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Junior Exploration Sector

Nickel developer hires access road consultant – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – April 15, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Tartisan’s Kenbridge Project hold promise of nine years of mine life

Tartisan Nickel, a mine developer in the Kenora area, has retained a Thunder Bay mining services company to help with project management of its Kenbridge Project. Northwest Solutions specializes in catering to the forestry and natural resources sector since 2014. The family-owned Thunder Bay company helps with training, project management support and communication consulting services.

Tartisan said Northwest Solutions, specifically co-owner Kevin Shorthouse, will handle the design, permitting and construction of an access road to the site.

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Sudbury letter: Mining exploration in Ontario dying – by Peter Best (Sudbury Star – March 28, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Re: ‘Ford government ignoring mine exploration sector,’ March 26.

Mr. Chitaroni’s opinion column is too timid and politically correct to properly represent the dire state of Ontario’s junior mining sector.

The Ford government has more than ignored this sector. Rather, it has abandoned it to the economy-killing, perfectly legal, consult and accommodate and UNDRIP claims of First Nations and their big city lawyers.

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Why Ontario can’t afford to ignore juniors in the next budget – by Gino Chitaroni (Northern Miner – March 22, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Without a doubt, one of the most important challenges facing the next generation is global warming and the need to decarbonize the transportation sector. This can only happen with the sustainable development of new mines that produce the copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium and other critical minerals that can be found throughout northern Ontario’s rich geology.

However, it is the junior exploration sector that has traditionally found economic mineral deposits that are sold to majors who have the financial capacity to build new mines. This important and vital part of the mining ecosystem is largely being ignored by the Ontario government.

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OPINION: Ford government ignores vital exploration sector – by Gino Chitaroni (Northern Ontario Business – March 21, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Gino Chitaroni is president of Kirkland Lake’s Northern Prospectors Association and is an Ontario Prospectors Association board member.

Junior mining sector needs support, province needs to get more competitive to spawn next generation of mines, says industry leader

Without a doubt, one of the most important challenges facing the next generation is global warming and the need to decarbonize the transportation sector. This can only happen with the sustainable development of new mines that produce the copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium and other critical minerals that can be found throughout Northern Ontario’s rich geology.

However, it is the junior exploration sector that has traditionally found economic mineral deposits that are sold to majors who have the financial capacity to build these new mines. This important and vital part of the mining ecosystem is largely being ignored by the Ontario government.

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Pebble mine developer sues EPA over Alaska mine veto – by Clark Mindock (Reuters – March 18, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

March 18 (Reuters) – Northern Dynasty Minerals, the developer of the proposed Pebble copper and gold mine in southwest Alaska, has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeking to overturn the agency’s veto of the project.

The developer on Friday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Anchorage challenging the EPA’s 2023 final determination prohibiting the discharge of mining waste in the state’s Bristol Bay over concerns the materials would degrade the watershed and harm important fishing ecosystems.

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Sudbury developer to test mine former INCO property – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 13, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Magna Mining moves into advanced exploration at Crean Hill Project

Magna Mining, a home-grown Sudbury mine developer, is putting the paperwork in place to test mine a former INCO mine. The company said it filed an amended closure plan for its Crean Hill Project with the provincial mines ministry in late February.

This opens the door for Magna to begin an advanced exploration program that will shape the project’s economics and life of mine. Crean Hill is located in the southwest corner of the Sudbury basin. Under the Inco flag, it ran from 1900 to 2002. Magna acquired the asset from Vale in November 2022 and put 19,000 metres of drilling into the property last year.

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Why B.C. is a preferred jurisdiction for mining headquarters – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – March 15, 2024)

https://www.biv.com/

Canadian securities regulations, local expertise makes Vancouver a junior mining mecca

Pick any mining jurisdiction in the world—Mexico, Chile, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—and you are likely to find at least one mining or exploration company there that is headquartered in Vancouver. As of 2022, there were 944 publicly listed mining and mineral exploration and development companies headquartered in B.C., according to the BC Securities Commission (BCSC).

Most of these companies don’t have mines or exploration projects in B.C. or even Canada, for that matter. Some operate in far-flung frontiers—places such as Guatemala, Mali and the DRC, which can be politically risky and even downright dangerous.

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Gabriel Resources investors flee after miner loses $4.4-billion arbitration claim against Romania – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – March 15, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

Investors shave nearly $900 million off market cap in one of swiftest, largest single-day losses for a Canadian junior miner

Yukon-based Gabriel Resources Ltd. once harboured ambitions to build one of Europe’s largest gold and silver mines in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, which has been mined by humans for at least 2,000 years. But the proposed mining area is now on the UNESCO World Heritage list and Gabriel just lost an eight-year legal battle with Romania that has left the company’s future uncertain.

Gabriel’s experience is a cautionary tale that shows how shifting attitudes around resource extraction and an evolving global financial system have changed the business of mining.

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PDAC 2024: Some junior miners must die so others may live, panel says – by Alisha Hiyate (Northern Miner – March 8, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Canada’s once-mighty junior mining sector crumbled after governments squeezed the middle class and let multinationals buy the country’s big miners, a panel of finance experts told mining’s biggest conference this week.

Large Canadian miners such as Falconbridge, Inco and Noranda (all gone by 2007) would use much as $200 million each a year to shepherd perhaps 100 junior level companies because they made half of the discoveries, Franco-Nevada (TSX: FNV; NYSE: FNV) co-founder Pierre Lassonde said on a panel at the Prospectors and Developers of Association of Canada convention in Toronto on Tuesday.

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OPINION: Has Canada gone too far in blocking mining investments from Chinese companies? – by Patrick Leblond (Globe and Mail – March 7, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

SRG Mining announced this week that it was putting an end to Carbon One New Energy Group’s proposed $16.9-million investment in the Canadian miner. Although the company did not officially say so, the belief is that a national security review by the federal government was going to scupper the transaction between SRG and C-One of China.

Under the Investment Canada Act, the federal government has the right to review foreign investments in Canadian companies to protect our national security. One of the factors used by the government when assessing national security implications, as per the Guidelines on the National Security Review of Investments, is “the potential impact of the investment on critical minerals and critical mineral supply chains.”

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Province shuts down Chiefs of Ontario’s request for a moratorium on staking mining claims – by Jonathan Migneault (CBC News Sudbury – March 5, 2024)

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

The Chiefs of Ontario say a moratorium would offer some breathing room to catch up on claims

The office of Ontario Mines Minister George Pirie says a one-year moratorium on staking mining claims in Ontario is off the table. The Chiefs of Ontario were in Toronto on Tuesday to reiterate their request for the moratorium, which they initially asked for in January.

They’ve said processing the claims puts an administrative burden on First Nations, which often have limited resources available to them. The Chiefs of Ontario say some First Nations have seen up to a 30 per cent increase in claims staked in their territories over the past year.

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PDAC 2024: Junior miners see short-selling ‘epidemic’ – by Alisha Hiyate (Mining.com – March 6, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Junior miners at this week’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention say recently proposed new rules on short-selling could help stem the bleeding in their stocks, which are especially vulnerable to the practice.

The January proposal by a Canadian regulator would apply to “hard-to-borrow” stocks like junior miners. Before shorting such securities, traders would be required to confirm there is stock available to borrow or the short sale would be prohibited.

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Vancouver lithium company announces investor interest from China, despite Ottawa’s warnings – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 7, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Another deep-pocketed China-based buyer is attempting to invest in a Canadian critical-minerals company, even as Ottawa fires a warning shot that it is monitoring such deals closely, and prepared to intervene.

On Tuesday, Vancouver-based Lithium Americas Argentina Corp. (Lithium Argentina) said it had attracted a US$70-million investment from China-based Ganfeng Lithium, which would see it take a 15-per-cent stake in its Pastos Grandes project.

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Chinese Money Can’t Be Solution for Cash-Strapped Canadian Miners, Minister Says – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – March 5, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Chinese investment can’t be the solution for cash-strapped Canadian miners seeking financial backing, according to Canada’s natural resources minister.

“We need to be working to solve access to capital issues, but the answer cannot be investment from Chinese state-owned industries,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Tuesday in an interview.

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SRG Mining calls off financing deal with China-based buyer after Champagne intervenes – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 6, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

SRG Mining Inc. has called off its financing deal with a privately held Chinese company, after Canada’s Industry Minister publicly chastised the miner for trying to skirt a national security review related to the agreement.

Last summer, China-based Carbon One New Energy Group Co. Ltd., also known as C-One, proposed buying a 19.4-per-cent stake in SRG’s Lola graphite project in West Africa for $16.9-million. For the first few months after the deal was announced, Montreal-based SRG told its investors that the deal was subject to a national-security review by the Canadian federal government.

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