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Canadian Media Resource Articles

Mining industry confident of carve out on federal government’s capital-gains tax changes – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – June 12, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Canadian mining industry is optimistic that Ottawa will carve out an exception for the sector around coming changes to the capital-gains tax that it hopes will pre-empt a large drop in financings.

As of June 25, capital gains made by Canadian investors are set to be taxed at two thirds, up from one half, for gains above $250,000. Owing to a tax quirk associated when selling flow-through shares, the pending changes will deter high-net-worth individuals from investing in the mining sector, according to Pierre Gratton, president of the Mining Association of Canada.

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Critical Metals to acquire controlling stake in world’s biggest rare earth project – by Staff (Mining.com – June 10, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Critical Metals Corp. (Nasdaq: CRML) has signed an agreement to acquire a controlling interest in the Tanbreez project in Greenland, the largest rare earth deposit in the world.

Tanbreez hosts 28.2 million tonnes of total rare earth oxides (TREO) in 4.7 billion tonnes of material, according to internal company estimates. The asset is expected to contain more than 27% heavy rare earth elements (HREE) and Critical Metals says efforts to convert the internal resource to U.S. SEC standards are being made.

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Investors should heed growing supply after uranium’s recent runup – by James Cooper (Northern Miner – June 10, 2024)

Global mining news

Uranium prices surged from just over US$50 per lb. in April 2023 to more than US$100 per lb. by January 2024. Since then, there has been a moderate pull-back; uranium is now consolidating just above US$90 per pound.

So is it too late for investors to join the uranium bandwagon? Well, that depends. Last year’s terrific run was driven by strong demand outlooks. Uranium, the fuel for nuclear reactors, has benefitted from renewed interest in building global nuclear capacity. That’s partly due to the push to go green.

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Quebec residents against graphite mine fear powering Pentagon, environmental ruin – by Joe Bongiorno (CBC News Montreal/Canadian Press – June 9, 2024)

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

Mining company Lomiko Metals Inc. plans to begin construction in Laurentians by 2027

In Quebec’s Laurentians region, a few kilometres from a wildlife reserve and just outside the town of Duhamel, lies a source of one of the world’s most sought after minerals for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries: graphite.

Since Lomiko Metals Inc., a mining company based in Surrey, B.C., announced plans to build a graphite mine in the area, some residents living nearby have protested the project, fearing the potential harm to the environment.

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Forget Copper and Gold as Steel-Making Raw Material Outperforms – by Paul-Alain Hunt (Bloomberg News – June 12, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Manganese, an essential steel-making ingredient, has outstripped copper, gold and many other commodities this year after a cyclone halted exports from the world’s second-largest mine in March.

Prices of 44% grade manganese ore have almost doubled since the start of the year, beating gains of 15% in copper, 12% in gold and almost 30% in tin.

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Two small communities are competing to receive Canada’s inventory of nuclear waste. They can’t be sure what they’ll get – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – June 10, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Two Ontario municipalities are vying to become hosts for an underground disposal facility for Canada’s nuclear waste. Both must formally announce in the coming months whether they’ll accept the facility – but they cannot know exactly what wastes they’d be agreeing to receive.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) designed its $26-billion facility, known as a deep geological repository, to receive spent fuel from Candu reactors located in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. This year, it plans to choose between the last two sites still in the running: the Municipality of South Bruce, Ont., located more than 120 kilometres north of London; or near Ignace, Ont., a town of 1,200 more than 200 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay.

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[Bre-X Gold Scandal] Bay Street in the shade – by Rita Trichur (Globe and Mail – June 11, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

What do phony gold, a Russian godfather and a crypto scam have in common? They all illustrate how The Globe plays an important role in exposing corporate malfeasance

It was surely one of the clumsiest attempts ever to rewrite history. In 1996, Calgary-based Bre-X Minerals Ltd. spent months assuring investors it owned most of Busang, a mammoth gold deposit in Indonesia. But the following February, CEO David Walsh flipped the script.

“Some have mistakenly thought that we somehow owned 90 per cent of this property,” Walsh said at the time. “This was never the practical reality, nor was it ever a basis for the valuation of Bre-X stock.”

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Opinion: The U.S. has a 3D problem with Canada — Dairy, defence and digital tax – by Goldy Hyder (Financial Post – June 12, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

The Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement is up for review in 2026. We need progress on three irritants that unite American politicians

Back in 2022, I wrote on this page that American political leaders from across party lines were increasingly viewing Canada through “3D” glasses. Their perception of Canada was being coloured and distorted by three cross-border disagreements: dairy quota allocation, digital taxes and defence spending. The analogy was intended as a warning.

These same 3D irritants have taken on added urgency in what has become an extremely contentious 2024 U.S. election cycle. At a time when American political divisions are widening, groups of Republicans and Democrats are joining together to voice shared frustration with Canada’s refusal in these areas to align itself with its most important ally.

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Sudbury column: Geopolitics, global warming make the Ring of Fire as important as ever – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – June 8, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Construction of a road to the mine site needs to start now

Without a doubt, the Ring of Fire camp and its many strategic minerals that include nickel, copper, platinum group metals, chromite and titanium – just to mention a few as explorers have just scratched the proverbial surface – is the most important mining discovery in Canadian history. It may even exceed the legendary Sudbury Basin someday.

Discovered in 2007, the region is located approximately 450 km northeast of Thunder Bay in the isolated and vast peatlands of Hudson Bay, which itself is roughly the size of Norway but with only about 10,000 people. Contrary to fanatical ENGOs, sustainable mineral development and exploration practices will have minimal impact on the environment and provide the critical minerals needed to stop global warming.

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Ten million trees really made a difference to Sudbury’s landscape – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – June 8, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

And about half those trees came from seedlings grown by Vale and its greenhouse in Copper Cliff

More than 10 million trees have been planted as part of Greater Sudbury’s regreening efforts, and Vale (formerly Inco) is responsible for nearly half of those seedlings. They started out tinier than a thumbnail, but 50 years later, the first trees that were planted are now soaring into the sky, covered in needles or leaves, and providing shade, nourishment and homes to all kinds of critters.

About five million of those seedlings got their start at the Vale greenhouse in Copper Cliff. A large group, including children from the nearby elementary school, gathered at the greenhouse on Thursday to celebrate its 50th birthday.

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Exploring the mystery of the man embroiled in a Canadian mining company’s billion-dollar gold scam – by Lucy Wallis (CBC News – June 7, 2024)

 

https://www.cbc.ca/

New podcast digs into the history of Bre-X Minerals’s claims of gold deep in the Indonesian jungle

On the morning of March 19, 1997, Michael de Guzman, chief geologist at Canadian mining company Bre-X Minerals, boarded a helicopter flight to travel to a remote jungle site in Indonesia. It was a journey he had made many times before, to a place where he had reported finding huge deposits of gold.

But this time, de Guzman never arrived. Twenty minutes into the journey, a rear door on the left-hand side of the helicopter opened and de Guzman plummeted to his death into the dense foliage below.

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Rio Tinto CEO Jakob Stausholm may have to change strategy as company enters new round of upheaval – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – June 8, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Extrovert or introvert, buyer or builder, opportunistic or judicious. These are the existential questions that Rio Tinto must answer for itself as the global mining industry enters a new round of upheaval, driven by the lunge for metals critical to a low-carbon future. Which way will Rio, a primarily iron ore and aluminum producer, go?

No one knows, and there are enormous risks in both playing the mergers and acquisitions game and avoiding it. Rio knows it needs more copper – it is ranked a lowly eighth in terms of production. At the same time, its reputation for capital discipline and conservative thinking might make it shy away from bidding wars and hostile deals, perhaps even big mergers and acquisitions of the friendly variety.

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Wall Street throws in the towel on gold after Friday’s rout, Main Street optimism likely a pre-selloff snapshot – by Ernest Hoffman (Kitco News – June 7, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – This week, precious metals markets saved all their drama for the grand finale. Spot gold opened the week trading at $2,325.26, and spent much of the first four days trading in a relatively narrow $25 range.

The expected 25 basis point rate cuts from the ECB and the Bank of Canada came and went, with spot gold eventually setting its weekly high of $2,386.75 just after midnight on Friday.

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Ranchers to fight coal bid in Alberta court – by lair McBride (Northern Miner – June 6, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Applications to drill for metallurgical coal in southwestern Alberta are pitting ranchers against an exploration company backed by Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.

Calgary-based Northback Holdings, a subsidiary of Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, submitted applications last year to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) for permits to drill at its Grassy Mountain project in the Crowsnest Pass region.

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China’s PBOC Halts Gold Purchases After Price Hits Record – by Yvonne Yue Li and Sybilla Gross (Bloomberg News – June 7, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Gold fell the most in more than two years as surprise strength in a key US jobs report dashed hopes that the Federal Reserve will be able to start lowering borrowing costs soon.

Treasury yields and the dollar surged after the US government’s May employment report showed job growth exceeded expectations and wages were hot. Bullion slumped as much as 3.1%, the most since March 2022, while base metals also tumbled.

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