Energy demand is up 30 percent by 2040 but coal will be a smaller part of the picture

Energy demand is predicted to be 30 percent higher by 2040 due to growing population and a rising GDP, but coal use will peak and decline over this same period.

ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) publishedThe Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040 on Thursday. Read more here...

Expansion project on track despite community unrest

The second phase of the Lion ferrochrome complex expansion project, in Limpopo, is progressing steadily and within budget, despite challenges arising from local community unrest, reinforcing steel availability and delivery issues.

The expansion project is a joint venture (JV) between diversified miner Xstrata and ferrochrome producer Merafe Resources, and involves the construction and commissioning of a 360 000-t/y-capacity ferrochrome smelter, which will increase the complex’s ferrochrome capacity to over 2.3-million tons. Read more here...

Resgen secures water for Stage 2 of Limpopo mine

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Coal junior Resource Generation (Resgen) has secured the water supply for developing the second phase of its Boikarabelo coal mine in Limpopo, the ASX- and JSE-listed junior reported on Friday.

The contract with the Lephalale local municipality (LLM) stipulated that ResGen must construct, operate, maintain and pay for a wastewater treatment plant at Marapong, about 50 km from Boikarabelo. This will treat municipal effluent and generate up to 16 Ml of water a day, which will be pumped to the mine site through a new pipeline. Read more here...

KZN provincial govt rejects Fairbreeze mine basic assessment report.

Diversified miner Exxaro’s KZN Sands expects to release for comment an amended basic assessment report (BAR) on its proposed Fairbreeze mine, in the Mtunzini area, near Richards Bay, in January.  This follows the announcement in November that KwaZulu-Natal’s Depart-ment of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs and Rural Development (DAEARD) had rejected the miner’s original BAR in October.Read more here...

Amplats to build more than 20 000 houses worth R1.4-billion

Platinum producer Anglo American Plati-num (Amplats) has announced that it will build over 20 000 houses for its employees in Limpopo and the North West province at a cost of R1.4-billlion.

Amplats will build 12 000 houses in the North West and 8 000 in Limpopo over the next ten years as part of a campaign named Each-One-Settle-One. Read more here...

Durban, Kyoto, mining, and global warming in perspective

For no good reasons that need detain us here, I recently had occassion to go back through old I THINK MINING blog postings.  I was surprised to see how much I had written on the topic of global warmining in 2007 and thereafter.  The surprise is how little things have changed in those years since I first took up the topic.  Rather than write something new on an old topic, I simply collate and present below an edit version of some four or five piece that I wrote on the topic in 2007 and 2008.  Enjoy and let us have your opinions about why things have not changed and if there is still a need for change. Read more here...

States and tribes receive half a billion to clean up abandoned coal mines

A number of American states and tribes have received more than a lump of coal in their stockings this Christmas.

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement on Thursday, together with Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, announced $485 million is being given to states and tribes to eliminate health and safety hazards caused by past coal mining. Read more here...

China unlikely to hit nuclear power target

If the uranium industry was hoping that China would be the tide that floats all boats, it will have to wait longer than expected.

Amid a global re-think of nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima crisis earlier this year, uranium producers were pinning their hopes on China filling orders for uranium, the fuel needed to create the nuclear reaction. Read more here...

Fuel cells provide clean power, cut carbon, sustain jobs

DURBAN (miningweekly.com) – Hydrogen fuel cells using platinum catalysts are efficient, versatile and scaleable and represent a proven technology that ensures clean, reliable and cost-effective power.

This is a strong endorsement of the long-studied fuel-cell technology. Cynthia Carroll, CEO of the diversified Anglo American mining behemoth, makes this endorsement forcefully. Read more here...

Optimum Coal Hands Over Community Facilities Worth More Than R7 Million While Bringing Joy To Senior Citizens With A Christmas Celebration

General manager of Koornfontein Mines Piet Steyn, Optimum Coal CEO Mike Teke and Executive Mayor of the Steve Tshwete Local Municipality

Optimum Coal, (Homepage)South Africa’s sixth largest producer of thermal coal with operations in the Mpumalanga coalfields, today handed over community facilities in excess of R7 million. The company handed over a R5.6 million multi-purpose community centre to the people of Hendrina and an Early Childhood Development (ECD) centre worth R1.5 million to the Mphephethe Primary School in KwaZamokuhle.
Optimum Coal today hosted a dedicated Christmas lunch at the centre to the gogos and mkhulu’s of the communities of Blinkplan, KwaZamokuhle and Pullenshope in celebration of the completion of the refurbished Kosmos multi-functional facility and its official handover to the Steve Tshwete Local Municipality. Read more here...

Caledonia committed to indigenisation talks

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) − Toronto- and London-listed Caledonia Mining (Homepage) is hoping to reach a mutually agreeable indigenisation implementation plan for its Blanket mine, in Zimbabwe. The gold miner said, on Tuesday, it remained committed to the ongoing indigenisation negotiations with the Zimbabwe government, despite previous reports stating otherwise. Read more here...

Study says mountaintop mining damages water quality

A study released Monday by researchers at Duke University will add fuel to the fire of groups opposed to mountaintop mining in the Appalachian region of the United States. The study, which appears in the Early Edition of the Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that mountaintop mining removal – where the ridge of a mountain is removed to access coal seams – degrades water quality in the affected watershed over a period of time: Our results demonstrate the cumulative impact of multiple mines within a single catchment and provide evidence that mines reclaimed nearly two decades ago continue to contribute significantly to water quality degradation within this watershed.
Read more here...

Botswana, DRC and Zambia most vulnerable to ‘resource curse’

Oxford Policy Management published a new report explaining how low- and middle-income countries are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the “resource curse.”

The study charted the mineral dependence of nearly 100 countries since 1996 to assess their vulnerability to the resource curse, which it explains as “the paradoxical situation in which resource-rich countries suffer from stagnant growth or even economic contraction, as well as institutional problems such as corruption and weak public service delivery.” Read more here...

IEA warns - Coal demand to grow by 600 000 t/d over next five years,

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - Global coal demand will continue to expand “aggressively” over the coming five years, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA - Homepage) inaugural ‘Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2011’ states, while also warning that infrastructure bottlenecks and an expected shift to poorer quality deposits could place upward pressure on costs and prices.

In fact, the IEA report, which was released this week, forecasts that average coal demand would grow by 600 000 t/d over the period, despite calls for efforts to be intensified to remove carbon from the energy system Read more here...

Central Rand Gold's licence cancellation appeal unopposed

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) − Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu will not oppose Central Rand Gold’s (CRG’s Homepage) application for final relief to review and set aside the decision to cancel its mining rights.
Mining licence cancellation papers were served on the Johannesburg- and London-listed company in September, for alleged failure to meet social and labour plans, ordering the miner to cease operations. Read more here...

Windarra has no need for EPA approval - Poseidon

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - ASX-listed Poseiden Nickel on Tuesday said that its Windarra nickel project remained on track to achieve all necessary mining and environmental approvals by the first quarter of 2012, after the company received confirmation that the project would not need Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval. Read more here...

Much-opposed nationalisation proposal unlikely to be implemented – Chamber of Mines CEO

Nationalisation will not take place as there are too many leaders opposing its implementation, South African Chamber of Mines CEO Bheki Sibiya said at the recent African Mining Network end-of-year gala event.

He said nationalisation was being driven by the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and its suspended leader, Julius Malema, and had been openly supported as well as publicly lobbied. Read more here...

Carbon tax - a huge impact on mining operations

The introduction of a carbon tax in South Africa will have a significant impact on mining operations, particularly as operational costs are rising every year.
“Companies are dealing with three significant factors in energy policies, namely the cost of electricity, sufficient electricity supply and carbon emission management,” says audit, tax, and advisory firm KPMG resources economist Rohitesh Dhawan, discussing the impact of carbon legislation on the mining sector. Read more here...

COP 17

The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) to the Kyoto Protocol, are now in progress in the sunny city of Durban, South Africa.
 (COP 17 Homepage)

Durban’s climate-change failure posing 'terrible risk' to mining – ICMM

Failure to reach a global climate-change agreement in Durban and countries going it alone would result in the mining industry having to deal with 195 different regulatory regimes, which posed a “terrible management risk", International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM Homepage) president Tony Hodge said on Thursday. Read More here

7 Steps for assessing Sustainability in Mining

These are the 7 steps for assessing Sustainable Mining as set out by the IISD  (International Institute of Sustainable Development - Link)

Click here to see larger image...

eMalahleni water reclamation plant - Endorsed by the UNFCCC

eMalaheni water reclamation plant

The eMalahleni water reclamation plant in the Witbank Coalfields was the only mining initiative to be endorsed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC - Home Page) Momentum for Change initiative at the COP 17 meeting in Durban, Anglo American said on Thursday. Read more here...

Anglo American - eMahaleni water reclamation plant - Case Study

'Hundreds of thousands of jobs', clean power from fuel cells – Anglo

DURBAN (miningweekly.com) - The window of opportunity is "wide open" for South Africa to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and simultaneously obtain a source clean zero-emission power, Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll said in Durban.
"With platinum at its heart, a fuel cell industry would support South Africa’s drive for jobs," Carroll said.

Anglo American, through the JSE-listed Anglo American Platinum, is the world’s largest producer of platinum. Read more here...

The 3 Circles of Sustainable Development

This Report looks at the factors that make up Sustainable Development

10 Guiding Principles - Sustainability

Here is a link to the ICMM 10 Guiding Priciples for Sustainable development
Sustainable Development Framework

Tighter environmental controls needed in the South African mining industry

The World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa (WWF-SA) has urged government to monitor and better manage the impact of mining on the country’s water, soil and biodiversity resources.

Read more here...

Newmont having trouble in Peru

Opponents of Newmont Mining's $4.8-billion Conga project refused to end their rallies on Wednesday, saying Peru must permanently cancel the proposed mine after temporarily halting work on it to avert violence.

Read more here...