Exploration company TMC has successfully produced nickel sulphate exclusively from seafloor polymetallic nodules. This, the Nasdaq company says, has never been accomplished before. Conducted in collaboration with SGS Canada at its Lakefield, Ontario facility, the process involved bench-scale testing of TMC’s hydrometallurgical flowsheet design. Samples of nickel/cobalt/copper matte, produced by TMC in 2021, were used for testing.

NYSE- and ASX-listed Metals Acquisition Limited (MAC) has announced a new resource and reserve statement for the CSA copper mine, in Australia, outlining a vision for a long-life operation. Highlights from the resources and reserves statement include a 67% increase in mine life to 11 years, based on ore reserves only, compared with a six-year mine life in the 2022 statement.

Swedish miner Boliden's first-quarter operating profit fell more than 50% as bad winter weather, lower mining grades and labour strikes weighed on earnings, it said on Tuesday. Operating profit fell 52% to 1.62-billion Swedish crowns ($148.80-million) from 3.41-billion in the first quarter of 2023 and compared with the 1.55-billion crowns expected by analysts in an LSEG poll.

JSE-listed copper miner Copper 360 has informed shareholders that it has noticed "unusual and uncommercial" trades in its shares, resulting in a substantial drop in its traded price. "The trades in question have continued on a systematic and sustained basis for a period of several weeks," it says in a notice published on the JSE's Stock Exchange News Service.

Copper production increasing by 11% as Quellaveco achieved its highest plant throughput rate in Peru, and Collahuasi and El Soldado in Chile benefitting from higher copper grades were among the first-quarter performance aspects that pleased diversified mining company Anglo American in the three months ending March 31. “We’re driving operational excellence across our assets, focusing on stability and effective cost management as levers to deliver significant value through the cycle,” Anglo CE Duncan Wanblad highlighted in a release to Mining Weekly on Tuesday.

Zambia's State-owned electricity utility Zesco said on Monday it is seeking to import power to avert an energy deficit that could affect output in Africa's second-largest copper producer. The southern African country generates 86% of its electricity from hydropower stations. Power generation has been hit by a severe drought induced by El Nino - a weather phenomenon resulting from the abnormal warming of the waters in the eastern Pacific, which raises temperatures globally.

Mineral shipments from a Congolese copper and cobalt operation majority-owned by China's Zijin Mining Group were returned due to overly high radiation levels, the Congolese mines minister said in a letter seen by Reuters on Monday. The letter, dated April 12, informed the COMMUS project in which Zijin owns a 72% stake that the ministry had suspended its licence while it investigated the issue.

Flourishing activity in the electric vehicle, power infrastructure, AI and automation sectors will lead to at least 10-million metric tons of additional copper consumption over the next decade, commodity trader Trafigura told Reuters. Technological developments such as artificial intelligence and automation, and the energy transition, which includes electric vehicles and renewable energy, have already driven up demand prospects for copper cable used to conduct electricity.

JSE-listed Murray & Roberts (M&R) has announced that Terra Nova Technologies (TNT), in joint venture with Ingeniería y Construcción Sigdo Koppers, has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with a large copper producer for a mine in South America. The contract value is about $200-million, with TNT’s share in the joint venture being 51%.

The richness of South Africa’s copper assets were emphasised on Monday when Northern Cape mine developer and explorer Orion Minerals published a standout intercept that sent its shares rocketing up 58% on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Orion, headed by CEO Errol Smart, is primarily listed on the ASX, where it has 1 300 shareholders, and secondarily listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), where it has 28 000 shareholders.