Canada Mining – North of 60 – Page 21

Baffinland plans further expansion at Nunavut’s Mary River: report – by Jim Bell (Nunatsiaq News – October 14, 2020)

October 15, 2020

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. is likely planning a further expansion of its Mary River iron mine that would see iron ore shipments through its Milne Inlet port increase to 18 million tonnes a year.

That information is contained in a credit report on Baffinland, prepared by Moody’s Investors Service, dated June 2020 and obtained by Nunatsiaq News.

“Baffinland plans to expand the Mary River mine to a capacity of 18 Mtpa [18 million metric tons, or tonnes],” says the report, which repeatedly refers to a “Phase 3” expansion.

Dominion Diamonds says the proposed sale of Ekati is off (CBC News North – October 9, 2020)

October 13, 2020

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

The owner of the Ekati diamond mine in the Northwest Territories says the proposed $166 million dollar sale of the mine to affiliates of the Washington Companies is off.

In a press release Friday Dominion Diamonds said it had stopped negotiations around the proposed sale of certain Dominion assets, including the Ekati mine.

In the press release Dominion said it has been advised that surety bond users and the purchaser reached an “impasse in negotiations” with no reasonable chance of reaching an agreement that is satisfactory to all parties before the deal was set to go before the courts for approval on Oct. 14.

Diamonds found with gold in Canada’s Far North offer clues to Earth’s early history – by Michael Brown (Folio.ca – October 6, 2020)

October 7, 2020

https://www.folio.ca/

The presence of diamonds in an outcrop atop an unrealized gold deposit in Canada’s Far North mirrors the association found above the world’s richest gold mine, according to University of Alberta research that fills in blanks about the thermal conditions of Earth’s crust three billion years ago.

“The diamonds we have found so far are small and not economic, but they occur in ancient sediments that are an exact analog of the world’s biggest gold deposit—the Witwatersrand Goldfields of South Africa, which has produced more than 40 per cent of the gold ever mined on Earth,” said Graham Pearson, researcher in the Faculty of Science and Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate in Arctic Resources.

“Diamonds and gold are very strange bedfellows. They hardly ever appear in the same rock, so this new find may help to sweeten the attractiveness of the original gold discovery if we can find more diamonds.”

More jobs, greater royalty payments attached to Hope Bay sale, company reps say – by Derek Neary (Nunavut News – October 5, 2020)

October 6, 2020

https://nunavutnews.com/

TMAC Resources is promoting the long-term advantages of selling its assets, including the Hope Bay gold mine, to China’s Shandong Gold Mining amid the unpredictability of Covid-19 and uncertainty over the federal government and the Kitikmeot Inuit Association’s stance on the pending transaction.

Several mine workers at Hope Bay tested positive for the coronavirus in late September and the company subsequently imposed a temporary travel embargo.

TMAC shareholders approved the $149 million (U.S.) sale to Shandong in June, but the Government of Canada still must decide whether a national security review is required.

COVID-19 cases at Nunavut’s Hope Bay mine cast shadow on proposed sale to Shandong Gold – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – September 29, 2020)

September 30, 2020

https://nunatsiaq.com/

New coronavirus cases scuttle plans for joint site visit

Travel in and out of the Hope Bay gold mine in western Nunavut has halted, following nine new confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the site, says Jason Neal, president and CEO of TMAC Resources Inc.

Today there was to be a crew rotation of 130 workers out of the mine site to Yellowknife and Edmonton, and the arrival of 130 new workers to take their place.

The freeze on travel to the site has also prevented a visit by executives from TMAC and Shandong Gold Mining Co. Ltd., which is seeking to buy TMAC and its Hope Bay mine.

Nunavut government may support TMAC-SD Gold sale, but with conditions – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – September 23, 2020)

September 24, 2020

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Nunavut wants to see commitment to respect previous agreements with Inuit

The Nunavut government has made a submission to federal reviewers now looking at the proposed sale of TMAC Resources Inc. to the Chinese-owned Shandong Gold Mining Co. Ltd.

But, speaking on Tuesday in the Nunavut legislature, Economic Development Minister David Akeeagok would not say whether the Government of Nunavut supported the proposed sale in its submission to the federal reviewers.

In response to questions from Gjoa Haven MLA Tony Akoak, he said he did not want to comment more because the federal government is still in the middle of its review process.

Chinese gold miner’s Arctic ambitions face chill in Canada – by SHUJI NAKAYAMA and SHUNSUKE TABETA (Nikkei Asian Review – September 17, 2020)

September 17, 2020

https://asia.nikkei.com/

NEW YORK/BEIJING — As global competition for the Arctic’s rich resources grows, the proposed acquisition of a Canadian mining company by China’s Shandong Gold Group has emerged as a flashpoint in the countries’ deteriorating ties.

“We plan to become one of the world’s top five producers of gold by 2025,” Shandong Gold Chairman Chen Yumin said in August as he signed a strategic partnership with Bank of China. The deal provided the mining giant with a 30 billion yuan ($4.44 billion) credit line to help finance overseas acquisitions.

The state-owned miner supervised by Shandong Province has ties with the Chinese Communist Party dating to the Japanese occupation. It operates a large gold mine in Shandong and became China’s top producer of the metal in 2017.

Igloolik leaders say Inuit face barriers in Nunavut mine environmental review – by Beth Brown (CBC News North – September 15, 2020)

September 16, 2020

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

A day and a half into meetings on a proposed expansion at Mary River Mine in Nunavut, community participants say they face barriers that limit the full participation of Inuit.

“Every intervener in this process has lawyers and advisers. We were the only ones that are lacking,” said Igloolik mayor Merlyn Recinos, adding that federal funding given to communities to help them hire specialists isn’t enough.

In response to Recinos, a representative from Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) said that applications from communities were not “robust” enough to justify the amount of participant funding they requested from the Treasury Board of Canada.

Why I support Shandong Mining’s big new investment in Nunavut – by Leona Aglukkaq (Financial Post – September 15, 2020)

September 15, 2020

https://financialpost.com/

The federal government must soon decide whether to approve Shandong Gold’s acquisition of TMAC Resources. The test is whether the purchase is of net benefit to Canada, including economic benefits with no unacceptable risk to national security.

One might think approving a Chinese acquisition of TMAC, which owns the Hope Bay gold mine in Nunavut, might be risky. But as a Nunavut Inuk, as a TMAC director and shareholder, and as a long-time representative of my community in government, I can tell you the benefits are too great to pass up.

The Nunavut government and Jeannie Ehaloak, MLA for Cambridge Bay, the Nunavut constituency that encompasses the mine, agree. Nunavut needs the investment that Shandong will bring. This investment will help move my region toward economic sustainability.

Marine life, mineral disputes remain as Nunavut mine hearings resume (CBC News North – September 14, 2020)

September 15, 2020

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Ten months after an abrupt adjournment, discussions on the expansion of a mine on Baffin Island is set to resume.

The Nunavut Impact Review Board is reconvening its meetings to assess an expansion at the Mary River Mine in the northern Qikiqtaaluk region in Nunavut.

The mine is about 176 kilometres southwest of Pond Inlet. It’s one of the most northern mines in the world, according to the Baffinland website.

North Baffin Inuit form new group to raise concerns about proposed mine expansion – by Meagan Deuling (Nunatsiaq News – September 3, 2020)

September 4, 2020

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Leaders from five communities on northern Baffin Island are unifying as the North Baffin Group in the hope of having their concerns heard by a mining company and by an organization that is supposed to represent their interests.

If their concerns aren’t heard, the group warns Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. that its operations at the Mary River iron ore mine will not continue.

“This information has been the same since Baffinland started—work with the Inuit, you will succeed. If you try to work alone, you’re going belly up,” said Eric Ootoovak, the chair of the Mittimatalik Hunters and Trappers Organization.

The carbon vault: Industrial waste can combat climate change by turning carbon dioxide into stone – by Robert F. Service (Science Magazine – September 4, 2020)

September 4, 2020

https://science.sciencemag.org/

In July 2019, Gregory Dipple, a geologist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, hopped on a 119-seat charter flight in Yellowknife, Canada, and flew 280 kilometers northeast to the Gahcho Kué diamond mine, just south of the Arctic Circle.

Gahcho Kué, which means “place of the big rabbits” in the Dënësu̧łinë language of the region’s native Dené or Chipewyan people, is an expansive open pit mine ringed by sky-blue lakes. There, the mining company De Beers unearths some 4 million carats’ worth of diamonds annually.

But Dipple and two students weren’t there for gems. Rather, they were looking to use the mine’s crushed rock waste as a vault to lock up carbon dioxide (CO2) for eternity.

OPINION/MIDDENDORF: China’s Belt and Road Initiative now threatens Canada – by J. William Middendorf (Providence Journal – August 22, 2020)

August 24, 2020

https://www.providencejournal.com/

J. William Middendorf, a resident of Little Compton, served as Secretary of the Navy during the Ford Administration. His recent book is “The Great Nightfall: How We Win the New Cold War.”

Known as Hope Bay in Nunavut, Canada and 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it is a 50-by-15 mile stretch of property consisting of a 2,000-ton per day gold ore processing plant, air strips, roads, fuel storage facilities, power plants and administrative buildings and a wharf extending half a mile in the now often ice free Arctic Ocean. Negotiations now underway would make it the property of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

Suspicious Canadians see the wharf as capable of being enlarged into a major dock capable of accommodating icebreakers, submarines and surface war ships of the Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and believe it could become the northern equivalent of Chinese military and economic development in the disputed islands of the South China Sea.

China’s effort to buy an Arctic gold mine raises many concerns – by Marc Montgomery (Radio Canada International – August 10, 2020)

August 11, 2020

https://www.rcinet.ca/en/

China’s huge Shandong Gold Mining Corporation is proposing to buy Canada’s TMAC resources mine in the Arctic.

Currently under review by the federal government, the $207.4 million dollar offer raises concerns not only over China’s increasing control over the precious metal and other strategic resources but also concerns of sovereignty and of potential security in the Arctic.

Chinese companies have been acquiring other gold producers around the world, and the state owned Shandong Gold Group is part of a national effort to stockpile gold as a hedge against economic volatility.

China has also been engaged in an effort to control rare earth minerals and already owns copper and zinc assets in Canada’s Nunavut territory. Zinc is an important element in the making of galvanized steel as well as use in computers, mobile phones and other electronic equipment, and in batteries.

ANALYSIS: Can the West’s economies ever escape China’s magnetic pull? The story of rare-earth metals shows how hard it can be – by Matthew McClearn and Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – August 10, 2020)

August 10, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The COVID-19 crisis is forcing countries to find suppliers outside of China. Here’s how that turned out badly for firms that tried for a decade to take on their state-controlled mining machine

A decade ago, the future for Toronto-based Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. looked bright. Its flagship Nechalacho development project in the Northwest Territories was on track to produce rare-earth elements, crucial ingredients in a wide array of technologies from wind turbines to cruise missiles to MRI machines.

Avalon’s market capitalization would eventually climb close to a billion dollars. Today things look very different. Avalon’s value has dwindled to just $26-million, its shares trade for pennies and Nechalacho lies undeveloped.

“Unfortunately the bubble burst before we could get all the capital in place,” said Don Bubar, Avalon’s chief executive officer.