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Cobalt, Critical, Strategic and Rare Earth Minerals and Metals

OPINION: Car companies face a chip problem. Soon China will hand them a cobalt problem that might trigger radical ownership moves – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – April 17, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

U.S. President Joe Biden found out the hard way that supply chain obstacles are bad news for Corporate America. He moved fast to hand US$50-billion to the U.S. semiconductor industry after chip shortages began to shut down auto production.

The chip glitch was a wake-up call for car companies, which had been spoiled by the endless supply of everything they needed to keep their assembly lines rolling – steel, aluminum, copper, rubber, glass, plastic, electronics. Even when their purchasing managers squeezed prices, the supplies kept coming. America the bountiful!

What Mr. Biden and automakers may not fully realize is that the chip shortage may just be the start of their supply problems. That’s because all the auto biggies are converting their fleets to electric power, which essentially means they are becoming battery companies. The economic and strategic risks of this move are enormous.

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Reshoring Canada group to advocate for less supply-chain reliance on risky countries – by Steven Chase (Globe and Mail – April 15, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Former Ontario economic development minister Sandra Pupatello and former federal industry minister Tony Clement are launching a new advocacy group to promote returning critical manufacturing to Canada and rebuilding supply chains so they don’t rely on increasingly risky countries such as China.

The venture, Reshoring Canada, aims to be a non-partisan repository and advocate of ideas to refashion supply chains to make them safer and more secure. It’s been in discussions with the U.S.-based Reshoring Initiative, led by retired U.S. industrialist Harry Moser.

The term “reshoring” refers to the practice of moving businesses operating abroad back to their original country.

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First Cobalt’s man with the marketing plan – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – April 8, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Michael Insulan appointed by cobalt processor to advance offtake strategy

First Cobalt wants to hit the ground running by the time its refurbished northeastern Ontario refinery is fired up by the fall of 2022. The Toronto cobalt processor has appointed Michael Insulan as its vice-president, commercial.

Based in Europe, his strategic priority will be to key in on major battery suppliers, the automotive sector and all things to do with the lithium-ion battery supply chain sector.

Insulan has nearly 20 years of experience in oil and gas, bulk commodities, base and minor metals, working for Royal Dutch Shell, CRU, and Eurasian Resources Group. The last four years, he’s become known as an industry expert on cobalt.

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Opposition Wins Greenland Election After Running Against Rare Earths Mine – by Isabella Kwai (New York Times – April 7, 2021)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Greenland’s left-wing environmentalist party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, won a victory in general elections on Tuesday after campaigning against the development of a contentious rare earths mine partly backed by China.

The party, which had been in the opposition, won 37 percent of the vote over the longtime incumbents, the center-left Siumut party.

The environmentalists will need to negotiate a coalition to form a government, but observers said their election win in Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark that sits on a rich vein of untapped uranium and rare earth minerals, signaled concerns from voters over the impact of mining.

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Mining project in doubt after Greenland opposition wins elections (Yahoo Finance – April 7, 2021)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

An environmentalist party has won snap elections in Greenland, throwing into doubt a controversial project to mine one of the world’s biggest deposits of rare earth metals.

Taking more than a third of the vote, the left-wing opposition Inuit Ataqatigiit party (IA) unseated the social democratic Siumut, which has governed Greenland for decades.

“Thank you to those who trusted us to work with the people in the centre for the next four years,” IA leader Mute Egede said after the results were announced.

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Battery and ‘green’ metals brighten outlook for mining sector – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – April 6, 2021)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The transition to electric vehicles could take a decade or two but demand for the key metals in batteries and energy storage systems will only continue to grow as the shift to a greener future gains traction.

China currently leads the world in EV and battery production. The latest statistics from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to BMO Capital Markets, show that sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in February were 585% higher than the same month in 2020, and the country’s production of lithium-ion batteries jumped 108% year-on-year to 18.25 billion units annually in the months of January and February.

The U.S. wants to catch up. Under U.S. President Joe Biden’s US$2.3 trillion infrastructure renewal and job creation plan announced last week, US$174 billion has been earmarked for EVs.

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Mining sector needs to get in on the hunt for strategic minerals – by Ken Coates (Sudbury Star – April 7, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Ken Coates is a Munk senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Canadian access to these strategic minerals is crucial if we are to ensure the long-term viability of our technology sector

The Canadian mining sector has been a vital cog in the country’s economy during the pandemic, with the importance of the industry growing steadily over time.

Operations and exploration continued during the COVID-19 outbreak, collaborations with Indigenous communities expanded, technological sophistication accelerated, and, at a time when environmental assessment processes deter investment in Canada, international companies find this country a solid business environment.

With the rapid expansion of the global innovation economy, and given the foundational importance of selected elements, the availability of strategic minerals has become a critical element in the development of the 21st-century economy.

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Mining executives warn Ottawa about dependence on China for strategic minerals amid deteriorating relations – by Jesse Snyder (National Post – April 5, 2021)

https://nationalpost.com/

It’s estimated that China will control 67 per cent of global capacity to build lithium-ion batteries by 2030

OTTAWA — Mining executives and national security experts are warning the federal government about China’s domination of strategic mineral supplies, saying Ottawa needs to better protect supply chains for modern technology that relies on them like electric vehicles and smart phones.

In testimony before the House of Commons natural resources committee this month, experts described China’s decades-long efforts to control the market for critical minerals — including the 17 rare earth elements — by rapidly expanding its processing capacity or by acquiring foreign assets to dominate supply chains.

The minerals, which include magnesium, lithium and scandium, are used to develop such strategic products as solar panels, wind turbines, electric car batteries, mobile phone components and guided missiles.

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Greenland has an election on Tuesday. Why are the U.S. and China so interested in its outcome? – by Paul Waldie (Globe and Mail – April 5, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

On an Arctic island with some of the world’s largest supplies of rare-earth elements, a heated debate about mining and its environmental costs will have big consequences for global superpowers

Elections in Greenland rarely get much notice beyond the shores of the ice-covered island. But when Greenland’s 41,000 voters head to the polls on April 6 in a snap election, the results will be followed closely in Beijing, Washington, Brussels and beyond.

Greenland has been caught in a global power struggle over access to rare earth metals, a collection of 17 elements with names such as yttrium, scandium and lanthanum that are used in more than 200 products, including cellphones, wind turbines, electric cars and fighter jets.

The island is home to some of the world’s largest deposits of rare earths, and a massive mining project in south Greenland has become a focal point in the race to secure the strategic resource.

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[Nickel/Cobalt Nodules] [Open Letter to Brands Calling for a Ban on Seafloor Minerals – by Deep Green Metals – April 1, 2021)

https://deep.green/

To: BMW, Volvo, Google and Samsung SDI

At DeepGreen, we agree that seafloor minerals development should be approached cautiously and with an exacting commitment to science-based impact analysis and environmental protection.

A precautionary approach has informed our strategy from the outset, including our mission to provide battery metals sourced from deep-ocean nodules that generate zero solid waste, no toxic tailings, and a fraction of the carbon emissions compared to land-based sources.

Such environmental benefits can be achieved only through collecting polymetallic nodules, 4,000 meters deep on the abyssal plain where the abundance of life is up to 1,500 times less than in the vibrant ecosystems on land from where battery metals are currently sourced.

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Rare earth quandary: China has US by the throat – by Dave Makichuk (Asia Times – March 28, 2021)

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The facts are nothing short of startling. A high-tech F-35 stealth fighter jet contains 920 lbs. of rare earth elements (REEs). Each US Navy Arleigh Burke-class AEGIS destroyer has 5,200 lbs., and a Virginia-class submarine has 9,200 lbs.

These commodities are also key to the future of alternative energy, electric vehicles, mobile phones, and even headphones. Combine that with the fact that 80% of all American rare earth supplies come from China.

A nation now run by leader, Xi Jinping, who recently ordered his Marine Corps — in an act of sheer madness, or, to up the ante on the US — to prepare for war.

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China’s rare earth supplies disrupted by Myanmar tumult – by Dominic OO (Asia Times – March 22, 2021)

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YANGON – Fears are growing of a global shortage of rare earth minerals used in the manufacture of high-tech devices as unrest in Myanmar following the February 1 coup disrupts exports to China.

Chinese companies started complaining about delays in shipments of the minerals since mid-March, reportedly due to the deteriorating political and economic situation, which Chinese media reports say have had an impact on logistics.

Rare earth metals are used in aerospace, advanced military equipment, mobile phones and electric vehicles, among other tech products. Myanmar is a major supplier of rare earth ores, which are exported to China for extraction and processing, and then either used in local production or shipped on to global markets.

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Northern Ontario can be global mining destination for critical minerals – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 19, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Province, producers take steps toward creating electric vehicle supply chain

The Chinese control of the world’s supply of critical minerals offers an opportunity for Ontario to become a global leading supplier in the electric vehicle supply chain.

That was one of the messages put forth in a virtual panel discussion on Critical Minerals Supply Chains in the Post-COVID Economy, a virtual event hosted by the Canadian Club in Toronto, March 17.

Northern Ontario has an abundance of high-quality critical minerals that are in increasing demand, as the world moves toward a cleaner and greener economies in manufacturing and a more decarbonized planet.

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One CEO’s decade-long quest to find cost-competitive rare earth minerals outside China – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – March 13, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

After a decade-long search for a new source of rare earth minerals that wasn’t located in China, Constantine Karayannopoulos finally found his answer in “monazite” sands in the southeastern U.S., not far off the coast of Georgia.

There was just one small catch: his source of rare earths is literally radioactive, with a decent amount of uranium and thorium mixed in.

But Karayannopoulos, a 30-year veteran of the rare earths sector and chief executive of Toronto-based Neo Performance Materials Inc., would not be deterred by radioactivity, or even a pandemic.

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Rare metals play a strategic and essential role in health – by Michel Jébrak, Jack-Pierre Piguet and Yann Gunzburger (The Conversation – March 16, 2021)

https://theconversation.com/

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fact that most countries do not have sufficient health sovereignty to face such a crisis. Shortages of masks, respirators, medicines and now vaccines were felt in many countries, even the most advanced.

These problems show that our societies are dependent on certain countries for essential products. But what about metals?

Our research team has been working for a few years on the interactions between earth sciences and social sciences, especially around the concept of social geology and the dynamics of resource-rich territories.

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