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The US plan to break Russia’s grip on nuclear fuel – by Jamie Smyth and Sarah White (January 21, 2024)

https://www.ft.com/

Demand for atomic energy is surging but Moscow dominates the world’s supplies of enriched uranium

Shortly after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the US banned all imports of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas and coal. But not all energy supplies were included in the US sanctions, nor in those of its European allies. On the contrary, western powers have taken care not to interrupt the flow of raw materials and services from Russia’s state-owned nuclear giant Rosatom and its subsidiary Tenex.

Moscow’s invasion exposed many vulnerabilities in US and European energy supplies, not least in the nuclear sector, where more than a fifth of the enriched uranium fuel required to power both regions’ nuclear fleets comes from Russia.

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Forrest shuts WA mines as nickel dominoes tumble – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – January 22, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

Billionaire Andrew Forrest is shutting the West Australian nickel mines his private company, Wyloo, bought for $760 million six months ago, bowing to the supply glut that has crashed nickel prices and triggered the loss of around 1000 jobs across WA.

The mines near Kambalda will go into care and maintenance from May 31 amid a steep decline in nickel prices that Australia’s producers have blamed on a glut from China-backed operations in Indonesia. Dr Forrest wants to see a shake-up of the 147-year-old London Metals Exchange, which does not distinguish pricing for nickel material produced under high environmental, social and governance standards in Australia, and what he calls dirty nickel mined from Indonesia.

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Report reveals huge impact from mining in Prince George – by Sam Bennison (CKPG Today – January 18, 2024)

https://ckpgtoday.ca/

PRINCE GEORGE— A new report by the Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC) and the Mining Suppliers Association of BC (MSABC) shows that in 2022, Prince George received $237 million through mining and smelting sector purchasing goods and services from business in the area.

In total, British Columbia’s mining and smelting sector contributed $3.7 billion to 200 local and First Nations communities by purchasing goods and services from nearly 4,000 BC-based businesses in 2022.

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The Crown broke a promise to First Nations. It could now owe billions. – by Amanda Coletta (Washington Post – January 18, 2024)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Patricia Tangie’s ancestors thought they had a deal. More than 170 years ago, before Canada confederated in 1867, Indigenous people in what’s now Northern Ontario signed treaties, ceding a vast territory north of Lake Superior and Lake Huron to the Crown in exchange for a promise: that the wealth flowing from the land would be shared with them.

Instead, their descendants argue, the Crown has long broken the promises it made in 1850, turning a profit from the minerals buried deep beneath the ground and the trees reaching high into the sky, while they’re shackled by poverty, lack adequate housing and suffer poorer health outcomes than non-Indigenous Canadians.

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Barrick denies one of its executives recently met with First Quantum in Panama to talk M&A – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – January 19, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. ABX-T is disputing an account by a Panamanian official about an alleged meeting between one of its executives and First Quantum Minerals Ltd. in Panama to discuss a possible buyout deal. Vancouver-based First Quantum said this week it is considering a range of merger and acquisition options as it attempts to stem the financial damage caused by the closing of its giant Panama copper mine.

Ebrahim Asvat, a former adviser with the Panamanian government, told The Globe and Mail on Thursday that Juana Barceló, president of Barrick’s Pueblo Viejo operations in the Dominican Republic, was in Panama in early January, and met with people at First Quantum.

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Decoding China: Beijing wants more influence in Africa – by Dang Yuan (DW.com – January 19, 2024)

https://www.dw.com/en/

China’s interest and influence continue to grow in countries across Africa. Beijing buys political support and access to raw materials with major infrastructure investments.

For 34 years, the first foreign trip of the year has always taken the Chinese foreign minister to Africa. This week, Wang Yi visited Egypt, Tunisia, Togo and Ivory Coast before traveling on to South America. In addition to the crisis in the Middle East, his agenda included economic cooperation and civil society exchange.

Africa is playing an increasingly important role for China, which is hungry for energy and raw materials. After World War II, communist China cultivated intensive cooperation with African countries. Beijing fraternized and positioned itself as a spokesperson for these underdeveloped countries, which later would become part of what is now called the “Global South.”

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Opinion: Indonesia’s bid for EV nickel supremacy is doomed to failure – by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (The Telegram/Yahoo News – January 19, 2024)

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/

When Indonesia launched its bid to corner the world’s nickel market and gain a stranglehold on electric vehicles, it overlooked one crucial detail. Battery technology is moving so fast that the world may not need the nickel after all. Indonesia is cutting down its rainforests and polluting the Coral Triangle for what looks increasingly like a commercial mirage.

Cheap and safe LFP batteries (lithium iron phosphate) are already so good that they have conquered 70pc of the EV mass market in China. They use neither nickel nor cobalt.

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Junior miner shows more nickel to be had in the Sudbury basin – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – January 19, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

SPC Nickel posts maiden mineral estimate on West Graham Project

An emerging Sudbury nickel mining company has posted a first-time mineral estimate of its deposit in the Sudbury basin. SPC Nickel released a maiden estimate of its West Graham Project on Jan. 17, one of two deposits on its Lockerby East nickel and copper property in an area which has seen previous mining operations.

The company said in the news release that West Graham has the potential to be developed quickly as a low-cost, open-pit operation in its initial stages of mining. But with more exploration, West Graham has huge mineral upside at depth.

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Kremlin’s blood diamonds on the EU sanctions list – by Michał Kacewicz (Belsat.eu – January 20, 2024)

https://belsat.eu/en/

Diamonds have always been a crucial source of income for Russia, the world’s largest producer. Following two years of war, the EU has finally imposed sanctions on Russian diamonds and related businesses. The European Union has recently introduced the twelfth round of sanctions against Russia in response to its full-scale aggression towards Ukraine.

The sanctions were approved in December and came into effect at the beginning of this year. As part of this strategy, non-industrial diamonds mainly used to make jewelry and mined and processed in Russia cannot be imported into the EU. The ban applies to Alrosa, the leading Russian diamond producer and exporter. The Director of Alrosa, Pavel Marinychev, has been blacklisted and banned from entering EU countries.

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How Miners Are Still Paying the Costs of Pursuing an ‘American Dream’ – by Taylor Sisk (Good Men Project – January 19, 2024)

https://goodmenproject.com/

They went into the mines to secure a better life for their loved ones. Unfortunately, they emerged with ravaged lungs and damaged psyches.

“I’ve loaded more coal in my sleep than I have in the mines,” says Terry Lilly. The words don’t come easy. Though retired, Lilly remains ever a coal miner. It’s said coal miners are a stoic sort. Inner revelations aren’t in Lilly’s nature. But it’s also physically difficult for him to share those words.

Black lung has seen to that. Lilly went underground in 1975, at 18. Thirty years in, shortly after returning from hernia surgery, he was buried in a collapse. “I broke a leg, both knees, a hip, my back. And while I was in the hospital, I had blood clots go through my lungs. I lay in ICU for 18 days. Should have died.”

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Liberals taxing Canadians into oblivion – by Conrad Black (National Post – January 20, 2024)

https://nationalpost.com/

We are obviously facing an economic growth crisis

The Fraser Institute of Vancouver, one of the outstanding public policy think-tanks of North America, last week issued a summary entitled “24 facts for 2024 — Canadians should understand the impact of government policies,” and the message is sobering.

I am much indebted to Fraser’s Niels Veldhuis and Peter Brown for most of the statistics in this column. Fraser starts with the distressing statement that while per capita income in Canada has effectively stagnated from 2016 to 2022, moving only three per cent from $54,154 to $55,863, the United States per capita income in the same time has risen more than four times as much, from $65,792 to $73,565.

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Ontario is about to decide whether to overhaul Canada’s oldest nuclear power plant. Does it deserve a second life? – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – January 22, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station’s dull, mottled-grey concrete domes testify to its more than half a century of faithful service. Lately, its six operating reactors have produced enough electricity to supply 1.5 million people, about one-tenth of Ontario’s total population.

In the coming weeks, Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith is expected to reveal whether the province will extend the plant’s life. A study last summer from Ontario Power Generation, the station’s owner, examined the feasibility of refurbishing Pickering’s four “B” reactors, commissioned between 1983 and 1986.

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Kuya Silver taps into high-grade system in historic Cobalt mining camp – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – January 18, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

What the old silver miners left untouched, Toronto exploration outfit sees opportunity for new deposits

Toronto’s Kuya Silver is discovering new zones of silver veins in its re-exploration of the historic Cobalt mining camp.

High-grade silver is showing up in the assay results from a drilling program the company is running at its Silver Kings Project near the town of Cobalt. Kuya is drilling on the northern part of its 16,000-hectare property, just south of the town, where eight mines produced 60 million ounces of silver between 1905 and 1950 around Kerr Lake.

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China Cobalt Buyers Use Global Glut to Challenge Pricing – by Annie Lee, William Clowes and Jack Farchy (Bloomberg News – January 16, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — China’s battery industry has seized on a glut in the global cobalt market to push through a change in the way the commodity is priced.

A rapid expansion of cobalt mining in Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia has output racing ahead of demand, dragging down global prices. It’s also prompted a push by squeezed Chinese refineries to win changes in how cobalt is bought and sold.

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BHP’s warning on battery minerals is striking – by James Thomson (Australian Financial Review – January 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

Demand from the energy transition was supposed to underpin strong prices for nickel and lithium. But the battery minerals slump appears to be entering a new phase.

The most interesting word in BHP’s December quarter operations update can be found on page 14 – “structural”. That’s how the mining giant describes the changes ripping through the nickel sector, and threatening the viability of its Nickel West project in Western Australia.

“The nickel industry is undergoing a number of structural changes and is at a cyclical low in realised pricing,” BHP said. “Nickel West is not immune to these challenges. Operations are being actively optimised, and options are being evaluated to mitigate the impacts of the sharp fall in nickel prices.” BHP also said it would consider whether it needed to take a writedown on the value of the Nickel West asset.

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