Republic of Mining

Lithium war erupts in Zimbabwe – by Staff (Bulawayo 24 – June 18, 2023)

June 19, 2023

THE scramble for lithium in Zimbabwe – which boasts Africa’s largest and the world’s fifth-biggest reserves of “white gold” – is escalating against the backdrop of soaring demand for the lucrative mineral, but local communities continue getting a raw deal and are largely excluded from benefitting.

Lithium is used in the manufacture of energy-storing batteries and has seen growing demand as electric vehicles gain global popularity. In the latest resource-curse controversy, villagers in the Muchemwa area of Buhera district are complaining that they are bearing the brunt of ruinous lithium extraction activity by First Roots Mining Company.

The World’s Most Feared Investor Heads for Showdown With the LME – by Jack Farchy, Mark Burton and Jonathan Browning (Bloomberg News – June 17,2023)

June 19, 2023

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A decade ago, Paul Singer did battle with the government of Argentina — and won. Next week, the notoriously pugnacious hedge fund boss is taking on a bastion of the City of London, the 146-year-old London Metal Exchange.

For Singer, the case is personal, say several people familiar with the matter. When on March 8 last year the LME decided to cancel billions of dollars in nickel trades as prices skyrocketed, Singer was appalled and affronted, seeing it as a perversion of the free market with few precedents in the modern history of finance.

How Vietnam Can Disrupt China’s Dominance in EVs – by Hugh Harsono (The Diplomat – June 19, 2023)

June 19, 2023

https://thediplomat.com/

There’s a long way to go, but the country has most of the ingredients it needs to be a significant player in global EV supply chains.

Vietnam has one of the fastest growing middle classes in Southeast Asia, with a recent McKinsey report estimating that more than 36 million people could join Vietnam’s consuming class by 2030.
This growing middle class, along with the associated increase in its consumption capabilities, is just one facet driving Vietnam’s strong economic expansion, with the country’s GDP forecast to increase from $327 billion in 2022 to $470 billion by 2025.

Canada is complicit in driving the growing global consumption of dirty coal — but we also have the solution – by David Olive (Toronto Star – June 17, 2023)

June 19, 2023

https://www.thestar.com/

Global consumption of coal hit a record high in 2022. And there’s no end in sight for the dirtiest of fossil fuels, writes David Olive, despite promises to rid the world of its use a decade ago.

The world, and especially the Western economies, gave the impression of intending to get rid of coal more than a decade ago. And so, the dirtiest of fossil fuels causing climate change has long been thought to be in decline. Not so.

Global coal consumption hit a record high in 2022 and is expected to increase again this year. Climate scientists have said that if the world temperature is to be kept from rising more than 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, coal production must drop by more than two-thirds by 2030. Instead, it is projected to fall by less than 20 per cent in that time.

B.C. mining town rebranded as an outdoor paradise hopes to survive another wildfire season – by Mary Zeidler (CBC News British Columbia – June 16, 2023)

June 19, 2023

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

Dr. Charles Helm is safe at home in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., this week after a wildfire forced him and his wife to flee. “Any community that gets threatened by wildfires, it’s a tragedy, and everyone is very stressed, and it’s horrible,” said Helm, a semi-retired physician who has lived in the town for 28 years and has written a handful of books about its history.

“You can’t exaggerate how terrible it is.” Evacuation orders for the District of Tumbler Ridge, a town of about 2,500 people in the foothills of the Rockies and about an hour’s drive south of Dawson Creek, were downgraded to evacuation alerts on Thursday.

China’s Maxed-Out Aluminum Industry Eyes Future in Indonesia (Bloomberg News – June 19, 2023)

June 19, 2023

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — China’s aluminum producers are following in the footsteps of their nickel peers by setting up smelters in Indonesia.

After two decades of rapid growth, China’s aluminum sector is bumping up against a domestic capacity ceiling imposed by President Xi Jinping’s government. At the same time, Indonesia wants to do for aluminum something like what it’s done with its nickel: stop exporting raw ore and get foreign investors to build smelters.

Surat Diamond Dealers Exploit Loopholes In Sierra Leone’s Diamond Trade (The Blunt Times – June 16, 2023)

June 19, 2023

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Many other dealers from Surat, travels to Sierra Leone multiple times a year, purchasing high-value rough diamonds from artisanal workers employed in the local diamond mines

Surat : Samrat Patel (name changed), a diamond dealer from Surat, has become a frequent visitor to Sierra Leone, a diamond mining country in West Africa. Patel, like many other dealers from Surat, travels to Sierra Leone multiple times a year, purchasing high-value rough diamonds from artisanal workers employed in the local diamond mines. However, these diamonds are often stolen from the mines by the workers and sold to dealers like Patel at throwaway prices, allowing them to earn significant profits back in Surat.

Sierra Leone, known for its diamond reserves, has attracted the attention of Surat’s diamond industry, primarily centered in the world’s largest diamond cutting and polishing center. Patel’s visits to Sierra Leone have resulted in a lucrative bounty of rough diamonds that he brings back with him. The diamonds are concealed in bags to evade the scrutiny of customs officials at the airport, as carbon-based diamonds are not easily detectable by sophisticated scanning machines.

Australia taps global partners in landmark critical minerals strategy (Reuters – June 19, 2023)

June 19, 2023

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, June 20 (Reuters) – Australia, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of raw minerals, unfurled a landmark strategy on Tuesday that outlines how it will work with investors and international partners to build a critical minerals processing industry for the energy transition.

The Labor government strategy aims to see Australia as a significant producer by 2030 of raw and processed critical minerals that are key to the energy transition, on its path to becoming a renewable superpower.

China’s Sinomine eyeing major expansion at Tanco mine in Manitoba to boost critical minerals production – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – June 17, 2023)

June 19, 2023

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

About 180 kilometres from Winnipeg, below Bernic Lake in eastern Manitoba, sits one of the world’s last remaining minable deposits of cesium. The soft silvery gold-coloured metal is housed in otherworldly giant pillars that hold up the roof of the Tanco underground mine.

For stability reasons, it can’t be accessed safely, but the owner of the mine, Beijing-based Sinomine Resource Group, has potentially figured out a way to get around that: a partial drainage of the lake above, and the construction of an open pit mine.

$920 billion needed to bridge the ‘great raw material disconnect’: Benchmark CEO Simon Moores (Benchmark Minerals – June 15, 2023)

June 16, 2023

https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/

The following is a speech given by Benchmark’s chief executive Simon Moores at the opening of the Battery Gigafactories USA 2023 conference in Washington, DC.

“This is what I want people to mull over. Between now and 2035, $920 billion dollars will be needed to be invested to bridge this great raw material disconnect.”

Today, we must recognise that for our industry this is a moment. This global battery arms race has arrived on these shores at a pace we could have never imagined, even only 18 months ago.

It is especially a moment for the critical mineral explorers, developers, miners, and refiners. That’s the hardest job in the industry – it’s a thankless task for the prospectors, developers and pioneers that actually go around the world and look for these minerals and put in the real hard work to actually attempt to bring them to production.

Northern Ont. is officially home to Canada’s newest gold mine – by Dan Bertrand (CTV News Northern Ontario – June 16, 2023)

June 16, 2023

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/

Argonaut Gold says it achieved its first gold pour at the company’s Magino Mine in northern Ontario on June 14. Magino is Argonaut’s first Canadian operation and is located in Dubreuilville, located about 300 kilometres north of Sault Ste. Marie and just under 500 kilometres east of Thunder Bay.

“We are proud of the Argonaut team for delivering Canada’s newest gold mine. The Magino mine is key to achieving our vision to become a low-cost, mid-tier North America gold producer that … proudly demonstrates responsible mining,” said Richard Young, president and CEO of Argonaut Gold, in a news release Thursday.

Avalon Advanced Materials secures European partner to advance northwest lithium projects – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 15, 2023)

June 16, 2023

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Belgium-based Sibelco to invest $63 million in Toronto lithium mine developer

Avalon Advanced Materials has attracted a strategic European partner to invest $63 million to speed its lithium projects into mines and to move towards establishing a processing facility in Thunder Bay.

Avalon, a Toronto-based lithium company, announced June 15 it has signed a binding term sheet with Belgium’s SCR-Sibelco NV to form and finance a proposed joint venture to advance Avalon’s two lithium projects in northwestern Ontario into production and to site a lithium hydroxide processing facility in Thunder Bay.

USA plants continue to rely on foreign sources of uranium supply (World Nuclear News – June 15, 2023)

June 16, 2023

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

The EIA’s 2022 Uranium Marketing Annual Report, published on 13 June, provides detailed data on uranium marketing activities in the USA from 2017 to 2022, and summary data back to 2001.

The information is based on data collected through the EIA’s Uranium Marketing Annual Survey – known as Form EIA-858 – which collects data on contracts, deliveries, enrichment services purchased, inventories, use in fuel assemblies, feed deliveries to enrichers, and unfilled market requirements for the next 10 years.

Ghana dethrones South Africa to become Africa’s top gold producer (North Africa Post – June 15, 2023)

June 16, 2023

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Ghana has reclaimed its top position as Africa’s premier gold producer, surpassing South Africa, after large-scale mining companies in the West African country increased gold production from 2.2 million ounces in 2012 to 3.08 million ounces last year.

After a temporary setback in 2021 due to a sharp decline in output, Ghana has reclaimed its coveted position as the continent’s top gold producer with a 32% increase in output, driven by both small- and large-scale mining sectors.

NexGen, Metis Nations sign IBA for Rook 1 uranium project in Saskatchewan – by Staff (Mining.com – June 15, 2023)

June 16, 2023

https://www.mining.com/

NexGen Energy (TSX, NYSE: NXE; ASX: NXG) has signed an impact benefit agreement IBA) with two Metis Nations in northern Saskatchewan covering all phases of the Rook 1 uranium project.

The project is located within an area to which the Metis Nation-Saskatchewan Northern Region 2 (MS-S NR2), as represented by the Metis Nation-Saskatchewan (MN-S), assert constitutionally protected Indigenous right and interests, including title on which is project sits.