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Former Canadian uranium mine site returned to province (World Nuclear News – May 3, 2024)

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/

The project, which is some 75 km south of Lake Athabasca and 15 km east of the border with the Province of Alberta, operated from 1979 to 2002, producing more than 62 million pounds U3O8 (23,848 tU) from two underground mines and four open pit mines.

The operation also included a tailings management facility, a mill and other support facilities. The Cluff Lake Project is located on Treaty 8 territory, the Homeland of the Métis, and is within the traditional territories of the Dene, Cree, and Métis people. Cluff Lake was fully decommissioned in 2013.

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Underwater power play for metals in full swing – by Alisha Hiyate (Northern Miner – May 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Despite its stranglehold on mining and processing, there’s one arena of critical minerals that China doesn’t control – underwater resources. No one does, as deep sea mining has yet to begin. But it’s not the sci-fi fantasy it once may have seemed.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA), which next meets in July, is hashing out the world’s first underwater mining code. Deep sea mining could technically begin as soon as July, even in the absence of rules which the ISA aims to have in place by 2025.

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‘Blood minerals’: What are the hidden costs of the EU-Rwanda supply deal? – by Lorraine Mallinder (Al Jazeera – May 2, 2024)

https://www.aljazeera.com/

EU plans to secure supplies for green revolution from Rwanda are likely to support smuggling of conflict minerals from DR Congo.

As the green revolution revs up, the European Union has signed a deal with Rwanda that will ensure a supply of precious minerals needed to build clean tech like solar panels and electric vehicles. What’s not to like? As the European Commission described it, after inking a Memorandum of Understanding back in February, the deal will “nurture sustainable and resilient value chains for critical raw materials”.

But all is not as it seems. It turns out that Rwanda is a country that exports more than it mines. Vast amounts of minerals like coltan and gold are smuggled from the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of the Congo to Rwanda, where they enter global supply chains.

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[Saskatchewan Uranium Mining] A restart 15 years in the making – by Trish Saywell (CIM Magazine – May 02, 2024)

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

Mining at the McClean Lake uranium mine in Saskatchewan, which has been suspended since 2009, will restart in 2025 using technology developed to extract high-grade ore from small ore bodies

After spending 15 years and more than $100 million on research and development, partners Orano Canada Inc. and Denison Mines have built mining equipment that is deployed from surface to extract high-grade uranium ore. They plan to use it to restart mining operations at their McClean Lake property in northern Saskatchewan; Orano owns a 77.5 per cent stake and is the operator of the McClean Lake Joint Venture (MLJV), while Denison owns 22.5 per cent.

Restarting uranium production at McClean Lake is a major milestone. Mining operations at the site began in 1995 and the MLJV extracted ore from five open pits, producing approximately 50 million pounds on a 100 per cent basis, before operations were suspended in 2009 due to low uranium prices.

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Nunavut operations contribute to ‘record’ quarter for Agnico Eagle – by Jeff Pelletier (Nunatsiaq News – May 2, 2024)

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Strong production at Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.’s Nunavut gold mines played a role in achieving a “record” first quarter this year, the company says. Agnico released its first quarterly financial report for 2024 last week.

CEO Ammar Al-Joundi said in a news release the company is reporting a “second consecutive quarter of record operating margins and record free cash flow.” The company reported an adjusted net income of around US$377.5 million for the first quarter of this year from its mining operations around the world. That’s up from around US$282.3 million the previous quarter.

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Can floating nuclear power plants help solve Northern Canada’s energy woes? – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – May 3, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Diesel is the only way to keep the lights on in many remote Arctic towns. A new project wants to offer a greener option – but first it has to assuage safety and cost concerns and compete with other renewables

The nuclear industry is seeking to establish a beachhead in Canada’s North – literally – with a proposed floating nuclear power plant to serve remote Indigenous communities.

Westinghouse, a U.S.-based reactor vendor, has partnered with Prodigy Clean Energy, a Montreal-based company, to develop a transportable nuclear power plant. Essentially a barge housing one or more of Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactors, it would be built in a shipyard and moved thousands of kilometres by a heavy-lift carrier to its destination in the Far North. There it could be moored within a protected harbour, or installed on land near the shore.

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The smoking gun for Canada’s weak economic growth? A collapse in energy and resource investment – by Heather Exner-Pirot (The Hub – May 2, 2024)

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The number of major natural resource projects completed between 2015 and 2023 declined by 36.4 percent

There’s a lot of hand-wringing going on in Canada these days as we try to figure out how our productivity, economic growth, and per capita GDP have sunk so badly. If you’re looking for a smoking gun, look no further than the precipitous decline in investment in Canada’s resource sector.

Canada’s resource and energy sector suffered two hits in 2015. One was the global commodity bust. The other was the election of the Trudeau Liberal government, which was intent on transforming the Canadian economy from its rollercoaster dependence on global commodity prices to one built on a more resilient and scalable knowledge economy. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau articulated to his audience at the World Economic Forum in 2016, “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. Well, I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

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Liberals hold up $34B Trans Mountain boondoggle as example of socialist success – by Jesse Kline (National Post – May 3, 2024)

https://nationalpost.com/

If this pipeline is so great for the economy, wouldn’t having more pipelines be even better?

After more than a decade of jurisdictional squabbling, political grandstanding, activist obstructionism, legal wrangling and bureaucratic delays, the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion gained final approval earlier this week and began shipping oil on Wednesday.

Despite coming in years behind schedule and nearly $27 billion over budget, the pipeline is being hailed by some Liberals as a triumph of Big Government, with the “golden” or “final” weld on April 11 drawing parallels to the Last Spike driven into John A. Macdonald’s Canadian Pacific Railway on Nov. 7, 1885.

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Congo M23 rebels claim control of smartphone mineral mining town – by Sonia Rolley, Erikas Mwisi Kambale and Ange Kasongo (Reuters/CNBC Africa – May 2, 2024)

https://www.cnbcafrica.com/

M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have taken control of Rubaya, a key mining town for the smartphone mineral coltan, following days of intense fighting, a rebel spokesman said.

Congo’s east has been plagued by violence since the 1990s, killing millions as struggles over national identity, ethnicity, and resources saw neighbouring countries invade and a myriad of armed groups spring up.

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Mike Henry, the Canadian boss of mining giant BHP, faces a reputational make-or-break takeover attempt – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – May 3, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Mike Henry’s long career at BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, did not rock the resources world. In his various roles – he has been CEO since 2020 – he was competent, capable and cautious, according to former employees and executives at rival companies, making him more evolutionary than revolutionary.

Today, Mr. Henry seems to be breaking form to unleash a potential revolution at BHP. A leak last week forced the company to reveal a takeover proposal for rival Anglo American that implied a value of US$39-billion. Anglo promptly rejected the bid, which can now be declared hostile, as undervalued, opportunistic and complicated.

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GOATS AND SODA: Why does TB have such a hold on the Inuit communities of the Canadian Arctic? – by Melody Schreiber (National Public Radio – May 2, 2024)

https://www.npr.org/

The ancient and deadly disease of tuberculosis has an unlikely grip on the Canadian Arctic. In a country where the rate of TB is among the world’s lowest – 4.8 active cases per 100,000 people – the territory of Nunavut is an extraordinary outlier.

About 1 in 500 people had active TB in 2021 in Nunavut, which is home to about 40,000 people, most of them Inuit. The most recent wave of TB infections in Nunavut began in January 2021 in the community of Pangnirtung. Two years later, Pond Inlet began reporting cases. A few months after that, it had spread to Naujaat.

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Smaller is possible, when it comes to mining – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – May 2, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Report encourages mining industry to target smaller mineral deposits to fill the critical minerals supply gap

Canada has an abundance of small, high-grade mineral deposits. There just doesn’t seem to be much of an appetite by the mining industry to tap into them. Small deposits are being overlooked, said a report prepared by B.C.-based Common Good Mining, because of the perception that they’re not economic due to assumed high costs, and lack of infrastructure or technology to put them into production.

But small-scale mining is a business model that’s worth exploring, (said the report), especially if Canada requires more critical minerals to feed the green-tech revolution.

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Does Anyone Want to Buy De Beers? – by Joshua Freedman (Rapaport Magazine – May 2, 2024)

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For sale: Diamond miner with unprecedented political challenges operating in the toughest market for years.

In December 2015, Anglo American’s leaders informed investors of a restructuring: The mining giant would be cutting 85,000 jobs, selling some of its noncore assets, and streamlining the business into three divisions, one of which was De Beers. This put a temporary stop to speculation that Anglo could sell its famed subsidiary at the end of a challenging year for commodities, including for diamonds.

The rumors have returned. In February of this year, Anglo CEO Duncan Wanblad responded to speculation of a possible divestment by saying it was “not specifically” something the parent company was considering, according to the Financial Times. However, last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Anglo was in the early stages of discussions about a potential sale.

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Without Indonesia’s Nickel, EVs Have No Future in America – by Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan (Foreign Policy – May 1, 2024)

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The IRA and Senate opposition to a free trade deal with Jakarta are undermining the United States’ green transition.

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan is Indonesia’s coordinating minister of maritime and investment affairs.

Without Indonesian nickel, the United States’ electric vehicle market will flounder. My nation sits on the world’s largest reserves of the metal that is central to EV batteries. In 2023, Indonesia exported over half the world’s nickel products. In the coming years, this share is projected to grow.

Yet some members of the U.S. Congress, working together with Indonesia’s foreign competitors, have resolved to stymie the import of refined nickel from my country. So far, they are succeeding. But when taken together with measures passed in March compelling companies to shift away from selling gas-powered vehicles, it is ultimately U.S. auto workers who will lose out.

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Ecuador court puts nail in $3bn copper project’s coffin – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 1, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Ecuador’s constitutional court has decided not to process appeals aimed at resuming activities at the disputed $3 billion Llurimagua copper-molybdenum project, in the country’s northern Imbabura province.

The 982-million-tonne copper asset, about 80 km northeast of Ecuador’s capital of Quito, was initially being advanced by the country’s national mining company, Enami EP, with the help of Chile’s Codelco.

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