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British Columbia Mining

B.C. miners push province to aggressively support critical mineral exploration – by Chad Pawson (CBC News British Columbia – August 13, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

Industry advocates hoping for big investment in 2024 budget. Critics raise alarms about a free-for-all

Miners in B.C. searching for deposits of minerals deemed critical for low-carbon technologies say they’ve never been more excited for the sector but require extended provincial support to realize their dreams.

Companies say they want to take advantage of the need for critical minerals — 31 materials in demand for batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels — by having B.C. become an important producer of some of the materials but also a role model in the industry for environmental standards and engagement with First Nations.

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Investment Canada Act amendment could complicate Glencore’s pursuit of Teck – by Naill McGee (Globe and Mail – August 14, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A proposed amendment to the Investment Canada Act could complicate Glencore PLC’s takeover ambitions around Canadian miner Teck Resources Ltd. Last fall, federal Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced a series of changes to the Investment Canada Act that aim to toughen oversight over proposed acquisitions of domestic companies by foreigners.

The changes include requiring acquirers to give Ottawa early notification of their intent to buy Canadian companies, extending the time period for national security reviews, and increasing financial penalties for those who don’t comply with the rules.

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Glencore holds back US$2B for Teck Resources as payouts drop – Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – August 8, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Glencore Plc underlined its continued interest in a deal with Teck Resources Ltd. by holding back US$2 billion for a potential purchase of the Canadian miner’s coal business — cash it would otherwise have returned to shareholders.

Glencore disclosed the new deals war chest in its first-half results Tuesday, as it joined rival miners in reporting a steep drop in profits after a retreat in commodity prices combined with a return to more normal trading conditions, following 2022’s wild swings.

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Teck lowers outlook at biggest copper project as it eyes shift away from coal Naimul Karim (Financial Post – July 27, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Profit slumps on lower commodity prices

Teck Resources Ltd. lowered its annual production guidance for copper this year due to delays in construction and commissioning at its most significant copper property, the Quebrada Blanca 2 (QB2) project in Chile.

The Vancouver-based company now expects to produce about 80,000 to 100,000 tonnes of copper from QB2 as opposed to the previously announced 150,000 to 180,000 tonnes. As a result, its overall guidance for copper has been cut to 330,000 to 375,000 tonnes from 390,000 to 445,000 tonnes.

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Vancouver mining CEO convicted on environmental charges – by Jeremy Hainsworth (Business In Vancouver – July 12, 2023)

https://biv.com/

A Vancouver mining company president has been found guilty in a Prince Rupert Provincial Court retrial of multiple counts of environmental pollution at a B.C. mine. The charges relate to discharges of zinc and other waste contrary to Banks Island Gold’s (BIG) permit for the Yellow Giant Mine site on Banks Island, B.C., between Sept. 9, 2014, and July 31, 2015. The island is just south of Prince Rupert on Hecate Strait.

“A systemic failure resulted in various exceedances in the water samples,” Judge David Patterson said in his July 7 decision. “BIG should have had a fool-proof system, regardless of which BIG department was responsible for the testing.” Patterson said company president Benjamin Mossman was the person responsible.

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Tracing Mining’s Threat to U.S. Waters – by Jim Robbins (New York Times – July 11, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Environmental concerns are raised anew about potential contamination from Canadian open-pit mines flowing through the waterways into Montana’s lakes, harming fish.

PABLO, Mont. — In the mountain streams of southern British Columbia and northern Montana, a rugged part of the world, fish with misshapen skulls and twisted spines have been caught over the years.

Many scientists attribute the malformed creatures and declines in certain fish populations to five enormous open-pit coal mines that interrupt this wild landscape of dense forest flush with grizzly bears and wolves.

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DRIPA, mining and a glimmer of fool’s gold in British Columbia – by Merle Alexander (Business In Vancouver – June 22, 2023)

https://biv.com/

Merle Alexander is Heiltsuk-Tsimshian, and principal of the Indigenous law group at Miller Titerle + Co.

With the click of a button, any would-be millionaire takes their chance to strike it rich. The odds of success are extremely low, the wagers are typically made with other people’s credit and, seemingly, the house always wins.

The Crown is the house and greatest beneficiary, as they profit from highly taxed profit margins that ultimately exploit the gamer. The truth is, though, the Crown is dependent on the outcome and has itself become vested in gamers’ losses and successes.

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B.C. mining town rebranded as an outdoor paradise hopes to survive another wildfire season – by Mary Zeidler (CBC News British Columbia – June 16, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

Dr. Charles Helm is safe at home in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., this week after a wildfire forced him and his wife to flee. “Any community that gets threatened by wildfires, it’s a tragedy, and everyone is very stressed, and it’s horrible,” said Helm, a semi-retired physician who has lived in the town for 28 years and has written a handful of books about its history.

“You can’t exaggerate how terrible it is.” Evacuation orders for the District of Tumbler Ridge, a town of about 2,500 people in the foothills of the Rockies and about an hour’s drive south of Dawson Creek, were downgraded to evacuation alerts on Thursday.

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Surge Copper PEA outlines three-decade mine at Berg in BC – by Blair McBride (Northern Miner – June 14, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Surge Copper (TSXV: SURG; US-OTC: SRGXF) has released a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for its Berg project in central British Columbia that outlines a long-life asset with total payable production of 3.7 billion lb. of copper.

The study, published on Tuesday, puts preproduction capital costs at $2 billion and the project’s mine life at 30 years. The PEA calculates Berg’s after-tax net present value at $2.1 billion, using an 8% discount rate. The project’s internal rate of return is pegged at 20%, based on long-term metal prices of US$4 per lb. copper, US$15 per lb. molybdenum, US$23 per oz. silver, and US$1,800 per oz. gold.

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Glencore makes offer for the steelmaking coal business of Teck Resources (Peterborough Examiner/Canadian Press – June 12, 2023)

https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/

VANCOUVER – Swiss company Glencore it has made an offer to buy the steelmaking coal business of Teck Resources Ltd. The company said in a statement Monday it would pay cash for the assets, but did not say how much publicly.

Glencore said it remains willing to pursue its offer for all of Teck, but that it has made an alternative offer for the coal operations that it would combine with its own thermal coal assets.

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Teck in talks with multiple parties regarding its coal business, company says – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – June 8, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

‘Our focus on separation is to unlock the full potential of our unparalleled copper growth business’

Teck Resources Ltd. is evaluating multiple expressions of interest in its steelmaking coal business, more than a month after it decided to pull a proposal to divide the company into separate coal and copper operations.

“Our high-margin, long-life steelmaking coal assets … has, in turn, generated considerable interest from various parties,” Teck’s chief executive Jonathan Price said in a press release on June 6. “Our focus on separation is to unlock the full potential of our unparalleled copper growth business.”

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Teck fielding expressions of interest for coal business, as Canadian miner considers new restructuring plan – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – June 6, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Teck Resources Ltd. TECK-B-T is fielding expressions of interest from parties potentially interested in mergers-and-acquisitions transactions concerning its metallurgical coal business, as Canada’s biggest diversified mining company weighs the best path forward after a botched restructuring plan earlier this year.

In April, Vancouver-based Teck did not move forward on a planned split of the business that would have seen it spin off its coal division from its metals mines, after it failed to win sufficient support from shareholders.

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Teck Receives Interest in Coal Business as Glencore Circles – by Jacob Lorinc (Yahoo/Bloomberg – June 6, 2023)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — Teck Resources Ltd. received several proposals for deals involving its coal operations, as the Canadian miner works to draw up a new plan for splitting off the business while rejecting a bid from Glencore Plc.

Teck’s plans to exit coal and create a standalone base-metals company suffered a blow in April when it failed to win enough shareholder support for a complicated spinoff proposal. It maintains that separating from its coal assets will create the most value for shareholders, and is now under pressure to develop a plan more appealing than Glencore’s $23 billion offer for the entire company, especially with the prospect of a sweetened bid on the way.

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OPINION: End game nears in the battle for Canada’s last diversified mining giant, and the odds do not look good for the pursuer – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – June 2, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Phoney War was the period early in the Second World War, when there were few battles on the Western Front. The relative calm ended when Germany invaded France in the spring of 1940.

The battle for Teck Resources, Canada’s biggest diversified mining company, is definitely in the phoney war stage. After a raucous start, a whole lot of nothing has happened for weeks in the campaign that will ultimately determine the shape of Canada’s base metals industry. There are signs that a renewed assault on Teck could start soon, one that will make or break the effort by Switzerland’s Glencore to make Teck its own as it strives to become one of the world’s top producers of the metals needed to propel the green energy revolution.

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Site visit: How big can MPD get? Kodiak Copper drills to expand mineral footprint – by Henry Lazenby (Northern Miner – May 31, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

When mineral mastermind Chris Taylor gets behind a grassroots exploration project it behooves investors to sit up and pay attention – he did after all sell an Ontario pre-resource stage gold project for $1.8 billion in hard cash and is looking to repeat that success with brainchild Kodiak Copper (TSXV: KDK; US-OTCQB: KDKCF).

Kodiak’s most advanced asset is its MPD copper-gold porphyry project in the Quesnel Trough in south-central British Columbia – a multi-centered porphyry system that is slowly giving up its secrets. The explorer’s share price gathered momentum since 2020 after discovering the Gate Zone, which has high-grade mineralization within a wide mineralized envelope.

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