New reporting is showing how Russia uses its Wagner Group mercenaries to extract diamonds from the Central African Republic (CAR).
Research published in December 2022 by Belgian newspaper De Standaard, the media network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), and the All Eyes on Wagner project concluded that “in exchange for military support to the government in the CAR, the Russian Wagner Group gets access to precious raw materials.”
Lithium giant Albemarle has raised its forecast for future lithium demand by more than 15 per cent and signalled it would expand its Australian mines to supply the lithium needed for the world to rapidly adopt electric vehicles.
But Mineral Resources swiftly provided a reminder on Wednesday that expanding mines in Western Australia is easier said than done, revealing that expansion of its Mt Marion lithium mine had been delayed by labour shortages and equipment delays, forcing a 17 per cent cut to this year’s export target.
Yamana Gold Inc.’s Peter Marrone said the sale of the company he founded two decades ago to two Canadian rivals heralds a wave of gold mergers as executives and investors seek to maintain margins amid higher production costs and declining grades of the metal.
Marrone, currently Yamana’s executive chair, oversaw the company’s sale to Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Pan American Silver Corp. last year for about US$4.8 billion. Marrone will leave the company when the deal closes, which is likely to take place next month.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Yellowknife was founded on gold mining, and now lithium holds the potential of opening a new chapter for the Far North’s second largest city. Just a short drive east of Yellowknife and off the paved, all-season highway the Ingraham Trail, Vancouver-based explorer Li-FT Power (CSE: LIFT) is preparing to turn its drills on 13 targets it calls the Yellowknife Lithium Project.
“When you talk about the potential, it’s just really easy to see because the pegmatites stick out of the ground and you can fly over them, they go for 1.8 km, and you just see almost 100% exposure,” Francis MacDonald, CEO Li-FT said in an interview with The Northern Miner.
THUNDER BAY — A court hearing scheduled for this Friday in Toronto will determine whether Ginoogaming First Nation is granted an interlocutory injunction to prevent mineral exploration in part of its traditional territory pending the outcome of a lawsuit against Ontario and two mining companies.
In September 2021, the First Nation received an extension of an interim injunction preventing exploration firms connected to Geraldton prospector Mike Malouf from exercising their three-year Ontario government permits to explore in an area that Ginoogaming has declared to be sacred and culturally significant.
KUALA LUMPUR/JAKARTA — Recent clashes at a Chinese-owned nickel smelting facility in Indonesia are likely to spread to other parts of the country if the government and Chinese owners fail to address issues of safety, analysts say.
Protests, some violent, have occurred sporadically in recent years on the mineral-rich island of Sulawesi, which is experiencing an investment boom for mining nickel, a key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries. Indonesia is keen to leverage its world-leading reserves of the metal and develop a domestic EV industry.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry does not have much sympathy for other countries complaining about the massive subsidies President Joe Biden’s administration is offering to electric-vehicle and battery-component makers, as Washington seeks to break China’s dominance of the global EV supply chain.
“The reaction shouldn’t be ‘Oh my God, you shouldn’t be doing that, you’re putting us in an unfair position,’” Mr. Kerry said last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Do it! Everybody’s got to do the same thing to accelerate this process even more.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/
Conditions at Mistastin crater are kind of like the moon
When scientists determined in the mid-1970s that the Mistastin crater in Labrador had lunar-like properties, the last Apollo mission had flown and it was too late for astronauts to take advantage of the site for training.
But now, as Artemis astronauts prepare for the next moon mission, one Canadian expert says the remote crater could provide vital insight into what awaits them. Gordon Osinski, a professor in the department of Earth sciences at Western University in London, Ont., said Mistastin was found to be an impact crater in the mid-1970s.
The chief executive of one of the world’s largest mining companies says it makes “no sense” for Western nations to introduce policies and incentives that encourage deglobalization as a way to tackle the influence of authoritarian regimes in the energy sector when the world is already struggling to meet its climate goals.
Mark Bristow, who heads Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp., said the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which offers up to a US$7,500 subsidy to companies that produce their electric vehicles (EVs) and source the materials for them in North America, was a “bit of an oxymoron” and encourages “exclusivity” rather than looking at a global solution for the shift away from fossil fuels.
(Kitco News) Police in Toronto recovered $967,811 (CAD $1.295 million) worth of precious metals after four teenage boys got caught “in the act” of robbing a store last month.
According to the police, three masked teenagers entered a precious metals store on Bloor Street in Toronto as the fourth suspect waited in the car. “On December 10, 2022, at 2:15 p.m., three masked suspects entered a precious metals store … with a firearm.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
As research shows carcinogens in their children’s bodies, people in Rouyn-Noranda are demanding more loudly that the local copper smelter – long exempt from provincial emissions rules – should clean up its act
Ethan Valois is eight now, and the arsenic levels in his body have started to come down. He and his parents live in Rouyn-Noranda, Que., home to a copper smelter that emits the known carcinogen at levels about 30 times higher than the provincial limit.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Magnitude 2.8 earthquake is ‘small,’ official says
Earthquakes Canada said a 2.8-magnitude earthquake felt across Greater Sudbury on Sunday was related to mining activity in Garson Mine. According to the organization’s website, the rumbling was “lightly felt” across the city at around 2:17 p.m. on Jan. 22.
Seismologist Allison Bent said Earthquakes Canada received nearly 200 online reports of shaking throughout the entire region, with the effects strongest in the epicentre near the Garson mine. A map of those reports indicates that some residents felt the effects from as far as Skead, Onaping and Nairn Centre.
A recent paper published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution estimates that humans are heading toward a situation where 80% of the resources we use are from non-biological sources.
Written by researchers at the Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the article notes that in 1900, approximately 80% of the resources humans used came from biomass (wood, plants, food, etc.). That figure had fallen to 32% by 2005 and is expected to stand at approximately 22% in 2050.
https://www.autoevolution.com/
It is a classic shoot-yourself-in-foot scenario in the U.S. with lithium, the soft metal critical to the manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles. Current environmental laws and regulations are preventing two private companies from mining two large lithium deposits in Nevada.
The U.S. Government is not striking a NIMBY pose as it has done recently with oil production, but rather finds itself in quite a pickle on how to move forward to facilitate its battery content mandates outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Justin Trudeau’s cabinet’s agenda over the next three days is to take a hard look at the fiscal and economic picture facing Canada.
HAMILTON—The federal Liberal government’s budget plan to grow the economy and get the public books in order is “unlikely” to work, given its evolving ambitious political promises, higher global interest rates, and the “high likelihood of a more severe recession in 2023,” says a new report.
The report, written by former Bank of Canada governor and deputy finance minister David Dodge, and Robert Asselin, former finance policy adviser to the Liberal government now with the Business Council of Canada, comes as the Trudeau cabinet meets to strategize about the coming months in Parliament.
