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Nornickel has changed positively, says Taimyr indigenous group – by Thomas Nilsen (The Barents Observer – May 16, 2021)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

After the oil spill, we see positive changes in policy and approaches to interaction with the indigenous minorities, says Grigory Dyukarev, head of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North on the Taimyr Peninsula.

A year has passed since a fuel tank owned by a subsidiary of Nornickel ruptured, causing more than 20 thousand tons of diesel to leak into soil and waterways near Norilsk in the Russian Arctic.

The ecological disaster made worldwide headlines and the mining metallurgical giant had to pay a record 146 billion rubles (€1,62 billion) fine to cover environmental damages caused by the spill.

For Nornickel, a company controlled by some of Russia’s richest oligarchs, the spill became a serious wake-up call. They have entered agreements with associations of indigenous peoples of Russia, says Grigory Dyukarev to the Barents Observer.

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Judge allows DNR review of mining rules near Boundary Waters to move forward – by Jimmy Lovrien (Duluth News Tribune – May 12, 2021)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Minnesota regulators will review the state rules for copper-nickel mining within the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness after a judge on Wednesday upheld an agreement allowing for the review and dismissed a challenge by Twin Metals, which is proposing such a mine in that watershed.

Judge Laura Nelson in State District Court in St. Paul remanded the issues to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources so it could “institute appropriate administrative proceedings to consider and make findings and issue an order regarding the alleged inadequacy” and that Twin Metals’ motion to dismiss “fails.”

The order allows a November agreement between the DNR and environmental group Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness to proceed. In that, the state agency agreed to review its 1993 non-ferrous, or non-iron, mining rules to determine if it can actually protect the BWCAW from copper-nickel mining pollution in the Rainy River Watershed.

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Ocean mining frenzy drives $2.9 billion merger – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – May 11, 2021)

https://biv.com/

Littering the abyssal plain of the Pacific Ocean are an estimated 21 billion tonnes worth of polymetallic nodules containing high grades of manganese, nickel, copper and cobalt – the so-called “battery metals” that Tesla (Nasdaq:TSLA) has warned may soon be in short supply.

They sit on top of the sea floor just waiting to be hoovered up, and several companies, including one from Vancouver, DeepGreen Metals, is in the race to begin harvesting them.

Getting the 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 that U.S. President Joe Biden has committed to will require a massive shift to renewable energy and electric cars.

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Deep-sea mining tests resume as lost robot rescued – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 30, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Belgium’s Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR) resumed on Friday tests that could lead to the mining of battery minerals from the Pacific Ocean floor after it managed to recover a robot stranded at a depth of thousands of metres.

The company reported Wednesday that its Patania II, a 25-tonne mining robot prototype, had uncoupled from a 5km-long (3.1 miles) cable connecting it to the surface.

The unit of Belgium’s DEME Group is with a group of European scientists to determine the environmental impacts of deep-sea mining. They are working on GSR’s concession in the Clarion Clipperton Zone.

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Vale mulls base metals spinoff to tap EV market – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 27, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Brazil’s Vale (NYSE: VALE), the world’s no.1 nickel producer, is evaluating a potential spinoff of its base metals division as part of the miner’s growing interest in the electric vehicles (EV) sector.

The company, which is said to be in talks with Tesla and other EV supply chain actors about securing nickel from its Canadian operations, is in the midst of expanding its Voisey’s Bay site in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Vale’s plans include adding an underground mine to the Voisey’s Bay complex, which will produce about 40,000 tonnes of nickel-in-concentrate per year.

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Both sides claim victory in complicated PolyMet court ruling – by Dan Kraker (Minnesota Public Radio News – April 28, 2021)

https://www.mprnews.org/

Both sides claimed victory Wednesday after the state Supreme Court issued a complex ruling over state permits for the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota.

Environmental groups and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa were quick to celebrate the ruling, saying the decision “hits the reset button” on the proposal, which would be the first non-iron ore mining operation built in northern Minnesota.

In a 48-page ruling, the court upheld the Minnesota Court of Appeals’ reversal of the Department of Natural Resources’ decision to grant a critical “permit to mine.” The appeals court said the state agency failed to set a fixed term for the permit and it ordered the DNR to set an appropriate term.

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The West needs to level the playing field to compete with China – by Anthony Milewski (Northern Miner – April 23, 2021)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Access to the raw materials of the new green economy is increasingly a high-stakes chess match along geopolitical lines dividing the East and the West. China controls access to the bulk of raw and midstream materials that the world needs for its transition to a low-carbon intensity economy. This control has become a critical vulnerability in the Western world’s emerging Industry 4.0 supply chains.

The mechanics of the emerging green economy rely on carbon friendly modes of transport such as electric vehicles, as well as mobile technology, energy storage, rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies fueling increased computing power, and renewable power sources — all made from mined materials such as nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium.

China’s drive to become the dominant commodity superpower started in the 1990s when it started opening up its economy to the world. The central government mandated unprecedented infrastructure spending, prompting the start of the commodity supercycle that lasted until late in the 2000s. In turn, the enormous demand for raw materials sparked a mining investment boom.

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Talon Metals wants US nickel refinery – by Craig Guthrie (Mining Magazine – April 21, 2021)

https://www.miningmagazine.com/

Talon Metals has said a US-based nickel refinery will be needed to create a “Green Nickel” US supply chain for electric vehicles (EVs).

The proposed US refinery would accept feedstock from its Tamarack Nickel Project as well as recycled materials, said Talon Metals.

“I believe that there is enough nickel in the United States for nickel independence – what’s missing is a USA-based refinery that could be used to convert nickel into a final product that can be used for batteries,” said Henri van Rooyen, CEO of Talon.

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Sudbury nickel miner’s technology ‘ecosystem’ aims to find safe ultra-deep mining solution – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – April 20, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Glencore Sudbury INO eyeing mechanization for loading, wiring explosives underground

Glencore’s Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations (SINO) has extracted just about everything there is to mine at its Sudbury properties, and so to have a future presence in the city, the company knows it’ll have to mine deeper.

At its Onaping Depth project, north of Sudbury, plans are in the works to get down to 2,700 metres, from about 1,200 metres at the existing Craig Mine, where a new orebody awaits. But the big question remains: how do they do that while navigating the safety challenges posed by ultra-deep mining?

“It’s pretty clear to us that the seismicity that we’ll encounter down there will be a big step change from where we are,” said Michael MacFarlane, Glencore SINO’s innovation consultant, during the April 14 2021 Virtual Mining Health and Safety Conference hosted by Workplace Safety North.

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Trafigura Bets on Green-Nickel Squeeze in Defiance of China Cure – by Yvonne Yue Li and Andy Hoffman (Bloomberg News – April 20, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Just weeks after a novel production method upended the nickel market, two of the top names in the battery-supply chain made a play that suggests the world’s worries over sourcing cheap, clean supplies of the metal are far from over.

Commodity trader Trafigura Group and Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. signed a deal in late March to enter the Goro mine in New Caledonia, part of a group that will take the operation off the hands of Vale SA. The transaction wasn’t a surprise, with Vale in talks to offload the under-performing mine for months. But the deal’s timing was telling.

Earlier the same month, China’s Tsingshan Group triggered the biggest two-day nickel rout in a decade with its plans to make battery-grade metal from materials previously reserved only for stainless steel, potentially flooding the market. Wall Street banks lowered their nickel forecasts after futures plunged from about $19,000 a ton to $16,000.

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DeepGreen CEO Gerard Barron Opens Up About DeepGreen’s Open Letter To BMW & Other Brands – by Johnna Crider (Clean Technica – April 14, 2021)

https://cleantechnica.com/

Recently, DeepGreen penned an open letter to BMW, Volvo, Google, and other brands about the importance of seafloor minerals and approached extraction cautiously with an exacting commitment to science-based impact analysis and environmental protection. I also interviewed DeepGreen’s CEO, Gerard Barron, via email last year.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of a second interview with Gerard, this time through Zoom. In yesterday’s interview, Gerard answered a few questions I had about the open letter and he expressed his passion for helping the environment through his work of collecting deep-sea nodules filled with metals needed in the battery industry.

JC: For those who may not know, how exactly do you collect these nodules from the seafloor? What makes DeepGreen different from any other company doing deep-sea mining?

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Skyrocketing metal prices threaten to hinder EV affordability – by Annie Lee (Bloomberg News – April 14, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

A surge in demand for electric vehicles is sending the price of raw materials soaring, threatening to slow the push toward making cheaper batteries that are key to more widespread adoption.

Lithium, the mainstay for rechargeable power packs used in EVs, is roaring back after a three-year slump in prices, while cobalt surged about 57% last quarter.

Nickel jumped to a more-than six-year high earlier this year on optimism about the clean energy transition, though fell in March on plans by a top Chinese producer to beef up its battery business.

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Battery and ‘green’ metals brighten outlook for mining sector – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – April 6, 2021)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The transition to electric vehicles could take a decade or two but demand for the key metals in batteries and energy storage systems will only continue to grow as the shift to a greener future gains traction.

China currently leads the world in EV and battery production. The latest statistics from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to BMO Capital Markets, show that sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in February were 585% higher than the same month in 2020, and the country’s production of lithium-ion batteries jumped 108% year-on-year to 18.25 billion units annually in the months of January and February.

The U.S. wants to catch up. Under U.S. President Joe Biden’s US$2.3 trillion infrastructure renewal and job creation plan announced last week, US$174 billion has been earmarked for EVs.

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[Nickel/Cobalt Nodules] [Open Letter to Brands Calling for a Ban on Seafloor Minerals – by Deep Green Metals – April 1, 2021)

https://deep.green/

To: BMW, Volvo, Google and Samsung SDI

At DeepGreen, we agree that seafloor minerals development should be approached cautiously and with an exacting commitment to science-based impact analysis and environmental protection.

A precautionary approach has informed our strategy from the outset, including our mission to provide battery metals sourced from deep-ocean nodules that generate zero solid waste, no toxic tailings, and a fraction of the carbon emissions compared to land-based sources.

Such environmental benefits can be achieved only through collecting polymetallic nodules, 4,000 meters deep on the abyssal plain where the abundance of life is up to 1,500 times less than in the vibrant ecosystems on land from where battery metals are currently sourced.

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MEDIA RELEASE: STEELWORKERS RATIFY NEW FOUR AND A HALF YEAR CONTRACT WITH VALE IN SUDBURY (March 31, 2021)

SUDBURY, March 31, 2021 – Vale and United Steelworkers (USW) Local 2020 are pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached on a new four and a half year Collective Bargaining Agreement between Vale, Ontario Operations and USW Local 2020. The new agreement takes effect on April 1, 2021.

“The negotiation process has been both productive and respectful, and we are encouraged that we have been able to reach an agreement that the bargaining committee fully endorsed” said Sherri Hawkes, President of USW Local 2020-05.

“We are pleased that the agreement appropriately meets the needs for both the company and union members” said Mitch Medina, Manager of Employee and Labour Relations for Vale’s North Atlantic Operations. “I feel this is exemplified in the endorsement of the agreement by the USW Local 2020 bargaining committee reflecting the positive collaboration throughout the negotiation process.”

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