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Ontario Mining

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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Northern Ont. is officially home to Canada’s newest gold mine – by Dan Bertrand (CTV News Northern Ontario – June 16, 2023)

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/

Argonaut Gold says it achieved its first gold pour at the company’s Magino Mine in northern Ontario on June 14. Magino is Argonaut’s first Canadian operation and is located in Dubreuilville, located about 300 kilometres north of Sault Ste. Marie and just under 500 kilometres east of Thunder Bay.

“We are proud of the Argonaut team for delivering Canada’s newest gold mine. The Magino mine is key to achieving our vision to become a low-cost, mid-tier North America gold producer that … proudly demonstrates responsible mining,” said Richard Young, president and CEO of Argonaut Gold, in a news release Thursday.

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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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Red tape may strangle natural resource opportunity – by Kenneth Green (Toronto Sun – June 13, 2023)

https://torontosun.com/

Canada has a problem, nowadays, in getting Big Things Done

The “Ring of Fire” mining project is in the news again. And it’s looking eerily familiar to the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline project, which went through interminable on-again-off-again cycles of regulatory approvals and delays before the company that proposed the project withdrew and the federal government purchased the project. The pipeline is now being (slowly) completed at a wildly inflated cost.

The Ring of Fire is an area in northern Ontario some 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, covering 5,000 square kilometres. The Ontario government’s website lists five metals (including chromite and nickel), which are plentiful in the area and of potential use in making good on the federal government’s plans to “transition” Canadians into battery-electric vehicles.

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They thought they’d found an affordable place to live. They were never told about the radioactive mining waste – by Marco Chowan Oved and Declan Keogh (Toronto Star – June 15, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

Recent testing at four houses in Elliot Lake reveal elevated levels of gamma radiation and concentrations of radon gas far exceeding safety guidelines. There could be up to 60 homes in the community currently on top of mine waste, documents allege.

A cluster of homes in Elliot Lake sits atop a deadly secret. Radioactive tailings from long-closed mines in northern Ontario –– which produced uranium for atomic bombs –– were allegedly used as infill when the subdivision was established decades ago, emitting gamma rays and poisonous gasses into and around people’s homes.

The dangers have long since been forgotten and the mine has been shut down. Recent testing at four houses in the area, however, reveals that there are still elevated levels of gamma radiation and concentrations of radon gas far exceeding safety guidelines, according to thousands of documents shared exclusively with the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) and the Toronto Star.

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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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Tesla is looking to build a massive mining facility and factory in a surprising new location — here’s why – by Jacqueline Plein (MSN.com – June 12, 2023)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/

With the rise in popularity and demand for electric vehicles (EVs), there has been a concurrent expansion of battery production across the world. Tesla is exploring opening a new factory and mining facility in Ontario, Canada, to keep up with this increased demand and production.

Ontario has an established nickel and cobalt mining industry, two minerals necessary to manufacture lithium-ion batteries for EVs, smartphones, and other devices. While moving away from traditional, dirty energy-based cars would reduce air pollution overall, many are concerned about the destructive process of mining these minerals. As the world produces millions of phones, computers, and EVs, regions with high deposits of these minerals are becoming highly contested and highly profitable.

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The Drift: Sudbury nickel, copper explorers making strides to turn projects into mines – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 9, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Magna Mining, SPC Nickel bring new ideas in finding new mineral zones around old mines

Two Sudbury junior miners are laying the groundwork for the next generation of nickel, copper and platinum group metal mines in the basin. Magna Mining is tapping the width and depth of a mineralized zone near the surface of its Crean Hill Project that could speed a former mine back into production.

The hometown junior miner sees open-ended potential in a footwall zone at the former Crean Hill Mine. The zone was originally discovered 15 years ago but never mined by a previous operator.

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VIEWPOINT: Capitalizing on Canada’s critical minerals is an economic and geopolitical win-win – by Andrew Evans (The Hub – June 12, 2023)

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Developing Ontario’s critical minerals will help Canada and the Western world counter China

Andrew Forrest, the owner of the Wyloo Metals, a main company in Ontario’s Ring of Fire,1 recently raised issues with Canada’s regulatory overburden and called into question the viability of the entire project. The Ring of Fire is one of Ontario’s most significant economic opportunities, but the debate has been missing a critical aspect of why it matters: the role of global geopolitics.

Much like the oil industry, the critical minerals industry is geographically concentrated and lends itself to natural economic bottlenecks. China controls significant majorities and pluralities in every step of the value chain.

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Northern Ontario has big role in developing province’s EV industry: Fedeli – by Hugh Kruzel (Sudbury Star – June 7, 2023)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Cabinet minister speaks to Sudbury conference about the future of battery electric vehicles

The Ford government is committed to making the province a leader in manufacturing electric vehicles, Ontario’s minister of Economic Development has told a Sudbury conference. Vic Fedeli, the Nipissing MPP, also said Northern Ontario – with its abundant supply of critical minerals needed to produce battery electric vehicles – will play a big role making sure that happens.

“They need us now … here in Sudbury is the battery grade nickel … then look at The Ring of Fire,” Fedeli said while speaking to the BEV In-Depth conference, held last week at Cambrian College. “We will be pulling the minerals out of ground and processing them here. In the North. Absolutely in the North.”

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How Vic Fedeli is trying to sell Ontario to the world – by Steve Paikin (TVO Today – June 5, 2023)

https://www.tvo.org/

The Nipissing MPP got off to a very rough start in government, but he’s found his calling as economic-development minister

Five years ago, Vic Fedeli was sure he’d got as high up the mountain of Ontario politics as he could. Yes, he’d run for leader of the Progressive Conservative party in 2015, but he didn’t make it to the finish line. And when leader Patrick Brown was turfed by his caucus in early 2018, MPPs picked Fedeli to hold the fort as interim leader.

But that was all temporary crisis management until party members chose a permanent leader in Doug Ford. After seven years in opposition, Fedeli figured he’d finally landed where he could have the most impact when the newly elected premier installed him as the first Tory finance minister in 15 years, back in June 2018.

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Unique approach gives mining companies a path to reconciliation – by Amanda Rabski-McColl (Northern Ontario Business – June 8, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Wabun Tribal Council provides industry with templated consultation solution to ‘build more mines faster’

Mining companies are being called on to do more. “Do the right thing because you want to, not because you have to,” said Nicole Charbonneau, a mining development advisor from the Wabun Tribal Council.

She presented the Wabun model of working with mining companies and First Nations at the opening day of the Canada Mining Expo in Timmins, June 7.

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