Metals and mining

FILE - Pemex oil workers set the drill on the Centenario deep-water drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Veracruz, Mexico, Nov. 22, 2013. The 1938 nationalization of Mexico's oil sector from U.S. and British companies is a point of pride for millions of Mexicans.(AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)

Mexico proudly controls its energy but could find it hard to reach its climate goals

Mexico’s taking control of its oil from U.S. and British companies is taught in schools and celebrated every year.
 
A hill that has been cleared from trees to make way for a corn plantation is visible in Polewali Mandar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Saturday, April 20, 2024. From trees felled in protected national parks to massive swaths of jungle razed for palm oil and paper plantations, Indonesia had a 27% uptick in primary forest loss in 2023 from the previous year, according to a World Resources Institute analysis of new deforestation data. (AP Photo/Yusuf Wahil)

Deforestation in Indonesia spiked last year, but resources analyst sees better overall trend

 
FILE - Construction continues at the Thacker Pass lithium mine on April 24, 2023, near Orovada, Nev. The Biden administration has agreed to provide a $2.26 billion conditional loan to Lithium Americas, Thursday, March 14, 2024, to help cover construction costs of a processing facility at its giant lithium mine in the works in northern Nevada near the Oregon line. (AP Photo/ Rick Bowmer, File)

Energy Department conditionally approves $2.26 billion loan for huge lithium mine in Nevada

 
Brine evaporates in pools at the lithium extraction plant facilities of the SQM Lithium company near Peine, Chile, Tuesday, April 18, 2023. In the “lithium triangle” – a region spanning Argentina, Chile and Bolivia – native communities sit upon a treasure trove of the stuff: an estimated trillion dollars in lithium. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Native groups sit on a treasure trove of lithium. Now mines threaten their water, culture and wealth

 
FILE - A former iron ore processing plant near Hoyt Lakes, Minn., that would become part of a proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine, is pictured on Feb. 10, 2016. The proposed NewRange Copper Nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota suffered a fresh setback Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023, when an administrative law judge recommended that state regulators should not reissue a crucial permit for the long-delayed project. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

Long-delayed Minnesota copper-nickel mining project wins a round in court after several setbacks

 

Uranium is being mined near the Grand Canyon as prices soar and the US pushes for more nuclear power

The largest uranium producer in the United States is ramping up work at a mine less than 10 miles from the rim of the Grand Canyon.
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Open-pit gold mine collapses in Venezuela, and dozens of people are feared dead

Rescuer raises hope of survivors at a Zambian mine where more than 30 have been buried for days

Facing increasing pressure from customers, some miners are switching to renewable energy

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Mining giant Anglo American to break up its sprawling business as it tries to fend off takeover

Mining giant Anglo American plc plans to break up its sprawling worldwide business — including the DeBeers diamond operation — as it seeks to fend off a takeover and focus on minerals that are expected to boom amid the global shift to green energy.
 
FILE - The Stillwater Mining Company, the only platinum and palladium mine in the United States, stands near Nye, Mont., on May 2, 2013. The owner of two precious metals mines in south-central Montana is stopping work on an expansion project and laying off about 100 workers because the price of palladium fell sharply in the past year, mine representatives said Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. Sibanye-Stillwater announced the layoffs Wednesday at the mine near Nye, Mont., and other Sibanye-owned facilities in Montana, including a recycling operation. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

Montana miner backs off expansion plans, lays off 100 due to lower palladium prices

The owner of two a south-central Montana precious metals mines is stopping work on an expansion project and laying off about 100 workers because the price of palladium fell sharply in the past year.
 

A Moroccan cobalt mine denies claims of arsenic-contaminated local water. Automakers are concerned

A German newspaper investigation is raising questions about the future of a Moroccan mine that was meant to supply carmakers a mineral critical for electric vehicle batteries.
 
FILE - A closed-down goldmine shaft is shown on May 18, 2016 in Welkom, South Africa. South Africa's overall mining profits slipped by more than $5 billion in the last financial year, while the country that was once the world's largest gold producer might have less than 30 years of a viable gold industry left without renewed investment, according to a report by big four auditing firm PwC on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

South African mining employs many and may only have decades left, report warns

South Africa’s overall mining profits slipped by more than $5 billion in the last financial year. A new report says the country’s once-dominant gold production industry might have less than 30 years of viability without renewed investment.
 
FILE - the Sonora River, contaminated by the spill of about 10 million gallons of copper sulfate and heavy metals from the Buenavista copper mine, makes its way through the hills near the town of Mazocahui in the northern state of Sonora, Mexico, Aug. 12, 2014. Nine years after a massive waste spill from a copper mine in the northern Mexican border state of Sonora, locals are still suffering from “alarming” levels of soil, air and water pollution, Mexico's Environment Department said Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/El Imparcial, Julian Ortega, File)

9 years after mine spill in northern Mexico, new report gives locals hope for long-awaited cleanup

Locals are still suffering from a massive 2014 waste spill at a copper mine in the northern Mexican border state of Sonora, officials with the country’s environmental agency say.
 
FILE - Terraces cut into the hillside at the huge Santa Rita copper mine in Grant County, N.M., are shown in this March 1999 file photo. The Biden administration is recommending changes to a 151-year-old law that governs mining for copper, gold and other hardrock minerals on U.S.-owned lands, including making companies pay royalties on what they extract. (Richard Pipes/The Albuquerque Journal via AP, File)

Biden plan would overhaul 151-year-old mining law, make companies pay royalties for copper and gold

The Biden administration is recommending changes to a 151-year-old law that governs mining for copper, gold and other hardrock minerals on U.S.
 

Swedish mining firm Boliden is exempted from paying compensation for toxic spill in Spain in 1998

Sweden’s mining firm Boliden has been exempted from paying 89 million euros, or about $98 million, in compensation for the cleaning of a toxic sludge spill that occurred in 1998 in southern Spain.
 
A chromium mine is visible near Kaliapani village in Jajpur district, Odisha, India on Wednesday, July 5, 2023. Chromium, used mostly as a coating to stop rust in steel and car parts, has been deemed necessary for India's transition to cleaner energy. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

India sets sights on home-mined minerals to boost its clean energy plans

Indian officials, including at Wednesday’s Group of Twenty ministerial talks on clean energy, want the country to expand its critical mineral mining operations and make its own clean energy infrastructure from start to finish.
 
FILE - NioCorp Chief Operating Officer Scott Honan tells a group of investors during a tour of the site on Oct. 6, 2021, about the plans for a proposed mine near Elk Creek in southeast Nebraska. The company that wants to build a mine in southeast Nebraska has signed a deal with a major automaker to sell the rare earth elements it hopes to produce to help Stellantis make more electric vehicles. NioCorp announced the tentative deal Thursday, July 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Josh Funk, File)

Carmaker Stellantis signs deal with firm seeking to mine in Nebraska for rare earths needed in EVs

The company that wants to mine for critical minerals in southeast Nebraska has signed a deal with Stellantis, giving the automaker access to the rare earth elements used to produce high-powered magnets needed for its electric vehicles.
 
FILE - Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., speaks during the House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on the administration foreign policy priorities on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, in Washington. A measure has been introduced in the U.S. House to ban imported products containing minerals critical to electric vehicle batteries but mined through child labor and other abusive conditions in Congo, where China has enormous mining stakes. (Ken Cedeno/Pool via AP, File)

US measure would ban products containing mineral mined with child labor in Congo

New U.S. legislation would ban imported products containing critical green transition minerals mined by child labor in Congo.
 
Director James Cameron walks in Purmamarca, Jujuy province, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2023. The filmmaker arrived to Argentina to participate in a Sustainable Development Forum. (AP Photo/Javier Corbalan)

James Cameron feels he ‘walked into an ambush’ in Argentine lithium dispute

Movie director James Cameron says he feels he “walked into an ambush” this week during a visit to Argentina in which he believes there was an attempt to use his image as an environmentalist to give a positive spin to lithium mining operations despite opposition from Indigenous communities.
 
People protest the contamination produced by the Ventanas Smelter, of the state-owned company Codelco, on the first day of its closure, at the site of the smelter in Quintero Bay in Puchuncavi, Chile, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced in June 2022 the gradual closure of the world's leading copper producer in order to reduce the constant episodes of environmental pollution that affect the coastal communes near the furnace. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Chile closes state copper smelter that polluted bay for decades

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile’s state-owned copper mining giant Codelco on Wednesday shut down its Ventanas copper smelter after decades of polluting Quintero Bay with toxic gases and turning it, along with 15 other companies, into what environmentalists called a “sacrifice zone.”
 

EPA wants iron miners in Minnesota, Michigan to slash mercury emissions

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Federal authorities have proposed new regulations that would force the Minnesota and Michigan iron mining industry to slash its mercury emissions.
 

4 Cambodians die in accident at unlicensed gold mine

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Four Cambodian prospectors who were digging for gold in the central province of Kampong Thom were killed when earth collapsed into the pit where they were mining, a government official and a fellow villager said Friday.
 
FILE - Dozens of tribe members and other protesters beating drums and waving signs rally in front of the federal courthouse in Reno, Nev., Jan. 5, 2023, as a court hearing began over a lawsuit seeking to block a huge lithium mine planned near the Nevada-Oregon line about 200 miles north of Reno. On Wednesday, March 1, a federal appeals court cleared the way for construction in Nevada of the largest lithium mine in the U.S. while it considers claims by conservationists and tribes that the government illegally approved it in a rush to produce raw materials for electric vehicle batteries. (AP Photo/Scott Sonner, File)

9th Circuit denies emergency bid to halt Nevada lithium mine

A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the highly-contested construction in Nevada of the largest lithium mine in the U.S.
 
FILE - Technical grade lithium carbonate comes off a conveyor belt during a tour of the Silver Peak lithium mine on Jan. 30, 2017, near Tonopah, Nev. In an announcement Monday, Feb. 27, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy will provide $375 million in loans to a battery recycling company to build its first, and one of the first, lithium ion battery recycling plants in North America. The DOE announcement came within hours of another announcement by American Battery Technology Company that it has discovered one of the largest known lithium deposits in the U.S. at Tonopah Flats. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

DOE grants $375M loan for lithium battery recycling plant

The U.S. Department of Energy will provide $375 million in loans to a battery recycling company to build its first, and one of the first, lithium ion battery recycling plants in North America.
 

Mexico in talks with mining companies about lithium

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Thursday the government is in talks to persuade companies that have started lithium mining projects in Mexico to give up their plans.