bill must pass the Senate before becoming law.

In this graphic, we visualize how much the U.S. relies on Russian uranium, based on data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA).

US suppliers of enriched uranium

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian-produced oil and gas—yet Russian-enriched uranium is still being imported.

Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States. In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America’s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.

Most of the remaining uranium is imported from European countries, while another portion is produced by a British-Dutch-German consortium operating in the United States called Urenco.

Similarly, nearly a dozen countries around the world depend on Russia for more than half of their enriched uranium—and many of them are NATO-allied members and allies of Ukraine.

In 2023 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry paid over $800 million to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, and its fuel subsidiaries.

It is important to note that 19% of electricity in the U.S. is powered by nuclear plants.

The dependency on Russian fuels dates back to the 1990s when the United States turned away from its own enrichment capabilities in favor of using down-blended stocks of Soviet-era weapons-grade uranium.

As part of the new uranium-ban bill, the Biden administration plans to allocate $2.2 billion for the expansion of uranium enrichment facilities in the United States.

(This was originally posted on Visual Capitalist Elements)

Nordenham in Germany halted production in 2022 along with some other smelters in Europe producing energy-intensive zinc and aluminum because of surging power prices after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The source did not say how much was currently being produced or when the smelter would be at full capacity.

The smelter produces about 165,000 tonnes of zinc and zinc alloys per year, its website says.

Glencore bought the Nordenham smelter after it filed for insolvency in May 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit demand for the metal used to galvanize steel.

Prices of zinc on the London Metal Exchange (LME) at around $2,570 a metric ton are up more than 10% since hitting a seven-month low at $2,278 on February 12.

(By Pratima Desai; Editing by Jane Merriman)

According to the Oslo-based business intelligence company, exploration efforts are underway in Australia, the US, Spain, France, Albania, Colombia, South Korea and Canada.

In its report, Rystad points out that one of the most promising elements of natural hydrogen – also called white or gold hydrogen – is its cost advantage over other forms of hydrogen due to its natural occurrence. 

Grey hydrogen, produced from fossil fuels, costs less than $2 per kilogram of hydrogen on average, while green hydrogen, produced using renewable electricity, is currently more than three times pricier. The cost of renewable hydrogen is expected to come down as electrolyzer pricing falls in the coming years, and yet, white hydrogen is still expected to be cheaper.

At present, Canada-based producer Hydroma extracts white hydrogen at an estimated cost of $0.5 per kg. Depending on the deposit’s depth and purity, projects in Spain and Australia aim for a cost of about $1 per kg, solidifying white hydrogen’s price competitiveness.

In addition to the cost advantage, white hydrogen can also have a low carbon intensity. At a hydrogen content of 85% and minimal methane contamination, the carbon intensity is around 0.4 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per kg hydrogen gas (H2) – including embodied emissions and hydrogen emissions. At 75% hydrogen and 22% methane, the intensity rises to 1.5 kg CO2e per kg H2.

“Although still in its infancy with lots of uncertainty, white hydrogen has the potential to be a game-changer for the clean hydrogen sector as an affordable, clean natural resource, thereby shifting the role of hydrogen from an energy carrier to part of the primary energy supply. However, the actual size of the reserves is still unclear, and the transportation and distribution challenges of hydrogen remain”, Minh Khoi Le, head of hydrogen research at Rystad, said in a media statement.

Through the US Inflation Reduction Act, companies are eligible to receive production tax credits (PTC) when the lifecycle carbon intensity is below 4 kg CO2e per kg H2. The highest PTC tier grants $3 per kg if hydrogen production meets the carbon intensity threshold of 0.45 kg CO2e per kg H2. As such, low-carbon white hydrogen production in the US could be eligible for the highest PTC, making it appealing for producers.

Not a new thing

Le explained that despite being accidentally discovered in Mali approximately 37 years ago, the accumulation of hydrogen underground was previously thought to be unlikely due to hydrogen’s ability to seep through rock layers. However, new equipment, such as hydrogen-sensing gas probes, are now available to detect dissolved hydrogen in rock formations at depths of up to 1,500 metres. These probes use spectrometers to measure and analyze dissolved gases in deep boreholes. Researchers are currently developing probes that can reach deeper depths, up to 3,000 meters underground.

White hydrogen is mainly produced through natural reactions, such as serpentinization, where water reacts with iron-rich minerals at elevated temperatures. Enhanced serpentinization using catalysts such as magnetite, could help to accelerate natural hydrogen-producing reactions.

Radiolysis of water is another source of natural hydrogen. This process involves radioactive elements within the earth’s crust splitting water due to ionizing radiation.

The word is spreading

Rystad Energy’s report notes that the South Australian government added hydrogen to its list of regulated substances in 2021. This led to many companies applying for exploration permits in the region, with Gold Hydrogen securing a five-year license to develop its Ramsay project. The company found high hydrogen concentrations of up to 86% during drilling in late 2023. Gold Hydrogen plans to conduct further drilling in 2024 and launch a pilot feasibility study.

The dossier also highlights the fact that governments in countries like France and the US have promised financial support to expedite the exploration and extraction of naturally occurring hydrogen projects. Currently, there is only one operational white hydrogen project in Bourakebougou, Mali, producing around 5 tonnes of hydrogen annually. This small-scale project has been in operation for a decade, providing power to a village. Other projects in various parts of the world are still at an early exploration stage, with the first European natural hydrogen production expected to start in 2029.

Ken Armstrong, a non-executive director, will step in as Interim CEO, and Patrick Anderson, chairman of the board, will serve as executive chairman during the transition and search for a permanent CEO.

Armstrong was CEO of the company’s predecessor, Strongbow Exploration, until 2015. He also holds the position of president and CEO at North Arrow Minerals (TSXV: NAR).

Earlier this month, Cornish announced it is accelerating work to reopen a past-producing tin mine at its South Crofty project in southwest England.

The Vancouver-based mine developer said it will expedite plans to refurbish the New Cook’s Kitchen shaft at South Crofty after an assessment revealed the deteriorating condition of its timbers, necessitating immediate action.

The company expects the process of dewatering the mine to be completed by the third quarter of 2025.

South Crofty could produce up to 5,000 tonnes of tin annually, with initial production projected for 2026.

Shares of Cornish Metals rose 3.2% by 11:42 p.m. EDT. The miner has a market capitalization of C$85.6 million ($63.2 million).

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)

The letter, dated March 13, said the disruptions would erode the competitive advantage of the centuries-old Antwerp diamond trade. It was addressed to Belgium’s main diamond industry group, Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), and requested a review of the new procedures.

Any impact is likely to be reduced by sluggish market conditions. Diamond inventories are high and prices have fallen. Paul Zimnisky, a global diamond analyst, said last month that prices were down 25% from their early 2022 peak.

Al Cook, CEO of mining company Anglo American’s De Beers’ diamond business, has said the miner would reduce production this year in response to surplus supply.

“While we fully support the decisions taken by Belgium, the European Union, and the G7 nations, in regards to the sanctions of January 1st 2024, the implementation of the measures to enforce the sanction has adversely affected all of our operations,” said the letter, signed by over 100 local firms.

“The intention was to prevent the flow of diamonds from sanctioned states, but the reality we face is the severe disruption of our supply chains, and alienation from the rest of the global trade.”

A Belgian government official said the delays were temporary and were easing.

The EU and Group of Seven (G7) countries agreed to ban direct imports of Russian diamonds to their markets as of Jan. 1 and before phasing in a full ban on Russian-origin stones via third countries from March 1 because of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Russia’s state-run Alrosa, which together with De Beers is one of the world’s top diamond producers, was also placed under sanctions by the EU.

Diamond hub

Antwerp remains the world’s biggest diamond hub though 90% of stones are polished in India. Belgium pushed hard for the G7 to adopt a version of its proposed plan to try to prevent Antwerp from losing more business after major Western jewellers began eschewing Russian stones.

Diamond dealers said their shipments have been held up for over a week at customs even if the gems were straight from African producers.

The Belgian government official said shipments pending would be processed within 24 hours.

“The indirect ban coincided with the Hong Kong Diamond Fair which is an annual peak period… This, in combination with the expected teething problems caused some initial delay in processing of shipments during the first days,” he said.

Diamond dealers say they expect more problems when the additional tracing requirements take effect from September.

“We see the procedures will cause Antwerp to further lose competitive advantage… rather than deal a meaningful blow to any sanctioned products,” the letter said.

“The current trajectory threatens the existence of Antwerp’s diamond industry, a heritage of six centuries.”

The head of the AWDC, Ari Epstein, said the group would soon present the new measures, adding it was “acutely aware of the challenges and disruptions this timing may have caused”.

“Let me be unequivocally clear: the violation of sanctions is criminal in nature and not taken lightly by governments or our organization. Our commitment to compliance… is unwavering and absolute,” Epstein said in a statement.

(By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Julia Payne; Editing by Gareth Jones)

The previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government resisted attempts led by environmental campaigners to close the mine at Turow, which supplies lignite to an adjacent power plant responsible for 8% of Poland’s energy.

On Wednesday, PAP reported a court had overturned a 2022 decision that allowed the mine to continue operations. However, it reported the court had not ruled on policy, meaning the mine can still operate.

The main Turow case is pending at a Warsaw administrative court that will rule on a government decision dating from February 2023 that would allow Turow to continue mining until 2044.

“The judgment regarding the environmental decision does not result in the suspension of the operation of the Turow mine. The state’s energy policy was not subject to the court’s assessment,” PAP cited the court as saying.

Environmental groups have long criticized the environmental impact of the open-pit mine, and filed several lawsuits aimed at halting its operations.

“PGE GiEK is waiting for written justification of the judgment and is analyzing further steps in this case,” state-controlled utility PGE unit, which owns the Turow mine and adjacent power plant, wrote in a statement.

The present government, elected last October, has said it wants to kickstart the country’s transition to lower carbon energy.

(By Alan Charlish, Marek Strzelecki, Anna Koper and Karol Badohal; Editing by Barbara Lewis and Aurora Ellis)

Tribeca wrote to the Swiss commodity giant’s board this week with a list of proposals, including moving its listing to the Australian Securities Exchange to boost its share price, which it said had lagged behind its rivals, according to the report.

The Australian hedge fund also recommended increasing dividends by discontinuing share buybacks and divesting a minority stake in Glencore’s lucrative trading division via an initial public offering instead of spinning off its coal business, the FT said.

Glencore declined to comment on the report.

Last year, after a Glencore-led consortium agreed to buy Canadian miner Teck Resources’ steelmaking coal unit in one of biggest deals in the sector in years, it paved the way for an eventual spin-off of its own coal business.

Glencore CEO Gary Nagle said in February that when they announced the deal, their intention was to spin out the unit, but it was always subject to what shareholders wanted.

“We will consult with our shareholders, and it’s the decision of the shareholders ultimately to do that,” he had said then.

(By Aatrayee Chatterjee and Richard Rohan Francis; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Shinjini Ganguli)

Net bullion imports, which peaked at nearly $5 billion a year ago, declined for a fifth month to reach $936 million in January, according to balance-of-payments data published on Tuesday. The current account, a measure of trade and investment flows with the outside world, had a shortfall of $2.6 billion, slightly less than predicted by economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

The deficit for December was upwardly revised to $2.1 billion. Though the current account has been in the red for three straight months, the latest figure is a stark improvement from January 2023, when it posted a record gap of more than $10 billion.

Bullion purchases have long been a drag on Turkey’s current account as people looked to gold as a hedge against inflation when the central bank kept interest rates ultra-low as part of a push by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to promote economic growth.

But the appeal of gold has been subsiding after an aggressive cycle of monetary tightening lifted rates on deposits at commercial banks and kept the lira more stable. The country has embraced more conventional policies after May elections last year, a shift that pursues goals including what policymakers call maintaining “a sustainable” current-account deficit.

The trade deficit narrowed to $4.4 billion in January, almost a third of what it was a year earlier.

Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek recently said changes in the composition of growth contributed to Turkey’s improving trade position. The central bank raised its key rate to 45% from 8.5% in eight straight meetings, helping cool domestic spending and lower demand for imports.

The finance minister expects the current-account deficit — which has long been a source of fragility for Turkey’s economy and put pressure on the lira — to narrow to an annualized $30 billion to $35 billion in the coming months.

(By Beril Akman)

Forrest had told Australian media last month that the LME should classify its contracts into clean and dirty to give customers more choice. Wyloo is set in May to shutter two nickel mines in Australia that it bought last year for $504 million.

The LME said that low carbon nickel, which it classifies as producing 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide or less per tonne of nickel, could already be traded on its partner MetalsHub’s system.

“Wyloo has been contacted by several parties seeking to develop a green nickel premium, so there is clearly demand for greater transparency and differentiation between clean and dirty nickel,” Wyloo CEO Luca Giacovazzi told Reuters.

“As the world’s largest metals exchange, the LME should be leading in this area,” he said.

“If the LME is to continue to set the standard for ethical metal supply practices, it cannot afford to take no action, or the industry will look for an alternative marketplace.”

Calls for a nickel price that reflects strong environmental and governance standards have grown from high-cost producers such as Australia, where low prices have forced miners to shutter operations due to a flood of Indonesian supply, most of which is produced using coal.

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Michael Perry)

The new £18 million ($23m) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Digital Transformation of Metals Industry (DigitalMetal) has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), who announced £7m ($8.9m) in funding with partner universities (Birmingham, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham and Warwick) and industry.

The centre is part of the UK’s biggest-ever investment in engineering and physical sciences doctoral skills, totalling more than £1 billion ($1.28bn), announced by Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan.

A total of 65 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) will support leading research in areas of national importance including the critical technologies AI, quantum technologies, semiconductors, telecoms and engineering biology.

The DigitalMetal CDT has been designed to meet a national, strategic need for training a new generation of technical leaders able to lead digital transformation of metals industry and its supply chain with the objective of increasing agility, productivity and international competitiveness of the metals industry in the UK. 

It will provide postgraduate training that combines metals and alloy engineering with digital technology and AI skills, to help the UK metals and manufacturing industries to reap the benefits of ‘big data’.

The vision, the University said, is to train future industry leaders who can rapidly take advantage of the latest discoveries in manufacturing processes through digital twinning to enable defect-free, ‘right first-time’ manufacturing at reduced costs.

The metals industry is a vital component of the UK’s manufacturing economy and makes a significant contribution to key strategic sectors such as construction, aerospace and space, automotive, energy, defence and medical, directly contributing £20bn ($25.5bn) to UK GDP, and underpins over £190bn ($243bn) manufacturing GDP.

“Without a new cadre of leaders in digital technologies equipped to transform discoveries and breakthroughs in metals and manufacturing technologies into products, the UK risks entering another cycle of world-leading innovation but losing the benefits arising from exploitation to more capable and better prepared global competitors,” Professor Hongbiao Dong, FREng, from the University of Leicester School of Engineering, and Director of the Centre, said in a media statement.

“For the UK metal industry to lead at a global level, we must raise its competitiveness and create robust and agile manufacturing processes and sustainable supply chains enabled by digital technology.”

Glencore last year said it planned to develop a recycling hub in Europe with Li-Cycle to produce materials including lithium carbonate in response to a global shortage of key raw materials for the fast-growing electric vehicle (EV) market.

This not the first investment Glencore made in Li-Cycle. In June 2022, it invested $200 million in the Canadian-based battery recycling firm. Li-Cycle’s CEO Ajay Kochhar said at the time that the agreement would “further secure and diversify” the company’s lithium-ion battery supply and feedstock sources and help improve its position in North America and Europe.

The demand for lithium-ion batteries used in EVs has been on the rise as the world looks to meet its goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels by 2050. The recycling of lithium-ion batteries, however, is not expected to take off before 2030 due to obstacles such as the lack of recyclable feedstock and the long life of EVs, according to Wood Mackenzie.

“This financing enhances Li-Cycle and Glencore’s existing long-term, strategic partnership and represents an interim step in our funding strategy to support Li-Cycle’s future plans,” Kochhar said in a news release. “We also continue to work closely with the US Department of Energy on the conditional commitment for a loan of up to $375 million.”

Li-Cycle said it is continuing to review its global recycling network and its go-forward strategy for the paused Rochester Hub in the US, including analyzing potential end-product mix options and construction strategy.

“Glencore is committed to bringing scalable and sustainable circularity into the supply chain of battery materials,” Kunal Sinha, Glencore’s global head of recycling and non-executive director of Li-Cycle’s board, said in the statement.

“Our original investment in Li-Cycle, alongside key commercial agreements, formed part of this strategy. Today, we are pleased to further support Li-Cycle through this additional $75 million investment so both Li-Cycle and Glencore can continue to build the battery circularity platform of choice for our customers.”

Li-Cycle’s stock surged over 38% in Tuesday’s afternoon trading in New York. By 2 p.m. EDT, the shares had traded at a volume of 51.6 million, compared to an average daily volume of 3.3 million. The company has a $97.8 million market capitalization.

In a paper published in the journal Chemical Science, Johannes Fessler explains that each of these three chemical elements has the potential to replace several noble metals that are commonly employed in organic chemistry to catalyze fine chemicals.

As an example, Fessler describes a complex active ingredient candidate based on pyrrole, a common drug precursor, which can be created from “simple starting materials” with the help of an acid-tolerant homogeneous iron catalyst and at room temperature.

“Homogeneous” catalysis means that the starting materials – catalyst, solvent and ultimately the product and by-product – are dissolved in a single reaction vessel. They must therefore be separated after each reaction step, purified and prepared for the next step.

“If you manage to save one of these steps in the chemical process, you greatly reduce the amount of time and material required and minimize waste,” Fessler said in a media statement.

This is precisely what he achieved with the reaction to pyrrole, using a reaction cascade.

Climate-neutral chemical industry

Replacing noble metals as catalysts with iron and the like has become an attractive research topic.

“The task of climate-neutral, sustainable management is facing the chemical industry as well as all other sectors,” the researcher said.

Iron is abundant, making up 5% of the earth’s crust. And after iron and titanium, manganese is the most common transition metal on the planet.

On the other hand, there is a reason why base metals have so far only played a marginal role in organic chemistry.

“They are often less stable in catalytic processes than catalysts made of noble metals,” Fessler explained. “In addition, they usually work at high temperatures and pressures in the area I am researching.”

However, such harsh conditions would destroy the complex molecules in drug production. The chemical structures that ensure the specific effect of a drug, the so-called functional groups in the molecule, are particularly at risk.

In this respect, it is a success to show how catalysts made of iron, manganese and cobalt can sometimes manage with significantly milder reaction conditions compared to previous practice. In the case of pyrrole, these are temperatures between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius.

Johannes Fessler’s experiments revealed another advantage of his approach: His non-noble metal catalysts very precisely converted only those molecules that the chemists needed in the actual synthesis. “We call this approach highly selective. It produces hardly any by-products or waste,” he said.

The scientist tested the reliable functioning of his reaction on various active ingredients and drug precursors.

“We wanted to make sure that the iron catalyst also activates the right place in the molecule for these substances and spares the sensitive functional groups,” he noted.

In this way, the chemist tested his method on widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs and blood pressure medications, among others.

The offer was made by Rupert Resources (TSX: RUP), which is also exploring the Central Lapland belt. Its primary focus is the 100%-owned Rupert Lapland project, which contains the the multi-million-ounce Ikkari discovery, located 50 km southeast of Agnico’s Kittila gold mine, and the Pahtavaara mine and mill.

The offer states that Rupert will issue approximately 28.6 million shares to B2Gold, for an implied total value of C$102.8 million ($76 million) based upon the market price of its shares as of March 8, 2024.

The stock was down 1.1% to C$3.55 by 11:30 a.m. ET on Monday, for a market capitalization of C$723.8 million ($536 million).

In a separate release Monday, the Toronto-based Rupert confirmed that preliminary discussions are underway with B2Gold to acquire its 70% interest in the JV company.

The acquisition would bolster Rupert’s portfolio, adding several exploration targets covering 293 sq. km. of the Sirkka shear zone. This includes the Helmi discovery located 1.5 km west of Ikkari and the Kutuvuoma prospect discovered in 1990 by state-backed miner Outokumpu.

Under a 2019 shareholders agreement between the JV partners, Aurion holds a right of first refusal with respect to the proposed sale by B2Gold of its interest in the JV. It will have until May 9, 2024, to decide whether to exercise this right.

The transaction is also conditional upon execution of a definitive agreement and investor rights agreement, completion of mutual due diligence, as well as applicable regulatory approvals.

Shares of Aurion surged as much as 11.5% to C$0.58 apiece on Monday, capitalizing the company at C$76.8 million ($57 million). The stock traded between C$0.39 and C$0.82 over the past 52 weeks.