Oil and gas giant Shell (LSX: SHEL) is tapping into the mining electrification market with the launch of a consortium that seeks to help miners speed up the adoption of electric trucks and reduces emission without compromising on efficiency or safety.

The British multinational has attracted eight companies working on energy storage, ultrafast charging technologies and renewables to launch an end-to-end, interoperable electrification system pilot for 220 off-road vehicles.

The partners include Skeleton, Microvast, Stäubli, Carnegie Robotics, Heliox, Spirae, Alliance Automation and Worley.

Some of the key components of the power provision and energy management solution come from Alliance Automation, a multi-disciplined industrial automation and electrical engineering company.

Spirae, a technology company that develops solutions for integrating renewable and distributed energy resources within microgrids and power systems, and Skeleton, a global technology leader in fast energy storage, also apported their know-how.

Worley, in turn, is providing expertise in project delivery and consulting services for the resources and energy sectors.

Microvast, a leader in the design, development and manufacture of battery solutions for mobile and stationary applications, leads the in-vehicle energy storage side of things.

The ultra-fast charging element involves solutions from Carnegie Robotics, a provider of rugged sensors, autonomy software and platforms for defence, agriculture, mining, marine, warehouse and energy applications.

Shell described the initiative as being critical since transport equipment comprises up to 50% of mining’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Eight-year plan

By 2030, it is estimated that a battery-electric haulage truck will lower total cost of ownership, involve 20% lower maintenance costs, and 40% lower fuel costs than existing diesel trucks, Shell said.

“It is increasingly clear that no one, single organisation can solve decarbonisation alone,” said Grischa Sauerberg, vice president, sectoral Decarbonization & Innovation at Shell. 

The global company plans to be a net-zero business by 2050 in accordance to climate change strategy laid out in the UN Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit the rise in average global temperature to 1.5° Celsius.

The commercial offering from the partners is expected in 2025. It would follow a pilot solution that will be tested at a Shell facility in Hamburg, Germany, next year, as well as final field trials at selected mine sites in 2024.

Metso Outotec has been engaged by TNG Ltd., an Australian resource company, to conduct a study on reducing Mount Peake titanium-vanadium-magnetite concentrates with Circored, a technology that uses hydrogen as its only reductant source. As part of the study, Metso Outotec will perform a techno-economic assessment to integrate the technology into TNG’s innovative Tivan process that yields high-purity vanadium pentoxide, Titanium dioxide and iron ore.

Metso Outotec earlier completed positive test work which confirmed the applicability of hydrogen-based reduction for Mount Peake concentrates for TNG. Now, it will further define the process flowsheet for the Mount Peake project and prepare a preliminary capital cost and operating cost for a Circored plant.

Circored, part of Metso Outotec’s Planet Positive portfolio, is a process that uses hydrogen as the sole reducing agent in the reduction of ores, enabling carbon neutrality for metal processing plants by eliminating the need for expensive and energy intensive pelletizing. It is designed an alternative to the traditional blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace steelmaking.

Circored is currently the only 100% hydrogen-based process for iron ore reduction that has proven its functionality and performance in an industrial-scale demonstration plant. The plant, which commenced operations in 1999 in Trinidad, produced over 300,000 tonnes of high-quality hot briquetted iron over several months of successful operation.

For more details on the Circored technology, visit Metso Outotec’s website.

COMMENTS

Sandfire Resources (ASX: SFR) said on Tuesday it will spend additional $71.9 million to expand production at its under-construction Motheo copper mine in Botswana, as the Australian firm plans to set a major mining hub in the Kalahari Copper Belt.

Motheo mine is the second copper mine to be developed in the region, which extends over nearly 1,000 km from northeast Botswana to western Namibia.

The additional investment will allow Sandfire to boost production at Motheo from the original 3.2 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 5.2 mtpa.

Production from the base case project remains on schedule for June 2023 and the company said it would ramp up production immediately after receiving environmental and mining approvals for the expansion.

“In parallel with this development, we are also continuing a major exploration campaign both in the near-mine area as well as across our extensive landholding in the Kalahari Copper Belt aimed at defining additional ore sources that can feed into our expanded processing hub at Motheo or support the development of new production centres across the region,” chief executive Karl Simich said in the statement. 

The total cost of building Motheo has been pegged at $397 million, with $185 million invested as of the end of July 2022. Over its 10-year mine life, the operation is projected to deliver $70 million in royalties to the Botswana Government and corporate income tax over $200 million.

Separately, Sandfire reported a weaker than expected profit of $111.4 million and told shareholders there would be no final dividend as it assimilates last year’s $1.9 billion acquisition of a Spanish mining complex and the ongoing construction of Motheo.

While rising interest rates have weighed on the gold price since it hit its most recent peak of over US$2,050 per oz. in March, exploration for the yellow metal is still running hot. Below are the top 10 best gold drill results for listed companies for the year to date and are ranked by gold grade x width, as identified by our sister company Mining Intelligence. 

1 KIENA – WESDOME GOLD MINES 

The top gold drill hole so far this year came from Wesdome Gold Mines’ (TSX: WDO) producing Kiena mine complex in Val-d’Or, Que. In June, the company released assay results for drillhole 6796W6 as part of its underground diamond drill program on the Kiena Deep A zone. That hole returned 50.7 metres grading 92.11 grams gold per tonne for an outstanding grade x width figure of 4,669.98 from 94 metres downhole. 

The Toronto-headquartered company said that since the completion of a prefeasibility study for Kiena in 2021, underground drilling has focused on exploring close to the Kiena Deep zones. It noted that the drilling campaign led to the discovery of a footwall last year, and that drilling continues to expand mineralized zones down plunge. 

CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, recently released a once-in-a-decade report, Our Future World, highlighting seven global megatrends that could hold the key to the challenges and opportunities ahead. 

With an outlook to 2042, Our Future World revisits CSIRO’s ground-breaking 2012 report, exploring the geopolitical, economic, social, technological and environmental forces unfolding around the world, predicting their likely impact on Australia’s people, businesses and governments.   

The seven global megatrends are: adapting to climate change; leaner, cleaner and greener; the escalating health imperative; geopolitical shifts; diving into digital; increasingly autonomous; and unlocking the human dimension. 

CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall said megatrends help us to understand the challenges and massive opportunities that will shape our future.

“From resource scarcity to drug resistant superbugs, disrupted global trade, and an increasingly unstable climate threatening our health and way of life – these are just some of the challenges we face. But these challenges also tell us where the most powerful innovation can be found, when we see a different future and leverage science to create it,” Marshall said.

“We analyzed thousands of data points collected over decades. Some of the trends we identified have been widely discussed, while others are newer and directly related to our experiences during the pandemic,” said Stefan Hajkowicz, co-lead author of the report.

“We are, for example, just beginning to understand the potential long-term impacts of the pandemic on mental health and chronic illness. We anticipate that while the pandemic sped up digital transformation, the real explosion in our capability is yet to come. In this environment, digital skills will become more valuable, but rather than replacing human intelligence, technologies like AI will assist us in doing our work better,” Hajkowicz explained.

Below is a snapshot of the megatrends: 

1. Adapting to climate change: with natural disasters expected to cost the Australian economy almost three times more in 2050 than in 2017, we can expect to be living in a more volatile climate, characterized by unprecedented weather events.
2. Leaner, cleaner and greener: an increased focus on potential solutions to our resource constraints through synthetic biology, alternative proteins, advanced recycling and the net-zero energy transition. By 2025, renewables are expected to surpass coal as the primary energy source.
3. The escalating health imperative: the post-pandemic world has exacerbated existing health challenges posed by an ageing population and growing burden of chronic disease.  One in five Australians report high or very high levels of psychological distress and there is heightened risk of infectious diseases and pathogens resistant to modern antibiotics. There is now a burning platform to also respond to our health risks and improve health outcomes.
4. Geopolitical shifts: an uncertain future, characterized by disrupted patterns of global trade, geopolitical tensions and growing investment in defence. While the global economy shrunk by 3.2% in 2020, global military spend reached an all-time high of $2.9 trillion and Australia saw a 13% increase in cybercrime reported relative to the previous year. 
5. Diving into digital: the pandemic-fuelled a boom in digitization, with teleworking, telehealth, online shopping and digital currencies becoming mainstream. 40% of Australians now work remotely on a regular basis and the future demand for digital workers expected to increase by 79% from 2020 to 2025.
6. Increasingly autonomous: there has been an explosion in artificial intelligence (AI) discoveries and applications across practically all industry sectors over the past several years. Within the science domain the use of AI is rising with the number of peer-reviewed AI publications increasing nearly 12 times from 2000 to 2019.
7. Unlocking the human dimension: a strong consumer and citizen push for decision makers to consider trust, transparency, fairness and environmental and social governance. While Australia saw a record level increase in public trust in institutions during the pandemic, this ‘trust bubble’ has since burst, with societal trust in business dropping by 7.9% and trust in government declining by 14.8% from 2020-21.

Turquoise Hill Resources (TSX, NYSE: TRQ) has rejected majority shareholder Rio Tinto’s (ASX: RIO) bid to buy the 49% stake it doesn’t already own in the company for US$2.7 billion, saying it did not reflect its full and fair value.

The decision by the special committee appointed by Turquoise Hill blocks Rio Tinto’s efforts to gain greater control of the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine it’s developing in Mongolia.

It is also a setback to Rio’s plans to increase its exposure to so-called future facing commodities such as copper and nickel, which are key for the global green energy transition. Taking a big stake in the Oyu Tolgoi mine, Rio Tinto’s main copper growth project, would have helped the mining giant to achieve that goal.

The world’s second largest miner, which controls and operates Oyu Tolgoi through its 51% stake in Turquoise Hill, offered in March US$34 a share to the miner’s minority shareholders, a 32% premium to the closing price the day before the offer was put forward.

The offer came only two months after Rio and the government of Mongolia reached an agreement to complete the long-delayed US$6.9 billion underground development of the Oyu Tolgoi project in the Gobi Desert.

That deal saw the Melbourne-based miner agree to write off US$2.4 billion of loans and interest used by Ulan Bator to fund its share of the development costs.

Rio Tinto said it was “disappointed” by the rejection, adding it still believes the deal would deliver compelling value for Turquoise Hill’s minority shareholders.

Interim Chief Executive Steve Thibeault said the funding agreement with Rio Tinto remained in effect and that the company expected it to provide sufficient liquidity to meet funding requirements.

Thibeault was referring to an agreement reached in May in which Rio Tinto committed to provide an interim debt funding of up to US$400 million.

Turquoise Hill recently raised the cost estimate to develop the underground section of Oyu Tolgoi by about US$200 million.

The project total cost has climbed to US$7.06 billion, almost US$1.8 billion higher than the original estimate in 2015.  

Three-year delay and counting

The ongoing expansion of Oyu Tolgoi, located is 550 km south of Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, has been plagued by delays and costs overruns.

At time the situation has triggered the Mongolian government’s ire to the point of threatening to revoke the 2009 investment agreement, which underpins the mine development.

First production, initially expected in late 2020, was rescheduled for October 2022 and later to the first half of 2023.

Once completed, the underground section will lift production from 125,000–150,000 tonnes in 2019 to 560,000 tonnes at peak output, which is now expected by 2025 at the earliest.

According to the miner, this would make it the biggest new copper mine to come on stream in several years and, by 2030, the operation would be the world’s fourth largest copper mine.

Oyu Tolgoi is expected to produce 110,000-150,000 tonnes of copper and 150,000-170,000 ounces of gold in concentrates in 2022 from processing ore from the open pit, underground and stockpiles.

Rio Tinto controls and operates the Oyu Tolgoi mine via Turquoise Hill’s 66% stake in the operation. The government of Mongolia owns the remaining 34%.

Fleet Space Technologies has announced the successful completion of a trial using its proprietary ambient noise tomography (ANT) technology to faster and non-invasively find critical lithium deposits. The trial was commissioned by Australia’s newest lithium miner, Core Lithium, at its Finniss project in Australia’s Northern Territory.

In a statement to the ASX on Aug. 1, 2022, Core Lithium described the results of the trial as “an outstanding success”, noting an excellent correlation with the pegmatite body interpreted from drilling to depths in excess of 500 metres and stating that a number of previously unknown targets have emerged – a major boost for exploration.

Core Lithium’s Finniss project will be Australia’s newest lithium producer on the Australian Securities Exchange, with first production targeted for the fourth quarter this year. As one of Australia’s most capital efficient lithium projects, it has been awarded major project status by the Australian federal government.

The proposal between Fleet Space and Core Lithium outlined the subscription options for ExoSphere by Fleet. ExoSphere is a pioneering exploration technology that delivers detailed subsurface 3D velocity mapping using an array of Geodes, Fleet’s satellite-connected seismic sensors. The subscription included the rental of the Geodes, planning support, deployment support, and the real-time processing and delivery of any 3D shear velocity models.

Opportunity to revolutionize lithium exploration

Fleet’s ExoSphere technology has been created to answer the urgent global requirement to find a dramatically more sustainable, economically viable and faster route to finding critical mineral deposits. Since introducing ExoSphere technology to the market in early in 2022, Fleet has been engaged by the world’s leading exploration companies. 

ExoSphere is Fleet’s pioneering exploration technology. It delivers detailed subsurface 3D mapping using an array of Geodes. These devices are so portable and lightweight they can be transported and placed by hand. The Geodes use edge computing to analyze ambient seismic noise which is sent by Fleet’s network of small satellites for processing. The data is rapidly processed in the cloud to deliver a 3D visualization of the area to support critical exploration decisions. This makes searching for key energy transition minerals faster, more sustainable, less expensive and more accurate.

“ExoSphere is supporting the world’s transition to more sustainable practices by speeding up vital mineral discoveries more than one hundred-fold. We are proud to enable this critical step in mining to provide better access to the resources we need to make a better future for humanity,” stated Matt Pearson, co-founder of Fleet Space Technologies.

For more information, please visit fleetspace.com.

Micromine has entered into a three-year software agreement with AngloGold Ashanti to deliver its industry-leading mine control and fleet management solution, Micromine Pitram. It will be implemented at AngloGold’s Australian operations, Sunrise Dam and Tropicana, both located in Western Australia’s north-eastern goldfields.

Micromine Pitram will help the operations personnel to capture, manage, and optimize its activities by obtaining core operational asset data, including equipment, materials, and locations.

Andrew Birch, CEO of Micromine, said: “We are extremely proud to be providing our Micromine Pitram solution to AngloGold Ashanti. Our comprehensive mine control and fleet management solution enhances the productivity and profitability of a mine through real-time or near-real-time data.”

The open and scalable technology provides flexibility to incorporate equipment, systems, locations, and network assets as needed. From an executive team analyzing profit, operations managers optimizing productivity, to operators tracking progress, Micromine Pitram provides stakeholders at every level with greater visibility, control, and understanding of operational activities.

“Micromine Pitram is used and trusted by many of the world’s largest mining organizations, and this agreement is just another fantastic example,” added Birch.

Micromine Pitram is to be deployed at the two mines this month.

Researchers working at the Clarke River Fault, west of Paluma in north Queensland, found the first metamorphic diamonds in rocks in Australia.

In a paper published in the journal Science Advances, the scientists point out that the diamonds are invisible to the naked eye.

“Don’t go to Paluma and start looking for them. Even for us, it was very difficult to find them,” Ioan Sanislav, co-author of the study, said in a media statement. “We had to analyze many, many thin sections of rock, and to prove the diamonds were there, it took about a year-and-a-half.”

Sanislav explained that metamorphic diamonds are formed in subduction zones when two land masses collide, causing the edge of one tectonic plate to descend below another and sink deep within the earth’s interior.

The process of metamorphism, which takes millions of years, generates a massive increase in pressure and temperature as rocks, once at the earth’s surface, descend to the mantle before coming back up in the form of metamorphic rocks containing the tiny diamonds.

As the super small diamonds are different from the more commonly recognized diamonds initially formed in the earth’s mantle, the researchers had to use a special Raman microscope to identify them. The device works by shooting a laser beam onto a rock sample which can then be used to determine the presence of minerals contained in a rock.

“The light then gets scattered and each mineral has a characteristic response, which gets back to the detector,” Sanislav said.

Until he and his colleagues confirmed the find near Paluma, there were only six other locations in the world where metamorphic diamonds were known to exist, ranging in size from microscopic right down to nanoscopic.

“In some places, there are metamorphic diamonds which you can’t even see with a microscope. You just see a reading in the rock which indicates they are in there,” the scientist said.

Sanislav noted that he was drawn to investigate the presence of metamorphic diamonds in the Clarke River Fault due to the work of a former student, who found evidence suggesting the rocks there had potentially experienced high-pressure metamorphism.

“This discovery will influence our understanding of the tectonic models and how the eastern coast of Australia formed,” he said.

Gold Field’s (JSE, NYSE: GFI) intended acquisition of Canada’s Yamana Gold (TSX: YRI; NYSE: AUY) remains in limbo, though the South African miner has gained backers and says its shareholders are starting to understand the strategy.

Speaking after his second international roadshow to turn deal detractors around, Gold Fields chief executive Chris Griffith said some of the company’s investors are still fixed on the 33.8% premium offered for Yamana.

Since the Johannesburg-based miner approached its target, shareholders have criticized the proposed all-stock merger, arguing the friendly approach does not guarantee growth and profitability.

Griffith, who has been at the helm since April 2021, has said Gold Fields offered a large premium because Yamana was trading at a discount to net asset value and the offer would have been dismissed at a lower price.

“There is still some pushback on the premium,” he told MINING.COM. “However, when we’ve shown investors the relative price we are paying for these assets compared to the price paid in the market, more and more of them are understanding that the premium is not the only way to look at this.”

Since the day the offer was first announced, on May 31, Gold Fields has lost 29% of its value and Yamana 15%, leaving the Canadian gold target with a market capitalization of US$4.4 billion, compared to US$6.7 billion it had in May.

“It hasn’t helped that the market has been so absolutely miserable over the last six weeks, but what we have seen is that Gold Fields has come back versus the market,” Griffith said, noting the company is currently down about 7%.

To ease investors’ concerns, Gold Fields improved the original bid early July by offering to pay shareholders 30% to 45% of normalized earnings at the interim and final dividend stages, up from a previous payout range of 25% to 35%.

It also promised a 45% payout for the 2023 interim and final dividends after it completes the friendly acquisition of Yamana, and a Toronto Stock Exchange listing.

Despite gold investors calling for further consolidation in the sector, to offset rising costs, Griffith admitted he’s still far from certain whether Gold Fields will obtain the 75% of the votes needed to go ahead with the deal.

“We’ve still got two months to go. I think it’s a bit early to say it will be smooth sailing,” the executive said.

He noted he’s confident they’ll “get there” as the company plans to invest more time talking to shareholders.

Fourth-largest gold miner

The proposed merger would create the world’s fourth-largest gold miner, which is expected to surpass Agnico Eagle (TSX, NYSE: AEM) in a year to take third place.

If the merger is voted down, Gold Fields would not have to pay the US$450 million break fee and Griffith says the company would continue to look for deals to underpin future growth.

If it goes ahead, the executive has warned that some assets will be divested to streamline the combined company’s portfolio.

Gold Fields has guided 2.3 million ounces of gold production for this year, increasing to 2.8 million in 2024. After that, output could fall to as low as 2.1 million by 2030 without a deal that enhances the company’s portfolio.

Yamana Gold, which needs just two-thirds of total shareholder approval, has mines in Canada, Argentina, Chile and Brazil. Its acquisition would fit Gold Fields’ plans to expand across the Americas.