The Trudeau government’s mandate that all new passenger vehicle sales must be electric or plug-in hybrid by 2035 could cause chaos because Canada’s electricity grid isn’t close to having the capacity needed to charge them, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
The fiscally conservative think tank estimates in a report released Thursday that to meet the higher demand for electricity will require increasing electricity generation nationally by up to 15.3% within 11 years.
March 18 (Reuters) – Northern Dynasty Minerals, the developer of the proposed Pebble copper and gold mine in southwest Alaska, has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeking to overturn the agency’s veto of the project.
The developer on Friday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Anchorage challenging the EPA’s 2023 final determination prohibiting the discharge of mining waste in the state’s Bristol Bay over concerns the materials would degrade the watershed and harm important fishing ecosystems.
(Bloomberg) — The commodity trading industry reaped its second-best year ever in terms of profits, banking over $100 billion and building up a mountain of cash to spend on assets and breaking into new markets.
While earnings fell from 2022’s blockbuster records, profits across the sector still easily eclipsed prior highlights such as in 2008-2009, according to analysis from consultancy Oliver Wyman LLC.
Investors shave nearly $900 million off market cap in one of swiftest, largest single-day losses for a Canadian junior miner
Yukon-based Gabriel Resources Ltd. once harboured ambitions to build one of Europe’s largest gold and silver mines in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, which has been mined by humans for at least 2,000 years. But the proposed mining area is now on the UNESCO World Heritage list and Gabriel just lost an eight-year legal battle with Romania that has left the company’s future uncertain.
Gabriel’s experience is a cautionary tale that shows how shifting attitudes around resource extraction and an evolving global financial system have changed the business of mining.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says legislative changes in response to the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling last year that curtailed Ottawa’s powers to regulate resource projects could come in next month’s budget.
Last October, the court ruled that the federal government doesn’t have nearly as much jurisdiction to regulate resource projects as it assumed it had under the Constitution. Currently, mines, oil and gas projects and pipelines are regulated based on a roughly 50/50 split between the federal government and the provinces through two separate and often overlapping processes.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Few Canadian mining leaders have committed to full carbon emission reductions by 2050, according to a survey by KPMG. The survey conducted last month with 75 mining company decision-makers found that only 23% have made formal commitments to achieve all scope-related carbon emission reductions by 2050 or earlier,
About a quarter have not yet made formal commitments but are actively developing emission reduction plans. Moreover, 10% lack both ESG and carbon reduction strategies, while 7% either do not intend to implement such strategies or face challenges in reducing emissions at present.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The Canadian and U.S. governments have agreed to put the issue of cross-border pollution from B.C. coal mines before the International Joint Commission, a body set up more than a century ago to resolve conflicts over shared waters.
The request, made through what is known as a joint reference under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, follows years of campaigning by Indigenous peoples and was developed with the Ktunaxa Nation, an Indigenous people whose traditional territory takes in parts of British Columbia, Montana and Idaho.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Canada’s once-mighty junior mining sector crumbled after governments squeezed the middle class and let multinationals buy the country’s big miners, a panel of finance experts told mining’s biggest conference this week.
Large Canadian miners such as Falconbridge, Inco and Noranda (all gone by 2007) would use much as $200 million each a year to shepherd perhaps 100 junior level companies because they made half of the discoveries, Franco-Nevada (TSX: FNV; NYSE: FNV) co-founder Pierre Lassonde said on a panel at the Prospectors and Developers of Association of Canada convention in Toronto on Tuesday.
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.
BUCHAREST, ROMANIA – The Romanian government has won a yearslong legal dispute with a Canadian mining company seeking damages over failed plans to open a gold and silver mine in the Eastern European country.
Gabriel Resources was seeking US$4.4 billion (four billion euros) in damages from the Romanian state, which owned a 20 per cent stake in the mining project in Rosia Montana, a mountainous western region that contains some of Europe’s largest gold deposits. The Romanian government withdrew its support for the project in 2014.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
SRG Mining announced this week that it was putting an end to Carbon One New Energy Group’s proposed $16.9-million investment in the Canadian miner. Although the company did not officially say so, the belief is that a national security review by the federal government was going to scupper the transaction between SRG and C-One of China.
Under the Investment Canada Act, the federal government has the right to review foreign investments in Canadian companies to protect our national security. One of the factors used by the government when assessing national security implications, as per the Guidelines on the National Security Review of Investments, is “the potential impact of the investment on critical minerals and critical mineral supply chains.”
Junior miners at this week’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention say recently proposed new rules on short-selling could help stem the bleeding in their stocks, which are especially vulnerable to the practice.
The January proposal by a Canadian regulator would apply to “hard-to-borrow” stocks like junior miners. Before shorting such securities, traders would be required to confirm there is stock available to borrow or the short sale would be prohibited.
Supply key to three battery plants to be built here in coming years
Slumping prices for the minerals needed in the energy transition away from fossil fuels is a concern for Canada and its allies, says Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, since it is preventing capital from moving into projects the country wants to develop.
“It is a concern for a number of countries like Canada that produce these minerals and hope to produce many more going forward,” he said. “It is something that Australia, Canada, the European Union and others are talking about.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
The legendary ‘hospitality suites’ at the Royal York have now given way to ‘social’ events in Toronto bars
Every day at 5 p.m. the PDAC mining conference closes down and the some 30,000 people who have spent the day in the downtown convention centre are sent out onto the streets of Toronto. And some would say that’s when things really get started. The annual gathering of the global mining industry, hosted by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, is legendary for its parties.
Every night this week, there were multiple invite-only events held across downtown Toronto, with drink tickets being handed out and servers circulating with trays of finger foods, all sponsored by one mining company or another.
(Bloomberg) — Chinese investment can’t be the solution for cash-strapped Canadian miners seeking financial backing, according to Canada’s natural resources minister.
“We need to be working to solve access to capital issues, but the answer cannot be investment from Chinese state-owned industries,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Tuesday in an interview.
