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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Platinum features on the cathode of zinc-air battery technology that is taking the City of New York by storm in helping to lower the carbon footprint of its buildings, Mining Weekly can today report.

Zinc8, the Canadian Stock Exchange company that has won the city’s decarbonisation challenge, has opted to use platinum on its cathodes to give it the performance required from the market in the implementation of zinc-air regenerative fuel cell energy storage.

New York buildings with areas of more than 25 000 square feet are required by law to lower their carbon footprint and there are 58 000 of them. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

New York’s Department of Buildings, which staged the 2020 Innovation Challenge that Zinc8 won, regulates more than one-million buildings.

Zinc8’s patented zinc-air long duration energy storage technology resolves the intermittent and unpredictable nature of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.

Regarding the use of zinc, Zinc8 president and CEO Ron MacDonald told Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview: “Zinc is plentiful, it’s fairly stable and it’s fairly low-cost. When we generate the power, we grab air, that’s why it’s called zinc air.” The zinc is not consumed as it plays its energy storage role.

The hypothesis of mass production by outsourcing is being tested along with assembly in various licensed countries.

Scaling the zinc battery technology involves increasing the size of the energy storage tank and quantity of the recharged zinc particles.

“We’re using some platinum in our cathodes. We could not find a cathode that gave us the performance and the economics that we require, so our team here developed our own cathode.

“It’s a trade secret and it’s giving us the performance that allows us to go to the market and truly give them the cost that’s required from the market to start using this type of storage and getting the economics out of it.

“The cathode is something very special for us, and that is one part of the whole equation that we’re currently manufacturing in the facility that I’m sitting in right now,” said MacDonald, a former Canadian Parliamentary Secretary of International Trade.

Zinc8 is collaborating with the New York Power Authority, the largest state public power organisation in the US, to help advance the Green New Deal of New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo by achieving the energy storage goal of 3 GW by 2030 and by supporting a commitment to 100% electricity from emission-free sources by 2040.

The company is also working on the first private sector deployment with Digital Energy Corporation to install a 100 kW to 1.5 MWh zinc-air energy storage system in Brooklyn, New York, which is scheduled to be installed in 2022.

“We’ve been dealing with opportunities in South Africa for the last year and they’re coming closer to decision-making for instalments in like 2025 – very large, very credible. It takes time, it takes modelling, but at the end of the day, hopefully we’ll be operating in South Africa,” MacDonald said.

The system involves electricity being used to generate zinc particles in its zinc regenerator and oxygen is released to the atmosphere as a byproduct.

The zinc particles are flowed to a storage tank and kept in potassium hydroxide electrolyte until required. Whenever power is needed, the zinc particles are delivered to a power stack, which recombines them with oxygen to generate electricity. The zinc oxide byproduct is returned to the storage tank for later regeneration.

“Our system is geared for long-duration storage,” said MacDonald, with three-months of grid-level storage under discussion with a power corporation and a potential zinc producer challenged by seasonal power shifting from a hydropower source that has different outputs at different times of the year.

“For part of the year they have too much and for the other part of the year they don’t have enough, and they have to go over to other things such as dies...

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – If you bought R100 000 worth of shares in Kumba Iron Ore at the start of 2016, you would now be sitting on shares worth a staggering R2.67-million, excluding dividends.

This is because Kumba’s all-time low share price of R25.35 in January 2016 has skyrocketed 2 647% to R696.45, reflecting the unfolding of one of the world’s most stunning commodity bull markets in the iron-ore sector.

The global iron-ore market has literally gone from the depths of despair at the end of 2015 to the acme of euphoria now – and therein lies a huge reason why mining policy in South Africa must be formulated to deal with the hugely valuable highs but devastating lows that are a feature of the cyclical nature of the mining business.

Integral Asset Management mining analyst Bruce Williamson makes this point in his special ‘Postcard to the President’, published by Mining Weekly today.

In it, he emphasises that South Africa is blessed with the highest of iron-ore quality that earns premiums left, right and centre (see attached graphic). South Africa’s iron-ore fetches closer to $255/t than the $220/t the rest of the world is raving about currently, which is why Williamson makes a special plea for State rail authority Transnet to go all out to ensure that it rails more iron-ore to the port than it has ever done in its history, for the likes of Kumba, Assmang and Afrimat.

Williamson also pleads forcefully for a derisking of the industry – in the good times like now – through the creation of ‘all weather’ mining policy, to ensure that the mining sector is able to operate within a coherent, investor-friendly and perpetual legislative framework for the good of the South African people into the long term.

In his ‘Postcard to the President’, Williamson puts it thus:

“Mr President, whilst you and your Cabinet are grappling with Covid-related business closures and job losses, you may have missed one of the greatest commodity bull markets unfolding in the iron-ore sector. I highlight this because mining is the ultimate economic ‘multiplier’ in terms of creating growth and employment. In addition, the iron-ore and platinum group metals (PGMs) miners are bringing in huge amounts of dollars and paying record-level taxes that you could not have imagined possible. However, miners have to deal with massive highs and lows, which makes appropriate policy all the more important.

“Mr President, witness Kumba’s rise from the dead in 2015, and understand the magic of the mining multiplier and why mining policy needs to prevail for decades.

“On 9 February 2016, Kumba announced its December 2015 final results:

the average Fe 62% benchmark CFR China price fell 42% from $91/t to $56/t; production was down 7% to 44.9-million tonnes and sales were up 6% to 47.8-million tonnes; the workforce was reduced by 45% and overheads were cut by R900-million; capital expenditure was reduced by 20%; freight rates fell by 45% or R482-million; R204-million was spent on communities; headline earnings fell 66% to 1182c a share and basic earnings fell 95.6% to 146c a share, the difference being a R6-billion impairment; and no dividends were paid to shareholders for 2015.

“Kumba’s earnings crashed due to the collapse in the iron-ore price, which bottomed at $38.50/t in December 2015. In turn, the iron-ore price fell due to strong growth in supply and slower crude steel production growth in China. Kumba achieved a realisable price of $53/t due to much lower lump premiums. Unit cash costs were cut by 26% to $54/t and Kumba was ultimately saved by a 15,1% fall in the rand which averaged R12.84/$ in 2015.

“Management described the period as ‘turbulent and challenging in a rapidly changing market where economic fundamentals resulted in the price of iron-ore falling faster and deeper than expected'. These circumstances reinforced the need to make tough decisions for the business and to take necessary action to safeguard the viability of the operations.”

IN EARLY 2016 ...

Diversified mining multinational Anglo American on May 11 provided a detailed overview and update of the technologies that are being developed and deployed group-wide, as well as the impact of its operating model changes, to sustain and improve its operations.

“Technology and innovation are central to how we create a fundamentally more sustainable business,” said group technical director Tony O’Neill .

He noted that the group’s FutureSmart Mining initiative, started in 2015, focused on how the group could change the footprint of mining, including its water and energy consumption.

“Other activities include precision and innovation to drive a step-change that is ambitious and transformational. It also looked at reliability and best-in-class performance, setting us up for the future over the next 15 to 20 years. The initiative was aimed at creating end-to-end systems across the entire group of businesses," he explained.

"It is clear that there are no boundaries between our FutureSmart and sustainable working programmes. The two areas are inherently interconnected and are part of the same purpose and ambition,” he added.

Group head of mining Matt Daley , meanwhile, provided an overview of the P101 value chain improvement initiative, which used a 2017 self-assessment to benchmark Anglo’s value chain against the industry baseline.

This includes mine design and life-of-mine (LoM) planning, blasting design, drill and blasting execution, design of roads and haulage improvements, simulation of equipment activity and interactivity and plant performance.

"The initiative was designed to identify best practice principles and embed them into management's routine and it is fully integrated with the group's operating model," he noted.

This approach also enables the group to more effectively deploy technology, and has led to it achieving or exceeding industry benchmarks, and supporting new ways of mining and processing as part of the FutureSmart programme, he pointed out.

P101 is layered onto the group’s operating model to deliver new benchmark levels of performance across its operations and provides stability and predictability to performance, explained O’Neill.

“FutureSmart is integrating technology and digitalisation with the full spectrum of our sustainable mining plan ambitions – particularly our water and energy targets and our pathway to carbon neutral operations by 2040.

“Together, our approach is providing the next step-change in our operating and financial performance,” he said.

The P101 initiative has led to operations learning from one another and enables the group to more effectively roll-out new technologies to operations.

The initiative has delivered benefits of $2-billion and has contributed to lowering capital intensity by about 30%, while planning and analysis of each aspect of operations are at levels not achieved before, he said.

"This gives us different insights and an understanding of the business, particularly value flows and further opportunities to add another layer of stability to unlock further value."

Further, Daley stated that LoM planning was key to locking in performance over an operation’s LoM and ensuring the right materials were in the right place at the right time.

The company has also improved mine geometries, eliminating vertical interactions and achieving a step change in productivity.

"Blasting design led to a 14% improvement in fragmentation at the Los Bronces copper mine, in Chile, and the change led to optimal downstream milling benefits, and helped to eliminate trim and buffer blast.

“This reduced the frequency of weekly blasts by 20% to 50% and led to more productive hours and improved shovel load rates by about 50%, leading to a more than 25% improvement in shovel productivity," he detailed.

An additional focus on blast execution led the company to develop a standard and real-time in-field digital platform to ensure all aspects of drilling and blasting compliance are met and that allows for blasts...

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Renewable energy projects are under investigation across the entire AngloGold Ashanti group, AngloGold Ashanti VP: environment Antonio Da Cruz told Mining Weekly on Tuesday.

Da Cruz reported that the gold mining company is also working with industry peers and vehicle original-equipment manufacturers through an initiative of the International Council on Mining and Metals initiative – the Innovation for Cleaner, Safer Vehicles – to bring about feasible and accessible technology to reduce diesel particulate matter towards zero. (Also watch Creamer Media video.)

“Our board has stated publicly that AngloGold Ashanti is committed to charting a pathway to net zero. We have reduced our emissions by 48% since 2007, exceeding our own target reductions of 30% by 2022, with four years to spare. We’re forecasting that this reduction, from the 2007 base year, will rise to around 68% in 2022, following the sale of our South African assets,” Da Cruz added.

AngloGold, he said, was currently undertaking work to understand the potential for further decarbonising its energy mix – and also that pathway to net zero – and would provide that update in due course.

He said that the company had one of the lowest carbon intensity energy mixes amongst gold peers.

This was defined, he added, as the amount of carbon emitted as a percentage of the total energy requirement.

“This overall quality of our energy mix is thanks to the contribution of hydropower used at our Brazil and Ghana operations, as well as the shift from diesel to gas-fired electrical power generators for our Australian assets some years ago.

“What’s not counted in these numbers is the self-generated hydropower at our Kibali Joint Venture, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the planned introduction into our portfolio of the Colombia projects, pending their approval. Colombia boasts one of the world’s greenest energy mixes, with around 80% of its baseload capacity powered by hydroelectric sources, and much of the thermal component used only for back-up.

“As good as this energy mix is, we’re not satisfied and are working on plans across our operations to further reduce these emissions. One example is our plan later this year to start testing gas-hybrid haul trucks at Iduapriem, a first for the African continent. We’ll talk a little more about our other plans in due course but suffice to say that decarbonisation is a key part of our overall climate response.

ATTRACTIVE VALUE PROPOSITION

AngloGold interim CEO Christine Ramon said this week that AngloGold, which remains primarily listed on the JSE, presents an attractive value proposition in that the company is approaching its strategic goals from a position of financial strength underpinned by a strong balance sheet.

Speaking to analysts following the reporting of higher headline earnings of $203-million in the three months to March 31, Ramon described the company as being at an exciting inflection point in its growth path.

Production growth of up to 20% is projected and declining costs forecast as its mainly brownfield investments bear fruit.

“We’ll stay laser focused on converting more of our vast mineral resource endowment into ore reserves,” said Ramon, who described the company that has disposed of all its South African assets as having a well-defined capital allocation framework, focused on making careful investments that provide returns higher than the cost of capital.

AngloGold has disposed of its last remaining South Africa assets ­– Mponeng, Savuka and TauTona ­– to Harmony Gold, on the back of the JSE-listed Harmony this week reported a strong set of year-on-year operational results with strong cash generation, Mining Weekly can report.

The fully self-generated and self-funded brownfield and greenfield project pipeline underpins production plans well into the future.

A commitment to environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles is also giving the company a social licence to operate in...

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Gold mining company Harmony Gold has delivered another strong set of operational results year-on-year on the back of the integration of AngloGold Ashanti assets into its portfolio and a stronger rand per kilogram gold price.

The combination of a higher gold price received and improved earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) margin has resulted in strong cash generation and further strengthening of the company's balance sheet in the three months to March 31.

Despite quarter-on-quarter production declining 12.2% to 378 927 oz, operating free cash flow for the nine months ended March 31 was up 78% to R5 297-million and the operating free cash flow margin increased to 18% for the reporting period.

Harmony, headed by CEO Peter Steenkamp , stated in a JSE announcement that growing the company's ounces and margins in a safe and capital-responsible manner would guide each of its decisions as it continued to invest in both its people and its assets. Five of Harmony employees lost their lives in work-related incidents in the quarter.

In continuing to prioritise the safety of its employees, Harmony stated in a stock exchange announcement that it was continuously working to avoid any work-related injuries as it focused on a humanistic transformation at all its operations, through the development of an engaged and interdependent workforce with a proactive relationship to safety. Zero loss of life remained the company's non-negotiable objective.

Harmony's all-in sustaining cost (AISC) for the reporting period increased by almost 16% to $1 416/oz driven again by royalties on the back of an increase in the rand gold price, Covid-related costs and increased safety costs, which were further impacted by the increase in steel prices and the installation of safety steel netting at all of its mines to eliminate fall of ground. Target 1 experienced pillar failure and backfill dilution during the March quarter, which further weighed on the AISC for the reporting period.

As a result of the major repair work and fixed plant maintenance at Hidden Valley, production guidance has been adjusted to a maximum of 1.55-million ounces, which is down from the previous maximum 1.6-million ounces for the financial year to June 30. Underground grade guidance of 5.47 g/t to 5.64 g/t and overall cost guidance of R700 000/kg to R720 000/kg for the year remains.

Mining Weekly can report that Harmony’s pipeline of cash-enhancing projects is expected to boost cash flow margins and sustain its production, with the Wafi-Golpu project offering both commodity and geographic diversification and allowing it to build on its copper/gold base.

A strong focus on its environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives has resulted in Harmony being included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality index for the third consecutive year. Moreover, the latest FTSE4Good ESG ratings revealed improved scores for Harmony, which said it remained committed to operating ethically and honestly while mining in a sustainable and impactful manner. A virtual ESG Investor Day is scheduled for June 22, where more ESG initiatives will be shared with the market.

At its Papua New Guinea operations, Hidden Valley was impacted by Covid-19 and geotechnical stability of the eastern wall of the stage 6 pit during the March quarter, which resulted in a decrease in the grade of the ore. Despite this, Hidden Valley still managed a 15% increase in average recovered grade to 1.41 g/t in Q3 FY21 from 1.23 g/t in Q2 FY21, which resulted in a 16% increase in quarter-on-quarter gold production to 43 436 oz.

WAFI-GOLPU PROJECT

Subsequent to Papua New Guinea's Director of Environment issuing the environment permit for the Wafi-Golpu project in December, the Morobe governor and the provincial government have commenced legal proceedings in the National Court to obtain a judicial review of the decision to issue the permit.

The National Court has yet to hear t...

JSE-listed Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) has successfully completed the rebuild of its Anglo Converter Plant (ACP) Phase A unit, which will ramp up to full operating capacity by the end of the year...

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Platinum group metals (PGMs) mining and marketing company Impala Platinum (Implats) announced on Monday that it would be joining a high-flying venture capital fund tha...

South Africa's Gamsberg zinc mine remains shut while owner Vedanta Zinc International (VZI) continues to search for a worker trapped underground following a rockfall on November 17, the company said on...

Diversified mining and marketing company Glencore on Friday announced its ambition to be a net-zero emissions company by 2050.

Glencore set out the pathway towards reducing its total emissions footpr...

Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg announced on Friday that he would be handing over the reins of the global mining and marketing company in mid-2021 to top Glencore executive Gary Nagle, who has served the ...