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Swedish town pays a price for its mining success – by Erika Page (Christian Science Monitor – January 25, 2024)

https://www.csmonitor.com/

Annica Henelund swings open the front door of her fabric shop as she has thousands of times before. Inside, not much has changed in the past 51 years. Piles of bright cloth line tabletops and shelves from floor to ceiling. Most of it will never be sold. In a few short weeks, the store must be empty and ready for demolition.

Residents of Kiruna have long known this moment would come. As the state-owned iron-ore mining company LKAB expands its operations underground, this Arctic town is sinking into the ground. So it’s relocating. A shiny new city center located 2 miles east was inaugurated last fall.

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Mining to resume at McClean Lake (World Nuclear News – January 25, 2024)

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

More than 15 years after mining was suspended at McClean Lake in Saskatchewan, joint venture partners Orano Canada Inc and Denison Mines Corp have announced that production is to restart using the patented Surface Access Borehole Resource Extraction (SABRE) mining method.

The companies intend to begin mining at the McClean North deposit in 2025, targeting production of 800,000 pounds U3O8 (308 tU, 100% basis) in 2025. Around 3 million pounds U3O8 (100% basis) has been identified for potential additional production from a combination of the McClean North and Caribou deposits from 2026 to 2030.

SABRE is a non-entry, surface-based mining method that uses a high-pressure water jet placed at the bottom of a drill hole to excavate a mining cavity. The cuttings from the excavation process are then air lifted to the surface, separated and stockpiled.

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This town’s mining battle reveals the contentious path to a cleaner future – by James Temple (MIT Technology Review – January 23, 2024)

https://www.technologyreview.com/

The world needs to dig up far more minerals to meet climate goals. But mining poses environmental dangers that are bitterly dividing communities.

Minnesota’s Highway 210 threads through the tiny towns of Aitkin County, a poor and sparsely populated stretch of forests, lakes, and wetlands that reaches just into the northeastern corner of the state. A short drive off the highway, due south past the Tamarack Church, delivers you to Jackson’s Hole, the last remaining business in the unincorporated community of Lawler.

A little before noon on a Tuesday in late June, several dozen people from across the region filed into the barn-red, century-old town store turned saloon. They settled into seats around folding tables in the rear banquet room, where deer horns and a bearskin rug adorn the walls.

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The fatal plane crash in the Northwest Territories this week was rare – but the journey to remote mines is always perilous – by Mike Hager, Niall McGee and Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – January 27, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

After a few months or years of working rotating shifts at the Diavik Diamond Mine, flying to the site can become routine.

Employees file into a twin-propeller plane, exchange small talk with the crew and then tend to put their earbuds in and try to catch some shut-eye before their shifts, says Sean Farmer, a pilot who until recently worked with Northwestern Air Lease Ltd. Mr. Farmer flew all over the North, including twice-monthly flights between Fort Smith, NWT, and the Diavik mine, about 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.

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The rise of lithium mining threatens the Andean flamingo in Argentina – by Diego Jemio (El Pais – January 28, 2024)

https://english.elpais.com/

The mining boom — which is concentrated in the provinces of Salta, Jujuy and Catamarca — is affecting this species’ nesting places. There are less than 80,000 of these beautiful flamingos left

The Andean flamingo has an elegant stride, with a grace that hypnotizes you. Its plumage is impressive: a mix of hot pink, white and black. Reaching more than three feet in height, these creatures nest in colonies during the summer, in the shallow wetlands of Puna — the Atacama Plateau — and the Andes of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. This area is also known as the “lithium triangle.”

In Argentina, the rarest of all flamingo species is found mostly in the northern provinces — Salta, Catamarca and Jujuy — during the warmer months. These birds can also be found in the center of the country, mainly in Córdoba and Santa Fe. According to the National Mining Secretariat, there are 38 lithium projects in the country, of which 17 are in the large salt flats of the province of Salta.

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Chinese Engineers Are Keeping Russia’s Metal Furnaces Firing (Bloomberg News – January 27, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Magnitogorsk, in the Ural mountains, was developed as a symbol of Soviet industrial might and its capacity for economic modernization. Today, a new, 75 billion-ruble (roughly $840 million) coking plant in the steel town is being built by a Chinese engineering giant and hundreds of Chinese workers.

The contract between Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works PJSC, known as MMK, and state-owned Sinosteel Engineering & Technology Co. was signed before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and links between the two predate that. But since Chinese engineers and builders began arriving in large numbers to speed up construction last year, the project has been trumpeted by officials on both sides as emblematic of closer ties.

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Mining giants told to pay $9.7bn over Brazil dam disaster – by Peter Hoskins (BBC.com – January 26, 2024)

https://www.bbc.com/news/

A federal judge in Brazil has ordered mining giants BHP, Vale and their Samarco iron ore joint venture to pay 47.6bn reais ($9.67bn) in damages over a deadly dam burst in 2015.

The collapse of the Fundão dam in the south-east of the country caused a giant mudslide that killed 19 people. It also severely polluted the Rio Doce river, compromising the waterway to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean. It was not immediately clear how much each company is required to pay.

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How Canadian politicians should prepare for a second Trump presidency – by Jaime Watt (Toronto Star – January 29, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

“What would make Trump sit up, take notice and take us seriously? A concentrated effort to restore our economic usefulness.”

Not only is it unwise to further rile an egomaniac by calling him one, it looks weak to respond to a brewing development by perceiving it first as a major threat, rather than an opportunity. Part cliché. Mostly truism. It is said that there are no sure things in politics.

But, after his unprecedented victories in both New Hampshire and Iowa, Donald Trump locking up the Republican nomination looks pretty damn certain. Sadly, Canadians politicians have been trending down the former path this past week.

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The Oil War – by Diane Francis (Substack – January 29, 2024)

https://dianefrancis.substack.com/

“Shadow fleets” of tankers smuggle oil out of Russia and Iran and provide the cash flow to finance their wars and terrorist attacks. These ships are also environmental time bombs. Several have sunk with their toxic cargos because they were in disrepair, operated by scoundrels, or unable to call for help because they were hiding from authorities.

Despite dangers, illicit oil shipments and sanctions-busting activities have exploded. In 2023, China and India imported $600-billion in fossil fuels from Russia, essentially bankrolling Putin’s war in Ukraine and billions from Iran despite draconian sanctions. Estimates are that one in five ships on the high seas are now involved in illicit oil or weapons trade.

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Four Gem-Market Trends You Need to Know About – by Jennifer Heebner (Rapaport Magazine – January 24, 2024)

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Consumers can’t get enough of fine colored stones and cultured pearls, but the spiking demand is driving up prices and squeezing supply. Industry insiders weigh in.

Afshin Hackman is used to incremental price increases on the rubies and sapphires he seeks out on buying trips to Thailand. These jumps are usually 5% to 10% — but not 40% in 10 months.

As of press time, the principal at gem wholesaler Intercolor had just returned from a trip after last visiting in early 2023; it was a frustrating and expensive ordeal. “I spent two weeks there and bought from 18 different companies,” he says. “In fine qualities, the merchandise was outrageously overpriced.”

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THE GLOBE IN SOUTH AFRICA: A time of despair on the birthday of freedom – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – January 27, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

30 years after apartheid, South Africans are angry about power cuts, poor public services, corruption and economic stagnation – and the ruling ANC risks getting punished for it all at the polls

At the site where the Freedom Charter was proclaimed, the memorial flame is broken and extinguished. The metal around its doorways has been stripped away by thieves. Buildings nearby are gutted and looted, their windows and doors stolen.

The Freedom Charter, written by anti-apartheid leaders in 1955, was the eloquent document that inspired South Africa’s liberation struggle. “The people shall govern!” it declared. When white-minority rule was finally defeated, the charter formed the basis for much of the country’s first democratic constitution.

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At this open-pit gold mine in northeastern Ontario, the trucks drive themselves – by Jonathan Migneault (CBC News Sudbury – January 24, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

When it reaches full production, Côté Gold mine will have 23 autonomous trucks hauling ore

A new open-pit gold mine in northeastern Ontario has turned to automation — including nearly 300-tonne hauling trucks that drive themselves — in a bid to increase productivity and worker safety. The Côté Gold project near Gogama, halfway between Sudbury and Timmins, is expected to produce around 440,000 ounces of gold a year over the next 18 years.

To extract the precious metal, massive Caterpillar mining trucks will haul more than 30,000 tonnes of ore every day so they can be processed. The mine currently has 14 of the mining trucks, which can carry around 200 tonnes of ore in a single load, and will have 23 when production fully ramps up.

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FIRST READING: Canada signs over an area the size of Western Europe to Inuit control – Tristin Hopper (National Post – January 25, 2024)

https://nationalpost.com/

In ‘largest land transfer in Canadian history,’ Nunavut to now control oil, gas and mineral rights across two million square kilometres

Ottawa has just inked an agreement that constitutes the biggest land transfer in Canadian history — while ranking as one of the largest-ever examples of a government effectively returning territory to Indigenous control.

The Nunavut Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement has gone mostly unnoticed outside the Arctic. But the 239-page agreement — signed last week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — takes roughly two million square kilometres of Crown land previously under federal control and transfers it to the Government of Nunavut.

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More than 70 are dead after an unregulated gold mine collapsed in Mali, an official says – by Baba Ahmed (Associated Press – January 24, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — An unregulated gold mine collapsed late last week in Mali, killing more than 70 people, an official said Wednesday, and a search continued amid fears that the toll could rise. Karim Berthé, a senior official at the government’s National Geology and Mining Directorate, confirmed the details to The Associated Press and called it an accident.

There were around 100 people in the mine at the time of the collapse, according to Abdoulaye Pona, president of the Mali Chamber of Mines, who was at the scene.

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New Caledonia’s Prony Resources faces cash crunch on nickel slump (Reuters/Yahoo Finance – January 23, 2024)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

MELBOURNE, Jan 24 (Reuters) – New Caledonian nickel producer Prony Resources is facing an “alarming” situation amid a slump in metal prices as it waits for the possibility France will offer monetary support for the territory’s nickel sector, a company spokesperson said.

Prony’s struggles highlight the troubles of the French Pacific island territory’s nickel industry, the fourth-biggest producer of nickel ore globally, as prices have plummeted 40% in the past year on surging Indonesian supply.

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