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Canadian Media Resource Articles

In the hot seat: Algoma Steel faces dual pressures of electric arc furnace rollout while fighting Trump tariff turmoil – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 29, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

More than 30 years after serving in the U.S. military, Algoma Steel Group Inc. chief executive officer Michael Garcia is once again in the line of fire. But instead of facing a foreign military foe as he did in the 1990/1991 Gulf War, the threat is economic, and the aggressor is his own countryman.

On March 12, U.S. President Donald Trump levelled a 25-per-cent tariff on Canadian steel imports, making it significantly harder for Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.-based Algoma to win business in the United States, which accounts for more than half of its revenue.

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Uranium market freezes as tariff threats rattle would-be buyers – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – March 31, 2025)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

The North American uranium market is grinding to a halt as U.S. nuclear-power companies spooked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats slow purchases and delay new contracts.

U.S. utility purchases of the nuclear fuel dropped by half as the imposition of Trump’s 10 per cent levy on Canadian energy exports approaches, according the most-recent data from pricing firm TradeTech. Reactor operators who typically rely on term contracts are standing on the sidelines to see how the tariffs play out.

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Gold surges toward $3,100 amid unrelenting rally – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – March 28, 2025)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – After holding initial support at $3,000 an ounce, gold’s rally continues unabated, ending the week at another record high.

Gold prices are moving within striking distance of $3,100 an ounce. While momentum indicators show growing overbought conditions, analysts say the market continues to benefit from solid fundamental support. Gold is trading at $3,077.30 an ounce, up 0.68% on the day, and is set to end the week with a nearly 2% gain.

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EU selects 47 strategic projects to secure critical minerals access – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – March 25, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

The European Union (EU) has published its first list of strategic projects strengthening the local extraction, processing, and recycling of 14 of the 17 materials it deems critical for its energy transition and security.

The selection of the 47 projects mark a key step in implementing the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which sets targets for 2030, including extracting 10% of the EU’s annual consumption, processing 40%, and recycling 25% of these essential materials.

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Prospect of U.S. tariffs haunting Canadian copper sector – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – March 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

Could send shockwaves through eastern part of sector and ultimately benefit China

United States President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for tariffs on copper that could send shockwaves through the eastern part of Canada’s sector and ultimately benefit China. Canada in 2023 produced 2.2 per cent of global mined copper, less than half of what’s produced in the U.S., which accounted for five per cent.

Nonetheless, more than half the copper produced in Canada, mainly from the eastern part of the country, was shipped to the U.S., making up a large portion of the imports there.

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First Nations slam BC mining claims framework (Northern Miner – March 27, 2025)

https://www.northernminer.com/

British Columbia’s new framework requiring consultation with First Nations before registering mining claims misses the mark for consulting with Indigenous groups, First Nations say. The new consultation Mineral Claims Consultation Framework (MCCF), released last week, outlines processes for consulting with industry and First Nations groups.

But BC Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee criticized the changes, implying they don’t remotely align with the collaborative approach outlined in the province’s Indigenous rights law.

‘Step backward’

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OPINION: Trump is right to fear a Canada-Europe team-up. But Canada must rise to the challenge first – by Aaron Burnett (Globe and Mail – March 28, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Aaron Burnett is a German-Canadian geopolitics and security analyst based at Berlin’s Democratic Strategy Initiative.

The spectre of a deeper trade relationship between Canada and Europe keeps U.S. President Donald Trump up at night – if his latest social-media rant threatening higher tariffs on both is any clue.

And that means, all the more, that Canada must seek closer ties to Europe. Mr. Trump is a man who defers to strength and bullies the weak. If a Canada-Europe team-up strikes such a raw nerve, then that means it’s the right move.

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Boom in uranium stocks fizzles as Ukraine ceasefire talks build – by Geoffrey Morgan (Bloomberg News – March 25, 2025)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Once-booming uranium stocks have been veering toward bust mode to start 2025. Escalating trade tensions between the US and Canada, one of the world’s key producers of the nuclear fuel, are playing a major part.

Lately, so are talks toward a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, which raise the prospect of looser sanctions on Russian production of the radioactive metal and the potential for more supply. The price of uranium is now down more than a third from early 2024, and has slumped roughly 11% this year alone.

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Lots of mining left in Sudbury but there are challenges: Gord Gilpin – by Hugh Kruzel (Sudbury Star – March 21, 2025)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale’s director of Ontario Operations speaks to a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon

Sudbury has another hundred years of good mining left in its ore bodies but it will have to work to remain competitive in a difficult market for nickel, Vale’s director of Ontario Operations says. Gord Gilpin told the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce this week that Indonesia has flooded the world market with nickel, depressing the price of the mineral.

Gilpin made a parallel to the turbulent 1970s and 80s. “They (Indonesia) are the OPEC of nickel. They will set prices. We do expect it to balance out but in the short term, there is a surplus that is why pricing is under pressure.”

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Trump’s order to boost mining in the U.S. could end up helping Canadian companies – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – March 24, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

Latest U.S. effort to reduce dependence on China for rare earths and critical minerals

Canadian mining insiders say their industry could ultimately benefit if United States President Donald Trump’s fixation on boosting his country’s production of minerals persists. Last Thursday, Trump invoked presidential emergency powers and signed an executive order “to facilitate domestic mineral production to the maximum possible extent” as a matter of national and economic security.

The order cites “our reliance upon hostile foreign powers’ mineral production,” which some say is the U.S.’s latest effort to reduce its dependence on China, which controls large parts of the world’s rare earths and critical minerals supply chains.

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Gold dominates mining M&A again in 2024: S&P Global – by Staff (Mining.com – March 22, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Gold was once again the dominant theme of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals within the precious and base metals mining space in 2024, accounting for 70% of the year’s transaction count and total value, says S&P Global.

According to data tracked by S&P, the number of M&A transactions with gold as the primary resource metal more than doubled those in base metals at 43 (versus 19). The total transaction value was also nearly three times higher for gold at $19.31 billion, compared to $7.23 billion for base metals.

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High Teck: The Canadian miner’s reinvention as a critical-metals player—via its massive copper mine in Chile’s Andean foothills— could prove its undoing as an independent company – by Eric Reguly (ROB/Globe and Mail – March 24, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Canadian plan to evolve into global critical-metals player by opening one of the biggest copper mines in South America got off to an unlucky start. On Sept. 25, 1996, Frank Pickard, the Sudbury, Ont., native who was the CEO of Falconbridge, then one of Canada’s top two diversified mining companies (the other was Inco), boarded a small aircraft on the Chilean coast and flew to the Collahuasi mine in the Atacama Desert, in the far north of the country, in the Andean foothills near the Bolivian border.

Within minutes of stepping out at 4,400 metres (14,400 feet)—half the height of Everest—he was felled by a heart attack and died. He was 63. A retired mining engineer and consultant friend of mine, Jeffrey Franzen, who worked for a subsidiary of Falconbridge at the time, told me that based on the story he’d heard, Pickard’s failure to acclimatize before reaching the Andean heavens, where effective oxygen levels are far lower than those at sea level, probably triggered his death. (Legend says he was buried in a coffin made of nickel, Falconbridge’s main product, as was his wish.)

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Canada scraps federal review of large projects – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – March 23, 2025)

Global mining news

Canada’s federal government will permit major infrastructure and mining projects with provincial and territorial approvals alone, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday evening after meeting with the country’s 13 premiers.

“We will eliminate federal duplicative requirements by recognizing provincial assessments for major projects, the so-called mutual recognition,” Carney told reporters in Ottawa. “So, one project, one review, and we will work with the provinces and other stakeholders, Indigenous groups, to identify projects of national significance and accelerate the time frame to build them.”

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Wab Kinew ignores Manitoba’s trillion-dollar critical minerals opportunity – by Kevin Klein (Winnipeg Sun – March 21, 2025)

https://winnipegsun.com/

While New Brunswick’s Premier Susan Holt and her Liberal government are making serious moves to capitalize on their province’s critical mineral resources, here in Manitoba, Premier Wab Kinew and his NDP government are silent. Not a word. Not a dollar. Not even a photo op with a hardhat and shovel.

This is a missed opportunity on a scale that’s hard to ignore — unless, of course, you’re the NDP. On Wednesday, New Brunswick’s Natural Resources Minister John Herron stood in their legislature and said what every leader who takes economic growth seriously should be saying. He told his team to get a strategy together to mine their rich deposits of critical minerals.

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Quebec’s aluminum product producers are feeling the sting of Trump’s tariffs – by Nicolas Van Praet (Globe and Mail – March 22, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

There are roughly 1,700 companies shaping aluminum into components or finished products in Quebec, cranking out everything you can think of with the malleable metal – from ambulance doors to window frames. Half of them are based in the greater Montreal area. And all of them have one major problem at the moment: Donald Trump.

Industry groups have been warning for weeks of the pain to come from the U.S. President’s 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel, which came into effect March 12. But on the factory floors of Quebec’s aluminum-product makers, and in the hallways and offices of manufacturers where net profit margins are typically in the single digits and payrolls rarely tally more than 200 employees, those warnings have become reality.

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