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Teck Receives Interest in Coal Business as Glencore Circles – by Jacob Lorinc (Yahoo/Bloomberg – June 6, 2023)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — Teck Resources Ltd. received several proposals for deals involving its coal operations, as the Canadian miner works to draw up a new plan for splitting off the business while rejecting a bid from Glencore Plc.

Teck’s plans to exit coal and create a standalone base-metals company suffered a blow in April when it failed to win enough shareholder support for a complicated spinoff proposal. It maintains that separating from its coal assets will create the most value for shareholders, and is now under pressure to develop a plan more appealing than Glencore’s $23 billion offer for the entire company, especially with the prospect of a sweetened bid on the way.

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Who is keeping coal alive? (The Economist – June 4, 2023)

https://www.economist.com/

The financiers saving the world’s dirtiest fuel from extinction

Mountains of coal are piled beneath azure skies at the port of Newcastle, Australia. Giant shovels chip away at them, scooping the fuel onto conveyor belts, which whizz it to cargo ships that can be as long as three football pitches. The harbour’s terminals handle 200m tonnes of the stuff a year, making Newcastle the world’s biggest coal port.

Throughput is roaring back after floods hurt supply last year. Aaron Johansen, who oversees NCIG, the newest, uber-automated terminal, expects it to stay near all-time highs for at least seven years. Rich Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, are hungry for the premium coal that passes through the terminal. So, increasingly, are developing ones like Malaysia and Vietnam.

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OPINION: End game nears in the battle for Canada’s last diversified mining giant, and the odds do not look good for the pursuer – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – June 2, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Phoney War was the period early in the Second World War, when there were few battles on the Western Front. The relative calm ended when Germany invaded France in the spring of 1940.

The battle for Teck Resources, Canada’s biggest diversified mining company, is definitely in the phoney war stage. After a raucous start, a whole lot of nothing has happened for weeks in the campaign that will ultimately determine the shape of Canada’s base metals industry. There are signs that a renewed assault on Teck could start soon, one that will make or break the effort by Switzerland’s Glencore to make Teck its own as it strives to become one of the world’s top producers of the metals needed to propel the green energy revolution.

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Whitehaven says coal is a ‘critical mineral’ for defence allies – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – June 1, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

Whitehaven Coal managing director Paul Flynn has urged the Albanese government to consider coal’s role in powering defence allies like Japan and South Korea when reviewing its list of minerals that are “critical” to economic growth and national security.

Coal is not among the 26 minerals considered “critical” by the Australian government although coking coal for steelmaking is one of the 34 minerals considered “critical” by the European Commission.

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Coal firms owned by family of West Virginia governor sued over unpaid penalties – by John Raby and Denise Lavoie (Associated Press – May 31, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Thirteen coal companies owned by the family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice are being sued over unpaid penalties for previous mining law violations that the federal government says pose health and safety risks or threaten environmental harm.

Justice, who was not named in the lawsuit, accused the Biden administration of retaliation. A Republican two-term governor, Justice announced in April that he is running for Democrat Joe Manchin’s U.S. Senate seat in 2024. He will face current U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney in the GOP primary.

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Glencore said to prepare sweetened Teck bid – by Thomas Biesheuvel, Dinesh Nair and Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – May 30, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Glencore Plc is getting closer to increasing its offer for Teck Resources Ltd., in a move aimed at ending weeks of limbo in the battle over the Canadian miner’s future.

The Switzerland-based commodities giant is working on a potential improvement to its bid that could be announced as soon as the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. By raising its offer and ratcheting up shareholder pressure, Glencore is seeking to force Teck to the negotiating table, the people said.

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Shift to clean energy accelerating, but coal investments too high, report says – by Victoria Milko and Aniruddha Ghosal (Associated Press – May 25, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Energy security concerns — worsened by the war in Ukraine — and policy support from rich countries are likely to help investments in clean energy outpace spending on fossil fuels, the International Energy Agency said in a report issued Thursday.

But investments in coal are on course to rise by about 10% in 2023, nearly six times what the IEA has estimated they should be for the world to end its reliance on fossil fuels and achieve emissions cut goals for countering climate change, it said.

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The View from England: Win their hearts, and minds will follow – by Chris Hinde (Northern Miner – May 19, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

I shed tears within 30 pages. I expect you would too and, if you’re a miner, so you should. In a recently-published novel we are taken back to a small mining town in October 1966 when our industry killed children, young children, half a school of them.

Published by Faber & Faber, ‘A Terrible Kindness’ reminds us (as Jo Browning Wroe writes in her opening sentence) of when “something dreadful happened in Wales.” In Aberfan on that dark morning, 116 children (mostly between the ages of seven and 10) went to school and didn’t come back.

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Saskatchewan: ‘Come get me’: Premier Moe responds to federal minister on running coal plants past 2030 – by Adam Hunter (CBC News Saskatchewan – May 18, 2023)

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

Premier Scott Moe said “come get me” on Thursday when asked about the potential legal ramifications of running coal-fired power plants past 2030 in violation of federal regulations. On Wednesday, Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada Steven Guilbeault said Saskatchewan would be breaking the law if it ran coal-fired electricity after 2030, unless they were equipped with carbon capture technology.

“We’ve regulated the ban on coal through CEPA (Canadian Environmental Protection Act) which is a criminal tool that the federal government has. So not complying with this regulation would be a violation of Canada’s Criminal Code.”

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Glencore signals interest in buying Teck’s coal business even as it pursues the whole Canadian mining company – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – May 16,2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The bosses of Canada’s Teck Resources Ltd. and Switzerland’s Glencore PLC have used a mining conference to present starkly different views on how Teck could create value and whether Ottawa would approve a proposed merger of the two companies.

At the same time, Glencore opened the door to buying Teck’s substantial metallurgical coal operations, signalling an interest in owning even a piece of a company attempting an uncertain corporate overhaul.

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Tracing the toxic impact of B.C. coal mining – by Corey Bullock (CBC British Columbia – May 17, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/

Concern is mounting over the effects of B.C. mines on aquatic life, with Indigenous groups, scientists and environmentalists in Canada and the U.S. saying action cannot be delayed.

South of the border, in Bonners Ferry, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho is working to restore the population of Kootenai River white sturgeon. The landlocked species, found in B.C., Idaho and Montana, are in decline due to human activity, as are resident burbot populations.

“That’s why I’m here,” said David R. Weaselhead Jr., a technician at the tribe’s hatchery. “To restore the population of sturgeon and get it off of the endangered list.” However, while the tribe has had some success, there is growing concern about the effect that mining in B.C. is having on aquatic life.

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Glencore bid for Teck faces stiff Canuck rules, pride as mining M&A activity triples – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – May 11, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Glencore (LSE: GLEN) faces an uphill battle to buy Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) because of Canadian nationalism despite surging mergers and acquisitions in the critical minerals space.

The mining industry’s M&A activity is up 283% to US$66 billion so far this year compared with the same period last year while dealmaking across all industries is down 38% to US$1.2 trillion, according to Bloomberg data presented on Wednesday at the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration’s eighth annual Trends in Mining Finance Conference in New York.

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Consortium led by mining veteran Pierre Lassonde is proposing buying Teck’s coal business in bid to thwart Glencore – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – May 10, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A consortium led by Canadian mining veteran Pierre Lassonde is proposing to buy Teck Resources Ltd.’s coal operations, a deal that could stop Swiss giant Glencore PLC in its tracks, and offer a made-in-Canada solution that may be palatable to Ottawa.

Mr. Lassonde is co-founder and chair emeritus of Franco-Nevada Corp., the world’s biggest mining streaming and royalty firm. He has also been an outspoken critic against the incursion of foreign mining companies into Canada over the past two decades.

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OPINION: Ottawa may bluster but there is no ‘Canadian’ solution for Teck – that ship has sailed – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – March 6, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Any unfriendly international takeover attempt is like a long, exhausting soccer game as executive teams and their hired guns, shareholders, the quick-buck hedge funds, and politicians all try to manoeuvre for the best positions. The process can take months as each of the players look for weaknesses to exploit, hurl insults at each other and place their bets.

And so it is with Teck Resources, Canada’s last big diversified mining company. In its effort to fend off mighty Glencore of Switzerland, Teck has in effect recruited allies in the form of the federal and provincial governments while it scrambles to concoct a value-creation plan that is not dead on arrival.

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Why is Ottawa playing games in the takeover fight for Teck Resources and the future of the critical minerals we need? – by David Olive (Toronto Star – May 4, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

The federal government’s likely blocking of the foreign takeover of Teck Resources, writes David Olive, would achieve nothing for Canada’s goal to increase production of the materials we need to decarbonize our economy.

There is a growing likelihood that Ottawa will block the foreign takeover of Teck Resources Ltd., a diversified mining company based in Vancouver. But that would achieve nothing for Canada in our goal to increase production of critical minerals to decarbonize economies in the fight against climate change.

What is required of Canada is that we extract more critical minerals from the ground. And that we build more processing facilities — refineries, smelters, and the like — to turn those minerals into the refined components that go into smartphones, electric vehicles (EVs), wind turbines, solar panels, and upgraded electricity grids.

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