Pot is taking the spotlight away from lithium and threatening the EV boom

Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, will seek to sell bonds within 12 months to help finance a record $4 billion investment in its Chilean mines next year, Chief Executive Officer Diego Hernandez said. The state-owned copper company probably will raise part of the investment in U.S. dollar-denominated bonds as well as using amortization and retention of profits, Hernandez said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Santiago office yesterday.

The introduction of improvement to the Sena railroad would cost over US$200 million and take at least 18 months, the chairman of Mozambican port and rail company, Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique, said Tuesday in Maputo. Brazilian mining group Vale and Australia’s Riversdale Mining have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in coal mining projects in Tete province and plan to use the Sena railroad to transport the coal to the port of Beira.

Unrest and strikes in Indonesia, Chile, Australia and Africa, a shortage of skilled workers in North America and rising labour costs all over the globe are quickly becoming the most serious downsides of a mining boom that started almost a decade ago. While a historically high overall jobless rate is masking spiking wages in the resources sector in the US, workers in emerging markets are shutting down operations of mining companies deemed not to be sharing record profits fairly.

Copper-zinc miner HudBay Minerals said Wednesday it has acquired the roughly 2.5m shares in Norsemont Mining it did not already own, giving it 100% ownership. The acquisition is set to increase HudBay's copper output by about 145% when Norsemont's Constancia mine in Peru comes into full production. The news comes a day after the company announced it will spend $144m to build a new concentrator at its Lalor project in Manitoba, Canada.

Dow Jones reports Argentina's Mendoza Province has lifted its suspension of the multibillion dollar Rio Colorado potash mine project being developed by Brazilian mining company Vale SA. Mendoza's Environmental Secretariat has allowed Vale to move forward with the mine after the company agreed to submit reports on its local hiring and procurement practices to the local authorities, the provincial government said in a statement.

A five-hour gun battle between Mexican marines and a drug gang in Mexico's principal silver mining state close to Fresnillo, left 15 dead raising more concerns about mine security in the area.

Southern Silver Exploration reported today that it has increased its previously announced private placement (see news release NR-07-11) and now plans to issue up to 23,530,000 units in a non-brokered private placement at a price of $0.17 per unit to raise $4,000,100. Each unit will now consist of one common share and one whole share purchase warrant. Each warrant will be exercisable to purchase one additional common share for a period of two years at an exercise price of $0.22 per share.

Mexican mining production rose 22% in April from the year-ago month, led by a big jump in output of copper, the National Statistics Institute, or Inegi, said Thursday. Copper production rose 77% to 32,324 metric tons.

The Chilean Federation of Copper Workers announced a strike for July 11 to oppose plans to privatize the state-owned National Copper Company (Codelco). The management of Codelco, the biggest copper producer in the world, is preparing for privatization, said Raimundo Espinoza, a leader of the workers' federation, FTC.