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Sudbury, Ont., mayor not fazed over what tariffs could mean for nickel mining – by Jonathan Migneault (CBC News Sudbury – March 21, 2025)

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

The U.S. only has one nickel mine and it would take years to start new ones

Sudbury’s mayor says he’s not worried that an ongoing trade war between Canada and the United States will hurt the city’s nickel exports to the south.

“I believe critical minerals, which obviously we are endowed with here in Greater Sudbury, play a role to maybe bridge that divide that we are currently living with the U.S. administration,” said Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre. “For them to realize the importance that they can’t source this in the U.S.”

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Nickel in 2040: A supply crisis in the making – by Nilanjan Banik (Time of India – March 21, 2025)

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Hazarding a guess on the future demand-supply situation, especially for the metal and mining sector, is an exercise fraught with dangers. A fast- changing world order, disruption in global supply chains, the crippling effect of climate change, untimely closure of mines, changed government regulations, wars, changing demand-supply equations can suddenly change the contours of the industry, and with it, the most detailed projections. Not to forget the serious impact of technology costs and innovations.

However, given its growing significance and importance of nickel in different applications like construction, petrochemicals, automobiles, fabrication and welding, transportation, electronics, water sector as well as in low- carbon technologies, it is important to assess its availability and affordability in the near and long-terms as the demand for the critical metal mounts.

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UK watchdog fines London Metal Exchange over handling of 2022 nickel crisis – by Polina Devitt, Eric Onstad (Reuters/MSM.com – March 20, 2025)

https://www.msn.com/

Britain’s financial regulator fined the London Metal Exchange on Thursday for allowing nickel prices to surge out of control three years ago in the first ever enforcement action against a UK exchange.

The Financial Conduct Authority imposed a penalty of 9.2 million pounds ($11.9 million) on the world’s oldest and largest market for industrial metals after an investigation found multiple failures to deal with severe market stress.

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Conservative leader vows action on Ring of Fire within six months – by Darren MacDonald (CTV News Northern Ontario – March 19, 2025)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced Wednesday that within six months of taking power, he would green-light all federal permits for the Ring of Fire and commit $1 billion to build new roads.

Poilievre, who is holding a rally in Greater Sudbury on Wednesday evening, said progress on the Ring of Fire is key to “unlocking billions of dollars in resources and taking back control of our economy from the Americans.” The long-delayed mineral project 500 kilometres east of Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario includes large deposits of high-grade chromite, cobalt, nickel, copper and platinum.

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Federal Conservative leader stops in Sudbury with promises of ‘unlocking’ Ring of Fire – by Faith Greco and Kate Rutherford (CBC News Sudbury – March 19, 2025)

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

Pierre Poilievre vowed to approve all federal permits in Ring of Fire within 6 months

The federal Conservative leader is in Sudbury today making promises, if elected, to unlock access to critical minerals in the Ring of Fire and build a new road into the remote mining camp in northwestern Ontario.

“[The Ring of Fire] could make Canada very rich. It would be life changing for northern Ontario towns, galvanizing thousands of paycheques and modern infrastructure,” Pierre Poilievre said at a news conference Wednesday.

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‘At Sudbury, we are nowhere near having found it all’ – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – March 18, 2025)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Magna Mining’s critical mineral transformation in the Sudbury Basin to create new wealth, jobs

From American President Donald Trump’s desire to take over Greenland and perhaps Canada, and his recent confrontation with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Premier Doug Ford’s determination to get Ring of Fire infrastructure built, the general public is now acutely aware of the strategic and geopolitical importance of critical minerals.

And yet, Canada’s largest critical mineral mining camp – the legendary Sudbury Basin, which has been in operation for slightly over 140 years and controlled by two of the world’s largest miners, Brazilian-based Vale and Swiss-owned Glencore – seems to have been largely ignored by the mainstream media.

Since both Vale and Glencore have historically controlled much of the land package in the region, few juniors have thrived.

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Build nickel sulfate processing capacity in Sudbury, mayor says – by Paul Lefebvre (Sudbury Star – March 18, 2025)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Sudbury and Canada’s supply of critical minerals could be our trump card in trade war with the Americans, Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre says

Sir Winston Churchill purportedly once quipped that one never wants to see “a good crisis go to waste.” Fortunately then for Ontario and Canada, we’ve got a whopper. Under President Trump, the United States is upending decades of partnership with Canada and many other allied nations.

American support for Ukraine is now apparently subject to the fledgling democracy providing $500 billion worth of rare earth as a “back payment” for U.S. military support.

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Eye on ‘net zero’, India makes big push to secure critical minerals – by Bhasker Tripathi (Reuters/Scroll India – March 17, 2025)

https://scroll.in/

The country fully imports several critical minerals used in green technologies including lithium, cobalt and nickel.

As the world rushes to secure minerals critical for rapidly-expanding clean energy technologies, India is joining the fray to try to meet its ambitious green energy goals.

India said in January the government and state mining companies would spend 343 billion Indian rupee ($3.94 billion) to boost local production, recycling and imports of critical minerals in a bid to secure enough for its energy transition, in an initiative coined the “National Critical Mineral Mission”.

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Spotlight: Brazil’s US$4bn nickel potential (bnamericas.com – March 12, 2025)

https://www.bnamericas.com/en/

Brazil has huge potential to develop nickel projects and benefit from the energy transition, but it also must solve significant problems. National nickel reserves are estimated at 16Mt, putting Brazil in third place globally, after Indonesia (55Mt) and Australia (24Mt).

Output, however, is still modest, totaling 89,000t in 2023, for a global market share of 2.47%, which makes Brazil the ninth producer, according to US Geological Survey data. But Brazil is the only Latin American country which is a top 10 global nickel player.

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Sudbury’s mining companies have to plan carefully: Mark Cutifani – by Hugh Kruzel (Sudbury Star – March 11, 2025)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale Base Metals chairman speaks to the Goodman School of Mining about sustainability and caring during difficult times for nickel miners

Lower nickel prices and ore that is harder to get at mean mine companies operating in Sudbury will have to be smarter and more innovative as they plan for the future, the chairman of Vale Base Metals says.

Mark Cutifani made the observations during a talk last week at the Goodman School of Mines Lecture in the Cliff Fielding Innovation Space in Sudbury. “It is a tough time for nickel,” Cutifani told the audience. Because of Indonesian nickel, he said the industry will not see a significant increase in nickel prices before 2030.

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Vale Base Metals chair hopes ‘cool heads will prevail’ in U.S.-Canada trade dispute – – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – March 10, 2025)

https://www.sudbury.com/

International nickel miner has contingency plans in place should U.S. nickel exports be halted.

It’s still too early in the U.S.-Canada trade dispute to determine what impact tariffs will have on Vale Base Metals’ U.S.-bound nickel shipments, given the rapidly changing situation, according to company chair Mark Cutifani. Cutifani’s hope is that federal and provincial parties can return to discussions to agree on a long-term solution.

“We hope that, from a political point of view, the U.S., Canada, Ontario can all come together and sort out what should occur and, at least once the rhetoric sort of settles down a little bit, we hope that cool heads will prevail and we’ll find solutions that work,” Cutifani told Northern Ontario Business in an interview.

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Update on top critical mining projects in Ontario – by Diane L.M. Cook (Canadian Mining Journal – March 5, 2025)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

The surging demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is breathing new life into Ontario’s mining industry. Several critical strategic mineral mines will produce the minerals required to manufacture EV batteries and renewable energy storage for the North American market. The following are the top critical strategic minerals’ (CSM) mining projects in the development phase:

Canada Nickel: Crawford nickel sulphide project

Canada Nickel is a Toronto-based company that is advancing the next generation of net-zero carbon nickel-cobalt projects with plans to supply the critical mineral to Canada’s EV battery industry. The company’s Crawford nickel sulphide project is the second largest nickel resource and reserve globally, with 3.8 million tonnes of proven and probable nickel contained.

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Doug Ford threatens to stop nickel shipments to U.S. on eve of trade war – by Chris Fox (CTV News Toronto – March 03, 2025)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

Premier Doug Ford is threatening to stop the supply of nickel and electricity to the United States in response to 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods that are set to take effect tomorrow.

Ford made the comment during an interview with NBC News NOW on Monday afternoon. The interview came after U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed during a news conference that the tariffs would take effect on March 4.

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‘Serious lack of details’ in [Canada Nickel] nickel mine proposal concerns group – by Andrew Autio (Timmins Daily Press – February 17, 2025)

https://www.timminspress.com/

Carbon capture process ‘encourages dangerous emissions,’ says Ontario Rivers Alliance

The Ontario Rivers Alliance has submitted its concerns regarding Canada Nickel Company’s Crawford Project to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC).

The proposed Crawford Project, located 43 kilometres north of Timmins, would see an open-pit nickel cobalt mine, as well as an on-site processing mill. The mine would be capable of producing up to 275,000 tonnes of ore per day, and the project is expected to last approximately 43 years.

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Proposed bill would bar state permitting of copper-nickel mines near Boundary Waters – by Jimmy Lovrien (Duluth News Tribune – February 13, 2025)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Past federal protections against mining in the BWCAW watershed face challenges.

ST. PAUL — Minnesota legislators have introduced a bill to bar copper-nickel mines from developing within the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The bill seeks to ban mining on state-owned land within the Rainy River Watershed and bar the state from permitting any mining or mineral exploration in that watershed.

Mining is banned in the BWCAW, but environmentalists fear, and a federal government study released under President Joe Biden said, that tainted runoff from mining activities outside the wilderness’ boundaries but within the same watershed could harm the downstream wilderness area.

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