Mining

VENTURES AFRICA – Workers at platinum producing giant, Lonmin have on Tuesday embarked on a wildcat strike. Sue Lindsell-Stewart the mine’s spokesperson told Ventures Africa that employees arrived at work on Tuesday morning but did not proceed underground and that forced Lonmin to stop all its 13 shafts. Meanwhile, a showdown looms between the workers [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – The rand slipped midday on Tuesday after news of workers at platinum producer Lonmin had embarked on an illegal strike. An independent market analyst, John Toms told Ventures Africa on Tuesday that the rand fall which is due to strike at Lonmin was triggered by the union rivalry. He said: “The rand [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Anglo American Platinum has unveiled its revised proposal indicating retrenchment of approximately 6000 workers instead of the 14, 000 jobs cuts originally planned. Amplats, which is 80 percent-owned by Anglo American, said on Friday it was revising it baseline production to between 2.2-million and 2.4-million ounces a year, which is 100,000oz higher [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – JSE-listed gold miner AngloGold Ashanti on Wednesday said it had appointed Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan (Venkat) as new CEO with immediate effect. Venkat takes over the position that was vacated by Mark Cutifani who was appointed CEO of another mining giant Anglo American Corporation (Anglo). Venkat has been with AngloGold for almost a decade. [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – JSE-listed mining giant BHP Billiton on Monday announced the sale of its Pinto Valley mining operation and the associated San Manuel Arizona Railroad Company (SMARRCO) to Capstone Mining Corporation (Capstone) for $650 million. Pinto Valley is an open-pit copper mining operation located east of Phoenix in the Globe-Miami district of Arizona. BHP [...]

VENTURES AFRICA - The South African Chamber of Mines on Wednesday confirmed that electricity tarrif hikes had a damaging effect on the mining and manufacturing industries. The industry body said a 1 percent point increase in tarrifs meant a R100 million ($11 million) more expenditure a year to each firm. The chamber said it really [...]

VENTURES AFRICA- As platinum demand and prices continue to fall, Eastern Platinum Limited (Eastplats) has made the decision to suspend funding development plan for its South African Crocodile River Mine (CRM). A statement released by the Canadian Miner confirmed this citing continued negative outlook in global economic environment, sustained weakness in platinum-group metals (PGM) pricing [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Chairman of Anglo American, Sir John Parker, has admitted to shareholders of the company that the Minas Rio project has been a “much bigger” problem than the company thought. “Minas-Rio has been a much bigger challenge than any of us could have anticipated,” Parker said at the company’s annual general meeting, which was [...]

VENTURES AFRICA- “In the next 5 years Nigeria may be one of the largest producers of steel in the world,” Chief Executive Officer of African Foundries Limited, Sanjay Kumar, has said. He made the statement at a media tour to the company’s steel mill at Ogijo, Ogun State adding that: “The potential is there for [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Mozambique’s transport minister Paulo Zucula, on Thursday indeed identified mining giant Rio Tinto as one of the six preferred bidders for its $3 billion railway and development project. The project is a 525km rail line from Tete province to Macuse, in Mozambique’s Zambezia province, aimed at enhancing the southern African country’s coal [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) today announced that one of its portfolio, the Moroccan Infrastructure Fund (MIF), has exited its entire position in the highly profitable Osead Maroc Mining (OMM). OMM is the controlling shareholder of Compagnie Minière de Touissit (CMT), the oldest lead producer and exporter in Morocco, specializing in exploration, extraction and processing of [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – New figures from Ghana’s Mineral Commission showed the country produced 4.2 million ounces of gold in 2012, the highest output in history. The country’s 2011 gold output was 3.6 million ounces, according to the Commission. The volume of gold Ghana in 2012 generated approximately $6.5 million, said Daniel E.K Krampah, Assistant Manager [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Gold Fields Ghana has said employees have resumed work at its two mining units after they embarked on a strike action. In a statement today April 9, 2013, the Johannesburg-based mining firm said the workers at its Tarkwa and Damang mines in Ghana “returned to work yesterday evening and this morning”. Workers [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Northam Platinum on Tuesday said Zondereinde mine’s striking rock drill operators had failed to resume their duties this week, increasing revenue losses to R62.7 million ($6.9 million) from R46.2 million ($5 million). The JSE-listed platinum miner said miners had refused to go back to work this week despite an ultimatum issued to [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Harmony Gold, which has operations in South Africa and Papua New Guinea, on Monday said gold production for the quarter ended March 2013 would be about 15 percent lesser than the previous quarter. The JSE-listed gold miner attributed the slip in gold production to the brief closure of Kusasalethu mine due to [...]