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Tariffs and talk of annexation. Northern Ontario braces for Trump’s inauguration – by Jonathan Migneault (CBC News Sudbury – January 20, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

A mining supply company based in Sudbury says it’s been preparing for potential tariffs for months

Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. president, a mining supply company based in Sudbury says it’s preparing for his promised tariffs on Canadian exports. Leading up to his inauguration, Trump has said he would impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian exports to the United States.

“This is not a fire drill. This is coming,” said Tas Mohamed, the CEO of Railveyor Technologies, a company that designs and builds automated rail systems to haul ore from mines. As soon as Trump was named the Republican nominee in the presidential race, Mohamed said she took action to reduce the potential impact of tariffs on her business.

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Amarc stock doubles on gold-copper find at JOY in BC – by Staff (Northern Miner – January 20, 2025)

Global mining news

Amarc Resources (TSXV: AHR; US-OTC: AXREF) has more than doubled its share price after announcing a high-grade discovery at its JOY copper-gold project in north-central British Columbia.

The discovery resulted from initial drilling of the Northwest Gossan (NWG) target area, located at the end of a possible 15-km mineralized trend within the 495-sq.-km JOY district that had not been previously drill tested. Work programs are being fully funded by copper giant Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), which could earn an interest in the JOY project while Amarc serves as the program operator.

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Sudbury could be part of massive mining merger – if it occurs – by Staff (Sudbury Star – January 19, 2025)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Rio Tinto Group and Glencore Plc have held merger discussions, news agency says, although they are not currently active

Could some of Sudbury’s mining operations be part of another mega-mining deal? Bloomberg News reports that Rio Tinto Group and Glencore Plc have held early-stage talks about combining their businesses to create a behemoth to rival longstanding industry titan BHP Group.

The discussions took place as recently as late last year but are not currently active, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

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Province needs to cast the net wide on Ring of Fire consultation, says Marten Falls chief – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – January 17, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Bruce Achneepineskum looks for new regional discussion table and more involvement from Ottawa

Doug Ford’s full-speed-ahead approach to build a Ring of Fire road and mine more critical minerals compelled a council of northwestern Ontario chiefs to tap the brakes on the premier’s enthusiasm.

The Matawa Chiefs Council outlined their stance in a news release this week that more relationship-building with Indigenous communities needs to be done before any industrial development takes place in the James Bay mineral belt.

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Opinion: Big Mining’s takeover mania seems on break. It won’t last long as copper demand soars – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – January 18, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

In the mining industry, mass creates mass. As mining companies get bigger, their expenses and debts rise, requiring more revenues and cash flow to cover their costs and occasionally epic cost overruns. So they devour their rivals, which also eliminates the hassle of building mines in unsavoury parts of the planet.

So it has always been, which is why a small number of giants dominate the global industry. BHP and Rio Tinto have market valuations of US$100-billion or more. Further down the list, though still enormous, are Glencore, Vale, Anglo American and Freeport-McMoRan. Soon there will be fewer. Another round of mergers and acquisitions seems almost certain this year.

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Invisible engravings, ethical diamonds: the technology that tracks stones from mine to market (Euro News – January 2025)

https://www.euronews.com/

International laws prohibit the trade of diamonds from countries in conflict, but for now, it is impossible to be certain of the origin of the precious stones. A Polish laboratory has found the solution.

Could the diamond in your engagement ring come from a country in conflict, like Russia? Not legally, and there is now a technology developed by a European project in Poland that could prevent it from happening illegally in the future.

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Precious metals breathe a sigh of relief as Trump signals delay in tariffs ahead of inauguration – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – Janaury 20, 2025)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Gold and silver markets could start to breathe a little easier as U.S. markets are closed in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it appears that soon-to-be President Donald Trump could delay the implementation of tariffs.

Trump will be sworn in Monday as America’s 47th president and gold and silver have seen extreme volatility in anticipation that he would enact significant tariffs to support American manufacturing on day one.

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The China commodities super-cycle is over. Will there be another boom? – by Leslie Hook, Joe Leahy and Wenjie Ding (Australian Financial Review – January 16, 2025)

https://www.afr.com/

China’s massive industrialisation and urbanisation drove a huge commodities boom that has run its course, but some executives are hopeful it will be replaced.

Waking from a nap at his desk, Xiao, a steel trader from Wuhan in central China, reflects on how, at the end of one of the greatest booms in recent economic history, he is a lucky survivor.

About half of his competitors in this gritty office park, built near the site of China’s first ironworks, have gone bust during the country’s three-year-long property crisis. The park itself is overshadowed by the enormous concrete skeleton of an unfinished real estate project.

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Cutting off oil is Canada’s nuclear option. What would it mean if it happens? – by Evan Dyer (CBC News Politics – January 19, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/

Crude oil tariffs in response to Trump’s threats would cause pain on both sides

In Canada’s arsenal of possible responses to a Trump tariff, the nuclear option is the threat to withhold, reduce or place export tariffs on Canadian energy. Already, the mere suggestion of such a tactic has caused a split between the government of Alberta, on one side, and the governments of Canada and all other provinces on the other.

Tariffs on imports from the U.S. have the potential to cause pain to certain industries and regions, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself has acknowledged that the effect of Canada’s import tariffs would be diluted by the size of the U.S. population and economy.

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Glencore open to deals as investors brace for more mining M&A – by Clara Denina and Pratima Desai (Reuters – January 20, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

Miner and commodity trader Glencore said it is open to M&A transactions that create value for its shareholders, leveraging its position as a top three global copper producer.

“As we have always said, M&A is something we are good at and we are always open to do transactions that are value-accretive for the company,” a Glencore spokesperson said. Potential M&A deals were the chief preoccupation for investors in the sector in 2024, but BHP’s $49 billion failed bid for Anglo American in May showed the difficulty of combining diversified producers.

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A South African horror story: Illegal mining standoff draws to an end – by Kate Bartlett (NPR.org – January 17, 2025)

https://www.npr.org/

STILFONTEIN, South Africa —They look like the walking dead. Dusty men, skin and hair caked in dirt, skeletal. Some struggle to walk and collapse. They blink like moles in the harsh South African sunlight. Some look painfully young.

Operations to rescue hundreds of illegal miners at an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, a small mining town about 100 miles Southwest of Johannesburg, started Monday and ended Thursday when rescuers said there was no longer anyone left in the shaft.

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IAMGOLD sees a lot of ways to grow in Timmins – by Amanda Rabski-McColl (Northern Ontario Business – January 17, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

‘I think we have a much better understanding of the capacity in the region, and now we’re established,’ says president and CEO

Youth have a bright future at a gold mine south of Timmins. With IAMGOLD looking to invest in community and education, Bryan Wilson, the general manager of its Côté Gold site near Gogama, about 90 minutes south of the city, says education in the trades is the ticket for Timmins.

“We’ll keep working with Timmins; it’s a mining mecca,” said Wilson, at the Timmins Chamber’s state of mining event on Jan. 15. Situated halfway between Timmins and Sudbury, the open-pit mine went into commercial production in 2024.

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Excerpt from Windfall: Violoa MacMillan and her Notorious Mining Scandal – by Tim Falconer (January 17, 2025)

Click Here to Order Book: https://shorturl.at/dMsqN 

Tim Falconer spent three summers on mineral exploration crews, worked in two mines and studied mining engineering at McGill University for two years before switching into English Literature. He is the author of five previous non-fiction books and a veteran magazine writer. His last two books—Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music and Klondikers: Dawson City’s Stanley Cup Challenge and How a Nation Fell in Love with Hockey—made the Globe and Mail’s Top 100. He lives with his wife in Toronto.

Viola MacMillan, who was one of the most facinating women in Canadian business history, was the central character in one of the country’s most famous stock scandals. MacMillan was a prospector who’d gone on to put together big deals, develop lucrative mines and head a major industry association – all at a time when career women were a rarity.  Early in July 1964, shares in her company, Windfall Oil and Mines, took off. In the absence of information about what Windfall had found on its claims near Timmins, rumours and greed pushed share prices to a high of $5.70.  MacMillan stayed quiet. Finally after three weeks of market frenzy, Windfall admitted it had nothing. When the stock crashed, so many small investors lost money that the Ontario government appointed a Royal Commission to examine what had happened. Meaningful changes at the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Ontario Securities Commission followed. Windfall is biographical history at its finest: the unlikely story of the trailblazer who, although convicted and imprisoned, would later receive the Order of Canada.

EXCERPT: THE QUEEN BEE

Viola MacMillan had been so successful selling houses on the side that she decided to leave her job as a stenographer at Rodd, Wigle & McHugh to start her own real estate agency. The move turned out to be ill-timed. By the end of the 1920s, Windsor was no longer booming, and then the Great Depression followed the stock market crash of October 1929. George hadn’t had a job in a while, so they moved to London, Ontario, where she sold Christmas cards wholesale. They kept the place in Windsor and filled it with boarders while taking in more roomers in the home they rented in London. She also tried to sell houses on the side, but that proved a tough go.

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Rio Tinto and Glencore discuss potential merger – by Frik Els (Mining.com – January 16, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto and Glencore have been discussing combining their businesses, according to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported.

The Australian mining giant and the Swiss commodities trader and miner have recently held “early-stage talks” about a deal, according to the newswire adding that “it’s unclear whether the talks are still live.” Rio Tinto is the world’s second most valuable mining company and shares with its Melbourne-based neighbour BHP the distinction of being valued at more than $100 billion, but only just.

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Province announces funding for Timmins critical minerals companies – by Lydia Chubak (CTV News Nothern Ontario – January 15, 2025)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/

As Ontario braces for U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff order expected next week, it’s ramping up its investment in the critical minerals sector. It’s funneling more than $7 million through the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund to 17 projects.

“Our natural resources are essential to the execution of the AM CAN Plan,” said Stephen Crawford, associate minister of mines. “That is another reason why the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund is so important.”

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