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Gold and Silver

Equinox Gold cuts the ribbon on Greenstone mine – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – August 29, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Mining, community leaders reflect on arduous path to reach gold production

When Long Lake #58 Chief Judy Desmoulin views what’s been accomplished with the opening of a massive open-pit gold mine outside Geraldton, she offers a template of what can be accomplished in Canada when all parties work together to reach consensus.

“This is the model that needs to happen everywhere, with every industry.” Desmoulin took to the podium on Aug. 29 for the official opening of Equinox Gold’s Greenstone Gold Mine, one of the largest open-pit operations in Canada and the Vancouver company’s flagship mine.

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Protest concert in Carmacks, Yukon, calls for a ban on heap leaching – by Caitrin Pilkington (CBC News North – August 27, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Headliners included Snotty Nose Rez Kids and Love and a .38

First Nations across the Yukon are coming together in support of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun following the Eagle Gold mining disaster. On Aug, 24, crowds from across the Yukon gathered in Carmacks for a concert series — called Cyanide in the Water —in support of the First Nation, and to protest heap leach mining facilities in the territory.

The idea for a concert came to Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation Chief Nicole Tom in the weeks following the heap leach failure on June 24, which saw hundreds of millions of litres of cyanide-contaminated solution escape containment at the mine site.

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Drilling marks the path for a mine reboot in Red Lake – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – August 27, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

West Red Lake Gold Mines taking the patient approach before resuming production at the Madsen Mine

West Red Lake Gold Mines president-CEO Shane Williams was very guarded in talking about the blue-sky gold potential of the company’s Madsen Mine property in northwestern Ontario .

The Vancouver company is not rushing the dormant underground mine back into production but is taking a patient approach in its reboot of an operation that entered creditor protection in the fall of 2022 under the Pure Gold Mining banner.

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Gold still has plenty of room to run as hedge funds’ bullish bets hit 4-year high – Neils Christensen (Kitco News – August 26, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Hedge funds are starting to recognize the value of holding some gold and silver as money managers increase their bullish bets, according to the latest trade data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The CFTC’s disaggregated Commitments of Traders report for the week ending August 20 showed that money managers decreased their speculative gross long positions in Comex gold futures by 18,298 contracts to 222,142. At the same time, short positions rose by 2,908 contracts to 28,837.

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[Yukon’s Eagle gold mine disaster] Troubled water – by Julien Greene (CBC News – August 24, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/

In June, Yukon’s Eagle gold mine saw what the territory’s mines minister is calling a “catastrophic failure”: the release of hundreds of millions of litres of toxic cyanide solution into the environment. For many local residents, it’s a wake-up call about the risks and costs of large-scale mining in the territory.

Steve Buyck walks a forest path framed by highbush cranberries, rosehips and Siberian Aster. Slung over his shoulder, a rifle. The bullet in the chamber is large enough to down a moose.

These days, however, hunting the animal doesn’t come so easily for him. Not far away from Buyck’s home, along the banks of the Stewart River in central Yukon, is the Eagle mine, the site of a “catastrophic” heap leach pad failure and cyanide spill in late June.

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Gold bulls celebrate as Jackson Hole reinforces bets on rally – by Sybilla Gross and Yvonne Yue Li (Bloomberg News – August 26, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Gold’s record-setting rally above US$2,500 an ounce looks to have further to run as the U.S. Federal Reserve prepares to chop rates, traditional drivers such as lower yields return, and Western investors pile back in.

“Everybody thought the Fed was going to be the last to cut, but now they’re getting in line,” said Jay Hatfield, chief executive officer of Infrastructure Capital Advisors, who recently went long on gold options for the first time in years. Chair Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech — which promised rate cuts — was a watershed moment for bullion, according to Hatfield.

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Yukon government curbs expectations of sale of contaminated Eagle gold mine – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – August 24, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Yukon government is curbing expectations about a sale of the contaminated Eagle mine, saying that environmental remediation of the site is the main priority.

The open pit gold mine in central Yukon was placed into receivership earlier this month after an Ontario judge ruled that operator Victoria Gold Corp. wasn’t moving with enough urgency and lacked funding to remediate a major cyanide spill.

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Preparing for the worst? Polish central bank becomes biggest buyer of gold – by Indrabati Lahiri (Euro News – Ausgust 23, 2024)

https://www.euronews.com/

The president of the National Bank of Poland, Adam Glapinski, recently revealed that the central bank would continue to buy gold, and is aiming for the precious metal to make up 20% of the bank’s reserves.

The National Bank of Poland (NBP), also known as the Narodowy Bank Polski, became the joint biggest gold buyer amongst central banks in the second quarter of 2024, tying with India, according to the World Gold Council. This was after the NBP bought approximately 19 tonnes of the precious metal.

The president of the National Bank of Poland, Adam Glapinski, also said earlier this year that the central bank was planning to ensure that gold made up 20% of its reserves. At present, gold accounts for about 14.7% of the NBP’s reserves.

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Gold price back above $2,500 as Fed hints at September rate cuts – by Staff (Mining.com – August 23, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Gold rebounded above $2,500 an ounce on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signalled that time has come for interest rate cuts starting this September.

Spot gold gained 0.9% at $2,508.16 per ounce by 12:30 p.m. ET Friday, having fallen below the $2,500 level the day before. US gold futures were up 1.0% at $2,542.70 an ounce in New York. In a much-anticipated speech, Powell affirmed expectations that officials will begin lowering borrowing costs next month and made clear his intention to prevent further cooling in the US labor market.

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Silver set to soar on Samsung’s solid-state battery breakthrough – analysts – by Jordan Finneseth (Kitco News – August 19, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Gold has had a breakout year as the yellow metal surged to new heights above $2,500 while its grey counterpart, silver, has struggled to keep pace, but that could soon change, according to one analyst, as silver demand is expected to increase thanks to one new technological development from Samsung.

According to retired investment professional Kevin Bambrough, Samsung has developed a new solid-state (SS) battery. The inclusion of silver as a key component, combined with the increasing demand for electric vehicles, means that demand for the grey metal will soon increase.

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A multibillion-dollar sale raises uncomfortable question for Canada: Is our mining industry in decline? – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – August 19, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

South African mining giant’s purchase of Osisko highlights how some of the country’s richest mines are now managed by companies with headquarters in Switzerland, Brazil, Australia and beyond

Canada’s mining industry let out a collective groan after the $2.15-billion sale earlier this week of Toronto-based Osisko Mining Inc., which owns one of the largest, highest-grade undeveloped gold deposits in the world.

Chief executive John Burzynski couldn’t complain about the outcome; everyone who invested made money, he said. But his original goal, when he started looking for a bonanza in Canada about two decades ago, was to build a new Canadian mining giant.

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Victoria Gold CEO regrets silence during crisis, suspects cyanide spill caused by fluid buildup – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – August 16, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Victoria Gold Corp. chief executive officer John McConnell says he regrets staying silent while the company was in crisis, and suspects June’s catastrophic cyanide spill at its Yukon mine was caused by an uncontrolled buildup of fluid.

Four million tonnes of cyanide-laced rocks collapsed at the outdoor heap-leaching facility on June 24 and half of that spilled into the local environment beyond the company’s containment zone. The scale of the environmental damage is unknown, but the local First Nation fears the spill could devastate salmon fisheries, hunting grounds and groundwater. Dozens of dead fish were recently found in a creek near the mine and groundwater in the vicinity of the mine will have to be monitored for toxic cyanide for years to come.

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Barrick Gold CEO Mark Bristow hints at retirement in 2026 – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – August 13, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. chief executive officer Mark Bristow is raising the possibility that he may retire in 2026. Mr. Bristow took over as CEO in 2019 after Toronto-based Barrick acquired Randgold Resources Ltd., the Africa-focused mining company he founded and ran for about two decades.

Hard-nosed, detail-oriented and outspoken, the South African is one of the most driven executives in the mining industry. At Barrick, he has stickhandled multiple difficult situations, including patching up multiyear mining contract spats with the governments of Tanzania and Papua New Guinea.

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Gold Fields to buy Canadian miner Osisko in $1.57 billion cash deal – by Felix Njini and Nelson Banya (Reuters – August 12, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Gold Fields Ltd has agreed to acquire Osisko Mining for C$2.16 billion ($1.57 billion), it said on Monday, barely two years after an attempt to buy another Canadian miner was scuppered by a rival offer.

The Johannesburg-based gold producer will pay C$4.90 per share, a 55% premium to Osisko’s Aug. 9 trading price, it said in a statement. The deal will help the South African producer expand its presence in the Americas region, where it already has mines in Chile and Peru.

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Plans announced to mine old silver tailings at Gowganda – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – August 8, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Company is confident that high-grade silver can be found in the tailings that were not completely processed more than a century ago

There is a plan to revive a silver mining operation near Gowganda, north of Sudbury. Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc. announced Aug. 6 that it is seeking permits from the Ontario Ministry of Mines to proceed with the recovery of silver tailings from the historic Castle silver mine.

The plan is to reprocess the old tailings from the site to recover silver that got past the older technology from years gone by.

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