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Nickel

Glencore moves to take full control of PolyMet, developer of Minnesota copper-nickel mine – by Steve Karnowski (Associated Press – July 3, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Swiss commodities giant Glencore moved Monday to take full ownership of PolyMet Mining, a company that’s developing a copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota with one of Canada’s largest miners, Teck Resources.

Glencore already owns 82% of PolyMet Mining and has long been the project’s main financial backer. It offered Monday to pay around $71 million to raise that stake to 100%, which would take St. Paul-headquartered PolyMet private. Glencore’s proposal represents around a 167% premium over PolyMet’s closing stock price on Friday, and shares surged on the news in Monday’s trading.

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Column: Court case shines a harsh light on London Metal Exchange – by Andy Home (Reuters – June 25, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

The first part of the London Metal Exchange’s (LME) courtroom drama is over after three days of legal argument at London’s Royal Courts of Justice. The LME, owned by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, now awaits judgment on whether its cancellation of nickel trades on March 8 last year was lawful.

US-based hedge fund Elliott Associates and market maker Jane Street Global Trading (Jane Street) argue its action was unlawful and are demanding $472 million in damages. The 146-year-old exchange contends it was justified in closing the market and cancelling trades because $19.7 billion of margin calls would otherwise have triggered a “death spiral” of member defaults.

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Saudi’s PIF emerges as lead bidder for $2.5 billion Vale base metals stake – by Staff (Mining.com – June 20, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is leading the bid to acquire a $2.5 billion stake in Vale’s nickel and copper operations, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

The report said PIF might strike the deal for a roughly 10% stake through a joint venture it set up in January with Ma’aden, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

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Vale Sudbury opens door on its high-tech operations centre – by Len Gillis (Northern Ontario Business – June 22, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Hundreds of residents attend open house to see what the future holds for Sudbury’s largest mining company

Hundreds of Sudbury residents got a close-up look June 20 at how the largest mining and refining company in Sudbury is moving forward with new technology. The event was the annual Vale community open house, an event that had been cancelled for a couple of years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The venue was Vale’s North Atlantic operations headquarters building in Copper Cliff, also known as the former engineering building.

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The Drift: Nickel and gold driving the Timmins exploration boom – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 19, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Exploration snapshot of the Timmins camp shows land acquisition, expansion drilling, and mine permitting

The Drift is an ongoing editorial series by Northern Ontario Business about the people, companies, technologies, and innovation that encompass the mining industry in northeastern Ontario. The arrival of summer means exploration activity around Timmins accelerates into high gear for gold and nickel junior miners and project developers.

South of the city, a pair of exploration companies continue to tie into high-grade nickel, particularly Canada Nickel. The Toronto mine developer keeps hitting high-grade nickel near the surface at its Texmont Project.

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The World’s Most Feared Investor Heads for Showdown With the LME – by Jack Farchy, Mark Burton and Jonathan Browning (Bloomberg News – June 17,2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A decade ago, Paul Singer did battle with the government of Argentina — and won. Next week, the notoriously pugnacious hedge fund boss is taking on a bastion of the City of London, the 146-year-old London Metal Exchange.

For Singer, the case is personal, say several people familiar with the matter. When on March 8 last year the LME decided to cancel billions of dollars in nickel trades as prices skyrocketed, Singer was appalled and affronted, seeing it as a perversion of the free market with few precedents in the modern history of finance.

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Timmins nickel deposit doubles in size – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – June 14, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

EV Nickel’s high-grade deposit at its Shaw Dome Project has ‘further room to grow’

One of northeastern Ontario’s emerging nickel players has posted a new resource estimate for a Timmins-area deposit that could have open pit and underground mining potential by 2026 or 2027.

After a raft of diamond drilling at its Shaw Dome Project, EV Nickel said its high-grade W4 deposit has more than doubled in size from an earlier estimate performed 13 years ago by previous exploration company.

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The Drift: Sudbury nickel, copper explorers making strides to turn projects into mines – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 9, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Magna Mining, SPC Nickel bring new ideas in finding new mineral zones around old mines

Two Sudbury junior miners are laying the groundwork for the next generation of nickel, copper and platinum group metal mines in the basin. Magna Mining is tapping the width and depth of a mineralized zone near the surface of its Crean Hill Project that could speed a former mine back into production.

The hometown junior miner sees open-ended potential in a footwall zone at the former Crean Hill Mine. The zone was originally discovered 15 years ago but never mined by a previous operator.

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Russia Metal Boss Taps VW, Glencore on $1 Billion Mine SPAC Deal – by Dinesh Nair and Swetha Gopinath (Bloomberg News – June 12, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Russian metal industry veteran Artem Volynets’ blank check firm agreed to acquire two Brazilian mines for $1 billion including debt in a bid to tap demand from electric-vehicle makers.

London-listed ACG Acquisition Co. is buying the assets from private equity firm Appian Capital Advisory, according to a statement Monday confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. Volkswagen AG’s battery arm will support the deal with a $100 million prepayment for future nickel deliveries, while commodities trader Glencore Plc will buy $100 million of ACG stock.

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RPT-COLUMN-Nickel prices coming supply glut but stocks keep falling – by Andy Home (June 7, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, June 7 (Reuters) – Nickel has been the under-performer of the London Metal Exchange (LME) base metals pack this year. LME three-month nickel sank to a nine-month low of $20,310 per tonne last week and at a current $21,500 is now down by 31% since the start of the year.

Nickel is pricing in a looming supply glut as Indonesia builds out ever more production capacity in its race to be an electric vehicle battery metals giant. The country’s mined output grew by 48% last year and by another 41% in the first three months of this year, according to The International Nickel Study Group.

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Vale is ‘supplier of choice’ for automobile battery-grade nickel – by Len Gillis (Sudbury.com – June 6, 2023)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Company needs to keep up with the battery electric vehicle demand by expanding nickel and base metal operations in Sudbury by spending billions of dollars

Alfredo Santana, Vale’s chief operating officer for the company’s North Atlantic operations, told the Sudbury BEV In Depth conference last week that as his company has now become the nickel supplier of choice for the electric vehicle battery market, there will be an economic pay off with expansion of mining operations in Sudbury.

Santana was one of several speakers on the roster during the two-day conference held at Sudbury’s Cambrian College from May 31 to June 1.

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Minnesota plans rewrite of rules for copper-nickel mining near popular wilderness (Associated Press – June 1, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota regulators have concluded that state rules governing where copper-nickel mines can be built are insufficient to protect the pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from noise and light pollution, creating another potential obstacle to the proposed Twin Metals mine in northeastern Minnesota.

But the Department of Natural Resources declined as part of that decision Wednesday to declare a watershed that flows into the Boundary Waters off-limits to copper-nickel mining altogether, which had been a goal of the environmental group that challenged the regulations, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

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Decarbonization ambitions ignite debate over mining, permitting – by Robert Zullo (Iowa Capital Dispatch – May 31,2023)

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The decarbonized, electrified future envisioned by the Biden administration, state governments, automakers, utility companies and corporate sustainability goals depends to a huge degree on minerals and metals.

Lots more lithium will be needed for car and truck batteries, as well as the big banks of batteries that are increasingly popping onto the electric grid to balance the intermittency of wind and solar power. Those batteries, as well as wind turbines and solar panels, also need copper, cobalt,, nickel, zinc and “rare earth” elements used in electric car motors and other clean technologies, among other materials.

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Industry, business groups optimistic on nickel mining bordering Lake Superior – by Bruce Walker (The Center Square – May 26, 2023)

https://www.thecentersquare.com/

(The Center Square) – Geologists and mining experts say Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula may provide a solution for an obstacle facing the electric vehicle transition. Minerals are needed, and this area has them.

U.S. manufacturers are largely dependent on foreign countries like China, Russia and Indonesia for critical minerals like nickel and cobalt, which are key materials for electric vehicle batteries. Automakers increasingly are looking for domestic supplies, and northern Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – a geological area bordering Lake Superior dubbed the Midcontinent Rift – may provide the solution.

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Nickel’s price paralysis could see mines ‘gobbled up’ cheap – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – May 25, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

Miners say pricing mechanisms for nickel have struggled to keep pace with the industry’s shift to supplying the specialised needs of battery and electric vehicle makers, creating an opportunity for acquisitions on the cheap.

Australian nickel was traditionally sold to stainless steel producers in briquettes or powders, but miners such as BHP now sell the bulk of their nickel to electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla, which want nickel for the cathodes of lithium-ion batteries.

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