Twitter

British Columbia Mining

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.

Read more

Glencore said to prepare sweetened Teck bid – by Thomas Biesheuvel, Dinesh Nair and Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – May 30, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Glencore Plc is getting closer to increasing its offer for Teck Resources Ltd., in a move aimed at ending weeks of limbo in the battle over the Canadian miner’s future.

The Switzerland-based commodities giant is working on a potential improvement to its bid that could be announced as soon as the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. By raising its offer and ratcheting up shareholder pressure, Glencore is seeking to force Teck to the negotiating table, the people said.

Read more

These are 11 of B.C.’s most ‘polluting and risky’ mines – by Francesca Fionda (The Narwhal – May 25, 2023)

Home

Mining is big business in B.C. and it’s an industry that produces a lot of waste. A new report highlights 11 mines of concern and what’s stopping the province from getting them to clean up their acts

Chief Francis Laceese of Tl’esqox describes the Gibraltar mine as a “disaster waiting to happen.” Located about 60 kilometres north of Williams Lake, B.C., it’s the fourth-largest open-pit mine in North America. Laceese’s Tsilqot’in community, Tl’esqox, is directly downstream.

The Gibraltar copper mine is among B.C.’s most polluting and high risk mines, according to a report released today by SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and BC Mining Law Reform Network. Eleven mines are listed based on their proven or probable impacts to the environment, unsafe management of tailings waste, non-compliance with environmental permits and violations of Indigenous Rights.

Read more

‘It’s still standing today’: B.C.’s iconic Mill No. 3 celebrates 100 years of history – by Melanie Nagy (CTV News – May 2023)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

Off British Columbia’s busy Sea-to-Sky Highway just north of Vancouver, is the Britannia Mine Museum, which is now commemorating 100 years of Mill No.3. The towering structure, built from concrete and steel in 1923, sits on a mountainside slope next to Howe Sound. Britannia Mine Museum curator Laura Minta Holland says it is not only a provincial landmark, but a place steeped in history.

“It’s just so impressive when you walk in and it just prompts you to try to imagine what it would have been like when it was a working and operational mill building.” Minta Holland told CTV News. “I really feel it has that sense of a cathedral almost, and sometimes we refer to it as a kind of cathedral of engineering.”

Read more

Glencore signals interest in buying Teck’s coal business even as it pursues the whole Canadian mining company – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – May 16,2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The bosses of Canada’s Teck Resources Ltd. and Switzerland’s Glencore PLC have used a mining conference to present starkly different views on how Teck could create value and whether Ottawa would approve a proposed merger of the two companies.

At the same time, Glencore opened the door to buying Teck’s substantial metallurgical coal operations, signalling an interest in owning even a piece of a company attempting an uncertain corporate overhaul.

Read more

Tracing the toxic impact of B.C. coal mining – by Corey Bullock (CBC British Columbia – May 17, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/

Concern is mounting over the effects of B.C. mines on aquatic life, with Indigenous groups, scientists and environmentalists in Canada and the U.S. saying action cannot be delayed.

South of the border, in Bonners Ferry, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho is working to restore the population of Kootenai River white sturgeon. The landlocked species, found in B.C., Idaho and Montana, are in decline due to human activity, as are resident burbot populations.

“That’s why I’m here,” said David R. Weaselhead Jr., a technician at the tribe’s hatchery. “To restore the population of sturgeon and get it off of the endangered list.” However, while the tribe has had some success, there is growing concern about the effect that mining in B.C. is having on aquatic life.

Read more

Challenging colonial mining laws: First Nations fight for Indigenous consent – by Sara Ghebremusse, Allen Edzerza, Carol Liao, Nadja Kunz & Philippe Tortell National Observer – May 15, 2023)

https://www.nationalobserver.com/

Over most of the past month, the B.C. Supreme Court has heard a challenge brought by the Gitxaała and Ehattesaht First Nations against the province’s decision to award multiple mineral claims in their unceded territories.

This judicial review is essential to reforming the colonial-era Mineral Tenure Act (MTA), which permits mineral claims to take place without Indigenous consent. It could also set the stage for the implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) in all future mineral exploration projects.

Read more

Glencore bid for Teck faces stiff Canuck rules, pride as mining M&A activity triples – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – May 11, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Glencore (LSE: GLEN) faces an uphill battle to buy Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) because of Canadian nationalism despite surging mergers and acquisitions in the critical minerals space.

The mining industry’s M&A activity is up 283% to US$66 billion so far this year compared with the same period last year while dealmaking across all industries is down 38% to US$1.2 trillion, according to Bloomberg data presented on Wednesday at the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration’s eighth annual Trends in Mining Finance Conference in New York.

Read more

Consortium led by mining veteran Pierre Lassonde is proposing buying Teck’s coal business in bid to thwart Glencore – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – May 10, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A consortium led by Canadian mining veteran Pierre Lassonde is proposing to buy Teck Resources Ltd.’s coal operations, a deal that could stop Swiss giant Glencore PLC in its tracks, and offer a made-in-Canada solution that may be palatable to Ottawa.

Mr. Lassonde is co-founder and chair emeritus of Franco-Nevada Corp., the world’s biggest mining streaming and royalty firm. He has also been an outspoken critic against the incursion of foreign mining companies into Canada over the past two decades.

Read more

OPINION: Ottawa may bluster but there is no ‘Canadian’ solution for Teck – that ship has sailed – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – March 6, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Any unfriendly international takeover attempt is like a long, exhausting soccer game as executive teams and their hired guns, shareholders, the quick-buck hedge funds, and politicians all try to manoeuvre for the best positions. The process can take months as each of the players look for weaknesses to exploit, hurl insults at each other and place their bets.

And so it is with Teck Resources, Canada’s last big diversified mining company. In its effort to fend off mighty Glencore of Switzerland, Teck has in effect recruited allies in the form of the federal and provincial governments while it scrambles to concoct a value-creation plan that is not dead on arrival.

Read more

Why is Ottawa playing games in the takeover fight for Teck Resources and the future of the critical minerals we need? – by David Olive (Toronto Star – May 4, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

The federal government’s likely blocking of the foreign takeover of Teck Resources, writes David Olive, would achieve nothing for Canada’s goal to increase production of the materials we need to decarbonize our economy.

There is a growing likelihood that Ottawa will block the foreign takeover of Teck Resources Ltd., a diversified mining company based in Vancouver. But that would achieve nothing for Canada in our goal to increase production of critical minerals to decarbonize economies in the fight against climate change.

What is required of Canada is that we extract more critical minerals from the ground. And that we build more processing facilities — refineries, smelters, and the like — to turn those minerals into the refined components that go into smartphones, electric vehicles (EVs), wind turbines, solar panels, and upgraded electricity grids.

Read more

Teck needs to figure out how to transition out of the coal business – by Eugene Ellmen (Corporate Knights – May 3, 2023)

https://www.corporateknights.com/

It has been an intense few weeks for Teck Resources, as Canada’s largest diversified mining company faces an existential fork in the road. With a takeover lurking in the wings, the company must now figure out how to transition out of its 20-million-tonnes-a-year coal business.

The proposed takeover of Vancouver-based Teck, a company recognized as a sustainability leader, by Swiss mining giant Glencore PLC, a company saddled with a history of human rights, bribery and environmental problems, has attracted the attention of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The government is looking at the deal “very, very carefully,” he told Bloomberg last week.

Read more

OPINION: Who owns Teck – its shareholders, or the government? – by Andrew Coyne (Globe and Mail – May 3, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

It’s unclear what the next step in the Glencore-Teck takeover saga will be. Teck’s shareholders having lately rejected the company’s plan to split itself in two – a plan designed to stave off the Swiss-based Glencore’s advances – Glencore has vowed to come back with another offer, even richer than the US$23-billion bid the board has twice rejected. Only this time it says it will take its pitch directly to the shareholders.

That’s nice. Only the company appears to be under the mistaken impression that Teck’s shareholders are in fact the company’s owners. Whatever it may say on their share certificates, they are not. The government of Canada is.

Read more

Pierre Poilievre urges Trudeau government to block Glencore’s bid to buy Teck – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – April 28, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Conservative leader says ‘hostile foreign takeover’ would threaten jobs and critical resources

Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative party, is calling for the federal government to block Glencore Plc’s bid to buy Canada’s largest diversified miner, Teck Resources Ltd., adding yet another political voice against the potential takeover.

The leader of the opposition in a statement on April 27 said that the Glencore takeover would put thousands of jobs at risk and threaten the local critical minerals supply chain. Poilievre highlighted past fines and charges that Glencore has faced and said that his government would have used the Investment Canada Act to stop the “hostile foreign takeover and take into account Glencore’s previous unethical behaviour.”

Read more

New Teck Resources bid could go directly to shareholders, Glencore says – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – April 28, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Glencore, the Swiss commodities giant in pursuit of Teck Resources Ltd. has threatened to take any new offer directly to Teck shareholders unless the board of the Canadian company opens negotiations that might lead to the merger of the two companies.

In a statement issued Thursday morning, one day after Teck withdrew a shareholders’ vote to split the company in two, Glencore reiterated its willingness to improve its opening, US$23-billion all-share merger offer.

Read more