(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.
https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/
The discovery of a rare rock amidst the tundra of Canada’s Far North nearly 100 years ago set in motion one of mankind’s most destructive legacies: Decades of mining, workers getting sick and, finally, a pair of atomic bombs that killed tens of thousands of civilians in an instant — and changed the world forever.
As author and professor Peter van Wyck says in the documentary Atomic Reaction: “This is a piece of Canadian history that doesn’t get talked about much.” It all started near Délı̨nę, a community on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, where the Sahtu Dene people have lived for thousands of years. Originally a nomadic people, they started settling more firmly at Délı̨nę in the 1940s.
(Kitco News) – After delivering one of its strongest weekly performances of the year last week, gold picked up right where it left off, but a midweek stall after fresh all-time highs has market participants more divided on the yellow metal’s near-term direction.
Spot gold kicked off the week trading at $2,722 per ounce, and traders in the Asian and European sessions pushed the yellow metal to the edge of $2,740 by the North American open. But U.S. traders woke up filled with doubt about the precious metal, and they drove the spot price all the way down to $2,716 by 2:45 p.m. EDT.
When he was 16, Adam Lundin was lowered by helicopter into the remote wilderness of northern Canada. For the son of a wealthy mining mogul, this was something of an initiation. He spent the summer hunting for gold — shadowing grizzled prospectors and geologists, bushwhacking through the Boréal forest.
He even dug holes for where the outhouses would go. “I just wanted to be kept busy,” he said. Adam, 37, is now the chairman of Lundin Mining Corp., a publicly traded Canadian metals producer. His younger brother, Jack, 34, is the company’s chief executive officer.
CALGARY — Investments in oil and gas production are important and must continue in tandem with increased investment in renewable and clean technologies, the deputy head of the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Mary Burce Warlick made the comments in Calgary, the corporate heart of Canada’s oil and gas sector, just a week after the Paris-based IEA released its most recent forecast for global energy demand.
The IEA said in that forecast that demand for all three fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — is set to peak by the end of this decade. It also predicted a potential oversupply of both oil and liquefied natural gas in the second half of the 2020s.
Mali’s military government has threatened to take back Barrick Gold Corp.’s Loulo mine concession when the current permit expires in 2026, amid an escalating dispute over how to divide the economic benefits from operations in the country.
Mali is considering letting the permit for Loulo lapse when it expires in February 2026, Finance Minister Alousseni Sanou said in an Oct. 18 letter sent to Barrick’s chief executive officer Mark Bristow, and seen by Bloomberg. Mali “reserves the right not to renew the operating permit” and invited Barrick to talks on the mine’s “transition phase” starting later this month, Sanou wrote.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Teck Resources Ltd. has cut its full-year copper forecast yet again owing to setbacks at multiple mines, including at its giant QB2 copper operation in Chile. Vancouver-based Teck said on Thursday that its 2024 copper production will be between 420,000 tonnes and 455,000 tonnes, about 6.5 per cent lower than predicted.
The downgrade was driven in part by issues with its haul trucks at its Highland Valley mine in British Columbia, including labour availability and problems with its autonomous system. Teck also cut its guidance for the QB2 mine in Chile, reducing its forecast by 6 per cent to roughly 205,000 tonnes.
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/
One northern remediation project illustrates the complexity of the issue
If not for the fences and the signs, nothing’s obviously threatening about the radioactive waste that has plagued Nipissing First Nation for decades. It looks like sandy soil peppered with small rocks. Behind the benign appearance, however, are niobium and other naturally occurring radioactive materials that were left behind by a defunct mining operation dating back to the early days of the Cold War.
With the company long gone and the Ministry of Mines busy remediating and monitoring the other 5,865 abandoned mining projects in Ontario, the waste has just sat there for 67 years.
BHP (ASX, NYSE: BHP) faces a potential $47 billion payout in damages over the 2015 Mariana Dam disaster in Brazil, believed to be country’s most catastrophic environmental incident, as a lawsuit against the miner kicked off on Monday in London’s High Court.
The trial, expected to last up to 12 weeks, will determine whether BHP is legally responsible for the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The structure failure caused a massive flood that claimed 19 lives, destroyed villages and severely polluted water sources for local communities. The dam was owned by Samarco, a joint venture between BHP and Brazilian mining giant Vale.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
Mining company will reduce amount of iron ore shipments out of Milne Inlet
Baffinland Iron Mines is laying off 10 per cent of its workforce in Nunavut due to weak iron ore prices. Senior adviser Paul Quassa said the company is diverting its resources to the $5.7-billion railroad from the Mary River Mine south to Steensby Inlet.
“We would be rationalizing our equipment and supplies… and reducing the number of permit fronts to concentrate folks on the Steensby authorization,” he said.
