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[Critical Minerals] Ukraine’s Best Hope for Creating Lasting Security – by Oleksandr Kubrakov (Time Magazine – February 13, 2025)

https://time.com/

U.S. access to Ukraine’s vast and largely untapped rare earths and other critical minerals in exchange for a “security shield” is the latest twist in the potential peace plan for the war in Ukraine. And it is picking up steam with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv and President Donald Trump stunning Europe by revealing he has already begun talks with Vladimir Putin.

But while U.S. investment in this underdeveloped sector would be an important positive development for both Ukraine’s economy and immediate security, it’s only one element in an absent economic strategy that Ukraine needs to create a lasting security guarantee from future Russian aggression.

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Barrick considering redomiciling to the U.S. and Trump could make it happen faster, says CEO Mark Bristow – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – February 14, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. is considering redomiciling to the United States from Canada, and under a Donald Trump administration that could happen sooner rather than later, Barrick chief executive Mark Bristow told The Globe and Mail’s editorial board.

On Thursday, he mapped out several reasons why a move to the U.S. makes sense, including access to a more efficient marketplace, and the ability to attract a bigger pool of shareholders. Redomiciling to the U.S. could put Barrick in the S&P 500 index, which would attract automatic buying from scores of mutual funds and exchange traded funds that track indexes.

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Trump’s order to end minting of pennies will save taxpayers millions without much impact on Arizona copper mines – by Matthew DeWees (Cronkite News/AZPM.org – February 13, 2025)

https://news.azpm.org/

The cost of producing a penny has far exceeded the value of each coin for the past 19 years.

Most copper mined in the U.S. comes from Arizona. But President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he will halt production of pennies won’t make a dent in the state’s mining industry. The U.S. Mint produced 3.2 billion pennies last year. But since 1982, nearly all of the metal used has been zinc.

So the copper industry can shrug off Trump’s move, which economists have long called a no-brainer because each penny costs more to make than it’s worth – 3.69 cents as of last year – and most end up in jars, piggy banks, and sofa cushions.

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Exclusive: China’s BYD holds mining rights in Brazil’s Lithium Valley, documents show – by Fabio Teixeira (Reuters – February 14, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO-Chinese electric carmaker BYD acquired mineral rights for two plots of land in a lithium-rich part of Brazil in 2023, entering the mining business in its biggest market outside of China, according to public records reviewed by Reuters.

The EV producer’s acquisition of mineral rights in Brazil is its most concrete step so far toward mining strategic minerals in the Western Hemisphere. The previously unreported acquisition of the mineral rights in late 2023 was made by BYD subsidiary Exploracao Mineral do Brasil, which was created in May of that year, documents showed.

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Ecuador’s mining future uncertain as socialist party gains traction – by Staff (Mining.com – February 11, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Ecuador’s mining industry is bracing for potential changes as the nation’s main socialist party gains momentum in the presidential race.

Luisa González, a protégé of former President Rafael Correa, is leading a strong push fuelled by public discontent over a struggling economy, gang violence, and widespread blackouts. Her platform, which reflects the policies of the influential Citizen Revolution movement, could significantly reshape mining policies if she wins the runoff on April 13.

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Unlocking Canada’s mining potential – by David Hunter, Bernard Roth, and Mary Su (Canadian Mining Journal – February 12, 2025)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Strategies to attract investment in the sector

Canada is facing an investment and productivity crisis, and its onerous and lengthy regulatory approval processes are compounding the problem. There is a common misconception that shortening regulatory approval process timelines must come at the expense of environmental oversights and affected Indigenous groups.

Canadian regulatory approval processes can and should be implemented in a way that allows projects to proceed in a timely manner, without sacrificing necessary environmental requirements and Indigenous interests.

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Saskatchewan looks to run conventional coal for power well beyond Ottawa’s 2030 phaseout deadline – by Emma Graney (Globe and Mail – February 12, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Saskatchewan is looking to refurbish its fleet of coal-fired power stations, extending their lives well past a federal 2030 phase-out deadline and locking the province into decades of reliance on the fossil fuel.

Jeremy Harrison, the minister responsible for SaskPower, the Crown corporation that oversees electricity supply in the province, says the reliability and affordability of power are at the heart of the policy rethink.

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B.C.’s $50M lithium refinery aims to break China’s grip – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – February 13, 2025)

https://www.biv.com/

Construction on Mangrove Lithium facility in Delta to begin soon

In 2023, global demand for lithium-ion batteries was forecasted to grow sixfold—from 0.7 terawatt hours to 4.7 terawatt hours—by 2030, driven largely by demand from electric vehicles.

For North America, Japan and Europe, one of the challenges in EV and battery manufacturing will be producing enough battery grade lithium to meet the demand in EV growth, especially now that China has made moves to restrict the export of lithium refining technology.

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US Should Stop Closure of Coal-Fired Power Plants, Wright Says – by Ari Natter (Bloomberg News – February 11, 2025)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The US should stop the closure of coal-fired power plants, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, adding the fuel source would be essential to the nation’s power system for decades to come.

“We are on a path to continually shrink the electricity we generate from coal,” Wright said Tuesday on Bloomberg Television. “That has made electricity more expensive and our grid less stable.” Wright’s remarks come as demand for electricity is surging to feed power-thirsty data centers needed for artificial intelligence, new factories and the overall electrification of the economy.

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A Reminder on Valentine’s Day: That Diamond Might Not Be Conflict-Free – by Alex Cuadros (New York Times – February 13, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

In the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, people across the world rush to buy diamond engagement rings. By now most will know that in the past, many diamonds were mined in African war zones where rebel groups used the proceeds to fund their violent insurgencies. To assuage any guilt that may taint the romantic gesture, the diamond industry tells us that today, 99 percent of diamonds are now “conflict-free.”

It’s true there has been progress. A generation ago, as much as 15 percent of global diamond production was believed to be linked to conflict. But in 2003, thanks to public pressure and awareness campaigns by organizations like Global Witness, a certificate system known as the Kimberley Process was born.

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First Nation near Sudbury to grow its presence in the mining sector – by Staff (Sudbury Star – February 13, 2025)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Atikameksheng Anishnawbek will receive $1 million from the federal government for two projects

A First Nation just west of Sudbury will receive a little more than $1 million in federal funding to strengthen its place in the mining industry and create new jobs.

Atikameksheng Anishnawbek will get $575,199 so its economic development corporation, Giyak Mashkawzid Shkagmikwe, can buy a new diamond drill. The drill will be owned by GMS and leased to its joint venture, Bagone’an JS Drilling Inc., for use in resource exploration and mine development.

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Congo-Kinshasa: Why Conflict Mineral Narratives Don’t Explain the M23 Rebellion in DR Congo – by Judith Verweijen and Christoph Vogel (All Africa – February 2025)

https://allafrica.com/

Utrecht and Dakar — “Most reporting on the conflict is using questionable framings, suggesting it is purely driven by a desire to plunder the region’s rich mineral resources.” The capture of North Kivu’s provincial capital, Goma, by the M23 armed group last month has multiplied international coverage of the forgotten crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet most reporting on the conflict is using mistaken framings, suggesting it is purely driven by a desire to plunder the region’s rich mineral resources.

The conflict minerals narrative contains several tropes: Proponents claim that the M23 and its Rwandan allies launched the insurgency to loot large quantities of minerals from neighbouring DRC; that Western electronics or tech corporations buy violently exploited minerals and thus become complicit in the conflict; and that the war is driven by competition for so-called critical minerals required by the energy transition.

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Arctic energy and mineral race heats up – by Maureen McCall (Troy Media – February 12, 2025)

https://troymedia.com/

Nations scramble for Arctic oil, gas and minerals amid rising global demand

“Go West, young man, go West… and grow up with the country” is a phrase  attributed to Horace Greeley from the New York Daily Tribune back in 1865.In 2025, the phrase might be updated to “Go North, young man, go North” as optimism rises about the potential of oil and gas and critical minerals in the Arctic.

Optimism about the size of the prize of Arctic hydrocarbons rose in 2012 when the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) assessed that the Arctic holds an estimated 13 per cent (90 billion barrels) of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil resources and 30 per cent of its undiscovered conventional natural gas resources. The EIA has estimated that the Arctic may hold most of the world’s remaining untapped oil and gas reserves.

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U.S. hurting itself, not Canadian uranium producers, with tariffs on energy – by Michael Joel-Hansen (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix – February 12, 2025)

https://thestarphoenix.com/

Canadian producers are in a good position to handle the tariffs, expert says

United States President Donald Trump is only biting the hand that feeds his country’s nuclear power system if he follows through on his threat to impose a 10 per cent tariff on uranium and other energy-related imports.

Devan Mescall, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business, said the uranium industry is better positioned to deal with tariffs in the short term than other industries, in part because there are no available alternatives.

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Mining industry warns critical minerals stockpiles useless without processing plants – by Darius Snieckus (National Observer – February 13, 2025)

https://www.nationalobserver.com/

Government-backed strategic reserves of lithium, nickel, copper and other minerals and metals seen as key to Canada’s national security and its energy transition would be a non-starter without a cross-country network of processing facilities, mining sector executives said Tuesday.

Calls for an emergency stockpile of 34 critical minerals in Canada have grown in recent weeks as a way to reduce investment risk for mine developers and leverage against U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to annex the country for its wealth of natural resources.

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