Barrick Gold’s (TSX: ABX)(NYSE:GOLD) ongoing push to expand its global portfolio has prompted the company to revisit its presence in the Latin American market.
The world’s second largest gold miner has in the past year been particularly interested in Peru, where it was the second top gold producer until 2018. According to local newspaper Gestión, Barrick recently submitted a request to obtain a mining concession for 400 hectares in the southern Puno district.
(Bloomberg) — A US and European Union push to reach an accord on fostering critical mineral supply chains is set to miss another target this week, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The final draft statement for a high-level trade and technology meeting in Leuven, Belgium, on Thursday falls short of a deal, instead it says the transatlantic allies “are advancing negotiations toward a critical minerals agreement,” according to a document seen by Bloomberg. An earlier version of the statement left open the door to an “agreement in principle.”
Pick axes and coal dust aren’t selling a new generation on jobs in mining. Can the industry clean up its reputation — and act — to meet the demand for critical minerals?
When Courtney Onstad was out in the field collecting samples and searching for gold, it wasn’t the thrill of the find she was after. What excited her most was the science behind everything.
Geoscience is “all around” us. It’s something you can literally reach out and touch — “so much more than rocks,” she said. It explains how mountains form and water and ecosystems interconnect, it can help us understand hazards and weather patterns and reveals the Earth’s evolving history in fossils and formations. At 29, Onstad represents one of the most sought-after resources in the mining and exploration industry today — young talent.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States and its Western allies are feuding with Russia over its diamond production, but they joined forces Wednesday to keep supporting the Kimberley Process, which aims to eliminate the trade in “blood diamonds” that helped fuel devastating conflicts in Africa.
At a U.N. General Assembly meeting, its 193 member nations adopted a resolution by consensus recognizing that the Kimberley Process, which certifies rough diamond exports, “contributes to the prevention of conflicts fueled by diamonds” and helps the Security Council implement sanctions on the trade in conflict diamonds.
The copper bulls are off and running once again with confidence growing that the latest price breakout will not be another false alarm.
A squeeze on supply caused by production outages such as the closure of a big copper mine in Panama is combining with strong demand to lift the price back over the $9000 per pound mark with another 22% increase to a record $11,000/lb seen as likely.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Highland Copper on the spot to raise financing for Upper Peninsula mine
The State of Michigan is prepared to give a Vancouver copper company a funding kickstart to support a proposed mine in western Upper Peninsula. The board of the Michigan Strategic Fund has approved a $50-million “performance-based grant” to Highland Copper Company. Final approval still needs to come from the state legislature.
The grant, which comes from a Strategic Site Readiness Program, is specifically intended for mine-related infrastructure development, meaning installing roads, communications and extending power to the site.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Construction timelines remain fuzzy but proponents are still optimistic two and half years into studying roads to serve the Ring of Fire critical minerals region in northern Ontario.
Three all-season roads totalling 362 km are planned for the area 540 km northeast of Thunder Bay. The main highway would start at the end of a forestry road north of Aroland First Nation and the village of Nakina and head to the Ring of Fire. One branch would run to the Marten Falls First Nation to the east while another would connect to the Webequie First Nation to the west.
Winsome Resources has signed an agreement to acquire the Renard diamond mine and its infrastructure, with plans to convert it into a processing facility for its Adina Lithium project. Subject to approval by a Quebec Court, Winsome will pay Renard owner Stornoway Diamonds a total of CAD 52 million ($38.5 million) in cash, shares in the company, or a combination of both, it said Wednesday.
The lithium miner will have until September 30 to gain approval, with the option to extend to February 28, 2025. Winsome will not assume any of Stornoway’s financial obligations other than mine rehabilitation, it noted. Stornoway will keep any remaining diamond inventory and equipment directly associated with diamond mining.
https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/
The demand for critical metals and minerals is advancing dramatically as energy transition gathers momentum globally. Rare metals and minerals are essential to many clean energy technologies, including wind turbines, electricity transmission, and electric vehicles (EVs).
But when comparing fossil fuel-based resources such as hydrocarbons with the metals and minerals needed to meet emerging needs to build renewable power generation assets and energy storage devices, the numbers are staggering. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), it takes six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car to power an EV and nine times more for a wind plant than its gas-fired counterpart.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Canada’s quest for critical minerals has led to an astonishing promise: The federal government says it can slash the time it takes a proposed mine to get through the regulatory review process from 12 to 15 years – to just five.
Without access to a supply of pixie dust or a time machine, this commitment will demand a phenomenal amount of goodwill and co-operation from industry, First Nations and the provinces and territories.
A push for nuclear power is fueling demand for uranium, spurring the opening of new mines. The industry says new technologies will eliminate pollution from uranium mining, but its toxic legacy, particularly in the U.S. Southwest, leaves many wary of an incipient mining boom.
After sitting dormant since the 1980s, the Pinyon Plain uranium mine began operating in January on the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona, about seven miles south of the Grand Canyon. Thanks to new interest in expanding nuclear power, the price of uranium is on a tear, making undeveloped and long-shuttered mines viable. Pinyon Plain, which has some of the highest-grade uranium ore in the country, is one of the first uranium mines to open in the United States in eight years.
It will not be the last. In the U.S. and around the world, uranium mining is experiencing a revival. At least five producers in the U.S. are reactivating mines in Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and Arizona, all of which closed after the 2011 disaster at Fukushima sent the price of uranium plummeting. Other projects are underway internationally, including new mines planned in Canada, India, and Mongolia.
Esprit de Corps Canadian Military Magazine
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The federal government has become strangely surreal. Each day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces new initiatives that are some combination of (a) unnecessary, (b) outside federal jurisdiction and (c) unlikely to be realized before the next federal election. Meanwhile, the government remains silent on the most pressing issue, and one for which it is 100 per cent responsible: shoring up Canada’s defences in a world growing more dangerous by the day.
Several recent announcements have been about housing. The Liberals are making large sums available to accelerate housing construction, provided provinces and municipalities meet federal requirements to loosen zoning restrictions, accelerate approvals and increase density.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Luxembourg multinational Eurasian Resources Group to provide plant feed from Democratic Republic of Congo starting in 2026
Electra Battery Materials has struck a deal to secure a supply of “ethically sourced” cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to feed its refinery project in Temiskaming.
The Toronto company announced it’s signed a binding letter of intent with Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), considered a global leader in the metal, to ship concentrated cobalt from its Metalkol operation in the African country to Electra’s still-to-be-completed facility in northeastern Ontario
https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/
Low prices dampen investment for development
Natural Resources Canada barely got its invite out the door to the critical minerals industry in January when more bad news hit. Plummeting prices for metals such as lithium and nickel pushed the ministry’s pitch for help updating the criteria of Canada’s list of 31 critical minerals list to the back burner. Instead, some in the industry were demanding government intervention, up to and including the feds spending taxpayer money on new critical minerals projects.
How bad was the hit to lithium and nickel prices? Enough for companies to capitulate and begin shutting down capacity and production, said Canada Nickel Company CEO Mark Selby (and former head of commodities research). This occurred most recently on Feb. 12 when Glencore announced it was transitioning its Koniambo Nickel operation in New Caledonia into care and maintenance.
(Bloomberg) — A third of Africa’s gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees are at risk because they live in areas that overlap with mining operations for metals critical to the global clean energy transition.
Nearly 180,000 great apes in Africa are under threat as mining activities drive deforestation, according to a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances. The true impact might be even higher because mining companies are not required to make biodiversity data public, the researchers wrote.
