SEOUL, May 17 (Reuters) – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed on Wednesday to enhance cooperation on critical minerals and continue joint efforts to fend off North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
Trudeau arrived in Seoul on Tuesday in the first visit in nine years by a Canadian leader as the two countries explore ways to expand security ties, while navigating a rivalry between the United States and China.
Green transition will take six times the mineral output world is producing now
The latest key Canadian and global mining production numbers are out, and they’re grim. The International Energy Agency says that to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, we need to be producing six times the current global output of mineral inputs just to build the turbines, transmission lines, batteries and other items essential for low-carbon energy infrastructure.
Instead, we are mining less than we did in 2019. While policy-makers constrain new investments in fossil fuels, the raw materials we need in order to develop alternative forms of energy are not coming along quickly enough. The result seems likely to be an energy crunch.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Demand for cobalt is set to more than double by 2030 to 388,000 tonnes as the electric vehicle (EV) sector shifts into overdrive, says a new Benchmark Mineral Intelligence report. The outlook entails compound yearly cobalt demand growth of 10% over the weak 2022 figures, according to the Benchmark agency’s May 10 report commissioned by the Istanbul, Turkey-based Cobalt Institute.
“The industry is optimistic the cobalt market will continue to grow in the coming years, driven by the success of cobalt’s use in superalloys and hard metals, and particularly in EVs,” the Cobalt Institute’s interim director general, Caroline Braibant, said in an email to The Northern Miner.
JOHANNESBURG — A wind farm in Namibia and a floating solar farm on Zimbabwe’s massive Kariba Dam are among the new green energy projects Chinese companies are looking at investing in this year after Beijing pledged to help African countries address their energy problems with renewable sources rather than fossil fuels.
“Chinese overseas renewable energy investments aim to deliver China’s international climate commitments of accelerating the energy transition away from fossil fuels in Africa, China’s largest trading partner,” Lei Bian, a policy fellow at the The London School of Economics and Political Science, told VOA.
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Diversified miner Rio Tinto has struck a $14-million deal with ASX-listed Platina Resources to acquire its Platina scandium project, in New South Wales. The project comprises a long-life, high-grade scalable resource that could produce up to 40 t/y of scandium oxide, for an estimated period of 30 years.
Rio currently produces scandium oxide from titanium dioxide production waste streams at Sorel-Tracy in Quebec. Once operational, the Platina scandium project will enable Rio Tinto to more than double its yearly scandium production.
Vital Metals’ construction halt a reality check on what it will take to diversify
The supply chain snarls of the past few years put a wind at the back of rare earth companies, with governments around the world eager to support a homegrown sector. Now, the current economic turbulence and potential for a recession are testing that momentum.
Last week, Australia’s Vital Metals Ltd. announced that it had halted construction on its half-finished rare earth processing facility in Saskatoon, after its costs rose substantially in recent years.
Tokyo | Australian critical mineral producers say Japan offers crucial capital and a growing market for their products at a time when the federal government is promoting investment from “like-minded” countries instead of dominant player China.
A delegation of Australian critical minerals companies visiting Tokyo this week said they were optimistic about Japan’s ability to replicate the huge investments it has made in Australian gas and iron ore over the decades, but they also warned it was pointless trying to compete with China.
Indigenous leaders are looking to the courts and to the federal government to uphold their rights over critical minerals following recent provincial assertions of control, but a former Liberal staffer says this is not a fight the federal government should be wading into.
The Biden administration’s April 12 vehicle emissions standards announcement, which put a U.S. government-sized thumb on the scale in favour of electric vehicle production, added to the existing pressure to approve and launch critical minerals mines in Canada to supply key materials for electric vehicle batteries. But the race to develop these resources has exacerbated tensions between provinces and the Indigenous nations on whose traditional territory the resources are located.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
The final cost of the plant has grown from $20 million to $60 million
Mere months after a visit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promoting the importance of critical minerals, Canada’s only rare earth mineral mining project is stopping the construction of its processing plant in Saskatchewan.
In a recent news release, Vital Metals, owner of the N.W.T.’s Nechalacho mine project, said the current scale of operations at its North T pit “will not achieve positive cash flow from the project.” Now the company is looking for new funding sources and partners “to potentially build a sustainable business model for the Saskatoon business.”
https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/
The Northwest Territories capital city of Yellowknife is emerging as a northern link in North America’s electric vehicle supply chain. Already home to Canada’s only rare earths mine, a 160-kilometers (100 miles) area around this northern mining town happens to be enriched with the lithium and cobalt that is in massive demand for EV batteries, along with numerous other minerals critical to both Canada and the United States.
A roughly 9,600-square-kilometer (3,700 square miles) area that extends 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Yellowknife to Vital Metal Ltd.’s Nechalacho rare earths mine is riddled with hardrock lithium sources known as pegmatites.
The battery commodities market is experiencing a golden age of growth and development, spurred by rapid technological advances and the growing demand for batteries to support cleaner mobility and the roll-out of variable renewables generators.
Global battery demand is forecast to grow by some 1 615 GWh, or 384.5%, over the next eight years, according to statistics aggregator Statista. This anticipated upsurge in demand for lithium-ion and other batteries is largely attributed to the rise of electric vehicles (EVs), which are expected to progressively replace internal combustion engine passenger cars.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/
Proponents say Canada must do more to turn aspiration into action
Drive two hours north of Ottawa, put on a hard hat and bright orange vest, descend into a pit — and you find yourself on the frontline in the fight to be part of the new, green economy.
A mining project might not be what comes to mind when you think of the transition to a lower emissions economy. But embedded in electric vehicles, solar panels and hydrogen fuel storage are metals and minerals that come from mines like the one in Lac-des-Îles, Que.
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australia and Germany will collaborate on new opportunities for critical mineral projects, with Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King signing a joint Declaration of Intent with Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Dr Franziska Brantner.
The Declaration will support a joint study to help Australia meet its ambitions to develop value-added industries around critical minerals, from extraction to refinement and recycling, and to help Germany secure reliable supplies of critical minerals to underpin its manufacturing and recycling activities.
Ottawa plans to spend $1.3 billion over the next six years to improve the impact assessment process
OTTAWA – Worried that the same process that has held up oil and gas projects will slow critical minerals projects and wind farms, the Liberals are again promising more funding to ensure Canada’s environmental assessment process works faster.
In last week’s budget, under the title “Getting Major Projects Done,” the Liberals promised to spend $1.3 billion over the next six years to improve the impact assessment process they first put in place when they came to office.
LONDON, April 4 (Reuters) – The problems around artisanal cobalt mining in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will take “a coalition to solve”, according to Microsoft (MSFT.O). The $1.9 trillion U.S. tech giant was recently in the DRC to see what the other end of the consumer electronics supply chain looks like.
Microsoft chief of staff, tech and corporate responsibility Michele Burlington paid a visit in December to the Mutoshi artisanal mining site, where up to 15,000 miners, including children, are working in highly dangerous conditions.
