https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Driven in part by troubles with Vale’s Sudbury operations, nickel surged to a seven-year high on Wednesday. Nickel – the key mineral found in Sudbury – topped US$9.53 a pound, the highest it’s been since 2014.
Bloomberg News said concerns that there’ll be less supply of the key industrial metal to meet resilient demand from economies reopening as the pandemic retreats sparked higher prices.
Australia’s BHP Group Ltd, one of the world’s largest miners, on Wednesday offered 75 cents in cash for each share of Toronto’s Noront Resources Ltd., as a bidding war erupts for control of the mineral claims on land around northern Ontario’s remote James Bay lowlands, colloquially known as the Ring of Fire.
That offer beats a bid of 70 cents per share that Wyloo Metals Ltd, backed by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest, placed on Monday. Even as BHP offers $419 million in cash for Noront — and Wyloo could still raise its own offer before shareholders vote on whether to accept a proposal on Nov. 9 — a larger question looms about whether its projects in the Ring of Fire would ever be developed into mines.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/
Mining giant BHP has raised its offer to buy Canadian nickel miner Noront Resources, trumping the latest bid from Australian billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
Just a day after the board of Toronto-listed Noront recommended shareholders accept the C70¢-a-share offer from Dr Forrest’s Wyloo Metals, its chief executive Alan Coutts said it now supported BHP’s offer after it raised its bid from C55¢ to C75¢ a share.
https://www.northernminer.com/
ING Economics has published a new report in which its experts predict what the energy transition might bring for five key metals: copper, aluminum, nickel, cobalt, and lithium.
Taking into consideration where different regions of the world stand when it comes to moving towards a low-carbon future where global warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, ING’s analysts developed three scenarios that they used as a background to assess the possible performance of battery metals.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Noront Resources Ltd. has agreed to a $391-million takeover from Australian private equity firm Wyloo Metals Pty Ltd., trumping an earlier bid from global giant BHP Group Ltd., but the minerals development company in Ontario’s Ring of Fire region is leaving the door open to a higher offer.
Backed by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest, Wyloo first proposed buying Toronto-based Noront in May for 31.5 cents a share. Melbourne-based BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, upped the ante with a 55-cents-a-share bid in July, and Noront’s board supported it. But Wyloo came back in late August, offering 70 cents a share.
Base metals surged, led by zinc which spiked to the highest since 2007 after European smelters became the latest casualties in a global energy crisis that’s knocking supply offline and heaping pressure on manufacturers.
Zinc rose as much as 6.9 per cent on the London Metal Exchange, and a gauge of six industrial metals rapidly closed in on an all-time high. Aluminum, one of the most energy-intensive commodities, is at the highest since 2008.
This year’s London Metal Exchange (LME) Week was a subdued affair by comparison with past excess. Put on ice last year due to covid-19, the annual metals party returned in slimmed-down form with many opting for virtual over physical drinks. Analysts were in equally sober mood. Everyone’s still positive on the longer-term energy transition story but more immediately worried about China.
The debt problem faced by real estate developer China Evergrande Group is no Lehman Moment, to quote Bank of China’s head of commodity strategy Amelia Fu, speaking at the LME Seminar. But weakening Chinese property sales spell trouble for what is a big metallic demand driver.
ULAANBAATAR — Located just steps from downtown London landmarks like Harrods department store and Hyde Park, The Knightsbridge Apartments, a luxury residential building in the eponymous upscale central London neighborhood, advertises itself as “private homes enjoying levels of service and facilities to rival any five-star hotel.”
Boasting white limestone floors, hardwood timber features, a pool, spa and a feng shui garden, two-bedroom flats sell for between $4 million and $8 million, according to London estate agents. Residents, meanwhile, like their privacy. Many of the residences are owned by corporations aimed at camouflaging the ultimate owner.
LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Major mining companies are looking to invest in countries they previously considered too risky, including Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, propelled by a dwindling pipeline of big copper mines elsewhere and record-high prices.
Investor wariness about uncertain regulatory environments, challenging working conditions and corruption have meant some listed companies favoured countries such as Australia or Canada, despite the higher costs of operating there.
Starving microorganisms capable of surviving in extreme conditions have already managed to “eat” a nail in just three days. In Chile, a scientist is testing “metal-eating” bacteria she hopes could help clean up the country’s highly-polluting mining industry.
In her laboratory in Antofagasta, an industrial town 1,100-kilometers north of Santiago, 33-year-old biotechnologist Nadac Reales has been carrying out tests with extremophiles—organisms that live in extreme environments.
Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) said on Tuesday that expansion of its Kamoa-Kakula mine in Democratic Republic of Congo, the biggest copper operation to come online in decades, is ahead of scheduled, with full production now expected in the second quarter next year.
Construction of the mine Phase 2’s concentrator plant was originally expected to finish in the summer of 2022, the company said. The 3.8 million-tonne-per-annum (Mtpa) facility, a “carbon copy” of the Phase 1 plant, has been designed to double production to about 400,000 tonnes of copper a year.
Washington | Australia is in pole position to benefit from a sixfold increase in demand for so-called “critical minerals” worth $US12.9 trillion ($17.6 trillion) over the next two decades, driven by the race to hit net zero emissions, according to analysis from the International Monetary Fund.
In its latest World Economic Outlook, the Washington-based multilateral lender projects that a steady 15 per cent increase in its metal price index will bolster Australia’s annual economic growth by 1 percentage point, further strengthening the government’s finances.
BHP (ASX, LON, NYSE: BHP) chief executive Mike Henry said the company is ready for a strategic shift out of its geographical, advanced-economies comfort zone into “tougher jurisdictions”, as part of its plans to increase exposure to commodities such as copper and nickel, needed to power the energy transition.
Speaking at the Financial Times conference late on Thursday, the world’s largest miner’s CEO said he was confident the company could manage the risks of investing and operating in politically volatile countries.
Metallurgical coal prices are at all-time highs, providing companies like Teck Resources (TSX:TECK.B, NYSE:TECK) – the world’s second-largest producer of steelmaking coal – with a potential big windfall.
And with the long-term demand for steel expected to grow significantly over the next few decades – driven largely by global decarbonization efforts – there is perhaps no better time to be in the met-coal business.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Arizona Sonoran Copper Company Inc. is looking to raise $60-million in an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange, hoping to cash in on investor enthusiasm for one of the best-performing metals this year.
Run by former Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. chief executive officer George Ogilvie, the private-equity-owned junior filed paperwork to go public on Wednesday. Arizona Sonoran hopes to revive a copper mining camp in Arizona that ran dry in the 1980s. London-based Tembo Capital Management Ltd. and Resource Capital Funds of Denver are the biggest shareholders.
