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Activists, Hollywood take down top 50 mining company – by Frik Els (Mining.com – January 31, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

The ranks of the most valuable mining companies in the world were throughly scrambled in 2023 as governments intervened, lithium and nickel prices tumbled, gold hit records and a new listing went ballistic.

At the end of 2023, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners reached a combined $1.42 trillion, up a healthy, if far from spectacular $48.7 billion over the course of 2023. Mining’s top tier is also worth $330 billion less than in March 2022.

Metal and mineral markets are volatile at the best of times – the nickel, cobalt and lithium price collapse in 2023 was extreme but not entirely unprecedented. Rare earth producers, platinum group metal watchers, iron ore followers, and gold and silver bugs for that matter, have been through worse.

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Rob McEwen Seeks $100 Million for Argentina Copper Mine as Milei Boosts Prospects – by James Attwood and Jonathan Gilbert (Bloomberg News – January 30, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Canadian entrepreneur Rob McEwen is in talks to raise about $100 million for a copper project in Argentina, at a time when miners are betting that deregulation by the new government of Javier Milei will boost prospects for the industry.

His closely-held firm, McEwen Copper Inc., is speaking with existing holders — which include automaker Stellantis NV and a Rio Tinto Group venture — as well as prospective new investors, he said in an interview.

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Opinion: Critical minerals boom goes bust – by Jennifer Hewett (Australian Financial Review – February 1, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

The collapse of lithium and nickel prices is a rude awakening for Australia’s miners, but also reveals the challenges in the Albanese government’s ambition for greater domestic manufacturing.

The West Australian government’s budget is still flush with mining royalties thanks to iron ore. But although iron ore will continue to sustain the state’s finances, last year’s excited rhetoric about Australia instantly becoming home to a rich new resources boom in critical minerals is now looking distinctly threadbare.

In early 2023, WA politicians were marvelling that lithium royalties had suddenly grown to be worth $1 billion a year, for example, albeit a distant second to iron ore. Then minister for state development and now premier Roger Cook boasted of WA’s ambitions in critical minerals processing, extending from lithium hydroxide to nickel sulphate to battery manufacturing.

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White Cliff receives licence approval for Nunavut project – by Jane Bentham (Global Mining Review – January 30, 2024)

https://www.globalminingreview.com/

White Cliff Minerals Limited has announced that it has received a positive conformity determination for its licences from the Nunavut Planning Commission (NPC) for the high-grade Coppermine project.

This critical regulatory approval marks a major step in the permitting process and allows the company to now appoint contractors for 2024 exploration initiatives and complete the logistical planning phase. This approval also ensures that any proposed activities align with regulatory expectations and underscores White Cliffs’ demonstrable commitment to responsible resource development with local, territorial, and federal stakeholders.

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Sudbury researcher predicts late 2024 construction for bio-mining innovation centre – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – January 31, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

MIRARCO Mining Innovation CEO confident on capital investment arriving for mine waste tech centre

A Canadian expert in the field of bio-mining hopes to break ground on a Centre for Mine Waste Technologies in Sudbury by the end of this year.

Nadia Mykytczuk, president of MIRARCO Mining Innovation, said she’s following an “aggressive timeline” in seeking to construct a $38-million innovation centre when she spoke before the provincial standing committee on finance and economic affairs in Sudbury, Jan.30, as part of the government’s 2024 pre-budget public hearings.

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How a rare earth facility in Canada wants to clean up the dirty side of green energy – by John Lorinc (Corporate Knights – January 30, 2024)

https://www.corporateknights.com/

The plant in Saskatchewan won’t just showcase less environmentally damaging processes. It also wants to take a bite out of a supply chain dominated by China.

At some point this year, in an unprepossessing 120,000-square-foot box on the outskirts of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, technicians will flip the switch in a plant that promises to do something no one else is doing in North America at the moment: transform minerals containing “rare earth elements” (REE) into specialized metal alloys that can be used to make the kinds of “permanent magnets” found in smartphones, hard drives, wind turbines and electric vehicle motors.

The $70-million-plus project run by the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) – will be chockablock with cutting-edge mineral-processing technology, including systems that promise to recycle the water and chemicals used in the plant.

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After the gold rush: The rise and fall of Ontario’s own Eldorado – by Jamie Bradburn (TVO Today – January 30, 2024)

https://www.tvo.org/

You might blink and miss it if you’re travelling along Highway 62 today, but in the late 1860s, thousands went there in hopes of striking it rich

“Eldorado is one of those cities which American genius calls into existence in some emergency of speculation, which rise like a mushroom, sometimes attaining a world-wide celebrity, and often sinking as mysteriously as they have risen.” — “Orlando,” Hamilton Spectator, September 10, 1867

For a brief moment in the late 1860s, central Ontario provided visions of riches for thousands of prospectors, speculators, and others caught up in the province’s first gold rush. While our own Eldorado still exists as a small hamlet you might blink and miss while driving along Highway 62 between Madoc and Bancroft, it has yet to fulfil the dreams that continue to this day.

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EV Stocks Were Once Worth $100 Billion. Now They Face a Bleak Future – by Thyagaraju Adinarayan and Michael Msika (Bloomberg News – January 30, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Gone are the days of starry stock market debuts that sent valuations of electric-vehicle makers soaring. Now, floating an EV stock is only for the brave.

A torrent of bad news for the sector this week confirms how far it has fallen in just a few years. First Renault SA scrapped an initial public offering of its EV and software arm Ampere citing valuation concerns. Then, Bloomberg reported Volkswagen AG has put efforts to seek outside investors for its PowerCo battery unit on the back burner.

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Ukraine’s victory is a bulwark for Canada and NATO against future Russian aggression – by Marcus Kolga (Toronto Star – January 31, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

Canada’s economy is larger than Russia’s and combined with our G7 allies, we have the resources to stand up to Putin’s petulant transnational bullying.

As we approach the third year of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the stakes for the security of Canada and our allies has never been higher. Ukraine’s victory is not just a moral imperative: it will prevent Vladimir Putin from expanding his current conflict beyond Ukraine.

In recent weeks, high-ranking allied military officials have sounded alarms about a looming military confrontation with Russia.

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OPINION: Franco-Nevada shares offer a reliable dividend plus considerable upside potential – by Balkar Sivia (Globe and Mail – February 1, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Seymour Schulich says “a free option is a terrible thing to give up, and a wonderful thing to own” in his book Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons. His success as the co-founder to the predecessor to Franco-Nevada Corp. can be credited to optionality, a concept often misunderstood and undervalued.

Two primary types of optionality come into play with a minerals royalty business model like Franco-Nevada’s – price optionality and land optionality. However, there is now a third option associated with Franco-Nevada – the potential reopening of the shuttered Cobre Panama mine option – and investors are currently getting this option for free.

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Indonesian nickel boom claims another WA mine, and hundreds of jobs – by Peter Milne and Simon Johanson (Sydney Morning Herald – January 31, 2024)

https://www.smh.com.au/

Battery minerals specialist IGO will close its Cosmos nickel mine in Western Australia’s Goldfields region at the cost of about 400 jobs as cheap production from Indonesia wreaks havoc with Australian producers. IGO chief executive Ivan Vella said the ability of Indonesian nickel miners to cost-effectively build new mines and processing plants and bring them to full capacity had caught the market by surprise.

Vella, presenting his first results since joining IGO from Rio Tinto in December, said the recent nickel price plunge meant it would not be prudent to bring the new mine into full production.

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From swaggering to staggering: Canada’s decline into irrelevance – by Philip Cross (Financial Post – January 31, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

It’s remarkable how much our international reputation has faded over the past 10 years, both diplomatically and economically

It is remarkable how much attitudes about Canada have shifted, both here and abroad, over the past 10 years. A decade ago, riding the wave of a booming economy, Canada was widely admired for a banking system that had got through the 2008-2009 global financial crisis without government bailouts. Today the country’s global stature is much diminished and Canadians are rapidly losing confidence in their economic prospects.

In the years leading up to 2016 Canadians grew accustomed to global accolades. In a 2003 cover story, The Economist touted the prospects for “cool Canada,” following up in 2006 that Canada’s relative economic performance made it a “superstar” as the “only country running both current-account and budget surpluses.”

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US thermal coal exports hit 5-year highs and top $5 billion in 2023 – by Gavin Maguire (Reuters – February 1, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LITTLETON, Colorado, Feb 1 (Reuters) – United States exporters of thermal coal earned more than $5 billion in 2023 as they shipped out more than 32.5 million metric tons of the high-polluting power fuel, data from ship-tracking firm Kpler shows.

The thermal coal export earnings were the second-highest since 2017, following 2022’s $5.7 billion. The total volumes were the highest since 2018 and came as U.S. power producers cut the amount of coal used in electricity generation to the lowest this century, data from energy think tank Ember shows.

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Mining industry looks to newcomers to fill workforce gaps – Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – January 29, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

New report from Mining Industry Human Resources Council offers insight into challenges, benefits of attracting immigrants to sector

Newcomers to Canada are choosing careers in mining at a lower rate than careers in other sectors, according to a new report from the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR). Yet it’s a demographic that could help alleviate widespread labour shortages in an industry that is predicted to need 80,000 workers by 2030 to meet demand, as older workers retire and demand for metals balloons.

The national organization, which works with industry to help identify labour market trends and develop solutions, presented its most recent findings during a Jan. 25 virtual presentation hosted by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM).

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Uranium price bound for US$160 record: Sprott – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – January 26, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The price of uranium could surpass 2007 highs this year as utilities ramp up demand for nuclear fuel and miners hit snags in boosting supply, the world’s largest investment fund in the physical metal says.

Uranium’s highest-ever price was US$140 per lb. some 17 years ago and it could hit US$160 per lb. in 2024 from US$106 per lb. on Friday, according to John Ciampaglia, CEO of Sprott Asset Management. It runs the US$6.5 billion Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U.U for $US; U.UN for $CAD).

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