MiningWeekly.com Audio Articles

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

A series of workshops to promote and support greater intelligence and collaboration in minerals exploration in key mining jurisdictions in sub-Saharan Africa are to be conducted by global mining major BHP.

The first of these is being held in Johannesburg, co-hosted by the JSE, Africa's largest stock exchange by market value, and additional sessions will be held in the coming weeks in Namibia, Angola and Zambia.

"By co-hosting this workshop with BHP, the JSE is supporting the capabilities and collaboration needed to build a stronger pipeline of quality mining investment across the region," JSE primary markets equity origination manager Patrycja Kula-Verster explained, while pointing out that capital formation in mining starts long before market entry.

The sessions are directed not only at junior mining and exploration companies but also at the regions' academic institutions that maintain strong geoscience, mining engineering, and innovation programmes. Geological surveys and national geoscience bodies, and research centres focusing on new exploration technologies, are also invited to attend.

Shared will be BHP's view of global mineral systems, exploration methodology, and geoscience data schema, while also strengthening relationships across key institutions to support future exploration in the region.

The sessions will also provide an introduction to BHP's Xplor programme for junior mining and exploration companies, along with innovative thinkers in exploration, academic institutions and geological surveys.

BHP Xplor, a nine-month accelerator programme for early-stage mineral exploration companies and mining innovators, provides $500 000 in equity-free funding, along with hands-on technical, commercial, and operational support. It is designed to help explorers fast-track promising concepts into viable projects that can contribute to the minerals needed for the energy transition.

The workshops are led by BHP head of global generative exploration Dr Cam McCuaig and joined by senior members of the BHP exploration team.

"The objectives of the workshops are to provide insights into BHP's global exploration approach and identify mutual opportunities for collaboration. We also want to create greater awareness of BHP Xplor, and support innovative projects to bolster exploration in the region," McCuaig stated in a release to Mining Weekly.

The 2025 BHP Xplor programme includes JSE-listed South African exploration and development company Orion Minerals, which is advancing a portfolio of copper and zinc assets.

Orion executive exploration John Paul Hunt reported that Xplor has been a validation of Orion's strategic positioning and vision in South Africa's Northern Cape. "It's already helping us to accelerate our thinking about our future resources," Hunt added.

BHP and the South African Council for Geoscience recently signed a strategic partnership to collaborate on geoscientific data and accelerate mineral exploration using advanced digital tools. This partnership creates a framework for joint research, data sharing, and exploration initiatives aimed at unlocking new insights from decades of geological information.

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation

Chilean multinational conglomerate Antofagasta has reported a strong quarter of cash cost performance, with net cash costs having been 108c/lb at group level in the first quarter of the year.

Notably, net cash costs were 72c/lb and 34c/lb at the Los Pelambres and Centinela mines, respectively, despite lower copper production in the quarter.

The group-wide net cash cost decline of 30% year-on-year was driven by higher by-product credits.

CEO Iván Arriagada says this demonstrates the quality of the group's portfolio, including its meaningful exposure to gold and molybdenum.

The company expects copper production to increase in the year head, on the back of higher ore processing levels and improving grades at Los Pelambres.

Arriagada confirms that pre-commissioning activities are underway at the Centinela second concentrator project, while progress across the Los Pelambres growth-enabling projects continue to strengthen the operational platform for future production growth.

Antofagasta aims to increase its copper production by 30%, particularly as prices remain strong for now and medium-term fundamentals – structured demand and constrained supply – are compelling.

In the first quarter of the year, Antofagasta recorded 19.2% lower copper production of 143 000 t, compared with 177 000 t in the last quarter of 2025. For context, Antofagasta produced 154 700 t of copper in the first quarter of 2025.

Arriagada attributes the lower copper production to lower processing rates and grades in line with the mine plans at both Los Pelambres and Centinela.

Gold production also decreased by almost 30% quarter-on-quarter to 46 500 oz in the first quarter of the year, which compares to 66 300 oz having been produced in the last quarter of 2025 and 42 900 oz produced in the first quarter of 2025.

The company recorded lower ore processing rates at both of its concentrators despite achieving higher gold grades.

Molybdenum production totalled 3 000 t in the quarter under review, compared with 4 400 t in the preceding quarter and 3 100 t in the same quarter of last year.

The molybdenum production decline reflects a balance of higher recoveries but lower ore processing rates.

Antofagasta remains on track to produce between 650 000 t and 700 000 t of copper in the full year at an estimated net cash cost of between $1.15/lb and $1.35/lb – assuming fuel prices return to levels seen in January.

The company's capital expenditure guidance remains unchanged at $3.4-billion for the year.

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

A green hydrogen breakthrough in Namibia is opening the way for decarbonised steel using iron-ore of considerably lower grade.

In an electrically powered hydrogen rotary kiln, 80 t of Australian iron-ore has been converted in climate-neutral fashion into direct-reduced iron (DRI) using ore with an iron content of around 56%, which is well below the typical 70% – and without the usual energy-intensive pelletising.

With this, Sustainable Steel from Australia and Germany – the SuSteelAG consortium – is paving the way for a sustainable value chain linking Australia, Namibia, and Germany from iron production and refinement to green steel, which, who knows, may even make up the bodywork of your next car, with the help of Namibia's abundant solar resources.

Last year, SuSteelAG, led by Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), embarked on its mission to decarbonise steel production using hydrogen, including when working with lower-grade ores.

Now, the first industrial-scale pilot test has been successfully completed to convert the iron-ore climate-neutrally into DRI.

The steel industry accounts for around 7% of global CO₂ emissions; transforming it is therefore a central lever of the energy transition.

Coordinated by BAM, the project is developing a hydrogen-based direct-reduction process that expands the resource base available for green steel production in being able to use lower-grade ores.

Until now, climate-neutral steel production has only been feasible using premium ores with an iron content of roughly 70%.

These ores, however, are scarce and expensive worldwide. Moreover, existing processes require the use of a shaft furnace, which in turn demands cost- and energy-intensive pelletising of the ore.

For the first time, untreated Australian iron-ore with a comparatively low 56% iron content has been processed into DRI at industrial scale at Namibia's Oshivela site, where project partner HyIron Green Technologies operates the innovative hydrogen rotary kiln.

For the campaign, the 80 t of iron-ore was supplied by Australian mining and technology company Fortescue, also a SuSteelAG partner.

The German industrial furnace manufacturer TS Elino GmbH was primarily responsible for designing and constructing the rotary kiln.

Prior to the industrial trial, BAM had extensively studied hydrogen-based iron reduction at laboratory scale and derived the optimal operating parameters for the large-scale process.

Based on these findings, the Oshivela plant refined the Australian ore into iron under climate-neutral conditions and with a throughput of five tonnes an hour.

"We have now reached a scale that is highly relevant for industrial production and demonstrated that hydrogen-based direct reduction of lower-grade ores can be operated economically – an essential step toward accelerating green steel production in Germany and beyond. This also means that green steel production need not be constrained by the limited availability of premium ores," Christian Adam of BAM, who coordinates the international SuSteelAG consortium, stated in a media release to Mining Weekly.

The next step will be to ship the refined iron from Namibia to Germany. Salzgitter Mannesmann Forschung GmbH will investigate how the refined iron can best be integrated into existing industrial processes to eventually produce climate-friendly steel for cars and other key products.

RWTH Aachen University (Advanced Mineral Processing Technologies Research and Teaching Unit - AMR) will investigate how Australian ores with lower iron content can be further optimised for direct reduction.

In addition to the companies already mentioned, the SuSteelAG consortium includes HyIron GmbH, Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Fil...

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

The conflict in the Middle East has cracked open the door for Australia to speed up the development of a handful of green iron projects as part of efforts to cut emissions from producing steel.

The immediate fallout from the US and Israeli attacks on Iran and the resultant retaliation has been surging crude oil and refined product prices amid the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz and damage to the region's energy infrastructure.

However, among the second-round effects that are becoming more apparent is the possibility that ambitious plans to turn the Middle East into a major producer of green iron and steel may be delayed, or even curtailed.

The Middle East was shaping up as a major centre for the production of lower carbon iron, which is the process of using hydrogen or natural gas to make direct reduced iron (DRI) from iron ore.

DRI can then be used to make green steel in an electric arc furnace, or it can be converted into hot briquetted iron (HBI), which can be shipped to end users in another country for green steel production.

Brazilian iron-ore miner Vale is planning three major projects in the Middle East, which aim to use iron ore shipped from Brazil and a combination of natural gas and hydrogen to produce DRI for local steelmaking and HBI for export.

The most advanced of these projects is in Oman and a final investment decision was expected later this year.

Vale has two other projects planned in the Middle East, one in Saudi Arabia and the other in the United Arab Emirates.

While the Oman project sits outside the Strait of Hormuz, the planned Saudi and UAE plants are located west of the strait and would be dependent on vessels being able to transit the narrow waterway in order to both deliver iron ore and export HBI.

Vale hasn't made any public comments on the current Middle East conflict or whether this has had any impact on its investment plans in the region.

It is, however, reasonable to assume that the longer the war continues the more questions companies will be forced to ask about their investment plans, especially if the status of the Strait of Hormuz remains disputed.

"What is an uncomfortable situation for Vale may just be the opportunity Australia's green iron proponents have been looking for," Reuters reports.

GREEN IRON STRUGGLES

Australia is the world's largest exporter of iron ore, shipping about 75% of seaborne volumes.

Nonetheless, the country has struggled to launch a green iron industry, largely because the high cost of making hydrogen from renewable energy, coupled with expensive labour and extensive regulatory approvals, has largely rendered projects uneconomic.

There was considerable hype in recent years that if Australia invested billions of dollars in building a green iron value chain, it would reap an even larger dividend through higher prices for the lower carbon product.

The steel value chain accounts for 7% to 9% of global carbon emissions, the largest single industrial contributor and therefore a prime target for the net-zero-by-2050 goals of many countries and companies.

The problem is that about 80% of steel emissions come from a single step in the process, namely turning iron ore into pig, or crude, iron by removing oxygen and other impurities, a process that now involves using vast quantities of coal.

Using hydrogen made from renewables such as solar to replace coal brings the carbon intensity down to around 300 kg, or 661 pounds, per ton of steel, about one-seventh of the current 2.2 t of emissions.

REALITY REPLACES HYPE

The problem is always going to be doing this at a price that makes sense.

At last month's Global Iron Ore and Steel Conference in Perth it was clear that the green iron hype has been replaced by the reality that only a small nu...

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

China is probably growing in importance to the gold market the same way it is growing in importance to the global economy.

By contrast, the hegemonic dominance of the United States is continuing to deteriorate amid and the Middle East war having a very negative consequence for its global role. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The gold market is being impacted by scam artists using AI to flood the internet with bad information and there's also a lot of misinformation about central banks buying much more gold than the correct level of about ten-million ounces a year.

The reason to be bullish on gold is that investment demand is up very sharply and is likely to grow further.

These and many more highlights have been brought to the fore in Mining Weekly's interview with precious metals analyst Jeffrey Christian, the MD of the CPM Group, which has just published its CPM Gold Yearbook 2026.

Mining Weekly: The chapter on central bank and dollar activity is particularly key. What should be read into it?

Christian: The gold price is at record levels. It's risen very strongly, primarily driven by investment demand. Central banks have been buying gold but given the secrecy and the opacity and the asymmetrical information in the gold market, there's a lot of misinformation about central banks. Central banks are buying about ten-million ounces a year, but you're hearing much higher numbers that are just not accurate. In addition to that, you keep hearing that the world is moving away from the dollar, that central banks are dumping the dollar, and that foreign investors are not investing in treasury bonds. The amount of dollars that central banks have now is very high. It's up 3% from a year ago or two years ago. It's up 6% on a decade ago, and the amount of treasury securities held by international and overseas investors and governments is also at record levels of more than $9-trillion.

It's been increasing at a record 11.6% per annum over the last two years and the dollar's exchange rate is up 6% or 8% from the beginning of 2025. It's still up 10% from the 2021 end of the covid lockdown, and it's up something like 40%, 45% from 2011 after the great recession and global financial crisis. So, the talk in the gold market about how the world's moving away from the dollar and dumping the dollar, and central banks are buying gold hand over fist, is just not true. That's not a reason to not be bullish on gold. The reason to be bullish on gold is that investment demand is up very sharply and is in fact at record levels. But if you understand and you have a more granular view of what's really going on, you might be a little bit less bullish about gold than you would otherwise, and you might have a more rational expectation of where the prices could be.

What impact is the Middle East crisis having gold and gold prospects?

You've seen oil prices rise, although not as much as perhaps one would have thought, and you've seen gold and silver and platinum prices fall, and it's kind of weird that you would see increased political tensions, but lower precious metals prices. I think those lower prices partly reflect that you had a lot of new investors pour into gold in the period September through January, and some of that money has come out of the gold market, because the gold price rose from $4 000/oz to $5 500/oz and it's still at $4 700 /oz, so we've seen some investors backing away. That war, and the potential for it, continues to fester, and it could drive gold prices up in the short term, but I think in the long term, it has a very negative consequence for the role of the United States in the world, which sort of sounds diametrically opposed to what I was just saying. The world right now is still beholden to...