March 2023 - Industry Link Media Blog

March 24, 2023

What You Missed in the News This Week

Rivet Mining Services has gone into administration due to extreme weather events, labour shortages, project delays and rising costs.

Mining services, which provides bulk haulage and ancillary onsite services to mining companies in WA, is the only business within the Rivet Group effected.

Chris Hill, Vaughan Strawbridge and Hayden White from FTI Consulting have been made receivers and managers of the company.

Desert Metals has begun extensive field work at three of its key projects near Meekatharra.

The projects include drilling of a previously untested 15m greenstone belt for gold and other base metals at the Belele project; heritage surveys at the Dingo Pass project; and metallurgical work to determine recovery rates of clay hosted REE mineralisation at the Innouendy project to identify the most cost-effective processing methodology.

Rio Tinto has been the victim of a data hack.

Data on GoAnywhere software regarding former and current employees may have been stollen by hackers who have threatened to release stollen data.

“While investigations into this incident are ongoing and threats have been made by a cybercriminal group to release data on to the dark web, to date none of the records described above have been released, and we still do not know if the cybercriminal group holds these records or not,” a memo to staff said.

Several companies using GoAnywhere have reported data breaches, including Hitachi.

Lightning Minerals has identified lithium soil anomalism at its 100% owned Dundas project in WA.

Lightning Minerals CEO, Alex Biggs, said: “Further positive lithium in soil anomalism being identified at our Dundas project again supports our exploration strategy and belief in the region as an emerging lithium and critical minerals district.”

The S&P/ASX200 markets had a turbulent week, falling from 6,974 points o Monday to 6,900 on Tuesday, the market jumped again on Wednesday to 7,030 points before falling to 6,961 points on Thursday then finishing off the week at 6,955 points on Friday.

The All Ordinaries has lost 0.70% over the last 5 days. The market was at its lowest at close on Monday at 7,085 points. The All Ordinaries closed at 7,138 points on Friday.

Gold fell Tuesday afternoon from $1,985.88USD to $1,943.47USD before recovering the remainder of the week to $1,990.70USD on Friday, the highest price since April 2022.

Silver finished at $23.22USD on Friday, the highest it’s been since the start of February 2023.

March 17, 2023

What You Missed in the News This Week

Roy Hill has awarded a $70m order to Epiroc to automate their mixed fleet, making it the world’s largest autonomous mine.

The contact involves driverless conversion of 96 haul trucks, including 54 Caterpillar and 42 Hitachi trucks, and future trucks.

MACA has been awarded a mining contract with Atlas Iron at their McPhee Creek project in the Pilbara.

The tree-year project covers mine load and haul of up to 10million tonnes of iron ore per annum, and transportation to Roy Hill for processing.

Thiess Group executive and MACA CEO David Greig said “We’ve been working with Atlas for almost 15 years across our crushing, civil and mining businesses, and I look forward to working with them once again on the McPhee Creek Project.”

The West Australian Government and the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources signed a Memorandum of Understanding to research and develop the critical minerals chain.

The MoU was signed by Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston in the Republic of Korea as part of the State Government’s mission to promote the resource capabilities of WA.

In a statement announcing the partnership, the State Government said the MoU will further strength the relationship between WA and the Republic of Korea following the signing of a historic letter of intent by Mark McGowan on February 1.

“The letter of intent signed with MOTIE (Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy) recognises our strong strategic partnership with South Korea and charts a course for new opportunities into the future,” McGowan said.

“By signing an agreement with MOTIE, we are establishing a formal relationship to promote economic collaboration in the new energy and downstream processing sectors between Western Australia and South Korea.

The S&P/ASX200 dropped twice this week, dropping 102 points on Tuesday and 131 points on Thursday. The markets finished at 6,995 on Friday. Liontown Resources was the top performing stock on Friday, up 8.20%.

The All Ordinaries lost 161 points over the week, dropping on Tuesday and Thursday.

Gold had a good week, starting at $1,871.04USD, the price steadily increased throughout the week to $11933.43USD, following an upward incline since last week.

Silver had a slightly less stable incline over the week, slightly increasing from $20.80USD to $22.09USD.

March 10, 2023

What You Missed in the News This Week

Lynas has secured $200m in investments from Japan Australia Rare Earths through a subscription of ordinary shares.

Lynas CEO and managing director, Amanda Lacaze, said “JARE has been a valued and strategic partner to Lynas since 2011 and we welcome these new agreements which better reflect demand forecasts from the Japanese rare earths market.”

MinRes has pledged $600,000 over 3 years to the Lion’s Healthy Hearing Outback Program for Aboriginal Children in the Pilbara.

The Lions Healthy Hearing Outback program is run by a conglomerate of health organisations, including Ear Science Institute Australia (ESIA), Rural Health West and the Puntukurnu Aboriginal Medical Service.

“MinRes is proud to partner with Ear Science to help expand this life-changing ear health service into some of Western Australia’s most remote communities,” MinRes managing director, Chriss Ellison said.

“Far too many Aboriginal children experience ear disease and hearing loss, and Ear Science Institute are at the forefront of reducing that devasting burden.”

GBM Resources and Novo Resources have signed a sale and Purchase Agreement for GBM to sell its remaining 50% interest in the Malmsbury Gold Project to Novo.

The sale includes cash of $1M plus 4,037,872 Novo Shares, representing $1.45m.

The S&P/ASX200 dropped sharply on Friday, dropping 166.4 points to 7,144.7, setting a 20-day low.

The All Ordinaries followed suit, dropping 166.2 points to 7,348.2 points on Friday.

Gold fell sharply on Wednesday, falling from $1,881.58 to $1,816.17 but recovered slightly on Friday to $1,834.35.

Silver dropped sharply on Tuesday, falling from $21.35 to end the week at $20.24.

March 3, 2023

What You Missed in the News This Week

The Federal Government has prevented Chinese company Yuxiao Fund from raising its stake in Northern Minerals on grounds of national interest.

Yuxiao Fund wanted to increase its holding from 9.92% to 19.9% but needed approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Northern Minerals has been focused on fine-tuning its heavy rare earths processing system through a pilot plant, which could make the Western Australia-based miner one world’s first significant heavy rare earth producer outside of China.

The Department of Water and Environmental Regulation has ordered Alcoa to clean out the toxic pipeline it built over Samson Dam in Waroona without approval.

The US based company had already built the pipeline to move firefighting PFAS contaminated water over the dam before even applying for approval.

DWER found the pipeline did not meet the requirements to prevent leaks and its location made it at risk of damage by vehicles.

This news is the latest in a series of potentially disastrous environmental blunders by Alcoa: earlier in the week the WA Forest Alliance called in the WA Environment Protection Authority to review Alcoa’s plans to mine jarrah forests after fear their mines will endanger Perth’s water supply and last week the state government expressed concerns Alcoa mines posed a risk to 1/3 of Perth’s drinking water in Serpentine Dam.

Forest Alliance convenor Jess Beckerling said the risks from Alcoa’s mining warranted a full and transparent assessment of its cumulative impact.

“This is obviously a matter of major public concern,” she said.

“The expectation must be that current best-practice WA government policy and aspirations are applied and maintained, and that the safety of drinking water and the integrity of ecological function is protected.”

Austral Gold has completed the sale of its Pinguino project to E2 Minerals, receiving $3.7M on Tuesday, with another $3.7M over the next 3 years.

Austral Gold’s CEO Stabro Kasaneva said “The transaction resulted in the immediate cash injection of US$2.5M to partially fund the development of the Heap Reprocessing project at our flagship Guanaco-Amancaya mine complex in Chile.”

Enegex has entered into a sale agreement with Caravel Minerals to sell them a tenement of Walebing Project.

Tenement E70/5442’s 82.4km² are located 122km northeast of Perth.

Enegex will retain 100% ownership of the remaining 3 tenements at the site.

Enegex Director, Rae Clark, said they are excited the transaction will “provide Enegex with exposure to Caravel’s exploration expertise through a royalty agreement.”

The S&P/ASX200 markets had a positive week, finishing at 7,284 points, 0.39% higher than Thursday. The top performing stocks were Liontown Resources, up 13.19%, and Ramelius Resources, up 5.58%.

Liontown was also the top performing stock in the All Ordinaries, the markets finished at 7,484 points.

Gold has made a swift recovery after a disappointing end to February. The week started at February’s lowest of $1,812.73USD before steadily climbing to $1,850.38USD.

Silver peaked on Wednesday at $21.35, stumbling on Thursday before recovering on Friday to $21.31.