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Top federal government official casts doubt on Ontario’s Ring of Fire mining development – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – November 29, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A top Canadian federal government official has raised doubts about whether Ontario’s Ring of Fire region will ever be developed, pouring cold water on a critical minerals project that the provincial government has championed and the United States administration has expressed interest in funding.

Jeff Labonté, assistant deputy minister for lands and minerals at Natural Resources Canada, told senior leadership at the Neskantaga First Nation in a meeting on Nov. 17 that it’s possible no mines will be built in the region, and that there is no guarantee Ottawa will ever come forward with the roughly $1-billion in funding needed for development to proceed.

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Toxic Towns: Don’t hold your breath – by Malone Mullin (CBC News Interactives – November 28, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/

In Baie Verte, N.L., a mine that once brought prosperity now symbolizes pain, suffering and death. Nobody knows how to get rid of it.

This is Part I of a three-part series on contaminated sites in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In Émile Zola’s 1885 novel Germinal, a French mining town, filled with families dependent on coal, is plotting a strike. It’s not an idyllic existence, living in 19th-century Montsou. Workers and their families sleep in shacks, eat mostly bread and rarely embrace leisure.

Eventually, they’re consumed by the massive beast whose tendrils reach deep underground. The mine, named Le Voreux, holds such sway over the townspeople’s lives that it transforms into a character in itself; figuratively speaking, by the end of the book, it eats its servants alive.

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News Release: Kingfisher Lake First Nation Energized by Wataynikaneyap Power (November 24, 2022)

The ‘line that brings light’ connects Kingfisher Lake First Nation to the provincial power grid

FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION, Ontario, Nov. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Wataynikaneyap Power announces the energization of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, a remote northern Ontario community, which was connected to the provincial power grid on November 8, 2022. Upon grid connection and onto a reliable power source, the community turned off its diesel generators which had previously provided primary power to this remote community.

The Wataynikaneyap Power transmission system connects the Kingfisher Lake community distribution system to the Ontario grid through a total of 250 km of line and two substations, originating from its Pickle Lake Substation. Kingfisher Lake will continue to be served by Hydro One Remotes Communities Inc. (HORCI) for the local distribution of electricity.

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Burkina Faso’s vanishing gold boom puts livelihoods at risk – by Anne Mimault and Helen Reid (Reuters – November 28, 2022)

https://www.reuters.com/

OUAGADOUGOU, Nov 28 (Reuters) – A gold mining boom in Burkina Faso over the last decade propelled Boukary Diallo from being a vendor on a market stall to running a meat business supplying a mine near Ouahigouya, his home town in the north of the country.

But as the West African country loses territory to Islamist militants and lurches from coup to coup, threatening to turn the boom to bust, Diallo is concerned he will be unable to retain all of his ten employees.

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Canada’s top five federal contaminated sites to cost taxpayers $4.38-billion to clean up – by Emily Blake (Globe and Mail/Canadian Press – November 28, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

With a cost estimate of $4.38-billion, remediation of the Giant Mine, one of the most contaminated sites in Canada, is also expected to be the most expensive federal environmental cleanup in the country’s history.

The figure, recently approved by the Treasury Board of Canada, spans costs from 2005 until 2038, when active remediation at the former Yellowknife gold mine is anticipated to end. That includes $710-million the federal government said has already been spent, but does not include costs for long-term care and maintenance.

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Copper’s Biggest Mystery Is Finally Cracking – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – November 26, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The warnings keep getting louder: the world is hurtling toward a desperate shortage of copper. Humans are more dependent than ever on a metal we’ve used for 10,000 years; new deposits are drying up, and the type of breakthrough technologies that transformed other commodities have failed to materialize for copper. Until now.

In what could prove a game changer for global supply, a US startup says it’s solved a puzzle that has frustrated the mining world for decades. If successful, the discovery by Jetti Resources could unlock millions of tons of new copper to feed power grids, building sites and car fleets around the globe, narrowing and possibly even closing the deficit.

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New fund a ‘massive signal’ Ontario’s open for business: CEO – by Maija Hoggett (Timmins Today – November 24, 2022)

https://www.timminstoday.com/

A company advancing a large nickel-cobalt project in Timmins is already planning its applications for a new provincial fund. Today, Minister of Mines and Timmins MPP George Pirie was at Northern College to launch the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund.

The two-year, $5-million initiative is “to support research, development and commercialization of technologies, processes and solutions for critical minerals,” said Pirie.

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Classy niche market: Europe and the USA benefit from the diamond trade with Russia. Only one country refuses to do so (Indo & New York News & Announces – November 23, 2022)

https://www.indonewyork.com/

Wearing gloves, jewels are draped on velvet in the window of a shop in Antwerp’s diamond district. The Belgian port city has been one of the hubs for the gemstone business since the 15th century.

According to the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, 37 billion euros are turned over here every year, discreetly and confidentially. When asked where the diamonds come from, a jeweler replies with a laugh: “I’d rather not ask.” His reluctance is not entirely unfounded.

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Nickel processing goes on – by Editorial (Jakarta Post – November 25, 2022)

https://www.thejakartapost.com/

The recent decision of the panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body against Indonesia’s policy of banning raw nickel export should not in any way distract the government’s focus on its well-designed strategy to develop the processing of nickel and other minerals in the country.

The government should instead appeal against the verdict of the panel which ruled in favor of the European Union’s complaint that the Indonesian raw nickel export ban imposed since January 2020 violated WTO rules.

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Chinese Mining Deals Under Review as Congo Targets Windfall Profits – by David Malingha (Bloomberg News – Novemeber 22, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The Democratic Republic of Congo wants a mining deal it signed with China more than a decade ago to be reworked, with a view to securing all the funding that was pledged for infrastructure projects and a share of windfall profits.

A review of the 2008 minerals-for-infrastructure contract that includes the Sicomines copper-cobalt mining project should ideally be concluded by year-end, Congolese Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde said in an interview in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, during the COP27 climate summit. Additional payments were warranted because the project was making super-profits due to a surge in commodity prices, he said.

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The nuclear renaissance, reborn: Exploration activities are on the uptick as uranium is, once again, in demand – by Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco (CIM Magazine – November 23, 2022)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

After a crushing 11-year downturn, the uranium sector is experiencing the beginning of a revival. Many are hoping that this is the one that turns the sector into a key player in the decarbonized economy of the future.

The last time junior uranium explorers had so much reason to be optimistic was in the years between 2004 and 2008. Duane Parnham, executive chairman and CEO of the Toronto-based uranium junior exploration company Madison Metals, recalls that excitement is what got him into the sector after attending the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) annual convention in 2006.

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Graphite poised to do a lithium – by Frik Els (Mining.com – November 23, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Pressure on carmakers in the EV battery supply chain is only building.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) faced with an 8-fold increase in lithium prices, convulsions on the nickel market and ever-present worries about cobalt supply from the Congo, are being forced to look downstream to secure supply for their ambitious expansion plans.

Andy Miller, chief operating officer of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, told an annual industry gathering in Los Angeles last week that soaring lithium prices and LME nickel market turmoil are signs of the huge momentum that is building in the battery supply chain.

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Norway House community members voice concerns on potential northern Manitoba nickel mine – by Ethan Butterfield (CBC News Manitoba – November 22, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/

Members of Norway House Cree Nation raised concerns about information sharing, environmental impacts and community employment at a consultation for a potential nickel mine in the area.

Last Thursday, Flying Nickel Mining Corporation and the Government of Manitoba hosted a public consultation around the Minago Nickel Project — a possible development following a memorandum of understanding that was signed by the First Nation’s chief and Flying Nickel in February. The mine could be under construction starting in 2024.

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Opinion: Nuclear energy — We CANDU it and we should – by Chris Keefer (Financial Post – November 24, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

Chris Keefer, a physician, is president of Canadians for Nuclear and director of Doctors for Nuclear Energy.

CANDU, the made-in-Canada nuclear reactor technology that powered the Ontario coal phaseout, North America’s greatest greenhouse-gas reduction, is the victim of a bizarre form of reverse protectionism that favours overseas supply chains and technologies over homegrown ones.

The federal government recently announced a 30 per cent “Clean Technology Investment Tax Credit” to incentivize spending on a range of clean-energy technologies, such as wind, solar and storage.

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Barrick Gold faces Ontario lawsuit for alleged killings and abuses at Tanzanian mine – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – November 24, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Two law firms have filed suit against Barrick Gold Corp. in Ontario Superior Court on behalf of 21 Tanzanians who allege that they or their family members were killed, injured or tortured by police guarding a Barrick gold mine.

The case, filed on Wednesday morning, is the first to be pursued against Barrick in Canadian courts for alleged human rights violations at its mines abroad. It follows a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2020 that allowed a Vancouver-based mining company to be sued in British Columbia for alleged abuses in Eritrea.

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