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Quebec Mining

Reporter’s notebook: Covering the 1980 Val d’Or mine tragedy – by Len Gillis (Sudbury.com – May 24, 2023)

https://www.sudbury.com/

The Belmoral gold mine in Val d’Or experienced a collapse that sent more than a million gallons of water, sediment and slime rushing into the underground workings — and claimed the life of eight miners. Sudbury.com reporter Len Gillis was a CFCL TV reporter in Timmins at the time and he recalls the day

I didn’t know what the urgency was at the time but CFCL news director Jim Prince said to grab as much camera gear as I could carry and to bring half a dozen new video tapes. I was just coming in to work at the news office at CFCL TV in Timmins. Jim was busy on the phone trying to charter a plane. That raised my eyebrows real fast.

Camera, video recorder, tripod and tapes. That’s a lot of equipment to carry on a plane. When Jim got off the phone, he said I had to get over to the Northern Quebec mining city of Val d’Or. It was May 21, 1980, the morning after the first ever Quebec separation referendum.

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Ford to buy lithium for electric car batteries from Quebec’s Nemaska Lithium – by Jacob Serebrin (The Canadian Press/Sudbury.com – May 22, 2023)

https://www.sudbury.com/

MONTREAL — A Quebec company building a lithium mine and production plan has signed an 11 year deal to sell products to Ford for use in electric car batteries. The deal announced by the automotive giant and Nemaska Lithium on Monday will see the American automaker become the Quebec company’s first customer.

Ford will buy up to 13,000 tons a year of lithium hydroxide produced at Nemaska’s factory in Bécancour, Que., about 150 kilometres northeast of Montreal, the two companies said in a joint news release.

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How the EV battery boom could change Bécancour, a quiet corner of Quebec, forever – by Nicolas Van Praet (Globe and Mail – May 5, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The countryside city of Bécancour may have finally found its higher purpose: making battery materials for EVs in the global energy transition

Dreams of industrial glory are alive again in Bécancour, Que. On the tidy main streets and busy eateries in this countryside city of 15,000 people, a hopeful buzz is in the air over a wave of new cutting-edge factories set to push up from the ground that could cement the area’s future for decades. An electric vehicle battery boom is nigh.

This is a collection of six villages across the St. Lawrence River from Trois Rivières, grouped together into one municipality for administrative convenience. Each has its own church and local history, and if you’re in the area, Bécancour’s tourism board suggests a hunt for “gnome homes” scattered among historical sites and a circuit of poutine restaurants to satisfy your culinary cravings.

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Osisko cofounder Wares praises private equity, scolds debt financiers, nips NIMBYism – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – May 16, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Osisko Metals (TSX: OM; US-OTC: OMZNF) is part of a rising trend tapping private equity to help build projects, but it’s wary of the growing role of “predatory” debt financing.

Appian Capital Advisory, a London-based private equity firm with mining projects valued at US$3.6 billion, is investing $25 million for a quarter of Osisko’s Pine Point zinc-lead mine in the Northwest Territories.

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Merger of lithium giants expected to create Quebec powerhouse – by Andrew Willis and Nicolas Van Praet (Globe and Mail – May 12, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Two of the world’s largest lithium producers announced a US$10.6-billion merger on Wednesday that is expected to speed development of mines and a refinery in Quebec.

Brisbane, Australia’s Allkem Ltd. is joining forces with Philadelphia-based Livent Corp., LTHM-N uniting the owners of lithium mines in Canada, Argentina and Australia, and a global network of processing plants. The merger creates the world’s third-largest miner of a key raw material in electric vehicle batteries.

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OPINION: Rio Tinto’s century-old Quebec aluminum smelter is living on borrowed time – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – May 10, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s aluminum industry got its start in the Quebec town that U.S. industrialist Arthur Vining Davis built in the 1920s. A century later, Arvida – its name derived from the first letters of its founder’s name – is living on borrowed time.

The life of the Arvida aluminum smelter that opened in 1926, now owned by Rio Tinto, has been repeatedly extended in recent decades as the Quebec government reissued its operating permits even though the smelter belches out pollutants that far exceed provincial norms.

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Head of New Lithium Giant to Focus on Supply Chain for Americas – by James Fernyhough (Bloomberg News – May 10, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The soon-to-be chief executive of what will become the world’s third-biggest lithium producer says the new company will focus on building a supply chain in the Americas, as US automakers look for non-Chinese sources of the battery metal.

“America-centric is a big differentiator for us with customers, with investors,” Paul Graves said in an interview Thursday, a day after it was announced Livent Corp. will combine with Allkem Ltd. to create a $10.6 billion company. China, where US-based Livent has refineries, “will not be a focus of growth for us in the future,” he said.

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Gold Fields deal gives Osisko option to fast-track high-grade gold at Windfall – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – May 8, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The Windfall gold project in Quebec, boosted last week by a $600-million investment by Gold Fields (NYSE: GFI; JSE: GFI), may tweak plans to increase first-year production by a third, founding partner Osisko Mining (TSX: OSK) says.

The equal partnership would extend the undergound project’s ramp currently planned to run 630 metres deep to 800 metres instead, accessing ore grading about 9.1 grams gold per tonne rather than 8.1 grams, which could lift annual output to 400,000 oz. in contrast to 306,000 oz. in last year’s feasibility study, chairman and CEO John Burzynski said in a phone interview.

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Gold Fields inks joint development agreement with Canadian miner Osisko – by Marleny Arnoldi (MiningWeekly – May 2, 2023)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

Diversified gold producer Gold Fields has partnered with TSX-listed Osisko Mining to develop and mine the Windfall project, in Québec, Canada. The agreement between the companies, with the joint venture (JV) to be called the Windfall Mining Group, involves Gold Fields acquiring a 50% interest in Windfall through a wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary.

Gold Fields has paid a $220-million, or C$300-million, cash consideration on signing, and will pay another $220-million on the issuance of key permits by the Canadian authorities for the project to be built and operated.

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Rio buys scandium project – by Esmarie Iannucci (MiningWeekly.com – April 28,2023)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Diversified miner Rio Tinto has struck a $14-million deal with ASX-listed Platina Resources to acquire its Platina scandium project, in New South Wales. The project comprises a long-life, high-grade scalable resource that could produce up to 40 t/y of scandium oxide, for an estimated period of 30 years.

Rio currently produces scandium oxide from titanium dioxide production waste streams at Sorel-Tracy in Quebec. Once operational, the Platina scandium project will enable Rio Tinto to more than double its yearly scandium production.

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Tesla lines up for lithium as North America’s sole large-scale mine opens in Quebec – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – April 4, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Companies behind Sayona Quebec see a bright future for lithium, four years after original owner shuttered mine

Anyone looking for evidence of the green economy in Canada would do well to drive about six hours north of Montreal to the town of La Corne in the Abitibi region of Quebec, where the first — and for now the only — large-scale lithium mine in North America has begun operating.

Last week, Sayona Quebec, a joint venture between Australia’s Sayona Mining Ltd. and North Carolina’s Piedmont Lithium Inc., restarted North American Lithium’s mine, which shuttered four years ago when lithium prices crashed.

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Activist shareholders accuse Azimut Exploration of ‘squatting’ on Quebec lithium lands – by Henry Lazenby (Mining.com – March 16, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

Two activist shareholders with ‘substantial’ holdings in Azimut Exploration (TSXV: AZM) have accused the junior of “squatting” on some of Quebec’s most prospective lithium lands.

Coloured Ties Capital (TSXV: TIE) and privately held Bullrun Capital this week issued a second open letter to Azimut’s founder, president and CEO Jean-Marc Lulin, accusing the geologist of refusing to acknowledge or engage with them about its detailed exploration plans for its James Bay lithium portfolio.

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Kiena digs deeper: Wesdome Gold Mines sets up historic Quebec gold producer for a new future – by Carolyn Gruske (CIM Magazine – February 27, 2023)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

Just before CIM Magazine went to press, Wesdome Gold Mines announced that its company president and CEO, and our primary source for this article, Duncan Middlemiss, had resigned. Middlemiss’s resignation follows on the release of the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2022 production results and 2023 guidance, which was issued on January 17, 2023.

The report was a difficult one for the company. Beyond the delays at Kiena that Middlemiss notes in our profile, Wesdome’s main producer, Eagle River in Ontario, underperformed due to “the variability of the Falcon Zone, which negatively impacted our ability to accurately forecast near-term production” and production in Q4 fell short of expectations, partially because of “severe snowstorms hindering [Wesdome’s] ability to truck the high-grade ore to the mill.”

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Agnico Eagle raising the gold production bar in the Abitibi – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 21, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Mine expansion at Detour Lake and Kirkland Lake figure prominently in gold production plans

There are more ounces to be pulled from the Abitibi gold belt, says Agnico Eagle. The Toronto gold company maintains it can produce more than two million ounces out of this region of northeastern Ontario and western Quebec by 2025, an area where Agnico got its start in the late 1950s. Agnico has five mines within this 32,000-square-kilometre area.

In a Feb. 17 conference call with analysts, Agnico management said it believes 2023 is an exciting year to advance a pipeline of projects and start to expand production at its existing operations while keeping production and total costs down to a low of $800 an ounce.

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Caution urged as mining companies eye critical minerals below Quebec boreal forest – by Stéphane Blais (Toronto Star/Canadian Press – February 8, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

MONTREAL – About one million square kilometres of Quebec is covered by boreal forest, roughly 70 per cent of the entire province. In the north, where ecosystems are less likely to have been altered by human activity, those forests have been accumulating and sequestering immense quantities of carbon for centuries.

“In the boreal environment, the forest decomposes very slowly, even more slowly than in the tropics,“ said Xavier Cavard, who holds a research chair in forest carbon management at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

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