An estimated 100 employees and contractors were evacuated from Rio Tinto’s (LON, ASX: RIO) Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah, US, on Wednesday evening after the site was affected for a small landslide, the second this year in the same area.

Mine operator Kennecott Utah Copper said removing employees from the mine’s lower pit and halting operations for the night were only precautionary measures. The company added this time the slide wouldn’t affect production, reported the Salt Lake Tribune.

An excavator operator spotted the material shift —about 120 cm— and raised the alarm, while monitoring equipment registered the activity.

The copper mine was affected by a major land slide in April after a pit-wall collapse inside Bingham Canyon, considered by some experts to be North America's largest human-cause slide in history.

Rio Tinto's Kennecott Utah Copper unit, located in the Bingham Canyon operation, in southwest Salt Lake County, has been producing copper and other minerals since 1906.

At six-tenths of a mile deep and 2.5 miles wide, Bingham Canyon is one of the world’s largest existing open-pit mining operations. It produced about 163,000 metric tons of refined metal in 2012 plus 279,000 ounces of gold and 9,400 tons of molybdenum.

But due to the earlier landslide Kennecott estimates its 2013 production will drop by half.

Image tweeted by Rio Tinto showing the material shift.

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Oil sands development in Northern Alberta, Canada.

For the second consecutive year, the Canadian province of Alberta —home to the booming and controversial oil sands industry— ranked first in the country and third worldwide as the most attractive jurisdiction for mining investors in the Fraser Institute’s annual global survey of mining executives.

The study, released Monday as the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention held in Toronto kicks off, is based on input from 690 mineral exploration and development company executives.

Sweden and Finland scored the top places in this year’s survey, which spotlighted 112 jurisdictions worldwide. Kyrgyzstan and Venezuela were named the worst two countries to venture.

“Miners praise Alberta for its transparent and productive approach to mining policy. The province offers competitive taxation regimes, sound legal systems, and relatively low uncertainty around land claims. That’s what miners look for,” said Kenneth Green, Fraser Institute senior director of energy and natural resources.

Other two Canadian jurisdictions —New Brunswick (7), and Newfoundland and Labrador (9)—ranked in the top 10 worldwide, followed by Saskatchewan (12), Yukon (19), Quebec (21), Manitoba (26), Ontario (28), Nova Scotia (29), British Columbia (32), Nunavut (44), and The Northwest Territories (47).

Quebec, once the darling of mining investors, continued to fall down the rabbit hole. From 2007 to 2009, the French-speaking district topped the survey, then dropped to 5th in 2011, 11th in 2012 and finally 21st worldwide in 2013, due in part to amendments to Quebec’s Mining Act and recent tax policy changes.

“If Quebec wants to renew confidence in the global mining sector, it should reduce red tape, minimize the risk associated with policy changes and tax increases, and respect negotiated contracts,” Green said.

B.C. dropped to 32nd from 31st in 2012, though the survey recorded improved perceptions regarding the Western province’s political stability and availability of labour and skills.

The Canadian public policy think-tank also identified the 10 places mining enthusiasts should avoid. From the bottom, they are Kyrgyzstan, Venezuela, Philippines, Argentina (La Rioja and Mendoza), Angola, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Indonesia and Madagascar.

Image by Christopher Kolaczan.

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The natural resources space has been difficult in recent years. Potash prices collapsed, uranium spot prices hit a nine-year low, the gas market was in glut. Only oil has stayed strong. But Peter Epstein of MockingJay Inc. has found some gems in the resource rubble, and foresees better times ahead. In this interview, Epstein tells The Energy Report who stands to capture the graphite market, how to catch the next wave in potash, and offers his thoughts on when investors might catch a break in the uranium market.

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MINING.com tours Rio Tinto Kennecott's Bingham Canyon mine 18 months after the largest non-volcanic landslide in history

Source: Deseret News

Bingham Canyon, 30 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah has been mined since 1906. The mine has produced more copper than any mine in history – more than 19 million tonnes. At peak production represents 25% of total US copper production. World number two miner Rio Tinto bought Kennecott in 1989 and has invested more than $2 billion in modernizing the mine and another $450 million to clean up historic workings and ground water. This picture from the Library of Congress dates back to November 1942.

Today what was a mountain 108 years ago is a pit more than than three-quarters of a mile deep (that's more than 200 stories high) and more than two and three-quarter miles wide across the top. The elevation of the mine drops from 8,040 feet to 4,390 feet above sea level. If you stretched out all the roads in the open-pit mine — some 500 miles of roadway — you’d have enough distance to reach from Salt Lake City to Denver.

On April 10, 2013 at 11:00 in the morning all employees are evacuated from the bottom of the pit after ground probes and radar monitoring equipment detect slope deformation increasing from 1mm a day to 5mm day. At 9:30 that same evening a slide along a geotechnical fault-line of the mine's northeastern wall occurs followed by another 90 minutes later. An astonishing 160 million tonnes of material is moved by the avalanche with the rock moving at estimated speeds of 70 – 100 miles per hour. It's the largest "man-made" landslide ever recorded.

The haul truck maintenance building (think more aircraft hanger than work shop) is sliced nearly in half by the slide, the pit access road disappears and 13-haul trucks are buried. The bottom of the pit is covered in debris nearly 200 feet deep. The two slides cause the equivalent of magnitude 5.1 and 4.9 'quakes' and results in 16 smaller 'aftershocks'.

Haul truck drivers ride about 18 feet above the ground thanks to 12.5 feet tires (that don't last more than nine months and cost upwards of $20,000). The trucks are about the same size as a two-story townhouse. This image of that same truck work shop in 2010 is by Rawhead Rex.

Crews were back on the site three days after the slide to remove waste rock. Six millions tonnes of dirt is hauled are to build a new access road so that mining can resume. The task was completed in October last year, seven months ahead of schedule and limited output losses to 50% of capacity.

Haul and water trucks always have right of way and you quickly understand why. The 320-tonne haul trucks are shipped to the mine in pieces and assembled on site. 10 of the buried haul trucks have been recovered and five, put together from parts of different trucks, are back in service.

When fully loaded, a haul truck weighs more than 1.1 million pounds. Kennecott also uses seven haul-sized water trucks with 50,000-gallon tanks. These trucks constantly spray water onto roads to reduce dust, Bingham Canyon's number one environmental impact.

Despite the disruption, in 2013 the mine produced 213,000 tonnes of copper, 192,300 ounces of gold, 2.2 million ounces of silver and 6,300 tonnes of molybdenum, using giant machines like this shovel and a fleet of more than 100 haul trucks.

From this in-pit crusher the ore is moved by conveyer belt, partly through a tunnel, to the processing plant. Rio Tinto is currently working on studies to extend Bingham Canyon's life to 2029, including expanding operations underground after the discovery of a high-grade copper-gold skarn deposit located approximately 300 metres below the open pit.

The Bingham Canyon Concentrator plant. Due to the landslide some 170 workers took early retirement and another 40 were laid off or transferred elsewhere in Rio Tinto including Kelly Sanders, Kennecott CEO and President.

This image of the copper smelter and tailings infrastructure is from the mine's new Virtual Visitors Center. I also got to try Kennecott's virtual reality experience (in beta at the moment) using an Oculus Rift head-mounted display. It places you right in the middle of the action and is almost more immersive than being there in the flesh! The Visitors Center and outlook point was closed and parts of the structure moved ahead of the slide. The facility generated $2.8 million for its charitable foundation and received more than 3 million visitors since 1992.

My tour guides from left to right: Trevor Heaton, environmental engineer, Nate Foster, mine manager and Kyle Bennett, Rio Tinto Kennecott spokesperson. Thanks guys!

Images by MINING.com and Kennecott Rio Tinto unless otherwise specified. Thanks to Deseret News for use of their image.

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To the non-expert eye they may seem a set of mirages, but these turquoise-purple-pink visions are what ground-level potash ponds look like near Arches National Park outside Moab, Utah.

By Orange Suede Sofa | Wikimedia Commons.

These man-made pools are for collecting potash that is pumped up from underground. The sun then evaporates the fluids, leaving the fertilizer ingredient up for grabs.

From Wikimedia Commons.

Courtesy of Fly Over America.

By Ron Schott | Flickr Commons.

The spectacular blue is not, however, Nature’s gift. Workers add dye to the water so that it can absorb heat and evaporate more quickly, a process that normally would take about 300 days.

By Nelson Minar| Flickr Commons.

By Ron Schott | Flickr Commons.

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Digging coal by machinery at the Brown Mine in West Virginia, mid-1900s. (Image by Lewis Wickes Hine | Library of Congress)

U.S. coal producers owed the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) more than $62 million in fines for health and safety violations as of late April, a report by SNL Energy shows.

According to the monthly impact inspection list, published by MSHA, most of those sanctions were at least two years old. However recent attempts to curb this sort of offences have not attracted enough backers in Congress, says SNL report.

Two months ago, a couple of Democrat senators introduced a bill that would require mine-wide withdrawal orders for operations that are more than 180 days in arrears on paying fines or do not live up to payment plans.

The regulation also aims to reduce the list of over 6,000 contested violations by setting minimum penalty levels to lower the likelihood of operators trying to reduce fines through the appeals process, SNL notes.

Graphic courtesy of SNL Energy.

The April inspection, conducted at mines in Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia, shows that the top ten coal miners alone had combined unpaid fines of $18.3 million

The monthly reviews, which began in force in April 2010, involve mines that merit increased agency attention and enforcement due to their poor compliance history or particular compliance concerns. Since April 2010, MSHA has conducted 934 impact inspections and issued 14,246 citations, 1,247 orders and 56 safeguards

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It will be the first commercial oil sands operations in the United States.

Canada’s U.S. Oil Sands (TSX-V:USO) is fine tuning details to begin production at its mine in eastern Utah, one of the first commercial oil sands operations in the United States, after receiving final regulatory approvals from local officials late last week.

While the mine had already been approved for construction, the Calgary-based company recently submitted a proposal to expand it. The Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining approved that plan, but ThinkProgress reported it did so on the condition that the company submits a comprehensive strategy to monitor air and water quality.

Environmentalists who have been fighting the project called the decision a victory, despite the fact that both the company and Utah authorities have argued there would be little risk to water contamination from the mine, since the operation doesn’t have any connection to a groundwater source.

But a recent public hearing, community groups presented evidence from a university professor showing that water in the Book Cliffs area would be, in fact, negatively impacted by the project, which is under construction about 300 kilometres southeast of Salt Lake City.

“Unfortunately, every decision that has been made to date is the (same) as looking out at the sky today and saying it is impossible that water can fall from the sky, and I find that infuriating,” University of Utah Geology Professor Bill Johnson said about the project last month. “The conclusions are based on data that was never intended to find a hydrological resource.”

Cheaper than in Canada

US Oil Sands say their approach eliminates need for tailings ponds, requires 50% less energy input than traditional oil sands projects and recycles 95% of the water used.

U.S. Oil Sands has invested nearly $100 million over a decade to get permits, buy equipment and develop a new technology to extract crude.

The firm says its innovative approach eliminates need for tailings ponds, requires 50% less energy input than traditional oil sands projects, recycles 95% of the water used and has small above ground footprint.

The company's pioneering process uses a citrus extract called d-Limonene as a solvent to separate bitumen from sand. d-Limonene oil from orange rind is used industrial cleansers.

The Utah mine is being built at roughly a third of the capital cost of larger oil sands mines in northern Alberta, where new capacity is added for about $100,000 per barrel.

But U.S. Oil Sands is neither the only nor the first Canadian across the border. MCW Energy Group (CVE:MCW), small Toronto-based energy company, has built a processing plant in northeastern Utah which doesn't utilize water for extracting the crude. 

The firm, however, has not developed its own lease as it is utilizing a nearby resource owned by Temple Mountain Energy, which has total reserves of 89 million bbl on surface to 400 feet, a spokesman for MCW Energy Group told MINING.com.  He noted they have long term contract at a very convenient price, with a life expectancy of about 50 years.

A new report released this week by think-tank IHS predicts costs will negatively weigh on Northern Alberta oil sands production. The study estimates that output will grow by 800,000 barrels per day to about 2.9 million bpd by 2020. That’s down by 280,000 bpd from the 1.08 million bpd growth it estimated last year, when global oil prices were twice as high.

The forecast assumes projects now under construction will be built despite low oil prices.

Longer-term, however, IHS expects oil sands growth to continue. It said the oil sands are economically competitive with resources such as deep-water and North American tight oil but face pressures including project costs, timing of non-rail transportation to new markets and shifting fiscal terms in Alberta.

Utah may seem an unlikely choice for a Canadian company to have an oil sands mine. However, the state accounts for the lion's share of U.S. oil sands deposits that the U.S. Geological Survey estimates hold 57 billion barrels of oil, only a fraction of which can ever be recovered.

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The company's pioneering process uses a citrus extract called d-Limonene as a solvent to separate bitumen from sand.

Canada’s U.S. Oil Sands (TSX-V:USO) is fine tuning details to open its mine in eastern Utah, one of the first commercial oil sands operations in the United States.

Beginning this fall, the company will start digging the first in a series of pits, each the size of a football stadium, about 265km (165 miles) from Salt Lake City.

Although the development is being touted as 'the first oil sands mine in the US,'” truth is that another Canadian company, MCW Energy Group (CVE:MCW), already runs a processing plant in Asphalt Ridge in the Uinta Basin, one of Utah’s eight major oil sands deposits. The Toronto-based company is using an alternative technology to the one applied in Canada, as it doesn't utilize water for extracting crude.

U.S. Oil Sands is also developing a new technology and has already invested nearly $100 million over a decade to get permits, buy equipment and develop an unconventional extracting method.

Regardless of its “green” approach, the company has been the target of protests, AP reports:

Demonstrators who have been camping out all summer near the site gathered outside the front gate on a recent day to show their opposition. Some wore chipmunk masks. Other banged drums. Some held signs with messages such as "Dirty Energy Kills."

Opponents also worry the mine will attract more companies to the area, until now a common destination for hikers, campers and hunters.

U.S. Oil Sands claims says its approach eliminates need for tailings ponds, requires 50% less energy input than traditional oil sands projects, recycles 95% of the water used and has small above ground footprint.

The company's pioneering process uses a citrus extract called d-Limonene as a solvent to separate bitumen from sand. d-Limonene oil from orange rind is used industrial cleansers.

The Utah mine is being built at roughly a third of the capital cost of larger oil sands mines in northern Alberta, where new capacity is added for about $100,000 per barrel.

Bad timing?

A new report released this week by TD Securities shows it is not the best time to venture in the oil business. According to the research, more than 75% of Canada's daily output of 2.2 million barrels of crude from oil sands is being produced at a loss at current prices.

Every thermal oil sands player is bleeding cash on every barrel produced with U.S. crude around $41 and the Canadian heavy benchmark, Western Canada Select (WCS), around $24 a barrel, according to a report released by the bank on Wednesday.

That means only around 450,000 barrels per day of oil sands production is in the black, a bleak picture for the region, which holds the world's third-largest oil reserves but is also saddled with high operating costs.

Utah may seem an unlikely choice for a Canadian company to have an oil sands mine. However, the state accounts for the lion's share of U.S. oil sands deposits that the U.S. Geological Survey estimates hold 57 billion barrels of oil, only a fraction of which can ever be recovered.

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A US court has ruled in favour of Rio Tinto’s (LON, ASX:RIO) Kennecott in a lawsuit over alleged pollution at its Bingham Canyon copper mine, located in Utah.

The charges were brought forward in Sep. 2013 by a coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, Utah Moms for Clean Air and WildEarth Guardians, which claimed the operation was exceeding the maximum amount of pollutants accepted by Salt Lake County under the Clean Air Act.

In particular, they said the state wasn’t authorized to approve a 2011 permit allowing Kennecott to expand operations because such plan violated the mentioned act.

But federal judge Robert Shelby said that the state granted Kennecott all the necessary permits each time it increased the amount of materials at the mine, without violating any laws.

“If Citizen Groups believe either federal or state actors should do more, or are failing to honor their responsibilities, then they may direct their arguments to those actors through the appropriate avenues,” Shelby wrote on his summary judgment.

Visible from outer space, the Bingham Canyon is the world’s deepest open-pit mine. First discovered by Mormon pioneers in the mid-1800s, it is over 1.2 km deep, 4 km wide and covers 7.7 km².

A massive slide at the mine three years ago slowed, but did not stop, Rio’s plans to extend the mine’s life by another decade, to 2029. The company says there’s still as much ore in the ground as miners have taken out of Bingham Canyon since it began production in 1906.

It is estimated that the mine has produced more copper than any mine in history – more than 19 million tonnes.

A massive slide at the mine three years ago slowed, but did not stopped, Rio’s plans to extend the mine’s life by another decade. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

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Mining oil sands to extract bitumen used to create crude oil is generally a Canadian phenomenon. However, an Alberta company is hoping to change all that with a new project expected to start in the fourth quarter.

US Oil Sands (TSXV:USO) said on Thursday that the firm is holding steady to its Q4 deadline for completing its PR Spring Project in eastern Utah. The oil sands mine is one of the first commercial oil sands operations in the United States. According to the Calgary-based company, construction is 98% complete. The $62.5-million project is about 4% over budget, and that has presented a liquidity problem that US Oil Sands addressed in its Sept. 29 press release.

As a result of project costs having risen by about $2 million and due to "rectification of deficiencies," the firm does not have enough in the kitty to complete the project. It says it anticipates needing another $3-4 million in working capital before the end of the year, and is "actively pursuing funding alternatives in excess of US$6 million in order to meet this working capital deficiency and provide sufficient flexibility during the upcoming few months."

Just over a year ago US Oil Sands started digging a series of pits, each the size of a football stadium, about 265km (165 miles) from Salt Lake City.

Although the development is being touted as 'the first oil sands mine in the US,' the truth is that another Canadian company, MCW Energy Group (TSXV:MCW), already runs a processing plant in Asphalt Ridge in the Uinta Basin, one of Utah’s eight major oil sands deposits. The Toronto-based company is using an alternative technology to the one applied in Canada, as it doesn't utilize water for extracting crude.

US Oil Sands is also developing a new technology and has already invested nearly $100 million over a decade to get permits, buy equipment and develop an unconventional extraction method.

US Oil Sands claims says its approach eliminates need for tailings ponds, requires 50% less energy input than traditional oil sands projects, recycles 95% of the water used and has small above ground footprint.

The company's pioneering process uses a citrus extract called d-Limonene as a solvent to separate bitumen from sand. d-Limonene oil from orange rind is used in industrial cleansers.

The Utah mine is being built at roughly a third of the capital cost of larger oil sands mines in northern Alberta, where new capacity is added for about $100,000 per barrel.

US Oil Sands' stock was up 20 percent on Friday, trading at 3 cents a share on the Toronto Venture Exchange.

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Drone technology is advancing so quickly it's hard to keep up with it. From aerial shots of construction projects to surveillance of strategic locations and even heat maps of crops to make farming more efficient, unmanned aerial vehicles are a disruptive technology that appears to have unlimited staying power.

Rio Tinto's (LON, NYSE,ASX:RIO) Matt Key is chief drone pilot at Rio's Kennecott operations in Utah. Key leads a team of 20 certified drone pilots and is helping to improve safety and productivity at the Bingham Canyon copper mine, according to a spotlight on Key by Rio Tinto.

Key says two of the biggest advantages of flying drones at Kennecott are safety and maintenance.

"There are some jobs where it’s better for drones to do it rather than people – for instance high wall mapping or rock fall analysis. By using drones we’re removing people from harm’s way. We can also use drones to identify safety risks – such as cracks and signs of rock movement," he says. "We can see things we’ve never seen before. For instance, we’re using thermal diagnostic capability to identify equipment problems from the air. We can identify high friction rates on equipment in real time and notify the maintenance teams so the issues can be addressed."

Kennecott’s operations include the Bingham Canyon Mine, Copperton Concentrator, Garfield Smelter, refinery, power plant and associated facilities.

In production for over 110 years, Kennecott produces copper, molybdenum, gold, silver and sulphuric acid.

Check out the aerial footage of a drone flying through Bingham Canyon, presenting a bird's eye view of the operation.

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Rio Tinto (ASX, LON:RIO), the second largest mining company, declared force majeure last Friday on shipments of refined copper from its Kennecott unit in the U.S. following the death of a worker earlier in the week.

Albert Lozano died on October 11 as a result of sulfur dioxide exposure at the company’s smelter as he was performing regular work duties to remove debris from a boiler, the company said in a statement.

While the firm has not provided any information regarding to when the measure will be lifted, the Utah-based division said production of refined copper at the smelter has been halted since Oct.8, the day of the incident, Reuters reported.

Link for those willing to help Lozano's family: https://www.youcaring.com/thelozanofamily-979821

Rio Tinto Kennecott accounts for nearly 20% of the U.S. total copper production, and its iconic Bingham Canyon mine is one of the world’s top producing operations.

Visible from outer space, the Bingham Canyon is the also world’s deepest open-pit mine. First discovered by Mormon pioneers in the mid-1800s, it is over 1.2 km deep, 4 km wide and covers 7.7 km².

A massive slide at the mine three years ago slowed, but did not stop, Rio’s plans to extend the mine’s life by another decade, to 2029. The company believes there’s still as much ore in the ground as miners have taken out of Bingham Canyon since it began production in 1906.

It is estimated that the mine has produced more copper than any mine in history – more than 19 million tonnes. Last year, the mine was responsible for 63% of Rio Tinto’s copper output, generating 156,500 tonnes of refined copper.

The Anglo-Australian giant lowered Monday its outlook for mined copper and said production of the base metal slid in the third quarter, mostly due to lower head grades at Kennecott mine and the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold operation in Mongolia.

A massive slide at the mine three years ago slowed, but did not stopped, Rio’s plans to extend the mine’s life by another decade. (Image courtesy of Kennecott Rio Tinto.)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will shrink the size of two national monuments in Utah, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah said on Friday, a change that will open parts of them to drilling and mining but which Democrats, environmental groups and Native Americans are vowing to fight.

The decision would mark the Trump administration’s most symbolic land designation to date, reflecting its broader effort to boost development on federal land while rolling back Obama-era environmental and conservation efforts.

The two Utah sites, Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, are among several that U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended reducing in size in order to make way for more industrial activity.

Zinke was charged by a Trump executive order in April to review some 27 such monuments that were created by past presidents under the Antiquities Act – a century-old law that protects cultural artifacts and other historical objects but which Trump has said has been misused as a way to put huge tracts of land off limits to development.

Former President Barack Obama designated the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears site – named for its iconic twin buttes – as a national monument during his final days in office.

“I was incredibly grateful the President called this morning to let us know that he is approving Secretary Zinke’s recommendation on Bears Ears,” Hatch said in a statement emailed to Reuters. The statement did not provide details on the exact changes to the boundaries or the legal mechanism the administration might use to make the changes.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, when asked about the monument decision, said she did not want to get ahead of the president’s announcement. “I can tell you he (Trump) will be going to Utah in the first part of early December,” she said.

Trump met with Zinke in the Oval Office on Friday.

Sanders said both Trump and Zinke spoke to Hatch and Utah’s other U.S. senator, Mike Lee, during the course of the meeting. Lee has also supported shrinking the sites.

While national parks are created by Congress largely to protect outstanding scenic features or natural phenomena, national monuments are created by presidents, in recognition of a site’s cultural, historical or scientific importance.

OPPOSITION

Industry groups like the oil lobbying organization the American Petroleum Institute have said in the past that both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were unfairly designated as monuments and needed to be reviewed.

Green groups and scientists have supported the designations and condemned any move to reduce their size.

“Any efforts to take away protections for America’s lands and waters will be met by deep opposition and with the law on our side,” said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society, in a statement on Friday.

The Navajo, who consider Bears Ears sacred ground, on Friday followed up their comment in September that they would sue the Trump administration for violating the Antiquities Act if it tried to reduce the monument’s size.

“The Navajo Nation stands ready to defend the Bears Ears National Monument. We have a complaint ready to file upon official action by the President.” Ethel Branch, the Navajo Nation’s attorney general, said in an email to Reuters on Friday.

Grand Staircase, which was designated a national monument by President Bill Clinton in 1996, has drawn concern because an archeological site lies beneath it where two dozen new species of dinosaurs have been discovered. A coal deposit also lies beneath Grand Staircase. Paleontologists are worried the site could be destroyed if the monument’s size is reduced, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.

A spokesman for Representative Rob Bishop, a Republican from Utah who is chairman of the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee, said on Friday that Bishop was working on legislation “that will protect the antiquities in the Bears Ears region, ensure that local voices are heard and bring some finality to this issue once and for all.”

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World’s second largest mining company Rio Tinto (ASX, LON:RIO) has lifted force majeure on shipments of refined copper from its Kennecott unit in the US, 79 days after adopting the measure.

The company, Reuters reports, halted production of refined copper at its smelter at the Utah-based mine on Oct. 8 after a worker was exposed to sulphur dioxide gases at the plant while removing debris from a boiler. The employee died two days later.

Rio Tinto Kennecott accounts for nearly 20% of the US total copper production, and its iconic Bingham Canyon mine is one of the world’s top producing operations.

Visible from outer space, the Bingham Canyon is the also world’s deepest open-pit mine. First discovered by Mormon pioneers in the mid-1800s, it is over 1.2 km deep, 4 km wide and covers 7.7 km².

A massive slide at the mine almost five years ago slowed, but did not stop, Rio’s plans to extend the mine’s life by another decade, to 2029. The company believes there’s still as much ore in the ground as miners have taken out of Bingham Canyon since it began production in 1906.

It is estimated that the mine has produced more copper than any mine in history – more than 19 million tonnes. Last year, the Kennecott generated 125,800 tonnes of refined copper, about 20% less than in 2016.

The post Rio Tinto lifts force majeure at Kennecott copper mine appeared first on MINING.com.

MGX Minerals President and CEO Jared Lazerson

Demand from electric vehicles is blowing up lithium mining.

In 2015, 174,000 tonnes of lithium worth $1.2 billion were mined.

While the lithium-ion battery was invented 25 years earlier, the mineral hardly made headlines and output was controlled by four large primary producers (as it is today) operating largely out of sight in the high Andes and West Australia.

This year primary lithium mining is set to grow to a $4.5 billion industry. Impressive growth but still a minnow.

Now the trillion-dollar automotive industry has descended on the sector. (For context, Toyota does $4.5B every week and according to one report vehicle manufacturers are spending $255 billion to bring more than 200 new electric models to market by 2022.)

Pick any EV demand graph from any investment bank report, consultant white paper or research house forecast from the last year and they are all alike.

They start in the bottom left corner and end in the top right.

Graphs of future lithium supply look much the same.

And the Big 4 – Albemarle, Ganfeng, SQM and Tianqi – will be responsible for the vast bulk of the output expansion. And thanks to joint ventures,  cross-shareholding and downstream connections these companies are likely to only tighten their grip on primary production.

The additional output will also be from largely the same places – brines in Chile and Argentina and hard rock in Australia.

Both of which come with their own set of unique problems. On the salars in South America or basins in Nevada, an 18-month wait for solar evaporation. For Australian spodumene miners a long, costly and often bottlenecked chain from ore to battery grade lithium.

MGX is also playing the green energy boom through a wholly-owned subsidiary called ZincNyx Energy Solutions acquired in December. ZincNyx this week announced the start of manufacturing of zinc-air batteries for modular storage of electricity from renewable sources.

That makes the burgeoning industry ripe for disruption.

MGX Minerals Inc, a mining junior based in Vancouver BC, is doing just that. And it’s already deploying its technology.

MGX, founded in 2012, and its Calgary-based water treatment subsidiary PurLucid, can cut extraction time of lithium from brine to a single day.

A number of Chilean lithium juniors and brine producers are testing the technology to speed up time to market and at the same time slash their environmental footprint (and to stop praying for it not to rain).

But cutting construction and production time for traditional lithium from brine producers is not even MGX's biggest selling point.

MGX produces lithium by cleaning up the oil industry’s wastewater.

The company has integrated PurLucid’s nanoflotation technology with its own rapid lithium recovery process. MGX bought 51% of PurLucid in September 2016 with an option to buy the firm outright.
North America's oil & gas sector pumps an astonishing 80–100m barrels of brine each day
While competitors have emerged, MGX is now in deployment phase with North American oil and gas companies as first customers. The company this week closed on a $15.5m private placement and revenues from its roll-out will flow before the end of the year.

CEO Jared Lazerson tells MINING.com that the company started out as an industrial minerals minor, but early on saw the opportunity in advanced materials:

“We liked the lack of volatility in industrial minerals but quickly segued into battery materials were the outlook is for strong growth for at least the next fifty years.”

MGX is advancing its Driftwood Creek Magnesium project in BC, hoping to become only the second producer of magnesium oxide in North America. A preliminary economic assessment for the project outlines a 19-year mine life, a three-and-a-half year payback and $400m net present value.

The North American wastewater treatment industry is worth $29 billion a year and the oil & gas sector pumps an astonishing 80–100m barrels of brine each day.

Recognizing the massive expertise built up in the Alberta oil patch to manage wastewater, MGX started to develop the idea of what it dubs “petrolithium”.

Lazerson says petrolithium enables “a beautiful transition” using robust industrial process to clean up the environment and reduce costs at the same time.

For Alberta, struggling to bring bitumen to new markets outside the US, petrolithium represents energy diversification.

For the Canadian province’s oil giants it provides not only environmental credentials but an on-ramp to the electric vehicle boom (not to mention a new revenue stream from water purification).
Lithium is on the list of 35 minerals deemed as "critical" by the US dept of the interior to promote domestic production
MGX have permits covering 1.7m acres in Alberta where it’s partnering with oil and gas majors and in the US, MGX has acquired leases over 110,000 acres in Utah’s Paradox basin. The company announced a seismic survey program in Utah this week. The MGX process can also be applied to wastewater from other industrial sources where lithium, an abundant resource, may be present.

Lithium is on the list of 35 minerals deemed as "critical" and of strategic importance by the US dept of the interior in an effort to promote domestic production.

Lazerson says the company was careful not to fall into a capex and growth trap, designing its technology to be modular:

“We can put the equipment in a container and ship it off and if you want more, we ship you another. There is a point where you would decide to build a $1 billion centralized plant, but as a company we did not want to be in a position where we spend all this money developing a technology and then have to go to shareholders and the market to raise money for a massive capital expenditure program.”

MGX (CSE: XMG; OTCQB: MGXMF; Frankfurt: 1MG), listed in October 2014 and is worth C$112m on the Canadian Securities Exchange. The spot price of battery grade lithium carbonate in China has declined this year and was assesses at $21,000 per tonne at the end of May according to MetalBulletin data. That compares to $7,700 a tonne in June 2015.

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