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Newfoundland and Labrador Mining

Equinox Gold to buy Calibre for $2.56B – by Staff (Northern Miner – February 24, 2025)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Equinox Gold  agreed to buy Calibre Mining  for about $2.56 billion in stock to become Canada’s second-largest gold producer. Calibre shareholders will receive 0.31 Equinox common share for each Calibre common share held immediately before the transaction, according to a joint statement issued Sunday. At closing, existing Equinox shareholders would own about 65% of the combined company’s outstanding shares, compared with 35% for their Calibre counterparts.

The deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter, sets the stage for the creation of a Canadian mining powerhouse with two low-cost assets under the same roof – Equinox’s Greenstone property in Ontario, which achieved commercial production in November and is one of the country’s largest open-pit mines; and Calibre’s Valentine mine, which is nearing construction completion.

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Labrador stuck in ‘wait-and-see’ approach over looming impact of U.S. steel tariffs – by Elizabeth Whitten (CBC News Newfoundland-Labrador – February 14, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

Labrador mines produce components used in steel manufacturing

In the wake of newly announced U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, one Labrador mayor says businesses in the mine-heavy region will have to wait and see how their bottom lines are impacted.

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 30-day reprieve for tariffs on Canadian goods, only to announce he was slapping a 25 per cent tariff on all of the country’s steel and aluminum imports, scheduled to come into effect on March 12.

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Powerfully promising: Harnessing the Churchill River’s hydroelectric potential needed to develop the mining sector – by Gary Kean (Salt Wire/The Telegram – January 13, 2025)

https://www.saltwire.com/

Access to not only more, but clean, power in Labrador essential to luring investment, says mining industry

In the early 2000s, the idea of building an aluminum smelter in Labrador was shelved, and Yvonne Jones often wondered what else could have been if the region’s resources had been tapped into at the time. With Newfoundland and Labrador now planning to develop more hydroelectric power on the mighty Churchill River, the Liberal MP for Labrador hopes the next industrial vision to come along can be realized.

The smelter project would have been a joint venture between aluminum titan Alcoa and the provincial government, but the province walked away from the deal after a feasibility study was done. The company wanted the government to foot too much of the energy costs associated with the development.

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Quebec and N.L. put aside decades of bad blood to ink new hydro power deal – by Nicolas Van Praet (Globe and Mail – December 13, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador are vowing to put aside decades of bad blood over the Churchill Falls hydropower station, cementing what they’re calling a historic deal that will see them invest and work together on future electricity development worth tens of billions of dollars.

Under an agreement in principle that was unveiled Thursday in St. John’s by premiers François Legault and Andrew Furey, Quebec would secure a key source of power. Newfoundland would win significantly more revenue for its existing power generation and clinch a partner with deep pockets and technical know-how for three new production projects along Labrador’s Churchill River.

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Trump tariffs could lead to potential job losses in Labrador mines, expert says – by Alex Kennedy 9CBC News Newfoundland & Labrador – December 02, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

Threats of a 25 per cent tariff sounded alarms in industries around the world

Threats of a 25 per cent tariff on goods exported from Canada into the United States have sounded alarms in industries around the world, including mining and those operating in Labrador. Tamer Elbokl, editor in chief of the Canadian Mining Journal, told CBC Radio Friday that any kind of tariff would be bad news on his industry.

“It will have a huge impact. Not just on iron ore, but all minerals exported from Canada to the United States,” Elbokl said. Canada was the world’s eighth largest producer of iron ore in 2023, with the majority of trade going to the United States.

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NEWS RELEASE: Vale Base Metals complete Voisey’s Bay transition to underground mining (December 3, 2024)

TORONTO, Dec. 3, 2024 /CNW/ – Vale Base Metals has completed construction and commissioning of its US$2.94 billion Voisey’s Bay Mine Expansion Project in northern Labrador, a major milestone that will increase production of nickel in concentrate to 45,000 tonnes per year (45 ktpy) – a critical mineral essential to security of supply, economic independence and the energy transition.

The expansion project transitioned Voisey’s Bay from open pit to underground mining. The project involved the development of two underground mines – Reid Brook and Eastern Deeps – which will deliver concentrate for processing at the company’s Long Harbour Processing Plant, one of the lowest-emission nickel processing plants in the world.

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Short-seller report aims to poke holes in story told by fledgling gold company – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – September 26, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

Raises questions about New Found Gold deposit near Gander

Vancouver-based New Found Gold Corp. has been the toast of Canada’s exploration sector for reportedly striking bonanza-grade intercepts, but a short-seller report is trying to poke holes in the company’s story.

The report, released earlier this month by Iceberg Research, raises questions about the deposit’s “lack of continuity,” saying the best drill holes may be too narrow and spread too far away from one another to be economically mined.

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Push to green energy motivates Australian company taking over Baie Verte copper mine – by Leigh Anne Power (CBC News Newfoundland and Labrador – September 18, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

The new owner of the copper and gold mine on the Baie Verte Peninsula arrived in the area this week to inspect his purchase. The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador approved the sale of the property to Australian junior mining company Auteco, after former owner Rambler Metals and Mining entered bankruptcy protection last spring.

“We’re really focused on Canada,” said CEO Darren Cooke. “We’ve been looking around Canada for different assets that we believe have a huge potential to grow and obviously we came across the opportunity at Baie Verte and really liked what we saw in terms of the potential to to have a a major copper project in such a great jurisdiction like Newfoundland.”

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Green energy tax credits a ‘game changer’ for N.L. operation, Vale CEO says – by Alex Kennedy (CBC News Newfoundland-Labrador – April 5, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

Chrystia Freeland touts new budget’s incentives at nickel processing plant

The head of mining giant Vale Canada says the most recent federal budget will be a “game changer” for her company’s operations — including its nickel processing plant in Long Harbour, N.L., which Chrystia Freeland, the finance minister and deputy prime minister, toured on Wednesday.

Vale Canada president and CEO Deshnee Naidoo said the credits and announcements in the budget will be key for the mining industry’s race to lower carbon emissions even further. “It’s an absolute game changer for us,” Naidoo said.

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Remote Labrador location potential training ground for astronauts – by Hina Alam (Canadian Press/CBC News Newfoundland and Labrador – January 23, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

Conditions at Mistastin crater are kind of like the moon

When scientists determined in the mid-1970s that the Mistastin crater in Labrador had lunar-like properties, the last Apollo mission had flown and it was too late for astronauts to take advantage of the site for training.

But now, as Artemis astronauts prepare for the next moon mission, one Canadian expert says the remote crater could provide vital insight into what awaits them. Gordon Osinski, a professor in the department of Earth sciences at Western University in London, Ont., said Mistastin was found to be an impact crater in the mid-1970s.

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Toxic Towns: Don’t hold your breath – by Malone Mullin (CBC News Interactives – November 28, 2022)

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

In Baie Verte, N.L., a mine that once brought prosperity now symbolizes pain, suffering and death. Nobody knows how to get rid of it.

This is Part I of a three-part series on contaminated sites in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In Émile Zola’s 1885 novel Germinal, a French mining town, filled with families dependent on coal, is plotting a strike. It’s not an idyllic existence, living in 19th-century Montsou. Workers and their families sleep in shacks, eat mostly bread and rarely embrace leisure.

Eventually, they’re consumed by the massive beast whose tendrils reach deep underground. The mine, named Le Voreux, holds such sway over the townspeople’s lives that it transforms into a character in itself; figuratively speaking, by the end of the book, it eats its servants alive.

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Southwestern Newfoundland could be home to a high-grade deposit of highly in demand lithium – by Evan Careen (Saltwire.com – November 14, 2022)

https://www.saltwire.com/

Early test results are promising at the Kraken project near Burgeo

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — When people think mining in Newfoundland and Labrador, iron ore, nickel and, in recent years, gold, tend to come to mind.

Gold was actually what Tim Froude, CEO of Sokoman Minerals Corp., and his mining partners, Benton Resources Inc, were looking for at their Golden Hope project in southwestern Newfoundland when something else caught their eye. “We were flying along in a helicopter when we noticed a white outcrop in the distance, so we landed to take a look,” Froude said.

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COMMENTARY: Everything’s coming up minerals in Newfoundland and Labrador – by Larry Short (Saltwire.com – November 10, 2022)

https://www.saltwire.com/

I attended the Mineral Resource Review Conference held Nov. 1 to Nov. 4 in St. John’s and I have never been as optimistic about the financial future of Newfoundland and Labrador as I am now.

The conference is all about the rocks in Newfoundland and Labrador and how they could be, and are being, mined. There were 803 registered delegates plus gangs of assistants and enablers from exploration and mining companies, prospectors and suppliers.

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The new Atlantic Canada exploration boom – by Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco (CIM Magazine – June 14, 2022)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

Gold, clean-energy metals and even salt offer the promise of a bright future

Canada’s Atlantic region is experiencing a mining exploration rush the likes of which has not been seen in the area since the 1990s boom that followed the discovery of the nickel-bearing deposit at Newfoundland’s Voisey’s Bay. Once again, Newfoundland and Labrador is leading the way with more than 100,000 mineral claims staked in 2021 – the second largest annual claims total in the province’s history after 1995.

This time, the majority of exploration companies descending on the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are looking for gold instead of nickel. A handful of others, however, are not setting their sights on the precious metal but on critical minerals and metals that are vital for decarbonization of modern technologies.

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Marathon Gold receives mining leases for Newfoundland project – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – June 15, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Canada’s Marathon Gold (TSX: MOZ) is one step closer to having its proposed Valentine open-pit gold mine in central Newfoundland fully permitted as it has received the mining leases for the project.

The province’s leases cover the development of the Marathon and Leprechaun deposits and have a term of 20 years.

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