Cobalt, Critical, Strategic and Rare Earth Minerals and Metals – Page 32

OPINION: Canada and the U.S. have a shared interest in securing self-sufficiency in critical minerals – by David Jacobson (Globe and Mail – October 4, 2021)

October 4, 2021

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

David Jacobson was the U.S. ambassador to Canada from 2009-2013 and is vice chair, BMO Financial Group.

Nineteenth-century British statesman Lord Palmerston once said, “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” It therefore follows that there is a natural rhythm to how and when nations choose to compete and when they choose to co-operate for the common good – even among long-time friends such as Canada and the United States.

With a new government elected in Canada, there is an opportunity to co-operate for the common good with the Biden administration on a number of key diplomatic and strategic initiatives with serious and long-term implications for both countries.

The World Wants Greenland’s Minerals, but Greenlanders Are Wary – by Jack Ewing (New York Times – October 1, 2021)

October 4, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/

NARSAQ, Greenland — This huge, remote and barely habited island is known for frozen landscapes, remote fjords and glaciers that heave giant sheets of ice into the sea. But increasingly Greenland is known for something else: rare minerals. It’s all because of climate change and the world’s mad dash to accelerate the development of green technology.

As global warming melts the ice that covers 80 percent of the island, it has spurred demand for Greenland’s potentially abundant reserves of hard-to-find minerals with names like neodymium and dysprosium. These so-called rare earths, used in wind turbines, electric motors and many other electronic devices, are essential raw materials as the world tries to break its addiction to fossil fuels.

Automakers Look to Hedge Against China’s Rare Earth Dominance – by Elisabeth Behrmann (Bloomberg News – September 22, 2021)

September 27, 2021

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — European automakers are in discussions with Australian rare earths explorer Arafura Resources Ltd. about sourcing elements that help power electric cars from outside China, which dominates global supply.

The miner is developing the A$1 billion ($728 million) Nolans project in Australia’s Northern Territory that will cover as much as 10% of global demand for the type of rare earths used in permanent magnets for electric motors.

The Energy Future Needs Cleaner Batteries – by Drake Bennett (Bloomberg News – September 23, 2021)

September 24, 2021

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Late in August, at a precisely specified point in the low Arctic, a geologist named Dave Freedman stood in a raw wind and a limitless expanse of tundra and began to thwack with a sledgehammer at a rock outcrop jutting up from the soil.

Freedman, 29, works for a company called KoBold Metals, and the process that had brought him to this pair of GPS coordinates in Quebec’s far north was complex. But the rock had had its own journey.

Tech industry braces for skyrocketing rare earth prices – by Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li (Nikkei Asia – September 14, 2021)

September 14, 2021

https://asia.nikkei.com/

TAIPEI — Electronic hardware manufacturers are sweating as prices for rare-earth metals surge amid soaring demand and simmering tensions between the U.S. and China, the world’s most important source of these vital materials.

For Max Hsiao, senior manager of an audio component maker based in Dongguan, China, the squeeze is coming from a magnetic alloy known as praseodymium neodymium. The price of the metal, which Hsiao’s company uses to assemble speakers for Amazon and laptop maker Lenovo, has doubled since June last year to around 760,000 yuan ($117,300) a ton this August.

The ‘infrastructure deal’ America must make with itself – by Ivan Sascha Sheehan (The Hill – August 27, 2021)

September 13, 2021

https://thehill.com/

As part of President Biden’s ambitious plan for the U.S. to effectively address climate change, for the country to transition to net-zero emissions by 2050 there has been a whole-of-government push to incorporate more and more renewable generation into the national grid.

In addition, newly-released details of the bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal “opens the gateway,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) contended in his review, to a near-term reconciliation package that will “accomplish much more on climate.”

Congo reviews Chinese mine contracts after President Felix Tshisekedi pushes back against deals favouring foreign firms – by Jevans Nyabiage (South China Morning Post – August 29, 2021)

September 7, 2021

https://www.scmp.com/

The world depends on the Democratic Republic of Congo for its cobalt to electrify vehicles. But the DRC, which supplies more than 60 per cent of the world’s reserves of cobalt ore, believes it may be getting short-changed by foreign mining companies – and is investigating whether unfair foreign mining contracts were signed during the previous administration.

The Congolese government early this week formed a commission to inevestigate the reserves at the Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM) copper and cobalt project, which is majority-owned by China Molybdenum Co.

Liberals planning green economy measures, with focus on jobs – by Mark Rendell and Adam Radwanski (Globe and Mail – September 2, 2021)

September 7, 2021

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Liberals are putting a distinctly green lens on their plans for job creation and economic growth, with promises to accelerate the transition toward a low-carbon economy if the party forms government after the Sept. 20 election.

The party platform, published Wednesday, promises a range of new green economy measures, including a 30-per-cent tax credit for clean technology investments and $2-billion to retrain oil and gas workers. It also pledges new strategies for clean-energy home renovations, aimed at kickstarting a “vibrant retrofit economy.”

U.S. Startups Seek to Claw Back China’s Share of ‘Technology Minerals’ Market – by Stew Magnuson (National Defense Magazine – September 7, 2021)

September 7, 2021

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/

MOUNTAIN PASS, Calif. — Atop an arid mountain about an hour’s drive from Las Vegas, an excavator scooped up giant boulders mined from a nearby open pit and dumped them into a machine designed to reduce them to pebbles about the size of a marble.

Down in the pit, some 500 feet below, miners were preparing explosive charges that would blast basalt out of the mountain later that afternoon. Inside that rock were rare earth minerals, 17 different elements valued as building blocks for some of today’s most ubiquitous technologies — everything from electric cars to smartphones.

The dangers of understating the magnitude of the battery material supply/demand imbalance – by Matt Fernley (Kitco News – August 20, 2021)

August 23, 2021

https://www.kitco.com/

Matt Fernley is Head of Research, Volta Fund; MD of Battery Materials Review.

I wanted to talk about the Nature article on battery raw materials that’s been doing the rounds this week. The article, Electric Cars: The Battery Challenge (Nature, 19 August 2021), is an otherwise excellent discussion of a lot of the issues with sourcing materials for electric cars. Unfortunately there’s a big “but”. And that “but” is in its treatment of primary battery raw materials.

While the author, Davide Castelvecchi, has clearly spoken to a lot of experts on batteries, recycling and other elements of the supply chain, maybe he hasn’t known exactly which questions to ask, because we get a discussion almost entirely on ternary batteries with little to no mention of LFPs (and their ability to lower demand for Nickel, Cobalt and Manganese) and we also get only three paragraphs on the impact of extractive industries on the battery industry.

All the “analysis” on raw materials is effectively based on BNEF’s Long-Term Electric Vehicle Outlook for 2021 and the general conclusion, based on a quote from the BNEF analyst, is that “temporary shortages [of battery raw materials] and dramatic price swings… [will] work themselves out”.

Massive expansions won’t hurt cobalt price as supply shifts to oligopoly – report – by Staff (Mining.com – August 16, 2021)

August 18, 2021

https://www.mining.com/

Cobalt hydroxide (feedstock material generally produced at mines as part of the primary processing of ores) has been on a tear, up 15% in July to $46,375 a tonne (midpoint 100% Co basis CIF Asia) bringing gains so far this year to 64%, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

China Molybdenum announced last week it will invest just over $2.5 billion to double copper and cobalt production at its giant Tenke Fungurume mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which it bought from Freeport McMoRan five years ago.

That announcement comes on the heels of China Moly’s acquisition of another Freeport property in the Congo, Kisanfu, for $550 million in December.

Vale unlocks the next phase of Voisey’s Bay – by David Keating (Canadian Mining Journal – August 16, 2021)

August 17, 2021

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

The Labrador Aboriginal Training Partnership (LATP), an agreement between
Vale and the Labrador Inuit and Innu of Nunatsiavut, Nunatukavut and Innu
Nation has been instrumental for recruiting and training Aboriginal workers
from the region. Employment numbers from these Aboriginal groups at Voisey’s
Bay is touted as being 50% of the overall workforce.

One of the largest nickel deposits in the world has been given a new lease on life. Vale’s Voisey’s Bay property in northern Labrador, operating as an open pit mine since 2005, was nearing the end of its production life.

Instead, innovations in partnerships and technology will allow Vale to go underground and develop two new orebodies that will extend the life of Voisey’s Bay to 2034.

First ore production on the new underground phase of Vale’s Voisey’s Bay project was announced on June 11, with full production capacity slated to be reached by August.

The US is digging into its tax toolkit to rebuild its rare earth industry – by Mary Hui (Quartz.com – August 16, 2021)

August 16, 2021

https://qz.com/

To build a full rare earth supply chain, it’s sometimes not enough to just mine, extract, and process ores. Far away from project sites where heavy machinery dig deep into the earth, small tweaks to the tax code could align incentives and spur production to boost a domestic industry.

That’s the thinking anyway behind a bipartisan bill introduced in the US Congress last week, which would provide tax credits for the domestic production of permanent rare earth magnets.

The “Rare Earth Magnet Manufacturing Production Tax Credit Act,” put forward by Democratic representative Eric Swalwell and his Republican colleague Guy Reschenthaler, would give a tax credit of $20 per kilogram of rare earth magnet produced domestically in the US. The tax credit increases to $30 per kilogram if all component rare earth material is produced or recycled in the US.

Column: U.S. infrastructure bill targets critical minerals supply – by Andy Home (Reuters – August 12, 2021)

August 16, 2021

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The United States’ $1 trillion infrastructure package is undoubtedly good news for industrial metals. More money for upgrading highways, railways and power grid systems will mean more demand for steel, copper and aluminium.

But when it comes to battery metals and critical minerals, the bipartisan bill is as much about boosting domestic supply as demand.

A total $6 billion is earmarked for battery materials processing and manufacturing projects with another $140 million allocated for a rare earths demonstration plant, part of a broader investment drive across the full length of the metallic supply chain.

Canada’s first rare earth miner in trading halt on expansion rumours – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – August 10, 2021)

August 11, 2021

https://www.mining.com/

Australia’s Vital Metals (ASX: VML), the first rare earths producer in Canada, has announced a trading halt until Thursday, August 12, on reports of negotiations to acquire two projects in Quebec, one of which is considered to be the world’s fourth largest dysprosium deposit.

The company, AFR reported, is said to be in final talks to acquire the Zues project and a 68% interest in Kipawa, two rare earths assets owned by Quebec Precious Metals Corp. (TSX-V: QPM).

Pushing the Aussie miner’s shares up, which have climbed 22% in the last week and an eye-popping 308% in the past year, was Vital’s announcement on Monday that it is actively seeking to expand into US capital markets.