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Sudbury Basin

Federal minister bullish on Greater Sudbury’s future – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – June 12, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Jonathan Wilkinson says city in a position to provide critical minerals but also process them to help make batteries for electric vehicles

The Nickel City is in a great position to benefit from the push for greener transportation, not only by supplying the ingredients for batteries but also by hosting plants to process them, according to Canada’s energy and natural resources minister.

“For a community like Sudbury, which is an historic mining town, I think that critical minerals are an enormous opportunity,” said Jonathan Wilkinson during a visit to the city on Monday. “It’s an opportunity for mining, yes, but it’s also an opportunity for great manufacturing jobs.

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Researchers get $5M to find nickel, other metals, in Sudbury mine waste – by Staff (Sudbury Star – June 10, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

The idea is they can be used to help make batteries for electric vehicles while reducing the environmental impact of tailings areas

A research arm of Laurentian University will get $5 million to find ways of recovering nickel, cobalt and copper from mine waste in Sudbury that can be used to make batteries for electric vehicles. Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal minister of Energy and Natural Resources, made the announcement in Sudbury on Monday.

The money will go to the Mining Innovation Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corp – or MIRARCO – based at Laurentian University.

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Vale showcases greenhouse that helped regreen Sudbury – by Len Gillis (Northern Ontario Business – June 12, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Company celebrates 50th anniversary of the Godfrey Drive greenhouse that helped the massive Sudbury regreening project

For more than half a century, Vale’s greenhouse on Godfrey Drive in Copper Cliff has been making a beautiful contribution to the community. Vale Base Metals held a celebration June 6 to mark 50 years for the greenhouse in Copper Cliff and the company’s contribution to the regreening of Sudbury.

The facility on Godfrey Drive was built 50 years ago by INCO, but a previous company greenhouse existed in Copper Cliff before that, providing plants and seedlings throughout the community.

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Ten million trees really made a difference to Sudbury’s landscape – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – June 8, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

And about half those trees came from seedlings grown by Vale and its greenhouse in Copper Cliff

More than 10 million trees have been planted as part of Greater Sudbury’s regreening efforts, and Vale (formerly Inco) is responsible for nearly half of those seedlings. They started out tinier than a thumbnail, but 50 years later, the first trees that were planted are now soaring into the sky, covered in needles or leaves, and providing shade, nourishment and homes to all kinds of critters.

About five million of those seedlings got their start at the Vale greenhouse in Copper Cliff. A large group, including children from the nearby elementary school, gathered at the greenhouse on Thursday to celebrate its 50th birthday.

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Communities on the Move: Sudbury’s mining landscape ‘never been more exciting,’ says exec – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – June 7, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Stakeholders champion city as leader in critical minerals production

The Sudbury Basin has been a mining hotspot for more than a century, but as demand grows for critical minerals like nickel, there’s never been a more exciting time for the industry than right now.

That’s according to Gord Gilpin, the director of Ontario operations for Vale Base Metals, who led off a Sudbury-themed panel discussion at the BEV In Depth: Mines to Mobility conference May 30 at Cambrian College.

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NEWS RELEASE: Vale Base Metals Greenhouse Celebrates 50th Anniversary (June 7, 2024)

Sudbury, June 07, 2024 – Yesterday in Copper Cliff, representatives from Vale Base Metals and the community joined to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Vale Base Metals’ greenhouse. Over its long history, the greenhouse has been responsible for growing approximately 5 million seedlings within the City of Sudbury.

The Greenhouse opened on February 14, 1974, to provide a space to house tropical plants for use in displays and temperate plants for indoor and outdoor use. It also helped facilitate agricultural research, including studies on the effects of chemical growth on tailings and the germination of legumes for use in land reclamation.

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Emerging Sudbury nickel-copper miner strikes milling deal with Glencore – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 5, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Magna Mining will extract, ship 20,000 tonne bulk sample to Strathcona mill

Sudbury upstart Magna Mining has signed a toll milling agreement with Glencore in preparation for early-stage test mining at its Crean Hill Project.

The nickel and copper mine development company issued a June 4 news release of its plans to transport a 20,000-tonne surface bulk sample across town to Glencore’s Strathcona mill to make into a concentrate material. The bulk sample is being extracted from a mineralized area at Crean Hill called the 109 Footwall Zone.

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Fueling the Future: Sudbury conference focuses on critical minerals – by Hugh Kruzel (Sudbury Star – June 5, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Those who attended also talked about the supply chain to deliver them

Once again, Cambrian College was the site of the BEV In-Depth: Mines to Mobility conference. This third annual conference, held last week, gathered players in the Battery Electric Vehicle future of Ontario to listen, learn and exchange ideas.

“It is a natural fit for us – and Sudbury – to step forward into this future,” said Shawn Poland, Cambrian’s vice president of External Partnerships, Strategic Enrollment. “Cambrian and other Sudbury institutions can play an important role in research and development.”

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Mining tour allows Sudbury to show off expertise, technology – by Len Gillis (Sudbury.com – June 3, 2024)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Municipality and MineConnect team up to show off mining points of interest for out of town reporters and VIPs who attended the battery electric vehicle conference

The Sudbury-based MineConnect organization showed off during last week’s battery electric vehicle conference. MineConnect, in collaboration with the City of Greater Sudbury, hosted out-of-town mining journalists and others connected with mining and battery electric vehicles as part of the conference.

The mine supply and services association is a not-for-profit agency that represents hundreds of Northern Ontario businesses and services that provide supplies and support to every sector of the mining industry.

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Low nickel prices exerting drag on Sudbury economy: Report – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – June 4, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Employment should surpass pre-pandemic peak next year, however, and construction seems to be picking up

Nickel prices are down and the residential market in Sudbury has cooled, but the city’s population is expected to keep growing and lower interest rates will eventually spur more housing starts, a new report predicts. “The slowing national economy and soft commodity prices foreshadow weakness in Sudbury, home of the Big Nickel,” states an economic outlook from the Conference Board of Canada.

Worries about the near-term prospects for electric cars and their nickel-consuming batteries, along with rising Indonesian supply, have “pummelled nickel prices,” the board states. “Prices peaked in March 2022 and were roughly half that in March 2024.”

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Mineral processing plant will bring hundreds of jobs, business opportunities to Sudbury area – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – May 29, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

First-of-its-kind $800-$900 million facility, processing Ring of Fire nickel, will give Wyloo an edge in electric battery manufacturing

Hundreds of jobs and economic development opportunities will be created in the region when Wyloo Canada builds its multi-million-dollar minerals processing plant in the City of Greater Sudbury.

Announced on May 29, the facility will be the first in Canada to process nickel sulphate and nickel-dominant precursor cathode active material (pCAM) — minerals needed to make the batteries used in electric vehicles.

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Wyloo Canada to build Ring of Fire facility in Sudbury (updated) – by Staff (Sudbury Star – May 29, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Wyloo CEO Canada Kristan Straub says the facility would provide the missing piece in Canada’s aspirations to develop a domestic EV battery supply chain

Wyloo Canada announced this morning that it plans to build a downstream battery materials processing facility in Sudbury. It will cost up to $900 million to build and will create several hundred jobs, officials said at the EDome this morning.

It will cost up to $900 million to build and will create several hundred jobs, officials said at the EDome this morning. Wyloo said it has an agreement with the City of Greater Sudbury to secure land to build the battery materials processing facility. The new facility will fill a critical gap in Canada’s electric vehicle battery supply chain by establishing Canada’s first mine-to-precursor cathode active material (pCAM) integrated solution.

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WYLOO NEWS RELEASE: Canada’s First Downstream Battery Materials Processing Facility to be Built in Sudbury (May 29, 2024)

GREATER SUDBURY, May 29, 2024 – Wyloo has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the City of Greater Sudbury to secure a parcel of land to build a downstream battery materials processing facility. The new facility will fill a critical gap in Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain by establishing Canada’s first mine-to-precursor cathode active material (pCAM) integrated solution.

Wyloo CEO Canada Kristan Straub said the facility would provide the missing piece in Canada’s aspirations to develop a domestic EV battery supply chain, by producing low-carbon nickel sulphate and nickel-dominant pCAM, key ingredients for EV batteries.

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Sudbury becomes a major nickel producer – by Ailbhe Goodbody (CIM Magazine – May 22, 2024)

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

In this edition of Mining the Archives, we examine the development of Sudbury as a Canadian nickel hub, which later became an example of how pollution-impacted lands can be reclaimed successfully

The Sudbury Basin was formed by a meteorite impact approximately 1.85 billion years ago, which made mineral-rich magmas rise from deeper in the earth to create the valuable mineral resource deposits in the region.

Robert C. Stanley [CIM Bulletin, July 1927] stated that the first authentic discovery of nickel in the Sudbury district was recorded about 1856. “Sudbury was at that time the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, from which point construction was being pushed westward,” he said. “In the course of this work, a cutting was made which passed through an outcrop of copper ore that was later to be the Murray mine. Prospectors after copper immediately flocked into the surrounding country, and a very large number of claims were staked.”

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[Sudbury] Winning mine rescue teams now prep for provincial competition – by Staff (Sudbury.com – May 13, 2024)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Best mine rescuers from across Ontario get to compete for bragging rights at the provincial competition in Thunder Bay next month

Two Mine Rescue teams from the Greater Sudbury area will have a chance to compete in the all-Ontario Mine Rescue competition to be held June 4-7 at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.

The Sudbury area teams representing the Onaping District and the Sudbury District were among many mine rescue teams that took part in eight district competitions across the province, May 8 to 10.

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