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Quebec Mining

SoftBank’s first lithium deal raises prospects for junior miners – by Susan Taylor and Nicole Mordant (Reuters U.S. – April 6, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO/VANCOUVER (Reuters) – SoftBank Group Corp’s (9984.T) entry into the lithium sector, a hot commodity for electric car batteries, is raising hopes that small miners struggling to secure bank funding can tap alternative financing to cash in on booming demand.

Japan’s SoftBank, with investments including ride-services firm Uber [UBER.UL] and Chinese online retailer Alibaba (BABA.N), will invest up to C$99.1 million ($78 million) for a stake of up to 9.9 percent in Nemaska Lithium Inc (NMX.TO).

Separately, Nemaska is also in talks with U.S. private equity firm Orion Mine Finance on a streaming deal, a type of specialized mining finance, people familiar with the transaction told Reuters. Nemaska shares jumped as much as 20.5 percent on Friday, giving the Quebec-based company a market value of C$566 million.

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NEWS RELEASE: Quebec Iron Ore to Ship First Vessel of High Quality Canadian Iron Ore From Sept-Îles to Asia (March 27, 2018)

MONTRÉAL, March 27, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Quebec Iron Ore Inc. (“QIO”), a Champion Iron Limited (ASX:CIA) (TSX:CIA) (“Champion” or the “Company”) subsidiary, is pleased to announce that preparation for the first shipment of Bloom Lake Iron Ore Mine (“Bloom Lake”) high quality iron ore is underway following the arrival of the MV Magnus Oldendorff at the Port of Sept-Îles on March 25, 2018.

The first shipment to Asia will comprise up to 200,000 wet metric tonnes of high-grade 66% Fe iron concentrate, part of the tonnage transported by rail to the port over the last month from QIO’s Bloom Lake minelocated near Fermont, Quebec.

The loading of the MV Magnus Oldendorff (pictured) at the Pointe-Noire terminal completes a historic milestone for the Company and the Port of Sept-Îles as it represents the first vessel loading at the brand new terminal and also marks the inauguration of the new conveyor linking the stockyard to the new terminal.

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PDAC 2018 Special Achievement Award: Jean Descarreaux (deceased)

PDAC 2018 – Special Achievement Award – Jean Descarreaux from PENDA Productions on Vimeo.

http://www.pendaproductions.com/ This video was produced by PENDA Productions, a full service production company specializing in Corporate Communications with a focus on Corporate Responsibility.

Special Achievement Award - Jean Descarreaux.jpg

Marie-Claude Descarreaux (left), Glenn Mullan, PDAC President (middle) and Isabelle Descarreaux

From time to time, PDAC presents a Special Achievement Award that recognizes exceptional contributions to the mineral industry.

Jean Descarreaux (deceased) – For founding the Québec Mineral Exploration Association (AEMQ) and developing the mineral exploration sector in Quebec

Jean Descarreaux is best known for his role in developing the Québec mineral exploration sector. In 1975 he co-founded the Québec Prospectors’ Association (now the Québec Mineral Exploration Association, or AEMQ) to promote exploration and entrepreneurship in the province.

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RNC mulls selling Aussie mine to focus on massive cobalt-nickel project in Quebec – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – March 22, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Canada’s RNC Minerals (TSX: RNX) said Thursday it might sell all or part of its Beta Hunt gold and nickel mine in Western Australia to focus instead on its Dumont cobalt and nickel project in Quebec, the world’s largest undeveloped reserve of both metals.

The Toronto-based miner, which acquire Beta Hunt in 2016, said while it has grew the scale of the operation ever since, such asset is now considered to be non-core to RNC, particularly since Dumont’s potential value is significantly greater than the Australian mine’s current worth.

The company, however, did say it would consider other strategic alternatives for Beta Hunt, adding that no decision about the mine future has been made at the time.

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RNC’s Mark Selby dispels myths regarding nickel demand as new EV markets beckon – Henry Lazenby (Mining.com – March 14, 2018)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Tightening long-term fundamentals for nickel are sketching a rosy picture for the stainless steel-making ingredient, as increased dependence from the burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) market adds a growing new demand stream in an already constrained supply scenario.

RNC Minerals president and CEO Mark Selby recently told an audience in Toronto that the nickel market has surprised many commentators with continued strong demand, with the recent market focus shifting to forthcoming demand from EVs in the 2020s expected to support an already robust medium and long-term picture.

According to him, stainless steel underpins an already robust nickel demand scenario. Demand for the metal had grown 5% over the last ten years, intensifying in 2016 and 2017 to more than 7% a year and creating a significant supply deficit in 2017 of more than 150 000 t, or 7% of global supply.

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‘Suds’ strategy pays through the drill bit as Osisko aims at replicating Canadian Malartic success – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 8, 2018

http://www.miningweekly.com/

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Celebrated Canadian precious metals firm Osisko Mining is aiming to replicate the success of its 9.4-million-ounce Canadian Malartic gold mine discovery – currently Canada’s largest producing gold mine – at its flagship Windfall Lake property, located in the Abitibi greenstone belt of Quebec.

The company relies on its somewhat quirky-yet-imminently-effective strategy called ‘Suds’, which is an acronym for “shut up and drill stupid”, chairperson Sean Roosen told a packed audience of miners and financiers during the recent Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada 2018 convention, in Toronto.

Osisko has had a colourful history, coming full circle from exploration and development, to royalties and financing, and back to exploration and likely development again.

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Deadly mineral that endangered town of Asbestos might save it (Bloomberg News/Montreal Gazette – March 7, 2018)

http://montrealgazette.com/

Residue from asbestos mine is rich in magnesium, which can be transformed into a light metal used in everything from medical implants to Tesla electric cars

There’s no running away from the past in Asbestos. The town’s most prominent landmark is a crater more than two kilometres wide — and deep enough to lodge the Eiffel Tower — a testament to the world’s once-bottomless appetite for the deadly mineral that sustained the local economy for decades and gave the town its name.

Quebec once produced half of the world’s asbestos and offered the highest-paying mining jobs in Canada before concern about cancer led to the fire-resistant fibre being banned in more than 50 countries, with the mine finally shutting down in 2012.

But now it turns out that the future of Asbestos may actually be in asbestos. Well, not in asbestos, per se, but in the millions of tons of discarded residue that piled up over more than a century of mining for it.

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Cobalt price: Supply scramble heats up with Canadian deal – by Frik Els (Mining.com – February 22, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Investors piled into Cobalt 27 Capital Corp (TSX-V:KBLT) and RNC Minerals (TSX:RNX) on Thursday after the companies entered into a royalty deal on all future nickel and cobalt production at RNC Minerals’ Dumont project in Quebec in a deal worth $70 million.

Shares in Toronto-based Cobalt 27 gained as much as 6% in lunchtime trade lifting its market cap to C$440m ($350m) . Investors who bought into the battery metals story when Cobalt 27 listed in June are now enjoying a 45% appreciation in the value of the stock since then. Cobalt 27 stockpiles the metal, holds options on cobalt juniors and enters into streaming and royalty deals in an effort to be a pure play on the cobalt price.

RNC Minerals stock popped 12% shortly after the open on the TSX affording the company a market value C$90m before cooling off in later trade. The Toronto-based firm which changed its name from Royal Nickel Corp in 2016 owns 50% of the Dumont project in the Abitibi mining camp in a joint venture with Waterton, a private equity investor. RNC Minerals is up 43% year to date.

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[Northern Superior Resources] A tale of two exploration projects – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – February 21, 2018)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

President, CEO and director of Northern Superior Resources gives overview of challenges of exploration on Ontario and Quebec properties

If there’s one piece of advice Tom Morris can give to mineral exploration companies, it’s let nature tell the story.

After more than 35 years in prospecting, exploration and mining, the president of Northern Superior Resources brought a message to the Sudbury Prospectors and Developers Association. Pay close attention to the findings, even if they aren’t what they are looking for, to determine what kind of resources are really in the ground.

Morris spoke on Jan. 20 about what he learned from two properties: TPK in the Far North, near the Ring Fire, and Croteau Est in Quebec. Very different locations, infrastructure needs, and histories. Both are showing great promise as potential gold mines.

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NEWS RELEASE: Osisko Mining Provides Quebec Exploration Update (February 8, 2018)

http://www.osiskomining.com/

Exploration Budget for 2018: $100 million

(Toronto, February 8, 2018) Osisko Mining Inc. (OSK:TSX) (“Osisko” or the “Corporation”) is pleased to provide an update on the progress of exploration at its 100% owned Windfall Lake, Urban Barry and Quévillon gold projects located in the Abitibi greenstone belt, Eeyou Istchee James Bay, Québec.

Osisko has been conducting new exploration and definition drilling at Windfall for 26 months, since late October 2015. As of the end of January 2018, Osisko has completed 518,000 metres of the planned 800,000 metres to complement the pre-existing 180,000 metres drilled at Windfall by previous operators.

The company is rapidly advancing the Windfall and Lynx deposits through a balance of resource delineation drilling and exploration drilling for extensions and new mineralized zones. Osisko has been successful in the past two years at significantly expanding the known areas of mineralization in the Windfall system and reinterpreting the geological model of the Windfall deposit.

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NEWS RELEASE: Investing in Canada’s clean tech ecosystem will promote effective mining waste management while reducing greenhouse gases (January 24, 2018)

NEWS PROVIDED BY: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

Minister Bibeau announces $1.2 million to help a Thetford Mines company develop new technologies that will improve mining operations and produce cleaner ore

THETFORD MINES, QC, Jan. 24, 2018 /CNW/ – A more economical and environmentally friendly approach to capturing arsenic waste from mining operations may soon be developed thanks to an investment in new clean technologies from the Government of Canada.

The federal investment of $1.2 million was announced today by the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophone and Member of Parliament for Compton–Stanstead, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

Dundee Sustainable Technologies will use the funding to develop a process to separate the arsenic waste commonly produced through mining operations and trap it in stable, non-toxic glass.

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NEWS RELEASE: RNC Minerals Plans Initiatives To Allow Decision To Begin Construction Of Dumont Nickel-Cobalt Project In 2019; Highlights Large Nickel And Cobalt Reserves

http://www.rncminerals.com/

TORONTO, Jan. 15, 2018 /CNW/ – RNC Minerals (TSX: RNX) (“RNC”) expects to undertake a series of initiatives during 2018 to position the company to make a decision to begin construction of the Dumont Nickel-Cobalt Project, which contains the world’s largest undeveloped reserves of both cobalt and nickel, in 2019.

With many market participants expecting explosive growth in nickel and cobalt demand from the electric vehicle market over the coming decade, RNC continues to be approached by a number of potential strategic investors, offtake partners and financiers who could provide the financing required to begin construction.

“The Dumont Nickel-Cobalt Project, one of the world’s premier battery metals projects, contains the world’s largest undeveloped reserves of both cobalt and nickel. It also contains the 2nd largest nickel reserve and the 8th largest cobalt reserve of any deposit in the world,” said Mark Selby, President and CEO of RNC Minerals.

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Human activity takes a toll on caribou habitat in Nunavik – by Sarah Rogers (Nunasiaq News – December 14, 2017)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Researchers at Université Laval say human activity in northern Quebec is damaging and reducing the extent of caribou habitat, along with the health of the herds that migrate through Nunavik each year.

A new study attempts to quantify that impact by looking at how the animals have shifted their ranges as roads and mines are developed in the region.

The two main migratory caribou herds in Nunavik have seen their populations drop dramatically in recent years. The George River herd has plummeted from 800,000 animals in 1993 to just 9,000 in 2016, while the Leaf River herd has dropped from 600,000 caribou in 2001 to less than 200,000 today.

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Eastmain Resources advances multiple projects in Canada’s newest gold camp – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – December 13, 2017)

Goldcorp (TSX: G; NYSE: GG) put the underexplored James Bay gold district of northern Quebec on the map as a highly prospective new gold camp in 2014, when it poured the first gold from its Eleonore gold mine. Last year the mine, 800 km north of Montreal, produced 274,000 oz. gold and this year is expected to produce 315,000 oz. gold.

But a number of juniors are active in the area, too, some of them in a joint-venture partnership with Goldcorp on a property called Eleonore South, about 5 km to the south of the Eleonore mine and adjacent to the southeastern border of the gold major’s Eleonore property.

Eastmain Resources (TSX: ER; US-OTC: EANRF) and Azimut Exploration (TSXV: AZM) own 36.7% and 26.6% of the joint-venture project, respectively, with Goldcorp owning the remaining 36.7%.

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Orford to capitalise on ‘district-scale’ Qiqavik gold discovery, near-term catalysts in Carolina – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – November 30, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Planning is under way for another summer drill campaign at recently-gone-public explorer Orford Mining’s Qiqavik project, in the remote emerging gold belt of Cape Smith, in Northern Quebec.

“We’ve discovered a new gold district in Canada. This is like walking into the Timmins Belt for the first time,” veteran geologist, fund manager and now Orford president and CEO David Christie told Mining Weekly Online in an interview.

He explained that the Cape Smith Belt, especially the southern part, had seen significant exploration in the 1970s for base metals such as nickel. According to him, everyone was focused on nickel and no one considered the gold potential of Northern Quebec, until the 1980s.

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