Brazil grants operating license to Vale’s massive S11D iron ore mine
Iron ore giant Vale (NYSE:VALE) scored Friday a key win after the Brazilian government granted the company a 10-year operating license for its flagship project in the Amazonian state of Para, known as S11D.
According to a document published on the country’ federal environment body Ibama's website (in Portuguese), the massive operation will produce 90 million tonnes a year. That compares to the company’s overall target of 340–350 million tonnes in 2016.
Vale, which already is the world’s largest iron ore producer, said the license was an important milestone in consolidating the company’s position “as the producer with the lowest C1 cash cost in the industry." The miner was referring to a standardized cost of production that excludes freight and royalties.
Last year Vale told investors S11D would push the company's cash costs per tonne to below $10 from the current $12.30.
S11D is Vale's largest-ever investment, valued in some $17 billion. It is expected to start operations before year-end, with first shipments slated for in early 2017.
http://www.mining.com/brazil-grants-operating-license-to-vales-massive-s11d-iron-ore-mine/
Coal CEO pressing Trump to speak up for miners' benefits
Coal mining executive Robert Murray, one of Donald Trump's biggest campaign backers, said on Friday he wants the president-elect to support a bill that would protect the health and pension benefits of thousands of coal miners retired from companies that have gone bust.
The outspoken founder of Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp said he has asked Trump, who campaigned on a promise to help the coal industry, to speak out on behalf of the spending bill provision currently tied up in Congress.
"I asked him and Vice President-elect Mike Pence to be involved verbally and in writing," Murray told Reuters in an interview. Murray said he has not yet heard back.
A Trump transition official did not respond to a request for comment.
Murray Energy was among the biggest contributors to Trump's bid for the presidency. Its $100,000 donation to the Trump Victory PAC was the PAC's largest from a company, according to Trump's fundraising committee's latest filing. Murray also hosted fundraisers for the Republican candidate.
On the campaign trail, Trump won over coal-producing states by promising to revive the sector, put laid-off miners back to work, and scrap regulations that he said are hobbling the industry.
Coal prices have sunk in recent years due to competition from cheap natural gas and rules to combat climate change ushered in by President Barack Obama.
The Senate is now contemplating a spending bill that contains a provision to extend the benefits of retired coal miners whose companies have gone bankrupt until next April, but some coal state Democratic senators are agitating for a longer-term solution and threatening a government shutdown. A group of Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, are resisting, and the bill is in limbo.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that the Obama administration hopes "there should be bipartisan common ground to address the needs of these 20,000 coal miners who are slated to lose their health insurance at the end of the month."
Dozens of United Mine Worker retired miners have been on Capitol Hill this week holding rallies and visiting lawmakers to urge them to pass a longer-term solution.
UMWA spokesman Phil Smith said the Trump transition team is aware of the issue but has not said anything publicly.
As one of just a handful of U.S. coal companies that has not declared bankruptcy, Murray said his company is struggling to pay into its health and pension funds and "can't compete with those companies that didn't go through bankruptcy proceedings."
Goldman Sachs upgrades Iron Ore and Copper forecasts
Iron ore rally post-Trump victory has caught most investment banks on the wrong side of the trade.
The metal now trades around $80 per tonne, which is significantly higher than the most calendar 2017 forecasts.
Goldman Sachs has hiked its three-month forecast to $65 per tonne. The investment banker has also revised its copper forecast for three months, six months, and 12 months higher to $5800, $6200 and $5600 respectively.
https://www.fxstreet.com/news/goldman-sachs-upgrades-iron-ore-and-copper-forecasts-201612120236
Iron ore price eases amid volatile trade
The iron ore price has fallen below the $US80 a tonne level, weighing on the major miners as the volatile trade in the commodity shows no signs of easing.
Iron ore dropped 2.8 per cent to $US79.60 a tonne on Friday night, according to The Steel Index, from $US81.90 the previous day.
The fall was a negative for Australia’s major miners in London trade, where Rio Tinto shares fell 2.1 per cent and BHP Billiton slipped 1.3 per cent.
The commodity has now fallen for two sessions in a row, easing back from the fresh two-year high of $US82.40 it reached last week. But the price has been swinging sharply in recent weeks between the $US70 and $US80 marks.
Although Chinese exchanges have made efforts to crack down on speculative trade in iron ore, results are proving difficult to achieve, with the commodity holding at elevated levels that are widely attributed to hot money and short covering.
The steelmaking ingredient has also rallied alongside a surge in the price of coking coal and hopes for increased infrastructure investment in China and the US.
If current levels for iron ore and other commodities were maintained, UBS analysts calculated that BHP Billiton’s earnings for calendar 2016 should be 18 per cent higher than currently expected, while Rio Tinto’s earnings should be 3 per cent lower.
Fortescue Metals Group would receive a hefty 64 per cent lift in its 2017 earnings estimates if current prices were to hold, UBS said.
The spot iron ore price is some 45 per cent above UBS’s calendar 2017 forecast. Several analysts have been forced to rethink their assumptions for the price given its stubborn strength, with the previously bearish Goldman Sachs hiking its three-month estimate to $US65 and Ord Minnett raising its calendar 2017 forecast to $US60.
Warm Regards
Anurag Singal
Sr Manager –Business Development
Essel Mining & Industries Ltd
14th Floor, Industry House
10,Camac Street –Kol-71
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