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Cobalt, Critical, Strategic and Rare Earth Minerals and Metals

The Mining Gap: Critical Minerals and Geopolitical Competition – by Gregory Brew and Morgan Bazilian (Just Security – November 7, 2022)

https://www.justsecurity.org/

This week, world leaders are gathering in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for COP27, the 27th annual United Nations conference on climate change. This year’s conference carries with it the weight of the climate challenge, an enormous threat facing humanity, but also comes at a time of growing volatility in global energy markets, rising energy prices, a food security crisis, and war.

As a result, countries both rich and poor will be focused on immediate security and economic threats. While Russia’s war in Ukraine has convinced policymakers of the necessity of divesting from volatile oil markets, the lack of readily available raw materials and supply chain issues continue to impede rapid transitions toward clean energy.

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Federal government moves to cut China out of Canadian critical mineral industry – by Mia Rabson (Canadian Press/CBC News Politics – November 2, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/

China a dominant player in critical minerals refining and processing battery cell components

After a national security review, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne is ordering three Chinese resource companies to sell their interests in Canadian critical mineral firms. Champagne’s order comes less than a week after he said Canada would be limiting the involvement of foreign state-owned companies in the industry.

Critical minerals and metals, such as lithium, cadmium, nickel and cobalt, are essential components of everything from wind turbines and electric cars to laptops, solar panels and rechargeable batteries.

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China’s Rare Earth Metals Monopoly Could Be Coming to an End – by John Feng (Newsweek – November 2, 2022)

https://www.newsweek.com/

After decades of geopolitical tensions over access to oil, the transition to clean energy is setting up a global competition over another natural resource: rare earth elements.

The 17 metals, which aren’t scarce but are hard to find in economically viable concentrations, are significant to greening economies of the future and the defense industrial base of the United States and others.

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Ottawa cracks down on foreign state-owned investments into Canadian critical minerals industry after facing criticism it went too easy on China – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – October 29, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The federal government is tightening the rules to make it considerably harder for foreign state-owned firms to invest in Canadian critical-minerals companies, after it faced harsh criticism earlier this year for allowing too much Chinese investment into domestic resource firms.

Effective immediately, transactions involving investments by state-owned firms into Canadian critical-minerals companies will only be approved on an “exceptional basis,” the government of Canada said in a release.

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Teck Resources’ oilsands exit will allow it to lean into ‘low-carbon metals,’ says CEO – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – October 27, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

Miner sells its 21.3% stake in Fort Hills oilsands site to Suncor for $1 billion

Teck Resources Ltd. announced its long-telegraphed exit from Alberta’s oilsands Thursday, in a deal to sell its 21.3 per cent stake in the Fort Hills project to Suncor Energy Inc. for $1 billion.

Fort Hills, the most recently constructed oilsands mine located north of Fort McMurray, Alta., has been plagued by a series of operational and market glitches that restricted it from full production since operations started in 2018. When the deal goes through, Suncor will own a 75.3 per cent stake in the project with France’s TotalEnergies SE holding the remainder.

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Will Africa’s metals boom suffer the same curse as oil? (The Citizen/AFP – October 26, 2022)

https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/

Mechanical diggers are hard at work in the bleak landscape of the Moanda open-cast mine in Gabon, using giant jaws to rip out manganese and then dump the ore into trucks with a crash.

“We’re lucky here in Moanda. We find it about five to six metres (about 18 feet) below the surface,” said manager Olivier Kassibi, whose mine yields 36 tonnes of manganese each day.

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How the DRC became the battleground of a proxy war over precious resources – by Andres Schipani (Financial Times – October 27, 2022)

https://www.ft.com/

Local and foreign-backed forces are waging a deadly offensive in the mineral-rich heart of Africa

Some residents of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo simply call it la guerre sans fin — the war without end. One morning in August, Abigael Bahati felt it in her skin as she searched for cassava leaves close to the village of Kanombe.

“I was hungry and I had gone to look for food but I was caught,” says the 28-year-old mother of an 18-month-old baby. “They took me away and raped me,” she recalls, adding that others fled in fear of their lives.

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Scientists want to produce cosmic mineral to replace REEs in industrial magnets – by Staff (Mining.com – October 23, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Engineers at Northeastern University have patented a process to accelerate the production of a mineral known as tetrataenite, whose magnetic properties make it a leading candidate to replace magnets made of rare earths.

Tetrataenite is not found in nature—at least, not on earth. It is only found in meteorites. This means that making the cosmic mineral requires manipulating the atomic structures of its iron and nickel components by arranging them into a crystal structure that resembles tetrataenite, thus speeding up a natural process that would take millions of years on our planet.

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As Ontario joins clean energy talks, federal minister Wilkinson looks to streamline project approvals – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – October 25, 2022)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Ontario has joined a country-wide consultation process to hammer out energy and mining strategies for transitioning to clean power using critical minerals, Canada’s natural resources minister said on Tuesday.

The province joins nine other provinces and territories who’ve already signed up for the ministry’s Regional Energy and Resource Tables or said they will soon join the effort, Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said. Quebec and Alberta have been delayed by leadership changes but should agree, leaving out one prairie province for now.

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Idaho cobalt mine is a harbinger of what’s to come – by Kylie Mohr (High Country News – October 21, 2022)

https://www.hcn.org/

A new venture near Salmon signals an uptick in hardrock mining across the West.

Idaho’s Cobalt Belt is a 34-mile-long desirable stretch of ore tucked under the Salmon River Mountains that’s considered “globally significant” by mining companies. And miners are interested in that cobalt: a hard, brittle metal used in electric vehicle batteries. On Oct. 7, Australia-based Jervois Global opened the only cobalt mine in the U.S. there to much fanfare.

The new mine, which will be at full operating capacity in 2023, is part of a burgeoning Western mineral rush. These modern prospectors are focused on so-called green metals like cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel and rare earth elements that are used in clean energy applications.

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Australian miner bails on Quebec rare earth projects amid First Nation resistance – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – October 13, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

Vital Metals bills itself as Canada’s first rare earth producer and decision to ditch projects could be significant

Australia’s Vital Metals Ltd. walked away from two Quebec-based projects earlier this week due to objections from the Kebaowek First Nation, the latest evidence that maximizing Canada’s potential to be a player in the energy transition will require a more sophisticated relationship with Indigenous communities.

The Sydney-based company had signed an $8-million agreement with Montreal-based Quebec Precious Metals Corp. (QPM) in August last year to acquire 68- and 100-per-cent interests in the Kipawa and Zeus rare earth projects situated in Quebec’s Témiscamingue region, about 90 kilometres northeast of North Bay, Ont.

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Rio Tinto, Ottawa to invest $737-million in titanium and scandium project in Quebec – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – October 11, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Rio Tinto Group and the federal government are planning to invest a combined $737-million to modernize a large Quebec metals processing plant that could see the giant Anglo-Australian miner dramatically cut its emissions and become one of the first North American producers of the critical metal titanium.

Rio Tinto, one of the world’s biggest mining companies, said in a release Tuesday it will invest up to $515-million into the Sorel-Tracy, Que., facility over the next eight years. Ottawa is planning to kick in as much as $222-million for the project over the same time frame.

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US opens new cobalt mine as EV battery needs grow – by Claire Bushey and Aime Williams (Financial Times – October 7, 2022)

https://www.ft.com/

Recently passed climate law boosts incentives for electric cars with domestic materials

The first new US cobalt mine to open in decades is ramping up production in Idaho, buoyed by the carmakers’ increasing demand for battery raw materials and legislation designed to foster a battery supply chain.

The mine is located in the state’s Salmon River Mountains at 8,000ft above sea level. Owned by Australia’s Jervois Global, chief executive Bryce Crocker said it will reach full production in February, extracting 2,000 tonnes of the bluish ore a year. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was scheduled for Friday.

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When it comes to Canada’s EV dominance, less may be more – by David Olive (Toronto Star – October 1, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com/

The existing Canadian EV supply-chain infrastructure might have sufficient momentum to provide enormous economic benefit without immediate additional public funds, David Olive writes.

“Batteries are fast becoming the engines of the global economy,” say the authors of a report this month that urges Canada to accelerate its progress in a new industry that will define the 21st-century clean-energy economy more than most.

The energy and economic analysts who prepared the report, called Canada’s New Economic Engine, believe Canada can become a global leader in developing, manufacturing and exporting advanced electric vehicle (EV) technology, with an emphasis on the ever-more-sophisticated batteries that power EVs.

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The scramble for rare earths carries big geopolitical risks – by Misha Glenny (Financial Times – September 26, 2022)

https://www.ft.com/

But without these metals there are limited solutions to our planetary problems

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated just how inadvisable over-dependence on a single supplier can be. Russia’s dominance in the European gas market turned into a geopolitical nightmare in the space of a few weeks.

Just imagine if a single country provided you with 90 per cent of your needs for essential commodities. Now imagine how you’d feel if that country was China. Actually, we don’t need to use our imagination because that is exactly the reality for Europe’s galloping consumption of rare earth metals.

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