Follow us on twitter!News Flash 9 May 2011
Business Day
Brazil’s Vale opens $1,7bn coal mine in Mozambique
BRAZILIAN mining giant Vale opened a new $1,7bn coal mine in Mozambique yesterday, tapping the southern African country’s thermal and coking coal reserves of about 23-billion tons.
Mozambique’s coal reserves have lain relatively untapped since independence from Portugal in 1975. A civil war from 1977 to 1992 crippled its economy and decimated its infrastructure. Two decades later, Mozambique is welcoming foreign investors to its mineral wealth and licking its lips at the prospect of a boom. But concern remains about getting the product to market as infrastructure renovation lags behind. Read More.....
Karoo shale gas hopefuls marking time
COMPANIES that have been falling over themselves in the controversial rush for shale gas resources in the Karoo must now hold back while the government conducts studies to determine how it handles what has become a hot potato. Read More.....
Business Report
Sasol still waits for China nod on project
Davies said Sasol, South Africa’s leading petrochemical group had already done all that was necessary for China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to make up its mind on the $8.8 billion (R59bn) project.
“We are very keen for the project to proceed,” he told Business Report on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town. “We will be very disappointed if it doesn’t.”
Asked if there was any possibility that the delay might force Sasol to look elsewhere, Davies said that “we continue to look elsewhere all the time”.
Sasol and Shenhua, China’s state-owned mining and energy company, have been developing the coal-to-liquids (CTL) facility in north China’s Nigxia Hui Autonomus Region since 2009. Read More.....
Bloomberg
U.K. Urged to Abolish Renewable Goals, Spend Less to Cut CO2
Britain should abolish its renewable energy targets and focus on less costly ways to cut carbon- dioxide emissions, according to researchers at Policy Exchange.
“The target diverts current and future resources away from measures that could save the same amount of carbon at a lower cost, such as energy efficiency, nuclear and carbon-capture and storage,” Simon Moore, a research fellow and author of the report said. “The U.K.’s commitment to meeting the EU’s renewable energy target is actually damaging the goal of global carbon reduction.” Moore formerly worked for the U.K. government’s Treasury department.
Read More.....
Daily Telegraph
Frack and ruin: the rise of hydraulic fracturing
Fracking is becoming the gold rush of the 21st century – as well as an urgent wake-up call on the irreparable damage we are wreaking on our environment. Fracking began in Britain in March, and is probably coming to a gas reservoir near you. Read More.....
United Press International
Energy Dept. seeks fracking guidelines
A panel of experts was named to develop a set of best practices for the use of so-called fracking in natural gas drilling, the U.S. Department of Energy said.
The commission appointed by Chu includes university engineering professors, Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp, energy analyst Daniel Yergin and John Deutsch, a former Energy Department official and CIA director who is now a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The seven-member panel, which does not include any industry executives, will submit a preliminary report in 90 days followed by formal recommendations in about six months, the Energy Department said. Read More......
Mining Weekly
SA April coal exports to India fall – exporters
South Africa exported 1,2-million tons of thermal coal to India in April, a fall from 1,5-million shipped in March, exporter sources said.
India since 2005 has become a key market for South African coal and an important price-driver for FOB Richards Bay coal prices, because India's coal imports have surged to meet demand that its domestic coal industry cannot supply.
India has a structural need for increasing tonnages of imported coal but buyers shift quickly between coal origins depending on which has a lower delivered cost. Read More......
