Plus: The top radio company in the US can't recreate the '50s.
| Good morning and happy Monday. | Stanley Kubrick wasn't too far off when he predicted that commercial airlines like Pan Am would one day lead the charge in space exploration. Okay, Pan Am itself went bust long before the millennium started, but the director behind 2001: A Space Odyssey was right about the bigger picture. | This year, NASA (well, NASA equipment) intends to touch down on the moon multiple times, but actually traversing that 238,900-mile distance is being handled by private businesses. Pittsburgh-based Astrobotics plans on Monday to launch its Peregrine mission, which will loop around Earth before attempting to put a lunar lander on the moon late next month. Other moon-bound businesses this year include Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace. The last time the US landed on the moon, in 1972, Kubrick was in his prime, so we're overdue for a visit. | | | | |
| INDUSTRIALS | The World's Largest Mining Operation Is Finally Ready to Break Ground | In a far-flung part of West Africa, the world's largest mining project is expected to get off the ground this year — and it only took about three decades. | The $20 billion iron ore, rail, and port development operation in Guinea — to be led by mining giant Rio Tinto, the Guinean government, and other companies, including five from China — could be the key to decarbonizing steel production, the Financial Times reported. | A Few Years Later… | UK-listed Rio Tinto first secured an exploration license in the Simandou mountains back in 1997 — when the first Harry Potter book was just hitting store shelves. But a few obstacles got in the way: legal disruptions, funding issues, and even a few stray coups against the Guinean government. But now, Rio Tinto's state-owned Chinese partner Chinalco is expected to receive final investment approvals from Beijing soon and construction of the mine can finally begin. | The project comprises two iron mines, a nearly 400-mile rail system, and a port off the coast of Guinea's capital city of Conakry. Rio Tinto executive Bold Baatar told the FT that because most of the world's easily accessible ore has been excavated over the past 100-plus years, mining projects need to be more complex, which in turn means more expensive and requiring multiple backers. "The capital number is so big for any single party," he said. Rio Tinto's share of the project could cost $6.2 billion. | Not only is the scale of the operation unheard of, but it could be a major proving ground for greener steel production: | - Traditionally, steel requires heating iron ore in a blast furnace alongside materials like coke, a porous fuel derived from coal, but that's generally a very dirty process. The sector has been experimenting by treating iron ore with hydrogen and carbon monoxide instead, which can reduce emissions but requires high-grade iron ore. Luckily, the Simandou mountains are full of what Baatar called "the caviar of iron ore."
- Steelmaking creates about 8% of global emissions, and China is responsible for much of that, producing roughly 1 billion tons of steel in 2022. Baatar told the FT that China's decarbonizing of its steelmaking process would be one of the biggest steps toward decarbonizing the entire industry.
|  Any Takers? While Rio Tinto & Co are ready to drop huge money on this project, other mine operators are looking to shed some weight. Canada's First Quantum Minerals, which deals mostly in copper, is looking to sell its stake in its Zambian operations, Reuters reported. The rumored offer comes after Panama foreclosed on the company's mine in the Central American nation, which cut First Quantum's market value by more than half.
| Written by Griffin Kelly | | | | |
| MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT | Radio Giant Audacy Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy | In 1927, Hollywood introduced talkies, leading to the first known prediction of radio's demise. They've been writing obituaries for the medium pretty much ever since. | Prepare to read more. Audacy, one of the largest radio networks in the nation, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday to restructure its billion-dollar debt load. | Signal and Noise | The Philadelphia-based network — which counts New York's 1010 WINS and Chicago's 780 WBBM among its stations, with ventures into podcasting — may have been a little over-ambitious in the twilight of the analog age. In 2017, the company dropped $1.7 billion to acquire CBS Radio, effectively tripling the size of its business. But growth comes at a cost in an industry that otherwise isn't growing. Call it the end-of-life cycle for legacy media: Younger audiences tune out, advertising revenue shrinks, and debt starts to bloat. | With its bankruptcy filing, Audacy hopes to finally see daylight again: | - In the federal bankruptcy court petition filed in the Southern District of Texas, the radio giant listed total debt of $2.66 billion and assets of $2.79 billion.
- With a restructuring pact approved by a "supermajority" of creditors, Audacy will hand over some ownership stake to creditors in exchange for wiping out over $1.6 billion of debt, the company announced. Meanwhile, its outstanding bonds and loans will be slashed from $1.9 billion to just $350 million.
| | | First Time Podder: Audacy, like iHeart and other radio players, has attempted to bridge the gap to audio's future by investing in podcasting. The only problem? It still doesn't make up the revenue shortfall from the heyday of radio. Overall podcast industry revenue came in at just under $1.4 billion in 2023, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Major radio broadcasters, meanwhile, saw revenue of around $10.2 billion last year, down from almost $14 billion in 2017, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Podcasting, it seems, may not be a foolproof escape pod after all. | Written by Brian Boyle | | | | |
| INDUSTRIALS | FAA Launches Probe into Boeing Aircrafts After Alaska Air Mishap | | | | | Every aerophobic, in their mind's eye, has experienced a version of what happened on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 last weekend, even if no one can recall it actually ever happening on a real commercial flight before. | Just 10 minutes after liftoff, the commercial flight from Portland, Oregon to Ontario, California, was forced to make an emergency landing when a chunk of the plane's cabin tore off in mid-air. Fortunately, all 171 passengers and six crew members survived. Unfortunately for Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration is temporarily grounding over 170 of its 737 Max 9 aircraft. | Breaks on a Plane | Manufacturing defects keep clipping Boeing's wings. Two deadly crashes in five months across 2018 and 2019 killed 346 passengers and crew members, and resulted in a global grounding of all 387 of its Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft for 20 months. Now, the plane's successor, the 737 Max 9, is receiving similar treatment after a permanently deactivated optional exit door ripped off the Alaska Airlines flight. | The FAA's emergency directive will require 171 of the aircraft to undergo inspection, a process that can take up to eight hours. Unsurprisingly, it's a massive headache for air traffic control: | - Alaska Airlines immediately grounded all 65 of its 737 Max 9's after the incident. "Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections," Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement.
- United Airlines, which employs 79 of the aircraft, said it has already completed inspections on 33 of them. Still, the delay resulted in over 60 canceled flights on Saturday alone.
| The investigation into exactly why the plane's door came off has started with a bit of good luck, as a crucial missing piece of the aircraft (a door plug) was located in an Oregon teacher's backyard. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy only identified the teacher by his first name, saying; "Thank you, Bob." | Pointing Fingers: The Max 9 is something of a pivotal product for Boeing, accounting for over one-fifth of its deliveries last year. But the company says liability for this latest incident lies in part with someone else: third-party supplier Spirit Aerosystems, which Boeing says installs the fuselage doors during the aircraft's construction process. Last year, Boeing also said it found Spirit had improperly installed the vertical stabilizer on some Max aircraft. The blame game may be good PR, but it won't help any of us unsee or stop thinking about that giant hole in the fuselage. | Written by Brian Boyle | | | | |
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