CHROME

Merafe CEO calls for $100/t export tariff on South African chrome ore

South Africa is pricing itself out of the ferrochrome market despite it being the world's largest producer of chrome ore by selling it at low cost to China

Albania inviting bids for 151 mining licences

Reuters reports that Albania is inviting bids for 151 mining licences this year, with 20 of them to be allocated through weekly competitions.

India to consider banning chrome ore exports to China

According to the CEO of Albanian Minerals, India and South Africa are mulling a ban on raw chrome exports to China in a bid to keep local ferrochrome producers competitive … Read the full story at Mine Web

South Africa mine nationalization 'closest since end of apartheid'

Businessweek quotes a confidential report prepared for South Africa's mining CEOs as saying South Africa’s ruling party is closer to some form of nationalization than at any other time since the end of apartheid. A government takeover of mines could choke investments in a country with metal and mineral reserves estimated at 2.5 trillion and lead to a collapse of the currency, the rand.

Firebrand Julius Malema (pictured), the leader of the youth wing of the ruling African National Congress which often acts as kingmaker in the country’s politics, is spearheading the campaign to seize mines, farms and banks. Malema is never far from headlines in the country with racially charged comments but now an anti-corruption police unit is probing a trust fund owned by him allegedly being used to funnel payments in exchange for securing government tenders.

Albania miners' underground hunger strike enters day three

Balkan Insight reports that thirty miners have fasted for the last three days in a gallery 1,400m below the surface and 260m below sea level inside the chromium mine in the town Bulqiza, Albania.

The hunger strike is an escalation of a three-week shutdown, as roughly 700 miners press Albanian Chrome, the largest employer in the country, to meet their requests of a 20% wage hike. The Bulqiza chromium deposit has been continuously mined since 1948. The Balkan state has the lowest GDP per capita in Europe.

Jubilee abandons chrome acquisition, but still on the prowl

JSE- and Aim-listed Jubilee Platinum said on Friday it had abandoned plans to acquire a chrome company, as the security of the target’s mineral rights could not be guaranteed.

Chrome prices to increase as global steel production rises to 1.5 billion tons in 2012

Global steel production is set to rise to 1.5 billion tons in 2012 and due to increasing costs many ferrochrome and chrome ore producers will increase prices. The devaluation of the dollar, higher labour and fuel costs have led to a substantial increase in costs of ferrochrome and chrome ore production centred in South Africa, Kazakhstan, India, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Oman, Pakistan, Iran and Albania.

There is no substitute for chrome in the steel-making process and some 90% of the chromite mined worldwide is converted to ferrochrome, used in the production of stainless steel.

KWG Resources announces metallurgical and drill results at Big Daddy

KWG Resources Inc. has received the final report from Xstrata Process Support on its Big Daddy chromite metallurgical testing. Also, the company released drill results from the drilling done last winter program. The report confirms that the samples collected from …

Conditions at Chinese mines in Zimbabwe 'inhuman and unsafe' – union

Zimbabwe's Newsday reports the National Mine Workers’ Union has complained about the working conditions at Chinese-owned chrome and gold mines dotted around the Midlands region, saying they were inhuman and unsafe.

At a meeting to commemorate the death of 427 Hwange miners at the Kamandama underground mine in 1972, national organising secretary Cotten Ndlovu said miners at Chinese-run companies were being forced to work long hours without incentives and protective clothing and accused Chinese mining firms of flouting the country’s labour laws.