The European Court of Justice has come to a conclusion on the complaint made by BP North America against the Council of the European Union (EU).

Five years ago the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) lodged a complaint against dumped and subsidised biodiesel imports from the US. In March 2009, the European Commission imposed extensive anti-dumping and countervailing measures of imports of US biodiesel, which are due to expire this July.

It is claimed circumvention of these measures began either as transhipment of US biodiesel into third countries or through exports of artificially-designed blends containing less than 20% biodiesel. In May 2011, the EU Council set retroactive anti-circumvention measures for imports consigned from Canada, as well as for imports of US biodiesel blends below the previous 20% threshold.

BP North America directly challenged the EU Council by requesting the annulment of these measures by claiming exports of B15 starting in 2010 could not be considered as a slightly modified pure biodiesel. It further argued if B15 was to be considered as a like-for-like product, then it did not meet the conditions for circumvention, explaining that by claiming no change in trade patterns occurred.

But the EBB, despite the EU duties contributing to re-establishing more favourable market conditions overall, was still concerned to see cheap imports from the US continuing to ‘injured European industry’.

A judgement, published 16 January, rejected BP claims to be excluded from anti-circumvention duties for biodiesel originating from North America. It also obliges BP to pay for the legal expenses of both the EU Council and the EBB.

‘The signal is clear: biodiesel duties against the US and, per extension, Indonesia and Argentina, are well defended also by the European Court of Justice against any kind of circumvention. The legal basis of EU biodiesel duties is even more solid after today’s judgement,’ says EBB secretary general Raffaello Garofalo.

EBB provided technical and market information to support the defence led by the Council and claims this decision is ‘extremely important’ since it confirms ‘a definitive judgement to a legal halt on any kind of circumvention practice to import biodiesel in Europe via biodiesel blends lower than 20%, or via triangular trade’.

The Court of Justice dismissed the legal action and rejected BP North America’s request to annul anti-circumvention regulations, arguing ‘the applicant played a significant role in the circumvention proceedings’.

- See more at: http://www.biofuels-news.com/industry_news.php?item_id=7305#sthash.P2IOnnGO.dpuf

Wednesday January 15 2014

Ukraine is expected to export large amounts of sunflower oil this season, the USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) said in its latest oil Crops Outlook.

In last week's WASDE report, the USDA raised its estimate for Ukraine's sunflower seed harvest in 2013/14 by 1 million tonne to 12.5 mln, thanks to a record harvested area of 6 mln acres and yield improvements of 15%.
 

Indonesia's mining ministry on Wednesday sought to ease a looming mineral export ban by proposing a regulation that would allow shipments of mineral ore concentrates to continue until 2017.

"The (mining) ministry proposed that miners will be given flexibility to export concentrate or processed minerals until 2017," Sukhyar, director general of coal and minerals, told reporters.

"After 2017, they will only be allowed to export metal or refined mineral."

The proposal has been submitted to the chief economic minister and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for approval.

Under a ban due to take effect on Sunday, mining companies must process their ore before shipping it overseas, a measure initially passed in 2009 to boost the value of exports from Indonesia, the world's top exporter of nickel ore, thermal coal and refined tin.


Reuters 8th January 2014 

* Mining is major contributor to government revenue

* Gold sector says wants taxes reduced as prices fall

* Ghana is Africa's number two gold producer (Adds background, industry comment)

By Matthew Mpoke Bigg

ACCRA, Nov 19 2013 (Reuters) - Ghana plans to present a mining windfall tax bill to parliament, Finance Minister Seth Terkper said on Tuesday, in a move likely to set up a clash between a hard-pressed industry and government's need for increased revenue.

Ghana is Africa's number two gold producer and the commodity accounted for 27 percent of the country's foreign exchange in 2012 and contributed more than $700 million to state coffers, according to data from Ghana Chamber of Mines.

But the government of President John Mahama is under pressure to show investors it can control a budget deficit forecast at 10.2 percent by the end of 2013 and which the government wants to reduce to 8.5 percent next year.

Terkper's announcement came during Tuesday's annual budget speech to parliament in which he described how government could raise revenue and curb spending.

"A committee is reviewing all stability agreements, incentives and the windfall profit tax that could not be passed in 2012," Terkper said.

"In due course the government will re-introduce the bill in parliament after completion of the consultations with all stakeholders," he said.

A previous bill that sought to impose a 10 percent mining windfall profit tax was introduced in 2012, Terkper said, but it was not considered by parliament and later withdrawn.

The West African state's economic boom is often attributed to its new oil wealth but its gold exports were worth $5.6 billion last year, nearly as much as oil and cocoa combined.

Even so, the industry is feeling the strain this year as a result of a slump in gold prices. 

Two of its leading mines, AngloGold Ashanti's Obuasi and Gold Field's Demang mine, operate at a loss. Other mines have closed while the level of mining exploration has dropped, industry leaders say.

To redress the situation, mine executives have urged the government to reduce corporate taxes from 35 to 30 percent and assess royalties on a sliding scale related to profitability so companies that do not make a profit don't pay royalties.

The announcement will hurt an industry that already faces a heavy tax burden because of royalties, income tax, Value Added Tax increased on Friday by 2.5 percentage points to 15 percent, and steep power prices, one mining executive said.

"It would be a disaster. Nobody would come to open a mine in Ghana," said one industry executive who declined to be identified because he is not authorised to speak publicly.

Razia Khan, head of Africa research at Standard Chartered, described Terkper's announcement as "positive" for the overall economy hough she wanted to more detail about its implementation in the context of lower gold prices.

"Ghana has long grappled with how to improve the fiscal take from the mining sector, given the stability agreements in place," Khan said in an email. (Additional reporting by Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Emma Farge and Daniel Flynn)
source reuters.com 

Clive Palmer’s $6.4 billion coal and rail project in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has been approved by the federal government.

Waratah Coal’s ‘China First’ project will include the construction of a coal mine and infrastructure project located near Alpha in Queensland’s central west.

The mine will be linked to the Abbot Point coal terminal near Bowen by a new 453km heavy haul railway line.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt approved the project with 49 conditions including the contribution of $100,000 a year for 10 years for a ''strategic fund'' to help threatened species and the development of 10,000 hectares of protected land as an offset.

Source miningaustralia.com.au 
Image ABC.com 

Moil Ltd, a miniratna PSU, has increased prices of its manganese ore or the quarter January-March 2014. Moil, formerly Maganese Ore India Ltd, informed BSE that in line with company’s business practice of quarterly revising the prices of manganese ore, it has fixed price of various grades of manganese ore for the quarter January-March 2014.
 
The price of the Ferro grade manganese ore has been increased by 3% and price of SMAGR & Fines have been increased by 7.5% over the prices for October-December 2013. The prices of Electrolytic Manganese Dioxide (EMD) have been increased by 5% over the prices for October- December 2013.

MOIL ( Manganese Ore India Ltd. ) 
Source www.business-standard.com Jan 4 2014 

Port Hedland and two other ports in Western Australia that account for a major portion of the global seaborne iron ore trade reopened and miners started to return to work on Wednesday after cyclone Christine caused a more than two-day shutdown.

Tropical Cyclone Christine, a category three storm which reached the Pilbara region of Australia late Monday forcing the closure of iron ore mines and halting shipments caused only minor infrastructure damage.

Port Hedland exports iron ore from mines owned by BHP Billiton (LON:BHP) and Fortescue Metals (ASX:FMG) , the worlds number 3 and four exporters of the steelmaking material.

The port handled a near-record 22.3 million tonnes of cargo in November which was also a 37% increase over the year before.

Rio Tinto (LON:RIO), number two iron ore miner behind Brazil's Vale (NYSE:VALE), which is ramping up its annual capacity to 290 million tonnes, exports via the Dampier and Cape Lambert terminals north of Port Hedland.

China consumes close to 70% of the 1.1 billion tonne global trade, half of which is exported from Australia. Iron ore is the world's number two seaborne commodity trade after crude oil.

The benchmark CFR import price of 62% iron ore fines at China's Tianjin jumped to $134.20 a tonne in anticipation of the weather disruption. The raw material is up sharply since hitting lows of $110.40 a tonne in May last year according to data supplied by The Steel Index.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports  that the impact of the cyclone on a longer term basis would in all likelihood be negligible:

“Cyclones in the Pilbara are part of what happens and disruption to shipping is built in to market expectations at this time of year,” Ric Spooner, a chief analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone. “To be more concerned, the market would need to see a more protracted delay to shipments and production, or serious damage to infrastructure.”

Source mining.com 
Image bluecloudspatial 

Reuters 30th December 2013 

JAKARTA – Indonesia's mining industry plans to ask the nation's Supreme Court on Tuesday to settle questions over the implementation of a mining law that threatens to halt all unprocessed mineral exports starting next month.

From January 12, mining companies must process their ore before shipping it overseas, a measure initially passed in 2009 to boost the value of exports from Indonesia, the world's top exporter of nickel ore, thermal coal and refined tin.

Uncertainty over the requirements of the law has drawn protests from small mining companies and international majors, including US giants Freeport-McMoRan Copper &Gold and Newmont Mining, which refine only about a third of their copper output domestically in Indonesia.

The Indonesian Mining Association will ask for the Supreme Court's opinion on the mining law to "get clarity so that we know and understand exactly the policy," said the group's executive director, Syahrir Abubakar.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration is working on a special regulation that will likely ease the export restrictions on companies already processing ore domestically.

That regulation could raise objections from lawmakers who earlier this month rejected the government's request to dilute the law.

Freeport's Indonesian unit, which runs the world's fifth-biggest copper mine in the world, has warned that the planned export ban would cut the firm's revenues in the country by 65%, costing Southeast Asia's biggest economy $1.6-billion in lost revenue next year.

Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter

Source miningweekly 
Photo bloomberg 

Brazil’s exports of manganese ore, nickel and ferro-alloys fell in November, according to figures from the country’s trade ministry.

Manganese ore Manganese ore exports fell sharply year-on-year in November on fewer volumes sent to Europe. Exports totalled 9,194 tonnes for the month, compared with 71,734 tonnes in November 2012. The figure also represents a drop from October 2013 shipments, when 218,557 tonnes were exported. Revenues in November amounted to $1.73 million, compared with $9.91 million the same time last year. The Netherlands bought 9,000 tonnes last month after registering no trade in November 2012. France acquired only 40 tonnes in the month, compared with 71,522 tonnes a year earlier. Additional material was sent to the USA (53 tonnes) and Hungary (23 tonnes) in November.


Source Metal Bulletin Dec 13 2013 

Commodity trading companies active in multiple markets have used easy access to finance to expand their physical holdings, creating a potential “systemic” risk, according to two research groups in Brussels.

The merger of Glencore and Xstrata Plc signals commodity trading has reached “a tipping point,” where more investments in physical holdings rather than futures or services may lift profitability, according to a report by the Centre for European Policy Studies with the European Capital Markets Institute.

The 10 largest trading houses, which include Vitol Group, Baar, Switzerland-based Glencore Xstrata Plc and Trafigura, had almost $1 trillion in revenue in 2011, according to the report. Glencore and Trafigura declined to comment, while Vitol said commodity traders are unlikely to pose a systemic risk.

“The use of financial leverage to increase physical holdings, through the easy access to international finance helped by accommodating monetary policies, may have systemic implications,” according to the researchers. Disclosure of physical holdings and a minimum amount of information that must be provided to regulators could reduce the risks for governments, the researchers wrote.

Any failure of a commodity trader wouldn’t pose a substantial risk to the economy, Craig Pirrong, a professor of finance at the University of Houston, said in May, citing an unpublished study for the Global Financial Markets Association.

Physical PositionsVitol, the world’s largest independent oil trader, reported revenue of $303 billion last year and Trafigura Beheer BV’s sales were $120.4 billion. Glencore Xstrata, the largest listed commodity merchant, had $189.7 billion in marketing revenue last year.

“As highlighted by the collapse of Enron, one of the largest energy trading companies of its time, physical traders are highly unlikely to pose systemic risks -- their positions are largely physical, hedged, liquid and short-term,” Vitol wrote in an e-mailed comment. “Trading houses should be allowed to fail and, when they have, there has been little or no disruption to the orderly functioning of markets or the supply of commodities.”

More than 5,000 jobs and $1 billion in employee retirement funds were wiped out when Enron Corp. plunged into bankruptcy in December 2001. Investors sued to recover more than $40 billion in market losses.

“Information on financial and physical activities for some of these global firms is limited, so an assessment by supervisors of financial stability and market structure implications is currently very hard to perform,” the researchers wrote.

Policy ResearchCEPS is a policy researcher, which gets funding from the European Union, companies and national goverments. ECMI is part of CEPS and produces policy briefings and research reports on European capital markets.

International coordination may be needed to share information about physical holdings by commodity-trading companies, according to the report.

The researchers found linking of the global physical commodity markets with the financial system and accommodating monetary policy have raised the effect of the economic cycle and commodities’ vulnerability to short-term shocks coming from the financial system.

Demand and supply fundamentals remain “solid” long-term drivers of commodity futures’ price formation in all studied markets, according to the report. CEPS and ECMI looked at oil, natural gas, iron ore, aluminum, copper, wheat, corn, soybean oil, sugar, cocoa and coffee.

‘Benign’ RoleThe role of non-commercial operators in commodity markets has been “generally benign,” and the growth of index investments has not yet caused distortions in price formation, according to the report.

“An indiscriminate ban on legitimate trading practices may result in liquidity losses at the expense of the efficiency of price formation,” CEPS and ECMI wrote.

Claims that the size of futures markets compared to physical markets may distort price formation could be neither proven nor ruled out, according to the report. Annual volumes of trading in the main corn future is as much as nine times larger than physical production, it said.

Public spending on infrastructure or technology to improve production may be beneficial alternatives to price subsidies, which have a possible distorting effect, the organizations wrote. China overtook the U.S. as the biggest subsidizer of agricultural commodities in 2012 at about $180 billion, according to the report.
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