To boost EU autonomy, the European Commission is seeking to introduce targets of 10%-40% of the mining, recycling, and processing of critical raw materials used in the bloc to be done in the EU by 2030.
A draft version of the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, seen by EURACTIV and set to be presented by the European Commission next Tuesday (14 March), will introduce targets for Europe’s self-sufficiency along the entire value chain.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The federal government is considering taking equity stakes and advancing loans to Canadian critical minerals companies, as it mulls following Quebec’s lead in moving to a much more active role in Canada’s industrial policy.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in an interview earlier this week at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) mining conference in Toronto that the equity stakes could come through the soon-to-be-launched Canada Growth Fund, and loans could be arranged through the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
A new partnership between the University of Toronto and Vale Energy Transition Metals will strengthen Canada’s position in the critical minerals sector by developing sustainable mining solutions, as well as fostering Canadian skills and talent.
The framework agreement was signed March 7, 2023, at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) 2023 Convention, held in Toronto. The partnership launches with an initial $1.6 million investment over the next three years and will include several multidisciplinary projects led by experts from both institutions.
One of the largest mining conferences in the world, the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada convention, came and went this week, drawing tens of thousands of geologists, engineers and investors to downtown Toronto.
After several years of interruptions related to the pandemic — in 2020, an outbreak at the conference cast a shadow; in 2021, the conference went virtual; last year, it was moved from March to June — this year’s event took place in its traditional early March time slot and felt like a return to normalcy.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Amid an increasing demand for nickel, driven largely by the growing need for electric vehicle batteries, a handful of exploration companies are making their mark in Sudbury’s historic and prolific nickel mining camp.
Magna Mining (TSXV: NICU), SPC Nickel Corp. (TSXV: SPC) and Archer Exploration (CSE: RCHR), which all have properties in the region of northern Ontario, have announced a series of promising drill results and asset acquisitions in recent months.
https://alaska-native-news.com/
ANCHORAGE, AK — Bristol Bay Tribes, fishermen, businesses and allies again reiterated their opposition to mining that jeopardizes Bristol Bay’s cultures and economies in response to the latest mineral exploration efforts in the region.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on February 28 issued a public notice of an application from Stuy Mines LLC for mineral exploration activities along Kaskanak Creek in the Bristol Bay watershed, located southwest of the Pebble deposit. The public notice from the DNR on this proposal for mining exploration (which was submitted in June 2022) in the watershed triggered a two-week public comment period ending March 14.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Vale, province to pay for new industrial research chair program in biomining and bioremediation to be based in Sudbury
Mine waste in the Sudbury area may be worth billions and it’s Nadia Mykytczuk’s job to find ways using bacteria to extract the valuable nickel, copper and other critical minerals out of them.
Her job got a lot easier Wednesday when Vale Energy Transition Metals and the provincial government announced money to support a new industrial research chair program in biomining and bioremediation that she will lead in Sudbury. Vale Energy committed $875,000 over five years to the Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation, and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) at Laurentian University.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Imagine for a moment what would happen if Canada’s auto industry was sucked away into the United States. Tens of thousands of jobs and a big chunk of the $19-billion a year the sector contributes to Canada’s gross domestic product would slip away. How much would a Canadian government pay to stop that?
That’s a question the current government in Ottawa seems to think it is facing. It’s a debatable point in and of itself, but the Liberals are out to secure electric-vehicle battery plants in Canada because they think that is key to keeping an active auto industry in Canada – and also that it will build a battery sector, too.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
Green Party leader resurrects idea of ‘hover barges’ across northern Ontario’s ice roads
A Sudbury mining innovation group says the province should consider the use of hover barges before embarking on a multimillion-dollar road construction project linking the Ring of Fire, a mineral-rich region in northern Ontario, to the provincial highway network.
Doug Morrison, president and chief exeuctive officer of the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), said the Sudbury-based innovation lab has identified the use of hover barges — large-capacity transport machines that could potentially float on the region’s already-existing ice roads — as one cost-effective alternative to transporting materials.
‘I’m only going to talk to the individual that wants to drive that bulldozer and run over my homelands,’ says Chris Moonias
Incoming Neskantaga Chief Chris Moonias was at Queen’s Park on Thursday demanding a meeting with Premier Doug Ford — and only Ford — over what he considers a lack of adequate consultations on the government’s latest mining bill and the push to develop the Ring of Fire.
“I’m only going to talk to the individual that wants to drive that bulldozer and run over my homelands,” said Moonias, who is set to take over as the first nation’s chief on April 1. “I ain’t talking to anybody else, except him.”
A new book on the Congo recycles stereotypes of Africa as a wasteland in need of saving in all its promo. It’s been rapturously received in the West.
Last month, award-winning author and academic Siddharth Kara published Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers our Lives. The book draws attention to labour conditions and living standards in areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that mine cobalt, a metal that will be critical in the hoped-for global energy transition.
Across 250 pages, it argues that by consuming products that contain Congolese cobalt, Western consumers are complicit in a human rights and environmental catastrophe.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
First Quantum Minerals Ltd. has reached a tentative agreement with Panama that would end a bitter tax dispute and head off a shutdown of the company’s biggest copper mine.
The Vancouver-based miner announced on Wednesday it would pay a minimum of US$375-million in taxes a year to Panama, with built-in downside protection that would reduce the payments if there were a steep fall in the price of copper.
TORONTO, March 8 (Reuters) – Canada will not force Chinese state-investors in three of its large mining companies to divest stakes, as such a move would create policy uncertainty, the natural resources minister told Reuters.
In November, Canada had asked three Chinese companies to sell their stakes in Toronto-listed lithium explorers following a national security review, drawing criticism from the mining industry and raising questions about the future of other Chinese investments in the Canadian mining sector.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai is calling a potential new deal that would secure access to the ore dock in Skagway, Alaska, “very, very good news for Yukon.” “I’m very proud. I mean, this is a great example of our government taking on something … that’s very critical to the Yukon and to Canada and having the capacity, I guess I would say, to come up with a solution and get this done.”
Skagway recently accepted the terms of the agreement that would see the Yukon government put more than $17 million US toward upgrading one of the town’s docks. For the Yukon, it’s a vital facility for companies to be able to ship ore mined in the territory.
Toronto, March 8, 2023—The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) is thrilled to welcome pre-pandemic levels of attendance back to its annual convention, drawing 23,819 attendees to Toronto for the best business, investment and networking opportunities in the mineral exploration and mining industry.
In addition to the more than 1,100 exhibitors covering over 600,000 square feet of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, governments, companies and leading experts from around the world made this one of the largest events in the association’s 91 years.
