Le Cuivre

[energy_isere]

Suite de ce post du 25 mai 2017 http://www.oleocene.org/phpBB3/viewtopi ... 2#p2256942

La nouvelle mine de cuivre de Cobre au Panama à commencé à processer son premier minerai.
Pleine production en 2021.

Comme le gisement n'a pas une teneur élevée il leur faut un gigantesque centre de traitement de 85 millions de tonnes de minerais par an.

150 000 t de cuivre des cette année et 350 000 t en 2021.

Le gisement à été découvert en 1968.

Copper miner's $10B bet comes to life in Panama jungle
Bloomberg News |Feb 14 2019

The world’s largest new copper mine rumbled to a start this week in the Panamanian jungle, poised to supply a global market that’s tipping into deficit and gives First Quantum Minerals Ltd. a chance to prove its $10 billion investment was worth all the trouble.

Cobre Panama, a vast mining and processing complex near Panama’s Atlantic coast, processed its first ore on Monday, a half century after the deposit was discovered. At full production in 2021, it will turn Vancouver-based First Quantum into a top copper producer alongside giants like Freeport-McMoRan Inc. and BHP Group.

For Panama, it’s the biggest investment ever outside the canal and makes the Central American country a key supplier to a copper market facing labor unrest and governments grasping for greater takes. The $6.3 billion project will be able to ship its concentrate, thanks to the Panama Canal, to just about any smelter in the world.
........

First Quantum expects Cobre Panama to produce 150,000 tons this year and ramp up to as much as 350,000 in 2021. That would bring its global production (including other mines in Zambia, Turkey, Mauritania and Finland) to about 900,000 tons per year.

.......
First Quantum’s approach at Cobre Panama (cobre is Spanish for copper) has been an all-in bet. In part, that’s because the deposit’s low grade meant it couldn’t be developed more cautiously piecemeal. “Every company’s preferred route is to start relatively small,” Newall said. “But this one, you needed scale out of the gate.”

The company built the world’s biggest processing complex in a single location, which will ramp up to a capacity of 85 million tons a year. It’s spending more upfront on costly electrification, calculating that over the 40-year project life, it’ll recoup the investment in savings: the massive trucks used to haul rock uphill normally consume 400 liters an hour of diesel. Yet hitched to an electric trolley system like an urban streetcar, each will use only 40 liters an hour at double the speed, and require 30 percent less maintenance, Pascall says.
.......

http://www.mining.com/web/copper-miners ... ma-jungle/





An aerial view of First Quantum's Cobre Panama project near Panama City. Courtesy of First Quantum Minerals

http://magazine.cim.org/en/news/2018/fi ... rt-ruling/

[energy_isere]

Codelco va bien démarrer le projet d'exploitation souterainne de Cuivre à Chuquicamata au milieu de l' année.

Codelco to kick off Chuquicamata underground by mid-year

Cecilia Jamasmie feb 28 2019


At more than 1,100 metres deep, Chuquicamata is the world's largest open pit copper mine. (Courtesy of Codelco via Flickr.)

Chile’s Codelco, the world’s No. 1 copper producer, plans to kick off underground operations at its century-old Chquicamata mine by mid-year, chairman Juan Benavides said Wednesday.

The $4.9 billion-switch, part of Codelco’s 10-year, $39 billion-overhaul of its core mines, is expected to extend the mine’s life by at least 40 years. This will allow the copper giant keep production rates, despite falling ore grades and increasing costs at its assets.

The announcement comes as the Chilean government handed the state miner the remaining $400 million of the $1 billion "extraordinary" capitalization it promised Codelco last year.

"This is a show of the confidence we have in the company and in the importance of these resources for Codelco to be able to complete its structural reform program," said Finance Minister Felipe Larraín, according to EFE news agency.

Codelco, which hands over all of its profits to the state, holds vast copper deposits, accounting for 10% of the world's known proven and probable reserves and about 11% of the global annual copper output with 1.8 million metric tonnes of production.

“Chuqui” — as locals call it — and the nearby by Radomiro Tomic mines produced 653,000 tonnes of the company's total 1.8 million tonnes of output last year.

Annual production from the mine after the full transition from surface to underground extraction is projected to be 320,000 tonnes of fine copper and 15,000 tonnes of molybdenum.

http://www.mining.com/codelco-to-kick-o ... -mid-year/

[energy_isere]

Le Cuivre monte à 6510 dollar par tonne, les stocks au plus bas depuis 2005.

Copper price surges as stocks hit 12-year lows

Frik Els | Feb. 22, 2019,

The price of copper surged nearly 3% on Friday after stocks held in global warehouses operated by the LME fell to the lowest since 2005.

Copper for delivery in March hit $2.9535 per pound ($6,510 a tonne) by midday on the Comex market, the highest level since the start of July last year. The price spiked in heavy volumes with nearly 1.5m tonnes worth $9.5 billion traded by lunchtime in New York.

London Metal Exchange copper inventories were slashed in half from the previous day to just under 40,000 tonnes, the lowest since August 2005, according to Reuters calculations. Global stocks of the bellwether metal are now nearly 395,000 tonnes below the same point last year.

That is despite a massive jump in imports by China, which consumes half the world’s copper.
..............

http://www.mining.com/copper-price-surg ... year-lows/

[energy_isere]

Le gisement de Pebble en Alaska est un des plus gros gisement de cuivre inexploité de la planète.
Le cuivre de Pebble est en plus en combinaison avec de l'or et de l'argent.

Northern Dynasty raises $10 million to develop Alaska Pebble project

March 13, 2019

Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX:NDM) has entered into a bought deal financing with Cantor Fitzgerald Canada to raise $10 million that will allow the miner to further advance its Pebble copper-gold-silver project in Alaska.

The deal prices the company’s shares at 64 Canadian cents, a 13.5% discount to the stock’s price before the financing was announced.

The Canadian miner has also granted the underwriters an over-allotment option to acquire up to an additional 2.34 million-plus shares, which could raise another $1.5 million.


The area where Pebble mine would be built, 320 km southwest of Anchorage, within the Bristol Bay watershed. (Image courtesy of Northern Dynasty Minerals.)

Development of the proposed mine was mostly stalled during the Obama administration, but is moving forward under President Donald Trump, who is in favour of increasing domestic mining.

The Vancouver-based company reached a key settlement in 2017 with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which ended a dispute over the agency’s decision to block construction of Pebble mine.

It came three months after Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) granted Northern Dynasty’s subsidiary — Pebble Limited Partnership — a long-awaited land-use permit.

And last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a draft environmental impact statement for the project, which shows no major data gaps or substantive impacts associated with a mine at the Pebble site.

The current resource estimates indicate the asset holds 6.5 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated categories containing 57 billion pounds copper, 71 million ounces gold, 3.4 billion pounds of molybdenum and 345 million ounces of silver. In the inferred category, Pebble has 4.5 billion tonnes — 25 billion pounds copper, 36 million ounces of gold, 2.2 billion pounds of molybdenum and 170 million ounces of silver. Palladium and rhenium are also present at the site.

The company is still looking for a partner as fellow Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals (TSX:FM) pulled out last year.

http://www.mining.com/northern-dynasty- ... ne-alaska/

La page wikipedia en Anglais dit

Pebble is the largest known undeveloped copper ore body in the world, measured by either the amount of contained metal or the amount of ore.[37]

Northern Dynasty estimated that Pebble contains over $300 billion worth of recoverable metals at early 2010 prices.[38]

A report released by Northern Dynasty in 2011 predicted profits for mine owners from a large-scale open-pit mine at Pebble, given appropriate assumptions about construction costs ($4.7 billion), scale (200,000 tons per day), lifetime (45 years), metal prices over that lifetime (2011 prices) and the mine design plan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_Mine

[energy_isere]

Un projet de mine de Cuivre à ciel ouvert très avancé en Arizona. Développement évalué à 1.9 milliards de dollars.

Hudbay Minerals granted final permit for $1.9B Rosemont copper mine

23 March 2019

Canadian miner Hudbay Minerals scored a big win this week after the U.S. Forest Service approved the company’s mine plan of operations (MPO) for its $1.9 billion Rosemont copper project in Arizona.

“Rosemont is now a fully permitted, shovel-ready copper project and we look forward to developing this world-class asset,” president and chief executive Alan Hair said in a statement.

The project, located about 50 km southeast of Tucson, contemplates an open pit on the eastern slope of the Santa Rita that will churn out 112,000 tonnes of copper concentrate a year.

It’s expected to be the third-largest copper mine in the U.S., employing about 500 people and accounting for approximately 10% of the country’s total copper production.

Hudbay Minerals and Rosemont’s previous owner, Augusta Resources, had pushed to get the mine permitted for more than a decade, during which the project faced local opposition and skepticism from regulators about water issues in the semi-arid region.

Only last week, the Toronto-based miner received the long-awaited water permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, after outlining several measures to reduce impacts on the environment, including what it said it was an "unprecedented" use of dry-stack tailings.

Hudbay intends to squeeze water for reuse from about 528 million tonnes of processed ore and to reduce water use by about 50%, compared to what it would consume if it were to use conventional tailings.

.......

http://www.mining.com/hudbay-minerals-g ... pper-mine/

[energy_isere]

Au Chili Antofagasta va investir 1.3 milliards de dollars dans la mine de cuivre de Los Pelambres pour augmenter la production de 40 000 t annuel d'ici mi 2021 puis 75 000 t plus tard.

Ça comprend 500 millions de dollars pour une usine de desalination.

http://www.mining.com/antofagasta-expec ... nnes-year/

[energy_isere]

RDC : Ivanhoe veut faire de Kamoa-Kakula la deuxième plus grande mine de cuivre au monde

Agence Ecofin. 29 mars 2019

En RDC, le projet Kamoa-Kakula pourrait devenir, à partir de sa douzième année d’exploitation, la deuxième plus grande mine de cuivre en production au monde. Avec une production annuelle de 740 000 tonnes, il devancera en volume, les mines Grasberg (Indonésie) et Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolie).

La compagnie détentrice du projet, Ivanhoe Mines a publié une évaluation économie préliminaire d’un projet d’expansion censé porter la capacité de traitement à 18 millions de tonnes/an. Elle veut développer une mine de 6 millions de tonnes/an à Kakula, suivie de deux autres mines de même capacité à Kansoko et Kakula Ouest.

La production annuelle moyenne sur les dix premières années d’opération devrait être de 386 000 tonnes/an.

Il faudra dépenser un capital initial de 1,1 milliard $ pour développer la mine Kakula. Les flux de trésorerie qui résulteront de l’exploitation de ce premier gisement serviront à financer les expansions de Kansoko et Kakula Ouest, ainsi qu’une fonderie.

La plus grande mine de cuivre actuellement en production est la mine Escondida, exploitée au Chili par BHP et Rio Tinto.

https://www.agenceecofin.com/cuivre/290 ... e-au-monde

[energy_isere]

Codelco va investir 3.4 milliards de dollars dans l'agrandissement de la mine de cuivre souterraine de El Teniente. Ça la fera tenir 50 ans de plus. Cette mine de Cuivre est la plus grande mine de cuivre en souterrain au monde.

Chile's Codelco to boost production at El Teniente copper mine

Cecilia Jamasmie 29 March 2019



Chile’s state miner Codelco, the world’s No.1 copper producer, plans to boost production at its El Teniente mine to more than 500,000 tonnes per year by 2025, a first in the operation’s history.

The production increase would position the mine, which produced 465,000 tonnes of the red metal in 2018, among the world's five largest copper operations, local paper El Mercurio reports.

As part of the plan, Codelco — which hands over all of its profits to the state — aims at raising the annual surplus generated by the El Teniente division by 20%. Currently it contributes about $1 billion.

The miner also expects to reduce the division’s cash costs, with the goal of setting them at $1 per pound of copper.

El Teniente is the world’s biggest underground copper mine and the sixth largest by reserve size. Located 80km south of Santiago in the Andes mountain range in Chile, the facility is undergoing an extensive $3.4 billion-expansion project called El Teniente New Mine Level project to extend its productive life by 50 years.

The expansion, expected to be completed in 2013, is part of an ambitious, 10-year, $39 billion investment drive at Codelco to open new projects and overhaul older mines.

The state-miner holds vast copper deposits, accounting for 10% of the world's known proven and probable reserves and about 11% of the global annual copper output with 1.8 million tonnes of production.

http://www.mining.com/chiles-codelco-bo ... pper-mine/

[energy_isere]

La production de Cuivre 2018 de Codelco chute de 3 %.
Les profits chutent fortement.
Le projet de conversion de la mine de Chuquicamata en mine souterraine est réalisé aux trois quart.

Chile's Codelco copper output drops in 2018, profits plunge

29 March 2019

Chilean state miner Codelco produced slightly less copper in 2018 than the year before, the company reported on Friday, as it continued to contend with declining ore grades and rising costs at its aging mines.

Chief Executive Nelson Pizarro said the company produced 1.678 million tonnes of copper at its own mines in 2018, down 3.3 percent from the previous year, and a total of 1.806 million tonnes, including production from its joint ventures at El Abra and Anglo American South.

Codelco, the world's top copper producer, reported a 2018 pre-tax profit of $2.002 billion, down from $2.885 billion the previous year as production costs rose 2 percent and the price of copper fell from 2017. Codelco said it also took a one-time deduction for deteriorating assets of nearly $400 million, for a total drop in pre-tax profits of 44.3 percent.

Pizarro said at a presentation at Codelco's Santiago headquarters that 18 labor negotiations at its mines had also affected the bottom line but that productivity increases kept costs in line with industry averages.

Pizarro predicted a copper price of $2.95 per pound for 2019.

Codelco, which produces nearly 10 percent of the world’s copper, is investing billions of dollars to convert its Chuquicamata mine, its second-largest deposit, from an open pit mine into an underground facility.

Pizarro said the Chuquicamata project was approaching 76 percent complete. It is a central part of a 10-year, $39 billion overhaul of the state miner's key operations as it seeks to maintain production despite rapidly falling ore grades at its deposits.


Chuquicamata, the world's largest open pit copper mine, will become an underground-only operation next year. (Image courtesy of Codelco via Flickr.)


Codelco Vice President Alejandro Rivera said the company would begin applying in May for the environmental permits it needs to begin exploring for lithium on its Maricunga salt flat holding. Rivera said Codelco hoped to have results from those explorations by the end of 2020.

The company's lithium projects are off to a slow start. Codelco has yet to find a partner for either its Maricunga or Perdernales project.

http://www.mining.com/web/chiles-codelc ... osts-rise/

[energy_isere]

Le gouvernement de l'Ouganda veut relancer la mine de Cuivre de Kilembe.

Uganda seeks again to redevelop defunct Kilembe copper mine

2 April 2019

The Ugandan government is making another attempt to reopen a defunct copper mine estimated to contain 4 million tonnes of ore, it said on Tuesday, and several international firms have expressed interest in the project.

Once a major producer of copper and cobalt, Kilembe was abandoned by Canadian firm Falconbridge in the 1970s when Uganda's economy stagnated under the erratic leadership of dictator Idi Amin Dada.

Previous government efforts to revive the mine, near Uganda's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, were stymied by a downturn in the commodities market and a failed 2013 deal with a Chinese investor, eventually cancelled after years of slow progress and missed targets.

The ore in Kilembe mine is estimated to be 1.98% pure copper and 0.17% cobalt, Uganda's Department of Geological Survey and Mines said.

More than 20 companies had expressed interest in the tender, Evelyn Anite, the state minister for investment and privatisation, told Reuters.

Jennifer Hinton, director for East African operations at Canadian miner M2 Cobalt Corp, told Reuters it was one of the firms that had jointly expressed interest in the mine, along with partner Australia's Jervois Mining Ltd.

M2 already owns 2,400 square kilometres of exploration acreage in Uganda, some near the Kilembe Mines.

"The Kilembe Mine was historically a significant copper producer, and the best place to find more copper is around a copper mine," said Hinton. "With serious investment in the right modern exploration techniques we believe the potential for discovery of new deposits is high."

The government decided to redevelop the Kilembe Mine, which sits on the foothills of the ice-capped Rwenzori mountains, in a cabinet meeting on Monday. The redevelopment would include "further mineral exploration to add to the known reserve base," a government statement said.

http://www.mining.com/web/uganda-seeks- ... pper-mine/

[energy_isere]

Suite de ce post du 17 fev 2019 http://www.oleocene.org/phpBB3/viewtopi ... 2#p2280802

A peine la mine de Cobre Panama atteint le début de son activité que l'opérateur pense à l'agrandissement.

First Quantum plans $327m expansion of giant copper mine in Panama

2 April 2019

Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals is planning a $327 million expansion of its already massive mining and processing complex in Panama, the largest copper mine coming to market over the next couple of years and the biggest single private sector investment in the nation's history.

According to an updated technical report for Cobre Panama, located about 120 km west of Panama City and 20 km from the Atlantic coast, the Toronto-based company expects to grow it from 85 million tonnes per year to 100 million annual tonnes, beginning in 2023.


The expanded throughput involves the earlier development of the adjacent Colina pit, the addition of a ninth mill, an expanded mining equipment fleet, additional conveyors, an in-pit crusher and other infrastructure to access the nearby pit.

In 2017, First Quantum spent close to $1 billion to advance construction at Cobre Panama (cobre is Spanish for copper), investing a further $830 million in 2018. This year, the company plans to allocate around $110 million to keep advancing the project until it reaches its full capacity of more than 375,000 annual tonnes of copper.

Cobre Panama processed its first ore in early February, fifty years after the deposit was discovered, but only six years since First Quantum gained control over it through the acquisition of rival Canadian copper miner Inmet Mining.

Once it reaches full production, expected in 2021, First Quantum’s total production will surpass 900,000 tonnes a year, placing it among the world’s top six copper producers.
.......

http://www.mining.com/first-quantum-pla ... ne-panama/

[energy_isere]

L’industrie du cuivre sera secouée en 2019 : déficit d’approvisionnement et hausse des prix en vue

Agence Ecofin 12 avril 2019

Selon Ivan Arriagada, PDG de la compagnie chilienne Antofagasta, l’industrie mondiale du cuivre sera secouée par plus de perturbations cette année qu’en 2018. Cela pourrait contribuer à un déficit d’approvisionnement alors que la demande du métal rouge continue d’augmenter.

Dans une interview accordée à Reuters, en marge de la Conférence mondiale du cuivre à Santiago (Chili), il a indiqué que la production mondiale de cuivre sera réduite d’environ 1 million de tonnes, cette année, contre 600 000 tonnes l’année passée.

Les causes avancées comprennent les conflits de travail, les conditions météorologiques extrêmes et les retards de projets inattendus.

Les fortes pluies dans le désert aride du nord du Chili et les protestations soutenues de deux mois des communautés autochtones à la mine Las Bambas gérée par MMG au Pérou pèsent déjà lourdement sur les approvisionnements potentiels en provenance d’Amérique du Sud. Selon M. Arriagada, cela renforcera le prix du cuivre dans un contexte de tensions commerciales mondiales.

« Nous allons avoir un déficit d'approvisionnement qui commencera à se faire sentir au cours des 24 prochains mois, ce qui non seulement soutiendra le prix actuel du cuivre, mais aussi le fera monter », a-t-il déclaré.

De belles perspectives s’annoncent pour les pays africains producteurs de cuivre, s’ils augmentent leurs volumes de production. Rappelons que la RDC est le premier producteur du métal rouge sur le continent, devant la Zambie.

https://www.agenceecofin.com/cuivre/120 ... rix-en-vue

[energy_isere]

Début d'extraction de Cuivre par attaque chimique in situ en Arizona.
C'est la 1ere fois que je vois ça pour le Cuivre.
25 millions de dollars investis dans le projet.

Taseko stock gets boost on first copper production in Arizona

April 16 2019

Shares of Taseko Mines Ltd. (TSX:TKO) jumped over 8% and hit a five-week high on Monday afternoon, bringing the company's market capitalization to nearly C$220 million. The company has just announced that its Florence copper production test facility in Arizona is now fully operational, from the wellfield to the SX/EW (solvent extraction and electrowinning) plant. Located between Phoenix and Tucson, Florence is an in situ project with 24 injection, recovery and monitoring wells.

According to the company, about 1.5 million tonnes of underground copper ore have been contacted with leach solution over the past three months. Copper concentrations in the solution has recently risen to levels which have allowed the SX/EW plant to begin operation and produce copper.

........
"Florence will produce an average of 85 million pounds [approximately 38,500 metric tonnes] of copper annually for 20 years at an average operating cost of $1.10 per pound. With a net present value of roughly C$1 billion, there is a huge disconnect with Taseko’s market capitalization,” added Hallbauer.
........

http://www.mining.com/taseko-stock-gets ... -florence/

Sur le site de l'industriel Taseko on voit

The Phase 1 facility, which includes 24 injection, recovery and monitoring wells and an SX/EW plant, was completed in the third quarter 2018, on-time and on budget.

Probable Reserves of 345 million tons grading 0.36% Cu

https://www.tasekomines.com/properties/florence-copper

Les sites d'injection/recovery



Ce qui sort de l'usine de traitement c'est des feuilles de Cuivre pur par électrolyse.

[energy_isere]

La dernière fiche USGS sur le cuivre avec le chiffre de 2018 : https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs ... -coppe.pdf



ce que j' avais posté il y a un an : http://www.oleocene.org/phpBB3/viewtopi ... 4#p2271774

[energy_isere]

Suite de ce post du 30 mars 2019 http://www.oleocene.org/phpBB3/viewtopi ... 1#p2282371

RDC : Ivanhoe a réuni sa part du capital nécessaire au développement du gisement Kakula

Agence Ecofin 26 avril 2019

Ivanhoe Mines dispose désormais d’une encaisse totale d’environ 1 milliard $, soit largement plus que les 540 millions $ qu’elle doit débourser pour construire le gisement de cuivre de Kakula, en RDC. Le reste du capital de 1,1 milliard $ nécessaire au développement du projet sera fourni par le partenaire de coentreprise Zijin Mining.

Jeudi, Ivanhoe a annoncé un nouvel investissement de 454 millions $ de son actionnaire principal Citic Metal. Ce deuxième investissement majeur de Citic en moins d’un an, dont la clôture est prévue pour septembre prochain, fait suite à celui de 560 millions $ conclu en juin 2018.

« Citic Metal est actionnaire de Ivanhoe Mines depuis maintenant huit mois, et pendant ce temps, il a vu ce que nous savons déjà, que le projet Kamoa-Kakula est incontestablement le meilleur projet de développement de cuivre au monde », a déclaré le coprésident d’Ivanhoe, Robert Friedland.

En dehors du projet Kamoa-Kakula, les fonds devraient également être utilisés sur les autres projets d’Ivanhoe, qui comprennent les mines Kipushi (RDC) et Platreef (Afrique du Sud).

https://www.agenceecofin.com/investisse ... ent-kakula