Sudbury developer to test mine former INCO property – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 13, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Magna Mining moves into advanced exploration at Crean Hill Project

Magna Mining, a home-grown Sudbury mine developer, is putting the paperwork in place to test mine a former INCO mine. The company said it filed an amended closure plan for its Crean Hill Project with the provincial mines ministry in late February.

This opens the door for Magna to begin an advanced exploration program that will shape the project’s economics and life of mine. Crean Hill is located in the southwest corner of the Sudbury basin. Under the Inco flag, it ran from 1900 to 2002. Magna acquired the asset from Vale in November 2022 and put 19,000 metres of drilling into the property last year.

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Two major mining prospects could put B.C. on the nickel mining map – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – December 6, 2024)

https://www.biv.com/

The Baptiste and Turnagain mines would represent $8 billion in capital investments and would contribute significantly to Canada’s nickel production

Canada is the world’s sixth-largest nickel producer, with roughly 130,000 million tonnes of nickel produced in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Labrador annually. There are currently no nickel mines in B.C., but a growing demand for the metal from the electric vehicle market, and a federal strategy that promotes critical mineral self-sufficiency in Canada, could change that.

There are now two very large nickel mines proposed for B.C., representing a potential investment of roughly $8 billion: The FPX Nickel Corp. (TSX-V: FPX, OTCQB: FPOCF) Baptiste project near Fort St. James and the Giga Metals (TSX-V: GIGA) Turnagain project near Dease Lake in northwest B.C.

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US to Offer Record Loan for Lithium Americas Project in Nevada – by Ari Natter (Bloomberg News – March 13, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The Biden administration is offering a $2.26 billion loan to help Lithium Americas Corp. develop a Nevada lithium deposit that’s the country’s largest.

The conditional loan from the US Department of Energy will provide the vast majority of the capital needed to fund the first phase of development, the Vancouver-based company said in a statement Thursday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. Shares of Lithium Americas jumped 28% in New York trading and 18% in Toronto as of 9:32 a.m.

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African Development Bank chief criticizes opaque loans tied to Africa’s natural resources – by Taiwo Adebayo (Associated Press – March 12, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The head of the African Development Bank is calling for an end to loans given in exchange for the continent’s rich supplies of oil or critical minerals used in smartphones and electric car batteries, deals that have helped China gain control over mineral mining in places like Congo and have left some African countries in financial crisis.

“They are just bad, first and foremost, because you can’t price the assets properly,” Akinwumi Adesina said in an interview with The Associated Press in Lagos, Nigeria, last week. “If you have minerals or oil under the ground, how do you come up with a price for a long-term contract? It’s a challenge.”

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Strolling down Ontario’s Electric Avenue – by Tamer Elbokl, PhD (Canadian Mining Journal – March 4, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

The global demand for lithium is projected to reach 1.5 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) by 2025 and over three million tonnes by 2030. As the world moves away from fossil fuels, the world needs a stable supply of quality lithium to achieve a low-carbon future, and Canada needs lithium (among other critical minerals) to achieve its net-zero target.

In 2022, the government of Ontario announced its first critical minerals strategy, aiming to secure the province’s position as a global leader of responsibly sourced critical minerals, including lithium. The provincial government plan is to work alongside all stakeholders including the federal government, the mining sector, manufacturing Indigenous Peoples, and local communities.

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Green premium won’t save Australian nickel – by Elouise Fowler (Australian Financial Review – March 10, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

The boss of acquisitive copper producer Metals Acquisition says the nickel market has “fundamentally shifted” and it is unlikely the world’s largest buyer, China, will pay a “green premium” for the commodity.

Even if nickel miners could fetch a green premium, it may not be enough to make nickel mined outside Indonesia attractive, said Mick McMullen, who is scouring the globe for mines to add to his portfolio.Indonesian nickel has flooded the market, crashing the price of the metal required for steel-making and batteries.

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We rented a Tesla to explore Ontario’s EV supply chain. We saw the dirty, the clean and everything in between – by Marco Chown Oved and Steve Russell (Toronto Star – March 10, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

In the Great Ontario EV Road Trip Part 2, two Star journalists head to the refineries and plants kickstarting the province’s clean revolution.

NORTH BAY—How fast can you get those burgers out? The wait staff appears taken aback by our question. We’re in North Bay and have stopped to charge our EV on the way to Sudbury. We plugged in and hurried over to Syl’s Neighbourhood Kitchen for a quick bite.

But we only have 25 minutes or so before Tesla starts charging us an idle fee for taking up a charger spot when it’s full. Fortunately, Syl’s kitchen is quick and the food’s delicious. We make it back to our car with time to spare. Charging your EV isn’t like gassing up your car.

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Nickel from China, Indonesia could face tariffs over market manipulation concerns, Ottawa says – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 7, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says Canada and other Western countries could consider imposing tariffs against Indonesia and China because of the potential for market manipulation stemming from their stranglehold on the global nickel market.

Indonesia has gone from supplying 7 per cent of the global supply of nickel to 55 per cent in the past decade, with much of that new production controlled by China-based mining companies with ties to the authoritarian Beijing government.

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We took a Tesla on a road trip through northern Ontario in the coldest week of the year. Could our EV handle it? – by Marco Chown Oved and Steve Russell (Toronto Star – March 9, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

Star journalists drove a Tesla 2,300 km around northern Ontario, exploring the emerging EV supply chain from mine to refinery to battery plant to assembly.

HWY. 11, SOMEWHERE NORTH OF NORTH BAY—It was -12 C and dropping. The snow was blowing diagonally and traffic was crawling in single file, sticking to the ruts between white humps on Highway 11. Then my car started talking to me.

“You’re almost too far from known chargers,” it said. “Plan your next charge. All known charging locations will be out of range soon.” The map on the GPS showed the nearest charger behind us, in North Bay. We were driving north — away from it. Soon, we wouldn’t have enough charge to make it back.

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Oil Fields of Arkansas Are the Newest Locations for a Lithium Battery Rush – by Boyce Upholt (Mother Jones – March 11, 2024)

https://www.motherjones.com/

“Production at existing sites could negate the benefits of the clean technologies they power.”

The town of Smackover, Arkansas, was founded a hundred years ago when a sawmill operator got lucky: his wildcat oil well yielded a gusher. For a time in the 1920s, the oil field beneath the clay hills and swampy creeks in this stretch of southern Arkansas was the world’s most productive site. Now, boosters say the region will help usher the world into an oil-free future, thanks to the discovery of underground brines that are rich in lithium.

Lithium is one of the most important metals in the transition to renewable power. Lithium-ion batteries are, thanks to their lightweight and high energy density, currently the top choice for storing energy in electric vehicles, and a potential tool for grid storage, too. Global production of the metal tripled throughout the 2010s, and demand is projected to increase as much as 40-fold by mid-century.

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Gulf oil giants Saudi Aramco, Adnoc set sights on lithium (Mining.com – March 11, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates’ national oil companies plan to extract lithium from brine in their oilfields, in line with efforts to diversify their economies and profit from the shift to electric vehicles (EVs), three sources told Reuters.

Other oil companies, including Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum, plan to take advantage of emerging technologies to filter lithium from brine, as the world seeks to move away from fossil fuels.

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China strengthens its grip on global lithium trade amid processing plant building boom in Zimbabwe – by Jevans Nyabiage (South China Morning Post – March 10, 2024)

https://www.scmp.com/

China is getting a head start in the global rush for lithium after several mining companies completed multimillion-dollar processing plants for the “white gold” in Zimbabwe.

Major Chinese companies, including Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group and Chengxin Lithium Group, all completed the construction or upgrade of lithium processing plants in Zimbabwe last year.

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French government throws more lifebuoys at New Caledonia’s beleaguered nickel industry – by Patrick Decloitre (Radio New Zealand – March 7, 2024)

https://www.rnz.co.nz/

The French government has agreed to dig in its coffers and throw more lifebuoys at New Caledonia’s beleaguered nickel industry. But the aid is tied to a stringent reform “pact”.

The latest financial assistance came early this week with an agreement between France and mining giant Eramet, whereby a sum of €320 million (which is the amount of previous loans granted by the French government) will be converted to “neutralise” an existing debt in Eramet’s New Caledonia subsidiary Société Le Nickel (SLN) so as the huge figure can be transferred from the liabilities section to “quasi-equities”.

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How Will Chinese Investors Navigate Indonesia’s Post-election Risks? – by Ahmad Syarif (The Diplomat – March 7, 2024)

https://thediplomat.com/

Chinese firms, which have established good relations with President Joko Widodo’s cabinet, are quietly putting out feelers ahead of the changeover of administration.

Over the past ten years, China has emerged as a significant foreign investor in Indonesia. Between 2019 and 2022 alone, according to data from the Ministry of Investment, Chinese companies invested $20.9 billion across 9,080 projects in the country.

Chinese investments in Indonesia can be categorized into two distinct groups. The first are those of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and state-supported initiatives, which encompass major infrastructure projects like railways, power plants, and other government-sponsored developments.

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Kazakhstan positions itself for lithium windfall (Eurasianet.org – March 6, 2024)

https://eurasianet.org/

The National Geological Service says the country has lithium reserves of around 75,600 tons.

Kazakhstan is positioning itself as an important potential global supplier of high-quality lithium just as demand surges for the mineral, which is indispensable for the booming power-storage technology industry. The auspices are good, although few firm investment commitments have materialized.

Speaking at a conference in Seoul on March 5, researchers from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources announced that they had discovered sizable lithium reserves in an area of eastern Kazakhstan.

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