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NEWS RELEASE: Vale Base Metals launches strategic review for Thompson mine as part of global optimization (January 23, 2025)

TORONTO, Jan. 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ – Vale Base Metals has launched a strategic review to explore and evaluate a range of alternatives, including the potential sale, for its mining and exploration assets in Thompson, Manitoba, the Canadian-based subsidiary of Vale SA (NYSE: Vale) announced today.

The Thompson review is part of a process to optimize Vale Base Metals’ global mining portfolio to enable copper growth in the Carajas region and ensure the competitiveness of its vertically integrated nickel portfolio to create long-term value for its shareholders and stakeholders. Vale Base Metals has engaged an external advisor to lead the Thompson review, which is expected to conclude in 2H 2025.

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Vale Base Metals considering selling its mining and exploration assets in Thompson, Manitoba – by John Barker (Soundings – January 23, 2025)

https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/

Vale Base Metals said Jan. 23 it is considering selling its mining and exploration assets in Thompson, Manitoba. Vale Base Metals is the Canadian Toronto-based subsidiary of Vale SA. Vale Base Metals has launched a strategic review of its options for its Thompson assets, include two mines and an adjacent mill along with other exploration opportunities, Vale said.

The strategic review is expected to be completed later this year, the company said. The strategic review is part of a process to optimize Vale’s global portfolio to enable copper growth in the Carajas region in Brazil. Vale Base Metals has engaged an external advisor to lead the Thompson strategic review.

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Province announces funding for Timmins critical minerals companies – by Lydia Chubak (CTV News Nothern Ontario – January 15, 2025)

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

As Ontario braces for U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff order expected next week, it’s ramping up its investment in the critical minerals sector. It’s funneling more than $7 million through the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund to 17 projects.

“Our natural resources are essential to the execution of the AM CAN Plan,” said Stephen Crawford, associate minister of mines. “That is another reason why the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund is so important.”

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FPX Nickel releases optimistic economic impact numbers for its Baptiste project – by Staff (Canadian Mining Journal – January 13, 2025)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

FPX Nickel released an economic impact study for its Baptiste nickel project in central British Columbia. The company engaged Mansfield Consulting to assess the potential regional, provincial, and national economic impact of the Baptiste Nickel Project.

The impact study is based on the findings of FPX Nickel’s pre-feasibility study from September 2023. Company studies indicate the mine has a life of over 30 years.

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Magna Mining forks over a dollar for 30,000 hectares of Sudbury base metal properties – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – December 18, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Local mine developer swings its second major land acquisition deal in 2024

Sudbury’s newest and boldest miner, Magna Mining, continues to expand its footprint in the Sudbury basin. The junior mine developer has signed an asset acquisition agreement with NorthX Nickel to pick up a raft of former mine and exploration properties that hold some promising base metal potential.

And it’s a pretty sweet cash deal for Magna. One dollar. The properties, scattered all over the corners of the Sudbury basin, amount to about 30,000 hectares that Magna believes have significant upside based on the geology and the record of high-grade hits from drilling programs carried out by previous companies.

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Nickel executives raise alarm over potential flood of Indonesian imports stemming from free trade agreement – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – December 22, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s new free-trade agreement with Indonesia is causing an uproar in the nickel industry, with some executives saying that Ottawa should be clamping down on the Southeast Asian country, instead of opening up the domestic market to a flood of cheap supply produced at questionable environmental standards.

Earlier this month, International Trade Minister Mary Ng announced the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which will see tariffs phased out on many goods between the two countries as of 2026. The trade deal had been in the works for several years. Canada already has no tariffs on imports of nickel from Indonesia.

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Opinion: Canada needs swift reforms to lift its troubled mining sector – by Mark Selby (Globe and Mail – December 16, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Mark Selby is the founder and CEO of Canada Nickel Co.

Canada’s mining industry must overcome significant obstacles to unlock vast reserves of critical minerals essential to our modern economy. From securing development financing to navigating regulatory bottlenecks while competing against well-funded global players like China, bringing Canadian resources to market has never been so challenging.

The Canadian mining sector is teeming with projects stuck in the “Valley of Death” – the precarious stage between initial exploration success and full-scale production where many promising ventures fail to secure the backing needed to fund the years of permitting and engineering work required to begin production.

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Grid Metals, Teck Resources team up to explore nickel sulphide project in Manitoba – by Staff (Mining.com – December 12, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Battery metals explorer Grid Metals (TSXV: GRDM) will team up with Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B) to advance the Mawka nickel-copper-PGM (platinum group metals) project in southeastern Manitoba.

Under an option agreement entered on Thursday, Teck can acquire up to a 70% interest in the project by spending C$15.7 million on the project and making staged cash payments totalling C$1.6 million to Grid Metals.

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Norilsk Nickel plans to sell all it produces in 2025 – by Anastasia Lyrchikova (Kitco/Reuters – December 13, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

Russia’s Nornickel, the world’s largest producer of palladium and a major producer of refined nickel, on Friday said it plans to sell everything it produces in 2025, despite challenging conditions in the metals markets.

Nornickel is not subject to direct Western sanctions, though restrictions against Moscow have prompted some Western companies to avoid buying Russian metal and complicated payment flows, leading Nornickel to redirect sales to Asia.

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Vale lays off staff as mining operations worldwide reckon with low nickel prices (CBC News Sudbury – December 11, 2024)

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

The company says it’s letting ‘non-operational’ staff go as it moves to a ‘decentralized structure’

Vale is cutting jobs throughout its global operations to remain competitive as the price of nickel continues to slump. The company is refusing to say how many of its Sudbury employees are included in this round of layoffs.

In a statement it says “people in non-operating roles” will be leaving as the mining giant moves towards a “new decentralized structure.”

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Vale to trim management staff in Sudbury and around the world – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – December 6, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Union says its members won’t be affected by the cuts

Vale Base Metals will be shedding some staff in Sudbury but as of now the downsizing seems isolated to management and will not impact the rank and file.

“We have been informed there is an internal, managerial reorganization, that is obviously resulting in job losses, as has been reported already,” said USW 6500 vice-president Ray Hammond. “But we have not been informed of who or how many people that affects.”

Hammond said the union has been given no indication that any of its workers are slated to lose their jobs. “We have not been informed of it affecting our membership in any way,” he said. “They’re still hiring, for us, and we still have new members going through training as we speak.”

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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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WA’s nickel industry has collapsed but multi-billion-dollar projects still in development with eye on future – by Jarrod Lucas and Tara de Landgrafft (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – December 1, 2024)

https://www.abc.net.au/

Is Western Australia’s once-booming nickel industry dead or just a sleeping giant? Thousands of job losses this year marked the bleakest period in the local industry’s history, which dates back to the 1960s.

In those days, the discovery of nickel literally put the Goldfields town of Kambalda on the map, leading to the development of the country’s first nickel mine while the Vietnam War drove demand for this key ingredient of stainless steel.

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Navigating ‘The Valley of Death’: Why Canada’s emerging critical minerals miners are struggling to survive and what can be done about it – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – November 22, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Martin Turenne, chief executive officer of FPX Nickel Corp. FPX-X is wired as an optimist. In the mining industry, you have to be, because the timelines are agonizingly long and the odds are often heavily stacked against you.

Mr. Turenne hopes to have a nickel mine and refinery in production at its Baptiste project in central British Columbia by the end of the decade. The grand plan is to supply nickel for Canada’s nascent electric vehicle battery industry. The early estimate to build what could eventually be a top 10 nickel operation globally is $2.6-billion.

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FPX outlines Baptiste-like nickel in Yukon – by Shane Lasley (North of 60 Mining News – November 14, 2024)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Surface sampling outlines a zone of awaruite mineralization that is comparable in size and grade to B.C. nickel mine project.

FPX Nickel Corp. Nov. 14 reported that its summer sampling program at its Mich property in the Yukon has outlined a nickel zone that is comparable in size, grade, and style of mineralization as Baptiste, an advance-staged exploration project in central British Columbia that shows the potential of being a significant future supply of low-carbon nickel and cobalt, both of which are used in lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles and storing renewable energy.

Baptiste has the distinction and advantage of hosting a specialized nickel mineral known as awaruite, which is a nickel-iron alloy formed when sulfur is not present during mineralization. Nickel concentrates produced from mining awaruite do not require smelting or high-pressure acid leaching.

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