Frik Els , Editor

Frik has 20 years’ experience as a business journalist across a range of industries including automotive, technology and entertainment markets. Frik has an entry in Global Mining Observer’s Who’s Who of Mining 2018, and contributions to publications and conferences including Business Insider, Investing.com, Mines & Money London and New York, Vancouver Resources Investment, Progressive Mine Forum in Toronto and Canadian Mining Symposium in London, UK. He’s been interviewed on CBC Radio and Korea State TV and quoted in the Financial Post.

Posts by Frik Els:

Meet the Gateway pipeline’s most formidable opponent

CTV reports the business-savvy Haisla First Nation presents a complex challenge to backers of the $5.5 billion Gateway pipeline project that would stretch for 1,170km to Kitimat in northern British Columbia while the Financial Post explains why Kitimat may have already received all the infrastructure investment it could absorb.

Prospecting in Queensland just got much more expensive

The Australian reports the Queensland government is going after speculative prospecting by what the state treasurer termed two-dollar shell mining companies, slapping the industry with $375 million in additional fees. Under the radical new rules competitive cash-bidding auctions for mining exploration permits will replace the flat $1,030 application fee in force currently.

LME says sell-out decision February as 2011 contracts value surges 33% to $15 trillion

Reuters reports the London Metal Exchange has been approached by several   potential bidders and will consider takeover proposals in late February according to its CEO. The LME handles some 80% of global trade in metals futures and a takeover will help the the 134-year old trading floor to compete against rapidly-expanding Asian metal trading hubs.

Thanks for not suing mommy like your brother and sisters: Rinehart gifts daughter (25) one of mining’s top jobs

The richest woman in the world, Gina Rinehart, on Tuesday handed her daughter Ginia (sic) directorships of three companies, including Hancock Prospecting which controls her $10 billion empire. Ginia who is 25 years old is the only one of Rinehart's four children who are not currently suing her in court in a bitter dispute over control of the family fortune.
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CHART: Asian EV battery makers buy 94% of global battery metals

EV battery manufacturers based in China, Korea and Japan have almost complete control of the global market, and it’s not changing any time soon.