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Cobalt, Critical, Strategic and Rare Earth Minerals and Metals

Sudbury’s mining operations impress US Consul General – by Hugh Kruzel (Sudbury Star – August 23, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

‘There is a lot of interest from US companies here,’ Baxter Hunt says

Visiting dignitaries are always asked why they are in Sudbury. This week, The Sudbury Star met with Baxter Hunt, US Consul General, during his multi-day tour of the area. Hunt had met Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre at PDAC in Toronto earlier this year. Lefebvre invited him to visit.

“I promised him I was going to get up here soon,” said Hunt, who started in this role in the fall of 2023. It is a three-year assignment. Back in July, the Hunt family drove up to Lake Temagami. He called the area “spectacular” and since he has heard of Killarney, he seems keen to experience more of the north.

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Broken Promises: Western Hypocrisy in the Global Minerals Scramble – by Alex Kopp (Foreign Policy In Focus – August 22, 2024)

https://fpif.org/

Western governments need to enforce strong regulation that ensures responsible mining and holds accountable all companies involved in extracting and sourcing minerals.

Western governments have finally realized that the energy transition is happening—and that the resources needed are mostly in Chinese hands. Transition minerals, by some dubbed the “new oil,” are the key ingredients for renewables technologies like EV batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines that make the transition happen.

A large share of those minerals are extracted in the Global South, but China controls their value chains to a large degree. China processes over 90 percent of rare earth elements, almost 100 percent of graphite, over 75 percent of cobalt and over 60 percent of lithium.

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First shipment of critical minerals leaves Port of Churchill in more than 20 years – by Michael Joel-Hansen (Saskatoon Star Phoenix – August 20, 2024)

https://thestarphoenix.com/

The port and the rail line that feeds it are major part of the federal government’s strategy

A northern Canadian deep water port marked a major event as a shipment of critical minerals on Friday left the Port of Churchill for the first time in more than 20 years.

“It has got a great deal of geopolitical security implications,” Chandra Arya, a federal member of parliament and a member of the standing committee on international trade, said during an event hosted by the port’s current ownership group, Arctic Gateway Group LP.

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Pentagon invests US$20 million in Temiskaming cobalt refinery project – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – August 20, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Electra Battery Materials pockets Defense Department funding to finish refinery construction

Electra Battery Materials has snagged a US$20-million ($27.4 million) grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to finish construction of its cobalt refinery in the Temiskaming area.

It’s a huge endorsement for a small and ambitious Toronto company that most investors and industry watchers would have to undertake a Google search on to find out its particulars. Electra is out to displace China as the world’s dominant player in critical minerals processing.

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How Governments Impact the Global Mineral Supply – by Gregory Wischer & Lyle Trytten (Real Clear Energy – August 19, 2024)

https://www.realclearenergy.org/

Mineral demand is expected to grow significantly, with mineral shortages possible later in this decade. Governments are increasing this mineral demand with policies targeting the manufacture and deployment of mineral-intensive technologies like electric vehicles.

Governments impact the mineral supply too, through policies that grow, stifle, or moderate the mineral supply. They also inadvertently affect the mineral supply when government actions unrelated to the mineral industry result in public backlash against the industry.

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Maximizing the Benefits of the Renewed Global Interest in Africa’s Strategic Minerals – by Folashadé Soulé (Carnegie Endowment – August 15, 2024)

https://carnegieendowment.org/

Negotiations between African governments and foreign investors are often characterized by the various skills, technical capacities, and information asymmetries that shape the balance of power and influence outcomes. The dynamics of these negotiations—in pursuing extractive and infrastructure projects, in particular—merit a special focus, as agreements to carry them out often bind African countries for several decades.

Africa is home to a substantial share of the world’s reserves of mineral resources needed for the clean energy transition and could therefore be the main theater for the global race among China, the United States, European countries, Persian Gulf countries, and others to secure access. The International Energy Agency estimates that manufacturers of clean energy technologies will need forty times more lithium, twenty-five times more graphite, and about twenty times more nickel and cobalt in 2040 than in 2020.

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US Gives Tiny Canadian Firm Electra $20 Million to Build Cobalt Plant – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – August 19, 2024)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Canada’s Electra Battery Materials Corp. has received a $20 million award from the US government to build a cobalt plant close to North America’s automotive heartland.

The funds will support construction of a cobalt sulfate facility in Ontario that will be North America’s only refinery for the material used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, Electra said Monday in a statement. The $250 million project is about 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of Toronto at Temiskaming Shores.

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Canada invests over $11 million in critical minerals research in Saskatchewan – by Staff (Mining.com – August 14, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson announced on Wednesday over C$16 million ($11.6m) in new funding to support the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) in Saskatoon. The funding builds on earlier support of nearly C$13.5 million ($9.8m) from Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) for SRC to establish its rare earth processing facility and develop new rare earth mineral processing technologies.

Wednesday’s announcement includes C$15.96 million through PrairiesCan to enable SRC to acquire bastnaesite (a type of ore containing rare earth elements) from Canadian sources and create new domestic capacity for bastnaesite processing, which will be integrated into SRC’s rare earth processing facility.

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Is Canada’s critical-minerals strategy a green shift or greenwashing? – by Thierry Rodon and Sophie Thériault (Policy Option – August 14, 2024)

Policy Options – Institute for Research on Public Policy

Indigenous and remote communities will bear the long-lasting ecological, social and cultural impacts of mining. This cannot be ignored.

Canada has followed the lead of many countries recently by adopting policies and measures to promote rapid development of its value chain for domestic critical minerals essential in clean energy technology.

Climate change, geopolitical and economic turmoil are leading governments to emphasize the need to secure a supply of critical minerals, such as lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements, to help decarbonize the economy through, for example, solar panels, wind turbines and electric-vehicle batteries.

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China will limit exports of antimony, a mineral used in products from batteries to weapons (Associated Press – August 15, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

BEIJING (AP) — China’s Commerce Ministry announced Thursday that it will restrict exports of a mineral used in a wide range of products from batteries to weapons. Export controls will be placed on antimony starting Sept. 15 to safeguard China’s security and interests and fulfill its international non-proliferation obligations, the ministry said.

Anyone wishing to export the mineral in various forms will have to apply for a license. It wasn’t immediately clear to what extent exports would be blocked, though the “non-proliferation” wording suggested it could include weapons-related uses.

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Critical minerals are the key to 21st-century tech. Here’s the ‘trilemma’ that defines how to mine them (World Economic Forum – August 14, 2024)

https://www.weforum.org/

The era of “big oil” has passed its zenith; welcome to the era of “big shovels”. Critical minerals are the new staple of the international economy, and governments are fast realizing that they risk economic and strategic vulnerability without them.

The transition to renewable energy, digitalization of the economy and pressure to keep apace with developments in cutting-edge technology all hinge on a select few minerals (lithium, cobalt, copper, graphite, nickel and rare earths are commonly understood as the “big six”. However, others such as zinc and manganese can also be considered). It is essential that critical mineral strategies are implemented in a manner that promotes international cooperation while minimizing fragmentation due to geopolitical rivalry.

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China squeezes Western militaries with export ban on weapons metal – by Annie Lee and Mark Burton (Australian Financial Review – August 16, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

Singapore | China is tightening its grip over global critical mineral supplies by placing export controls on antimony, a metal used widely in ammunition and other military applications that has surged in price this year.

The country will apply the restrictions to antimony and antimony-related materials from September 15 to safeguard national security, a statement from the Ministry of Commerce said. That adds to earlier controls on other critical minerals including gallium and germanium, which have set off alarm bells in Washington.

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Securing America’s Critical Minerals: A Policy Priority Conundrum – by Ansel Bayly and Sarah Tzinieris (The Diplomat – August 8, 2024)

https://thediplomat.com/

Critical minerals sit at the intersection of three policy objectives for the United States – and at times the security, economic, and climate aims are in direct contradiction.

“When I think about climate change, I think jobs,” U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said. His landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) embodies this idea, tying together U.S. climate and industrial policies with a vast array of subsidies aimed at sparking a green manufacturing boom. Built into these subsidies are mechanisms to secure U.S. supply chains and to shore up domestic manufacturing, which has atrophied in recent decades, strategic priorities that Biden inherited from his predecessor, Donald Trump.

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Status of the critical strategic minerals industry in Alberta – by Diane L.M. Cook (Canadian Mining Journal – August 6, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Critical strategic minerals are the building blocks for a green and digital economy. The six critical minerals that hold the most significant potential for Canadian economic growth are lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements. These minerals are used in the production of many products including electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines.

The Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy (CCMS) aims to help Canada in the global energy transformation by making Canada a clean energy and technology supplier of choice in a net-zero world. The CCMS is backed by $3.8 billion of funding announced in the federal government’s Budget 2022 and includes a 30% critical mineral exploration tax credit for targeted critical minerals.

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Confusion and consternation on critical minerals – by Alisha Hiyate (Northern Miner – August 5, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

What started out as optimism two years ago when the federal government turned its eye to critical minerals, introducing a strategy, incentives and funding, and pledging faster permitting for mines, has turned into confusion and consternation.

In a classic case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’ the industry fears the government’s new attentions could actually end up hurting the sector.

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