Swiss trader and miner giant Glencore (LON: GLEN) has been accused by a group formed by some of the world’s biggest asset managers of hiding its corrupt activities through misleading statements.

Nearly 200 funds, including Fidelity, Vanguard, Legal & General, HSBC, Abrdn and Invesco, are seeking compensation for losses they allegedly suffered because of Glencore’s “untrue statements” and omissions made in its 2011 prospectus for listing on the London Stock Exchange.

They also argue the company and its senior leadership mislead investors in its 2013 prospectus for its merger with Xstrata.

The long list of claimants includes sovereign wealth funds such as GIC, Norges Bank, Mubadala, Aabar Holdings, Kuwait Investment Authority, and Oman Investment Authority.

Dozens of pension funds have also joined over the years, including Scottish Widows, Ontario Pension Board, and BP and Shell pension funds.

The action in London’s High Court follows Glencore’s admission of bribery and market manipulation last year, with the company agreeing to pay a total of $1 billion in fines and forfeitures in the United States, $355 million (£280m) in the UK, $180 million to Congo and $40 million in Brazil.

According to Financial Times, the investors case was lodged in the High Court between October 2022 and in spring this year. The claimants filed in June a joint “particulars of claim” outlining common allegations that cover six related legal cases.

Canada’s The Metals Company (NASDAQ: TMC) is ready to apply next year for a licence to start mining the seabed, with production expected to start as early as the fourth quarter of 2025.

TMC is a deep-sea mining pioneer, which has been actively carrying out exploratory mining expeditions to mineral-rich Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ). In this vast area between Hawaii and Mexico, polymetallic nodules the size of potatoes were discovered more than 120 years ago.

The company’s plan is to scoop up those nodules in a process they say will be less damaging than land-based mining.

TMC said earlier this week that its subsidiary, Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI), intended to submit an application to the International Seabed Authority (ISA) after the global regulator meets in July next year.

“Assuming a one-year review process, NORI expects to be in production in the fourth quarter of 2025,” TMC said in the market update.

In its recent assembly, held last month, the ISA was expected to come out with rules governing the activity, including the permitting process.

After tense discussions and the pressure of several governments to extend a moratorium, the United Nations-affiliated body ruled out the immediate issuing of permits. It did, however, maintain a legal loophole that would allow mining to begin next year.

The Jamaica-based watchdog received in 2021 a formal request from the tiny Pacific Island of Nauru for a commercial deep-sea mining licence. The move triggered a clause that put the ISA on a two-year countdown to consider the application, despite the lack of regulations in place.

Supporters of mining the seabed note the nascent industry could boost supplies of metals needed for the global energy transition, including nickel, cobalt and copper.

Insufficient risk awareness
In the fall of 2022, TMC said it had successfully deployed its treaded vehicle in the Pacific’s CCZ, sucking up more than 3,000 tonnes of polymetallic nodules and transporting them up a 4.3-km system of pipes to its mother ship.

Earlier this year, three advocacy groups claimed that TMC appeared to be caught violating its protocols after two videos were leaked purporting to show waste sediment getting dumped into the Pacific Ocean during the expedition.

An investigation by ISA on the matter, published in May and whose findings have not been previously reported, concluded the spill did not breach the regulator’s rules or cause serious environmental harm.

The authority, however, concluded TMC’s handling of the incident showed “insufficient risk awareness” and failure to follow its own risk management procedures.

Duncan Currie, a lawyer at the non-profit Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, said the ruling was not harsh enough. “If [the ISA] does not consider a spill such as this to be a problem, this raises real concerns about their ability to regulate a full-blow mining operation,” he told Financial Times this week.

“Kick in the teeth”
Greenpeace campaigner Louisa Casson described TMC’s announcement as a “kick in the teeth” for the 21 countries that are calling for a halt. Besides these nations there are others demanding a “precautionary pause” until protections are in place, while France is pushing for a complete ban.

He added that “instead of acting on scientific findings, which conclusively prove this industry will put the oceans in danger, [TMC is] announcing fanciful plans to ramp up production in a desperate attempt to reassure their worried investors and save their plummeting share price.”

A paper published last month claims that extracting minerals from the ocean floor would negatively impact the tuna industry as the fish is expected to migrate habitat towards areas of the Pacific Ocean currently slated for deep-sea mining activity.

The peer-reviewed article followed a similar study unveiled in May, which warns that mining the seabed may affect thousands of species recently discovered in the CCZ region, where the Metals Company already has two exploration contracts.

It also came on the heels of a report by non-profit financial think tank Planet Tracker arguing that the price tag of fixing the damage caused by mining the ocean floor would double the cost of extracting the minerals companies have set sights on.

Australia’s South32 (ASX, LON: S32) announced on Monday a US$1.3 billion non-cash impairment expense on its Hermosa zinc-lead-silver project in southern Arizona, which will be reflected in its 2023 financial results.

The Perth-based miner said recent studies show Hermosa’s Taylor zinc-lead-silver and Clark battery-grade manganese deposits can be developed independently. For accounting purposes, this means the company needs to assess separately what was considered a single project.

South32 blamed high costs for steel, cement and electrical components for pushing up the price of developing the Taylor deposit, which is the largest asset within the Hermosa project.

It also said that since acquiring Hermosa, in August 2018, several factors have negatively impacted the value of the Taylor deposit. These include covid-19-related restrictions that curtailed development activity during 2020 and 2021, dewatering requirements that delayed the timeline to first production and a required US$365-million investment to access the orebody.

After the impairment, Hermosa’s carrying value at the end of June would be around US$1 billion, South32 said. The Taylor deposit’s would sit at US$482 million, but the carrying value of the Clark deposit and regional exploration land package would remain unchanged at around US$519 million.

“The Hermosa project has the potential to sustainably produce commodities critical for a low-carbon future, from multiple development options, for decades to come,” chief executive Graham Kerr said.

“We are disappointed by the delays resulting from the impact of covid, the significant dewatering requirements and current inflationary market conditions,” Kerr noted.

South32 added Hermosa in May to the US FAST-41 process, a legislation aimed at promoting faster development of clean energy assets and other infrastructure.

The company said at the time that the project was the country’s only advanced mine development as of 2023 able to produce two federally designated critical minerals — manganese and zinc.

South Africa, Gabon and Australia account for more than two-thirds of production of manganese, mainly used in the steel sector. Domestic output in the US — which once had mines in states including Virginia — ended in the 1970s.

Resource increase and production records
South32 said separately that the feasibility study for the Taylor deposit was on track for delivery in the first half of 2024.

Work to date, the company said, has validated the potential for a zinc-lead-silver underground mine and conventional processing plant with a nameplate processing rate of up to 4.3 million tonnes per year.

The asset, it said, had seen a 41% increase in the “measured” resources category.

The company noted the Clark deposit could supply high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) for the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain in North America, providing a second development option at Hermosa.

The impairment overshadowed South32’s report of three annual production records in aluminum, copper and manganese as part of its June 2023 quarter results.

South32’a copper production jumped by 9% in the three months to June 30, while aluminum output rose 14% in the fiscal year 2023.

Base metals production also surged, registering a 17% increase for the year as the miner embedded the Sierra Gorda copper operation in its portfolio, while the Cannington zinc-lead-silver and Cerro Matoso nickel operations achieved revised guidance.

Mining and commodities giant Glencore (LON: GLEN) has offered PolyMet Mining (NYSE: PLM) (TSX: POM) to buy the company’s shares it does not already own for US$2.11 in cash each, or about US$71 million.

The move will give the Swiss giant a direct ownership of NorthMet, poised to be Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine. It will also make it Teck Resources’ (TSX: TECK.A, TECK.B)(NYSE: TECK) 50-50 partner in the NewRange Copper Nickel joint venture, which own NorthMet and the Mesaba copper, nickel, cobalt, and platinum group metal deposits.

Glencore attempted in April to acquire Teck, Canada’s largest diversified miner, for US$23 billion. After being rejected several times and faced scrutiny from Ottawa, the firm approached Teck in June with a proposal to buy its steelmaking coal business for an undisclosed valuation.

The bid price for the rest of PolyMet is at par with the Minnesota-based miner’s rights offering in April, which increased Glencore’s ownership stake in the company to about 82.2%.

NorthMet and Mesaba contain measured and indicated resources of 637 million tonnes and 2.0 billion tonnes respectively. Additional inferred resources sit at 400 million tonnes for NorthMet and 1.3 billion tonnes for Mesaba.

In total, the two assets represent approximately one-half of the known 7.25-billion-tonne Duluth Complex resource in northeastern Minnesota.

NorthMet is expected to produce 29,000 tonnes of ore per day over a 20-year permitted mine life, with first production targeted for 2026. Over its first full five years of operations, it is expected to deliver annual payable production of 30,000 tonnes of copper, 3,600 tonnes of nickel, 58,000 oz. of palladium, and 12,000 oz. of platinum. Estimates for Metsaba are currently unclear.

Shares of PolyMet more than doubled in pre-market trading in New York to US$1.87. The company has a market capitalization of almost US$153 million.

Canadian junior Prosper Gold (TSX-V: PGX) has inked an option agreement with to DS Resources and Mohave Mine Partnership to acquire a 100% interest in the Mohave gold project in Arizona, US, which has a long history of exploration and small-scale mining dating back to 1865.

The company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Prosper Gold USA, will pay $3.35 million in cash and $1.7 million for work expenditures over a five-year period to secure full ownership of the property.

“The opportunity to acquire the Mohave gold project was one we could not pass up,” chief executive Peter Bernier said in the statement. “The exploration potential for high-grade gold on this project is clear and we look forward to drilling the multitude of mineralized zones, many of which have never been drilled”.

The new asset is expected to complement Prosper Gold’s Golden Sidewalk project in Red Lake, Ontario, allowing for year-round exploration on two highly prospective land packages in low-risk jurisdictions.

The project includes 160 contiguous mining claims, which cover 1,176 hectares in Mohave County, Arizona.

After completing the cash payment, Prosper Gold said it would grant a 1.5% net smelter royalty to the DS Resources, Mohave Mine Partnership and Desert Ventures.

Hudbay Minerals (TSX, NYSE: HBM) has moved closer to the Phase 1 start of its Copper World complex in Arizona as it was officially determined that these deposits, which are situated on private land, would not face the same water permit issue that stymied its Rosemont project located on public land to the east.

In an update on Wednesday, Hudbay announced that it has received confirmation from the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) that Hudbay’s previous surrender of the Section 404 Clean Water Act permit for the former Rosemont project was formally accepted and revoked as requested.

The ACOE also reaffirmed the validity of the March 2021 approved jurisdictional determinations (AJDs), whereby the ACOE determined there are no waters of the US on the property, and therefore, a 404 permit is not required.

State permitting for the Copper World project was initiated in June 2021 with the submission of Hudbay’s mined land reclamation plan, which has been approved. Then, in April 2022, Hudbay surrendered the 404 permit to the ACOE as there is no evidence of jurisdictional waters of the US on the former Rosemont project site.

A judge from the US District Court for the District of Arizona later affirmed that Hudbay’s surrender of the 404 permit was effective, and that the new Copper World project is not connected to the previous federal permitting process.

In late 2022, Hudbay submitted the state-level applications for an aquifer protection permit and an air quality permit to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). The company expects to receive these two remaining state permits in 2023.

In January 2023, Hudbay received an approved right-of-way from the Arizona State Land Department that will allow for infrastructure, such as roads, pipelines and powerlines, to connect between the properties in the company’s private land package at Copper World. Clearing and grading work to prepare for the Copper World site, including the construction of roads and other facilities, are underway.

Phase I of Copper World reflects a 16-year standalone operation with processing infrastructure on Hudbay’s private lands and mining occurring on patented mining claims, requiring only state and local permits. During that span, the open-pit mine is expected to produce 86,000 tonnes of copper annually, according to the preliminary economic assessment released in June 2022.

Pre-feasibility activities for the private land Phase I of the Copper World project are well-advanced, says Hudbay, and a pre-feasibility study is expected to be released in mid-2023. Phase 2 would extend the mine life to 44 years with estimated annual production of 101,000 tonnes through an expansion onto federal land to mine the entire deposits, but would be subject to the federal permitting process.

Upon receipt of the state-level permits for Phase 1, the company also expects to conduct a bulk sampling program at Copper World to continue to de-risk the project by testing grade continuity, variable cut-off effectiveness and metallurgical strategies.

Hudbay also intends to initiate a minority joint venture partner process following receipt of these permits, which will allow the potential JV partner to participate in the design and funding of definitive feasibility study activities in 2024.

Shares of Hudbay Minerals rose 3.7% by 1 p.m. ET, giving the Toronto-based copper and zinc miner a market capitalization of US$1.35 billion in New York