https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Driven in part by troubles with Vale’s Sudbury operations, nickel surged to a seven-year high on Wednesday. Nickel – the key mineral found in Sudbury – topped US$9.53 a pound, the highest it’s been since 2014.
Bloomberg News said concerns that there’ll be less supply of the key industrial metal to meet resilient demand from economies reopening as the pandemic retreats sparked higher prices.
The thunder from down under has been reverberating through Ontario’s Ring of Fire mining camp – located roughly 500 kms northeast of Thunder Bay – as Australian mining giants BHP and Wyloo Metals are fighting a bruising bidding war for Noront Resources. The junior exploration company owns the Eagle’s Nest nickel/copper potential mine as well as extensive world-class chromite deposits and other mineral-rich promising ground.
BHP is the largest mining company in the world, whose current CEO, Mike Henry, is a Canadian, while Wyloo Metals is owned by Fortescue Metals, founded by mining billionaire Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, and is the world’s fourth largest iron ore miner.
“Noront’s ROF land package hosts some of the most prospective mineral deposits in the world. These deposits have the potential to become Canada’s next great mineral district, supporting the production of future-facing commodities for multiple generations”, claimed a Wyloo Metals news release in August.
The entry of multi-billion-dollar mining corporations signals a proverbial “game-change” in the stalled Ring of Fire mining camp. Noront Resource was a struggling junior company that did manage to consolidate almost half of the valuable mineral claims in the camp but did not have the funds to do significant further exploration or to build their existing mine. Newly established and well-funded explorer Juno Corporation is the largest claim holder who after extensive aerial geo-physics surveys that showcased promising anomalies, is hoping to add to future discoveries.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
A new group in Sudbury, Ont., wants to help more women get jobs in the mining industry. Women represent around one in 10 workers in Canada’s mining industry, and number that hasn’t changed much in the last 10 years, according to Jennifer Dallaire, treasurer of the Sudbury chapter of Women in Mining.
The chapter launched in early 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it just recently held its first networking event. About 50 people participated in the event. They ranged from women already working in the industry, to students and business owners.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
The chief executive of Vale SA said on Thursday the Brazilian iron ore miner is not looking into a near-term spinoff for its base metals, and the company later said the unit needs to be “transformed” before that longstanding plan can be carried out.
“We are not talking about a spinoff yet. The problem here is the size of the business,” said Eduardo Bartolomeo, Vale’s chief executive officer, as part of the Financial Times’ Mining Summit.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Canadian Press – Danny Taillefer and Jason Leger were in the middle of a first aid refresher course when the phone rang. Shawn Rideout, the chief rescue officer with Ontario Mine Rescue, was on the other end. There were 39 miners stuck underground at Totten Mine near Sudbury, Ont., after the mine shaft was compromised, he said.
There was another way out: climbing a complex warren of ladders at the Vale-owned mine from about a kilometre underground. Taillefer and Leger — mine rescue officers with the non-profit who were based in Timmins, Ont. — were told they were needed for a complicated mission, and instructed to bring several hundred kilograms of rope and other gear.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
A junior mining outfit is taking an analytic approach to get the geological big picture around a former Sudbury-area gold mine. MacDonald Mines Exploration has engaged GoldSpot Discoveries, a Toronto mining technology company, to help with exploration on its SPJ Project, 40 kilometres northeast of the city.
MacDonald believes there’s a large gold system of interconnected deposits on its 18,930-hectare land package in Davis, Street and Scadding Townships. The property contains the former Scadding Gold Mine, which produced 29,000 ounces of gold in the 1980s.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
At 60 years old, Perry Venedam was one of the oldest miners stranded underground at Vale’s Totten Mine on Sunday after a piece of equipment being slung to the bottom became lodged in the shaft and put the cage lift system out of operation.
Along with 39 other Vale employees, he was forced to use a secondary egress ladder system to ascend out of the mine with the help of mine rescuers, who ensured they were able to climb safely with the help of fall arrest equipment.
The Narwhal
Joan Kuyek is co-founder of MiningWatch Canada and the author of Unearthing Justice.
A recent op-ed in The Narwhal said that Sudbury, Ont. offered proof that a “[post-mining] re-greening road map exists,” and indicated that Sudbury provides a model to the world. However, any community attempting to replicate the Sudbury model has to know its dirty, and often untold, stories.
The mines and smelters in Sudbury — Canada’s largest mining community — were built on and destroyed the lands of the Atikameksheng Anishinaabek. The boundaries of their tiny reserve were deliberately drawn to exclude mineral rich lands. Although over $1 trillion has been taken from the Sudbury region, the First Nation has received no compensation and no apology.
Editor’s note: CIM Magazine interviewed Ontario Mine Rescue’s Ted Hanley just weeks before the Totten mine rescue team successfully rescued the 39 miners trapped 4,130 feet underground.
You can’t crystal-ball everything. Ted Hanley, general manager of Ontario Mine Rescue, does his best anyway, as do the staffers and volunteers who work to save miners’ lives when accidents occur.
After all, the 92-year-old organization was created in response to a problem many should have seen coming. In 1928, fire crews were brought in from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to put out a fire at the Hollinger mine in Timmins because no local or provincial firefighters were capable of responding to the underground blaze.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
The escape from Totten this week tested the mettle of more than three-dozen miners, but the task confronting rescue workers was just as daunting. About 90 people altogether were involved in the extraction effort, said Ontario Mine Rescue vice-president Ted Hanley, with Shawn Rideout, the organization’s chief mine rescue officer, charged with overseeing the response.
“It was all hands on deck, and really well-oiled in that there was a day shift and a night shift transition, for the surface operations, at least,” said Hanley. “It was a little more difficult for the underground rescue workers.”
SUDBURY, September 28, 2021 – Vale informs that the return of employees to surface at the Company’s Totten Mine in Sudbury, Ontario continues this morning following the successful ascent of several individuals overnight.
On Sunday, 39 employees were unable to exit the mine due to damage in the shaft that houses the conveyance used to transport employees between surface and underground. While conditions in the shaft were evaluated, employees reported to underground refuge stations as part of the company’s standard procedures.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
As of early Monday evening, 39 miners at Totten Mine were still making their way up a series of ladders after being trapped about a kilometre underground for more than a day. “All mines have a secondary egress, or exit, for situations where the cage is inoperable,” said Danica Pagnutti, corporate affairs specialist with Vale.
In this case the shaft was damaged by a scoop bucket under the cage, she said, making the normal route to surface impassable. The employees, who punched in Sunday morning, were working in various areas between the 3,000- and 4,000-foot levels, Pagnutti said, when the incident occurred early Sunday afternoon.
https://www.elliotlaketoday.com/
Exiting Vale’s Totten Mine via a ‘secondary egress ladder system’
Thirty-nine employees at Vale’s Totten mine who have been stuck underground since Sunday afternoon are exiting the mine via a “secondary egress ladder system” with the support of Vale’s mine rescue team.
This is after the conveyance for transporting employees was taken offline, following an incident in the shaft.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
With reserves dwindling at its existing operations, Glencore has staked $1.3 billion on a new mine that will reach more than two kilometres — picture four CN Towers — below the surface.
“We’ve been mining around Sudbury for a long time now,” vice-president Peter Xavier told a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce audience Thursday, as keynote speaker for the group’s AGM. “That means a lot of near-to-surface, easy-to-find deposits are long gone, so the future is very much at depth.”
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
From River Valley to Massey, junior miners eye old mine sites and underexplored areas in the search for ‘green’ and precious metals
The periphery of the Sudbury basin is proving to be favourable exploration ground for junior mining companies on the hunt for gold and the ‘green’ metals needed to drive the global clean energy movement.
One of the area’s most advanced projects is 100 kilometres east of Sudbury where New Age Metals expects to release a prefeasibility study early next year for a proposed open-pit mine.
