In her new role, Viljoen will continue to report directly to Newmont CEO Tom Palmer. Prior to joining Newmont, she served as the chief executive officer of Anglo American Platinum, the world’s largest primary producer of platinum.

“This promotion is a recognition of Natascha’s strong leadership as chief operating officer since 2023, her commitment to safe operational delivery, and deep connections with people both inside and outside the company,” Palmer .

“Natascha’s energy, passion and resolve will continue to be critical assets as we work to improve costs and productivity to deliver value to shareholders. This new leadership role, which provides a balance of both strategic and operational focus, is right for the company at this time,” he continued.

“Now that we have completed the rationalization of our portfolio following the Newcrest acquisition, we want to ensure that our leadership team is in the best position to support our people throughout the company to safely deliver on our commitments now and in the future.”

Viljoen is a metallurgical engineer and holds a Bachelor of Engineering from North West University in South Africa and an Executive MBA from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

The copper-and-cobalt giant’s chairman Yuan Honglin and vice chair Li Chaochun both resigned for personal reasons and had no disagreement with the board, CMOC said in an exchange filing on Sunday. Two new executive directors were nominated to the board, and a new vice president appointed, while Ives, already head of CMOC’s trading unit IXM, will become chief commercial officer.

The changes mark a significant shift at the top of CMOC, which has emerged from relative obscurity to become the world’s biggest cobalt miner and a major copper producer, largely thanks to acquisitions in Africa. The new structure will help CMOC meet its ambitions for more growth, the company said.

“CMOC will focus on mining industry M&A, including copper, gold, and other minor metals mines,” CMOC said in comments via WeChat to Bloomberg News. The new management has “rich experience in mine operation” and is able to acquire, develop and operate large greenfield projects, it said.

The company’s Hong Kong shares rose as much as 4.6% after the announcement, and following a near-doubling of first-quarter net income.

New team

The two board nominees are Que Chaoyang, who was appointed as chief operating officer, and Liu Jianfeng, appointed as chief investment officer. Que is a former executive at Zijin Mining Group Co., while Liu has held multiple roles in the energy sector.

Tan Xiao, a former senior manager at Huawei Technologies Co., will be a vice president.

But it’s the promotion of Ives, who spent 23 years at Glencore and wanted to be its boss, will attract attention globally. He’s been chief executive officer of CMOC’s trading arm since 2022, overhauling the unit as CMOC aims to challenge the dominance of firms like Glencore and Trafigura Group in global metals trading.

CMOC is already a major player in commodities linked to the energy transition after its expansion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It passed Glencore as top cobalt supplier in 2023, but also has significant clout in copper and ambitions in lithium and nickel. Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. has a 25% stake.

The exit of Yuan Honglin, chairman and non-executive director, will become effective once CMOC gets approval to appoint additional directors at an upcoming shareholder meeting. The resignation of vice chairman and chief investment officer Li Chaochun has already taken effect, it said.

CMOC reported 3.95 billion yuan ($542 million) of first-quarter net income on Friday, building on a record year of earnings in 2024. The company recently agreed to buy Canada’s Lumina Gold Corp., allowing it to tap the largest primary gold deposit in Ecuador.

Read More: CMOC to double copper output at Congo mines to 1 million tonnes by 2028

The Hermosa project is currently the only advanced US mining project capable of producing two federally designated critical minerals: zinc and manganese, and received board approval for $2.16 billion in funding to develop the zinc-lead-silver deposit in February.

This represents the largest private investment in southern Arizona’s history, and the largest investment in the local Santa Cruz county economy to date by nearly nine times, the Australian miner said.

Last year, the Hermosa project became the first to be added to the United States’ FAST-41 permitting process. The company said it has the potential to become one of the world’s largest zinc producers.

Centro will use advanced automation to enhance safety and productivity — key pillars of sustainable operations, the company said, adding that the groundbreaking is the result of nearly three years of design and planning to align with its long-term economic and employment goals in Santa Cruz county.

Supporting an ‘All in Community’ workforce development ecosystem, the groundbreaking also marks the launch of the South32 Hermosa Workforce Development Executive Committee – an expanded initiative aimed at supporting long-term workforce development across Santa Cruz.

The committee brings together local education leaders and South32 representatives to focus on post secondary education, facilities development, resources and training needs of the local businesses, the company said.

“Centro represents more than just a facility – it is a commitment to create economic opportunity and shared value in Santa Cruz county,” South32 Hermosa president Pat Risner said in a news release.

“By establishing Centro in Nogales, we are ensuring that the economic benefits of Hermosa stay local, providing high-skilled, good-paying jobs and supporting the development of a skilled workforce for generations, while also providing opportunities for both populations historically excluded from the industry and underrepresented community groups.”

Attendees at the ceremony included Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, local and state officials, municipal leaders, and representatives from organizations such as the Port Authority, The Nature Conservancy and the University of Arizona.

“Centro, as the project’s state-of-the-art operations center, will create good-paying jobs and strengthen our economy,” said Congressman Juan Ciscomani.

“South32 Hermosa’s Centro is a major step forward for regional development and the production of critical minerals in southern Arizona,” Ciscomani added. “By anchoring high quality jobs, workforce training, and critical infrastructure in our communities, this project strengthens the local economy and positions our region to continue to serve as a hub for responsible innovation and growth.”

The understanding at BHP is that Henry is now heading toward the end of his tenure, according to company insiders. They emphasized that no decision has been made. But some people close to the company say a change could come as soon as early next year, and some top executives have begun increasing their interaction with investors and other stakeholders ahead of a likely succession process.

The internal frontrunners for the role are seen to be Geraldine Slattery, who heads the company’s Australian mines, chief financial officer Vandita Pant, and Ragnar Udd, who runs the commercial team. However, the CEO search is also likely to include external candidates, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

A change of leadership would come at a pivotal time for both BHP and the wider mining sector. The company and its biggest rivals spent the past couple of years pursuing a series of failed mega deals, while President Donald Trump’s trade war has cast a new level of uncertainty over future demand for key commodities.

BHP itself is embarking on a slew of expensive growth projects and Henry’s successor is likely to face some tough questions about capital allocation, including whether the company can pursue its aggressive spending plans while sustaining its dividend and debt policies.

The miner is already tightening its belt and has significantly sharpened its focus on cost cutting across its business, some of the people said.

BHP declined to comment.

The process to find a replacement for Henry is likely to kick-start in earnest in the coming months, the people said, making it one of the first major tasks of new chairman Ross McEwan. Henry has led BHP since January 2020, which means that an early 2026 departure would mean he has completed a six-year tenure — roughly in line with his most recent predecessors.

During that time, the 59-year-old BHP veteran has reshaped the company. Within the first two years of his leadership, the miner announced plans to sell its oil and gas business and dismantle a dual listing structure, as well as approving a giant potash mine in Henry’s native Canada.

Henry also led BHP through a return to dealmaking after years on the sidelines, culminating in the company’s ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful bid for Anglo American Plc. The $49 billion takeover attempt sent shockwaves through the mining industry but was rebuffed by the smaller company as too complex and risky.

Slattery — previously operator of BHP’s offshore oil and gas assets, which it spun off to Woodside Energy Group Ltd. — was placed in the far more public role of president of the Australian unit in 2022.

Pant, a former banker, has been at BHP since 2016. She served as chief commercial officer before becoming CFO last year. Udd has a technical past but was put in more operational roles and has proven success across BHP’s important copper business in the Americas.

The appointment of either Pant or Slattery would mark the first time that the world’s biggest mining company is led by a woman, in an industry notorious for the lack of diversity in its top ranks. Of the three dozen miners in the ASX200 index, just one has female CEO.

And Henry’s successor will inherit some thorny challenges. Despite recent years of record profits, BHP is looking financially stretched — already trending toward the top of its self-imposed debt target before it starts to pay for the series of hugely expensive growth projects.

The company is planning to spend billions of dollars to halt a decline in copper production at its crucial Escondida copper mine, further expand the Canadian potash mine, as well as develop copper projects in Argentina and Australia.

BHP isn’t alone. Capital allocation is likely to be a focus across the largest miners this year, according to analysts from Citigroup Inc. and Jefferies Financial Group Inc.

In BHP’s case, the company has ramped up its focus on cost reduction. Wage inflation is just one contributing factor: In Australia’a iron-ore rich Pilbara region unions are organizing to navigate salaries, something not seen in over two decades, adding further pressure to other areas of the business.

The company has already lowered its dividend to the minimum payout under its current policy and insiders said they don’t expect the policy to change. Unless commodity prices rise significantly, the company may have to change its debt policy or move to stagger some of its growth plans as a result, they said.

(By Paul-Alain Hunt, Thomas Biesheuvel and Archie Hunter)

The iron ore and lithium miner said that Susie Corlett and Jacqueline McGill, , without given further details. They were two of the three-member ethics and governance committee formed after an internal probe found that outgoing managing director Chris Ellison had withheld details about personal transactions, causing what the company described as a “significant reputational impact.”

Independent director Denise McComish remains the sole member of the three-person committee.

Chairman James McClements, who is also set to depart in the coming months, thanked Corlett and McGill for their efforts. “Susie and Jacqui have dedicated substantial time and effort over recent months in our efforts to improve governance and procedures across the business, whilst navigating their significant other professional commitments,” he said in . 

It is unclear whether Corlett and McGill, who were privately the most critical of Ellison’s conduct, will be replaced.

Mineral Resources’ stock closed at A$16.61 in Sydney on Wednesday. The company has lost more than 52% of its value since the start of the year and now holds a market cap of A$3.3 billion ($2.1 billion), well below its gross debt of A$5.8 billion.

Ellison, a self-made billionaire from New Zealand who left school at 15, has vowed to quit the company by next year. He admitted to participating in an offshore tax scheme that benefited him and others at the company’s expense.

MinRes has been struggling financially, particularly in its lithium division, where low prices led to the shutdown Bald Hill, near Kalgoorlie. The company has also scaled back iron ore production, suspended dividends and is facing a class action in the Supreme Court of Victoria. Additional pressure has come from unexpected costs related to repairs on its Onslow iron ore haul road.

The analysis, conducted independently by Rhodium Group, assesses the carbon removal sector’s . The report shows that a carbon removal industry capable of removing 100 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year would add between 95,000 and 130,000 lasting jobs across the United States.

Carbon removal is an industry of technologies and approaches that remove excess carbon dioxide and permanently store it. Some of these technologies — namely enhanced rock weathering (ERW), ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) and direct ocean capture — are job creators, according to the report.

Carbon removal is different from carbon capture, a process which captures some or all of the carbon at a point of emission — like a power plant. Carbon removal permanently removes and stores legacy carbon dioxide pollution already in the atmosphere, and is not connected to a point of emission.

Carbon removal technology ERW specifically could help create 22,000 to 29,500 ongoing jobs as mining and quarry workers are one of the top occupations associated with ERW projects while OAE carbon removal technology could create 13,000 to 17,500 ongoing jobs, the report found.

Mining and quarry workers are again one of the top occupations associated with these OAE projects.  OAE methods can repurpose byproducts from industrial processes, like steel slag. These processes can also create a high-purity alkalinity which provides added potential for critical mineral extraction.

Giana Amador, executive director of the Carbon Removal Alliance, said the organization is focused on fighting climate change by bringing to light this new sector of solutions.

“We work closely with the Rhodium Group specifically to better understand the economic and jobs potential of what a carbon removal industry could look like at scale. These are new solutions that have been in development for about a decade and can really lead to job creation and economic benefits across the US,” Amador told MINING.com in an interview.

“[They] don’t just reduce emissions, which typically is the strategy that we think about using when we think about fighting climate change — things like renewable energy, electric vehicles, but the solutions that we focus on are actually how we clean up carbon that’s already in the atmosphere,” Amador said.

“We work with innovators who are developing a wide range of technologies, including ones who are using minerals from the mining sector,” she said. “We work with around 30 companies who are all developing cutting edge technologies and are beginning to deploy projects across the globe.”

Eli Cain, senior policy manager at Carbon Removal Alliance, joined the organization from the US Department of Energy National Laboratories,  where he helped manage carbon removal policies.

“There are three different ways that we can durably take carbon out of the atmosphere — through plants and biomass [and] through chemicals that sequester CO2. And you can do it through minerals that already react very naturally on very long timescales with atmospheric CO2 and capture that,” Cain said.

“The more traditional ones are things like basalt or limestone or dunite or olivine, wollastonite — all of these are mined in the US, and a lot of them in Canada as well. Canada does a great job on this, we want to bring more of that into the United States.”

On the economic front carbon removal work can be like how partnerships can make the most of some mining byproduct that exists on mines already. Partnerships between carbon removal companies and mining companies can open up new revenue streams for miners, Cain noted.

ARCA climate technologies, one of the Carbon Removal Aliance’s member organizations, published a whitepaper this year reporting that mine waste could be transformed into a ‘net-zero, multi-billion dollar opportunity’.

Mining companies have their own emissions targets, and Cain said the Alliance has heard from suppliers that they can offer cheap and effective decarbonization solutions.

“One of the reasons we’re really excited about partnerships between carbon removal and mining companies is because the carbon industry is going so quickly, it means that we will need more of these mine resources in order to accomplish their goals,” Cain said.

“And we’re not talking like one new mine — we’re talking like the scale of the global cement industry today.”

The Mining and Energy Union (MEU) said that Rio Tinto, the world’s biggest iron ore producer, will now compensate its “Fly-In, Fly-Out” (FIFO) workers heading home with A$500 ($313.55) for delays exceeding four hours and A$1,000 for delays over 12 hours.

The amendment came after more than 400 workers at the Paraburdoo project signed a majority support petition to initiate bargaining for a collective agreement for the first time in over two decades.

Paraburdoo mine is part of Rio Tinto’s Western Australian operations, and employs around 16,000 employees, the company website showed. The MEU is a part of the Western Mine Workers Alliance (WMWA) along with the Australian Workers Union.

The support petition was currently being assessed by the Fair Work Commission (FWC), the industrial relations tribunal, the MEU said. If the FWC grants orders for collective bargaining, Rio Tinto will be forced to the negotiating table.

“We are aware the Australian Workers Union has filed an application to the Fair Work Commission,” a Rio Tinto spokesperson said in an emailed response to Reuters.

“We will engage with the Fair Work Commission process and continue to talk directly with our people.”

The iron ore miner will also now fully fund national FIFO for up to 30% of their rail crew workers and hike the training allowance for on-job trainers to A$7,500 per annum from A$5,600.

The MEU has also secured retention bonuses for all of BHP’s rail crew members worth A$10,500 regardless of their classification, it said.

Shares of Rio Tinto ended 0.5% up, while BHP closed 0.7% down.

($1 = 1.5946 Australian dollars)

(By Rajasik Mukherjee; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Mrigank Dhaniwala)

The move came the same day copper prices scored another high on Thursday, surpassing the $11,000-a-tonne mark in New York amid global trade disruptions.

For the US to increase its competitive advantage on critical minerals and reduce supply chain vulnerabilities, it’s clear that advancing domestic mining requires innovative solutions at the regional level.

Arizona is the most copper-rich state in the US, accounting for approximately 70% of domestic copper production. An initiative at the University of Arizona has on an National Science Foundation (NSF) engine.

As a finalist in the, the University of Arizona’s Sustainable Mining Innovation and Lifestyle Enhancement Regional Innovation Engine (SMILE) proposal to advance environmentally responsible mining and manufacturing in Arizona.

“It’s a $160 million opportunity over 10 years – and it’s different than most NSF proposals in that you really have to demonstrate that you’re driving economic development in the region, and that your region is the place to do this,” Kray Luxbacher, University of Arizona’s head of mining and geological engineering and lead on the initiative, told MINNIG.com in an interview.

“Looking around the United States at where mining is happening, we really see southern Arizona as the region to develop mining, and particularly mining technology and mining communities, both because of the exciting new projects here, like South 32’s Hermosa project, [and] the Resolution mine,” Luxbacher said.

“We see our region in southern Arizona as the place to do a mining engine. In terms of critical minerals, we’re the most exciting region in the United States, and we have all the right pieces for this ecosystem.”

One of the project’s aims is workforce development, which is a critical need for the industry now as it faces a wave of retirements and a critical skills gap.

The project takes a high-level approach to developing a workforce, starting at the elementary school age, up to adults looking to retrain. It will be working with the Arizona Department of Education on helping students understand careers in mining.

“Pima Community College is a partner – a large community college looking to train technicians for mining. We’re partnered with the Santa Cruz Provisional Community College,” Luxbacher said.

The second major component is technology and the program is looking at technology in mining and how to develop better technologies, particularly around energy efficiency.

“Mining is, by its very nature, very energy intensive. So we’re looking at things like automated fleets and how those can contribute to energy efficiency. We’re looking at remote control, in particular at the Hermosa project,” she said.

“They’ll be remotely mining most of their deposit, and we’re looking at how that can contribute to safety and energy efficiency.”

The third component of the program is developing communities that sustain beyond mining. The 10-year approach involves looking at communities near the Hermosa project in Nogales, the San Javier Proving Ground near Sahuarita, Arizona, and proximal to the San Javier Reservation as well as communities around Superior, where the Resolution mine will be.

“We want to make sure these communities are sustainable beyond mining,” Luxbacher said.

Inspired by Canada’s NORCAT facility

At the Hermosa project, there is a focus on automation, and the university is working with OEM Komatsu as they look to expand and rebuild their proving ground.

“What the engine will allow us to do is to give Komatsu some additional resources so that they can provide entry to startup companies and other technology companies that simply don’t have access to mines to prove at scale,” Luxbacher said.

“We’ve been looking really closely at NORCAT because we really see a need for a similar type of facility in the United States.”

The NORCAT facility in Sudbury, Ontario has an underground centre to develop, test, and demonstrate scalable technologies such as tele-remote and autonomous operations, industrial IoT, asset tracking, and drone mapping.

It is currently the only facility of its kind in North America.

“We want to see a facility here in the United States where it’s an extensive proving ground. It’s a place where startup companies can come to prove so they don’t have to be on a producing mine, but they’re near scale. And it’s a place for training, both training of technician level people, [and] advanced engineering degrees,” Luxbacher said.

“The mines that we’re looking at are the mines with the highest, most automated technology in the United States, not just Arizona.

“Our project encompasses far more than a training center and proving ground, but pieces of our project are certainly inspired by NORCAT.”

Luxbacher said that by educating a workforce for automation and mining, “we believe that their skills will be transferable to the chips industry and to other manufacturing in Arizona, which is attractive to young people to know that they have a skill they can pick up and carry elsewhere.

“I think we’ll serve the mining industry well because we’ll be training a larger workforce, a deeper pool than we currently have.”

Created last month by President Donald Trump, the council’s mandate is to boost not only US oil and gas production, but also the extraction and processing of lithium, copper and other critical minerals used widely across the economy.

China’s near-total control of the critical minerals industry has long rankled Trump and his predecessors. Despite that, the US has not had a senior official overseeing federal mining policy since the Bureau of Mines was closed in 1996 amid a round of budget cuts.

US mining policy is currently administered through multiple agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and their priorities often conflict.

Copley will be the senior White House official on mining, advising Trump and other officials on permitting reform and helping to coordinate the executive branch’s oversight of the industry.

Reuters reported last week that Trump was considering naming a point person to coordinate US mining policy.

Trump separately on Thursday signed an executive order directing a review of which federal lands – including those controlled by the Pentagon – could be used for minerals processing, among other steps aimed at boosting domestic mining.

The White House referred questions on Copley’s appointment to the US Department of the Interior, which was not immediately available to comment. Copley was not immediately available to comment. Newmont declined to comment.

An economist by training, Copley is an intelligence officer with the US Navy Reserve and worked on Iraq-related issues for the State Department in Trump’s first term.

He previously held roles at US Silica, a minerals producer acquired last year by private equity firm Apollo Global Management, and Active Minerals International, a producer of kaolin clay for ceramics.

Copley consulted for Boston Consulting Group earlier in his career and served as an intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is part of the US Department of Defense.

Copley until recently had worked in a strategic development role for Denver-based Newmont, the world’s largest gold miner by production with a market value of $54 billion and mines across 13 countries. The miner has been also expanding into copper production after it bought Australian rival Newcrest in 2022.

Abigail Hunter, executive director of SAFE’s Center for Critical Minerals Strategy, said she was glad to see “someone with practical mining expertise” be the administration’s point person for mining, a role that her think tank had lobbied officials to create.

“A diffuse approach makes it harder to align policy priorities,” said Hunter. “Having someone in this position on the council can help cement a unified federal strategy.”

(By Ernest Scheyder, Divya Rajagopal and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Veronica Brown, Chris Reese and Jamie Freed)

Adrien de Sousa, who started a base metals trading desk at Securing Energy for Europe GmbH in Singapore six months ago, will join Vitol later this year and report to head of copper Bruno Porto, according to people familiar with the move, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. De Sousa will be in charge of refined copper trading, one of the people said.

Vitol has made a series of hires as it competes for a piece of the global metals trading market, a business long-dominated by Glencore Plc and Trafigura Group. It’s part of a move by some of the biggest oil and gas traders to diversify, with metals being touted as key beneficiaries of the energy transition.

A spokesperson for Vitol declined to comment. SEFE confirmed that de Sousa is leaving the company and a search for his successor is under way.

Vitol has hired traders from Glencore and Citigroup Inc. as it added iron ore, aluminum and more recently copper, to its portfolio.

Other energy traders, including Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. and Gunvor Group, have also been expanding in metals, driving a hiring spree across the industry.

De Sousa joined SEFE in October 2024 after spending almost 10 years in Mitsubishi Corp.’s metals trading business in a senior role. Before that he worked as senior aluminum trader at Norwegian producer Norsk Hydro and as a risk officer at Louis Dreyfus Co., according to his LinkedIn page.

(By Anna Shiryaevskaya and Alfred Cang)

Magara, a former chief executive of platinum miner Lonmin who also worked at Anglo American, takes over on April 1. He replaces finance director Riaan Koppeschaar, who served as interim CEO following Nombasa Tsengwa’s resignation. Tsengwa stepped down in February amid controversy over the handling of a probe into workplace conduct allegations against her.

Magara is expected to to lead Exxaro through declining profits caused by lower coal prices while advancing its strategy to acquire manganese and copper assets, crucial metals to the green energy transition, chairman Geoffrey Qhena said in a statement.

Exxaro has struggled to diversify beyond coal. In 2023, it lost out to China’s MMG in a bid for Botswana’s Khoemacau copper mine.

The company also reported on Thursday its 2024 financial results, showing a 32% drop in net income to 9.68 billion rand ($527 million) and a 6.9% decline in coal output. Profit fell to about 7 billion rand ($381 million) from nearly 11 billion the year before, and it cut its dividend to 8.7 rand per share from 10.10 rand.

_________
RELATED: Exxaro seeks to acquire manganese mining assets

In a press release issued Thursday, chairman Dominic Barton confirmed the upcoming departures, citing that the company decided to retain their expertise and experience last year during a transitional period as its new directors “familiarize themselves with the group.”

“That transitional phase is now largely concluded, so we will make the following changes to the board during 2025,” Barton said.

Sam Laidlaw will step away following the conclusion of Rio’s annual meeting in May. He joined the board in February 2017 and has served as chair of the people and remuneration committee as well as senior independent director. These roles will be filled by current board members Ben Wyatt and Sharon Thorne respectively.

Kaisa Hietala will also leave the group following the May AGM. According to Barton, Hietala opted to step down to avoid the potential conflicts of interest arising from her non-executive directorship with Exxon Mobil.

“Kaisa has been a very welcome and valuable addition to the board since her appointment in March 2023, and her guidance on energy transition and business transformation in particular have contributed significantly and insightfully to our discussions,” Barton stated.

In the second half of 2025, Simon Henry will also depart. Henry was appointed to the board in April 2017 and has served as chair of the audit and risk committee since May 2019. This role will be assumed by Thorne.

Ceibo, Jetti Resources and Rio Tinto’s Nuton venture are among firms looking to roll out catalysts for liberating copper from low-grade ore. With new deposits getting harder to find and develop, leaching offers a way to boost and extend output at existing mines at a time when the industry is scrambling to meet an expected surge in demand for the wiring metal key to the energy transition.

In December, Ceibo was – an annual list of Latin American private sustainable innovation companies that are poised to make a significant impact in the next five to ten years.

Ceibo said its process extracts copper from sulfide ores using existing leaching plants, with electrochemical reactions bolstering recovery rates in shorter cycles. Lomas Bayas, with some of the lowest grades in the business at just 0.25%, sees leaching as a way to extend its life by at least seven years.

“Having technologies that can use and leverage the existing infrastructure is very important for the industry. That’s the subset where we’re based on, and the world has about five million tons of leaching capacity, so it can become a really big number in time and contribute to decarbonization,” Ceibo CEO Cristobal Undurraga said in an interview with MINING.com.

“Ceibo technology has a high recovery rate, and we’ve demonstrated with ores from more than 30 parts of the world already, and that we can recover between 70 to 80% in timeframes that are somewhere between 150 to 250 days…compared to bioleaching platforms or technologies that are based on bioleaching,” he said.

Undurraga said the technology connects to the existing infrastructure, which minimizes the incremental capex.

“And for different cases we’ve run, the payback of that incremental investment is less than a year,” Undurraga said. “Within one year, your investment gets paid, and that’s very efficient compared to a concentrator or a larger investment.”

Ceibo currently has partnerships with seven of the top 10 miners, and Undurraga noted it is working with “about 40% of world production.”

“The amount of copper that the world needs during the next 25 years is just enormous,” Undurraga said. “It’s not only that demand is going to increase but the supply is falling, so the gap is going to be somewhere like 25 million tons pretty quickly.”

“And it’s going to be even quicker if you measure it by mining times. It takes 10 years to break ground on a new mine, if not 20. The question we all face is – how can we increase production as fast as we can?”

(With files from Bloomberg)

The diamond miner said in a statement it has appointed chief restructuring officer Vivek Gadodia and Juan Kemp, the operations executive at its Cullinan mine in South Africa, as joint CEOs on an interim basis.

Petra on Monday reported a wider loss of $69 million in the six months to December 2024, compared to an $11 million loss during the same period previously, on the back of a prolonged period of weakness in the diamond market.

Its net debt increased to $215 million as of December 31, from $193 million at the end of June 2024 due to diamond market weakness and the timing of tender sales.

Petra’s operational free cash inflow improved to $16 million at the close of the first half, compared to a negative $21 outflow previously, following a cost reduction program.

The company has been restructuring its operations to cut costs and sold its interest in Koffiefontein last October. In January, it also agreed the sale of the Williamson mine in Tanzania for about $16 million.

This leaves Petra with the iconic Cullinan mine, where the largest ever gem-quality diamond was recovered 120 years ago, and the Finsch mine in South Africa’s Northern Cape province in its portfolio.

(By Nelson Banya; Editing by Tom Hogue and Christian Schmollinger)

Gobitz stepped down as chief executive officer of a mine owned by BHP Group and Glencore Plc to lead Quilla Resources Inc., a firm he set up along with one family based in the UK and another in Peru.

Quilla acquired a company from Nexa Resources SA in a bid to restart the Chapi copper mine in Peru. The new owner plans to start producing cathode in the first half of next year at an annual rate of about 10,000 metric tons.

The mine, south of the Peruvian city of Arequipa, was halted in 2012 due to declining metal prices and operational challenges. Average copper prices have risen about 15% since then, partly due to additional demand from the shift away from fossil fuels, when big new deposits are getting harder to find, develop and finance.

Gobitz, whose two daughters are also involved in his new Toronto-based venture, looks to use cash from the Chapi restart to finance work on other opportunities for the 26,000-hectare (64,000-acre) land package — which isn’t far from a giant mine owned by Freeport-McMoRan Inc.

“We’ll be a closely held company for a time — until we restart operations — and then we’ll evaluate going public,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “We believe the potential is there to find a deposit of large dimensions.”

(By James Attwood)

Nornickel, a major world producer of refined nickel and the largest palladium producer, said Dubovitskiy had resigned from the management board.

(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Marina Bobrova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Read More: Nornickel reports 37% drop in 2024 net profit

Former executive chairman Ron Mitchell had turned to regulators to try to stop what he alleged was an undisclosed association among China-linked shareholders unlawfully seeking to take control of the company and its Manna lithium project.

Management froze development of the project late last year amid a protracted downturn in the battery raw material market, but some of Global Lithium’s biggest shareholders opposed the company’s strategy.

The battle posed a test for the Australian government which is pushing for critical minerals projects to drive economic growth and boost security links with the United States, its key global ally, while not wanting to anger its top resources customer, China.

Following Thursday’s board overhaul, the company said it will prioritize finalizing a native title mining agreement with the Kakarra Part B Native title group, ahead of seeking a mining lease and completing a financial feasibility study.

It said it is also seeking a new chairman as it looks to “rebuild trust” with potential project partners. A 10-year supply agreement with China lithium chemicals maker Canmax Technologies expired in December.

Mitchell tendered his resignation and former chief financial officer Matthew Allen withdrew his nomination for director on Thursday after it became apparent the Australian government was not going to intervene to stop the vote.

He had alleged China-linked shareholders may have violated Australia’s takeover laws and the foreign takeovers act in reports to Australia’s Treasury last year as well as in filings to the Australian Securities Exchange, the Western Australian Supreme Court, and Australia’s Takeovers Panel.

The Takeovers Panel twice declined to review the allegations, but Australia’s Treasurer was still keeping a close eye on the situation, The Australian newspaper reported.

The Treasurer’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Global Lithium shareholders backed Perth-based businessman Liaoliang (Leon) Zhu, who controls the company’s third largest shareholder Sincerity Group, and mining executive Xiaoxuan (David) Sun, to join the board, the company said in an exchange filing.

Both Chen and Zhu are Australian citizens, the filing said.

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Chris Reese and Sonali Paul)

Eramet said that Castellari will assume the CEO position on May 27, following a vote at the group’s annual shareholder meeting. Bories will remain chairwoman of the group.

Castellari – born in 1970 and a dual Brazilian and Italian citizen – has over 30 years’ experience in mining and metals as well as in the fertilizers and energy industries in South and North America, Europe and Africa, Eramet said in a statement.

From 2003 to 2015 he worked at Anglo American, and in 2016, he was appointed deputy CEO and CFO of CEMIG, a Brazilian electrical power company, before joining aluminum producer EGA as CEO of Guinea Alumina Corporation.

Since 2019, Castellari has been CEO of the Brazilian branch of Appian Capital Advisory, a mining-focused private equity group.

Eramet said last month that Bories would give up the chief executive role in May while remaining chairwoman.

Bories, CEO since 2017, has overseen a shift in Eramet’s strategy towards minerals used for electric vehicle batteries, notably by developing a lithium mine in Argentina that began production at the end of last year.

(By Gus Trompiz; Editing by GV De Clercq and Nick Zieminski)

He will be succeeded by Richard Stewart, current head of the company’s operations in Southern Africa, who will assume the role of CEO-designate starting March 1 while continuing his regional responsibilities.

Froneman, 65, has led Sibanye since its inception in 2013, when the company—then known as Sibanye Gold—was formed through the consolidation of three old Gold Fields mines. Under his leadership, Sibanye transformed into a diversified mining giant with gold and platinum group metals (PGM) operations across Southern Africa and the United States.

“Neal leaves behind a proud legacy at Sibanye-Stillwater and in the South African mining industry, which is testament to his strategic vision and inspirational leadership,” board chair Vincent Maphai said .

“He still has the same enthusiasm for what he does, and has lost none of his drive [but] wishes to spend more of his time with his family and loved ones and on his many interests.” 

During his tenure, Froneman expanded Sibanye-Stillwater into critical minerals, notably lithium, through the acquisition of a stake in Finland’s Keliber Lithium project, a joint venture with the Finnish government. The company is also involved in the Rhyolite Ridge lithium project in the US.

Sibanye has further diversified into zinc, acquiring Australia’s Century mine after in 2023.

In his new role, McEwan is expected to be tasked with overseeing the selection of BHP’s next CEO and will need to consider whether the company resurrects plans to buy rival Anglo American after a $49 billion offer failed last year.

McEwan has been a non-executive director at BHP since April 2024 after five years running NAB, Australia’s second-largest bank, and its biggest business lender. He has also held the top job at Royal Bank of Scotland.

The New Zealand-born banker was installed as CEO of NAB after a damaging royal commission inquiry into poor business practices in 2019, and was widely seen as reviving the bank’s standing with investors with a simplification program.

He is currently a director of defence technology company QinetiQ Group QQ.L and Australian plumbing and bathroom products supplier Reece.

McEwan is likely to oversee the process of finding a replacement for CEO Mike Henry who is entering his fifth year at the helm of BHP, where tenure in the top job averages about six years.

MacKenzie was with BHP for nine years and has been chair for the last eight. He oversaw BHP’s failed offer for Anglo, its recovery from the Samarco dam disaster in Brazil, the unification of its structure to a single Australian listing, the approval of major investments in Canadian potash and a workforce that is approaching gender equity.

“I think he’s done a really good job over that time,” said Andy Forster of Argo Investments in Sydney. “He brought in a lot of operational discipline, really focused on returns and capital allocation.”

MacKenzie’s decision to step down probably lowered the chances of BHP making another tilt at Anglo, said two other investors who were not authorized to speak to media.

MacKenzie told the company’s annual general meeting on October 30 that BHP had “moved on” from pursuing Anglo, although the company subsequently backtracked in a filing to regulators.

(By Melanie Burton, Byron Kaye and Rishav Chatterjee; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Jamie Freed)

Titled , the book by author Tim Falconer explores the highs and lows of a woman who defied norms, broke barriers, and ultimately became entangled in one of Canada’s most infamous stock market frauds.

Viola MacMillan’s story begins in the 1920s, when she and her husband, George MacMillan, ventured into prospecting — a field almost entirely dominated by men at the time. Viola quickly proved herself in the rough-and-tumble world of mineral exploration, gaining respect for her tenacity and sharp instincts. 

By the late 1940s, she had her first producing mine, and her star only rose through the 1950s, when she struck success with a series of lucrative mining operations.

Scandal shook Canada

MacMillan’s career took a dramatic turn in 1964, when she became the central figure in the Windfall mining scandal. Shares in her company, Windfall Oil and Mines, skyrocketed from 56 cents to C$5.70 in just a few weeks, fuelled by speculation and rumors of a major copper-silver-zinc discovery reaching her claim near Timmins, Ontario.

The truth was far less dazzling: core samples from the claim contained no significant traces of such metals. Viola and her husband delayed releasing this crucial information, allowing the stock to soar. When the truth finally came out, the stock plummeted, leaving countless small investors devastated.

The fallout from the scandal was seismic. It tarnished the reputation of the Toronto Stock Exchange as a global mining hub and led to significant regulatory reforms, including changes to the Ontario Securities Commission. Viola spent several weeks in prison but was later pardoned. She even went on to receive the Order of Canada for her contributions to the mining industry.

Unique perspective

Falconer, a seasoned writer with a background in mining engineering and exploration, brings a rare combination of technical expertise and storytelling to Windfall. Having worked in mines and studied at McGill University before transitioning to English literature, he offers a compelling perspective on both the industry and its historical context.

With five previous non-fiction books under his belt and two making The Globe and Mail’s top 100, Falconer is no stranger to crafting narratives that resonate. His meticulous research and nuanced storytelling promise to make Windfall both a gripping read and an important historical account.

Viola MacMillan remains a polarizing figure — a trailblazer who opened doors for women in mining, but also someone whose ambition led to a notorious scandal.

Falconer’s book is set to arrive in bookstores on February 18.

Mayer joined Gunvor in October 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile. It was not possible to reach Mayer for comment.

Gunvor confirmed Mayer’s departure, saying he was leaving for personal reasons, and added the alumina book would be taken over by Ulas Alkan.

Glencore declined to comment.

Gunvor mostly trades oil and other energy products. It has recently forayed into metals with the expectation that structural changes in the sector triggered by the energy transition will prove profitable.

Energy traders Mercuria and Vitol are also delving into metals. Mayer’s move from Gunvor is unusual in that most of the moves in metals trading have been to these new entrants from established players.

(Editing by Nia Williams)

Read More: Glencore loses senior aluminum traders to rivals Vitol, Mercuria

Over the last decade, researchers have developed various ML-based techniques to determine geological features more effortlessly in rocks, such as the dip angle and direction of rock facets in tunnels. Understanding these characteristics is essential for large construction projects as they help ensure structural stability and safety, preventing potential failures or collapses.

Although powerful, most ML models still struggle to differentiate between joint bands and joint embedment points in rock. As direct indicators of surface orientation, joint embedment points enable a more accurate measurement of dip angle and direction than joint bands. Thus, methods that can eliminate joint bands from input data can increase the accuracy of ML-based techniques, leading to more precise geological assessments.

To fulfill this challenge, a research team led by Professor Hyungjoon Seo of Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SEOULTECH) developed the Roughness-CANUPO-Dip-Facet (R-C-D-F) method. This ML-powered, multistep approach combines many filtration techniques to remove joint bands while preserving most joint embedment points in the data, leading to excellent accuracy when measuring dip angle and direction.

Their paper was made available online on September 11, 2024, and was on December 1, 2024.

R-C-D-F accurately measures dip angles and directions of rock facets by identifying important features called joint embedment points. This fully autonomous approach will help enhance precision and safety in large construction projects, such as tunnels and mines, reducing human error and improving efficiency in geological data processing, according to researchers.

The first step of the filtration process consists of a roughness analysis on an input 3D point cloud, taken directly from a rock surface. This step removes minor surface irregularities and noise from the data, preserving continuous lines on the surface but removing joint lines.

The second filtration step uses the CANUPO algorithm, which classifies points based on their geometric characteristics and isolates key features, removing even more joint lines.

The third filtration step eliminates connecting rock segments based on dip angles, isolating distinct rock formations. Finally, the measurement stage consists of facet segmentation to obtain the dip angle and direction of each section of the rock sample.

The researchers tested the R-C-D-F method on various real tunnel face images, achieving remarkable accuracy rates ranging from 97% to 99.4%. Notably, 100% of joint bands were successfully removed while still preserving 81% of joint embedment points. But the most significant aspect of this technique was its fully autonomous nature, requiring no human intervention.

“By automating the process of filtering and segmenting rock features, it reduces human error and computational inefficiencies, making it ideal for modern infrastructure projects that demand high accuracy and reliability,” Professor Seo said in a news release.

Overall, the proposed approach could find promising applications across many disciplines of structural and geological engineering, he said.

“The R-C-D-F method’s integration of ML and deep learning ensures reliable and accurate geological data processing, which can directly improve the safety of large-scale engineering projects like tunnels and underground structures,” Seo said.

“It could also enable the development of smarter and faster geological analysis tools, reducing costs and improving efficiency in industries reliant on subsurface exploration and infrastructure development.”

The approach thus holds promise for paving the way for safer and more efficient geological engineering solutions, researchers noted.

Bruno Porto, a veteran copper trader who has been at Glencore since 2006, will join Vitol to build out a copper trading team from London, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named as the matter isn’t public. He’s set to start in March, one of the people said.

It’s the latest move by a big energy trader to shake up the world of metals trading, which has long been dominated by incumbents Glencore and Trafigura Group.

In the past year, Vitol has added iron ore and aluminum traders as it seeks to bulk up in metals, but the hire of Porto marks its attempt to crack copper, which is the largest base-metal market by value.

Other energy traders including Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. and Gunvor Group have also been expanding in metals, driving a hiring spree across the industry.

Vitol has already poached several people from Glencore’s trading teams, firstly in iron ore and then in aluminum.

Energy traders like Vitol are looking to metals to redeploy some of the bonanza profits earned during the bout of extreme volatility in oil, gas, coal and electricity prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Vitol is the world’s biggest independent trader of oil, moving around 7.3 million barrels of crude and oil products a day. Spokespeople for Vitol and Glencore declined to comment.

(By Archie Hunter, Anna Shiryaevskaya and Jack Farchy)

With the appointment, Pompeo now becomes the seventh member of ACG’s board, which also includes Lidya Mines’ founding CEO Mustafa Aksoy and Hendrik Johannes Faul, former head of Anglo American’s copper business.

Pompeo joins ACG as part of a strategic partnership the firm has signed with Impact Investments LLC, where he is executive chairman. Impact Investments is a US-based advisory that works with some of the world’s leading companies.

As part of this partnership, Impact Investments will advise and assist ACG as it pursues its ambitions as a leading global copper company serving the US and Western markets, the company stated.

ACG was founded by Artem Volynets, a former executive of Russian aluminum giant Rusal.

“We are delighted to welcome such a distinguished statesman and entrepreneur to ACG’s board,” stated Volynets, who now serves as chairman and CEO of ACG, having first established the company in 2014 as an advisory and investment management firm.

“Mike, and Impact Investments, will bring valued strategic advice to assist our future growth, including through M&A and strategic partnerships, as we seek to become the leading copper mining company on the LSE.”

“I am very pleased to join ACG, at such an exciting time for the business,” Pompeo stated, highlighting ACG’s progress to date with its $290 million acquisition of the Gediktepe mine in Türkiye last year.

Anchored by the Gediktepe mine, for which an expansion is underway to take its copper production to 25,000 tonnes annually, ACG aims to become one of few London-listed copper producers that could fill the supply gap under Chile’s Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO).

The goal for ACG is to build a mid-tier copper mining company, focusing on assets in North and South America, Europe and Africa, with annual production of 300,000 tonnes, Volynets in July 2024.

A rapidly evolving global landscape means that industry leaders are now facing numerous challenges that they must navigate, as well as opportunities that could be capitalized on, in the near future.

With that in mind, Deloitte has released the latest edition of its annual report, Tracking the Trends 2025, highlighting the top 10 trends that could shape the mining industry over the next 12 to 18 months.

Each of these trends, the firm says, has a role to play in guiding companies to help achieve their objectives as they seek to overcome today’s complex challenges and recognize opportunities:

1. Leading in a new era of mining and metals: Companies should look to evolve in order to succeed amidst economic, social, and environmental changes, which may require a new style of leadership. Today’s leaders in mining and metals should be inclusive, respect diverse perspectives, embrace new technologies, help ensure workforce health and safety, and be comfortable with transformative change and navigating uncertainty.
2. Shaping critical mineral supply chains: The limited diversification of global critical mineral supplies and increasing demands for value chain transparency are driving changes in the trade and investment landscape, making it complex for mining and metals companies to balance growth opportunities with supply chain risks while addressing economic growth, security, and infrastructure needs. To navigate these challenges, organizations are studying future scenarios, leveraging incentives and alliances, establishing leadership positions in new trade arrangements, and planning for agility.
3. Driving growth and resilience: Surviving and thriving in today’s dynamic marketplaces may require active portfolio management, including regularly assessing assets for their fit, cost, and strategic contribution. This ongoing process necessitates senior-level buy-in and commitment to help better position companies against market developments and uncontrollable factors.
4. Enhancing mineral exploration with AI: With potential global metal shortages looming, rapid mineral exploration and a steady pipeline of projects are crucial. Leveraging precompetitive geoscience data and applying AI to quality data can enhance efficiencies and speed up the identification of potential targets in the mineral exploration value chain.
5. Transforming the digital core: Many mining and metals companies may need to replace their current enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms with next-generation ERP software. Strategically timing these implementations with key business events can help maximize ROI, leverage organizational synergies, and position companies for future growth by creating a clean digital core and building reusable cloud assets.
6. Smart operations in mining and metals: Combining technology, data, and human experience enables businesses to work smarter by applying digital technologies like AI, digital twins, and predictive analytics at an enterprise scale. This blend can help optimize processes, boost productivity, make informed decisions across the value chain, and address challenges such as decarbonization through innovative designs.
7. The impact of GenAI on the mining and metals workforce: By reskilling and upskilling their workforces to harness GenAI, mining and metals companies may gain a significant future advantage, including lowering costs, boosting safety, and reinvigorating recruitment. A targeted upskilling program for existing employees can help prepare the company to meet future challenges and opportunities with data-driven insights and new ways of working.
8. Scaling progress toward net-zero: As mining and metal providers shift from preparation to execution in their decarbonization efforts, achieving net-zero is proving more complex due to concerns like energy and supply chain security and technological maturity. The pace of achieving net-zero can depend on factors such as access to finance, technological maturity, new business models for agility and resilience, and securing talent by highlighting the industry’s role in sustainability.
9. Making ESG strategies more value-led: The mining and metals industry recognizes that good sustainability practices are essential for maintaining its social license to operate. A more focused approach, emphasizing value generation over metrics, could better integrate ESG into business strategy, yielding benefits like cost-saving sustainable energy, community investments, and an expanded talent pool through enhanced diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
10. Generating a natural competitive advantage: The mining and metals industry has a significant financial imperative and opportunity to lead the transition to a more nature-positive economy by halting and reversing biodiversity loss. To achieve this, companies are exploring natural capital accounting and integrating nature-based solutions, but most will likely need to restructure their business models, requiring sufficient funding and strong leadership.

Read the

Handling this change doesn’t mean that people have to figure it out on their own. As Aaron and Layne can attest, having the right training and a supportive work environment can ensure that people have the skills and opportunity to complete projects successfully and grow quickly in their careers.

Working for Ledcor US Heavy Civil and Mining, both Aaron and Layne are part of a business approach that offers multiple services to mining companies across North America. After joining Ledcor in 2020, both have been key to the expansion of the company’s heavy civil division that has become one of its distinctive turnkey service offerings for clients.

Aaron started as a project coordinator and has worked his way up to project manager for projects in Nevada and Arizona. “Ledcor puts safety first in everything it does,” Aaron said.

“Having proper training, both in safety and project controls, allows us to maintain schedules and complete our work as safely and efficiently as possible. Teams really buy into this process when they see the ongoing success and happy clients.”

Looking back on 2024, a success story Aaron is proud of comes from a copper mine in Tucson, Arizona, where he helped complete 15 drill pads in extremely rocky conditions using a 336 excavator and a D8 dozer. There’s more to come in 2025, including the construction of two diversion ditches along with 50,000 cubic yards of drilling and blasting for rip rap placement.

Setting people up for success is a sentiment echoed by Layne, a Superintendent who recently finished a large reclamation project covering 4,000,000 square feet of an abandoned leach pad with 1 foot of topsoil using a 992K loader and 777 CAT trucks.

“It’s all about giving people the right skills and combining that with planning and effective scheduling to reach our goals safely and efficiently,” Layne said. “This plays such a key role in building strong relationships with our clients,” he continued. “More often than not, it also leads to extended contracts and potential for more work.”

In his four years with Ledcor, Aaron has seen rapid growth in the heavy civil services that the company provides. “Heavy civil has developed extensively over the past two years in work areas that were challenging previously,” he said.

“It has allowed us to handle more types of jobs, but came with a number of changes that we had to plan to support internally. Now we’re seeing these efforts paying off as the combination of our reputation for on time and on budget with both heavy civil and mining service offerings has really contributed positively to our long term client partnerships.”

These partnerships and growth in heavy civil have meant that Ledcor is always looking for people to join its growing team. From preparing mine sites, building facilities, and reclamation activities, to manage mine operations and extracting minerals, Ledcor has a wide scope of operations with many opportunities for people just getting into the industry to those who already have valuable experience.

Reflecting on their own starts in the industry, Aaron and Layne shared a few insights.

“Heavy civil and mining work is both challenging but extremely rewarding when projects are completed,” said Aaron. “Being able to adapt and having patience is a must because of how large and diverse the industry is.”

“Be open to change,” said Layne. “Change will be constant in any mining career, and being able to handle changing schedules, locations, people, and work scopes will really help both you and your clients have success.”

Ledcor US Heavy Civil and Mining, based in Reno, Nevada, provides services in mine construction, contract mining, engineering, and mine reclamation.

Explore job opportunities .

Thungela said in a statement Madondo is taking over from Ndlovu, who will reach the age of 60 years in July and has to step down according to the company’s retirement policy.

Ndlovu, an engineer, has been at the helm of Thungela, which mines coal burned in power stations, since it was spun off from Anglo American in 2021. Prior to that he had headed the Anglo coal division.

He steps down as South African coal producers including Exxaro Resources and Glencore struggle with a failing rail network system that is affecting shipments of the fossil fuel to ports for export.

Madondo, who is currently CEO of De Beers’ Managed Operations – the diamond giant’s operations in South Africa and Canada – was chosen after a “comprehensive selection process”, Thungela said.

He joins Thungela as the coal producer is expanding its operations in Australia in a bid to lessen volume losses in South Africa where the lack of sufficient rail capacity has hit income.

South Africa’s state-owned port and rail operator Transnet is struggling to provide adequate logistics services due to equipment shortages, cable theft and vandalism of infrastructure.

(By Nelson Banya and Felix Njini; Editing by Louise Heavens and David Evans)

Bories, CEO since 2017, has overseen a shift in Eramet’s strategy towards minerals used for electric vehicle batteries, notably by developing a lithium mine in Argentina that began production at the end of last year.

Eramet expects to announce Bories’ successor as CEO by the end of the first quarter, thereby separating the chief executive and chairperson roles, it said in a statement.

Eramet shares fell more than 2% in opening trade following the announcement.

The changes will be proposed to Eramet’s shareholders at the group’s annual meeting on May 27.

Bories told reporters on a call that it was her decision to relinquish the CEO role to devote more time to personal projects, adding she had no health issues and had the full support of the board.

The separation of the CEO and chair roles had been raised by Eramet in 2021 amid tensions over Bories’ renewal. The company’s largest shareholder, the Duval family, initially opposed extending her mandate before agreeing with the French state to back Bories.

A change of CEO made sense as Eramet was set for a new period in its development after expanding mine production rapidly in recent years, Bories said.

Sluggish Chinese demand remained a challenge for the mining sector, with the downcycle contributing to discussions over consolidation in the industry, she said.

Eramet in October sharply reduced its production targets for 2024, partly due to weaker Chinese demand and a reduced permit for nickel output in Indonesia.

(By Gus Trompiz)

These include two leading executives who have provided seed capital for the venture:

• Chad Holliday, former chair of Royal Dutch Shell, former chair of Bank of America, and former CEO of DuPont. Holliday has also served as chair of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and chair of Mission Possible Partnership. He is the lead investor in RR and its chief advisor.
• Mark Cutifani, the former CEO of Anglo American plc, current chair of Vale Base Metals, and former CEO of AngloGold Ashanti. Known for his leadership in transforming companies and advocating for responsible mining practices, Cutifani is also a board member of TotalEnergies and Laing O’Rourke.

Other members of the advisory council are:

• Prof. Elizabeth Robinson, Acting Dean, Global School of Sustainability at the London School of Economics. A leading environmental economist, Robinson has also been the director of the LSE’s Grantham Institute on Climate Change, and has over 25 years of research experience, particularly in low-income countries.
• Dame Meg Taylor, former Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum. A leading advocate for conflict resolution and sustainable development, Taylor was founding vice president of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman at the World Bank, and ambassador of Papua New Guinea to the US, Mexico and Canada.
• Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella, former UN Under-Secretary General, former founding CEO of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, and former Director-General of UNIDO. A distinguished development and agricultural economist, Dr. Yumkella is now chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Food Security in Sierra Leone.

“We are delighted to welcome these illustrious figures to our global advisory council. Geopolitical tensions, climate change, societal polarization and distrust may lead to more and more conflict over natural resources in the years ahead,” Daniel Litvin, founder of RR, stated in a press release.

“In this fraught context, we aim to create a space for balanced dialogue. With its senior and diverse perspectives, the council will help us identify how to create common ground between different groups, corporate, government, local community, and civil society,” he added.

Litvin previously founded Critical Resource, a leading advisory firm on sustainability and geopolitical risks which he sold in 2020 to ERM, the world’s largest sustainability consulting firm. He is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics and author of ‘Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility’.

The co-founder of RR is Chris Melville, formerly head of political risk with Tullow Oil, an Africa-focused upstream oil and gas company. Melville is a qualified community mediator and conflict resolution expert.

Greenland example

The founding of RR follows US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks about annexing Greenland, which has a strategic location and an abundance of critical mineral deposits, even if it means to use “military force”.

“I think what’s good about Greenland is it’s bringing a lot of attention to natural resources,” Holliday said last week. “When I was born, there were 2.5 billion of us. Now there’s 8 billion. We’ve just got to use these natural resources better to spread around to 8 billion people.”

Holliday also noted that the need to improve how those involved in natural resources deal with one another. At DuPont, for example, he said that some business leaders “weren’t very good” at taking in various perspectives, and so after they were dispatched into the field, they came back realizing “how poor a job they were doing of listening.”

Resource Resolutions, therefore, will have “endless” opportunities to smooth natural resource tensions through reconciliation, he added.

The venture, overseen by the global advisory council, will employ mediators and experts with experience working in natural resources and dealing with governments, local communities, hostile groups and commodities firms. They will encourage dialogue and try to anticipate any conflict before it happens.

Learn more about Resource Resolutions .

The duo has joined with other bankers and commodity industry veterans to form London-based Odin Partnership Ltd. Davis said they saw an opportunity as the commodities industry draws interest from a wider range of stakeholders from governments to technology companies trying to navigate a resource-constrained world.

“We’re at a fascinating point in the mining industry right now. There’s just so much happening,” Davis said in an interview. “We’re seeing countries becoming increasingly protective of their resources, and everyone’s finally getting real about the challenges of energy transition and decarbonization.”

Odin’s team includes Anvita Arora, formerly co-head of Asia Pacific equity capital markets for Bank of America, and Keyvan Zolfaghari, an ex-Nomura Holdings Inc. banker who now runs Odin’s structured equity solutions business.

Abdul Afridi, a former Bank of America banker who most recently worked at Keen Venture Partners, leads Odin’s venture investments. It’s also brought on former Anglo American technical director Tony O’Neill.

“Our team consists of bankers who have worked on transactions in M&A and capital markets for years, but also people who have operated and run large assets, portfolios or businesses,” Cutifani said.

Dealmaking revival

Odin was started last year against the backdrop of a wider revival of dealmaking in the global mining industry, after the biggest names spent most of the previous decade sitting on the sidelines.

Anglo American is breaking itself up after fending off a £34 billion ($42 billion) takeover approach from larger rival BHP Group. Glencore Plc made a run for Teck Resources Ltd. in 2023, which led to the Canadian miner’s sale of its coal unit. In October, Rio Tinto Group agreed to buy Arcadium Lithium Plc for $6.7 billion, stepping back into the M&A fray with its biggest deal in almost two decades.

The big mining players know they need to overhaul their portfolios for the future, so there’s “definitely appetite” for major deals, according to Davis. Private equity firms, pension managers and sovereign wealth funds are seeking to make bets in the space as well.

“The world, with its growing population, will only continue to get more resource-hungry in the next decades,” Davis said.

Davis was the global head of mining at Bank of America before retiring in 2023. After that, he had a brief stint helping restructure Indian metal tycoon Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Resources Ltd. Cutifani, 66, was Anglo American’s chief executive officer for about nine years until April 2022, helping get the firm back on track after a commodity slump.

Boutique advisers

Other longtime bankers and industry executives have also gone out on their own, with mixed results. Ex-Xstrata Plc boss Mick Davis started mining private equity firm X2 Resources in 2013, but the effort sputtered after he failed to find deals and investors asked for their money back.

On the advisory side, London is home to boutiques like Robey Warshaw, founded by ex-Wall Street bankers Simon Robey, Simon Warshaw and Philip Apostolides. In the US, former Citigroup Inc. rainmaker Michael Klein started his own shop more than a decade ago that’s won a series of high-profile mandates from clients like Glencore Plc and Saudi Aramco.

While dealmakers are hopeful that Donald Trump’s reelection will usher in a new wave of transactions, the optimism hasn’t yet been tested. The volume of mergers and acquisitions globally rose 15% last year to $3.3 trillion, a figure that’s still well below the $5.3 trillion peak in 2021, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Expansion plans

Odin has already taken on mandates from trading houses, Indian commodities conglomerates and private equity-backed businesses. It invested in IntelliSense.io, a provider of artificial intelligence software for metal producers, in addition to being its adviser.

For now, Odin is focused on energy, commodities and the energy transition. It plans to eventually apply the same model of mixing banking and corporate expertise to other sectors like health care and technology. Arora, one of Odin’s founding partners, said the firm aims to help its clients through the whole value chain from raising seed capital to managing life as a public company.

“We have both banking experience and the operational experience under one roof,” she said. “There aren’t many places that can do that.”

(By Dinesh Nair)

Vincent Lau will succeed Brown as the finance boss after serving as Wheaton’s vice president of finance for more than a decade.

(By Vallari Srivastava; Editing by Chris Reese)

An optimist by nature, I tend to think the trajectory of sovereign conduct towards foreign investors arcs towards reasonableness. And whilst jurisdictions like Mozambique and Zambia have demonstrated prudence in dealing with their foreign partners, my optimism was once again misplaced in 2024.

With the emergence of Coup Belt states thumbing their noses at the Western-led international order and cozying up to Russian and Chinese interests, the risks for foreign mining companies in Africa remain high. Meanwhile, the resource nationalist project commenced by Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico shows no signs of abating under his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum.

Hopefully, my misplaced optimism for 2024 will yield some lessons for 2025, so with that, I give you my new year’s resolutions for mining companies, 2025 edition:

Resolve to send the lawyers

When African states demand in-person meetings with company representatives to discuss alleged outstanding tax payments or other unsubstantiated penalties or fines, do not send company executives to attend those meetings. Local executives and lawyers will suffice. There is an unwritten rule that states should not lock up the lawyers. I seem to test that proposition routinely, but so far it has held true.

Resolve to maintain licences in good standing

No matter how good your lawyer is, if you have failed to meet bona fide statutory conditions for maintaining your permit in good standing, they will not be able to obtain sizeable damages from a state that lawfully terminated your concession.

Resolve to recognize that resource nationalism isn’t going away

Whether it’s Mexico or Burkina Faso, sovereigns continue to misguidedly pronounce that their own national companies are better equipped to mine the national resource endowment than pesky foreigners who spent years identifying, exploring and developing an asset. You may have heard them say that this time it’s different, that you’re special, but it’s not different and you’re not special. From junior to major, all companies face the scourge of resource nationalism.

So what to do? Well every year I advise to structure your investments in risky states to ensure recourse to international arbitration in the event of a dispute with the state. But what I also need to tell you is to keep “the receipts”.

 Take a contemporaneous minute of every meeting with government officials, even if they don’t agree to a final version. Record conversations if legal to do so (depending on the laws of the jurisdiction). Catalogue all correspondence and emails. Paper everything over. 

And by all means, don’t say anything in a letter or an email that you wouldn’t want an arbitration tribunal seeing later. 

Resolve to hire lawyers who can win

You wouldn’t hire a consultancy to produce an NI 43-101 who hadn’t done so before, so don’t hire lawyers to negotiate with or bring an arbitration claim against a sovereign who haven’t won a case before.

Arbitration lawyers love to talk about arbitration, but that’s a far cry from bringing a case to hearing, obtaining a favourable award and monetizing that award. Sovereigns know which lawyers to fear, so stick with the winners.

Timothy Foden is partner and co-head of the arbitration group at Boies Schiller Flexner, representing mining companies in disputes with sovereign nations. In 2023 he was named as a in the Future Leaders of Arbitration.

Mining is perhaps more crucial today than at any other point in human history. With the global push towards renewable energy, electrification and sustainable technologies, the demand for critical minerals and metals needed for the green transition is expected to surge over the next decade.

However, despite its pivotal role, the mining industry faces significant challenges that could hinder its ability to meet this demand. One of the most pressing challenges the industry faces is the decline in undergraduate enrolment in geology and mining programs, coupled with the retirement of key academic figures in the field. This trend is threatening to create a talent gap at a time when more geoscientists and miners than ever are needed to address the growing demand for critical minerals.

In recent years, universities across the globe have reported a decline in enrolment in geology and mining programs. At the University of Alberta, for example, which boasts one of the top solid earth geoscience departments in the world, enrolment in undergraduate geology programs has dwindled since the COVID-19 pandemic. This decline is not unique to Alberta; it is a widespread issue affecting many institutions with strong mining and geology programs.

There are several reasons behind this trend. First, budget cuts across universities have reduced the resources available to maintain and promote geology and mining departments. As a result, these departments struggle to attract new students and retain top faculty. Second, the public perception of mining is often negative, particularly among younger generations who are increasingly concerned with environmental sustainability. Many students may view mining as a “dirty” industry, contributing to environmental degradation rather than being part of the solution to the global climate crisis.

This perception is at odds with the reality of modern mining, which is evolving to meet the demands of the green economy. Mining is not only crucial for the extraction of critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel — essential for batteries, electric vehicles, and renewable energy infrastructure — but it is also undergoing a transformation towards more sustainable practices. Unfortunately, these positive developments have not been widely communicated to prospective students, contributing to the decline in enrolment.

Compounding the issue of declining enrolment is the retirement of key academic figures in geology and mining departments. At the University of Alberta, many of the professors who were instrumental in building the department’s reputation are either retiring or nearing retirement.

These professors have not only contributed to the advancement of ore geology and related subjects, but they have also been pivotal in mentoring the next generation of geologists and mining professionals.

The loss of these academic leaders presents a significant challenge for universities. Finding qualified replacements is becoming increasingly difficult due to the declining pool of candidates entering the field. Furthermore, the budget cuts faced by many institutions mean that even when vacancies are created, there may not be sufficient funding to fill them. This could lead to a shortage of faculty with the expertise necessary to educate and train students in the specialized areas of geology and mining that are critical to the industry’s future.

Despite these challenges, mining is perhaps more crucial today than at any other point in history. The transition to a green economy relies heavily on the extraction of critical minerals. For example, the International Energy Agency estimates that the demand for lithium could increase by over 40 times by 2040 if the world is to meet its climate goals. Similarly, demand for other essential minerals, such as copper and nickel, is expected to skyrocket. These minerals are essential for the production of electric vehicles, renewable energy infrastructure and energy storage solutions.

The irony is that while mining is central to the green transition, the industry is struggling to attract the talent necessary to drive innovation and ensure sustainable practices. This talent gap poses a significant risk to the industry’s ability to meet the growing demand for critical minerals. Without a steady influx of well-trained geologists and mining professionals, the industry may struggle to keep pace with the technological advancements needed to improve mining efficiency, reduce environmental impacts and meet regulatory standards.

To address the talent gap, the mining industry needs to take proactive steps to make geology and mining more attractive to undergraduate students. One way to achieve this is through targeted outreach and education efforts that highlight the industry’s role in the green economy. Students need to be made aware that mining is not just about extraction; it is about providing the materials necessary for a sustainable future. The industry must communicate the message that geologists and mining professionals are key players in the fight against climate change.

Additionally, the industry should invest in partnerships with universities to ensure that geology and mining departments have the resources they need to thrive. This could include funding scholarships for students interested in mining and geology, supporting research initiatives, and providing internships and job placement opportunities for graduates. By creating a clear pathway from education to employment, the industry can help alleviate concerns about job security and career prospects that may deter students from pursuing degrees in these fields.

Moreover, the mining industry can play a role in helping universities retain and attract top faculty. Industry partnerships can provide financial support for academic positions, ensuring that departments have the personnel necessary to maintain high standards of education and research. In turn, this will help universities cultivate the next generation of mining professionals and geologists who are essential to the industry’s long-term success.

Eric Dorais is a Master’s Student at the University of Alberta, studying Re-Os geochronology of ore minerals and ore-forming processes under Dr. Robert Creaser. His research involves dating samples from the Amitsoq site in Greenland, one of the highest-grade graphite deposits on Earth.

McEwen, chief owner of McEwen Mining (TSX: MUX; NYSE: MUX) that owns it all says it’s “a prudent time to start looking at where your investment is.”

“We may be on the cusp of a commodity supercycle,” he told The Northern Miner’s International Metals Symposium in London on Dec. 1.

Los Azules is one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper deposits. McEwen’s copper subsidiary owns it, and Rio Tinto (ASX, LSE, NYSE: RIO) and automaker Stellantis have invested around C$300 million.

It has 1.2 billion indicated tonnes grading 0.4% total copper for 10.9 billion lb. of contained metal and 4.5 billion inferred tonnes grading 0.31% total copper, for 26.7 billion lb. of metal. Analysts think it retains significant upside potential from over 100,000 metres of recent drilling.

A 2023 economic assessment shows it can produce 180,000 tonnes of copper each year over a 27-year mine life. . It has a three-year payback on $2.5 billion in capital costs. It has also benefited from Argentina’s pro-mining reforms.

McEwen envisions Los Azules as the world’s first regenerative copper mine. It will use solar power, water-efficient heap leaching and no tailings dams to reduce environmental impacts.

The company plans an IPO for next year after conducting a feasibility study and obtaining environmental permits.

Watch the full video below, moderated by TNM Group president Anthony Vaccaro.

Heeren, the current CEO of Anglo American in Peru, will start his new role on Feb.1, 2025, replacing Victor Gobitz Colchado, who is leaving the position for personal reasons, according to a company statement.

Antamina, controlled by Glencore, BHP, Teck and Mitsubishi, said that Heeren will oversee the mine’s optimization process as well as other projects focused on solving operational challenges.

The mine was Peru’s top copper producer in 2022, with an output of 467,905 metric tons, but has since fallen to number two, according to data from the Mines and Energy ministry. Production is expected to remain steady in 2024, in line with the 435,378 metric tons it produced last year.

Antamina said in May it was nearing the start of work on a $2 billion delayed project to extend the mine’s life to 2036, from 2028 currently.

(By Marco Aquino; Editing by Anthony Esposito, Alexander Villegas and Frances Kerry)