Twitter

Canadian Media Resource Articles

Traders Are Desperate for Copper Deals and Miners Are Cashing In – by Archie Hunter and Jack Farchy (Bloomberg News – June 5, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A heated competition for copper among some of the biggest commodity traders is creating opportunities for miners to negotiate favorable terms ranging from huge upfront payments to extra-long contracts.

Recent moves by cash-flush energy traders including Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. to expand in metals — a market long dominated by Glencore Plc and Trafigura Group — are raising tensions and sparking a scramble for contracts, at a time when the industry is already facing an unprecedented supply squeeze in copper ore.

Read more

The figures show Canada needs more LNG projects – by Philip Cross (Financial Post – June 5, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

The economic benefits from building facilities and exporting gas at a premium price are substantial and it helps to reduce coal use in Asia

After years of planning and construction, the first major liquified natural gas (LNG) project in British Columbia — LNG Canada’s export terminal in Kitimat — is about to be completed. The $18-billion investment is supplied by a pipeline from northeastern B.C.

The terminal’s imminent completion is already stoking interest in other LNG projects, including the Cedar LNG project also at Kitimat (a joint venture of the Haisla Nation and Pembina Pipeline Corp.), the Woodfibre LNG terminal near Squamish, Ksi Lisims LNG on Pearse Island, a floating export facility, as well as a possible Phase 2 of the LNG Canada project.

Read more

At an emotional D-Day ceremony at Canadian War Cemetery in France, relatives, veterans remember those lost – by Paul Waldie and Irene Galea (Globe and Mail – June 6, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

They came from Pimicikamak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba with a flag and prayers, to honour one of their own, a young soldier who died taking the beaches of Normandy in 1944.

The tombstone in the Canadian War Cemetery in Bény-sur-Mer is marked simply “R. Beardy, gunner.” He enlisted in the army with his brother, Sandy, and they were among the roughly 14,000 Canadians who participated in the D-Day landing on June 6, 1944, and the months-long campaign that liberated France.

Read more

Russia Said to Seek Takeover of France’s Uranium Assets in Niger (Bloomberg News – June 3, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Russia is seeking to take over uranium assets in Niger held by a state-controlled French company, according to people informed about the matter, in a further challenge to Western interests in Africa.

Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear company, has had contacts with Niger’s military-led authorities about acquiring assets held by France’s Orano SA, according to a person in Moscow familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. A western diplomat based in the region said talks were likely centered around mining permits. Niger accounted for about 4% of global uranium mine production in 2022, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Read more

India repatriates over 100 tonnes of gold from BoE to RBI vaults, amount could double in coming months – by Ernest Hoffman (Kitco News – June 3, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Over 100 tonnes of gold have been moved from the United Kingdom to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) vaults in one of the most ambitious transfers of the precious metal ever undertaken, and that amount could double in the coming months, according to a report from the Times of India published Friday.

Up until now, over half of the RBI’s gold reserves were being held with the Bank of England (BoE) and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) overseas, but the Indian government has begun the process of repatriating the country’s bullion holdings.

Read more

Ottawa’s EV mandate is in trouble and that’s a good thing – by Gwyn Morgan (Financial Post – June 4, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

All the new electrical generation and metal mining required means EVs

The federal government has mandated that all new light duty vehicles be electric by 2035. Achieving that goal would require vastly more electrical generation capacity and an enormous expansion of charging stations.

A Fraser Institute study published in March found that handling the higher load would require either 13 large new gas plants or the equivalent of 10 new mega-dams the size of B.C.’s $16-billion hydro Site C. Just one problem: almost all viable hydro sites have already been dammed. Plus: it took 10 years to get environmental approval for Site C and another 10 to build it. That leaves the natural gas plants. But powering EV’s with natural gas puts the kibosh on zero emissions.

Read more

Low nickel prices exerting drag on Sudbury economy: Report – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – June 4, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Employment should surpass pre-pandemic peak next year, however, and construction seems to be picking up

Nickel prices are down and the residential market in Sudbury has cooled, but the city’s population is expected to keep growing and lower interest rates will eventually spur more housing starts, a new report predicts. “The slowing national economy and soft commodity prices foreshadow weakness in Sudbury, home of the Big Nickel,” states an economic outlook from the Conference Board of Canada.

Worries about the near-term prospects for electric cars and their nickel-consuming batteries, along with rising Indonesian supply, have “pummelled nickel prices,” the board states. “Prices peaked in March 2022 and were roughly half that in March 2024.”

Read more

Why the U.S. is heading for hyperinflation — and what will happen when it arrives – by Frank Giustra (Toronto Star – June 4, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

Bonds will be losers, stock picking trickier and high-priced tech stocks a sell, writes Frank Giustra. So how can you protect yourself from the coming disaster?

In politics it is necessary either to betray one’s country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate. – Charles de Gaulle

In the opinion piece I wrote last week, I warned of a looming financial crisis in the U.S. (and other Western nations) fuelled by spiralling debt, money printing and a broken political system — and that most people will be unprepared.

Read more

Alberta municipality appeals regulator’s decision to accept coal exploration – by Bob Weber (CBC Calagary/Canadian Press -June 3, 2024)

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

The project has previously been denied by federal and provincial environmental reviews

An Alberta ranching community is fighting a planned hearing on proposed coal exploration in the Rocky Mountains, saying the province’s arm’s-length energy regulator shouldn’t have heeded a letter from its energy minister suggesting an application from Northback Holdings be accepted.

The information is contained in documents released last week by the Alberta Energy Regulator. They outline the Municipal District of Ranchland’s request to appeal the regulator’s ruling that Northback’s plans for Grassy Mountain in southwest Alberta are exempt from an order blocking such development.

Read more

Editorial: Mining EV halo dims – by Alisha Hiyate (Northern Miner – May 31, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Mining’s association with planet-saving EVs was supposed to make mining, if not cool, at least more acceptable. Maybe even virtuous.

But EVs have come under attack from both the political left and right — showing that mining can’t count on a halo effect from EVs to rehabilitate its image.

Read more

NexGen CEO optimistic about future of Rook I uranium project as ‘unprecedented’ era dawns – by Michael Joel-Hansen (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix – May 29, 2024)

https://thestarphoenix.com/

Northern Saskatchewan uranium mine is currently the largest development stage project in Canada

The chief executive of a company looking to build a large uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan says it’s getting closer to final approval for the project.

Leigh Curyer, who founded NexGen Energy Ltd. in 2011, said the company has been given provincial approval for its Rook I project and has also reached agreements with local governments around the site. He said environmental approval from the federal government is still pending, though that process is starting to wrap up.

Read more

OPINION: BHP’s failed pursuit of Anglo American does not mean mining megadeals are dead – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – June 1, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

BHP Group’s botched bid for Anglo American brings the curtain down on the greatest takeover attempt in global mining in more than a decade. The megamerger game will not end here. BHP’s lunge for its smaller rival highlighted a hard truth: Copper is in short supply and any big mining company without it will pay the price as economies strive for low-carbon futures.

The desire to own Anglo’s copper assets, including its 44-per-cent stake in Chile’s Collahuasi mine, one of the world’s biggest copper reserves, propelled BHP’s pursuit of Anglo. Copper is the metal considered most critical to the energy revolution.

Read more

Mining skills shortage looms as Ontario gears up for EV boom – by Darius Snieckus (National Observer – June 4, 2024)

https://www.nationalobserver.com/

Ontario’s mining industry risks a shortfall of over 3,500 skilled green-collar workers by 2040, unless it jump-starts education and training for the new generation of technicians needed as Canada’s critical minerals-hungry electric vehicle (EV) sector gears up this decade, according to a new strategy report unveiled by the government.

The province last week launched its Critical Minerals Talent Strategy, a multi-department initiative developed by the government’s Ontario Vehicle Innovation Network (OVIN) to head off this employment bottleneck as mining deepens its focus on extracting the cobalt, lithium, nickel and other materials key to manufacturing EV batteries.

Read more

Canada now ‘a little bit of a laughingstock in NATO’ – by Donna Kennedy-Glans (National Post – June 2, 2024)

https://nationalpost.com/

Canadian business titan Larry Stevenson is a former soldier who knows what’s wrong with the Canadian Armed Forces. It’s not the personnel

“Canada, you are freeloading!” That’s how businessman and former Canadian soldier Lawrence (Larry) Stevenson interprets last week’s letter from 23 U.S. Democratic and Republican senators to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The American lawmakers urged Canada to uphold its NATO commitments, and speed up efforts to increase defence spending to two per cent of GDP.

A NATO summit is planned for July in Washington. It’s not business-as-usual for American senators to publicly deliver such a blunt message to a NATO ally and neighbour in advance of a summit; I’m more than a little curious to understand its timing and meaning.

Read more

OPINION: Honouring the nation born in the fires of Juno Beach – by Tim Cook (Globe and Mail – June 1, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

D-Day was the moment that Canada became a country that mattered. How can we do justice to that story 80 years later?

Tim Cook is chief historian at the Canadian War Museum and the author or editor of 18 books of military history.

Eighty years ago this month, an American, British and Canadian armed force set off from Britain to launch a fraught assault on Northwest Europe to liberate the oppressed people from their Nazi overlords. And the Allied generals were worried.

They had been sweating for months over multiple drafts of the operation, gathering military assets and formulating complex deceptions to trick Adolf Hitler’s forces about the location of the real attack. Even then, the generals felt that the amphibious landing force had only about a 50-per-cent chance of surviving the coming battle on the beaches at Normandy in France.

Read more