Iron Ore

Nordic Iron Ore har genomfört en riktad nyemission av cirka 31 miljoner aktier, motsvarande cirka 163 miljoner kronor. Teckningskursen för aktierna i den riktade nyemissionen uppgick till 5:30 kronor per aktie och fastställdes genom ett bookbuilding-förfarande.

Gruvbolaget Nordic Iron Ore har gett ABG Sundal Collier i uppdrag att utreda förutsättningarna att genomföra en riktad nyemission om cirka 125 miljoner kronor till svenska och internationella institutionella investerare.

Gruvbolaget Nordic Iron Ore har gett ABG Sundal Collier i uppdrag att utreda förutsättningarna att genomföra en riktad nyemission om cirka 125 miljoner kronor till svenska och internationella institutionella investerare.

Närheten till Ryssland brukade vara en avgörande fördel för Kirkenes. – Det var en lokal, regional och nationell strategi att fokusera på Ryssland, säger Nils Roine, chef på regionens handelskammare, till New York Times. Nu har den strategin gått fullständigt i baklås. The fighting in Ukraine has disrupted a region in northern Norway that had thrived on cross-border trade and cooperation with Russia. By Xxx and Xxx (skribentens namn i fetad stil, orden by och and skrivs magert) Datum i formatet: day month, year KIRKENES, Norway — In this corner of Norway’s far north, just 5 miles from the border with Russia, road signs give directions in Norwegian and Russian. Locals are used to crossing from one country to the other visa-free: Norwegians to fill up on cheap Russian gasoline; Russians to hit the Norwegian malls. A few years ago, those cross-border ties inspired Terje Jorgensen, the director of the Norwegian port of Kirkenes, to propose closer ties with the Russian port of Murmansk to build on the surging interest in cross-Arctic shipping routes, which connect Asia to Western Europe. He wanted to develop joint standards for sustainability and easier transport between the two ports. But then Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his troops marching into Ukraine, bringing the whole project to a halt. “It could have been developed into something,” Jorgensen said of his preliminary discussions with the Russians. “But then came the war, and we deleted the entire thing.” The war may be more than 1,000 miles south, but it has created a chasm in this part of the world, which had prided itself as a place where Westerners and Russians could get along. Over the past year, business, cultural and environmental ties have been frozen as borders have stiffened, part of efforts to punish Moscow for its brutal war in Ukraine. In Kirkenes, a town of 3,500 built around the small port, security fears have upended a business model focused on cross-border ties. On a recent weekday, no shoppers braved the chilly June wind in the tiny downtown. At the nearby mall, older Norwegians shopped in the pharmacy as a lone tourist from Germany looked for rain gear. Some chain stores, drawn here in part to sell their wares to Russians eager for Western brands and appliances, have warned they might pull out of Kirkenes, said Niels Roine, the head of the regional Chamber of Commerce. That would further weaken a retail sector that has seen a 30% drop in revenue since the war began. The widening separation between the two countries is a rebuke to Norway’s policy, instilled after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, to encourage business leaders to look east. Two shopping centers promptly sprang up to serve Russians looking for Western clothing, gifts, disposable diapers and alcohol. “It was a local, regional and national strategy to focus on turning toward Russia,” Roine said. More than 266,000 people from Russia crossed the nearby border station into Norway in 2019; last year, that number fell by more than 75%. Cross-border hockey games and wrestling matches between students have ground to a halt, and the Arctic Council, a multinational forum that promotes cooperative ventures in the region, has been disrupted. At the same time, Russian can still be heard in the streets, and Russian fishermen, drawn to nearby waters by cod and other species, are allowed to tie up at the port, although they are no longer allowed to visit the shops and restaurants in Kirkenes and two other Norwegian port cities and their ships are searched by police. For decades, the vast amounts of cod in the Barents Sea — home to one of the world’s last surviving stocks of the fish — have drawn people and businesses from both countries to this Arctic Circle community. Norwegian fishermen alone landed fish worth $2.6 billion in 2022, according to government figures. Kirkenes’ most important industrial employer is Kimek, a shipbuilding company that has prospered by repairing commercial fishing boats known as trawlers, especially the Russian ones. A shared interest in maintaining the cod stocks yielded a unique bilateral agreement forged during the Cold War. The cod tend to spawn in Russian waters but then reach adult size in Norwegian waters. Fishermen from Russia are permitted to catch their quota of cod in Norwegian waters in exchange for not catching the young cod in their own national waters. “The main fish stocks migrate across both countries’ zones,” said Anne-Kristin Jorgensen, a researcher with the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, which focuses on international environmental, energy and resource management. “Norway and Russia have to cooperate in managing them if they want to continue fishing,” Jorgensen said. “Both parties know that this is necessary.” But that agreement is coming under strain. Last year, Oslo limited the Russian trawlers’ access to only Kirkenes and two other ports. And this spring, as fears simmered that Russians, under the guise of fishing, could sabotage critical infrastructure like sub-sea cables, Norwegian authorities cracked down on the services they could receive in port. Only necessities, such as refueling, food and emergency repairs, are now allowed. That sent tremors through the shipyard of Kimek, the largest industrial employer in the region. Its towering building is visible nearly everywhere in town. In June, the boat repair company said the restrictions had led it to lay off 15 people. “I’m worried, for all of you talented employees and family members, but also for what society here will look like in a few years,” Greger Mannsverk, Kimek’s CEO, said in a statement announcing the layoffs. “I hear many other businesses here are noticing the decline in trade and turnover, and that they are also considering measures to tighten expenses.” Mannsverk, who declined requests for an interview, is not the only official worried about the region’s future. “We are facing a very dramatic situation here,” said Bjorn Johansen, the regional head for LO, Norway’s influential labor union. He ticked off a number of crises the area has faced, including the loss of jobs when an iron ore mine closed in 2015 and the coronavirus pandemic. “And now,” he added, “The door to Russia is closed for many, many, many years.” Some businesses have cut ties to Russia and are working to expand away from the giant neighbor to the east. One of those is Barel, a maker of specialized electronics used in offshore vessels and aircraft, founded in Kirkenes 30 years ago. After shutting its plant in Murmansk following the Russian invasion, it is aiming to expand production in Norway. The company is proud of its location near the Barents, selling it as a unique asset, but finding workers is a challenge. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Barel brought Russian workers who were willing to relocate across the border, but it still needs another 15 workers to reach its goal of 50, said Bard Gamnes, the company’s CEO. “We are trying to target the coastal areas where work in fisheries is dropping and showing them that even though we’re a high-tech business, a lot of what we do is actually manual labor,” Gamnes said in an interview in Barel’s boardroom, above the company’s shop floor. Kenneth Sandmo, the head of business and industry policy at the LO union, pointed out that such skilled labor jobs were essential for maintaining a stable local economy. Tourism jobs, which are often seasonal and pay less, have less impact, he said. “If you have 80 people working jobs in industry, that will create an additional 300 jobs in the community,” Sandmo said. “You don’t find that in tourism.” Still, the Snowhotel in Kirkenes lures guests year-round to sleep in elaborately decorated rooms resembling igloos — the hotel recommends wearing long underwear even during high summer — and Hurtigruten cruise ships drop off travelers in Kirkenes as the final stop on their trip up Norway’s coast. Hans Hatle, the founder of Barents Safari, a tour company, spent years as an army officer training guards to defend Norway’s frontier with the Soviet Union. He now escorts tourists by boat to that same border, recounting the role of the Russians and Finns in the region. “We have had a lot of shifting politics here,” he said, standing atop a rock on Western Europe’s edge. With warming temperatures making popular destinations in Spain and Italy unseasonably hot, he is confident that Kirkenes has a bright future as a tourist destination. “We have to keep thinking in new ways,” Hatle said. “But I am confident that we will make it.” © 2023 The New York Times Company. Read the original article at The New York Times.

Stockholmsbörsen inleder på rött, efter att ha avslutat på grönt i går. En lägre inflationstakt än väntat i USA i juni fick investeringshumöret att lyftas globalt under gårdagen. Under morgonen har penningmarknadens inflationssiffror inkommit, som justerats ner något på kort sikt. Bland bolagen har Viaplay i natt meddelat att de kommer slopa sina mål helt för 2023. Nordic Iron Ore och kanadensiska Cargill har nått ett avtal om köp av järnmalmskoncentrat från Blötberget efter långa förhandlingar. First North-bolaget Addvise spår ett kraftigt vinstlyft i kvartalet i en omvänd vinstvarning. Autoliv ska stänga ner två fabriker i Europa, i linje med tidigare presenterade sparpogram. Totalt väntas runt 1 100 anställda drabbas. Även rapporter fortsätter att rulla in. Handelsbolaget Bufab ökade omsättningen och något orderingången på årsbasis, samtidigt skjuter vinsten i höjden. Collector ökade vinsten mer än väntat medan kreditförlusterna steg 0,1 procent jämfört med i fjol. Sektorkollegan TF Banks kreditförluster ökade än mer medan rörelseresultatet steg. Transplantationsbolaget Xvivo ökade omsättningen och justerat ebita-resultatet. Även Plejd, Note och Bonesupport har presenterat rapporter på morgonen. Bland rekarna har JP Morgan sänkt Tele2 från övervikt till neutral. Texten uppdateras. New York-börserna i går S&P 500: +0,8% Nasdaq: +1,2% Dow Jones: +0,3% Inflation, räntehöjningar och svängande börsrörelser – hur navigerar man det utmanande ekonomiska läget? Med Omnis systerapp Omni Ekonomi får du Sveriges mest heltäckande bevakning av börs- och bolagsnyheter. Lägg därtill att Sveriges främsta aktieexperter svarar på de svåra frågorna och hjälper dig att hantera marknaderna.

Nordic Iron Ore har ingått ett avtal med amerikanska Cargill om försäljning av järnmalmskoncentrat om 25 miljoner ton från gruvan i Blötberget i Dalarna, och finansiering för produktion. Enligt bolaget bedöms offtake-avtalet inbringa 35 miljarder kronor i intäkter under en 15-årsperiod.

Att tillverka fossilfritt stål kan bli ett viktigt steg på vägen mot att klara klimatutmaningarna. Hittills har mycket av fokuset handlat om att använda vätgas, skriver The Economist. En smart lösning. Men inte smart nog, enligt Tadeu Carneiro. Han driver amerikanska Boston Metal, och vill istället använda el för processen. En fördel med det är att biprodukten från själva tillverkningen då blir rent syre. Ett ämne som inte bara är ofarligt – det är dessutom värdefullt. Why electricity may be better than hydrogen By The Economist May 31st 2023 Steelmakers around the world hope to decarbonise by changing the way they pluck oxygen from iron-oxide ores. This is done using either carbon monoxide (CO) derived indirectly from coke in a blast furnace, or by “direct reduction” with syngas, a mixture of CO and hydrogen. Both create carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. As a consequence, steelmaking is reckoned responsible for about 9% of man-made greenhouse-gas emissions. A widespread aspiration is thus to introduce direct reduction by hydrogen alone. The only by-product of such a reaction would be water (or rather, steam). Clever. But, thinks Tadeu Carneiro, not clever enough. Mr Carneiro runs Boston Metal, a firm based not in Boston, but rather in Woburn, 17km to the north-west. Employing the insights of Donald Sadoway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston Metal has created a way of separating iron from its ore by electrolysis. Instead of releasing CO₂ or steam, its approach produces pure oxygen—which is not merely harmless, but actually valuable. Electrolytic separation of metals from their oxides is not new. Aluminium is made this way. But the process uses carbon electrodes, and the oxygen liberated at the anode reacts with this carbon to generate CO₂. Boston Metal employs, instead, anodes made of chromium, iron and a secret mix of other metals in an alloy that does not react with oxygen. The other electrode, the cathode, is the liquid metal itself. Between these electrodes, as in any form of electrolysis, sits an electrolyte. In this case it is a molten mixture of metal oxides, into which the iron ore is dissolved. Passing a current through the mixture both heats it, keeping it molten, and splits the iron oxide into its component elements. This arrangement has several advantages over direct reduction by hydrogen. Direct reduction produces “sponge iron”, a solid that must be melted before being used to make steel. Boston Metal’s process produces liquid iron directly. Sponge iron retains any impurities from the ore itself, meaning only high-grade ore can be employed for direct reduction. In Dr Sadoway’s process impurities are retained instead in the electrolyte. This means the iron itself is chemically pure, and immediately ready to receive the various alloying elements used to produce steel. Another advantage of relying on electricity is that the world already produces and distributes plenty of it, whereas almost no infrastructure yet exists for making and supplying hydrogen. To top things off, Boston Metal’s approach is based on cells that are much smaller than furnaces. That makes electrolytic production modular and easy to scale up. Mr Carneiro, who used to run cbmm, the world’s leading producer of niobium, reckons steel made this way could eventually compete on cost with the conventionally manufactured version, without needing the supporting bureaucracy of subsidies, tariffs and carbon taxes required for direct reduction by hydrogen. Working up from benchtop prototypes, Boston Metal now has a cell close to the size needed for commercial production. It is in discussions with ArcelorMittal and Cleveland-Cliffs, two big steelmakers, about building its first test production facility, probably at an existing American steel plant. On May 30th the International Finance Corporation, an offshoot of the World Bank, said it had invested $20m in Boston Metal. If the company’s process takes off, the geography of steelmaking could change radically. Legacy mills sited in coalfields in America and Europe might be replaced by plants next door to iron-ore mines, fed their electricity by connectors to the local grid. Or those new plants could be built in places with cheap electricity. (Iceland, with its low-cost hydroelectric and geothermal power, and location half way between North America and Europe, might find steelmakers queuing up.) Pure-hydrogen direct reduction does, it is true, have first-mover advantage in the race to green steel. It also benefits from being a mere modification of an already familiar technology. But familiarity can breed complacency. And complacency sometimes leaves the door open for truly disruptive new technologies.  © 2023 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

Medan de mexikanska myndigheterna – påhejade av USA – siktar in sig på att bekämpa narkotikan så hittar Mexikos karteller andra inkomstkällor. Religiösa pilgrimer pressas på pengar för att få delta i de traditionella påskparaderna och avokadobönder tvingas betala ”skatt” på sina odlingar, noga uppmätta av kartellmedlemmarna. The Economist kartlägger kartellernas expanderande ekonomi som sakta men säkert omvandlar Mexiko till en maffiastat. They are expanding into every corner of society By The Economist Datum i formatet: 11th May, 2023 On may 3rd Mexico introduced a law applying strict controls on the import of chemicals used by Mexico’s gangs to make synthetic drugs. The law is backed by harsh criminal penalties. This is a striking move by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s populist president, who has shied away from tackling the country’s gangs, preferring to blame drugs and disorder on family breakdown over the border and poverty at home. In truth, under his tenure gangs are increasingly powerful and diversified. Mexico’s cartels have always been adaptable. In the 1980s they trafficked marijuana and then cocaine from Colombia to the United States. But in the past decade they have mutated into a much wider array of groups, with their tentacles reaching beyond the drugs trade into extortion, people-smuggling, arms-selling and illegal mining. “We look at organised crime trends through a drug-cartel lens, when today in Mexico we have a mafia-like criminal landscape,” says Romain Le Cour Grandmaison of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, an NGO based in Switzerland. However, the government response continues to be shaped by a focus on narcotics, not least because of the United States and its war on drugs. The pressure has increased with the recent crisis surrounding fentanyl. The head of the us Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) last month described the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), Mexico’s two biggest groups, as the “greatest drug threat our nation has ever faced”. Drugs continue to make up a large part of the business, especially for the two main gangs. Production of cocaine, cultivated in South America and trafficked through Mexico, has more than doubled since 2014, says the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, while the price has not dropped. The pivot to synthetics such as methamphetamine, which is sold locally, and fentanyl, which is sent north, has made business more lucrative. The indictments in the United States in April of the “Chapitos”, the four sons of Joaquín Guzmán, known as “El Chapo”, the head of the Sinaloa cartel who is now in prison in Colorado, have shed light on the changing shape of the trade. The DEA estimates that a pill that costs ten cents to make in Mexico can be sold to a wholesaler for 50 cents. Unlike marijuana or cocaine, no land is needed for synthetics: the chemicals are imported through Mexican airports or ports from China. Gangs drop them off to labs, sometimes family kitchens in northern states, before pressing them into pills to take north. Perhaps 40% of the Sinaloa cartel’s income comes from drugs, estimates one official, half of which come from synthetics. Gangs have diversified for several reasons. First, “El Narco”, as Mexicans call them, is simply “a monster that eats everything it can,” says Ioan Grillo, an author. But official policy has exacerbated the problem. The war on drugs, begun in 2006 by the then president Felipe Calderón, caused groups to splinter and multiply. By 2020 the number of gangs had increased to more than 200, from 76 in 2010, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think-tank based in Brussels. Not all have the ability or connections to traffic or make drugs: the DEA recognises only nine major drug-trafficking organisations in Mexico. Second, the security policies of Mr López Obrador, who is often known as Amlo, have given gangs room to expand. His approach to security is known as “abrazos no balazos” (“hugs not bullets”), a policy that seeks to tackle root causes, but does little to confront existing gangs. This has let the groups deepen their expansion, which started a decade ago, into the legal economy, says Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank. The biggest source of income after drugs is “without a doubt” extortion, says Eduardo Guerrero of Lantia Intelligence, a consultancy. Groups extort money from everyone, whether taco-stand owners or pilgrims, some of whom, over Easter, were forced to pay to take part in processions. In 2022 almost double the number of Mexicans reported having money extorted than did five years before (see chart below). Only a tiny minority report. The big money comes, however, from “taxing” businesses in sectors such as agriculture and mining. Avocados, Mexico’s “green gold”, are a good example. The country provides almost a third of global supply, most of which is grown in the western state of Michoacán. The $3bn-worth of them exported every year to the United States is a huge source of income for the producers and also for gangs. For the past three years Erick Rodríguez, a farmer, has paid an annual “fee” of 10,000 pesos ($560) per hectare to Familia Michoacana, a local criminal group. Mr Rodríguez (not his real name) says the gang comes with data about the size of his farm and tells him to hold back stock to push up prices. Ms Felbab-Brown’s fieldwork in Mexico shows how gangs also force fishermen to sell their catch at a cut price, which they then sell for a profit to restaurants. They also dictate the terms of when and what they can fish. Smuggling people is another area of expansion. Criminal groups used to leave this to small-time smugglers known as coyotes. As the border has tightened and the number trying to cross has risen, so has the cost, making it even more attractive to the gangs. The us border police apprehended migrants trying to cross illegally 2.2m times last year, a six-fold increase on a decade earlier. The cost to transit Mexico and cross into the United States can now be as high as $12,500 per person, according to a study supported by BBVA, a Spanish bank. Gangs also kidnap migrants to extort money from their richer relatives north of the border. Mexico’s immigration agency freed over 2,000 kidnapped migrants last year. Many more are never found. Meanwhile, a growing percentage of the 25 people who disappear every day in Mexico are 12- to 15-year-old girls, many of whom are likely to be trafficked into prostitution. And, though guns are tightly regulated in Mexico, gangs smuggle them in from the United States. Trafficking natural resources is lucrative, too, says the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. In 2014 Mexico’s government acknowledged for the first time that gangs illegally mine and export iron ore from Michoacán. A report by Insight Crime, an investigative outfit, last year found the activity is thriving now under the cjng. In the state of Jalisco gangs control the timber market. Demand for Mexican animals, though a niche business, is growing, too. Most are believed to be sent to China, sometimes in exchange for chemicals for drugs. Oil is also a target industry. Gangs siphon it off, sometimes cutting deals with corrupt officials at Pemex, the state oil company. They steal and sell water in the states of Mexico and Nuevo León. One result of this expansion is a rise in violence. Drug trafficking requires little more than someone corruptible at a border, but today’s activities are only possible where groups control territory, causing violent clashes across the country. They are particularly fierce in Michoacán, where at least 35 groups compete for resources, now using military-grade weapons bought with income from the drugs trade. Homicide figures are alarming, but a poor measurement of the impact. Murders fell by 7% from 2021 to 2022, to a still shocking total of almost 31,000 (see chart above). But disappearances, most of which are murders with no body, have risen. “Unlike in the past when gangs were only involved in the illegal economy, today every citizen and business is exposed to being controlled by them,” says Ms Felbab-Brown. Amlo has made things worse. After the United States arrested Salvador Cienfuegos, a former head of Mexico’s armed forces, the president in 2021 enacted a national-security law to curtail the DEA’s ability to operate in Mexico. Relations have subsequently improved, and the government has been carrying out more strikes against gang operatives, as well as co-operating on financial investigations. Yet taking out kingpins, a policy popular under Mr Calderón, has had little effect. The president has spread out the National Guard, a federal police force he created in 2019, to reassert the state’s presence. But in many places he has ordered them to stay in the barracks. His tenure has been marked by a general passivity towards security and corruption, notes Mr Guerrero. This has led to a second consequence: deeper corruption within the state, which allows gangs to diversify further. Officials have always struck deals with organised crime. But under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000, the government called the shots. Democratisation and the decentralisation of power have tilted the balance of power in favour of the criminals. The recent conviction in the United States of Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s security minister under Mr Calderón, for taking bribes from the Sinaloa cartel to facilitate drug-trafficking, was a rare proven case involving a federal official. Criminal groups are deeply entwined with local police, mayors and politicians, who can be threatened or bought. This gives them access to more sources of revenue through public contracts to build roads and other infrastructure. More worryingly, rather than just threatening elected officials, gangs are gaining unprecedented influence over elections. Before midterm polls in 2021, nearly 40 candidates were killed. Gangs are having a greater impact on businesses and society, as well. Some firms see no option but to employ the groups to protect them, notes Teresa Martínez of Tec de Monterrey, a university. Extortion by gangs is one reason for Mexico’s sluggish economic growth. Small-business owners say they struggle to pay up or do not want to grow so big as to attract attention. For the most part the gangs show little interest in building ties with the communities they prey on. But some do engage. On Children’s Day, a festival at the start of May, the CJNG even handed out toys. “We are seeing the transformation not only from drug-trafficking organisations to multi-commodity ones, but now to actual local strongmen exercising political control,” says Falko Ernst of the ICG. Mexico’s gangs have sprawled to such an extent that Mr Grillo and others have started calling the situation “an insurgency”. Certainly their mutation makes everything harder to tackle. It requires a broad national response, including weeding out corruption, creating a functioning justice system and re-establishing the remit of the state (as well as tackling drug consumption in the United States). But with the damage being wrought by fentanyl, a shift from the narrow focus on drugs, north and south of the border, looks unlikely. © 2023 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.