Norway: EMX will receive a 9.9% stake in Mahviez, 2.5% NSR royalty interests
Canada’s EMX Royalty has agreed to divest its Mo-i-Rana volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) project in Norway to Sweden-based Mahvie Minerals.
According to the deal, EMX will sell the project in exchange for 9.9% of the issued and outstanding shares in Mahvie.
EMX will also receive annual advance royalty payments, work commitments, 2.5% net smelter return (NSR) royalty interests, and other considerations.
Through an arm’s length transaction, Mahvie will purchase a 100% interest in the EMX subsidiary that owns the project.
The Swedish mining firm will have the option to purchase a 0.5% NSR on the project by paying $1.5m to EMX on the sixth anniversary of the deal.
EMX will receive $25,000 in annual advance royalty (AAR) payments for the project. This will be effective from the third anniversary of the closing of the transaction.
This AAR payment will be increased by $5,000 annually until it reaches $100,000.
EMX will also receive $500,000 in cash or Mahvie shares upon the completion of the project’s pre-feasibility or feasibility study.
EMX will work with Mahvie to explore the Mo-i-Rana project, where substantial exploration upside is said to exist at several historical occurrences and mines.
In a press statement, EMX said: “Much of the historical exploration work was done at a time when VMS models were only poorly understood and only limited portions of the nine individual VMS horizons that exist in the belt have been tested to date.”
The two firms plan to use deposit models and modern exploration methods to make additional discoveries in the belt.
The Mo-i-Rana VMS belt, which was acquired by EMX last year, holds more than 200 mines and prospects with VMS and carbonate replacement (CRD) styles of mineralisation.
Located in central Norway, the VMS belt comprises numerous polymetallic (zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold) occurrences and historical mines, Mining Technology writes.
New mining projects are being re-branded clean, green and vital to climate action across Europe
There has been a surge in the number of mining projects and a massive expansion of areas under mining concession in the island of Ireland, Fennoscandia and across Europe in recent years.
As much as 27 percent of the Republic of Ireland and 25 percent of Northern Ireland is under mining concession, with a single company, Dalradian Resources, holding concessions for 10 percent of the latter’s land area.
European nations keen to secure their own supplies – who have been backed by the EU – are creating incentives to increase domestic mining, whilst running comprehensive PR campaigns that paint mining as green and re-frame the industry as a leader in addressing climate change.
Regulating
Svein Lund, a co-author of the Fennoscandian report, says Norway was an early adopter of this framing.
“In 2013 the Norwegian government made a mineral strategy saying that mineral extraction should be increased and that it was acceptable to dump tailings into the sea,” they add.
“The motivation for extraction was income for the state and municipalities and working places. There was no talk of any ‘green shift’. That came three years later… Suddenly all mining companies and their allies became ‘green’.
“This was an immense PR trick for them. Later, when northern Norwegian counties made their own mineral strategy, they presented the whole and sole motivation for mining as the ‘green shift’.”
These trends point to a critical conflict in the governance of mining across Europe. Governments have a duty to protect the environment and their people, for example by regulating industry on their behalf.
Reindeer
But after many decades of neoliberal capitalism, governments have also taken on a role as facilitators of harmful industries like mining, deregulating on their behalf in the hope of reaping foreign investment, meagre royalties and taxes.
Mining companies operating in Nordic countries and on the island of Ireland are doing everything possible to exploit this conflict of interest in a time of climate crisis, presenting themselves as green and, where possible, connecting their projects with soaring demand for transition metals.
In Northern Ireland, for example, mining company Dalradian Resources has changed tack to publicly present its Curragihault project not as a gold mine, as it was first advertised, but as a gold-copper-silver mine. Copper and silver are considered more integral to the renewable energy transition than gold.
In Norway, mining company Nussir ASA’s planned mine in Riehppovuotna/Repparfjorden claims to be the world’s first ‘net-zero’ emissions copper mine.
But despite its claims to be sustainable, the company plans to dispose of the mine waste generated by its operations directly into a neighbouring salmon fjord, and would cause massive impacts on reindeer herding.
Sacrifice
The company has also failed to secure the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of potentially affected Indigenous Sámi communities in contravention of International Labour Organisation Convention 169, to which Norway is a signatory.
The re-framing of the mining industry in climate-friendly terms, and promises of its expansion, have been accompanied by reassurances that, in Europe, the industry will be regulated to the highest standards.
These reassurances from both governments and corporations are intended to justify the ‘green mining’ moniker and allay the concerns of European citizens who view mining to be a harmful, fundamentally unsustainable industry.
However, YLNM’s research reveals that there is a vast gap between government and corporate rhetoric and the realities at Europe’s new extractive frontiers. It casts major doubt on EU and member states’ claims that European mining represents a gold standard that justifies new sacrifice zones.
Professor Tero Mustonen, a lead author of the latest IPCC report, and co-author of YLNM’s Fennoscandian research, says Finland, where the term ‘green mining’ was first popularised, is far from a ‘responsible’ mining utopia.
Ecosystems
“Finland and the Nordics should lead in global conservation and rights issues and that is why it is so sad that behind the international facade we find blatant power politics, greed and full dismissal of precautionary principles when it comes to mining on our lands, some of which are the last remaining intact wilderness in Europe.”
Mustonen’s analysis is backed up by multiple case studies of mining disasters and mismanagement in the European North, which reveal an industry that is far from sustainable and clean.
A prime example is the Talvivaara/Terrafame nickel-zinc-cobalt (uranium) mine in eastern Finland, which employed new bioheap leaching technology to extract these minerals from a low-grade deposit.
Since opening, the mine has caused a series of major toxic waste leaks into surrounding waterways. Damage from these leaks is ongoing. Despite these impacts, the mine – nationalised after the bankruptcy caused by the environmental disaster in 2012/3 – is now being touted as a prime example of ‘clean’ extraction for Finland’s nascent battery supply chain.
In both Fennoscandia and the island of Ireland, the authors of YLNM’s new research reveals how the mining industry continues – despite so-called world class regulation – to disrupt vital ecosystems, mistreat and sideline communities and violate indigenous rights.
Poorly-regulated
Arne Müller, a journalist and a report co-author, says that the green transition is also being used to justify all new mining in Sweden, regardless of whether it is related to the production of renewable energy.
“The whole mining industry in Sweden tries to present itself as part of the transition to a fossil free society.
“It is true that a number of metals are necessary for the production of renewable energy and electrical vehicles, but among the new mining projects you also find for example a number of gold mines, which have nothing to do with the ‘green’ transition.”
The continuation of ‘business-as-usual’ can also be seen in the EU’s unwillingness to address the ongoing supply of raw materials from non-EU countries, particularly in the Global South.
The European Commission has made numerous attempts to frame domestic mining in Europe as a tonic to relying on poorly-regulated mining in the South.
Exploitation
Yet the same institution refuses to address its unfair and exploitative trade relations with so-called ‘third countries’ or to embrace calls to tackle Europe’s massive overconsumption of materials and energy and reduce extractive pressures globally.
There is growing evidence that the ecological toll of massive, market-driven global mining expansion will have a serious negative effect on our efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change – as well as undermining the human rights of communities worldwide.
Communities at the extractive frontiers in both Ireland and Fennoscandia know this and are seeing through the greenwash being liberally applied to sell mining at a time of ecological crisis.
Opposition to mining in Europe is intensifying, as are calls for states to recognise that we cannot mine our way out of the climate crisis.
Properly regulating the mining industry would be a start. Addressing historical and continued exploitation of the Global South is essential.
Dramatically
But communities are also advocating the need to pursue transformational pathways towards climate justice.
Lynda Sullivan, author of the island of Ireland dispatch, says: “Calls for the Republic if Ireland and Northern Ireland’s governments to recognise that we cannot mine our way out of the climate crisis are growing, as are community-led examples of alternative pathways out of the climate crisis and towards justice and lasting peace among people and with the land.
“The message from communities at the frontlines of the Island’s new extractive zones is clear- respect our existence, or expect resistance.”
The most pressing question isn’t where new mining should happen, as European states and the European Union suggest.
It is how we can immediately and dramatically reduce the need for new mines by tackling the ultimate drivers of this industry – overconsumption, inequity and the pursuit of endless economic growth.
These Authors
Hannibal Rhoades is Northern European contact person for the Yes to Life, No to Mining Network. He lead The Gaia Foundation’s Beyond Extractivism Programme.
Lynda Sullivan is a writer, activist and researcher based in Northern Ireland. She works with Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland.
mirko nikolic is an artist, activist and academic based in Sweden. He co-coordinates the Yes to Life, No to Mining Lithium Working Group.
Source: theecologist.org
Kazatomprom resumes mining operations in Kazakhstan
Any new pandemic or weather-related issues at world’s largest uranium producer Kazatomprom’s operations are not expected to influence 2020 production volumes, the company said in its quarterly update. It could, however, affect reserve development and production plans for 2021, the uranium producer noted. Kazatomprom has resumed activities at all of its mining operations in Kazakhstan, progressing according to its plans after a four-month coronavirus-driven shutdown, FNArena has reported.
The company announced in early April that its facilities in Kazakhstan would gradually phase to overall reduced capacity, leading to production cuts by about 17.5% in 2020. The statement was made following a state of emergency declared in Kazakhstan due to the coronavirus outbreak. The company originally expected production output to reach around 22,800 tonnes in 2020 before the announcement of the lockdowns and quarantine restrictions. Last week, Kazatomprom reported gross output in the third quarter at 4,660 tonnes, down from the 6,080 tonnes recorded in the same period of last year. The firm’s production guidance for 2021 stands unchanged. Well field development drilling and associated work on bringing new well fields on line began to ramp up in August, the report said, citing industry consultant TradeTech.
VTB Capital Research, the analytical arm of the Russian investment bank VTB, said last week that the company results were 4% above its estimates. VTB analysts believed Kazatomprom was on track to achieve the upper level of its revised 2020 production guidance (19,000-19,500 tonnes).
“The company positively surprised VTB on sales volumes, as both consolidated sales and attributable sales exceeded our expectations by 70%, more than doubling QoQ and YoY,” VTB added in the note. “On our calculations, the large sales print on the back of reduced production suggests an inventory decrease of some 2ktU at KAP in 3Q20, implying an inventory balance of some 6.9ktU at the end of 3Q20, the lowest since 2016.
“The company nevertheless reiterated its 2020 guidance at 15.5-16.5ktU consolidated and 13.5-14.5ktU own sales. We think the surge in sales in 3Q20 reflects delayed demand from 1H20, which might help it to be on track to meet the upper bound of its sales guidance.”
VTB said that the reported results were supportive of third quarter earnings due to be announced on November 27.
Source: intellinews.com