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Abitibi Greenstone Belt

Riding a 44% gain in its share price, Agnico’s first new CEO in 25 years is bullish on 2023 – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – January 4, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

‘I think 2023 really is going to be about optimizing the assets we have,’ says Ammar Al-Joundi

For the first time in almost 25 years, Toronto-based Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. — the largest gold miner inside Canada — will begin the year with a chief executive who isn’t named Sean Boyd.

Instead, Ammar Al-Joundi is the CEO while Boyd has moved into the role of executive chairman. Asked what lies ahead for Agnico and whether any big changes are planned, Al-Joundi relies on what could politely be characterized as boardroom jargon.

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Canada’s largest gold mine, an open pit in northern Ont., looks to expand underground – by Sergio Arangio (CTV News Northern Ontario – December 8, 2022)

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/

In one of the company’s first public addresses since merging with Kirkland Lake Gold in February and becoming the third-largest gold miner in the world (ranked by Canadian Mining Journal for the first half of 2022), Andre Leite, Agnico Eagle’s Ontario vice-president, said he sees more growth potential in northeastern Ontario.

That’s what he told local stakeholders at the Timmins chamber’s State of Mining conference Wednesday afternoon, saying there’s potential to dramatically boost output at Canada’s largest gold mine: the Detour Lake open pit.

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Peter Marrone has few regrets as he prepares to exit Yamana Gold after a nearly 20-year run – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – November 17, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Peter Marrone has few regrets as he prepares to walk away from the big Canadian gold mining company he founded and is now poised to sell to a pair of Canadian precious metals companies.

Last week, Toronto-based Yamana YRI-T agreed to sell itself to Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Pan American Silver Corp. for US$4.8-billion. That offer topped an earlier and deeply unpopular bid by South African miner Gold Fields Ltd., which was originally worth US$6.7-billion.

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Gold Fields ends effort to acquire Canada’s Yamana, which has backed Agnico Eagle-Pan American takeover bid – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – November 9, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

South Africa’s Gold Fields Ltd. has ended its flawed attempt to acquire Toronto-based Yamana Gold Inc., handing victory to Canadian precious metals miners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Pan American Silver Corp.

In late May, Johannesburg-based Gold Fields proposed buying Yamana for US$6.7-billion in stock, a 42-per-cent premium to Yamana’s market price. The deal was poorly received, with Gold Fields shares losing as much as 40 per cent in the months that followed, and two of its biggest shareholders, VanEck and RWC Partners Ltd. (known as Redwheel), denounced the deal as making no sense strategically.

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The bulldozer versus the diplomat: Inside the power struggle at Agnico Eagle that led to the exit of CEO Tony Makuch after 16 days – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 4, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A power struggle at Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. over corporate culture, personnel and strategy led to the big Canadian gold miner cutting ties with its new chief executive officer, Tony Makuch, only 16 days after he took over the job following a merger with his former employer, Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd.

Mr. Makuch’s hard-driving, bulldozer management style repeatedly bumped up against the hands-off, diplomatic approach of Agnico’s executive chairman, Sean Boyd, according to seven sources familiar with the situation.

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Exploration roundup: High gold prices continue to spur exploration activity around Kirkland Lake – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – February 22, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

A slew of junior miners are taking the plunge in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt

The Kirkland Lake mining scene has been reshaped with Agnico Eagle acquiring Kirkland Lake Gold and the Macassa Mine.

But a number of ambitious junior miners continue to search for high-grade gold at depth on the path to bring the next generation of mines online in this historic northeastern Ontario gold camp. The gold price in late February was hovering just below US$1,900 an ounce.

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Agnico Eagle and Kirkland Lake Gold seal the deal – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – February 9, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Mining companies consummate $13.4B transaction announced last September

The “merger of equals” between Agnico Eagle and Kirkland Lake Gold is done. The two mining companies made that official in a Feb. 8 news release. The new and combined company will be called Agnico Eagle Mines Limited.

The two companies, which announced the $13.4-billion transaction back on Sept. 28, cleared the final regulatory hurdle for the combination to take place when Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board approved the deal. Shareholders for both companies approved the transaction in November.

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Agnico Eagle and Kirkland Lake Gold merger likely the last major deal in Canada – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – October 4, 2021)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The mega-merger of Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX: AEM; NYSE: AEM) and Kirkland Lake Gold (TSX: KL; NYSE: KL; ASX: KLA) unveiled to the market on September 28 “makes a lot of strategic sense” but is likely to be the last blockbuster M&A deal by a major in the Canadian mining sector, according to Haywood Securities mining analyst Kerry Smith.

“Most of the big deals are done,” Smith says in an interview. “There are going to be acquisitions of assets by some of the mid-tiers—that’s what’s going to come next. I think we’ll see mid-tier mining companies buying single-asset development stage companies; companies like Rupert Resources, Moneta, and Belo Sun Mining and others — companies that are in super-easy jurisdictions to work in.”

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M&A heats up in a deeply oversold mining sector – by David Erfle (Kitco News – October 1, 2021)

https://www.kitco.com/

In a sector where investor confidence is extremely low, mining companies re-kindled efforts to explore alliances and partnerships to bring promising projects online and share the risk between parties during the recently concluded in-person Colorado mining conferences.

On Tuesday, global miners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (AEM) and Kirkland Lake Gold (KL) announced that they have agreed on a merger of equals, with the combined company to continue under the former’s name.

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Gold miners Agnico Eagle, Kirkland Lake propose $13.5 billion mega-merger – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – September 29, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd., largest and second-largest gold producers in Canada, on Tuesday announced an all-stock merger, valued at around $13.5 billion that creates a new gold mining giant with its center of gravity in Canada.

The merged entity would keep the Agnico Eagle name and produce about 2.5 of its 3.4 million ounces of gold per year from mines in Canada. The deal comes about one year after gold, a traditional safe haven in times of economic uncertainty, reached an all-time peak at US$2,067 per ounce in August 2020.

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Agnico Eagle deal to buy Kirkland Lake Gold criticized – by Niall McGee and Andrew Willis (Globe and Mail – September 29, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. plans to acquire Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. in an all-stock transaction that the companies say will create a “true Canadian mining champion,” but the deal garnered a lukewarm reception on Bay Street, with some investors questioning the strategic rationale.

Toronto-based Agnico said on Tuesday it intends to pay 0.7935 of its shares for each Kirkland share, or about 1 per cent higher than Kirkland’s average close over the 10-day period as of last Friday, essentially making it a nil-premium deal valued at more than $13-billion.

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Area Play: M&A on the Abitibi Greenstone Belt in Quebec – by David Erfle (Kitco News – January 22, 2021)

https://www.kitco.com/

In the early 20th century, the discovery of the Cadillac-Larder Lake Fault Zone (CLLFZ) ushered in the Abitibi-Tamiscamingue Gold Rush and the geological anomaly continues to have a major impact on Quebec’s mining history.

The massive CLLFZ is a regional-scale strike fault and/or shear zone and is one of the most important structural controls on the gold mineralization in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt (AGB), which has produced 190 million ounces of gold since the early 1900s.

Its name derives from the township of Cadillac, where it was first discovered. The CLLFZ is roughly 160 kilometers long and extends from the town of Val d’Or, in Quebec, to Kirkland Lake, in Ontario, Canada. Although the city’s name in French means “valley of gold,” there is no valley in Val d’Or, however, there is still plenty of gold remaining in the surrounding area.

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Dream No Small Dreams: The opportunity for transformative growth in Red Lake Video (Pure Gold Mining – November 2020)

The Red Lake camp produced 155 000 ounces of gold in 2019 and has produced 29.5 million ounces of gold historically as of the end of 2019.

Ontario produced 2.4 million ounces of gold in 2019 and has produced 195.3 million ounces of gold historically as of the end of 2019.

Ontario 2019 Gold Production From Major Camps (MNDM Statistics)

  • The Timmins District produced 1.1 million ounces of gold in 2019 and has produced 76.6 million ounces of gold historically as of the end of 2019.
  • The Kirkland Lake camp produced 577,544 ounces of gold in 2019 and has produced 46.8 million ounces of gold historically (including tailings) as of the end of 2019.
  • The Hemlo camp produced 213,000 ounces of gold in 2019 and has produced 22.2 million ounces of gold historically as of the end of 2019.

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Kirkland Lake’s results boosted by Detour mine – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 6, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Canada’s Kirkland Lake Gold (TSX, NYSE:KL) (ASX:KLA) is happy with its acquisition of Detour Gold early this year, as it gained control of the Detour Lake mine in Ontario, which now accounts for more than 40% of the company’s 2020 free cash flow.

“We are extremely pleased with the contribution already being made by Detour Lake mine, which generated $231 million of free cash flow in the first eight months since the transaction,” chief executive Tony Makuch said in the statement.

The C$4.4 billion ($3.4 billion) acquisition of Detour added 14.8 million ounces to Kirkland’s reserves, easing concerns about the short mine-life of the company’s flagship underground Fosterville operations in Australia.

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Iamgold suspends production at Quebec gold mine after earthquake – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – November 2, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Iamgold Corp. has suspended mining at its Westwood gold mine in Quebec after yet another earthquake hit the site on the weekend, the latest in a long list of seismic events over the past few years to affect both production and reserves.

On Monday, the Toronto-based gold company said in a statement that an earthquake occurred at the underground mine around 2:30 p.m. on Friday. All underground employees were safely brought to the surface but Iamgold did not specify how long the process took.

Natural Resources Canada said the quake measured 3.8 on the Richter scale, and was “lightly felt” by residents of Preissac, Que., in the Abitibi region.

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