22 de março de 2012
O conteúdo das matérias é de inteira responsabilidade dos meios de origem
A missão da ADIMB é a de promover o desenvolvimento técnico-científico
e a capacitação de recursos humanos para a Indústria Mineral Brasileira
CURSOS DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO EM EXPLORAÇÃO MINERAL
- EXMIN 20121º SEMESTRE
A Agência para o Desenvolvimento Tecnológico da Indústria Mineral Brasileira – ADIMB
anuncia o programa de Cursos de Aperfeiçoamento em Exploração Mineral (EXMIN) para o 1º
semestre de 2012.
O EXMIN é um conjunto de cursos de aperfeiçoamento profissional de curta duração,
ministrados de forma compacta que abordarão temas de exploração mineral e depósitos minerais,
sendo coordenados e ministrados por profissionais e pesquisadores de prestígio.
Nesse semestre, os cursos será realizados após o V Simpósio Brasileiro de Exploração Mineral
SIMEXMIN 2012, que ocorrerá de 20 a 23 de maio de 2012, na cidade de Ouro Preto,MG.
As inscrições deverão ser feitas através do preenchimento da ficha de inscrição online no link:
http://www.adimb.com.br/simexmin2012/programacao/cursos-pos-simposio.
Maiores informação sobre inscrições podem ser obtidas com a ÉTICA Promoção de Eventos,
através do email [email protected] ou pelo telefone (31) 3444-4794.
1 – Como Viabilizar seu Projeto e Evitar Entraves / Relacionamento com a
Comunidade
COORDENAÇÃO: Carlos H. Bertoni – Aura Minerals /Brasil
IDIOMA: Português
DATA: 24 de maio de 2012
LOCAL: Parque Metalúrgico de Ouro Preto, MG
CARGA HORÁRIA: 8 horas (1 dia)
TAXAS DE INSCRIÇÃO:
Até 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 350,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 470,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 210,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação)
Após 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 440,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 580,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 260,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação
2 – Avaliação e Perícia de Depósitos Minerais (Due Diligence)
MINISTRANTE: Jorge Pereira Raggi- GEOCONOMICA/Brasil
IDIOMA: Português
DATA: 24 de maio de 2012
LOCAL: Parque Metalúrgico de Ouro Preto, MG
CARGA HORÁRIA: 8 horas (1 dia)
TAXAS DE INSCRIÇÃO:
Até 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 350,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 470,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 210,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação)
Após 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 440,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 580,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 260,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação
3 – Desing of Surficial Exploration Geochemistry Programs
MINISTRANTE: L. Graham Closs – Colorado School of Mines/EUA
IDIOMA: Inglês
DATA: 24 de maio de 2012
LOCAL: Parque Metalúrgico de Ouro Preto, MG
CARGA HORÁRIA: 8 horas (1 dia)
TAXAS DE INSCRIÇÃO:
Até 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 500,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 670,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB).
R$ 300,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação)
Após 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 620,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 830,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 380,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação
4 – Sedimentary-hosted stratiform copper and related mineralization – SEG sponsored
short course.
MINISTRANTE: Alexander C. Brown – Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal/Canadá
IDIOMA: Inglês
DATA: 24 e 25 de maio de 2012
LOCAL: Parque Metalúrgico de Ouro Preto, MG
CARGA HORÁRIA: 16 horas (2 dias)
TAXAS DE INSCRIÇÃO:
Até 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 1.000,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 1.350,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 600,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação)
Após 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 1.250,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 1.670,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 750,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação
5 – Depósitos de Ouro Hospedados em Greenstone Belt: Canadá e Brasil
MINISTRANTE: Gema Ribeiro Olivo – Queens University/Canadá
IDIOMA: Português
DATA: 24, 25 e 26 de maio de 2012
LOCAL: Parque Metalúrgico de Ouro Preto, MG
CARGA HORÁRIA: 24 horas (3 dias)
TAXAS DE INSCRIÇÃO:
Até 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 1.200,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 1.600,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 720,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação)
Após 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 1.500,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 2.000,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 900,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação
6 – Trabalhando com Ferramentas Gis na Prospecção Mineral, uma Abordagem
Prática.
MINISTRANTE: João Henrique Gonçalves e Elizete Domingos Salvador – CPRM/Brasil
IDIOMA: Português
DATA: 24, 25 e 26 de maio de 2012
LOCAL: Parque Metalúrgico de Ouro Preto, MG
CARGA HORÁRIA: 24 horas (3 dias)
TAXAS DE INSCRIÇÃO:
Até 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 1.200,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 1.600,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 720,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação)
Após 20 de abril de 2012:
R$ 1.500,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública associada à ADIMB e professores)
R$ 2.000,00 (Profissional de empresa ou entidade pública não associada à ADIMB)
R$ 900,00 (Estudantes de Graduação e Pós-graduação
AUSTRÁLIA TAXA EM 30% O LUCRO EXTRA DAS MINERADORAS
O Congresso da Austrália aprovou uma nova tributação de 30% sobre os lucros das grandes
empresas produtoras de minério de ferro e carvão. A nova taxa foi uma grande vitória para o
governo de minoria da primeira-ministra Julia Gillard, que declarou que a medida tem o objetivo de
dividir entre todos os australianos os benefícios do boom da mineração vivido pelo país.
No ano passado, o Peru já havia aumentado os impostos para as mineradoras. Uma das
primeiras medidas do presidente Ollanta Humala após tomar posse foi fechar em agosto um acordo
com as principais empresas atuantes no setor para a cobrança de um imposto de 5% sobre o lucro
operacional.
Agora, além de indicar que a maior taxação dos chamados “lucros excepcionais” das
mineradoras não se restringe apenas aos países em desenvolvimento, a Austrália – um dos principais
produtores mundiais de minérios – pode estar determinando uma tendência. Ontem, o presidente
das Filipinas, Benigno Aquino, revelou que acompanhou com grande interesse a reforma australiana
e que também pretende conseguir a aprovação de uma lei semelhante. “Estamos agora examinando
o que é justo. Nós ficamos com 2% dos lucros e 100% dos riscos. Isso não parece justo”, afirmou
Aquino à agência de notícias France Presse.
A nova legislação australiana entra em vigor em 1º de julho e deve resultar em uma
arrecadação extra de US$ 11 bilhões em três anos com os impostos a serem pagos principalmente
por BHP Billiton, Xstrata e Rio Tinto. O imposto será cobrado somente das empresas cujos lucros
anuais superarem US$ 75 milhões. “Apenas as mineradoras com superlucros irão pagar, e a receita
será usada para a geração de empregos e crescimento econômico”, disse Gillard em nota.
O governo planeja utilizar os recursos extras para cortar de 30% para 29% o imposto de renda
das empresas, financiar obras de infraestrutura e conceder isenções fiscais a investimentos de
pequenas companhias.
Graças às vendas de minério de ferro e de carvão para a China, a Austrália está obtendo os
maiores superávits de balança comercial em toda a sua história. A expansão da mineração evitou
uma recessão durante a crise financeira global e está transformando rapidamente a economia do
país. Há, porém, alguns efeitos colaterais, como a valorização do dólar australiano, que prejudica os
exportadores de outros segmentos, e a escassez de trabalhadores qualificados, que em sua maioria
são atraídos pelas mineradoras.
Apesar da aprovação no Parlamento, os opositores do novo tributo não se deram por
vencidos. Estados governados pela oposição pretendem contestar na Justiça a nova lei com o
argumento de que a Constituição proíbe impostos federais sobre propriedades estaduais.
Fonte: Valor Econômico
Data: 21/03/2012
HOLD TIGHT
Riding out commodity uncertainty, producers limit output, close plants
While mining firms enjoyed massive profits last year as commodity and metals prices
remained elevated in the first half of 2011, the US debt downgrade in August and the eurozone’s
wobbles have brought about fresh fears.
Copper prices, for example, shot up to all-time highs above $10 000/t at the start of 2011,
before falling by about one-third to around $6 800/t in October.
If the outlook for commodities was unclear this time last year, 2012 has kicked off with
uncertainty being almost as high as in the immediate wake of Lehman Brothers’ infamous collapse in
September 2008.
While it is a far cry from the violent jolt with which many mining companies cut production
and froze projects in the wake of the 2008 market crash, low prices and demand are again starting to
prompt producers to halt some output.
In Canada, Potash Corp halted output at its Rocanville mine from December 25 to early
March, it says, to match output with demand.
Aluminium has also seen a number of smelters closed at the tail end of 2011 and the start of
2012.
Top US producer Alcoa said in January it would slash production at two Spanish smelters and
close a smelter in Italy.
Rio Tinto in November signalled its intention to close the Lynemouth aluminium smelter in the
UK and Norwegian aluminium producer Norsk Hydro ASA said in January it would cut output at the
Kurri Kurri plant in Australia.
Even the coal sector – which at the start of 2011 was enjoying skyrocketing prices as cyclonestricken Australian producers had their mines flooded – has started to show some strain.
Though a relatively small producer, US-miner Patriot Coal said it would idle production at
some of its West Virginia mines as a result of weaker demand from steel makers.
However, Halgarten and Company analyst Christopher Ecclestone says not too much should
be read into such closures yet.
For Potash Corp, he says the move is to maintain higher prices for the Canadian potash
“mafia” – the cartel comprising Potash Corp, Mosaic and Agrium.
In aluminium, he points out that many of the closures were inevitable.
“It’s really just a matter of some old plants being taken out behind the shed and shot to
squeeze up efficiencies,” Ecclestone quips to Mining Weekly.
Red Hot Copper
While some commodities have struggled, others are still fairing well.
Back to copper, which market watchers often dub Dr Copper for its professor-like ability to tell
how well the global economy is doing.
The price of the red metal, used in electrical wiring and plumbing, hurried its way above $8
000/t at the start of 2012.
The biggest producer listed on a stock exchange, Freeport-McMoRan, sounded a bullish note
on copper’s prospects at the start of the year.
“China continues to be strong, despite concerns going into this year and throughout last year
about credit tightening and inflation issues there,” CEO Richard Adkerson said in January.
“We’re seeing a fairly positive outlook actually from our downstream customers in the US.
Certain sectors are strong – automobiles and export-related sectors – and there’s even some
improvement in the construction business.”
Scotia Economics commodities specialist Patricia Mohr is also keen on copper, which she says
could be the top performer in the commodities space.
Speaking in an interview in January, she says “it’s possible that metals prices may pick up as
we move through this year, strengthening in the second quarter and maybe the second half”.
Earlier Mohr had highlighted that despite copper’s strong performance over the past couple
of years, indications were that the price would continue to climb.
“Copper was in a supply ‘deficit’ in late 2011, with global consumption exceeding refined
metal production, and will remain in ‘deficit’ in 2012, even with a 6% increase in global mine supply,
after a mere 0.4% in 2011,” she wrote in Scotiabank’s December Commodity Price Index.
While Ecclestone says he is neither negative on copper nor gold – both strong performers for
the majority of 2011 – he sees the greatest potential price gains in 2012 in zinc.
The silvery white metal, used to coat steel to prevent corrosion, started 2011 at around $2
550/t and dropped sharply in July before ending the year at around $1 800/t.
It is that 30% drop that leads Ecclestone to believe it has potential to significantly increase in
price this year.
Uranium is another metal that is receiving some attention in early 2012, after enduring a
dismal 2011, at least after the March Japanese nuclear disaster knocked the wind out of its sails.
Though the nuclear fuel was still trading at less than $55/lb in early January this year, share
prices of the biggest Canadian producers were starting to show vital signs again.
Uranium One, the Toronto-based, Russian-owned miner, had climbed nearly 40% from its
December lows by January 18, as the tensions between Iran and the West left investors betting the
world might look to replace some of its dependence on oil with nuclear power.
With the agreement between Russia and the US that sees former Soviet Union warheads
being down-blended into fuel for power stations set to expire by the end of 2013, that removes
around 24-million pounds yearly of supply from a roughly 170-million-pound market.
After that, most analysts expect there will be a supply shortage and significantly higher prices.
Golden Prospects
While gold scraped fresh highs around $1 900/oz in August, the metal staged an equally
spectacular decline in September, plunging to less than $1 600/oz the following month.
The precious metal had a good start to 2012, climbing back to around $1 650/oz by midJanuary, but was well shy of the $2 000/oz level that many in the industry were expecting it would
trade at by the end of the year.
In a note predicting the top-five themes for the North American precious metals sector in
January, analysts at UBS said they remained bullish on gold, predicting the price would hit $2 050/oz,
while being “constructive” on silver.
“UBS’ bullish call on gold is premised on the likelihood for ongoing sovereign debt woes in
Europe, volatile markets, and continued concerns about the global economy,” Brian MacArthur and
Dan Rollins wrote.
Their predictions for the year were that the industry would grow reserves, albeit at lower
grades and that cash costs would climb. Already, miners have been saying that costs could rise more
than the 10% they had initially forecast for 2012.
Rollins and MacArthur also said there could be a pick-up in merger and acquisition activity in
the sector, further dividend growth and growth in the trend that sees governments seeking a greater
share of resource revenues.
Canada’s Kinross Gold had already ticked nearly all of those boxes by January, unveiling an
agreement to build the Fruta del Norte mine in Ecuador that took many analysts by surprise in how
much of the mine’s profits would go to government coffers.
The company also said its capital costs would be a lot higher than it originally anticipated.
Year of the Dragon
While Europe’s debt troubles will loom large in the minds of mining executives in 2012,
nothing has had as big an impact on commodity prices over the past decade as the phenomenal rate
at which the Chinese economy has grown.
Showing a 9.2% gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate last year, fears are that Europe’s
woes could hurt China’s exports and that the government’s efforts to rein in inflation could bite too
much out of economic growth.
Pope & Company analyst Hendrik Visagie said he is not too concerned about the world’s
second-largest economy’s growth rate.
“We’re more bullish on China’s growth. They’ll probably come in at around 9% GDP growth
this year. While you hear a lot of stuff about what’s happening at the periphery, the actual economy
is doing a lot better than people think,” he tells Mining Weekly. Ecclestone does not share the same
optimism.
While many analysts seem confident that China will be able to control a “soft landing” –
restricting inflation while maintaining enough growth to keep social stability – he is not so sure,
pointing to the precarious real estate market in the country.
“The Chinese construction sector is teetering like a big pile of bamboo. While they have a lot
of demand, property is not affordable for the working class until the price comes down by 50%,” he
says.
Roaring Ahead
For the time being though, most mining companies are continuing with their massive capital
expansions as fast as they can.
In the gold sector, for example, the surge of mining and exploration activity rampant gold
prices have brought to north-eastern Ontario has pushed up the price of labour to lofty levels as
companies try to hunt skilled workers.
“You’ve got kids from 21 to 30 years old and they’re making six figures a year,” Kirkland Lakebased explosives manufacturer Nordex CEO Jim Taylor says.
“It is challenging to find qualified labourers at reasonable rates.”
For now, the North American mining sector is still in good shape.
The US economy seems to be holding steady, but there are fears over what might happen in
China and Europe.
As the second half of 2011 evidenced, commodity prices and demand respond sharply to any
negative news and they can fall quickly.
Mining executives will be holding onto their seats tightly, because the roller coaster ride is not
about to end anytime soon.
Fonte: Mining Weekly – PDAC SUPPLEMENT
Data: Março 4-7 / 2012
WORLDWIDE EXPLORATION TRENDS
Nonferrous exploration more than doubles in just two years
Metals Economics Group’s (MEG) 22nd edition of Corporate Exploration Strategies (CES)
concludes the industry’s aggregate budget for nonferrous metals exploration surged to $18.2 billion
in 20111. Despite periods of weakness and volatility, metals prices—the primary driver of exploration
spending— have improved significantly since bottoming in early 2009, and have remained well above
their longterm trends through 2010-11. Almost all companies have responded by increasing their
exploration budgets over the past two years. As a result, the industry’s aggregate exploration total
jumped 44% in 2010 and a further 50% in 2011, more than doubling from 2009’s recent low of $8.4
billion to the new all-time high of $18.2 billion in 2011.
Metals Economics Group obtains the data used in our CES series of studies through the
generous cooperation of the companies we survey. The individual exploration budgets covered by
the study include spending for gold, base metals, platinum group metals, diamonds, uranium, silver,
rare earths, potash/phosphate, and many other hard-rock metals, but specifically exclude
exploration budgets for iron ore, coal, aluminum, oil and gas, and many industrial minerals.
BASIS FOR ESTIMATED NONFERROUS EXPLORATION TOTAL
MEG’s 2011 exploration estimate is based on information collected from almost 3,500 mining
and exploration companies worldwide, of which more than 2,400 had exploration budgets reported
in the Corporate Exploration Strategies (CES) study. These companies (each budgeting at least
$100,000) together allocated $17.25 billion for nonferrous exploration, which we estimate covers
about 95% of worldwide commercially oriented nonferrous exploration spending. Adding our
estimates of budgets that we could not obtain, the 2011 worldwide exploration total reached $18.2
billion.
SUMMARY OF OVERALL TRENDS
After bottoming in early 2009, the industry recovered much more quickly than predicted, and
the global economy improved markedly over the course of 2009 and 2010, before a mixed 2011.
Metals prices also improved significantly since bottoming in early 2009, and despite periods of
weakness and volatility, remained well above their long-term trends through 2010-11. Almost all
companies increased their exploration budgets in response to rising metals prices over the past
two years. As a result, the industry’s aggregate exploration total jumped 44% in 2010 and a further
50% in 2011, more than doubling from 2009’s recent low of $8.4 billion to a new all-time high of
$18.2 billion in 2011.
DRILLING EXPANDS, BUT AVERAGE PORTFOLIO DOESN’T
… Following the collapse of budgets and drill programs in 2009, the increased budgets over
the past two years have translated into significantly larger drill programs. Most companies with
comparable figures planned significantly more drilling in 2011 than in 2010, adding an average of
14,000 m—a 41% increase among companies with comparable information. However, the average
increase in drilling lags behind the aggregate budget increase by this same group of companies
(almost 51%), likely due to rising drilling costs, an increased focus on other exploration techniques, or
some combination of these and other factors.
When we compare the number of projects and overall area held for exploration, the average
portfolio of assets in the industry appears to have changed little, with comparable companies
increasing their number of projects by less than 4% without adding land to the overall area held for
exploration... Using the industry averages, the typical exploration portfolio in 2011 consisted of five
projects, each of which covered about 570 km2, received a budget of $1.8 million, and underwent
about 6,800 m of drilling.
Despite the often-reported shortage of experienced geoscientists, most companies increased
their exploration groups in 2011. Major and intermediate companies with comparable information
hired on average nine and four new geoscientists respectively, although staffing increases among the
juniors were marginal (only one more geoscientist for every three companies…
EXPLORATION EXPENDITURES RISE IN ALL REGIONS
Exploration allocations for all regions increased to record highs in 2011, led by the largest
dollar increases in Latin America and Africa. Latin America remained the most popular exploration
destination, attracting 25% of global spending in 2011, with six countries—Mexico, Chile, Peru,
Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina—accounting for the lion’s share of the region’s total. Buoyed by
strong growth in gold exploration in Colombia, Guyana, Brazil, and Mexico, the share of allocations
targeting gold in Latin America increased in 2011, while base metals slipped to its smallest share in
more than a decade.
Canada has been the industry’s second favorite region for the past decade, and continued to
take advantage of its large pool of junior explorers and exploration-focused tax incentives to attract
18% of the global total in 2011. Three provinces—Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia—accounted
for more than 60% of the planned Canadian nonferrous exploration spending. Gold remained the
leading target in the country, attracting more than two–and-a-half times the base metals budget.
Eurasian countries make up the third largest region, led by allocations for China and Russia,
and by four other countries—Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Finland, and Turkey—that each attracted
aggregate budgets of more than $100 million in 2011. Although gold remained the region’s top target
in 2011, base metals allocations increased at a faster pace due to rapidly growing copper and nickel
budgets for Kazakhstan, Russia, China, and Poland.
Africa saw the biggest year-on-year percentage increase of all regions in 2011, claiming 15%
of the world total and widening its lead over fifth-place Australia. After slipping to second place in
2010 behind the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa regained the top spot for planned
spending in Africa in 2011. Burkina Faso rose from twelfth in 2009 to third in 2011, leading the rapid
rise in gold exploration in West Africa in recent years. The increased efforts in West Africa translated
into gold receiving more than half the African exploration total in each of the last two years; in
contrast, since accounting for about a third of African budgets in 2004, diamond allocations dropped
to an all-time low of 6% in 2011, primarily due to waning diamond spending in Sub-Saharan Africa, as
many companies focus more in countries such as Russia and India.
Exploration spending in Australia kept pace with the world average increase in 2011,
maintaining the country’s share of the total at about 13%, despite mining reform at both the national
and state levels dominating the country’s headlines for much of the year. Spending in Western
Australia accounted for almost half the country’s 2011 nonferrous exploration total, while South
Australia saw the largest year-on-year percentage increase. Gold and base metals accounted for the
bulk of Australia’s 2011 exploration total, with allocations for diamonds, uranium, platinum group
metals, and other targets trailing by wide margins.
Gold and copper exploration in the United States kept it in sixth place regionally, ahead of the
Pacific Islands. Nevada had the largest share of the country’s 2011 exploration total, and three
states—Nevada, Arizona, and Alaska—accounted for almost two-thirds of the country’s total.
Although gold continued to attract more than half of all spending in the United States, base metals
reached its second-highest percentage share in the past decade, based in part on increased copper
exploration in Arizona and Utah.
Among the Pacific Islands, allocations for Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and the Philippines
accounted for the bulk of the region’s 5% of the world exploration total, with budgets fairly evenly
split between gold and base metals. Despite the region’s high prospectivity for gold, copper, and
nickel, investors continued to be wary of the political and social unrest, uncertainty of tenure, and
periodic antimining violence that have plagued the region for years. As a result, we have not seen a
lot of new entrants into these countries in recent years, with most exploration conducted by larger
producers in and around their existing assets.
RISK TOLERANCE RISES WITH EXPLORATION SPENDING
Most countries saw increased exploration investment in 2011, and explorers demonstrated a
higher tolerance for risk despite additional concerns and uncertainty about security, policy,
taxation, and tenure in many countries. Of the 121 countries for which we documented exploration
spending by the industry in 2011, those commonly perceived to be high risk accounted for 23% of the
2011 aggregate exploration total, up from less than 15% in 2010. The potential reward of working in
higher risk areas often increases the industry’s appetite for risk during periods of increased
exploration spending, but exploration in high-risk countries, particularly early-stage work, is usually
the first to be cut when risk levels or uncertainty increase.
SIGNIFICANT DRILLING SURGES, WITH INCREASED BUDGETS
Fueled by surging commodities prices, and an accompanying increased availability of risk
capital, junior and intermediate companies embarked on unprecedented exploration spending in
2011. Significant drill announcements by these companies followed suit, increasing 73% over
2010’s total and hitting new four-year highs between May and November. Compared with the lows
of late 2008 and early 2009, when most companies avoided risk and focused their exploration dollars
on their existing, more advanced deposits, 2011 saw a rebound in the number of initial finds, new
zones, and satellite deposits, as well as from work on expanding existing resources.
Gold, copper, and silver accounted for 92% of the significant precious and base metals drill results
in 2011. The regional distribution of results illustrated in the map below shows good levels of success
in West Africa and Colombia (gold), the Andean regions of South America (copper), and Mexico
(silver). Canada and Australia—home to, and popular exploration destinations for, many of the
world’s junior explorers—also had very good numbers for both gold and base metals,
exemplifying the value of ease of access to prospective land—both geographically and
politically. The
relative lack of significant results throughout mainland Asia—considered some of the most
prospective and underexplored terrain on the globe—demonstrates that regardless of geology, many
publicly-listed juniors are still hesitant to seriously explore in countries that historically have not
protected their long-term interests.
DECLINE IN EQUITY MARKETS PRESENTS OPPORTUNITIES
With risk capital-dependent junior companies accounting for close to half of annual
exploration spending in recent years, the state of equity markets plays a key role in shaping trends
and strategies in the exploration industry from year to year. Strong market conditions enabled junior
explorers to raise a combined $7.4 billion for precious and base metals explorations in the final
quarter of 2010 and the first half of 2011. Despite reports of drill rig shortages and assay lab backlogs
in some key exploration regions, significant drill results trended strongly upward for most of 2011.
Equity markets then struggled in the second half of 2011, and the pace of exploration
financings fell back to the levels of late 2009 and early 2010. Since most of the money a junior spends
on exploration in a given year is typically raised between the fourth quarter of the previous year and
the middle of the current year, if equity markets fail to improve in the first half of 2012, many
juniors may have trouble raising the necessary funds to sustain or increase exploration spending in
2012. In contrast, intermediate and major producers with healthy balance sheets are likely to
intensify their efforts to replace reserves by increasing their exploration allocations in 2012. If this
scenario plays out in the coming months, the juniors’ share of overall exploration spending in 2012
will decline.
These conditions—historically strong commodity prices, resource-hungry miners with strong
balance sheets, and a relative shortage of available risk capital—can create interesting opportunities
for the exploration industry. Juniors with promising projects at current and long-term metals prices,
but with insufficient access to equity funding to advance them in the short term, are more open to
financing, joint venture, or acquisition discussions with larger players, or may look to consolidate with
better financed peers, particularly when both are working in the same exploration camps.
In addition, if equity markets do not improve relatively early in 2012, majors and intermediates
looking to finance or joint-venture with cash-strapped junior explorers are likely to negotiate far
more favorable terms than they would have in 2011.
*
A matéria completa pode ser obtida no site: http://www.metalseconomics.com/mediacenter/world-exploration-trends-2012
Fonte: Metals Economic Group
Data: Março de 2012
TENSÃO SOCIAL NO PERU INIBE US$ 11 BI EM INVESTIMENTOS
Uma série de conflitos sociais ameaça emperrar parte de um ambicioso plano de
investimentos bilionário no Peru, segundo maior produtor de prata e cobre e sexto maior produtor
de ouro do mundo. Atualmente, preocupações ambientais, somadas à radicalização do discurso de
opositores e à falta de diálogo no governo, paralisam ao menos seis grandes projetos de mineração,
com investimento total de US$ 11 bilhões.
Esses investimentos fazem parte de uma carteira de 46 projetos planejados pelo governo,
com valor estimado em US$ 53,7 bilhões. O maior deles, a mina de ouro e cobre de Conga, na região
de Cajamarca, está paralisado desde novembro. Preocupada com o impacto da mina sobre duas
lagoas, a população parou a cidade de Cajamarca por duas semanas, o que levou o governo
suspender o projeto e contratar uma auditoria internacional para dar um veredicto sobre o impacto
ambiental da exploração - já havia sido realizado um estudo de impacto ambiental.
Três dos seis grandes projetos paralisados atualmente se encontram em Cajamarca, onde a
oposição a eles é inflada pela atuação do governador regional, Gregorio Santos, do partido Patria
Roja, comunista. Santos, uma das vozes mais ativas nos protestos que paralisaram o projeto Minas
Conga, já disse que não aceitará o parecer dos consultores estrangeiros.
Para analistas, o desfecho do impasse em Cajamarca pode definir o futuro dos investimentos
na mineração peruana. O setor responde hoje por 11,7% do PIB, de US$ 160 bilhões, e 60% dos US$
48 bilhões de exportações dos país, segundo a Sociedade Nacional de Mineração, Petróleo e Energia
(SNMPE). "O 'benchmark', a referência, neste momento é Conga. Se sair Conga, 'we are in business'.
Se não sair Conga, 'we are out of business'. A coisa é simples assim", diz Miguel Santillana, analista de
mineração do Instituto del Perú, da Universidade San Martín de Porres.
Segundo ele, "caudilhos regionais", como Santos, apoiados por ONGs ambientais, se
aproveitam da desinformação da população para reforçar uma agenda contrária aos investimentos.
"O Estado peruano não fez uma campanha junto à população com respeito a direitos ambientais,
sociais, manejo de água, manejo de terra. Ante a essa ignorância, vêm as agendas de ONGs
antimineiras", afirma. "O que aparece na mídia é uma luta por temas ambientais, que esconde por
trás uma agenda política à qual se juntam grupos organizados de esquerda, que não querem
investimentos privados."
O conflito em Conga reflete também o divórcio entre o presidente Ollanta Humala e grupos
mais à esquerda que o ajudaram a chegar ao poder em julho de 2011. Oficial do Exército com um
histórico nacionalista, ele ganhou uma apertada eleição após moderar o discurso e abrir mão do
modelo bolivariano de Hugo Chávez e Evo Morales - a referência, então, passou a ser Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva.
A exemplo do ex-presidente brasileiro, Humala reforçou os gastos sociais, sem deixar de lado
o modelo desenvolvimentista do antecessor, o direitista Alan García. Como resultado, colhe uma
popularidade alta, na casa dos 55%, segundo as pesquisas mais recentes, com apoio ainda mais
amplo entre as classes A e B, onde a aprovação ao seu governo supera os 75%. Por outro lado, ele
não conseguiu diminuir a tensão social no país e hoje administra mais de 200 conflitos em 21 das 25
regiões administrativas peruanas, índice herdado de García.
"Esses conflitos são o principal problema do governo Humala e ameaçam afetar a
governabilidade e os investimentos no país, apesar do crescimento econômico [6,9% em 2011]", diz o
analista Luis Benavente, da Universidade de Lima.
Diante da ameaça de ver seus projetos irem por água abaixo, as empresas começam a
promover ações "educativas" para ganhar a simpatia da população local. "Estamos tratando de
corrigir a desinformação que há sobre os projetos mineradores, para que a população conheça os
benefícios da indústria extrativa", diz o presidente da SNMPE, Pedro Martínez.
Mas a iniciativa enfrenta resistências. Na semana passada, sete funcionários do consórcio
responsável pela mina de Conga foram sequestrados em Cajamarca enquanto distribuiam material
informativo para crianças.
Os conflitos de fundo ambiental também ameaçam investimentos na área energética, vitais
para viabilizar os projetos de mineração e atender a demanda doméstica no país, que cresce rápido,
junto com o resto da economia.
No final de 2011, a oposição de indígenas e a pressão de grupos ambientalistas paralisou os
planos de construção de quatro de um total de cinco usinas hidrelétricas que seriam erguidas no Peru
por empreiteiras brasileiras. Analistas acreditam que, caso o país não invista US$ 1 bilhão por ano no
setor, o Peru passará por uma crise energética por volta de 2017, que pode vir a afetar os preços dos
metais.
Para tentar agilizar os investimentos, Humala prepara um projeto de lei de consultas prévias
para dar voz às comunidades sobre os projetos. Mas até isso é alvo de polêmica: o resultado das
votações não será vinculante, e a última palavra ficará com o governo.
Fonte: Valor Econômico
Data: 20/03/2012
INDÚSTRIA DA MINERAÇÃO GANHA UMA NOVA FERRAMENTA DE
CONHECIMENTO: O PRIMEIRO ANUÁRIO MINERAL DO PARÁ
Iniciativa do Sindicato das Indústrias Minerais do Estado do Pará (Simineral)
incentiva a difusão da cultura mineral no Estado
Com o mote “A informação a serviço do desenvolvimento sustentável da mineração”, o
Sindicato das Indústrias Minerais do Estado do Pará (Simineral), lança o Primeiro Anuário Mineral do
Pará. A iniciativa é pioneira para o setor e contêm números expressivos da produção, exportação,
investimentos, geração de empregos e benefícios para a comunidade, além de matérias e entrevistas
com autoridades e renomados profissionais do Estado.
Para o Presidente do Simineral, José Fernando Gomes, o Anuário é muito mais do que um
veículo de informação do setor. “Ele é uma ferramenta de consulta e uma vitrine do que há de
melhor no mineral-negócio paraense. Além disso, agregará visão de futuro, tendências em inovação,
tecnologia e sustentabilidade, valorizando as pessoas que atuam na indústria da mineração e
colaboram para o seu desenvolvimento”, afirma.
No exemplar, constam matérias sobre novas tecnologias, mineração sustentável e meio
ambiente, saúde e segurança no trabalho, mão de obra qualificada e o destaque para o avanço das
mulheres na indústria mineral. Além de grandes reportagens, o Anuário conterá também, entrevistas
com personalidades do Pará, como o Vice-Governador do Estado, Helenilson Pontes; o Presidente da
Assembléia Legislativa do Estado do Pará, Manoel Pioneiro; o Prefeito de Paragominas, Adnan
Demachki, entre outros.
Com o objetivo de disseminar a cultura da mineração, o Simineral, lançará o Anuário,
também, nas principais regiões mineradoras do Estado, para que o exemplar possa servir como um
novo canal de interlocução. Nas demais ações do Sindicato estão a entrega de mais de 1.200
exemplares digitais às escolas públicas e instituições de ensino superior, e a realização de concursos e
premiações sobre o setor.
O lançamento do Anuário conta com o apoio do Instituto Brasileiro de Mineração (IBRAM),
que, segundo o Presidente interino, Rinaldo Mancin, consolida e dissemina informações realistas
sobre a indústria mineral. “Em estados como o Pará, onde a atividade está crescendo cada vez mais,
é preciso iniciativas como esta para levar ao público informações sobre a indústria mineral. Com base
no Anuário, tanto a população quanto os empresários locais e de toda a região Norte poderão ter
acesso inicial à mineração”, afirma.
Mineração - A indústria mineral tem grande peso na balança comercial do Estado do Pará, onde
responde por mais de 92% das exportações, figurando como o principal setor a contribuir para o
superávit paraense na relação comercial com outros países. Além disso, o setor da mineração é o que
mais investe no Pará. Até 2016, o Simineral estima US$ 41 bilhões em investimentos, com aportes
destinados à indústria extrativa (US$ 22 bilhões), transformação mineral (US$ 7 bilhões),
infraestrutura (US$ 11 bilhões) e novos negócios (US$ 1,6 bilhão). Na cadeia produtiva mineral,
a geração de emprego e renda totaliza 232 mil postos de trabalho, entre empregos diretos e
indiretos.
Fonte: IBRAM
Data: 15/03/2012
CONGRESSO DEBATE FINANCIAMENTOS PARA A MINERAÇÃO
O 2º Congresso Internacional de Direito Minerário promovido pelo IBRAM – Instituto
Brasileiro de Mineração em parceria com o Departamento Nacional de Produção Mineral (DNPM) e a
Escola da Advocacia-Geral da União que será realizado em Salvador (BA), nos dias 2 a 4 de maio,
conta com profissionais do Direito das esferas privada e governamental, assim como, executivos de
mineração nacional e internacional para debaterem as questões relacionadas à matéria, com
destaque para as que têm gerado maior repercussão no Poder Judiciário.
O evento conta com uma programação de painéis e oficinas de trabalho ministradas por
especialistas no setor. Um dos temas tratados é sobre o financiamento de projetos de mineração e
seus desafios, já que uma das dificuldades é a falta, no Brasil, de instrumentos de crédito para o
desenvolvimento da atividade. É preciso capital para investir em pesquisa mineral e também
estimular a cultura de capitalização entre as pequenas e médias empresas do setor.
O painel busca achar soluções para os principais entraves da captação de recursos no setor
minerário brasileiro e que alternativas podem ser adotadas para melhorar o acesso à obtenção de
crédito.
Participe, exponha suas opiniões e aprofunde seus conhecimentos sobre o Direito Minerário,
no Brasil e no exterior. Para mais informações consulte o site www.direitominerario.org.br ou ligue
para (31) 3444-4794.
Fonte: IBRAM
Data: 15/03/2012
BAMIN DESCOBRE NOVA MINA EM CAETITÉ
A Bahia Mineração (Bamin) descobriu mina em Caetité (BA), com potencial produtivo de 398
milhões de t de minério de ferro. A empresa vai investir US$ 2,5 bilhões nos próximos três anos na
Bahia. A empresa estima que a produção inicial do projeto, chamado Pedra de Ferro, será de 20
milhões de t/ano de minério de ferro, com início das operações a partir de 2014.
Fonte: Brasil Mineral
Data: 15/03/2012
NÍQUEL: FERREIRA DIZ QUE VALE SE TORNA LÍDER MUNDIAL EM 2013
Murilo Ferreira, presidente da Vale, comentou que até o final de 2013 a mineradora deve se
tornar a maior produtora mundial de zinco. Atualmente, com operações no Canadá, a Vale fica atrás
apenas da russa Norilsk. Ferreira disse que a demanda por níquel deve continuar em alta nos
próximos anos, puxada em grande parte pelo setor de veículos elétricos que utiliza o metal em suas
baterias. Em 2011, a Vale vendeu 252 mil t de níquel, 44,8% a mais que em 2010, com receita de US$
5,72 bilhões.
Fonte: Brasil Mineral
Data: 15/03/2012
BRAZIL’S OUTSTANTING PERFORMANCE IN THE GLOBAL ARENA
Brazil’s commanding role in world mining grows stronger with every passing year. Whereas
little more than a decade ago the country occupied a relatively modest position in world mining
output, being known almost exclusively as an iron ore and gold producer, today it ranks fourth among
leading producers and has successfully diversified its range of commodities, in addition to
strenghthening its position as an iron ore producer. Thus Brazil is today a world player in iron ore
(first place), manganese (second place), niobium (first), bauxite (second), graphite (third), and
ornamental rocks (fourth). It is also exporter of nickel, copper, gold, china clay and chromium.
From a corporate viewpoint, apart from being the home of Vale – a Brazilian company that is
the second largest in the industry and whose shares are today traded on the world’s leading stock
exchanges – Brazil also hosts leading multinational corporations such as Alcan, Alcoa, Anglo
American, AngloGold Ashanti, ArcelorMittal, BHP Billiton, Holcim, Imerys, Knross, Lafarge, Rio Tinto,
and Yamana. Among Brazilian companies, apart from Vale, the mining industry includes corporations
that have gone on to become global players. This is the case of CSN, Gerdau, and Votorantim.
Brazil’s vast land area has also been the target for exploration programmes on the part of
highly active junior companies, mainly those whose shares are listed on Canadian and Australian
exchanges. On the whole, these programmes have been successful.
The prospect for the next few years is that Brazil will further strengthen its position on the
world mining scene, taking into account the many projects now underway for starting up new
production units or expanding existing facilities. As is made plain in the reports in this special edition
of Brasil Mineral, aimed at a worldwide readership, corporate investment budgets, an up to cover
US$ 70 billion, place Brazil in a prominent position among countries attracting the greatest
investments in mining.
Geologists are confident that Brazil still holds in store a number of pleasant surprises in terms
of new finds. Recent events confirm this expectation, such as the discovery of a thalium deposit in
Bahia and a rare earth oxides deposit in Minas Gerais.
Apart from its geological potential, Brazil presents other favourable factors such as political
and economic stability and the stage of development it has already achieved compared with other
countries that are also rich in mineral wealth.
There is at the moment some uncertainty as to the government’s declared intention to make
changes to the legislation governing the mining industry, but the expectation is that common sense
will prevail, avoiding any risk of a downturn in the Brazilian mining industry’s development curve,
enabling the country to maintain the outstanding position that it has now achieved.
Fonte: Brazil Mineral Magazine
Data: Especial Issue 2012
THE SEARCH FOR NEW DEPOSITS: IS IT WORTH THE INVESTMENT?
Investing in mineral exploration is still a profitable business in Brazil. Proof of this is the
number of success stories such as those of Yamana (which is the last few years has invested mainly in
areas that were already partially known, and where the company then went on to undertake major
mining ventures), Jaguar Mining, AngloGold, Vale, Votorantim, MbAC, Mirabela, and CBPM. All of
these have made important discoveries in recent years. CBPM, owned by the Bahia state
government, is set to achieved financial self-sufficiency by the end of 2012, on the strength of
royalties to be earned on the ore deposits it has found, notes Onildo Marini, a geologists who is the
executive secretary of Adimb, the Brazilian Mining Industry Development Agency, a body whose
membership comprises all the main companies engaged in mineral exploration in Brazil.
While conceding that there are considerable challenges to be overcome – less than adequate
infrastructure in some regions, mixed signals from the government about possible changes to the
mining laws, environmental difficulties – Marini observes that any company making the option to
invest in Brazil’s geology stands a chance of making a discovery, even in well-known regions such as
the Iron Quadrangle in Minas Gerais, which has long been a major source of minerals. Each region
presents challenges of its own, he warns. “It’s obviously much easier to invest in the Iron
Quadrangle”, he says, “because all the infrastructure you need is already in place. The Amazon is a
different story. These are cases of companies that haven1t done any exploration in the Amazon
simply because they’re too small to be able to afford the cost. At the same time there are others, just
as small, that are active in the gold sector and are doing well because the found deposits of a
seasonable size”.
The problem in the Amazon region, he notes, is that the scarcity of roads and the very poor
condition of few that there are can combine with the high cost of fuel to make access and
transportation an expensive business.
One difficulty that has not arisen in Brazil, however, he points out, is the challenge that some
mining companies have now come up against in the Andean countries, where a number of local
communities have been displaying growing hostility it towards mining projects in their localities. “In
Brazil”, Marini says, “rural communities welcome mining projects, seeing them as opportunities for
jobs and higher wages.” Even so, he warns, Brazil is no place for beginners: anyone thinking of
coming here will need to work with Brazilians possessing the necessary experience, whether as
partners or employees. “This is vital”, he stresses.
Most investments take place in areas where “the game is already afoot”, Marini notes. In
other words, companies are now moving into the sites where the surface deposits, or alluvial or
colluvial ores, have already been worked out by garimpeiros (prospectors). Other companies are
reopening disused mines which had become uneconomic but are now a viable option again, whether
because of improved commodity prices or due to new technologies that enable companies to extract
and process ores that were formerly left untouched. But hardly anyone at all is investing in greenfield
sites. “The last new mineral province to be discovered was Carajás,” he recollects. “That was more
than forty years ago and, even so, it was only discovered because geologists were unafraid to venture
into the jungle, where northing was known, with scattered geological references and using a
powerful weapon, the helicopter, with which were able to go where no one had set foot before.
Summing up, what I would most like to see is a new greenfield site somewhere in Brazil, preferably in
the Amazon region, beginning a new cycle of the discovery of new mineral provinces”.
Marini places great faith, he says, in the surveys conducted by Caetano Giuliani, a geologist at
the University of São Paulo, who has reported finding porphyry deposits in the Tapajós River region in
the state of Pará. The whole region, he says, is propitious for both porphyry and epithermal deposits.
“What does this mean?” he asks. “It means it’s the same kind of deposit found in the Andes, from
Ecuador and Peru to Chile and the north of Argentina. I the Tapajós area so far we have found gold in
association with sulphide. That means we need to get to know the province better”.
Marini also notes that sedimentary basins in Brazil, both Paleozoic and Mesozoic, have not so
far disclosed any significant mineral deposits, such as sulphides, in the way it has happened in
Australia, the United States, and elsewhere. Nobody knows why this should be, he says, because
nobody has done any research focusing on this question. “In principle it is believed that sedimentary
basins have a very low potencial for metallic ores. But in other countries discoveries of this kind have
been made. Why?”
Another question still waiting for an answer from geologists concerns the search for primary
diamonds. “Brazil has been the leading world supplier of alluvial diamonds”, Marini says, “but
kimberlite discoveries have been o a very small scale. In Canada exploration went on for years, until,
somebody found a major deposit in the North, near the Artic Circle. We have to look for the key to
solve this problem”.
Activities in decline
While is it not yet in possession of the final figures, Adimb believes that was a decline in metal
exploration activity in Brazil last year, partly in response to the uncertainties arising from the
European crises and partly also because the Brazilian government has not issued a clear statement of
its intentions in regard to the announced chances in the mining laws. Marini’s analysis shows,
however, a more nuanced picture, with some areas of activity being harder than others. Those
projects which were still at an embryonic stage were the first to be set aside, in some cases activities
coming to an almost total standstill. Other projects that were at a amore advanced stage of execution
had their timetables stretched out but were not halted. Medium-and long-term projects are in this
second category.
I the case of iron ore, for example, which remains to this day the driving force behind mining
activity in Brazil, projects at sites such as Carajás and those in Minas Gerais, where the ore has an
exceptionally high iron content, are going forward as planned, where projects aimed at working
deposits having an iron content of only around 35 percent have been put on ice at the research stage.
“These are projects in iron-bearing formation where no enrichment of the iron occurred and which
would therefore need to be treated and enriched before they can be marketed,” Marini says.
Copper and nickel similarly suffered no setbacks, particularly in view of the fact that both
these metals are among the priorities at two of the giants in the industry, Vale and Anglo American.
Gold, too, has held its place in companies’ programmes, firstly because the price remains at a
satisfactorily remunerative level and secondly because Brail has always had a vocation as a gold
producer. Consequently investments in exploration are going ahead as planned, particularly in those
cases where the mine is due to become operational at an early date.
In the case of diamonds, for which Brazil also has a vocation, there have been some signs of a
return to exploration activities in the Serra da Canastra region in Minas Gerais and also in Bahia,
Marini reports.
Fertilizers, too, are a priority area for many companies, with the emphasis on potassium in the
states of Amazonas and Sergipe. In phosphate, too, a return to activity has been observed, with
demand continuing at a high level.
Brazil’s geology still underresearched
Marini speaks of the work being done by the government through the Geological Service of Brazil in
the area of geophysics, where maps “of a very high quality” are being produced. The expectation, he
says, is that by the end of the 2012 the new aerial geophysical survey of Brazil’s territory should be
complete, using aerial magnetometry and aerial gamma spectrometry at intervals of 500 meters.
“This is a great achievement” he says.
A novelty which has been another positive advance has been the use of helicopters for two
aerial geophysical and electromagnetic surveys, conducted in Bahia and Minas Gerais. The last time a
survey of this kind had been carried out in Brazil was in 1991, when today’s technologies were not yet
available, which meant that by today’s standards those older surveys were not wholly satisfactory in
terms of clarity. These are detailed maps, providing highly valuable information for companies
wishing to choose an exploration site, showing what could be priority areas for sulphide, for example.
Down to a depth of 300 meters (1000 feet). It was thanks to the 1991 survey, Marini recalls, despite
its technical limitations – for instance, observations could be made only as far down as 80 meters
(260-feet ) – that the company then named Mineração Morro Velho (now AngloGoldAshanti)
discovered that its Lamego mine in Minas Gerais went down deeper than it had suspected, enabling
it locate three additional small-scale gold deposits. Now, with the surveys going down so much
deeper, he believes there are much greater chances of new discoveries being made, mainly at sites
where surface deposits are already known. “There’s the chance that, at these sites, deposits may be
found at greater depths. It’s simply not reasonable to assume that every deposit must necessarily run
up to the surface.” He cites as an example the Iron Quadrangle, where there are numerous subhorizontal faults that may have sliced through mineral deposits, which, as a result, do not run all the
way up to the surface but extend outward deep underground. In Marini’s opinion, therefore, by
undertaking aerial geophysical surveys of this kind, the Geological Service has made “a new and very
interesting contribution to our knowledge of Brazil’s geology”.
In addition to these surveys, Marini insists that more work needs to be done on geochemistry
at a regional level. This is a job that Brazilian Geological Survey restarted in 2010 and which, in the
past, has led to important discoveries, such as the Alemão copper deposit at Carajás and cassiterite
deposits in Rondônia, among others.
While praising these achievements, Marini regrets that Brazil still suffers from a severe
shortage of geological mapping, a job that continues to be done “at a much slower rate than would
be desirable”. One of the reasons is that BGS has too few qualified professionals on its payroll to
perform all the mapping work that is required. BGS does not have enough personnel to carry out all
the tasks that are demanded of it. “If we go on at the present rate,” Marini says, “it’ll take fifty years
to map the whole of Brazil at the scale of 1:250,000.” In 2009 and 2012, he recall, a large numbers of
maps were issued at the scale of 1:100,000, most of them produced under cooperation agreements
with Brazilian universities, but they were the outcome of work carried out over the precious twenty
or thirty years without ever having been published. All these maps were revised and reformatted to
BGS standards prior to publication. Even so, they constituted prior to publication. Even so, they
constituted an advance, because they meant a substancial increase to the number of maps available
at the 1:100,000 scale. In 2011, however, the number of such maps issued fell to only one-fifth, or
even less, of what it had been in the two previous years. “This is our Achilles’ heel”, Marini says,
although aerial geophysical surveying is now a great help, because when we interpret this
information with the aid of images from remote sensors a great deal of information can be inferred,
which means that less fieldwork is required. “Even so”, he adds, “what we have is still not enough”.
Marini is confident that Brazilian geology still has much to reveal, for the simple reason that,
“up till now, very little has been researched”. A large part of everything that has been discovered
over the years, he says, is the result of lateritic weathering, of the lateritic process. In other words, it
is the product of primary rocks that has been concentrated on the surface. This happened, for
instance, in the case of iron ore. Those deposits that today present a 67 percent iron content earlier
had only a 33 percent content, and enrichment occurred as part of that process. “Carajás, for
example”, he says, “is the result the result of fairly recent weathering in geological terms, with a
concentration of iron. All of Brazil’s bauxite similarly arose from the same process, as did the nickel at
Niquelândia (in Goiás) and Onça Puma (in Pará), which is known as lateritic nickel. The nickel is
present in small quantities in the primary rock. When the alteration occurs, the nickel becomes
concentrated at the surface and becomes a nickel oxide, which is lateritic nickel. This, then, is the
process that has produced Brazil’s big mineral deposits: iron, nickel, bauxite, manganese, and many
others. And the discovery os these deposits was a relatively easy matter: as soon as it was observed
that the deposits were associated with plateaus, which represent and old erosion process and a
reconcentration, all anyone had to do was to go to plateau, check it out, drill a test shaft, and if they
failed to find any ore, they just moved in to the next plateau. That was the way they found large
deposits of iron ore, bauxite, and nickel. More recently there have also been discoveries under
ground.”
New deposits may be found, Marini says, associated with these lateritic processes. But that
will require greater investments in exploration. In terms of dollars invested in mineral exploration per
square kilometer of each nation’s territory, “Brazil lags a long way behind countries such as Australia,
Canada, Chile, and Peru”, Marini says. “Drilling is what discovers primary ores. But drilling costs
money, it calls for investments. Even in some of the best-known regions in Brazil mineral prospecting
has been done only on a very small scale”, he says, “precisely because of the cost of investments.” He
cites as an instance an interesting recent case involving Mirabela, a company exploring a nickel
deposit in Bahia. CBPM, a company owned by the Bahia state government, drilled three or four shafts
and found primary ore. Because it couldn’t afford to do any more drilling, it did a deal with an
Australian company, which invested heavily in research and came up with world-class nickel sulphide
deposit, a discovery described as “one of the best finds of nickel shulphide in recent years.”
Marini sees another possibility in Brazil’s continental shelf, which some people have been
calling” the blue Amazon” since it almost equals the Amazon region in extent. In the fertilizer area,
more specifically potassium salts, there are prospects which, in his opinion, may turn out to be
interesting. This is because carnalite and silvinite, which both contain potassium salts, are normally
found in association with salt, at the top of the sequence. “Formation occurs by a desert process”, he
explains, “typically in an inland sea, like the Dead Sea, with a high rate of evaporation and only a
slight inflow of water, leading to concentration of the salts and precipitation. In this process, the last
compound to precipitate is potassium chloride - silvenite (KCl), being the most soluble. Normally,
then, what happens is that at the top of a salt sequence, a sodium chloride sequence, the potassium
chloride occurs. And the question I ask myself is this: with so much sodium chloride, two kilometers
thick, in the continental shelf, won’t there be places where there’s potassium on top? The logic of
the theory would point to the centre of the area, at the deepest point to the centre of the area, at
the deepest point where the basin is nearly at the end, as the spot where potassium chloride would
be found, since potassium chloride precipitates in the final phase of evaporation.” He adds that the
main question is how to recover this potassium economically, since to gain access to it a company
would need to drill through four kilometers of rock, which in turns lies beneath a two-kilometer
depth of sea. “Perhaps nearer the coast, perhaps somewhere in the area of the state of Sergipe,
recovery might turn out to be economic”, he concludes.
Fonte: Brazil Mineral Magazine
Data: Especial Issue 2012
DEMANDA GLOBAL POR FERTILIZANTES SEGUE FIRME
A demanda mundial por fertilizantes deverá voltar a aumentar em 2012, ainda que menos do
que no ano passado. A desaceleração prevista decorre das turbulências em países desenvolvidos que
mantêm a economia global sob pressão, mas a expectativa é que as incertezas tenham efeito
limitado sobre o consumo de alimentos - e, portanto, "poupem" consumo e preços de produtos
agropecuários, além dos mercados de insumos empregados no campo.
Esse é o cenário com o qual trabalha a Associação Internacional da Indústria de Fertilizantes
(IFA, na sigla em inglês), com sede na França, que prevê incrementos este ano nos mercados das três
principais fontes de nutrientes para a produção de adubos - nitrogênio (N), fosfato (P) e potássio (K).
No total, a entidade estima que a demanda chegará a 181,1 milhões de toneladas de nutrientes em
2012, 2,4% mais que em 2011 (176,9 milhões), quando o aumento em relação ao ano anterior foi de
3,8%.
Mesmo que envolva um universo mais amplo, as previsões da entidade estão em linha com as
primeiras projeções de cultivo dos principais grãos no Hemisfério Norte na safra 2012/13, cuja
semeadura começará a ganhar força no mês que vem. Nos EUA, maior produtor e exportador
agrícola do mundo, as primeiras pesquisas oficiais indicaram incrementos nas áreas de plantio de
milho e trigo, e estabilidade para a soja. O horizonte traçado pela IFA também contempla uma
demanda firme para o plantio de grãos no Hemisfério Sul, a partir de setembro.
Na equação da entidade, a demanda global por nutrientes derivados do fósforo, os chamados
fosfatados, crescerá 3,2% em relação ao ano passado, para 42,1 milhões de toneladas. Para os
nutrientes derivados do potássio, o incremento previsto é de 3,1%, para 30,1 milhões de toneladas,
enquanto no caso dos nitrogenados a projeção indica alta de 2%, para 106,9 milhões de toneladas.
Em 2011, o destaque foi o crescimento da demanda por potássio, que subiu 6,6%.
Com os investimentos deflagrados em diferentes países nos últimos anos - principalmente a
partir de 2008, quando o baixo nível da oferta colaborou para os picos dos preços internacionais
desses insumos -, a IFA acredita que a produção mundial de fertilizantes será suficiente para atender
ou até superar o consumo. Mas isso não significa necessariamente que os preços vão recuar. Se as
cotações dos produtos agropecuários de fato permanecerem em elevado patamar, as relações de
troca entre elas e os insumos tende a mantê-los também valorizados.
Em 2011, conforme a IFA, a indústria global de fertilizantes operou com 83% da capacidade
instalada, percentual praticamente estável em relação ao ano anterior e que poderá até aumentar
em 2012. "Não vai faltar adubo no mercado", ratifica Rafael Ribeiro de Lima Filho, analista da Scot
Consultoria. Ele concorda que, no curto prazo, os preços tendem a aumentar em função do
fortalecimento do dólar e da maior demanda de players importantes no Hemisfério Norte como EUA,
China e Índia, que devem aumentar a área cultivada. No segundo semestre, diz Lima Filho, o
consumo no Hemisfério Sul, com destaque para o Brasil, deve manter o mercado aquecido.
A Associação Nacional para Difusão de Adubos (Anda), que representa a indústria brasileira,
não divulga previsões por abrigar empresas de capital aberto no Brasil ou no exterior, mas também
não acredita em queda da demanda global. "Ninguém vai parar de comer", diz David Roquetti Filho,
diretor-executivo da entidade. Para o mercado brasileiro, a RC Consultores projeta demanda estável
em 2012 na comparação com 2011, quando novos recordes foram batidos. A demanda por
nutrientes intermediários derivados de nitrogênio, fosfato e potássio atingiu 11,7 milhões de
toneladas, enquanto as vendas de produtos finais superaram a marca de 28 milhões.
Cerca de 70% da demanda do Brasil é atendida com importações, daí a importância dos
movimentos globais do mercado para os produtores do país. De acordo com a IFA, a taxa brasileira
de crescimento anual nesta frente tem sido, em média, de 6%, ante 1% no resto do mundo. A China
tem apresentado expansão de 3%, acima de países como os Estados Unidos (1,5%). Ainda assim, o
Brasil representa apenas 6% do consumo e 2% da produção mundial de fertilizantes. Juntos, China,
Índia e Estados Unidos somam mais de 60% da demanda global.
Para tentar reduzir a dependência brasileira de insumos importados, há investimentos em
andamento, liderados por Vale e Petrobras, que deverão somar US$ 13 bilhões até 2016, conforme a
Anda. O montante representa 15% de todo o investimento global previsto para o período, de US$ 88
bilhões, segundo a IFA. A associação estima em 250 os projetos em curso no mundo, que deverão se
transformar em 183 milhões de toneladas adicionais de fertilizantes.
Fonte: Valor Econômico
Data: 19/03/2012