Hong Kong tycoon snares carbon project in outback WA
One of Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoons, Li Ka-Shing, whose interests include energy and agricultural investments in this country, has forged into the carbon market, acquiring a vast Western Australian landholding earmarked for a 'regenerative agriculture' project.
The ageing billionaire founded the CK Group, which through its various subsidiaries, including Hong Kong-listed CK Life Sciences and CK Hutchison, has a business empire spanning infrastructure, transport, real estate, and financial services.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
West Australian
14 hours ago
- West Australian
Lindian boosts coffers with $1.65M cash from shares and R&D refund
Lindian Resources has topped up its coffers with a double shot of cash totalling just under $1.65 million from the exercise of 10M unlisted options at $0.12 per share for $1.2M and a $448,753 research and development refund. The federal Research and Development Tax Incentive Program refund is for process development and metallurgical testwork Lindian conducted to improve beneficiation at its massive Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi. Kangankunde, about 90 kilometres north of Malawi's main economic and commercial centre Blantyre, potentially ranks among the world's biggest rare earths deposits. It is highly regarded because of its elevated rare earths grades, low incidence of impurities and radioactive minerals, and attractive cost structure that positions the project in the lowest cost quartile of rare earths projects globally. The total indicated and inferred mineral resource for the project is 261 million tonnes at an average grade of 2.14 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) at a 0.5 per cent TREO cut-off grade. The total indicated resource is 61Mt grading 2.43 per cent TREO, at a 0.5 per cent TREO cut-off grade, which includes a higher-grade 25Mt averaging 3.26 per cent TREO using a higher 2.5 per cent TREO cut-off. The resources contain a maiden ore reserve of 23.7Mt at 2.9 per cent TREO, which studies show will support a stage one mine life of 45-years . Almost 20 per cent of the reserve comprises the more valuable magnet rare earths, neodymium and praseodymium. Stage one development involves mining and a mineral processing plant and necessary support infrastructure and would be a logical springboard for future expansions of the operation. Lindian's beneficiation studies on the Kangankunde deposit have focussed on gravity and magnetic separation techniques to extract a concentrate. Initial studies show that water-only, low-cost beneficiation methods aimed at minimising capital expenditure will yield about 70 per cent recovery. The company aims to produce a high rare earth oxide concentrate of 60 per cent TREO for export. Earlier this month, Lindian's site development update showed it was well on track with haul road construction, critical infrastructure and solar power farm works. Additionally, mining and power infrastructure contracts and pricing for long lead-time items are being finalised and shortlisted. Lindian has also recently appointed experienced personnel across its site operations to fill roles including senior process engineer, construction superintendent, project planner, QA/QC superintendent and health, safety and environment officer. The company remains on track to begin plant construction this year. Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact:
West Australian
14 hours ago
- West Australian
EV Resources locks in historical antimony project in Mexico
EV Resources has officially sealed a 70 per cent stake in its high-grade Los Lirios antimony mine in Oaxaca, Mexico. The company now aims to fast-track the critical minerals project towards mine development thanks to a string of recent value-accretive project divestments. The company has executed a binding assignment of mining rights over the 1552-hectare project, which includes three mining concessions. The three historic open pits and multiple underground workings previously churned out commercial-grade direct shipping ore (DSO). EVR owns 70 per cent of a new joint venture entity that holds the project. It will now look to leverage proceeds from several recent shrewd divestments to fast-track development at Los Lirios, positioning itself to capitalise on an skyrocketing antimony market amid global, Chinese-controlled supply constraints. EVR will now steer the ship at Los Lirios, providing management and capital to ramp up production to a targeted 300 tonnes DSO per day. The company is wasting no time, with 30-kilogram samples already undergoing ore characterisation and mineralogy analysis. It expects to soon receive the results. The samples will feed into recovery test work focused on gravity methods, which have proven effective for antimony in Mexico. EVR is also in talks with owners of permitted plant sites to establish a pilot processing plant. Its aggressive timeline will look to cash in on its staggeringly high-grade ore, which includes stockpile assays as high as 29.17 per cent stibnite – the primary antimony sulphide ore. Fuelling this ambitious push are the proceeds from the company's recent portfolio rationalisation, including the recent blockbuster sale of its Yanamina gold-silver project in Peru to TSX-listed Daura Gold for up to US$6 million (A$9.3M). Similarly, EVR recently disposed of its Coyote Creek antimony project in Utah to Trigg Minerals for a handy $450,000 in cash and shares, delivering a tidy profit on an asset acquired for less than $150,000 just one month earlier. The sale of the La Cienega copper project in Arizona to Magnum Mining and Exploration, with a 2 per cent royalty on future production, further bolsters the company's future earnings potential. The savvy divestments have armed EVR with a war chest to accelerate development at Los Lirios and its Parag copper-molybdenum porphyry project in Peru. The company's strengthened cash position allows it to fund critical exploration and development activities, including sampling, trenching and drilling programs, which are set to kick off at Los Lirios early next year. EVR is eyeing strategic partnerships to unlock Parag's massive porphyry-style potential, after a previous drilling program delivered some eye-popping molybdenum intersections such as 18 metres running 1.7 per cent copper and 0.4 per cent moly from just 11m. As Los Lirios shapes up as a cornerstone asset for the company's Americas-focused strategy, EVR can now channel its divestment proceeds to fast-track its antimony supply. That could also help relieve the unprecedented market pressure pushing the price of the critical metal to a massive US$60,000 (A$92,000) per tonne. Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact:
News.com.au
17 hours ago
- News.com.au
Rice prices Japan's hot political issue, on and off the farm
All is calm at Satoshi Yamazaki's rice farm, with its freshly planted rows of vivid-green seedlings, but a row over the cost of the staple in Japan is threatening to deal the government a blow at the ballot box. Shortages of the grain caused by a supply chain snarl-up have seen prices almost double in a year, fuelling frustration over inflation -- and voters could let their anger be known in upper house elections due next month. To help ease the pain for consumers and restaurants, the government started tapping emergency stockpiles in March, having only previously done so during disasters. Yamazaki, who grows about 10 percent of his rice organically using ducks to eat pests, said he understands high prices are "troubling" for ordinary people. But he stressed that thin profits are a concern for many of those who produce it. "There's a gap between shop prices and what farmers sell rice for to traders and the like," he told AFP in the northern Niigata region. "Not all the money paid at shops becomes our income," said Yamazaki, a 42-year-old father of seven. A mosaic of factors lies behind the shortages, including an intensely hot and dry summer two years ago that damaged harvests nationwide. Since then some traders have been hoarding rice in a bid to boost their profits down the line, experts say. The issue was made worse by panic-buying last year prompted by a government warning about a potential "megaquake" that did not strike. - 'Old' rice - Meanwhile, the rising price of imported food has boosted the popularity of domestic rice, while record numbers of tourists are also blamed for a spike in consumption. Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi has pledged to cut prices quicker by selling stockpiled rice directly to retailers -- attracting long queues to some shops. It appears to be working: the average retail price has edged down for a second week to 4,223 yen ($29) for five kilograms (11 pounds), down from a high of 4,285 yen in May. That hasn't stopped opposition politicians -- with an eye on the elections -- and online critics branding the reserve rice "old", with some likening it to animal feed. But analysts also blame Japan's decades-old policy of cutting rice-farming land. The policy was introduced to support prices that were being hit by falling demand brought about by changes in the Japanese diet. Under the 1971 policy, farmers were told to reduce the amount of space used to grow the grain in favour of other crops. That saw the amount of land used for rice paddies -- not including for livestock feed -- plunge below 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) in 2024, from a peak of 3.3 million hectares in 1960. While the policy was officially abolished in 2018, it has continued in a form of incentives pushing farmers towards other commodities like soybeans. Adding to the crisis is Japan's ageing population. Many rice farmers are old and their children have no interest in taking over. Eighty percent of rice farmers are part-time with less than two hectares of fields but they account for only 20 percent of production, said agronomy expert Kazunuki Oizumi, professor emeritus of Miyagi University. Their main revenue comes from other jobs or pensions, he added. - Agriculture 'destroyed' - Toru Wakui, chairman of a large-scale farm in the northern Akita region who has for decades fought against the acreage reduction, said Japan should "seek an increase in rice production and exports to foreign markets". "If you only think about the domestic market while increasing output, of course prices will fall," he told AFP. "We need to look for markets abroad." "The 55 years of acreage reduction destroyed Japan's agriculture," said Wakui, 76, who urged Koizumi in a letter last month to "declare an expansion in rice production". He also said Japan should consider a scheme to help young people start agriculture businesses without the burden of initial investment in fields and machinery, by involving other sectors including banks and trading companies. Public support for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's government has tumbled to its lowest level since he took office in October, which local media say was partly caused by the surge in inflation and soaring rice costs. He has told parliament that increasing production is "an option" to temper prices, but said food security and the livelihood of producers was also important. For the farmer Yamazaki, "wanting cheap rice with high quality" is a pipe dream. "We farmers are a little baffled by the limelight that suddenly shifted to us," he said. kh/kaf/dan
