https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Canada’s potash producers are warning that the lockout of unionized supervisors at British Columbia ports could allow rivals such as Russia and Belarus to gain market share.
With commodities such as potash stuck onshore at the Port of Vancouver, bottlenecks are growing in the supply chain. Potash is among the key exports suspended at Neptune Bulk Terminals (Canada) Ltd. in North Vancouver and Pacific Coast Terminals Co. Ltd. in Port Moody.
At 381 metres, the Vale Base Metals—formerly Inco—Superstack, which is part of the company’s Copper Cliff smelter complex, was Canada’s tallest freestanding structure when it was completed in1972. It later lost that distinction to the CN tower, but today it still stands as the tallest chimney in the Western Hemisphere.
After Vale announced in September that work will begin to bring down the Superstack once it finishes dismantling its smaller Copperstack in 2025, people sent in stories to Vale about family members who were part of the construction for the behemoth structure. Locals who feel attached to it are asking: won’t the horizon of Sudbury, a place known to the global mining industry as Nickel City, feel empty once its iconic Superstack comes down?
Michael Goehring is the president and CEO of the Mining Association of British Columbia.
During the provincial election, both of B.C.’s main political parties emphasized the importance of mining and critical minerals to our economy and climate action. Both parties made solid commitments to expedite B.C.’s mine permitting process.
Governments globally are actively securing critical mineral supplies to support the clean energy transition and meet national security, defence and technology imperatives. Canada, B.C. and other provinces have critical mineral strategies with firm commitments to improve major mine permitting processes.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN; US-OTC: IVPAF) on Wednesday reported record third-quarter copper production but cut its full-year guidance by 6%, blaming power outages at its Kamoa-Kakula complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Toronto-based company lowered the copper guidance to 425,000–450,000 tonnes, from 440,000–490,000 tonnes. The disruptions stemmed from deficient transmission capacity and instability in the DRC’s southern grid, managed by state-owned Société Nationale d’Électricité. Delays in upgrading the Inga II dam’s transmission line and grid bottlenecks at the Kolwezi substation limited reliable power delivery.
Global Atomic (TSX: GLO) said on Tuesday it anticipates securing a project financing loan from the US development bank by early Q1 2025 to advance its Dasa uranium project in Niger.
The company reported that in recent discussions, the bank confirmed its intention to approve a $295 million debt facility, which would cover 60% of the project’s projected costs. Dasa is the highest-grade uranium deposit in Africa, surpassed only by grades found in Canada’s Athabasca Basin, and is scheduled to achieve commercial production in early 2026.
(Bloomberg) — Global gold demand swelled about 5% in the third quarter, setting a record for the period and lifting consumption above $100 billion for the first time, according to the World Gold Council.
The increase — which saw volumes climb to 1,313 tons — was underpinned by stronger investment flows from the West, including more high-net-worth individuals, that helped offset waning appetite from Asia, the industry-funded group said in a report on Wednesday. Buying in bullion-backed exchange-traded funds flipped to gains in the quarter after prolonged outflows.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
‘What is produced here is essential to our economic future,’ Daniel Tisch Echevarría says, referring to the mining sector
Northern Ontario and Sudbury are keys to the province’s economic prosperity, the president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce says. Daniel Tisch Echevarría made the observations last week during the 129th annual general meeting of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce.
“When you sit in Toronto you see a lot of data,” Tisch said. “When asked if businesses across the province are confident in themselves they say yes.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
China, the world’s biggest market for just about everything, was a boon for Europe’s biggest car companies, especially the German ones. Many of them formed local joint ventures and made fortunes as wealthy Chinese spurned cheapo domestic brands and snapped up Volkswagens, Mercedes, BMWs and other European and American showroom delights.
As recently as 2020, foreign brands’ share of total Chinese auto sales (gasoline, diesel, hybrid and fully electric) was nearly two-thirds. Today, it’s 37 per cent – and falling. China is no longer the gift that keeps on giving. Homegrown Chinese cars, notably the electric ones, are moving up the quality and value chain fast and sending the foreign nameplates packing.
The high-cost climate policies we have now need to be replaced by a search for cheap green fuels the world will switch to voluntarily
As climate policy increasingly drives up living costs with next to no results, voters are becoming wearier of expansive — and expensive — green promises. We can only hope this backlash could lead to better, cheaper and more effective measures.
After dealing with climate activists blocking roads and gluing themselves to airport runways, celebrities flying private jets while telling the rest of us to take the bus, and climate policies that cost the world but deliver little, voters are viewing climate policies with greater skepticism.
(Bloomberg) — BHP Group has been forced to walk back from comments about having “moved on” from its failed Anglo American Plc bid to prevent its hands being tied by the UK takeover panel from launching another buyout attempt.
Chairman Ken MacKenzie made the comments Wednesday at a shareholder meeting of the world’s biggest miner in Australia. Anglo shares fell as much as 4.5%, underperforming the wider sector.
Rio Tinto’s Diavik diamond mine in the Northwest Territories is set to close in approximately 18 months after almost a quarter of a century of operations. Over 144 million carats of rough diamonds have been recovered at Diavik through a combination of open-pit and underground mining since it entered commercial production in 2003, and the mine is a major contributor to the economy of the Northwest Territories, accounting for more than 10 per cent of the territory’s gross domestic product.
The current mine plan anticipates that operations will cease in the first quarter of 2026, followed by a transition to closure activities from 2026 to 2029. However, the mine was designed with closure in mind from the outset, and Rio Tinto hopes to leave a lasting beneficial impact in the region after its closure activities end in 2029, while limiting its carbon footprint at the same time.
As global demand for minerals and raw materials increases, buoyed by the soaring of certain commodity prices, purported green ambitions, and nationalist fervour, governments have begun wielding a range of regulatory tools and sometimes strong-arm tactics against foreign mining companies in the name of resource nationalism.
The resurgence of resource nationalism—particularly in countries experiencing political upheaval, such as the “Coup Belt” in Francophone Africa—poses a major risk to the ambitions of foreign mining companies and the battery revolution.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
Leaders meet with Cree traditional hunters and trappers last week to talk development
How development happens in Cree communities and who benefits was front and centre at a recent meeting between Cree leaders and many hunters, trappers and land users from the inland communities in northern Quebec.
Close to 300 hunters and tallymen, as traditional land users are called in Quebec, were registered for the meeting that happened in Mistissini last week, but organizers say closer to 500 were in the room. “The meeting for me was a real eye-opening experience,” said Mandy Gull-Masty, the grand chief of the Cree nation in northern Quebec.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/
Please note that his article is from 2013!!
On the eastern shore of James Bay, a very different story
Freezing, mouldy homes. Sewage contamination. Sick kids. Unemployment. A blockade on the road to the mine. A hunger strike by the chief. That, it seems, is the news from the Cree of James Bay — at least, as it’s defined by the desperate community of Attawapiskat, in northern Ontario.
Before that, there was the news from nearby Kashechewan. Flooding. Despair. Suicide. And both James Bay towns endured fresh emergencies this spring as the annual meltwaters exposed, again, their rickety infrastructure.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Central-bank rate cuts should be terrific for bonds and dividend-paying stocks. But another asset has been grabbing attention with better performance: gold. And some observers expect bullion will continue to dominate.
If this comes as a surprise, you’re probably not alone. As U.S. inflation subsided and the Federal Reserve cleared the way this year for cutting its key interest rate from multiyear highs, rate-sensitive assets rallied.
