Tag: Mining

Austrlai’s Northern Territories Government has approved a mining licence for Verdant Minerals’ Ammaroo phosphate project. The approval follows the granting of two mineral leases in March and represents a critical step towards construction and mining operations at one of the world’s largest phosphate resources. Verdant estimates the value of production over the life of the mine to exceed $15 billion. Verdant says that securing the mining licence puts the project firmly on track to reach a final investment decision and commence construction as early as mid-2027. Located 200 kilometres south-east of Tennant Creek, the Ammaroo phosphate deposit contains more than one billion tonnes of phosphate ore.

Delegates gathered in Morocco in September for AFA's Technical Conference. We present selected highlights from this year’s event.

Ardea Resources says that its Kalgoorlie Nickel Project in Western Australia has secured a crucial renewal of its major project status from the federal government for another three years, underscoring the project’s strategic importance, granting it streamlined approvals and direct access to the country’s major project facilitation agency. Located 80 km from Kalgoorlie, the project hosts what Ardea says is the world’s largest undeveloped nickel-cobalt resource, containing 854 million tonnes averaging 0.71% (6.1 million tonnes) of nickel and 0.045% (386,000 tonnes) of cobalt.

While north Africa’s sulphur demand is dominated by its phosphate industry, south of the Sahara it is copper, cobalt and uranium mining, leaching and smelting that hold sway over acid production and demand.

In this CRU Insight, Alexander Chreky reports on China’s potash industry – and reviews the country's international potash investments.

Copper production in Chile may stall at around 5.5 million t/a because of the growing challenges mining companies face, according to Maximo Pacheco, chairman of state-owned Codelco.

Egypt’s Mineral Resources and Mining Industries Authority (MRMIA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Asia-Potash International Investment (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. The MoU is designed to strengthen joint cooperation in exploring and assessing phosphate ore reserves. The objective is to maximise the added value of this crucial resource.

The El Teniente mine, located in the O'Higgins region, suffered a collapse on 31 July. The collapse in the Andesita sector of the mine is understood to have been as a result of seismic activity that registered 4.2 on the Richter scale. It remains unknown whether the seismic activity was caused by the mining operations or natural activity, according to industry sources. Underground operations are to be halted for an unknown period of time while the open air sector, which represents around 10% of the total production, will remain open, according to industry participants.

Gunnison has started producing pure copper cathodes at its Johnson Camp Mine (JCM) in southeast Arizona, United States, from a solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW) circuit and using leaching technology from Rio Tinto-owned Nuton. As well as giving Gunnison exclusive rights to deploy the proprietary process on run-of-mine ore, Nuton is a financial partner of the Phoenix-headquartered mine developer which has restarted copper production at past-producing JCM. The company’s next goal is to ramp-up to nameplate plant capacity of 25 million lbs/year (11,300 t/a) of finished copper.

BHP is now expecting first potash production from stage one of its Jansen mega project in Saskatchewan, Canada, in mid-2027.