Ivanhoe Mines -- ehemals Ivanplats - Mining-Legende Robert Friedland auf Rohstoffjagd in Afrika (Seite 46)

[Popeye82]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 46.437.877 von Boersiback am 12.02.14 22:38:10

Würde ich ernster, problematischer sehen.
Eeeher Richtung Sebaldo.

Gruß
P.

[Boersiback]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 46.437.425 von sebaldo am 12.02.14 21:42:39

ach da mach ich mir keine sorgen... ohne Südafrika ist die Welt aufschmissen was pgm´s angeht.
Norilsk Nickel kann nicht den ganzes Weltbedarf im Alleingang decken...
da sollten sich eher mal die Amis, chinesen und europäer sorgen machen und vernünftige preise für die metalle bezahlen.

[sebaldo]

Das schaut bös aus zur Zeit in Südafrika. Die Streiks weiten sich immer weiter aus und die Auseinandersetzungen werden härter.

Ehrlich gesagt hatte ich diese Auseinandersetzung, bei der es eindeutig nicht nur um Lohnerhöhungen, sondern auch um eine Neuordnung der Verteilung erwirtschafteter Gewinne geht, eigentlich früher erwartet. Aber die herkömmlichen Strukturen aus der Appartheid-Zeit sind wohl zunächst unverändert übernommen worden und hatten ja auch zunächst eine gewisse Stabilität garantiert.

Aber die Zeit scheint wohl vorbei zu sein. Nicht gerade förderlich für Investitionen. Bin mal gespannt, wie Ivanhoe mit der Problematik zurecht kommt.

[Popeye82]

"Major global future demand for South African platinum –Friedland" - MW/CMR, CAPE TOWN - Feb 5, 2014

- M. Creamer -
www.miningweekly.com/article/major-global-future-demand-for-…

"The future of the world is urbanisation and South Africa is uniquely placed to supply the major volume of the platinum metals that the world will need in large quantities to clean its air.

“Platinum metals equal healthier air,” Ivanhoe Capital Corporation chairperson Robert Friedland told the Investing in African Mining Indaba on Wednesday in his keynote address.

Ivanhoe has a stated ambition of making its Flatreef project, at Mokopane, in Limpopo province, on the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex, a model twenty-first-century operation.

“Seventy-five per cent of global platinum is here in South Africa and, as this world shrinks, what’s happening in the air in Beijing, Shanghai and Delhi takes us directly to Limpopo,” Friedland said.

The founder and largest shareholder of Ivanhoe Mines, which applied for a right to mine the Platreef ten months ago, flashed up on to the big screen pictures of brown Shanghai skies and spoke of the growing imperative for clear urban skies, which would drive substantial demand for platinum metals going forward.

China, which expects to have 400-million cars in 2030, is among many countries taking steps to clean the air, with the large Beijing in the process of imposing European-type emission standards on petrol-powered vehicles in the city.

Friedland said that South Africa was uniquely placed to play a significant role in what was now universally acknowledged as the upcoming fuel-cell era.

The 30 g of platinum metals that a fuel cell needs for even a small compact car is far more than the mere 0.15 oz of palladium for a petrol engine and 0.15 oz of platinum for a diesel engine.

In the audience at the Mining Indaba were representatives of his Japanese partner companies and co-investors in his South African platinum project, which is expected to be given the go-ahead as the first batch of mass-market hydrogen fuel-cell cars are launched by a range of vehicle manufacturers including Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, Ford and Chrysler.

Fuel-cell-powered production sedans will be able to travel 700 km on a full tank of hydrogen, getting away from the battery drawback of inadequate range.

Fuel cells produce no emissions whatsoever, just water vapour, and provide heat for car interiors, an improvement on electric cars where drawing heat drains the battery.

The Japanese, through Itochu and Jogmec, have bought 10% of the Ivanhoe platinum project for $300-million and are leading the push to the use of platinum metals in fuel-cell cars, power generation and clean industry.

“If we can find a better, sustainable way of doing things, we can ignore the controversies of the moment. In a year from now, the election in South Africa will be behind us and we’ll be moving forward to developing and mining.

“If we can attract capital to this country, we’ll uplift the people and provide a good example of success. We did it in Alaska, we did it in the Gobi and we can do it in the Limpopo,” Friedland added.

While a typical drill hole at Ivanhoe’s South African project indicates 24-m-thick platinum, a recent hole showed 90 m thickness, the height of a 30-storey building.

Initial production of 500 000 oz of platinum metals a year is planned, rising to one-million ounces a year in the long term.

Preparation is reportedly under way to sink the first shaft to a depth of 800 m at a cost of $81-million.

The project is situated 180 km from Eskom’s 4 000 MW Medupi power station project and water will be sourced from the Flag Boshielo dam.

The company intends stimulating the local economy through enterprise development in agriculture, transport and servicing and is embracing the concept of beneficiation of platinum metals into marketable products.

Two University of Limpopo professors have been introduced to the Goodman School of Mines at Laurentian University, in Canada, to enhance the education and training prospects of Limpopo youth for employment in the mining sector. "

[Popeye82]

AMCU miner shot dead in Limpopo –Amplats - MW/AMCU, JOHANNESBURG - Feb 10, 2014

- Sapa -
www.miningweekly.com/article/amcu-miner-shot-dead-in-limpopo…

"Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) on Saturday expressed sadness at the death of one of its employees after protesters allegedly clashed with police.

"It is with sadness that we learnt of the death of one of our employees. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the deceased," CEO Chris Griffith said in a statement.

"We strongly urge striking employees to adhere to the picketing rules and remain within the picketing designated areas as agreed with Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU). We condemn any act of violence, intimidation and damage to property."

Amplats would provide the family with support and counselling.

According to the statement, an AMCU shop steward died when protesters allegedly clashed with police on Friday.

Police were dispersing a group of protesters who had barricaded a road leading to Union mine with burning tyres and rocks on Friday.

"A violent outbreak occurred when the [South African Police Services] sought to disperse the striking employees, and one of the protesters was fatally injured," Amplats said in a statement.

"The company notes with concern the significant increase of violence and intimidation incidences since the commencement of the strike by members of AMCU on January 23."

Limpopo police spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said the matter was handed over to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate for further investigation.

Amplats said another person was "badly assaulted" by protesters earlier in the week on his way to Khuseleka mine and remained in a critical but stable condition in hospital.

Fourteen vehicles have been damaged and another vehicle and an excavator were set alight.

Several striking mineworkers had been arrested following violence and intimidation during the strike that began several weeks ago.

The platinum sector has been crippled by the protected strike headed by AMCU. Its members from Amplats, Impala Platinum and Lonmin downed tools on January 23.

The union is demanding a R12 500 monthly basic salary for miners.

The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration has been facilitating talks between the platinum producers and the union. "

[Popeye82]

Mathunjwa confirms platinum strikers holding firm, to wage demands - MW/CMR - Feb 5, 2014

- Kim Cloete -
www.miningweekly.com/article/mathunjwa-confirms-platinum-str…

"The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) is holding firm to its R12 500-a-month wage demand for workers in the platinum sector, AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa said on Wednesday.

He told the Cape Town Press Club the union would keep pushing its demands to double the current wage. “Our objective is for our workers to get decent wages. We know the employers may prolong the strike to frustrate our members. But we have to keep focused.”

He said it was necessary to pitch the demand at way above inflation as mineworkers wages had been subdued for decades.

“The pay structure of black mineworkers was designed during the dark days of apartheid. We can’t talk of a percentile when the majority of people work below the poverty line.”

But he said he had implored workers not to resort to violence. “We are working very hard to preach to our members that they must not resort to any unlawful acts.”

Wage negotiations under way are being mediated by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

Questioned about the threat of more retrenchments in the fragile platinum industry if a higher wage deal is brokered, Mathunjwa said AMCU had no option but to fight for much better wages for its workers.

Platinum companies shed thousands of jobs last year and Chamber of Mines COO Roger Baxter said this week that the platinum industry was losing R197-million every day since the strike started at the end of January, with a multiplier effect of R400-million a day.

But Mathunjwa rejected this. “We don’t believe it when they say they are losing money. They are selling platinum reserves at the end of the day. When they pay their CEOs R21-million a year – that’s to one family man – how can they be losing?”

He said the union needed to find some middle ground between not scaring off potential foreign investors and striking a better deal for workers. “We cannot say foreign investors are so crucial that the status quo should remain the same. We need to find a middle path.”

The AMCU head said workers in the mining sector were poorly paid in comparison to other sectors in South Africa, as well as its mining counterparts like Australia.

Mathunjwa said the mining sector had remained unpredictable in the aftermath of the 2012 Marikana massacre, when 34 miners were shot dead by the South Africa Police Service (SAPS). “Workers continue to die. The SAPS has done nothing to investigate the killing of AMCU members despite credible witnesses. We’ve given information to the police, but nobody has been arrested.”

AMCU, he added, still experienced victimisation and provocation from the National Union of Mineworkers and its alliance partners in the North West province.

Mathunjwa said mining companies should be obliged to build houses, schools, churches and facilities upon receiving licences to mine.

“Its flabbergasting and mindboggling that two centuries down the line, companies have amassed riches, yet people continue to live in shacks. Mineworkers work underground in 40 ºC conditions and then go back to shacks without proper ventilation.” "

[Popeye82]

"Tighter South African emission laws best platinum ‘beneficiation’ " - MW/CMR, CAPE TOWN - Feb 3, 2014

- M. Creamer -
www.miningweekly.com/article/tighter-south-african-emission-…

"Tighter vehicle emission legislation in South Africa would boost the struggling platinum mining industry and be a fantastic local beneficiation route for the metal, which is facing an uphill battle, SFA Oxford MD Beresford Clarke said on Monday.

Beresford, who was addressing the Investing In African Mining Indaba on Monday, said that South Africa was becoming less competitive in the platinum market and the next three years would be tough for platinum.

The recycling of platinum autocatalysts and platinum jewellery had risen to two-million ounces a year, four times higher than in 2000, and was tantamount to Lonmin-sized output being incrementally added every five years.

Palladium-rich Russian and North America were outdoing platinum-and-rhodium dominant South Africa, with both countries producing at lower cash costs and higher by-product credits than South Africa.

Cheaper palladium was taking over some traditional platinum market strongholds, with platinum losing 620 000 oz of demand to palladium in formerly platinum-dominant diesel autocatalysis.

Rhodium’s intensity of use had collapsed, closing some upper group two (UG2) mines.

Even after rhodium loadings had been thrifted, the market was cautious to return to rhodium because of security of supply issues related to the ongoing labour strikes.

With the current low average platinum grade of 3.44 g/t mainly as a result of the overwhelming emergence of narrow-reef UG2 mining, companies were paying for a whole lot more waste for every ounce mined.

This was being compounded by safety regulations in the last two years demanding increased mining widths and leading to more dilution.

While the cherry on the top of declining Merensky reef had always been the addition of nickel and copper by-product credits, strongly emerging UG2 reef was platinum and rhodium dependent.

The cost of production in South Africa had risen exponentially in recent years, with cash costs trebling since 2003 against a doubling in Zimbabwe and a rising of only 1.4 to 1.4 times in North America and Russia.

While the average shaft depth in South Africa was more than 1 000 m, in Zimbabwe it was still only 230 m.

Zimbabwe, Russia and North America produced more palladium than platinum, had lower average costs on a platinum-group-metal- ounce basis and received substantially higher by-product credits for nickel and copper than South African producers.


WEAKER RAND

South African producer costs should fall in dollar terms this year owing to the weaker rand, with the devaluation of the rand to the dollar since the start of the year indicating a 10% reduction in dollar-based costs.

However, the high prices of both platinum and rhodium relative to palladium plus extreme price volatility in 2008 had led to a fundamental shift in the cocktail of automotive demand towards palladium to the detriment of South Africa’s cocktail of platinum and rhodium.

Flat-lined automotive demand currently favoured palladium.

While the end of 2014 was still likely to be down on 2007 levels, growth is currently strengthening and a rhodium recovery was now needed to kick-start UG2 economics out of its current trough.

“Platinum demand will recover but it will take time,” warned Clarke, who added that if there had not been substitution to palladium, platinum would have been well and truly recovered already.

China, where demand had reached an estimated 2.1-million ounces, could overtake Europe to become the largest consumer of platinum and there was also an emerging market in India.

There was more than two-million ounces of additional platinum demand out there waiting to be legislated, which was equivalent to another half of South Africa’s output.

If South African producers could survive the next couple of years, do their best to iron out price volatility and guarantee security of supply as well as increase productivity levels and manage costs, there was a “huge captive market on the horizon” that would require satisfying in years to come.

New frontiers needed also to catch up with tighter emissions legislation and South Africa could lead the way by accelerating the tightening of its own emission standards.

This would simultaneously help the South African platinum industry and be a fantastic example of local beneficiation, Clarke added. "

[Popeye82]

New blasting, smelting methods available, to boost platinum –Robinson[Video] - MW/CMR, JOHANNESBURG - Jan 23, 2014

- M. Creamer, Dr RE Robin Robinson -
www.miningweekly.com/article/new-blasting-smelting-methods-a…

"The introduction of new methods of blasting and smelting have the potential to boost platinum mining significantly, says research commentator Dr R E (Robbie) Robinson.

Robinson tells Mining Weekly Online in the attached video interview that the introduction of selected blast mining (SBM) in platinum mining, as with narrow-reef gold mining, requires negligible change to become operative.

The one-time National Institute for Metallurgy, now Mintek, director says it has the potential to boost the economic viability of narrow-reef platinum mining dramatically in the short term.

SBM involves fracturing rock in such a way that the reef remains intact.

Broadly speaking, the valuable platinum will represent a third of the rock that is currently brought to surface and the rest of the non-platinum-bearing rock that has to be blasted to open up space to work will remain underground to backfill the stopes.

The current method of blasting, which scatters the finely divided platinum far and wide, lowers the rate of platinum recovery significantly.

“We need to use blasting techniques that shock fracture the rock rather than throw it around in big high energy explosions.

Replacing costly smelting with a hydrometallurgical process – known as the Kell process – is the second change he advocates to boost platinum mining.

This process avoids having to separate the chromite from the platinum and, together with SBM, would offer a rate of platinum recovery of well over 90% , instead of the current 65% .

Kell, developed by Keith Liddell, consumes only 14% of the electricity that smelting consumes – 140 kWh of electricity for every ton of concentrate processed compared with 1 000 kWh of electricity for every ton of concentrate smelted.

There is also no milling with Kell, which is said to emits only 440 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) for every ton of concentrate treated, compared with the milling and smelting of a ton of concentrate to matte and base metal refining producing 1 400 kg of CO2/t of concentrate treated.


SHOCK WAVE BLASTING

Shock wave blasting, which involves the use of explosives with high detonation velocity and a sudden evolution of gas, sends shock waves that cause rock fracture and keeps precious-metal reef relatively coherent.

“With shock tube and delayed detonation you can do this blasting very satisfactorily without any difficulty whatsoever, and then the shock wave would be automatically transmitted into the reef

“Any decent manufacturer of detonators and explosives would be able to manage this with ease,” says Robinson, who, after retiring in 1990, formed AC Mining Consulting Services, which worked intensively on SBM.

Robinson believes that SBM can serve as a quick, interim solution ahead of the introduction of AngloGold Ashanti’s so-called South African technology, involving automated raise boring and facilitating narrow-reef mining at ultra depth.

Equipment for AngloGold’s “game-changing” technology, which mines “all of the gold, only the gold, all the time, safely”, is under construction, with the first machines scheduled to become available in the first quarter of 2014.

Figuratively speaking, Robinson is “pretty sure” that SBM could be introduced “tomorrow ". "

[sebaldo]

Was steht an in der nächsten Zeit?


Kamoa

"Pre-Feasibility Study expected in 2014"

http://www.ivanhoemines.com/i/pdf/IVN_presentation_Dec_2013.…


Platreef

"Together with the Japanese consortium, Ivanhoe Mines is working on a scoping study based on a mining operation of up to 12 million tonnes per year with multiple shafts. The study is expected to be completed early 2014."

http://www.ivanhoemines.com/s/platreef.asp


Kipushi

"Drilling to begin in early 2014 to confirm and expand Kipushi's high-grade resources"

http://www.ivanhoemines.com/s/kipushi.asp

[sebaldo]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 46.107.007 von Boersiback am 23.12.13 19:42:34

Natürlich wars ne Provokation, jedenfalls für die Konkurrenten.

Er hat ne kräftige Duftmarke gesetzt, über die Gründe können wir nur spekulieren.