Base metals surged, led by zinc which spiked to the highest since 2007 after European smelters became the latest casualties in a global energy crisis that’s knocking supply offline and heaping pressure on manufacturers.
Zinc rose as much as 6.9 per cent on the London Metal Exchange, and a gauge of six industrial metals rapidly closed in on an all-time high. Aluminum, one of the most energy-intensive commodities, is at the highest since 2008.
This year’s London Metal Exchange (LME) Week was a subdued affair by comparison with past excess. Put on ice last year due to covid-19, the annual metals party returned in slimmed-down form with many opting for virtual over physical drinks. Analysts were in equally sober mood. Everyone’s still positive on the longer-term energy transition story but more immediately worried about China.
The debt problem faced by real estate developer China Evergrande Group is no Lehman Moment, to quote Bank of China’s head of commodity strategy Amelia Fu, speaking at the LME Seminar. But weakening Chinese property sales spell trouble for what is a big metallic demand driver.
Still plenty of potential in Faro lead-zinc mine, says serial entrepreneur Don McInnes
The tiny Yukon town of Faro, a four-hour drive northwest of Whitehorse, would never have existed were it not for the nearby lead-zinc mine of the same name, which is said to have been the largest in the world at the time it was built in the late 1960s.
At its peak the town was home to 2,100 people, with the Faro mine accounting for 35% of Yukon’s GDP.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Metallum Resources posts feasibility study showing almost nine-year mine life near Lake Superior’s north shore
A Vancouver zinc exploration company wants to revive mining on the north shore of Lake Superior, 20 kilometres north of Schreiber.
Metallum Resources said there’s enough high-grade zinc and copper in the ground at its Superior Lake Zinc Project to mine for a minimum of 8.5 years as the company probes for more resources this fall around a former mine site, 150 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.
TEHRAN – Mining tourism as a relatively untapped potential could lead to economic prosperity and fuel boom in the Iran tourism scene by the means of creating new destinations and sustainable jobs for the locals.
Experts say mining tourism is a new category in the tourism industry, which involves tours of both abandoned and active mines.
Last year, Iran started to promote mining tourism by launching the first project in the Anguran lead and zinc mine, located 130 kilometers west of the northwestern city of Zanjan.
In mid-November 2020, Marie-Claude Dumont, senior operations manager at Trevali Mining’s Caribou zinc-lead-silver mine in northern New Brunswick, “dusted off the life-of-mine plan” for the operation the company had shuttered nine months earlier.
With zinc prices on the rise and a faint light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, Dumont and her team ran the numbers to assess the feasibility of restarting the mine. The models looked good, and with a healthy hedging deal in place, Trevali moved swiftly to announce the restart of the mine on Jan. 15, 2021.
By March 6, the first ore was at the surface and delivered to the stockpile, 20 days shy of a year since Trevali announced the temporary suspension of mine operations.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/
A new era of Poldark mining is drawing closer after Cornish Metals revealed that there are bigger reserves of tin in the county than previously thought. There is £1.4billion of the metal, which is used in electric batteries, around the South Crofty mine near Redruth, the company said yesterday.
About 65,000 tonnes of tin are thought to be in the area and tin prices have rocketed in recent months to more than $33,000 (£23,380) per tonne.
The findings are a huge boost to Cornwall, which is one of the UK’s most deprived regions and a focus of the Government’s levelling up agenda. Cornish Metals plans to mine the tin, providing much needed jobs and investment.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Feasibility study to be start on another expansion to world’s deepest base metal operation
After 55 years, the world’s deepest base metal mine looks to still have some life yet.
Glencore Canada is spending US$44 million on drilling and a feasibility study in preparing for another deep mine expansion at Kidd Mine near Timmins Kidd’s current life of mine runs out at the end of 2023 but Glencore management and technical staff have been working to extend it.
Known as Mine 5, Glencore said they’ve put 89,000 metres of drilling into the ore body and have queued up a new round of 87,000 metres once safety protocols are put in place.
$50M feasibility study to be completed by end of 2022
Glencore Canada is investing more than $50 million on a drilling and feasibility program aimed at extending mine life at Kidd Operations. The mine is currently projected to wind down by end of 2023. However, hopes remain alive that operations may extend beyond that.
Last week, the company advised staff that the next phase of drilling and feasibility was approved for what has been dubbed the Mine 5 project, Alexis Segal, Glencore’s head of corporate communications told The Daily Press Thursday night.
Murchison Minerals Limited (TSXV: MUR) is a company founded by industry veterans and following a plan for discovering and building resources for the Green Energy Revolution through high-grade Cu-Zn and Ni-Co projects in Canada’s best mining jurisdictions.
Murchison is operating in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Quebec, based on those provinces’ rich variety of metal deposits, as well as the positive fiscal and operational environment for mineral exploration and development. In its 2020 Annual Survey of Mining Companies the Fraser Institute ranks those jurisdictions as the top two in Canada and in the top ten globally.
The Green Energy future is not just about electric vehicles and battery power. Clean energy goes beyond this to include Wind, Solar, Hydrogen Energy Cells, Geothermal and even Nuclear. Other drivers of the future will be the electrification of everything, the 5G interconnection of devices (managed by AI systems), and energy-efficient systems.
The price of a decent wolverine fur goes for about $1,000 these days. Wolverine fur trim on hoods is highly desirable because it repels water. This means a frost-free hood on those cold days when Yukoners go outside.
Regrettably, there is a mine in the southeast Yukon of the same name that does not repel water and is costing Yukon residents a lot more than a single animal fur to treat its wastewater. This beast is known as the Wolverine Mine.
The Wolverine Mine site is located in the southeast Yukon on the Robert Campbell Highway between Ross River and Watson Lake. It produced mainly lead, zinc and some other metals for three years, and was last operated back in 2015.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north
The Tahltan Nation and the owners of the Silvertip mine in northern British Columbia, 90 kilometres southwest of Watson Lake, Yukon, have signed an impact and benefit agreement.
The Tahltan Central Government says in a release it wants to implement the deal with Coeur Mining immediately.
“We have a shared vision of empowering Tahltan workers, entrepreneurs and companies while working together to mitigate the mine’s impacts to our Tahltan territory, culture and values,” said Chad Norman Day, president of the Tahltan central government.
MT. CHASE, Maine — Additional findings of zinc minerals, as well as other elements such as lead and copper, have been found at the proposed Pickett Mountain mining site, located on property owned by Canadian mining company Wolfden Resources.
The Thunder Bay, Ontario-based company said its most recent test drilling showed polymetallic minerals, most particularly Zinc, which made up 24.2 percent of the results.
Other minerals reported were lead (11.2 percent of the results) and copper (3.2 percent). The total zinc equivalent, or the value of all reported minerals relative to the value of the mainly discovered zinc, was 52.9 percent.
Zinc prices climbed on Wednesday to an 18-month high after Vedanta suspended mining at its Gamsberg zinc mine in South Africa following an accident that trapped ten workers.
Vedanta Zinc International (VZI) noted the mine will stay closed until further notice while a search continues for two miners still missing after the incident.
The news comes in a zinc market where mine supply is already tight due mainly to restrictions to help slow the spread of covid-19.
Joseph Quesnel is a research associate with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Zinc is an important ingredient in disinfectants such as soap, so it plays an important role in preventing the spread of COVID-19. As we know, the twin pillars of COVID-19 prevention are social distancing and washing your hands properly.
So mining this bluish-white metal is important to Canada’s strategy for addressing the pandemic at home.
Beyond soap, zinc is used to galvanize steel to protect it from corrosion. And zinc is an essential element for our health, as over 200 enzymes in the human body require zinc to function.
