The iron-ore price has fallen 48% so far this year and pessimistic analysts expect it to slide by at least another 14% before the end of 2015 as over supply continues. Read on page 22 of this edition of Mining Weekly of Citigroup predicting that iron-ore will be at $60/t in the third quarter of 2015 and only BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Anglo American’s Kumba Iron Ore being able to produce profitably at that price. London Mining went into liquidation in October, the shares of BC Iron have plummeted 89% this year, the shares of Australia’s Atlas Iron have plunged 82% and the shares of Gindalbie have fallen 75%. Analysts are forecasting that many are going to fall by the wayside and buyers with deep pockets and long timeframes will begin picking up the best pieces in the belief that iron-ore prices are not going to be uneconomically low for too long. The price slide has put even the biggest producers in play, with Glencore approaching Rio in July with a deal that would have created the world’s largest mining company.
Junior miners who are facing mounting survival challenges are being advised to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions. Read on page 25 of this edition of Mining Weekly of Vantage Gold Fields executive director Dr Willo Stear advocating this at the third annual Junior Mining & Exploration conference in the light of the critical role juniors play in exploration, an activity that is currently a cost-cutting casualty of the majors. Junior miners play a praiseworthy role of increasing assets through exploration and thus constitute an indispensible component of the mineral production chain as emerging producers. Of huge concern is the extent to which cost inflation in South Africa’s mining industry is far exceeding cost inflation in other mining countries, exacerbated needlessly by mountains of government red tape. At the same conference, Technology Innovation Agency GM Matlou Ramokoena Mabokano also noted massive exodus of South African mining skills to countries such as Australia and Canada and the losses stemming from the closure of important research organisations.
State-owned power utility Eskom is no longer targeting 2017 for the commercialisation of underground coal gasification (UCG) at its Majuba power station, in Mpumalanga, owing to delays in receiving regulatory approvals. Read on page 20 of this edition of Mining Weekly of the utility reporting in October last year that it would start work on a larger-scale UCG plant at Majuba, where it runs a pilot-scale UCG plant, as soon as environmental permits were received. However, speaking at a UCG seminar hosted by law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, Eskom UCG research manager Shaun Pershad, let it be known that the utility’s target date for commercial operations had been missed as a result of permitting delays, stemming from the Department of Water and Sanitation, unlike the Department of Environmental Affairs, not have a prescribed time in which it is obliged to issue water licences. In Eskom’s view, the UCG industry could not be properly regulated until the data to back up regulations was available. Among the data still required is gas specification certainty and the consensus is that more research and development is necessary for faster progress to be made.