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CHART: Mining stocks massacre as copper price craters by 9% – by Frik Els (Mining.com – April 4, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

On Friday, the most-actively traded copper contract plunged 9.1% to $4.3880 per pound ($9,670 a tonne) on the Comex market, not far off the day’s lows. Trading was busy with the equivalent of a nominal $11.4 billion worth of the orange metal changing hands.

May delivery copper is now down 18.4% from its record high hit near the end of March on frantic US buying ahead of the tariffs, only just escaping a technical bear market. In London copper did not fare much better, dropping 6.8% to $8,734 per tonne, the lowest since March 2020 at the onset of the covid pandemic.

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Carney’s former firm Brookfield has been accused of breaching Indigenous rights in 4 countries – by Brett Forester (CBC News Indigenous – April 04, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/

Allegations in Brazil, Canada, Colombia and U.S. involve dams, wind farm, other operations

Under Mark Carney’s leadership, global investment firm Brookfield was accused of breaching Indigenous rights or harming the environment in at least four countries, CBC Indigenous has found. Carney, who is running for prime minister as Liberal leader, spent more than four years as vice chair and then chair at Brookfield Asset Management, where he focused on green investing and renewable energy.

During that period from 2020 to 2024, Brookfield businesses faced reports of serious human rights abuses in Brazil, Indigenous resistance in Colombia, a First Nation’s $100-million lawsuit in Ontario and an environmental dispute in Maine.

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Low diamond prices raise risk of early closure of N.W.T. mines, experts say – by Luke Carroll (CBC News North – April 4, 2025)

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

All three N.W.T. diamond mines reported millions of dollars of losses in 2024

All of the N.W.T.’s diamond mines are reporting millions of dollars in losses from last year as they deal with inflation and slumping diamond prices.

With just a short time left in the lifespan of the three mines and more potential economic turbulence ahead, experts believe there is risk the mines could close — and leave the territory with no economic replacement plan — earlier than expected.

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Gold price down over 2% as safe-haven metal falls victim to market selloff – by Staff (Mining.com – April 4, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Gold slumped more than 2% on Friday as the metal fell victim to the global markets sell-off following US President Donald Trump’s new round of tariffs that turned out to be more aggressive than expected.

Spot gold fell 2.2% to $3,044.28 per ounce by 10:40 a.m. ET, erasing all of its gains for the week despite setting a new all-time high just two sessions ago. US gold futures lost 1.7% to trade at $3,068.70 per ounce.

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An American mine still has millions of tons of copper, if companies can get to it (Bloomberg/Mining Weekly – April 2, 2025)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

Carved into a mountain range in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, where temperatures often reach 118F (48C), a vast mining complex more than a century old is on the front lines of a race to unlock millions of tons of copper.

After 154 years of digging at Morenci, all the easily recoverable copper has been mined. Left behind are towering piles of waste rock that hold nearly ten-million tons of the metal seen as critical to global electrification. It’s a cache that could prove key to President Donald Trump’s ambition to boost US production of critical minerals.

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Trump’s ‘reciprocal tariffs’ are a con – and investors are now waking up to his bigger ambitions – by David Rosenberg (Globe and Mail – April 4, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

There is now certainty that this White House trade strategy is both nonsensical and unachievable. Look, we can all accept that China is a menace and a huge cheater, but it would be preferable if the White House specifically dealt with Xi Jinping.

One can certainly make the case that Mexico was the big winner from the NAFTA sucking sound (not Canada). But when President Trump states that the trade plan is “our declaration of economic independence,” what he is, in effect, saying is that he wants America to be “independent” – or “liberated” – from bilateral deficits with all countries running such gaps against the U.S.

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OPEC-style lithium cartel now unlikely, analyst says – by Frederic Tomesco (Norther Miner – April 3, 2025)

Global mining news

The odds of Latin America’s three lithium powers banding together to form a production cartel have almost evaporated due to contrasting economic models, a leading geopolitical analyst says.

Argentina, Chile and Bolivia have previously held discussions with Brazil about the creation of a group – inspired by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries, or OPEC – tasked with boosting lithium processing capacity and turning more of their mined metal into batteries. Together, Argentina, Bolivia and Chile – dubbed the Lithium Triangle – hold an estimated 60% of global lithium resources.

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B.C. mining firm seeking U.S. approval to dig in international waters -by Inayat Singh (CBC News Science – April 03, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/

The Metals Company, fed up with sluggish international process, turns to Washington

A Vancouver-based mining company is looking to sidestep the international agency charged with regulating mining in international waters after lengthy negotiations it says have gone nowhere. The Metals Company (TMC) will instead seek permission from the U.S. to start deep-sea mining in the Pacific Ocean, rather than from the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority (ISA).

Co-founder and CEO Gerard Barron says he believes U.S. could help start mining “much sooner than we would have been under the ISA pathway.” “The United States’ regulator is open. They encourage… dialogue and consultation,” he said. “That’s how companies get projects moving through the permitting process.”

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Building an integrated critical minerals sector in Canada – by Atkins Réalis (Canadian Mining Journal – April 3, 2025)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

A vital investment to meet growing demand and enhance everyday life

It is no exaggeration to say that we could not survive in a modern society without critical minerals; they are found in hundreds of things we use everyday from cell phones and laptops to tea kettles and toothpaste.

Manufacturing, construction, agriculture, artificial intelligence, and clean technologies are just a few examples of the industries that are dependent on this sector, which is set to have a global market value of US$770 billion by 2040.

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New pathway to extract copper from sulfide ores – by Alice Martin (CIM Magazine – April 03, 2025)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

B.C.-based pH7 Technologies is piloting a new heap leaching technology to recover copper from low-grade ores

Agrowing demand for copper worldwide is fuelling companies like pH7 Technologies to find ways to extract copper and other critical minerals from low-grade ore, tailings and mine waste. The Vancouver-based company is currently developing a process that uses heap leaching to recover copper from sulfide ores, like chalcopyrite, whereas traditional heap leaching is usually confined to oxide ores.

Mohammad Doostmohammadi, the company’s CEO and founder, who has a master’s degree in chemical engineering and has worked as a mining engineer, said in an interview with CIM Magazine that sulfide ores, which are low-grade and expensive to extract, represent 80 per cent of copper deposits worldwide.

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Steel producers call on Ottawa to put tariffs on foreign dumpers to offset pain from U.S. duties – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – April 4, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Canadian Steel Producers Association is calling on the federal government to immediately erect new trade barriers against foreign dumping to help domestic producers better compete in their home market in the face of U.S. tariffs.

Canadian steelmakers are highly dependent on the U.S. market and are now desperately trying to win more business at home where demand outstrips production. But domestic producers often have to compete with foreign competitors engaging in dumping – selling product at artificially low prices in order to gain market share. At its most egregious, the practice can drive Canadian steelmakers out of the market entirely.

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NICO project in Northwest Territories could establish domestic bismuth supply – by Amanda Stutt (Mining.com – March 31, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Bismuth prices surged to all-time highs on the European spot market in March, a more than six-fold rise since January, as China’s export controls squeeze supplies of the mineral used in atomic research, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

China in February announced plans to impose export controls on five key metals — tungsten, tellurium, molybdenum, indium and bismuth — in response to US President Trump’s import tariffs. Bismuth is a scarce industrial metal that has characteristics similar to lead, but is non-toxic, and the industry is currently developing uses for replacing lead.

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Minister Lecce talks about his new expanded portfolio, meetings in Washington – by Barbara Patrocinio (iPolitics.ca – April 1, 2025)

https://www.ipolitics.ca/

“The Americans are waking up to the reality that they are dependent on China for critical minerals, and they need an alternative,” Lecce said. “Ontario is the answer.”

A day before President Trump is poised to announce tariffs that experts say will harm the economy in both countries, Ontario’s Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce went to D.C. trying to position the province as Washington’s most reliable partner.

“The Americans are waking up to the reality that they are dependent on China for critical minerals, and they need an alternative,” Lecce said. “Ontario is the answer.” Minister Lecce attended the SAFE Summit in Washington, a meeting with the global leaders in energy, transportation and supply chain.

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America’s long Arctic love affair is culminating in Trump’s designs on Greenland – by Peter Harmsen (Globe and Mail – April 2, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Peter Harmsen is a journalist and the author of Fury and Ice: Greenland, the United States and Germany in World War II.

The historically minded among us may have sensed a certain déjà vu this weekend when U.S. President Donald Trump talked to NBC News about the role military force could play in gaining control of Greenland, currently an autonomous territory of long-time ally Denmark: “I don’t take anything off the table.”

After all, in 1940, when the Americans were slowly waking up from their isolationist slumber to side with the Western democracies in the struggle against fascism, they took a break from this grand mission to threaten Canada and Britain with armed might to keep Greenland to themselves.

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Argentina’s economic rock star Milei attracts mining – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – April 2, 2025)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Argentine President Javier Milei, who took office two years ago in a chainsaw-wielding campaign against big government, has slashed inflation by nearly two-thirds after gutting public spending and halting money printing to finance the deficit.

His Incentive Regime for Large Investments of more than $200 million (C$285 million), known by its Spanish acronym RIGI, offers 25% corporate income tax instead of 35%, plans regulatory stability for 30 years and, in a major shift, allows external arbitration over disputes.

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