IRJ – January 6 – Figures released today by the Port Hedland Port Authority reveal that the port, home to the likes of BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals Group and Atlas Iron, saw iron ore exports rocket up to 217.3 million mt in 2011; up 18.4 per cent on 2010 volumes. Also, December saw increased exports by four per cent month-to-month ...
IRJ – January 5 – Lebanese Minister of Energy Gibran Basil stated Thursday in a Reuters interview that the nation will look to take its coastal waters to international gas drilling contract tender within the coming three months and close on any contracts forged within the year. The highly prospective offshore terrain has been firmly rooted on the global energy ...
IRJ – January 5 – Oil hit near eight-week highs in London early on Thursday, as growing anticipation over possible Iranian import sanctions bit and international figureheads voiced support for possible European Union (EU) embargo measures, counteracting market sentiment about Eurozone woes grinding demand down. Societe Generale SA forecasts that a ban on Iranian product could send Brent crude ...
IRJ – January 4 – Maersk Oil (“Maersk”) of Danish energy and shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk, announced in statement an oil discovery at a deepwater exploration well in the Kwanza Basin in offshore Angola, Wednesday. The company states that initial interpretation of data from its Azul-1 well in Block 23, in which it holds 50 per cent interest, has ...
IRJ – January 4 – The mining license ban imposed in Zambia since October 2011, will be lifted and new legislation put in place by the end of the month according to reports from The Times of Zambia quoting an interview with Mines and Natural Resources Minister Wilbur Simuusa, Wednesday. Following the revelation of bureaucratic issues and irregularities in ...
IRJ –January 3 – U.S. oil prices may hike by up to 4.5 cents per gallon as early as this week following Congressional decisions not to renew 30-year standing subsidies for ethanol, reports state Tuesday. The estimated annual cost of the ethanol subsidy stands at US$6 billion, which hits the federal deficit bottom line. The failure to renew the ...
IRJ – January 3 – Chilean state-owned mining giant Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile (the National Copper Corporation of Chile) (“CODELCO”) made an incremental formal move to execute its rights over a circa US$6 billion option to buy in-country mining assets belonging to multinational Anglo American (“Anglo”), Monday. However on Tuesday Anglo stated that it is not under any ...
IRJ – January 3 – French energy conglomerate Total SA has inked a US$2.3 billion shale deal with Chesapeake Energy Corp. and EnerVest—almost two years to the day since it penned a $2.25 billion accord with Chesapeake back on January 4 2010. This deal, heralded as the latest in the forming trend of European and Asian energy majors seeking ...
IRJ—December 23—Canadian miner TVI Pacific Inc. has completed its second shipment of zinc concentrate from Canatuan, Zamboanga del Norte, with a total value of around $5 million.
In a statement TVI Pacific said that its local affiliate, TVI Resource Development Inc. (TVIRD), had shipped 5,344 dry metric tonnes of zinc concentrate which contains 50.4 per cent zinc.
“TVIRD expects to ...
IRJ—December 22—Following the opening of production in Singapore and Finland, Neste Oil has announced the commissioning of its Rotterdam facility to produce hydrated vegetable oil (HVO).
The Rotterdam refinery produces NExBTL renewable diesel, Neste Oil’s own type of diesel, and adds a further 800,000 tonnes to the company, bringing its total output in at two million tonnes of HVO.
“Through hard ...
IRJ—December 21—Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said that the country still wants to create a tri-lateral gas consortium with Russia and the EU in order to manage its transportation of gas.
“We very much want to create a gas transportation consortium, in which responsibility for its operation will be shared between Ukraine, Russia and Europe,” he said at a news ...
IRJ—December 20—Vale is conducting extraordinary new laboratory experiments with soil fungi to investigate reducing the amount of time taken to restore former mining sites.
At present, mining sites can take up to 30 years to fully recover and Vale is testing the elimination of chemical fertilisers on this recovery period.
“Restoring degraded sites is complex and slow, and so ...
