https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/
Glencore’s Nickel Rim South Mine is winding down operations with an eye on closing in 2024. Vice-president Peter Xavier said the mine has been important to the company since its inception in 2010.
He said exploration extended the mine’s lifespan from 2021 to 2024, but Glencore has been planning its closure for some time. This will create an opportunity to partner with the city’s other mining giant, Vale.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
Glencore says feasibility study looking at partnership with Vale is about to begin and will go into next year
It has been a good run at Glencore’s Nickel Rim South mine in Sudbury, but for the time being, mining there is coming to an end. The vice-president of Sudbury operations, Peter Xavier, says the 15-year-old mine will transition to what it calls “care and maintenance” by next spring.
But there is more mining to be done in that area, and the next steps in a potential joint venture with Vale are under the magnifying glass. Xavier explains there’s a portion of the ore body where the property boundaries shared by the two companies intersect, but is difficult for each company to mine separately.
Alaska Energy Metals’ (TSXV: AEMC) stock rose on Monday after releasing results for two additional diamond drill holes from its 2023 exploration program at its 100% owned Nikolai nickel project.
The Nikolai project is possible host to disseminated nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE mineralization analogous to the Crawford deposit in Canada and the Norilsk mine in Russia, according to the company’s website.
World traders have turned away from the Moscow-based economy in favor of trade with other suppliers of metals and mines as experts expect permanent changes to how the world thinks about its supply chains.
One year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, metals and mining trade flows have shifted as countries look to regionalize supply chains for crucial raw materials due to aversions to purchases that could support the Kremlin.
The start of the war in late February 2022 sent the price of many commodities skyrocketing, but buyers have adjusted after much of the world opted to bench Russian metal suppliers. However, Russian commodities are moving despite countries looking elsewhere for supplies, including by increasing domestic sourcing of crucial materials.
The adoption and growth of electric vehicles (EVs) is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, but there’s a catch — nickel. The metal, essential for the lithium batteries that power the future of transportation, is at risk of running short.
There is a bigger issue at stake than simply not having enough of the vital metal. Ironically, while the EV movement is greener and more sustainable, if North America does not ramp up its nickel production, it might continue to lean on coal-powered Indonesian nickel, a less eco-friendly alternative.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The federal government’s plan to continue to regulate major resource projects despite a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that says those powers are largely unconstitutional is creating confusion and uncertainty in Ontario’s Ring of Fire. A significant Indigenous stakeholder is making a plea for regulatory certainty, while a major mining company is warning that Canada’s weak standing on the global critical-minerals stage will only get worse.
The Supreme Court said earlier this month that the federal government’s broad-based environmental reviews around large mines and major infrastructure associated with those mines are unconstitutional. Ottawa must limit its oversight to certain defined areas clearly defined in the Constitution, the court said, such as fisheries, the bird population, species at risk and certain Indigenous rights.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Workers will be transferred to other Glencore operations in the city
The last scoop load of nickel/copper ore is expected to be hoisted to the surface at Nickel Rim South Mine sometime in late March as the mine goes into care and maintenance mode. By then, most of the Skead-area mine’s employees will have been reassigned to other Glencore Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations (Sudbury INO), such as the Craig/Onaping Depth Project.
As of his week, the mine was down to 250 employees as the process has already started. “(The mining) coming to an end,” said Gary Potts, director of Nickel Rim South, during an interview at a community open house on Thursday at the Skead Recreation Centre. “It’s gone three years longer than originally forecast.”
Lithium, cobalt and nickel prices tumble as ‘irrational exuberance’ wears off and surge in supply hits markets
Prices for key battery materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel have sharply fallen this year as electric-vehicle sales in China cool off and a surge in supply hits the market.
Since the start of the year, lithium prices have fallen almost 70 per cent and nickel prices have dropped by 40 per cent, while the cobalt market is in a glut with prices hovering slightly above record lows, according to data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence Ltd., Refinitiv Ltd. and Argus Media Ltd.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Feasibility study for Crawford Project shows 41-year mine life, with more projects likely to come
If Canada Nickel Company’s Crawford Mine Project becomes a reality by 2027, Timmins will have the second largest nickel mine in the world.
CEO Mark Selby took the wraps off the company’s long-awaited feasibility study, describing the details behind proposed a 41-year open-pit mine life for its Crawford Project, located 40 kilometres north of a northeastern Ontario city that’s more widely known as one of the best gold mining districts on the globe.
On a rock-covered beach in the heart of the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario, Alex Moonias gazes east, then north. All he sees is undisturbed land, water and air. Some 100 kilometres from where he stands, the province plans to build a road as part of its pledge to mine the area, which is said to be rich in metals needed for electric vehicle batteries.
Moonias, an elder from Neskantaga First Nation, and many in his community see the provincial government’s ambitions for the Ring of Fire as an existential threat to their way of life. “Mother Earth is hurting,” the 70-year-old says. “If a big needle is pushing into your body, how would you feel?”
LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Global nickel production will outpace demand to the tune of 239,000 metric tons next year, according to the International Nickel Study Group (INSG). It will be the third consecutive year of excess supply and the surplus will be the largest yet.
The INSG, which held the second of its twice-yearly meetings in Lisbon this week, estimates the market was in a 104,000-metric ton surplus last year with the figure set to rise to 223,000 metric tons this year.
BHP says electric vehicle manufacturers are not yet willing to pay a “green premium” to recognise the sustainability credentials of nickel mined in Australia, at a time when surprisingly large volumes of Indonesian nickel have dragged down prices for the metal to a two-year low.
BHP’s chief development officer Johan van Jaarsveld said the company would maintain a policy of only investing in the sort of “sulphide” nickel geology that occurs in Australia and Canada, but was bracing for more nickel supply growth from Indonesian miners working in “laterite” geology.
CEO remains bullish despite ‘ambitious timeline’
Even if the company aiming to begin mining the Ring of Fire meets its very ambitious production start date of 2030, it will still be “late in the game to capture the increase in the demand for nickel.” Wyloo Ring of Fire CEO Kristan Straub made the comment during a Sept 25 “State of Mining” presentation at the Dante Club hosted by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce.
The worldwide demand for nickel is so great, and the ability for Canada and North America to meet that demand so small, that Straub predicts the world will be moving towards substituting nickel by 2040.
https://www.greencarcongress.com/
Nornickel, Russia’s leading metals and mining company, has begun extraction at the Glubokaya (Deep) shaft of the Skalisty (Rocky) mine, reaching depths of 2 kilometers. This move will enable Nornickel to substantially boost extraction of the most valuable and rich ore.
To initiate the extraction, the company connected two independent vertical shafts—the ventilation and skip-hoist. The connection was achieved at a depth of 1,943 meters. This integration facilitated the mine’s essential infrastructure and initiated its primary ventilation system. No one in the Eurasian mining industry has ventured this deep before, Nornickel said.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Australian company decides to place its global mineral assets under one banner
Australia’s Wyloo Metals has again rebranded its mineral assets in Ontario’s Ring of Fire. The Perth-headquartered mine developer has decided to place its Canadian and Western Australian mine and exploration properties under the single banner of Wyloo.
Privately owned Wyloo acquired the assets of Toronto’s Noront Resources in April 2022, which comprises the Eagle’s Nest nickel project and its chromite properties, 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.
