Australia’s largest gold producer, Newcrest Mining (ASX: NCM), is moving to increase its stake in the Havieron gold-copper project that is developing with Greatland Gold (AIM:GGP) in the Paterson region of Western Australia.

The gold giant, who is the JV manager, has already earned 70% of the project via a farm-in agreement and has an option to acquire an additional 5% from Greatland at a price to be agreed.

The two companies said the option exercise price is expected to be set in mid-February 2022.

The proceeds will first be used to repay the outstanding balance under the Newcrest loan facility, Greatland said in the statement.

The recent Havieron prefeasibility study returned capital costs of A$529 million for a 2 million tonne per annum operation to produce 160,000 ounces of gold and 6,900 tonnes of copper at AISC of $990/oz over nine years. Processing will take place through Newcrest’s nearby Telfer copper-gold mine’s mill.

Newcrest also has the conditional right to an additional 10% joint venture stake, which would bring its participation up to 70%. The gold giant would have a 75% stake if both options are exercised.

The Melbourne-based company has been aggressively searching for juniors with appealing assets to jointly develop.

In 2019, it acquired a 70% stake in Canada’s Red Chris copper and gold mine from Imperial Metals (TSX: III).

Last month, it bought all outstanding common shares of Pretium Resources (TSX: PVG, NYSE: PVG) it does not already own in a deal that valued the Canadian miner at $2.8 billion.

The Paterson region hosts several large gold and/or copper deposits such as Nifty, Winu and Newcrest’s own Telfer.

RPM Global (RPM) has made another software acquisition by entering a research partnership with Canadian based MIRARCO. The agreement gives RPM ownership of three mine planning optimization software products that will strengthen RPM’s design and scheduling product suites and particularly strengthen the Schedule Optimization Tool product.

The acquisition is part of a three-year collaborative research partnership with MIRARCO, a research arm of Laurentian University. The organization was instrumental in the original research leading to the development of RPM’s Schedule Optimisation Tool. SOT, along with Attain and Surface SOT, were products acquired by RPM as part of its July 2020 acquisition of Revolution Mining Software. 

MIRARCO has developed three separate but complementary underground mine planning optimization products, which RPM has under this agreement agreed to acquire and commercialize. These products extend and complement the functionality of RPM’s mine optimization software solutions in the areas of advanced valuation, geosequencing and ventilation. 

As part of the collaboration arrangement, RPM and MIRARCO will continue to work together on research and development projects that deliver demonstrable and innovative solutions for the mining industry. 

The Advanced Valuation Module (AVM) facilitates the generation of optimized underground mine plans that are robust to uncertain product prices and ore grades. The mine planner specifies distributions for product prices over the mine’s life and ore grades. AVM will then optimize the life-of-mine schedule, maximizing the operation’s net present value (NPV). 

The GeoSequencing Module (GSM) facilitates the generation of optimized underground mine schedules adhering to stope sequencing constraints that are motivated by geotechnical considerations. The mine planner selects the rules for stope sequencing and GSM automatically generates alternative sets of stope-to-stope dependencies, or GeoSequencing scenarios, while enforcing the selected rules. The output is an NPV optimized life-of-mine schedule based on the mine’s geotechnical considerations. 

The Ventilation Constraint Module (VCM) generates optimized underground mine schedules based on ventilation constraints. Through interaction with a ventilation solver, VCM automatically generates airflow-based constraints on the equipment for each ventilation district. Using these constraints, VCM generates optimized NPV life-of-mine schedules that are feasible from a ventilation perspective. 

The acquisition was completed on Dec. 17. 

Visit www.RPMGlobal.com for additional information.

EarthLabs (TSXV: SPOT; OTC: SPOFF) has agreed to sell its exploration consulting and technology division (also known as ExplorTech) to Australia’s ALS Ltd. (ASX: ALQ) for total cash proceeds of $24 million and the assumption of $6 million in liabilities.

Headquartered in Brisbane, ALS is the world’s largest provider of laboratory testing, inspection, certification and verification solutions, with more than 18,000 employees globally.

The ExplorTech division comprises the EarthLabs’ GoldSpot Discoveries consulting group alongside Ridgeline Exploration Services Inc. and Geotic Inc. Its sale would reduce the company’s R&D costs and G&A expenses by approximately 70% year over year, creating a leaner, autonomous product portfolio of tech driven mineral exploration and financial tools.

Upon closing, EarthLabs will have approximately $53.7 million in cash, securities and equity investment; royalties and royalty options on 21 projects (it is currently the largest royalty holder in Newfoundland); and a product portfolio that includes Resource Quantamental, CEO.CA and DigiGeoData.

EarthLabs background

EarthLabs, formerly known as GoldSpot Discoveries, was formed in 2016 as a first-of-its-kind quant shop and tech incubator using artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify patterns necessary to fingerprint geophysical, geochemical, lithological and structural traits that correlate to mineralization.

This concept birthed EarthLabs’ financial technology division anchored by Resource Quantamental (RQ), its flagship investment decision model, using algorithms to stake acreage, acquire projects and royalties, and invest in public vehicles to create a portfolio of assets with the greatest reward to risk ratio. The concept also led to the creation of the ExplorTech division, the first of its kind to deploy innovative, geological and geostatistical workflows, both data-driven and knowledge, to examine the entire value exploration chain with a brand-new perspective.

Throughout the years, the company’s consultancy has evolved into an exploration technology industry leader and grew with the acquisitions of Ridgeline Exploration and Geotic.

In October 2021, EarthLabs closed its acquisition of CEO.CA Technologies Ltd., and in February 2022, completed the acquisition of DigiGeoData Inc., reaffirming its core commitment to acquire licensable software products and build robust and recurring revenue streams.

The sale of the ExplorTech division brings the company back to its core strength of incubating technology companies and products – creating, acquiring, managing and monetizing market-leading technology businesses to stimulate upstream mining industry company successes of venture financing and ore discovery, EarthLabs stated.

“Today’s announcement solidifies our commitment to acquire, manage and monetize market-leading technology businesses,” commented Denis Laviolette, executive chairman and president. “We founded the company with the vision for a money ball approach to mining investing and with our recent acquisitions, we have a tremendous opportunity to deploy our model, with new tools and platforms we didn’t have before that will advance our offerings.

“The GoldSpot consultancy was originally formed to finance the development of in-house technologies, make discoveries, grow capital and acquire businesses. The sale of our ExplorTech consulting toolbox will accelerate the construction of our leaner, capital-light and more automatable product licensing portfolio with a significantly larger total addressable market.”

Lion One Metals (TSXV: LIO; OTC: LOMLF) has closed its previously announced bought deal financing to raise gross proceeds of approximately $13.4 million. A total of approximately 17.4 million units priced at $0.77 were offered, including 1.1 million units issued to Eight Capital and Canaccord Genuity as partial exercise of their over-allotment options.

Each unit consists of one common share of Lion One and one-half of a one common share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant can be exercised at a price of $1.05 for a period of 36 months following the closing date.

Net proceeds from the offering will be used to advance the Tuvatu gold project, the company’s flagship asset. Located on the island of Viti Levu in Fiji, Tuvatu is envisioned as a low-cost, high-grade underground gold mining operation with exploration upside. The project is fully permitted and is currently in the drilling stage to define and expand the known mineralization, with a view of upgrading the resource model.

The latest Tuvatu resource estimate (June 2014) showed an indicated resource of 1.1 million tonnes at 8.46 g/t gold for 299,500 oz. of gold and an inferred resource of 1.5 million tonnes at 9.70 g/t gold for 468,000 oz. of gold.

The area surrounding Tuvatu gold deposit and resource area is covered by a 3.85 km² special mining lease, with the broader project area covered by over 13,600 hectares of special prospecting licences covering the balance of the Navilawa caldera, an underexplored yet highly prospective 7 km diameter alkaline gold system.

For more information on the Tuvatu project, visit www.liononemetals.com.

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%.