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By Samantha James EVOLUTION Mining has completed its takeover of Phoenix Gold after months of negotiations. The company made an initial bid for Phoenix in mid-August 2015 as a counter-offer to an unsolicited, conditional off-market offer made by Zijin Mining Group in late June. By this time Evolution had purchased 19.8 per cent of Phoenix’s shares, making it the company’s largest shareholder. Both Zijin and Evolution’s offers were rejected as inadequate, despite Evolution’s 20 per cent premium on Zijin’s offer price of $0.10 per Phoenix share. Negotiations with Evolution continued and in November Phoenix announced a recommended transaction “acknowledging the likelihood that Evolution imminently gain control of Phoenix”. The revised offer comprised cash and shares, with total consideration increased…

By Samantha James JAPAN state-owned miner JOGMEC will forfeit its 30 per cent interest in Vital Metal’s development-ready tungsten Watershed project in Queensland. JOGMEC failed to complete a transfer to an incoming Japanese partner by the agreed deadline of 31 December 2015, gifting Vital 100 per cent ownership of the development-ready tungsten project for no consideration. Vital said it was looking to recommence discussions with potential new development partners who had expressed interest but “may have been deterred” by the previous joint venture arrangements. “Watershed ticks virtually every box from the perspective of potential development partners looking to invest in a high-quality, long-life tungsten deposit,” Vital managing director Mark Strizek said. “There is no better time to developing a resource…

By Samantha James ABOUT 85,000 Anglo American employees around the world will lose their jobs across the next three years as part of a planned “radical” company restructure. Anglo American chief executive Mark Cutifani told investors on 9 December 2015 that the company would reduce its 55 assets by about 60 per cent, cutting the work force from 135,000 employees to less than 50,000. By the end of 2015 Anglo expected to cut 11,500 direct employees and contractors from its workforce across operations in Australia, Africa, Canada, South America and the UK. A further 8500 employees would be let go in 2016 and 7000 in 2017. The company’s negative cash flow assets would either be closed, placed on care and…

By Courtney Pearson AUSTRALIAN mining companies should focus on the ongoing productivity challenge; innovation, mergers and acquisitions; and safety issues in a commodity price downturn that has no clear cycle, according to Deloitte. The Tracking the trends 2016 report stated that miners would need to ask the tough questions, show initiative in innovation and take a new approach to traditional operating assumptions, in order to pioneer the future of mining. Furthermore, the report showed China’s influence on the global economy was likely to spur miners to form a greater understanding of the country’s market trends and develop plans relative to its offshore investment initiatives. “The operating environment remains volatile and complex and the imperative remains to innovate, adapt, manage costs…

By Samantha James A report by leading independent economic forecaster and industry analyst BIS Shrapnel predicts further mining job losses until 2018 led by the coal, iron ore and gold industries. The Mining in Australia 2015 to 2030 report stated that investment would fall a further 58 per cent despite an expected 6 per cent annual rise in mining production. This would drive a corresponding increase in mining operations activities and export volumes but would not be enough to support job growth. “We haven’t hit bottom yet on commodity prices or investment, which will continue to be a key drag on Australian economic growth from here,” BIS infrastructure and mining unit senior manager Adrian Hart said. “While mining production will…

By Courtney Pearson ALL necessary fossil fuel projects have already been developed, and companies risk wasting US$2.2 trillion in the next decade on ”stranded assets”, according to thinktank Carbon Tracker. The $2 trillion stranded assets danger zone: How fossil fuel firms risk destroying investor returns report by Carbon Tracker also predicted that  oil demand would peak about 2020 and growth in gas would disappoint industry expectations. The demand for energy could already be met through existing coal mines; future capital expenditure of US$177 billion on new projects and $42 billion on existing ones was unnecessary, according to the report. Australia, the US and China accounted for 90 per cent of this unnecessary investment. “Our work shows thermal coal has the…

TO provide a behind-the-scenes understanding of the work required, Liebherr-Australia has released a 7 minute time lapse video featuring the manufacture of its T 282 C haul truck fleet. The video follows the journey from the Port of Brisbane to the build-site in North Queensland and culminates in footage of some of the fleet in action. This large-scale, three-month project required 25 hours of road-travel from the Brisbane port to the build-site. The project also featured two cameras on two build pads taking 12,096 photographs each; 22,000 individual frames taken for the tray build; and 62 individual timelapse sequences.  More than 150,000 individual frames of video were sequenced, compressed and edited. The trucks shown on the video, which can be viewed on the…

By Samantha James THE collapse of a tailings dam at the Vale-BHP Billiton owned Samarco operation in Brazil has resulted in flooding across more than 600km in one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s mining history. On November 5 2015, one of the three dams at the Samarco iron ore mine in Minas Gerais failed, affecting the downstream Santarem dam and causing a “significant release” of mine tailings to flood the nearby community of Bento Rodrigues and others downstream, according to BHP. Four days later BHP advised that although it did not know the causes of the tailings release, it was assisting rescue efforts at the nearby communities where at least one fatality and 13 people had been…

South32 chief executive Graham Kerr at the company’s first AGM in Perth. By Courtney Pearson AT its first annual general meeting, held in Perth, South32 has assured shareholders that their loyalty will pay off after a long period of uninspiring share prices. “Looking ahead, despite the challenging market conditions, I can assure you that we have the right strategy, the right balance sheet strength and management commitment to deliver sector-leading returns,” South32 chief executive Graham Kerr said at the meeting. The company officially demerged from major player BHP Billiton in May this year and has been fairly quiet since, focusing on optimising its existing assets rather than pushing for new projects. South32 has been plagued by lower than expected share…

By Courtney Pearson RESOURCES companies need to collaborate to push through the lower commodity prices and create a more productive and innovative industry, according to Anglo American group director of technical and sustainability Tony O’Neill. Speaking at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Melbourne, Mr O’Neill said that the rise in costs and declining grades meant that the industry needed to resolve the conflict between long-term investment and short-term market cycles. “We are on the brink of a new machine age, our challenge is how to harness this opportunity when our industry is lagging behind others,” he said. “We won’t be able to catch up by going it alone – we need collaboration, partnerships and sharing of ideas…

By Samantha James HEALTH and safety management practices need a complete overhaul to prevent incidents at Australian mine sites, according to presenters at the Fluro Conference in Perth. International safety professionals and experts across Australia converged on 10 and 11 November to discuss issues in health and safety in a range of industry sectors. Imperfect reporting systems were highlighted in presentations by Alcoa global director of refining health and safety Danny Spadaccini and Greg Smith, legal practice director at STE Safety and Legal. Mr Smith told conference attendees that within health and safety companies spend an enormous amount of time creating data “that tells us absolutely nothing”. He said lost time injury rates (LTIR) were the “posterchild of irrelevancy” in safety…