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A trip to El Teniente, the largest underground copper mine in the world – by María Victoria Agouborde (English El Pais – August 16, 2024)

https://english.elpais.com/

The red metal deposit located in the Chilean region of O’Higgins, which is controlled by the state copper company Codelco, is moving towards green mining: it reuses tires and uses 100% electric buses

Just over 30 miles east of the city of Rancagua, in the O’Higgins Region in central Chile, after traveling a zigzagging road with the semi-white hills of the Andes mountain range as a backdrop, you reach El Teniente, the largest underground copper deposit on the planet. The mine, which has 2,800 miles of underground tunnels, is controlled by the state copper company Codelco, the largest copper supplier in the world.

From the surface, with wind blowing relentlessly, it is difficult to imagine the bustling world under the 2,200-meter-high hill, which began to be mined in 1905. From El Teniente, around 350,000 fine metric tons (ft) of copper are mined each year: it is the Codelco division that provides the largest contribution of the red metal.

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Maximizing the Benefits of the Renewed Global Interest in Africa’s Strategic Minerals – by Folashadé Soulé (Carnegie Endowment – August 15, 2024)

https://carnegieendowment.org/

Negotiations between African governments and foreign investors are often characterized by the various skills, technical capacities, and information asymmetries that shape the balance of power and influence outcomes. The dynamics of these negotiations—in pursuing extractive and infrastructure projects, in particular—merit a special focus, as agreements to carry them out often bind African countries for several decades.

Africa is home to a substantial share of the world’s reserves of mineral resources needed for the clean energy transition and could therefore be the main theater for the global race among China, the United States, European countries, Persian Gulf countries, and others to secure access. The International Energy Agency estimates that manufacturers of clean energy technologies will need forty times more lithium, twenty-five times more graphite, and about twenty times more nickel and cobalt in 2040 than in 2020.

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US Gives Tiny Canadian Firm Electra $20 Million to Build Cobalt Plant – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – August 19, 2024)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Canada’s Electra Battery Materials Corp. has received a $20 million award from the US government to build a cobalt plant close to North America’s automotive heartland.

The funds will support construction of a cobalt sulfate facility in Ontario that will be North America’s only refinery for the material used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, Electra said Monday in a statement. The $250 million project is about 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of Toronto at Temiskaming Shores.

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Northwestern Ont. lithium explorer inks strategic development partner – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – August 20, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Green Technology links with global battery giant EcoPro to joint venture on Nipigon-area lithium mine and Thunder Bay refinery

Australia’s Green Technology Metals has found a South Korean development partner to bring its two lithium deposits in northwestern Ontario into production and help build a refinery in Thunder Bay.

Perth-based Green Tech announced a strategic partnership with South Korean battery giant EcoPro Innovation through a framework agreement that involves an $8-million investment (Australian dollars) into the junior miner.

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Is Canada’s critical-minerals strategy a green shift or greenwashing? – by Thierry Rodon and Sophie Thériault (Policy Option – August 14, 2024)

Policy Options – Institute for Research on Public Policy

Indigenous and remote communities will bear the long-lasting ecological, social and cultural impacts of mining. This cannot be ignored.

Canada has followed the lead of many countries recently by adopting policies and measures to promote rapid development of its value chain for domestic critical minerals essential in clean energy technology.

Climate change, geopolitical and economic turmoil are leading governments to emphasize the need to secure a supply of critical minerals, such as lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements, to help decarbonize the economy through, for example, solar panels, wind turbines and electric-vehicle batteries.

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Alberta government feeds $5 million to Calgary-based lithium company preparing to build $2.4B facility – by Matt Scace (Calgary Herald – August 15, 2024)

https://calgaryherald.com/

A Calgary-based company that extracts lithium from old oilfields has received new funding from the Alberta government that it says will help the company bring its multibillion-dollar project to market. E3 Lithium Ltd. announced Thursday it has received $5 million from the provincial government — yet another round of government funding for the company that turns wastewater from oil and gas into lithium.

Countries across the globe, including Canada, have become increasingly focused on lithium extraction, a resource needed to facilitate greater adoption of electric vehicles and other technologies.

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China’s Lithium Expansionist Interests Extend Beyond the Argentina-Bolivia-Chile Triangle – by Maria Zuppello (Dialogo Americas – August 12, 2024)

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In a recent report, China in Peru: The Hidden Costs of an Unequal Relationship, the United States Institute of Peace denounces the harm of Chinese expansion in Peru, particularly in the mining sector.

“The combination of a permissive political and legal environment in Peru, the poor social responsibility of Chinese companies and banks, and the absence of real control — in China or in Peru — of Chinese actors’ activities have devastating consequences,” writes the report’s author, Juan Pablo Cardenal, a research associate at the Argentina-based Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL), whose writings focus on content about China.

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Serbian Police Disperse Protesters Opposed To Lithium Mining (Radio Free Europe – August 11, 2024)

https://www.rferl.org/

BELGRADE — Serbian police have removed protesters opposed to lithium mining from two railway stations in the capital, Belgrade, where they were blocking train traffic.

Riot police used shields to disperse the protesters at the Prokop and Novi Beograd railway stations at around 5.30 a.m. on August 11, participants told RFE/RL.

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Securing America’s Critical Minerals: A Policy Priority Conundrum – by Ansel Bayly and Sarah Tzinieris (The Diplomat – August 8, 2024)

https://thediplomat.com/

Critical minerals sit at the intersection of three policy objectives for the United States – and at times the security, economic, and climate aims are in direct contradiction.

“When I think about climate change, I think jobs,” U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said. His landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) embodies this idea, tying together U.S. climate and industrial policies with a vast array of subsidies aimed at sparking a green manufacturing boom. Built into these subsidies are mechanisms to secure U.S. supply chains and to shore up domestic manufacturing, which has atrophied in recent decades, strategic priorities that Biden inherited from his predecessor, Donald Trump.

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China Drives African Lithium Surge to Lock in Key Battery Metal – by William Clowes (Bloomberg News – August 12, 2024

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Chinese miners and refiners are driving a surge in African lithium output, shrugging off concerns over a glut to lock in future supplies of the critical battery metal.

The continent is projected to account for almost 11% of global supply this year, compared with close to zero at the start of the decade, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights. That’s projected to increase to more than 14% by 2028.

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Status of the critical strategic minerals industry in Alberta – by Diane L.M. Cook (Canadian Mining Journal – August 6, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Critical strategic minerals are the building blocks for a green and digital economy. The six critical minerals that hold the most significant potential for Canadian economic growth are lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements. These minerals are used in the production of many products including electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines.

The Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy (CCMS) aims to help Canada in the global energy transformation by making Canada a clean energy and technology supplier of choice in a net-zero world. The CCMS is backed by $3.8 billion of funding announced in the federal government’s Budget 2022 and includes a 30% critical mineral exploration tax credit for targeted critical minerals.

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World’s biggest lithium producer urges state help to compete with China – by Harry Dempsey (Financial Times – August 4, 2024)

https://www.ft.com/

US-based Albemarle cuts expansion plans amid struggles for processor of key mineral for electric cars

The world’s largest lithium producer, Albemarle, has urged governments to intervene to loosen Chinese dominance of the market for the minerals that power electric cars.

Kent Masters, chief executive of the US-based group, wants more help from countries and car manufacturers to fight Chinese competition after the collapse in the market for lithium, a key component of batteries used in electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

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Tesla supplier begins nickel drilling near remote Michigan lake – by Garret Ellison (Michigan Live – August 6, 2024)

https://www.mlive.com/

SKANEE, MI — The nickel hunt has come to Roland Lake. Talon Metals, a company developing the Tamarack Mine in Minnesota, began exploratory drilling for potential nickel deposits this summer in the western Upper Peninsula near a small lake in Baraga County’s Arvon Township.

In June, Talon announced the launch of drilling at the “Roland Target,” one of several areas in a roughly 425,000-acre swath of the U.P. the company considers “highly prospective” thanks to its location along a geologically unique mid-continental rift.

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Thousands protest Serbia’s deal with the European Union to excavate lithium – by Ivana Bzganovic (Associated Press – July 30, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

SABAC, Serbia (AP) — Thousands of people rallied in several towns in Serbia on Monday to protest a lithium excavation project the Balkan country’s government recently signed with the European Union.

The protests were held simultaneously in the western town of Sabac and the central towns of Kraljevo, Arandjelovac, Ljig and Barajevo. They followed similar gatherings in other Serbian towns in recent weeks.

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Nickel sulfide shortage amid ESG evolution in market pricing – Wyloo CEO – by Anthony Barich (SP Global – July 2024)

https://www.spglobal.com/

Wyloo Pty. Ltd. is a wholly owned portfolio company of Australian private investment group Tattarang Pty. Ltd. Tattarang is owned by Andrew and Nicola Forrest, serving as a holding company for the Forrest family’s private business interests. Tattarang also has a 35.15% interest in iron ore major Fortescue Ltd.

At the end of May, Wyloo put its Cassini and North Kambalda operations on care and maintenance in a bid to weather market oversupply caused by Indonesia flooding the market with cheap nickel.

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