Member Info for SloppyGuiseppe

https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/africa-is-on-the-cusp-of-a-new-era--cyril-ramaphos

It’s my great pleasure to be back in Japan, on the occasion of the 7th TICAD Summit.

Only two months ago, I met with a large group of Japanese executives at the G20 in Osaka, and your ongoing support demonstrates the vitality of the relationship between Japan, South Africa and the African continent.

I am particularly grateful to our hosts this morning, Nissan.

Nissan has long been a close partner of South Africa.

Its history in our country stretches back to the 1960s and continues to this day, most notably with the company’s recent R3 billion investment in the production of a new Navara model.

The TICAD Summit is a clear indication of the strength of the relationship between Japan and Africa.

From a South African perspective, Japan is one of our most important partners.

Japan is a leading investor in a number of South African sectors, ranging from automobiles to advanced mining machinery, and from agribusiness to financial services.

This TICAD Summit is an excellent moment to reflect on how we can deepen our ties and move towards a future of shared prosperity for our countries.

Africa is on the cusp of a new era.

As we launch the implementation phase of the African Continental Free Trade Area, we are closer to our ambition of creating a free trade area stretching from Cape to Cairo.

This will create one of the largest free trade blocs in the world, with a rapidly growing population of 1,3 billion people.

Taken as a whole, Africa is already the world’s eighth largest economy and is set to expand rapidly over the coming decades.

For many years, Africa was defined by political instability.

Today, there are an increasing number of open and accountable governments that seek to support development.

We share an untapped demographic boom, as populations across the continent grow larger, more urbanised and better educated.

We share immense natural wealth, and incredible potential for the development of advanced manufacturing and services economies.

Without doubt our development path will be long and complex.

But the lesson of the development of the Asia-Pacific region must surely be that those who invest early and work to develop local capabilities stand to gain the most as underdevelopment gives way to a region of huge consumer markets and advanced productive hubs.

The African Continental Free Trade Area will require world class infrastructure, and the continent is investing significantly in large, cross-border infrastructure projects.

These includes projects as diverse as liquid natural gas fields in Mozambique, new ports and rail lines across Southern Africa, and pan-African iron and steel initiatives.

The African Development Bank estimates that Africa needs to spend between $130 billion and $170 billion a year to meet its infrastructure needs.

https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/gresham-house-aiming-to-sate-uk-demand-for-grid-scale-batteries-with-noriker-deal

Gresham House said that it was perfectly poised to cater for growing demand for grid-scale batteries in the UK, revealing it had acquired a minor stake in battery project developer Noriker Power.

Gresham House, which is among the UK’s first listed funds to invest in battery storage projects, released its interim results this morning, confirming that its net asset value per share had jumped by 2.8% on the back of improved revenue forecasts and cash generation from its operational portfolio.

Gresham holds around 75MW of battery storage assets, but anticipates its portfolio swelling to 229MW in Q1 2020 once a raft of new projects, currently at varying stages of development, come on stream.

It is collaborating with development partner Noriker Power on those projects, and today the company confirmed that it had purchased a 5% stake in the developer for a sum of £400,000, valuing Noriker at around £8 million.

Gresham said that the Noriker transaction “further consolidates the strategic alliance and the align of interests” in the storage sector.

John Leggate, chairman at Gresham House, said the growth in renewable generation and the recent frequency event which triggered a large-scale blackout provided confirmatory evidence that not only does the UK need more grid-scale batteries, but that they can “make a difference” in grid operation.

"We are excited by developments in the electricity market; both regulatory and in terms of continued renewables deployment that is expected to keep our investment thesis on track. We are in a strong position, in particular due to our scale, to capitalise on the opportunity that lies ahead,” Ben Guest, lead fund manager at Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, added.

Gresham is one of just two funds dedicated to investing in battery storage assets, the other being Gore Street Capital, aiming to capitalise on what is a growing appetite for utility-scale battery storage assets.

The UK has a sizeable portfolio of operational assets, and Current± publisher Solar Media’s in-house market research team has suggested that this could grow to as much as 1.2GW by the end of the year.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/08/26/indias-largest-oil-refiner-plans-us3-5-billion-renewable-energy-investment/

According to media reports, Indian Oil Corporation plans to invest as much as Rs 25,000 crore (US$3.5 billion) over the next few years to set up wind, solar, and bio-fuel plants. The company is also looking to invest in alternate energy solutions.

The company has an installed renewable energy capacity of 216 megawatts. The company did not share the exact details of how it plans to increase this installed capacity but did share some broad initiatives it is looking to implement or expand upon.

One of those initiatives is the installation of solar power systems at Indian Oil’s fuel retail stations. The company has around 24,000 retailing stations. In 2015, we covered a story that the company was planning to install solar power systems at 10,000 of these stations. Indian Oil had announced a scheme offering a financial subsidy up to 50% for the fuel station owners to set up solar power systems, with and without battery storage. The company has reported that around 2,000 of these fuel stations have solar power systems installed.
In the recent past, the company has also announced plans to set up large-scale solar power parks for self-consumption and to meet its renewable purchase obligation. Indian Oil, along with Oil India Corporation, had signed an agreement with the state government of Madhya Pradesh to develop solar power projects with a cumulative capacity of 2.7 gigawatts.

Indian Oil is also working on the production of biofuels including waste-to-energy and ethanol. Blending gasoline with ethanol has found a major push from the Indian government which is looking to reduce the use of gasoline to cut foreign exchange costs as well as reduce vehicular emissions.
The company has pledged to invest in second and third-generation biofuels in order to meet the increasing demand for ethanol. India’s National Biofuel Policy 2018 aims to achieve 10% ethanol blending in gasoline by 2022 and 20% by 2030. According to the United State Department of Agriculture, India is expected to hit an all-time high ethanol blending of 5.8% this year.

While ethanol blending and other similar initiatives are offsets of Indian Oil’s core petroleum business the company may have to make significant investments in the large-scale renewable energy business as well. Being a public sector company under the direct control of the central government it may be asked to focus on setting up large-scale renewable energy projects, especially because it already has substantial experience in the area. We recently covered a story stating the Indian government may allocate targets to public sector companies to set up renewable energy parks across the country.

Beijing Daxing International Airport covers an area of ??1600 mu. The construction area of ??the terminal building and supporting service building directly supplied by Hegang Chenggang is about 1.4 million square meters. In order to ensure accurate docking of three construction units, products of different specifications are delivered in time. There are 4 marketing service personnel at the scene.
At the beginning of the supply, because the arrival time is often at night, the marketing personnel often keep the same day and night in order to ensure the first time to cooperate with the construction party to inspect the goods. Liu Weidong, who is stationed at the scene, said: "There is no place to rest on the scene. Everyone often sleeps in the wind. Once, catching up with the heavy rain that has not happened in Beijing for a hundred years, we bring the car at several construction points overnight, and the goods are delivered to the designated place in time, but we are The heavy rain was trapped at the scene for a whole night.” In simple words, it was filled with the confidence of Hegang Steelers to serve the customers wholeheartedly.
? Innovative service to polish the brand
“The photo of the project-specific signage, one of our first customized services in the industry, was widely reprinted by customers in the circle of friends!” On July 3, Cao Xiaogang in the Hegang Steel Office of Hegang took out his mobile phone and excitedly told reporters. Display the pictures forwarded by the customer: a bundle of blue-colored rebars is neatly arranged, and two red and one white key engineering special signs are hung on the tight bundling line. The item name, supply model and other information are clearly visible on the above. .
In the process of building the Beijing Daxing International Airport project, in order to ensure the quality of service, Hegang Chenggang automatically generates a special identification code after the order is entered by the marketing personnel. Regardless of the scheduling manager or the production organizer, the code is queried. Can understand the individual needs of customers, to ensure that all aspects of steelmaking, steel rolling, packaging are organized according to customer requirements.
Yan Wenlong, a technician at the Bar Division, said: “Each batch of products directly supplied to Beijing Daxing International Airport are strictly organized according to customer requirements. Even the signs are automatically printed and generated, reflecting the individuality and difference of production everywhere. Chemical."
Not only that, on the custom-made signage of Hegang Steel, the key information such as the quality certificate can be inquired through the mobile phone scan code, which facilitates on-site signing and inspection, and is highly recognized by the builder.
The person in charge of Beijing Construction Group said: "The terminal building has 5 floors above ground. The rail transit station is set on the second floor of

A stone stirs up a thousand waves. Faced with the largest projects in Beijing in recent years, the major domestic steel companies have been gearing up for their strengths. In the face of fierce competition, Hegang Steel Marketing staff first started from the design, first understand the project steel demand, and actively docking project construction units, increase the vanadium-containing large-scale seismic reinforcement promotion, and strive to meet the project demand for high-strength, earthquake-resistant The characteristic quality has won the "weight" of winning the bid.
“This is one of the most important projects in Beijing in recent years. The company's products are characterized by vanadium, high strength, earthquake resistance and easy welding. They have been well-known in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei architectural circle for many years and are determined to win.” Hegang Steel Sales Co., Ltd. Jin said, "We are connecting with the contractor one by one, to understand the service needs in advance, and to provide a marketing service plan."
In the bidding process, Beijing Urban Construction Group, Beijing Construction Engineering Group and China Construction Eighth Engineering Bureau, which undertake this project, rely on years of construction experience to highly evaluate the excellent quality and good performance of Hegang Steel's products. Steel Chenggang won the first order for the construction steel of the project without any suspense.
The longitudinal reinforcement of each rebar must be straight, the number of bicycle stoves should not exceed 2, and the order must be in place within 72 hours. In the face of the strict supply requirements of the construction side, the steel and steel steel technicians work closely together to develop one by one. The process optimization plan, scientifically optimize the production organization, and the whole process is closely related to logistics and distribution, interlocking with each other, and high standards to meet the individual needs of customers. The company has supplied more than 120,000 tons for four consecutive years, achieving zero mistakes.
Beijing Daxing International Airport is a typical “three-sided project”, that is, side design, side construction, and side acceptance. In order to ensure the construction progress, the construction party releases the order information on a weekly basis. In order to meet the project requirements at the fastest speed, during the supply period, Hegang Chenggang established a WeChat group consisting of construction parties, marketing personnel, technicians and production line personnel to receive various demands from the frontier of the project in a timely manner. information.
“We are most impressed with the order of the new airport in Beijing. The customer requests one car and one stove number, and the goods are very urgent. We need super-normal organization every time we take the order to ensure the quality and quantity of the products are supplied in t

http://cd.hebnews.cn/2019-08/23/content_7453688.htm

Vanadium-titanium new materials and products are one of the “3 +3” green leading industries that Chengde City strives to build. As a leading enterprise in the upgrading of domestic construction rebars, Hegang Steelers have the characteristics of high-strength and anti-seismic with vanadium-containing features. The excellence of manufacturing and perfect service has won the praise of customers and polished the characteristic brand of vanadium-containing construction steel. It is the “leader” of vanadium and titanium new materials and products industry, and also a model for the high-quality development of Chengde. Keeping abreast of the country's construction needs and serving the country's high-quality development of loyal practitioners.
Recently, Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is known as the "Seven Wonders of the New World", was completed and was transferred to the operational preparation stage. At this point, Hegang Chenggang has supplied a total of 121,000 tons of vanadium-containing rebar, all of which are used in the construction of the main terminal building and ancillary service buildings, and once again propped up the world architectural miracle with excellent quality.
In October 2015, Hegang Chenggang delivered the first supply to Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is also the first for the construction steel of the project. “At that time, it stood out in the competition of many enterprises, and it was entirely based on the excellent quality of our products and the good reputation of many years,” said Cao Xiaogang, manager of Hegang's sales contracted steel branch, with some pride.
The location of Beijing Daxing International Airport is very special. It is 46 kilometers away from Tiananmen Square, 80 kilometers away from Tianjin City and 55 kilometers away from Xiong'an New District. It is located in the center of the Beijing-Tianjin Xiongjia District. The airport is centered on aviation and is a large-scale integrated transportation hub integrating high-speed rail, rail, highway and other transportation modes. It has a powerful radiation belt action. Beijing New Airport will not only have a far-reaching impact on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei civil aviation structure, but also accelerate the construction of China's civil aviation infrastructure. It will directly contribute to the “Millennium Plan” of Xiong’an New District, and it is also a profound change for the country to promote regional coordinated development.

They are pretty high pentoxide grades as well Alpha, if true.

https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/1963698-china-w-market-under-pressure-amid-fanya-auction

The Chinese tungsten market is expected to come under downwards pressure from a possible auction of ammonium paratungstate (APT) stocks from the bankrupt Fanya metal exchange.

The country's Yunnan government is likely to post 29,651t of APT stocks next week for auction on domestic e-commerce platform Alibaba, market participants said.

The intermediate court of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, on 15 August posted 18,661t of antimony metal, 149t of dysprosium oxide and 4t of terbium oxide for auction at the end of this month.

The starting price for the tungsten auction is likely to be 20-25pc lower than spot prices, which have been unchanged at 110,000-112,000 yuan/t ($15,520-15,800/t) since 8 August. Suppliers have kept offer prices firm and reduced output amid tighter profit margins. Spot trading activity has been weak with most market participants observing the market because of the possible auction.

Some tungsten companies including China Minmetals, Jiangxi Tungsten, Zhangyuan Tungsten and Xiamen Tungsten are expected to buy the stocks. Fanya's APT stocks account for 20-30pc of China's yearly production. The country produced around 109,000t in 2017 and 126,000t in 2018.

Fanya's APT stocks being auctioned are expected to weigh on the spot market, as the four main companies may use the stocks as feedstock to produce tungsten powder and cemented carbide and then reduce their purchases of APT and tungsten concentrate from producers.

Demand for APT from the cemented carbide industry has fallen since the start of this year. Demand for cutting tools, the downstream sector for cemented carbide, has dropped by 50pc from a year earlier since June because of an economic slowdown during the China-US trade war. China's exports of cutting tools fell by 10pc in the first quarter of 2019.

The Kunming court held two auctions of indium stocks from Fanya earlier this year. The auctions pushed down prices for 99.99pc grade indium metal to the lowest level since at least November 2006.

Fanya's reported stocks also included 19,228t of bismuth, 18,661t of antimony and 191t of gallium.

One of the most common pitfalls in the vanadium industry is the extensive capital required to build complex processing plants in order to separate vanadium and other metals that are firmly wedged in hard rock, most commonly magnetite.

Golden Deeps doesn’t need a processing plant worth hundreds of millions of dollars - Minosora expects that a $10 million plant will be producing vanadium and other base metals at Abenab in early 2020.

So simple is the process that management can bypass extensive feasibility and scoping studies, moving straight to a bankable feasibility study, decision to mine and plant construction over the next six months.

While they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is, the following graphic clearly illustrates management’s anticipated extraction process, while also underlining comparisons with a vanadium in magnetite scenario.
The most obvious difference is in the headline numbers with the processing of Abenab ore able to deliver vanadium pentoxide grades of between 18% and 21% as opposed to a mid-range of 2% for vanadium hosted in magnetite ore.

However, you can also see the differences in the way the ore needs to be processed and how this would impact upfront capital costs, as well as all in sustaining costs (AISCs).

Harking back to what we said about the relatively non-binding nature of Abenab’s host mineralisation, you can see that a key factor in simplifying processing is gravity separation - in other words, the vanadium and base metals virtually fall away.

There is limited need for crushing, nor is there a need to run multiple circuits to grind and regrind before even entering the magnetic separation phase, essential to magnetite hosted vanadium.

Even the refinery process is simpler and cheaper.

Minosora expects Abenab’s production costs to be at the bottom end of the bottom quartile of all vanadium producers.
Another important factor in maximising the project’s economic viability will be the high-grade by-products that are expected to be recovered.

Minosora believes the company can deliver grades of 14% zinc and 53% lead.

Further promising news emerged yesterday when the company released results from recent metallurgical testing undertaken on bulk samples.

Final bulk concentrate samples produced at 8.9% V2O5, 30.5% lead and 8.95% zinc from above ground stockpiles indicated the capability to achieve V2O5 grades of more than 19% from the main ore body, assuming a 30 times upgrade factor can be applied.

Commenting on this development, Minosora said, “Identifying that the above ground stockpiles as amenable to simple gravity separation result in a significantly upgraded (x30) concentrate is a huge milestone for the company.

‘’This has the potential to reduce the time to production for the Abenab Project by 12 months, generating early cash flow for the operations whilst the below ground mineral resource is developed.

https://finfeed.com/small-caps/mining/golden-deeps-unlocks-unique-low-cost-vanadium-project/

Having had the chance to discuss the project with managing director, Michael Minosora it was obvious that the unique characteristics of the mine when drawn together have the potential to support a highly lucrative operation that can generate early stage cash flow.

As a backdrop, Golden Deeps holds an 80% stake in the low-cost/high grade vanadium pentoxide-lead-zinc project that will be in production in early 2020.
Those attributes alone are extremely impressive and rare for a company with a market capitalisation of only $5 million.
From a geological perspective, the Abenab Trend is marked by a series of vanadium-lead-zinc occurrences located near the contact between the Auros Shale and Maieberg Dolomites.

The Abenab, Abenab West and Okurundu mines are located on this contact position and represent high priority vanadium targets.
Given it is the unique geological formations that host the vanadium and underpin its ability to be upgraded at extremely low costs, it is encouraging to know that early stage exploration in various outlying areas of the established mineralisation are also known to possess the same host material.

It is that host material that is central to Golden Deeps’ prospect of becoming a near-term producer of low-cost/high grade vanadium and base metals.

However, it could be argued that one of the reasons why Golden Deeps flies under the radar is that the comprehensive geological factors that make the deposit unique and valuable are complex, resulting in the company being overlooked.
The mineralisation style at Abenab is rare with the main mineral being descloizite, a lead-zinc vanadate.

Before we go any further, concentrate on the word ‘descloizite’ because amongst all of the other geological terminology it is Golden Deeps’ key to the vault.

The ore body is contained in a breccia pipe with the majority of vanadium minerals contained within a red clay.

The vanadium-lead-zinc minerals are descloizite and vanadinite that are hosted within quartz-carbonate breccia, red clay breccia and also quartz veins.

The mineralisation is situated on a long, narrow zone of deformation and associated bedding-parallel faulting.

Solution cavities in the fault breccia are filled by unconsolidated, ferruginous clay containing descloizite and galena in the upper levels.
In short, ‘minerals in red clay, solution cavities and unconsolidated surrounding materials’ tells the story - the vanadium minerals can easily be separated from the host material.
Minosora said there aren’t any other current or emerging vanadium deposit in the world that have the same style of mineralisation as that which makes Abenab’s vanadium so economical to mine.

https://m.news24.com/Video/SouthAfrica/News/watch-red-tape-thwarting-sas-green-energy-projects-analyst-20190822

It's been a long seven years for the L'Ormarins wine estate in Franschhoek, which took on the task of building a hydroelectric plant in 2012.

The Western Cape farm, owned by billionaire businessman Johann Rupert, is today solely powered by the R70m plant.

The small plant is estimated to generate about 6.3 million kWHrs per year, of which an estimated 3.5 million kWHrs could be plugged into the ailing national grid after powering all operations on both L'Ormarins and sister estate Anthonij Rupert wines, according to estate manager Robert Hobson.

Hobson told News24 that, after overcoming several hurdles, the estate had finally obtained a generator licence in 2015.

In 2016, they signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Eskom that was valid for one year, but the contract was not renewed.

The power utility allegedly gave no reason for this.

Hobson said they had been sent from pillar to post since trying to secure the paperwork that would allow them to sell surplus energy to Eskom.

Energy analyst Chris Yelland believes small embedded independent power producers - such as the L'Ormarins hydro plant - can play a very significant and important role in delivering new generation capacity quickly in South Africa, which no other generation source can meet.

"If there are short term needs for new generation capacities this cannot be met by new coal, cannot be met by new nuclear, cannot even be met in a year by utility-scale, large IPPs," he said.

However, Yelland said small-scale projects were hampered by daunting red tape and that this was to South Africa's detriment.

News24 contacted Eskom for comment on the issue, but was redirected to the Department of Energy, who had not responded by the time of publication, despite several attempts.

In this special video feature, News24 delves into the struggles that independent power producers face

The closure of induction furnaces created a market share opportunity for registered mills - particularly rebar producers - that helped lift demand and steel prices from 2017 until the market started to decline in the fourth quarter of last year.

Stronger prices and profits after several lean years incentivized the steel capacity replacement program that is taking place now.

In tandem with rising steel capacity, China's crude steel production over January-July 2019 rose 9% year on year, or by 48 million mt, to 577 million mt. Chinese domestic rebar profit margins averaged $67/mt over January-August due to strong demand from the property sector, Platts data shows.

Though downstream demand has slowed compared with the previous two years, domestic steel consumption is likely to stay robust enough to absorb any excess steel production this year and in 2020.

https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/082219-analysis-chinas-steel-capacity-expansion-to-peak-in-2019-before-reduction-efforts-bear-fruit

Singapore — China's crude steel capacity expansion is likely to peak in 2019 as the rate of startups outstrips the rate of closures for one year before the two volumes move closer to parity, S&P Global Platts estimates.
The expansion surge comes despite China's efforts over the past four years to reduce capacity as part of its ongoing supply-side reform agenda.

Chinese steel mills are only allowed to build new capacity to replace existing capacity of a similar size that they have shut down. But as most of the old capacity earmarked for removal in 2019 has been idled or closed for some time, the new facilities will result in a significant net increase in capacity this year.

Newly commissioned facilities coming online in 2019 will add 34.9 million mt/year of new capacity, taking the country's total crude steel capacity to around 1.18 billion-1.2 billion mt/year, according to Platts estimates.

In 2019 a total 51.1 million mt/year of new crude steel capacity is being commissioned, predicated on the closure of 51.9 million mt/year of old capacity, according to Platts calculations based on government announcements of new capacity approvals.

However, some 35.7 million mt/year of that 51.9 million mt/year was idled or shut down before 2019, meaning only 16.2 million mt/year will be closed during the year -- far less than the volume of new capacity being commissioned, resulting in a wide disparity between the replacement and closed capacities.

In contrast in 2020, China will commission 91.9 million mt/year of new capacity and close down 91.2 million mt/year, but only around 12 million mt/year of that old capacity was shut earlier, meaning the replacement-closure ratio will be much narrower.

China is slated to commission 21.7 million mt/year of capacity in 2021, followed by 21.1 million mt/year in 2022 and a sharply lower 7.8 million mt/year in 2023. Any net increase in capacity in those years will be negligible for the same reasons as in 2020.
However, steel production growth will remain strong beyond 2019 as the new blast furnaces are bigger and more efficient than the old ones. Further, by adding more scrap into the iron and steelmaking process - or by using higher grade ores - iron and steel production can be 10%-20% higher than the installed capacity.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China's registered crude steel capacity was 1.13 billion mt/year in 2015. But taking into account some 140 million mt/year of "unlicensed" induction furnace capacity (closed down by the Chinese government in 2017) that was never included in official statistics, China's real capacity was closer to 1.27 billion mt/year back then, Platts estimates.
The closure of induction furnaces created a market share opportunity for registered mills - particular

https://www.miningmx.com/top-story/38083-sa-govt-facing-new-legal-challenge-questioning-entirety-of-mining-charter/

ATTORNEY Malan Scholes has amended its application to challenge the validity of the Mining Charter in its entirety. The challenge was now being brought only to the second and third versions of the charter, Malan Scholes director, Hulme Scholes, said on Wednesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Afriforesight Future of Bulk Commodities Conference, he said Malan Scholes’ view, based on a recent High Court ruling on the issue of “once empowered, always empowered”, was that the first version of the Mining Charter was the only one that the mines and energy minister had the power to implement in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2002.

Charters 2 and 3 should be set aside because the MPRDA did not give the minister any powers to amend existing charters or create new ones, he said.

At this point, Malan Scholes was waiting for the Minerals Council of SA to file an affidavit either supporting Malan Scholes’ argument or putting forward another view. Scholes expected the matter would be heard in court early next year.

Separately, the Minerals Council has applied for a judicial review of, and to set aside, some clauses of the third version of the Mining Charter, while it continues to discuss these problematic areas with the minister.

Malan Scholes brought its first application to challenge the charter in its entirety in 2017, when the judge ruled they had to join with other parties. The applicants have now joined with other signatories to the charter: the Minerals Council and trade unions Solidarity and the National Union of Mineworkers, as well as the South African Mining Development Association (Samda).

Scholes said some of the problems the mining industry has faced in the past have eased with the appointment of Gwede Mantashe as mines and energy minister, but “the glass is still only half full”. Turnaround times have improved, departmental officials are more responsive, and more decisions are administrative, rather than politically-driven.

The three main challenges that linger are policy uncertainty, demands from communities whose needs the state has failed to meet, and the trust deficit between government and the industry. “Constant dialogue is needed but the mining industry should not roll over and allow itself to be bullied,” he said.

https://www.juniorminingnetwork.com/junior-miner-news/press-releases/2699-tsx-venture/elc/66124-elysee-provides-corporate-update.html

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061005819

The next decade's electric utility is taking shape today in the form of plans, sometimes thousands of pages, plopped into the laps of state regulators nationwide.
IRPs are very important. They're identifying utilities' preferred plans to meet their capacity needs over the long term," said Coley Girouard, who follows state planning processes for Advanced Energy Economy.
IRPs are working to identify the best other resources to still meet these capacity needs," such as rooftop solar, battery storage and other distributed energy resources, Girouard said.

Battery boom?
First it was wind, then came solar. The latest energy technology becoming a bigger part of utility IRPs is energy storage, particularly battery storage.
A "novelty" for some utilities just a few years ago, battery storage is getting a much closer look across the country as part of the IRP process, whether spurred by utility planners, regulators or state policies, said Jason Burwen, vice president of policy for the Energy Storage Association.
"Overall, I think there is increased attention to integrated resource planning," he said. "Technologies like wind and solar that used to be more expensive are much more cost-competitive. That is what is changing the conversation."
For instance, two Southeastern utilities have added storage to their IRPs this year. The Tennessee Valley Authority has called for adding 5 gigawatts of storage across its seven-state territory over the next two decades.
TVA's board is scheduled to meet and review the plans this week. The federal agency's IRP is more of a road map than a firm commitment, and the 5-GW figure represents the high end of a range.
And Southern Co.'s Georgia Power unit won approval from state utility regulators last month to add 80 megawatts of battery storage systems as part of its 20-year IRP.
Regulators are taking note, too. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners adopted a resolution last fall recommending principles to guide states in modeling energy storage and other flexible resources.
The principles overlap with best practices put forward by the Energy Storage Association. Those steps include using up-to-date cost estimates and declining cost curves in making projections.
"Over a 10- to 20-year planning window, batteries are going to get less expensive, not more expensive," Burwen said.
According to the Energy Storage Association, storage is expected to grow to an annual installation size of more than 40 GW in three years, up from the 6 GW added nationwide in 2017.
Another principle is employing more granular resource modeling that incorporates sub-hourly intervals to capture the real value of energy storage resources.
Sub-hourly modeling "is really where the rubber meets the road," Burwen said.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/901090/australian-vanadium-signs-mou-for-energy-storage-opportunities-using-vanadium-redox-flow-battery-technology-901090.html

https://kfgo.com/news/articles/2019/aug/15/china-court-to-auction-defunct-metal-exchanges-entire-antimony-stock/927727/?refer-section=national

BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in Southwest China is putting up for sale the entire inventory of the minor metal antimony that was held by the now-defunct Fanya Metal Exchange, as it tries to raise funds to pay back the bourse's creditors.

The Kunming Intermediate People's Court said in the auction section of e-commerce platform Taobao that 18,660,763 kg, or around 18,660 tonnes of antimony, a shiny metal used in fire ******ants, would be open for bids over a 24-hour period from 10 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) on Aug. 31.

That is the same amount of antimony the Fanya exchange, launched in China's Yunnan province in 2011 with the express purpose of boosting prices of minor metals, held when it collapsed in 2015, leaving irate investors venting their anger at China's financial regulators.

The bourse was later taken over by government investigators.

The starting price for the auction has been set at 546.1 million yuan ($78 million), although the notice, dated Aug. 14, put the market value of the stock 25% higher at 682.6 million yuan.

The antimony is currently being stored in state warehouses in neighboring Guangxi, according to the auction page, which had been visited more than 300 times by 0420 GMT on Thursday.

The Kunming court has previously sold indium ingots on the Taobao platform, although it needed two attempts to make a sale. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Fanya also reportedly held 19,228 tonnes of bismuth, 170 tonnes of tellurium and 338 tonnes of selenium.

The auctions are being closely watched by Fanya creditors, owed nearly 40 billion yuan, as well as by minor metals traders, given the huge volumes potentially coming on to the market.

China was the world's biggest antimony producer in 2018, accounting for more than 70% of global mine output of 140,000 tonnes, according to the USGS.

Chinese spot antimony prices, as assessed by industry data provider Asian Metal, have fallen by more than 26% so far this year to 36,800 yuan a ton.

"Potential sales of some key industrial metals are being blamed for further price weakness in tungsten, antimony and indium," brokerage SP Angel said in a note on Wednesday.

"Traders are concerned that administrators managing the winding up of the Fanya exchange may start to offload tonnages of the metals into the market."

The founder of Fanya, Shan Jiuliang, was in March sentenced to 18 years in prison for crimes including embezzlement and had an appeal rejected last month

http://www.voxy.co.nz/lifestyle/5/345428

Could we be close to having sustainable, continuously rechargeable batteries that power our lives? University of Canterbury (UC) Associate Professor Aaron Marshall thinks so and is developing redox flow batteries as a viable energy storage system that will never wear.

Associate Professor Aaron Marshall from the College of Engineering’s Chemical and Process Engineering department is working towards developing a stable, reliable, cost-effective redox flow battery alternative to the traditional Lithium-ion (Li-ion).

"Supply and demand is the biggest problem with renewable energy. Most of our electricity isn’t used during daylight hours, therefore we need a reliable, stable way of storing energy," he says.

In Li-ion batteries, the energy is stored when Li ions react with and absorb into the solid electrodes. This physically changes the electrodes, making them expand and contract during the charging and discharging process. Redox flow batteries are very different. The electrodes don’t change, instead the system uses tanks of liquid, made up of metals dissolved in a solution, which is charged and discharged.

"The constant changing of the physical structure in a Li-ion battery eventually wears out the electrodes, to the point where they can’t absorb as much energy. Over time you will only be able to charge your battery to 50% and, because it’s not easily recyclable, the average consumer simply replaces the battery. Redox flow batteries don’t lose charging capacity over time because the solution doesn’t wear," he says.

This makes redox flow batteries sound very attractive, but there are challenges to making it a viable option.

"One challenge to redox flow batteries at this stage is how slow the battery can be charged and discharged. In order to release a comparable amount of power as Li-ion batteries, the flow battery electrodes need to be big - impractically big."

"We are working towards developing a more viable system. If we can halve the size of the electrodes by doubling the speed of the reaction, then we can reduce the cost. If we can make a cheaper system that is comparable in price to a Li-ion battery, but lasts at least twice as long and is more stable wouldn’t that be attractive?"

"And the most exciting part is, we are only scratching the surface. These batteries could be cheap and robust solutions to large-scale energy storage."

"Redox flow batteries are already used as nuclear power backup because of the stability and reliability to store and not lose power over long periods of time, but I think over the next four to five years this type of system will become much more common."

https://www.metalbulletin.com/Article/3888713/Carbon-steel/Chinese-vanadium-exports-tumble-in-H1-vs-last-year-ferro-niobium-imports-soar-on-rebar-demand.html