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Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications

Former Sudbury mining leader is back on board with Vale – by Len Gillis (Sudbury.com – July 7, 2023)

https://www.sudbury.com/

The appointment of Mark Cutifani as chair of the newly formed Energy Transition Metals Board with Vale Base Metals takes effect this month

A well-known former Sudbury mining executive is back in the news and is taking on a new role as chair of the newly formed Energy Transition Metals Board with Vale Base Metals, which calls itself one of the world’s largest producers of responsibly-sourced nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals.

Mark Cutifani was previously chief operating officer (COO) at CVRD Inco, but he left Sudbury in 2007 to become chief executive officer (CEO) of AngloGold Ashanti, and then became CEO of mining giant Anglo American, one of the largest mining companies on the planet.

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The Drift: Smaller is greener and cheaper for Sturgeon Falls-area palladium mine developer – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – July 5, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

New Age Metals rolls out revised economic assessment for its River Valley PGM project

The company that once hawked its River Valley project, east of Sudbury, as the “largest undeveloped primary PGM resource in North America” has come back with a revised mine plan.

Inflation and a number of other uncertainties forced New Age Metals to go back to the drawing board last spring to sketch out new plans for a potential platinum group metals mine in the West Nipissing-Sturgeon Falls area.

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Mining the Northwest: How Northern Ontario’s first lithium mine and refinery project could come together – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – July 4, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Avalon Advanced Materials gets back on the hop in striking partnership deals, expediting government approvals to feed the electric vehicle industry

Zeeshan Syed claims Avalon Advanced Materials is out to create a “catalytic event” in selecting a site in Thunder Bay to place Ontario’s first proposed lithium processing refinery. After years of much talk and little action, the Toronto-based junior miner took a great leap forward in June with the announcement that a former forest products mill site in the city’s north end is the spot for a lithium hydroxide conversion plant.

Avalon also introduced a joint venture partnership with Antwerp-headquartered Sibelco, a deal that brings $63-million to the table to bring Separation Rapids, its Kenora-area lithium deposit, into production by late 2025, early 2026.

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Workers in construction, mining most impacted by opioid-related harm: research – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – June 30, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Findings are part of the ongoing research of Opioid-related Harms Among Ontario Workers study

Previously injured workers in sectors including construction, mining and forestry are more likely to end up in the emergency room or to be hospitalized due to opioid-related harm than workers in other sectors in Ontario.

That’s according to findings from Opioid-related Harms Among Ontario Workers, an ongoing research project being conducted by the Institute for Work & Health and the Occupational Cancer Research Centre.

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First Nations group prepared to invest up to $10 million in Temiskaming battery metals recycling venture – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – June 26, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Three Fires Group to take equity stake in Electra Battery Materials

Electra Battery Materials, the developers of a Temiskaming cobalt refinery, have come out with a financing package to finish construction of the plant and kick-start the development of a battery recycling operation.

The Toronto company’s new joint venture Indigenous partner, the Three Fires Group, is tentatively prepared to invest $10 million or half as part of a total $20-million arrangement for this venture, according to an Electra spokesperson.

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Treaty 9 Nations press ahead with lawsuit on mine development – by Staff (Timmins Today – June 24, 2023)

https://www.timminstoday.com/

Communities want “dual decision-making regime” established to govern traditional territories

Northern Ontario Business – Attempts by government to expedite mining-related development in the Ring of Fire have prompted a lawsuit against the Crown by 10 First Nations in northwestern Ontario and the Far North.

After threatening legal action last April, a coalition of Indigenous communities in the Treaty 9 territory will challenge, what they claim is, “unilateral decision-making” by Canada and Ontario to spur development with their consent on their traditional territories in the James Bay region.

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How Three Torontonians Trapped In A Mine Changed News Forever – by Adam Bunch (Toronto History – June 25, 2023)

 

https://torontohistory.substack.com/

It began with an ominous rumbling. Three men from Toronto were standing more than a hundred metres beneath the surface of Nova Scotia. They’d come to visit the Moose River quartz mine, having just leased it. But while they were down there inspecting the tunnels on that Easter Sunday in 1936, a distant noise caught their attention

The three men didn’t have a lot of experience with mining. Dr. David Robertson was chief surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children. Herman Magill was a lawyer who lived in Forest Hill. Alfred Scadding was their bookkeeper and timekeeper. They don’t seem to have realized how unsafe the mine was; it had long been out of service and only recently reopened. But even they knew that rumbling sound couldn’t be good. They ran.

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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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Honouring Sudbury’s fallen miners: ‘It’s a big price to pay for a pound of nickel’ – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – June 20, 2023)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Health and safety in the mining industry in Greater Sudbury has come a long way over the past 95 years, so much, in fact, that where fatal mining accidents were once commonplace, they are now a rarity, according to a retired electrician at Falconbridge Limited.

“Since 1929, 100 men lost their lives,” Tom Rannelli said at the 39th-annual Workers’ Memorial Day service held at the Royal Canadian Legion branch in Falconbridge on Tuesday. “That’s approximately one a year. That’s just at Falconbridge.

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Lithium mine developer selects a Thunder Bay processing site – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – June 19, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Avalon Advanced Materials to repurpose former forestry property to become lithium hydroxide refinery.

A former Buchanan Woodlands property is the chosen site of a proposed lithium conversion chemical plant for Thunder Bay, possibly the first of its type in Canada. Avalon Advanced Materials, owner of a lithium deposit near Kenora, announced that 965 Strathcona Ave. is the property the Toronto company has acquired for the refinery, first proposed in 2020.

Located off Shipyard Road in the city’s north end, the site has existing road, rail and deep-water port access as well as all the utilities needed to support a lithium hydroxide processing plant, the company said in a June 19 news release.

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$920 billion needed to bridge the ‘great raw material disconnect’: Benchmark CEO Simon Moores (Benchmark Minerals – June 15, 2023)

https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/

The following is a speech given by Benchmark’s chief executive Simon Moores at the opening of the Battery Gigafactories USA 2023 conference in Washington, DC.

“This is what I want people to mull over. Between now and 2035, $920 billion dollars will be needed to be invested to bridge this great raw material disconnect.”

Today, we must recognise that for our industry this is a moment. This global battery arms race has arrived on these shores at a pace we could have never imagined, even only 18 months ago.

It is especially a moment for the critical mineral explorers, developers, miners, and refiners. That’s the hardest job in the industry – it’s a thankless task for the prospectors, developers and pioneers that actually go around the world and look for these minerals and put in the real hard work to actually attempt to bring them to production.

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Avalon Advanced Materials secures European partner to advance northwest lithium projects – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 15, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Belgium-based Sibelco to invest $63 million in Toronto lithium mine developer

Avalon Advanced Materials has attracted a strategic European partner to invest $63 million to speed its lithium projects into mines and to move towards establishing a processing facility in Thunder Bay.

Avalon, a Toronto-based lithium company, announced June 15 it has signed a binding term sheet with Belgium’s SCR-Sibelco NV to form and finance a proposed joint venture to advance Avalon’s two lithium projects in northwestern Ontario into production and to site a lithium hydroxide processing facility in Thunder Bay.

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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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‘Dramatic’ shift needed to attract more women to mining: panel – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – June 9, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Sector is changing, but more efforts required to create a truly inclusive industry, battery-electric conference hears

For years now, the mining industry has been calling for change in the way it recruits its workforce, with an emphasis on bringing more women into the fold.

But any changes that have taken place are marginal at best, according to Nour Hachem-Fawaz, president and founder of Build a Dream, an organization that helps connect young girls and women to the skilled trades, STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) careers, and entrepreneurship.

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