Takeover target Mincor has confirmed its nickel supply deal with BHP contains a “change of control” clause that gives BHP the right to terminate the supply contract in certain circumstances and, by extension, trigger a default on Mincor’s debt.
Confirmation the clause exists came on page 55 of the target statement published by Mincor this week in response to a $760 million takeover bid from billionaire Andrew Forrest’s private company Wyloo Metals.
https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/
City officials said there are nine working mines within the city limits right now and that
could easily jump to 15 in the coming years.
Greater Sudbury’s mayor wants supporting development to be a priority for the city as he looks to create a new committee of council. Mayor Paul Lefebvre recently announced that he’ll be creating a committee that looks at supporting the city’s policies and processes around both residential and non-residential development.
“It’s about trying to attract more businesses here and we need more residential development so how can we ensure that we have the best practices here in Greater Sudbury,” he said. “Looking around the province, best practices when it comes to municipal bylaws, investments and when it comes to permitting processes as soon as we can.”
Click Here to Order Book: https://amzn.to/3FVk4hK
A valuable discovery under the world’s second-largest temperate wetland and in the traditional lands of the Cree and Ojibway casts light on the growing conflict among resource development, environmental stewardship, and Indigenous rights
When prospectors discovered a gigantic crescent of metal deposits under the James Bay Lowlands of northern Canada in 2007, the find touched off a mining rush, lured a major American company to spend fortunes in the remote swamp, and forced politicians to confront their legal duty to consult Indigenous Peoples about development on their traditional territories. But the multibillion-dollar Ring of Fire was all but abandoned when stakeholders failed to reach a consensus on how to develop the cache despite years of negotiations and hundreds of millions of dollars in spending. Now plans for an all-weather road to connect the region to the highway network are reigniting the fireworks.
In this colorful tale, Virginia Heffernan draws on her bush and newsroom experiences to illustrate the complexities of resource development at a time when Indigenous rights are becoming enshrined globally. Ultimately, Heffernan strikes a hopeful note: the Ring of Fire presents an opportunity for Canada to leave behind centuries of plunder and set the global standard for responsible development of minerals critical to the green energy revolution.
EXCERPT: Ring of Fire – Geological Richness on a World-Class Supersize Scale – by Virginia Heffernan
Geologists now speculate that the only way Nemis’s ring could contain so much mantle-derived (or ultramafic) magma and metal is if some cataclysmic geological event, such as two continents colliding or separating, had cracked open the basement rocks….
Now cast your mind back 2.7 billion years. The crust is splitting apart just west of the current imprint of Hudson Bay. The crust is thinner and the core hotter than now, creating a lot of melted mantle with nowhere to go. So as soon as a rift opens up, the restless magma lets loose and ascends….
Stan Sudol Photo
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/
Built in 1972 to clean up Sudbury’s environment and decommissioned in 2020, Canada’s onetime tallest freestanding structure is still standing
For Matteo Campagnaro, working on the Inco Superstack — Canada’s tallest structure for a brief time — was a pleasure. Campagnaro, who immigrated to Canada from Italy in 1965, said his time on the Superstack, from 1969 to 1972, made him fall in love with northern Ontario.
“The hunting, the lakes, the fish, the atmosphere, the outdoors, the friendly people — this is the best place in the world,” he said. Thanks to his job as a welder, he met his wife in Sudbury. They have two children and a grandson, and still live in Sudbury’s south end.
For the better part of 15 years, the Ring of Fire, the biggest mining prize in a generation, or more, has confounded those who would develop it. One of the key issues is how to get to and from the remote area. But the province may have presented a solution with a recently announced agreement on the terms of reference for a First Nations-led plan for a permanent road to the Ring of Fire.
LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) – The London Metal Exchange (LME) has discovered that some of its registered nickel is missing. Nine warrants, equivalent to 54 tonnes, have been declared invalid after being found to be “non-conformant with the contract specifications”, the LME said in a March 17 notice. What should have been bags of nickel briquettes grading at least 99.8% pure metal have turned out to be bags of stones.
The incident comes one month after Trafigura took a $577 million charge against cargoes of nickel that turned out to be steel. The trading company alleges “a systematic fraud” and is pursuing legal action against companies associated with Indian businessman Prateek Gupta. A spokesperson for Gupta has said that they were preparing “a robust response” to the allegations.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/
Wyloo Metals, which owns majority of known claims in area, estimates value of ‘defined ore bodies’ at $90B
From the time the Ring of Fire was discovered in 2007, politicians and industry leaders have emphasized the potential economic value of the remote, mineral-rich area in northern Ontario. That has intensified in recent weeks, with Ontario Mines Minister George Pirie saying recently: “Anecdotally, mining people are saying this is a trillion-dollar project.”
Pirie told Global News in a recent documentary that the $1-trillion amount was “not a formal valuation,” but was “based on the increased value of critical minerals that are already established being in the ground.”
To purchase Ring of Fire book: https://www.amazon.ca/Ring-Fire-High-Stakes-Lowlands-Wilderness/dp/1770416749
Consider the major collisions of contemporary life in North America: the tensions between financial investments and social ideals; the threat of climate change in conflict with the thirst for energy sources; the rights of Indigenous people versus the prerogatives of elected governments; the rivalries with trading partners in competition with the hunger for goods from abroad; and the impulses of the regulatory state in full combat with the appeal of free markets.
Then consider that all of these clashes — the stuff of debate in Ottawa and provincial capitals, the topics of animated conversation in universities and coffee shops across the country — are playing out, every one of them and all at once, in a remote 5,000-square-kilometre swath of northern Canada. It’s a place that’s home to the second-largest temperate wetland in the world, that’s packed with nickel and copper, and that’s known as the Ring of Fire.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Federal environment minister wants more Indigenous involvement in Far North industry impact assessment
Ottawa’s decision to scrap plans for a Ring of Fire regional assessment process won’t interfere with the province’s intentions to get new mines into production faster.
Provincial Mines Minister George Pirie said they have guarantees from the federal government that assessments for the proposed roads into the James Bay region to connect two remote communities to the Ontario highway system will not impact any timelines to put new mines into production.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Amid an increasing demand for nickel, driven largely by the growing need for electric vehicle batteries, a handful of exploration companies are making their mark in Sudbury’s historic and prolific nickel mining camp.
Magna Mining (TSXV: NICU), SPC Nickel Corp. (TSXV: SPC) and Archer Exploration (CSE: RCHR), which all have properties in the region of northern Ontario, have announced a series of promising drill results and asset acquisitions in recent months.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Vale, province to pay for new industrial research chair program in biomining and bioremediation to be based in Sudbury
Mine waste in the Sudbury area may be worth billions and it’s Nadia Mykytczuk’s job to find ways using bacteria to extract the valuable nickel, copper and other critical minerals out of them.
Her job got a lot easier Wednesday when Vale Energy Transition Metals and the provincial government announced money to support a new industrial research chair program in biomining and bioremediation that she will lead in Sudbury. Vale Energy committed $875,000 over five years to the Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation, and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) at Laurentian University.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Vale and Queen’s Park offer up $1.6 million to tackle mining waste and advance bio-mining innovation
A new and environmentally benign form of Sudbury’s mining industry just took a great leap forward with a more than $1.6 million contribution from international nickel miner Vale and the Ontario government.
Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation, and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) at Laurentian University and its research leader Dr. Nadia Mykytczuk are the recipients of this largess that will be earmarked for the organization’s bio-mining and remediation efforts in tackling mine waste.
‘There is no access to critical minerals in Canada without Indigenous Peoples being at the table in a decision-making position,’ Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said
Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has agreed to scrap a draft framework for a regional assessment in the Ontario Ring of Fire region and start over, working with First Nations.
For over a decade, governments and companies have sought to mine in the remote and environmentally-sensitive area known as the Ring of Fire. Accessible only by plane, or ice road in the winter, it’s located in the James Bay Lowlands and has deposits of key minerals that some people want to mine to fuel the production of electric vehicles.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/
Plan co-developed and submitted by 2 First Nations in the area, but faces pushback from others in region
The province has approved the terms of reference for an environmental assessment (EA) on the third and final road leading to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire in northern Ontario.
The terms of reference lay out the work plan — including the scope and issues to be considered — for the EA on the Northern Road Link, a proposed two-lane, all-weather road.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Toronto mining journalist hits PDAC 2023 with a primer on arrested development in the Far North
“Keep the faith.” It was an oft-used phrase by Richard “Dick” Nemis, a Sudbury native and colourful mining promoter whose company, Noront Resources, secured one of the largest land positions in the mineral-rich area of the James Bay known as the Ring of Fire.
Nemis clung to that motto even as he was being ousted by shareholders as the president of the junior mining company he helped establish in October 2008. It was personal blow since the exploration outfit was named after his father’s industrial fabrication company, started in the Nickel City in 1945, and still in operation today.
