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OPINION: Global banks look down market for new business [Frontier Lithium] – by Andrew Willis (Globe and Mail – December 12, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

To steal a phrase from supermodel Linda Evangelista, who wouldn’t wake up for photo shoots that paid less than $10,000 a day, investment bankers at global platforms such as RBC Capital Markets and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. don’t typically get out of bed to split a $1-million fee.

Yet RBC and Goldman – firms built for billion-dollar financings – put their muscle and brands behind a $23-million stock sale last month for junior miner Frontier Lithium Inc. The bought deal, initially pitched as a $20-million offering then upsized because of investor demand, earned the two lead dealers and four other banks just $1.1-million.

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Teck’s new CEO looks to tap cash from coal to fuel copper expansion – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – December 12, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Teck Resources Ltd.’s new chief aims to leverage his company’s booming coal business to get bigger in copper and become a “significant” miner of the metal behind the global energy transition.

“We’re so focused on copper just because of the critical role that the metal is going to play in decarbonization through electrification,” Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Price said in his first interview since taking the top job in September. “It’s really the cornerstone of what we’re doing.”

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USW: Canada lags protecting miners from diesel particulate – by Len Gillis (Sudbury.com – December 11, 2022)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Canada allows miners to be breathe more diesel particulate — much more — than the U.S. EU, or Australia, so Steelworkers Local 6500 launch campaign to push for much lower exposure limit

United Steelworkers Local 6500 and several industrial health advocates in Sudbury have launched a new campaign to clear the air and make it easier to breathe in underground mines.

The effort is aimed at reducing the amount of allowable diesel particulate that exposes thousands of miners to carcinogenic levels of particulates in the mining industry.

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Canada joins critical minerals alliance to avoid reliance on ‘authoritarian states’ – by John Woodside (National Observer – December 10, 2022)

https://www.nationalobserver.com/

As concerns about China’s dominant economic position in industry mount, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson is unveiling a new international alliance aimed at securing the critical minerals needed to transition off fossil fuels.

Wilkinson announced the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance Monday at the United Nations biodiversity conference underway in Montreal, days after Canada published its critical minerals strategy to grow the sector domestically. The new alliance includes Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and Japan.

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Canadian gold miner Belo Sun accused of misleading investors – by Marisa Coulton (Financial Post – December 14, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

Environmental advocate: ‘No investor should even think of touching this company’

A Canadian gold miner has found itself under attack by a powerful environmental group seeking to starve it of investment dollars in an attempt to block it from building what would be the largest open pit mine in Brazil.

Toronto-based Belo Sun Mining Corp. found a rich gold deposit about 1,000 kilometres northwest of the Brazilian capital of Brasília in 2015, and now plans to build an open pit mine in the Brazilian rainforest near a bend in the Xingu River, one of the largest clearwater rivers in the Amazon basin.

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Tesla’s lithium supplies in danger as rivals make mining deals – by David Stringer, Yvonne Yue Li, Gabrielle Coppola & Chunying Zhang (The Edge Markets/Bloomberg News – November 30, 2022)

https://apps.theedgemarkets.com/

(Nov 29): For years, only one customer mattered in the market for lithium and other metals used in electric vehicle batteries: Tesla Inc. The prospect that a new mine might end up feeding Elon Musk’s automaker was enough to sway cautious lenders to finance a project or convince investors that untested operations had a shot at meeting aggressive sales projections.

And as the biggest buyer in a sector full of startup miners, Tesla wielded unusual power to dictate terms, typically locking in agreements for supplies for years at fixed prices.

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Ontario Mines Minister George Pirie Continues Building Bridges in Ring of Fire Territory (Mining Life – December 14, 2022)

https://mininglifeonline.net/

There’s a sense of progress on all sides that the resource-rich Ring of Fire region of Northern Ontario is on the brink of a breakthrough. Ontario’s new Mines Minister George Pirie has been tasked by Premier Doug Ford with getting the Ring of Fire across the finish line.

Minister Pirie was the keynote speaker at the Central Canada Mining Expo held recently in Thunder Bay. Pirie brings more than three decades of mining experience to the portfolio but his core strength in his new role, is a deep and personal commitment to ensuring that First Nations communities share in the Ring of Fire’s extraordinary economic benefits.

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Rio Tinto hunts for lithium deals, eyes Jadar revival – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – December 13, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) said on Tuesday is actively searching for lithium assets as its expects prices for the metal used in the making of batteries that power electric vehicles to remain high for a “long period of time”.

The company had to shelve its proposed $2.4 billion Jadar lithium mine in Serbia early this year after the government revoked the project’s licences. In a presentation posted on its website, Rio confirmed it has not scrapped Jadar completely as it still considers the project as part of its portfolio and said it intends to de-risk the development process.

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Uranium exploration supported in Canadian critical minerals strategy (World Nuclear News – December 13, 2022)

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

The Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy was released on 9 December by Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson, who said it will position Canada as “the global supplier of choice for the critical minerals and clean technologies needed for the green, digital global economy”.

Uranium appears on the list of 31 minerals currently considered by Canada to be “critical”. To be on the list, a mineral must either be essential to the country’s economic security and its supply is threatened; required for the national transition to a low-carbon economy; or a sustainable source of highly strategic critical minerals for Canadian partners and allies.

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Opinion: Don’t assume Canada will ace the mining transition – by Phil Bazel and Jack Mintz (Financial Post/Yahoo Finance – December 13, 2022)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

Contemporary policy rhetoric, including last week’s presentation by the federal minister of natural resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, suggests we are on the verge of a great energy transition away from fossil fuels toward cleaner, renewable sources of electric energy.

Electric vehicle mandates and fuel efficiency regulations are expected to lead to widespread adoption of electric cars in the coming decade. In addition, the growth of carbon taxes at the consumer and industrial level creates incentives to shift from coal, oil and gas to wind and solar, with increased reliance on battery technology and electric-powered vehicles and processes as a result.

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Opinion: A generational economic opportunity for Sudbury, Northern Ontario – by Viviane Lapointe (Sudbury Star – December 15, 2022)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Sudbury MP says Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy is a roadmap to creating significant wealth and sustainable jobs for Northern Ontario

As many of you may know, I was born in Elliot Lake, the proud daughter of a miner. Representing Sudbury, I can tell you it still runs through my veins.

Mining has always been one of Canada’s economic cornerstones. Today, this sector matters more than ever. There is growing global appreciation that a cleaner, net-zero global economy cannot be achieved without mineral extraction. Specifically, critical minerals. They are the building blocks for a green and digital economy. They are the building blocks for the future.

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Indigenous nations in the Amazon urge Canada to strengthen mining rules – by Matteo Cimellaro (National Observer – December 15, 2022)

https://www.nationalobserver.com/

With 17 per cent of its forest already lost, the Amazon is near a tipping point. If that reaches 20 to 25 per cent, scientists say there will be irreversible changes. Uyunkar Domingo Peas Nampichkai, a leader from the Achuar Nation of the Ecuadorian Amazon, put it simply at a news conference Wednesday: the Amazon is in a “deep crisis.”

As delegates from around the world gather at the United Nations’ COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, Indigenous Peoples in the Global South are calling out Canada for letting mining companies devastate their ancestral territories in the Amazon. It’s a central issue for protecting nature because 80 per cent of biodiversity is on Indigenous lands, according to the UN.

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US ‘Battery Belt’ Widens With $3.5 Billion Redwood Materials Plant – by Tom Randall (Bloomberg News – December 14, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — With demand for electric cars soaring, America desperately needs a new battery supply chain.

It appears to be coming. Redwood Materials Inc., started by Tesla co-founder J.B. Straubel, said Wednesday that it will spend $3.5 billion to develop a 600-acre site in Charleston, South Carolina, to manufacture enough critical battery components to build more than a million electric vehicles a year. It’s the second announcement of that size in less than a month, following LG Chem’s plans for a materials plant in Tennessee.

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NEWS RELEASE: MATAWA CHIEFS’ COUNCIL CALL ON THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA TO STOP THE COLONIAL BACKROOM DEALS AND ESTABLISH A DEDICATED FEDERAL CROWN TABLE TO PREPARE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RING OF FIRE REGION AND CRITICAL MINERALS (December 15, 2022)

http://www.matawa.on.ca/

THUNDER BAY, ON: At their meeting today, the Matawa Chiefs Council issue the following statement related to the activities of the Governments of Canada, Ontario, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the Chiefs of Ontario (COO) and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) who are compromising the positions of Indigenous rights holders:

“We have watched and waited patiently for the governments and First Nation political organizations to step up and support the sovereignty of the Matawa Chiefs Council and our communities with the impending development of the Ring of Fire Region and other critical minerals in the remote and rural north of Ontario, land subject to the James Bay Treaty No. 9 (1905-06 and 1929-30).

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Billionaire-backed KoBold Metals to invest in Zambia copper mine (Reuters – December 14, 2022)

https://www.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 14 (Reuters) – California-based exploration firm KoBold Metals, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify battery metal deposits, is investing $150 million to develop a copper mine in Zambia, the company announced at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C.

KoBold’s investors include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate and technology fund founded by Microsoft’s Bill Gates and backed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Virgin’s Richard Branson.

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