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Column: Europe’s future metals strategy hindered by current crisis – by Andy Home (Reuters – March 31, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

The European Commission has identified 47 strategic projects which it hopes will kickstart the region’s critical minerals sector and reduce its dependence on imports, particularly from China. But even as European policymakers work to build a future industrial base, they are facing a crisis in the region’s existing metals sector.

Chinese over-capacity and high energy prices have accelerated the long-term decline of European steel and aluminum production. The latest threat, however, is coming from the United States. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, particularly the increased tariff on aluminum imports, risk displacing a flood of metal into Europe.

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This may be the most lead polluted place on Earth. Is there any hope? – by Julie Bourdin (NPR.org/Goats and Soda – March 30, 2025)

https://www.npr.org/

In a soft, faltering voice, her large brown eyes staring absently ahead, Winfrida Besa repeats “A-B-C-D” over and over as she tries to sing the ABCs. With her thin, hollow face and slight frame, 7-year-old Winfrida looks much younger than she really is.

“Winfrida doesn’t go to school. She would just leave the classroom and wander off, and we worry she would get lost,” sighs her grandfather, Bobby Besa, 60. The little girl was born “normal,” he says, but soon she was exhibiting a constellation of disturbing symptoms that are familiar to residents of Kabwe, Zambia. The diagnosis came after blood testing at the local clinic: Lead poisoning.

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On Minnesota’s Iron Range, Trump’s Tariffs Could Be Boom or Bust – by Charles Homans (New York Times – March 30, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

A region near the Canadian border, whose mines provide most of the new ore used in producing domestic steel — and cars — has a lot at stake as trade wars intensify.

Once a week, most weeks, the ground in Chisholm, Minn., shudders underfoot. “When they blast over here, we can feel it in town over there,” Jed Holewa, a City Council member, explained as he looked out over the pit of the Hibbing Taconite mine, a machine-made canyon of flint-colored earth extending to the hills just southwest of town.

The low rumble of controlled explosions is reassuring in an area where few livelihoods are more than a couple of degrees removed from the mines. But this month the ground beneath the Iron Range has begun to shift in a very different way.

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Gold surges toward $3,100 amid unrelenting rally – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – March 28, 2025)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – After holding initial support at $3,000 an ounce, gold’s rally continues unabated, ending the week at another record high.

Gold prices are moving within striking distance of $3,100 an ounce. While momentum indicators show growing overbought conditions, analysts say the market continues to benefit from solid fundamental support. Gold is trading at $3,077.30 an ounce, up 0.68% on the day, and is set to end the week with a nearly 2% gain.

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EU selects 47 strategic projects to secure critical minerals access – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – March 25, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

The European Union (EU) has published its first list of strategic projects strengthening the local extraction, processing, and recycling of 14 of the 17 materials it deems critical for its energy transition and security.

The selection of the 47 projects mark a key step in implementing the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which sets targets for 2030, including extracting 10% of the EU’s annual consumption, processing 40%, and recycling 25% of these essential materials.

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Why Sudbury can be a critical minerals processing hub to the world – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 28, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Mayor Paul Lefebvre pitches a compelling case to the Toronto corporate crowd to expand nickel processing capacity in the city

Sudbury has a strategic role to play in Canada’s natural resources security and economic sovereignty. Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre delivered that message to an audience of corporate leaders and influencers at the Canadian Club Toronto, March 27, by inviting strategic partners and government funders to come north and invest in critical metals processing capacity in the city.

Lefebvre took part in a panel discussion that Canada is falling short in realizing its full potential due to the lack of investment in mid-stream processing that’s needed to feed the burgeoning battery, energy and defence sectors.

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Is mining critical minerals better than extracting fossil fuels? – by Katarina Zimmer (Grist.org – March 26, 2025)

https://grist.org/

Extracting resources from the Earth always comes with costs. As we race toward a cleaner, greener future, there is a risk of repeating the abuses of mining for coal and other fossil fuels.

As renewable energy gathers steam around the world, the harms of mining its mineral components continue to grow. On the environmental front, for example, there’s the destruction of Indonesian rainforests to mine nickel and the draining of precious South American groundwater reserves to obtain lithium.

There’s also the human toll, which can be seen in forced displacement and child labor exploitation in the cobalt-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as violence toward Indigenous people living on nickel-studded lands in the Philippines. The devastation raises the question: Is the world better off just sticking with the status quo? With these factors, is renewable energy and clean technology any better than fossil fuels?

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In War-Torn Sudan, a Gold Mining Boom Takes a Human Toll – by Omnia Saed and Fred Pearce (Yale Environment 360 – March 26, 2025)

https://e360.yale.edu/

As civil war rages in Sudan, a surge in gold production is helping finance and arm the warring factions. Most of the mining is done on a small scale by villagers who process the gold using mercury and cyanide, posing serious threats to their health and to the environment.

Amid Sudan’s brutal civil war, where famine threatens millions of displaced people, many have turned to small-scale gold mining, risking their lives by using toxic chemicals to extract the precious metal. But this pursuit of survival comes at a devastating cost to public health and the environment.

Across thousands of communities, mercury and cyanide used in the mining process are poisoning miners and their families, degrading farmland, and seeping into underground water reserves. After floods in 2022 and again last year, toxins even reached the Nile River, endangering the country’s most vital water source.

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Prospect of U.S. tariffs haunting Canadian copper sector – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – March 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

Could send shockwaves through eastern part of sector and ultimately benefit China

United States President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for tariffs on copper that could send shockwaves through the eastern part of Canada’s sector and ultimately benefit China. Canada in 2023 produced 2.2 per cent of global mined copper, less than half of what’s produced in the U.S., which accounted for five per cent.

Nonetheless, more than half the copper produced in Canada, mainly from the eastern part of the country, was shipped to the U.S., making up a large portion of the imports there.

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First Nations slam BC mining claims framework (Northern Miner – March 27, 2025)

https://www.northernminer.com/

British Columbia’s new framework requiring consultation with First Nations before registering mining claims misses the mark for consulting with Indigenous groups, First Nations say. The new consultation Mineral Claims Consultation Framework (MCCF), released last week, outlines processes for consulting with industry and First Nations groups.

But BC Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee criticized the changes, implying they don’t remotely align with the collaborative approach outlined in the province’s Indigenous rights law.

‘Step backward’

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OPINION: Trump is right to fear a Canada-Europe team-up. But Canada must rise to the challenge first – by Aaron Burnett (Globe and Mail – March 28, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Aaron Burnett is a German-Canadian geopolitics and security analyst based at Berlin’s Democratic Strategy Initiative.

The spectre of a deeper trade relationship between Canada and Europe keeps U.S. President Donald Trump up at night – if his latest social-media rant threatening higher tariffs on both is any clue.

And that means, all the more, that Canada must seek closer ties to Europe. Mr. Trump is a man who defers to strength and bullies the weak. If a Canada-Europe team-up strikes such a raw nerve, then that means it’s the right move.

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Protecting undersea cultural heritage in spotlight at mining code talks – by AFP (March 27, 2025)

https://www.msn.com/

The world’s oceans harbor a cultural heritage of sunken ships, remains of those lost in the transatlantic slave trade and Indigenous islanders’ spiritual ties to the sea that must be protected, NGOs and native peoples say.

They are pushing at a meeting in Jamaica of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) — an organization established under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea — for such protection to be enshrined in a mining code that is being negotiated to govern the exploitation of sea beds in international waters.

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Boom in uranium stocks fizzles as Ukraine ceasefire talks build – by Geoffrey Morgan (Bloomberg News – March 25, 2025)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Once-booming uranium stocks have been veering toward bust mode to start 2025. Escalating trade tensions between the US and Canada, one of the world’s key producers of the nuclear fuel, are playing a major part.

Lately, so are talks toward a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, which raise the prospect of looser sanctions on Russian production of the radioactive metal and the potential for more supply. The price of uranium is now down more than a third from early 2024, and has slumped roughly 11% this year alone.

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INSIGHT: Myanmar rebels disrupt China rare earth trade, sparking regional scramble – by Devjyot Ghoshal, Poppy Mcpherson, Amy Lv and Neha Arora (Reuters – March 27, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

When armed rebels seized northern Myanmar’s rare-earths mining belt in October, they dealt a blow to the country’s embattled military junta – and wrested control of a key global resource. By capturing sites that produce roughly half of the world’s heavy rare earths, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) rebels have been able to throttle the supply of minerals used in wind turbines and electric vehicles, sending prices of one key element skyward.

The KIA is seeking leverage against neighbouring China, which supports the junta and has invested heavily in rare earths mining in Myanmar’s Kachin state, according to two people familiar with the matter.

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Lots of mining left in Sudbury but there are challenges: Gord Gilpin – by Hugh Kruzel (Sudbury Star – March 21, 2025)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale’s director of Ontario Operations speaks to a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon

Sudbury has another hundred years of good mining left in its ore bodies but it will have to work to remain competitive in a difficult market for nickel, Vale’s director of Ontario Operations says. Gord Gilpin told the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce this week that Indonesia has flooded the world market with nickel, depressing the price of the mineral.

Gilpin made a parallel to the turbulent 1970s and 80s. “They (Indonesia) are the OPEC of nickel. They will set prices. We do expect it to balance out but in the short term, there is a surplus that is why pricing is under pressure.”

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