Archive | Canadian Media Resource Articles

Ottawa replaces federal bureaucrat working with Neskantaga First Nation during state of emergency – by Olivia Stefanovich (CBC News – November 23, 2020)

November 24, 2020 in Aboriginal and Inuit Non-Mining Issues, Canadian Media Resource Articles

https://www.cbc.ca/

Indigenous Services Canada has replaced the top federal bureaucrat working with Neskantaga First Nation, which has the longest boil water advisory in the country, during its current state of emergency at the community’s request.

Assistant deputy minister Joanne Wilkinson has taken over from Ontario regional director general Anne Scotton as the liaison between department officials and Neskantaga, a fly-in community about 450 km north of Thunder Bay, Ont.

“Joanne has significant experience in regional operations and is well placed to leverage the resources necessary to complete this work,” senior assistant deputy minister Lynda Clairmont wrote in an email to Chief Chris Moonias late Monday. Continue Reading →

Sherritt International CEO David Pathe stepping down after completing restructuring – by Andrew Willis (Globe and Mail – November 23, 2020)

November 24, 2020 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Latin America Mining, Nickel Laterites

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Nickel miner Sherritt International Corp. is looking for a new CEO, and the ideal candidate must be willing to forgo ties to the United States for the foreseeable future.

Sherritt chief executive David Pathe announced on Monday that he will step down next year, and the Toronto-based company has began a search for his successor.

Mr. Pathe, 50, ran Sherritt for the past eight years, steering the company through a wrenching restructuring that concluded in August. The company is now seeing increasing demand for its metals from electric-vehicle battery makers. Continue Reading →

Barrick enters earn-in deals with two juniors near Hemlo – by Simone Liedtke (Mining Weekly.com – November 23, 2020)

November 23, 2020 in Barrick Gold Corporation, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Gold and Silver, Junior Exploration Sector, Ontario Mining

https://www.miningweekly.com/

Canadian major Barrick Gold has entered into two option and joint venture (JV) agreements with junior miners near its Hemlo operation, in Ontario.

The first is with TSX-V-listed Melkior Resources, which has granted Barrick the right to earn-on up to a 75% interest in the White Lake project, 20 km from the Hemlo mine.

Under the terms of the option agreement, Barrick could earn a 75% interest in the White Lake property in consideration for completing $4-million in exploration expenditures over a period of five years. Continue Reading →

Copper price soars to highest since 2014 on vaccine hopes – by Editor (Mining.com – November 20, 2020)

November 23, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Copper

https://www.mining.com/

Copper price surged to a fresh two-year high on Friday following positive reports on covid-19 vaccine breakthroughs from Pfizer and Moderna.

On the Comex market, copper for delivery in December gained 3.1% to $3.3015 a pound ($7,276 a tonne) by mid-afternoon in New York. If copper closes above $3.30 it would be the highest level since January 2014.

The metal surged as much as 1.6% to $7,207.50 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange, to the highest since June 2018. Pfizer and BioNTech SE plan to file for emergency use, allowing for the vaccine, which they say is 95% effective, to be used in the US in the next month. Continue Reading →

OPINION: Forget electric vehicles. Post-pandemic cities don’t need them – they are still cars – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – November 21, 2020)

November 23, 2020 in Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Globe and Mail Future of Cities series showed how the pandemic might reshape Canada’s urban areas, probably for the better: fewer cars, more green space, a focus on community life, short travel times, the end with the obsession with single-family homes, among other goodies.

How does the electric vehicle (EV) fit into these scenarios? It shouldn’t, but it does.

The hype around EVs and their offspring, self-driving e-cars, is dazzling and relentless, and anyone who thinks they should not be part of the new urban mix is treated as a Luddite dotard with a romantic attachment to a convenient, but clapped-out and highly polluting, technology – the internal combustion engine. Continue Reading →

They heated with coal in P.E.I.’s Bygone Days (CBC News – November 22, 2020)

November 23, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Canadian Mining History, Coal

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/

Coal from Springhill, N.S., was said to be the best for steam-engine trains

As oil heat falls out of fashion for polluting the environment and heating with wood falls out of fashion for all the back-breaking work involved, more Islanders are turning to electricity, powered in part by wind or solar.

But did you know many homes and businesses were heated with coal in Prince Edward Island’s bygone days?

The black rocks were shipped to the Island on wooden schooners from Cape Breton Island, Pictou and Springhill, N.S., as well as Minto, N.B. Continue Reading →

End of the road? Quebec’s goal to ban gas-guzzling cars latest move to hasten oil’s decline – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – November 21, 2020)

November 23, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image, Quebec Mining

https://financialpost.com/

Bob Larocque’s industry is planning for a future where the market for their main product, gasoline, begins to evaporate as national and sub-national governments phase out gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles under increasingly ambitious timeframes.

“I need to understand how this will work,” said Larocque, president and CEO of the Ottawa-based Canadian Fuels Association, which represents Canadian oil refineries.

The global shift started with a planned ban on oil-powered vehicles in India in 2017, then Taiwan and Japan, with major economies in the European Union following suit. Continue Reading →

The View from England: Time for a mining miracle – by Chris Hinde (Northern Miner – November 19, 2020)

November 23, 2020 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles

Global mining news

I speak mining, and have done so for over 45 years. For most of that time, I have defended the industry from those ignorant or ill-informed of our activities.

I have stressed that the occasional mine accident or dam failure was the exception that proved the general rule. We are, I said, diligent, committed to safety and better than the media paints us (and this is coming from someone who became a teenager one month before the Aberfan disaster of 1966 when a Welsh coal tip collapsed and killed 116 children).

I have reminded the seemingly ignorant or ill-informed that we are one of the three primary industries (the others being, of course, farming and fishing). I have stressed that the direct use of natural resources has been crucial in the economic growth of most developed nations, and that the exceptions to this rule can be counted on your fingers (they include Luxembourg, Monaco and Vatican City). Continue Reading →

The National Energy Program’s bitter aftertaste has lasted 40 years and provided a hard lesson to Ottawa – by David Olive (Toronto Star – November 21, 2020)

November 23, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

https://www.thestar.com/

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the National Energy Program, one of the most arrogant and misguided acts by a Canadian federal government.

Ranking high on the list of giant, well-intentioned government schemes that failed, the NEP marked an end to ambitious nation-building projects in Canada.

As historian Taylor C. Noakes aptly put it in an essay this year on the NEP’s legacy, Canada’s “executive leadership lives in fear of three little letters throwing shade on seemingly everything Ottawa does.” Continue Reading →

Biden easing up on Cuba would boost Sherritt, CEO says – by Stephen Wicary and Steven Frank (Bloomberg News – November 19, 2020)

November 20, 2020 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Latin America Mining, Nickel Laterites

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Joe Biden’s victory in the U.S. presidential election marks a potential new chapter for one of Cuba’s biggest foreign investors.

Sherritt International Corp.’s top executive calls the result of the vote good news for his company, given the steady tightening of sanctions under President Donald Trump. Sherritt produces nickel and cobalt in Cuba for the global market, and has a growing energy business on the Caribbean island.

“We were prepared for whatever the outcome would be,” Chief Executive Officer David Pathe said in an interview this week. “Certainly seeing a Biden outcome was more positive for us over the next few years than a reelection of the Trump administration.” Continue Reading →

Bull market for base metals likely to remain intact, says David Rosenberg at the Global Mining Symposium – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – November 15, 2020)

November 20, 2020 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Commodity Super-Cycle and Decline

Global mining news

The Northern Miner’s Global Mining Symposium virtual conference this week – the second one this year – was yet another resounding success, with thousands of viewers tuning in from around the world to hear the views of some of the industry’s leading visionaries and entrepreneurs.

From Haywood Securities co-founder and Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductee David Elliott to Rob McEwen of McEwen Mining and Serafino Iacono of Gran Colombia Gold, the two-day conference offered unparalleled insight into the current state of the global economy and how it is impacting metals and mining.

One of the most widely anticipated sessions was the discussion Northern Miner group publisher Anthony Vaccaro had with David Rosenberg, president, and chief economist and strategist of Rosenberg Research & Associates, an economic consulting firm he set up in January 2020. Continue Reading →

Why it’s a good bet to stick with rallying copper stocks – by David Berman (Globe and Mail – November 17, 2020)

November 19, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Copper

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Copper producers have enjoyed a spectacular rebound in the stock market over the past eight months, no doubt raising questions among investors about how long the good times will last.

The argument for staying put is persuasive, though: Global demand for copper should rise with the post-pandemic global economic recovery and surging interest in copper-consuming renewable energy projects, according to analysts, underpinning a rally that has already lifted some stocks to their highest levels in several years.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc., FCX-N +1.01%increase, a U.S.-based pure-play copper miner, has seen its share price rise almost 300 per cent from the lockdown lows in March and is now approaching a five-year high. (Full disclosure: I own this stock, which has stood out from my collection of mostly plodding laggards). Continue Reading →

Platinum deficit to reach 1.2 moz in 2020 – report – by Jackson Chen (Mining.com – November 18, 2020)

November 19, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Platinum Group Metals

https://www.mining.com/

Despite strong quarter-on-quarter recovery in supply, the global platinum market is set to experience a second consecutive year of deficit at just over 1.2 million ounces in 2020, according to the World Platinum Investment Council’s (WPIC) latest quarterly report.

A stellar rebound in automotive demand and sustained strong investment demand for precious metals lifted platinum demand well above supply in Q3 2020, leaving the quarter in a deficit of 709,00 ounces.

Both sides of the market showed strong recovery during the quarter, with supply and demand up by 48% and 75%, respectively, over Q2 2020.

Recovering supply Continue Reading →

The Past and Future Legacy of Windy Craggy – by Bruce Downing and Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse(Resource World – November 18, 2020)

November 19, 2020 in British Columbia Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Copper

https://resourceworld.com/

The demise of the Windy Craggy (N’tsi Tatay) Project in far northwestern British Columbia has led to numerous benefits worth more than $1,000,000,000 and enjoyed by many. This is illustrated in the accompanying Legacy Flow Chart.

In 1994 Royal Oak Mines acquired the Windy Craggy deposit and mineral claims from Geddes Resources. Work between 1988 and 1991 included 4,139 metres of underground development and 64,618 metres of drilling in 55 surface and 147 underground diamond drill holes.

Two large massive sulfide zones, termed the North sulfide body (NSB) and South sulfide body (SSB), were outlined and likely a third zone (Ridge Zone) was intersected by drilling. Continue Reading →

QC Copper and Gold injects new life into Opemiska in the Abitibi – by Stan Sudol (Northern Miner – October 29, 2020)

November 19, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Copper, Gold and Silver, Quebec Mining, Stan Sudol Columns/Media References and Appearances

Global mining news

The Chibougamau-Chapais region, 750 km north of Montreal, is part of the largest Archean greenstone belt in the world. The belt, better known as the Abitibi, is 150 km in width, and stretches for 650 km from just west of Timmins in Ontario to Chibougamau in Quebec.

Explorers started travelling through the Chibougamau wilderness, a territory with abundant fur-bearing animals, fishing and hunting as early as the mid-1600s, but it wasn’t until the late-1800s that prospectors began to take note of the region’s mineral potential.

While there was some drilling and a small amount of mine construction in the first half of the 1900s, two world wars, a great depression and the region’s isolation prevented any significant mineral development. But in 1950, the Quebec government finished a 240 km road connecting the Chibougamau camp to St.-Felicien in the province’s Saguenay region. Continue Reading →