De Beers signs 10-year sales deal for Botswana diamonds
South Africa says Kusile coal plant to revive capacity this year
Cobalt hydroxide price tumbles amid surging supplies from DRC
Glencore may look elsewhere for recycling hub after Italy rejects fast-track approval
Venezuela, Jindal Steel to sign deal on iron ore mill
Kazatomprom plans uranium production increase in 2025
Finland Looks for Strategic Partnership with Saudi Arabia in Hydrogen, Green Energy Fields
De Beers signs 10-year sales deal for Botswana diamonds
Anglo American Plc unit De Beers and Botswana’s government signed a deal covering the main aspects of a new sales and mining agreement for their Debswana diamond venture in the African nation.
The pact covers a new 10-year sales deal for Debswana’s rough diamond production through to 2033, along with a 25-year extension to the Debswana mining licenses through to 2054, De Beers and the Botswana government said in a joint statement on Sunday.
The terms “provide further detail and clarity to the commercial and operational aspects of the agreement in principle between the two partners” announced on June 30, they said. Among them are stipulations for the apportionment of Debswana supply and other economic arrangements, they said, without giving further details.
South Africa says Kusile coal plant to revive capacity this year
South Africa said its state-owned power utility will add 2,400 megawatts of generating capacity to the country’s strained electricity grid before the end of the year.
Eskom’s Kusile power station
That extra capacity will come as Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. restarts three units at Kusile, one of its newer coal-fired power stations, Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told reporters at a briefing on Sunday. A fifth unit will be commissioned from December, eventually bringing another 800 megawatts online.
South Africa is implementing record power cuts to prevent a complete collapse of the grid as Eskom struggles to meet demand from its old and poorly maintained coal-fired plants. The government has vowed to end the outages, with President Cyril Ramaphosa appointing an electricity minister to drive its response to the crisis.
The Kusile units are returning to operations after being granted exemptions relating to sulfur-dioxide emissions until December 2024.
Cobalt hydroxide price tumbles amid surging supplies from DRC
Cobalt hydroxide prices have plummeted due to an upsurge in supplies from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The compound used to make chemicals for EV batteries is a byproduct of copper, and prices are usually cited as a percentage of the metal price, known as payables.
According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, payables in August dropped to 46% of the cobalt metal price, compared with around 90% in late 2021 and early 2022 when cobalt metal traded around $60,000 a metric ton. Cobalt is currently trading around $32,000 a ton.
“We’re unlikely to see prices return to 2022 levels until demand is able to catch up with the huge volume of cobalt available at the moment,” said BMI analyst Roman Aubry, who expects a cobalt market surplus of 17,000 tons this year.
“However, given the rate at which the EV industry is progressing, we expect demand to substantially overtake supply in 2027.”
Soaring production from Indonesia, where cobalt is a byproduct of nickel, is also adding to surpluses.
Glencore may look elsewhere for recycling hub after Italy rejects fast-track approval
Glencore Plc may look at alternative options for a recycling hub in Europe for electric car batteries after the Italian region of Sardinia rejected a fast-track approval process for its pilot project, the mining company said.
Glencore and battery recycler Li-Cycle Holdings Corp said in May they planned to develop a recycling hub in Italy to produce materials, including lithium carbonate, to respond to a global shortage of key raw materials for a fast growing production of electric cars.
The companies said they would set up the hub in Portovesme, in Sardinia, by re-purposing Glencore’s existing production sites on the island. The commissioning of the hub was expected to start in late 2026 to early 2027.
Sardinia’s regional government said on Friday the pilot project for the recycling hub could not be granted a fast-track approval process.
“The regional government’s decision to submit the demonstration project to a full environmental impact assessment is very disappointing,” Glencore said in an emailed statement.
“Glencore may consider alternative options for a European battery materials processing hub if the unnecessary extension of the approval process results in a delayed timeline that makes the project economically unviable,” it said.
Venezuela, Jindal Steel to sign deal on iron ore mill
Venezuela’s government and Jindal Steel & Power Co. have signed an agreement for the Indian company to run the country’s largest iron ore producing plant, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, marking the first entry in years by an international firm into the South American nation’s closely held companies.
Nicolas Maduro’s government signed off on a deal for Jindal Steel & Power to operate CVG Ferrominera Orinoco, Venezuela’s largest iron ore plant, according to a person who asked not to be identified as the information hasn’t been made public. No details of the agreement, which was inked Friday, were provided.
Venezuela’s information ministry and Jindal Steel & Power didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The deal is Venezuela’s first step to open up operations in its metallurgic and mining industries to an international private company, after US sanctions hit the country in 2019. Venezuela’s mining and heavy industries are all state owned.
Ferrominera has an annual installed capacity of 25,000 metric tons of iron ore and proven reserves for 4.2 million metric tons. The plants have been working below capacity due to years of mismanagement, lack of investment and a power crisis that hit the nation in 2009 and forced the company to cut production to save energy.
Kazatomprom plans uranium production increase in 2025
The decision was motivated by positive uranium market conditions.
Kazatomprom, the Kazakh uranium producer, will increase production volumes in 2025, adding 6,000 tonnes of elemental uranium (tU) to global primary supply and returning to a 100% level relative to its subsoil use agreements for the first time since 2018. The board of Kazatomprom approved the strategy.
Kazatomprom’s 2025 production is now expected to be between 30,500tU and 31,500tU. The decision to increase output was motivated by improved uranium market conditions and successful medium and long-term contracting with new and existing customers.
Dastan Kosherbayev, chief commercial officer at Kazatomprom, said: “Consistent with our market- centric strategy, our intention to return to a 100% level of subsoil use contracts production volumes in 2025 is primarily driven by our strong contract book and already-growing sales portfolio against a conservative 2023–24 production scenario.”
He also said the company is “excited to witness the start of a long-awaited historical shift in the uranium market”.
The World Nuclear Association said demand for uranium will increase by 27% in the 2021–30 period and then increase by a further 38% from 2031–40. The main growth in uranium demand is from China and Russia.
Finland Looks for Strategic Partnership with Saudi Arabia in Hydrogen, Green Energy Fields
At a time when Finland is looking forward to maximizing its strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia, a Finnish diplomat revealed that Helsinki is looking to intensify student exchange, tourism, investments, and trade with Riyadh in the coming period.
Huge projects included in Saudi Arabia’s national transformation plan, Vision 2030, offer large-scale business opportunities for various Finnish companies, noted Anu-Eerika Viljanen, the Finnish ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
“Finland will be an excellent partner in achieving the goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 in a number of areas,” Viljanen told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Viljanen emphasized that Finland is a global leader in information and communication technology, digitization, education, health care, renewable energy solutions, the games industry, and hospitality.
“Our economies and commercial sectors complement each other,” explained Viljanen.
Saudi Arabia is the most important export destination for Finland in the Gulf region, she revealed, adding that her country's exports to the Kingdom amounted to 298 million euros in 2021.
According to Viljanen, new areas of cooperation between the two countries include: games, electronic sports, health, and well-being. Saudi Arabia and Finland, however, are looking forward to intensive cooperation in various other sectors soon.
Moreover, the tourism sector plays a fundamental role in the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, which has generated a wide range of various short and long-term projects under construction in Saudi Arabia.
“There is plenty of room for an increase in tourism from Finland to Saudi Arabia and vice versa,” noted Viljanen, revealing that cooperation in the fields of electronic industries, technology, mining, green economy, hydrogen, and renewable energy was also progressing.
