Engineering & Mining Journal

JUN 2016

Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr

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NEWS - CONTINUED JUNE 2016 • E&MJ; 33 www.e-mj.com the operation, and the DRC state mining frm, Gecamines, has a 20% interest. Freeport's agreement with China Mo- lybdenum is subject to Lundin Mining's right of frst offer, which will be open until August 8. Lundin said it was reviewing its options regarding the right. Tenke Fungurume produces copper cathodes and cobalt hydroxide. In 2015, it produced 449 million lb of copper and 36 million lb of contained cobalt. Plant feed averaged 14,900 mt/d at a grade of 4% copper and 0.43% cobalt. As of December 31, Tenke Fungurume had consolidated recoverable reserves to- taling 7.2 billion lb of copper and 874 million lb of cobalt. In addition to the Tenke Fungurume transaction, Freeport has agreed to nego- tiate with China Molybdenum regarding possible sale of its interests in Freeport Cobalt, including the Kokkola cobalt re- fnery in Finland, for $100 million and the Kisanfu exploration project in the DRC for $50 million. Kisanfu is a cop- per and cobalt exploration project locat- ed near Tenke in which Freeport holds a 100% interest. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016. China Molybdenum is listed on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchang- es and is primarily engaged in the mining, smelting, and downstream processing of tungsten and molybdenum and export of molybdenum, tungsten, and chemical products. The company also has copper and gold mining interests, including an 80% interest in the Northparkes cop- per and gold mine in New South Wales, Australia. Twelve days after the announcement of the Freeport/China Molybdenum trans- action, there was an announcement on April 28 that China Molybdenum agreed to purchase Anglo American's niobium and phosphates businesses in Brazil (See Latin American regional news in this issue of E&MJ;). (News-Leading Developments - from p. 5) The Intalco smelter has capacity to pro- duce 279,000 mt/y of primary aluminum. Alcoa had planned to shut down produc- tion at the smelter at the end of the sec- ond quarter. Alcoa initially announced plans on No- vember 2, 2015, to shut down Intalco, its Wenatchee smelter in Washington state, and its Massena West smelter in New York state, the company's three remain- ing active smelters in the United States. However, a state incentive agreement an- nounced later in November allowed the Massena West smelter to remain in pro- duction, and now the Intalco smelter is also scheduled to remain open. The Wenatchee smelter was shut down in early January. The Massena West smelter has a nameplate capacity of 130,000 mt/y. The Wenatchee smelter had a nameplate capacity of 184,000 mt/y. (Regional News-U.S. & Canada - from p. 6)

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