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The importance of mining is, without a doubt, indisputable. It could have been the second of the first great efforts of humanity: taking into account that agriculture was the first. These two industries are classified as the primary or basic industries of early civilization, supplying all the basic elements and resources used from prehistoric times to modern civilization.

Mining, inevitably, being an activity that occupies a territory and modifies its geography, directly or indirectly affects the individuals who inhabit it. To protect the integrity of the habitat and meet the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations, it is crucial that mining activities are always carried out with sustainable development as the main objective, ensuring a balance between economic growth, caring for the environment and social welfare.

The five stages of the mining life cycle, being the sum of all of them a sustainable development, are: prospecting, exploration, development, exploitation and recovery. We must consider this last stage to be one of the most important, being its objective the closure of a mine, remodelling, revegetating and restoring the quality of the water and its land values.

To successfully carry out the recovery stage, good prior planning aligned with long-term economic and social objectives is very important. Some examples of planning aligned with social objectives would be the placement of waste dumps, tailings ponds, and other disturbed areas that will help prevent pollution problems. The old mines have been converted into wildlife refuges, golf courses, lakes, underground storage facilities, and other areas for many other uses that can be beneficial to society.

Since mining is such an important practice, as well as its sustainable development and the conservation of mineral resources, it is a duty for society and companies to be more aware of the need to conserve energy, minerals and the environment.

Steel prices affect every industry. In the mining industry, due to a temporary shortage in the wake of THE COVID-19 disruptions, the price of this global commodity has increase roughly from USD 750 per ton to USD 1.000 per ton reaching a historical peak increasing more than 40% since the beginning of the year.

The freight rates are also high due to the strong and continued peak in the ocean container demand, the overbooking of port hubs and many factors which contribute to this increase.

We hope that both, steel and freight prices, stabilize from the pandemic-induced slowdown in the next months.

At Onix Underground, our commitment with our clients as offering the best product quality and service fulfilling their needs at all times, is a priority and the most important thing for us. That is why, we will try to do our best to face this complicate situation effectively and being transparent at all times informing our clients of any progress or setback of this situation.

At ONIX UNDERGROUND we have applied polices and protocols to all of our employees who physically work in our offices and factory in order to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. The major practices that we have applied, which protect employees, customers and communities are:

1. Clean workplaces and shared items
2. Place sanitizers along workplaces
3. Reinforce handwashing procedures to limit the virus exposure
4. Reduce office capacity
5. Practice social distancing by maintaining 2-meter distance between employees and customers
6. Encouraging employees to wear cloth face coverings and gloves in the workplace, if appropriate

Even though COVID-19 pandemic affected the mining industry in a variety of ways, we have been optimizing our business operations and strategy to continue being operative and efficient fulfilling our responsibilities with our customers. Obviously, we do not know how long will last this situation and it will depend on the spread of the virus. However, ensuring that our supply chain is functioning well is a key element for us. Our main goal is to be able to manufacture and deliver efficiently our support products so any downtime is minimised therefore customer productivity is maximised.