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OPINION: Donald Trump’s Ukraine minerals deals looks to be more about oil and gas than rare earths – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – May 3, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

On the morning of Pope Francis’s April 26 funeral, U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, sat alone on two red chairs, facing one another, in the largely empty St. Peter’s Basilica. At the time, the topic of the impromptu mini-summit amid the baroque opulence of the Vatican was not known.

Less than a week later, all became clear. The two leaders were wrapping up the fraught Ukraine-U.S. minerals deal, discussions of which had sometimes been ill-tempered and explosive since Mr. Trump’s election campaign in the fall. On Thursday, in his evening address from Kyiv, Mr. Zelensky said, “In fact, now we have the first result of the Vatican meeting, which makes it truly historic.”

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After Ukraine deal, US turns its critical minerals gaze to Africa – by Andy Home (Reuters – May 6, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, – Away from the headlines around the minerals deal with Ukraine, the United States has pursued a potentially even more significant critical metals deal in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo reached out to the Donald Trump administration with a Ukrainian-style proposal in February in response to the rapid advance of the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group in the east of the country.

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[Yellowknife, Northwest Territories] Deep in an Abandoned Gold Mine, a Toxic Legacy Lurks – by Vipal Monga (MSN.com – May 4, 2025)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/

YELLOWKNIFE, Northwest Territories—This small subarctic city has a big problem. There are 237,000 metric tons of arsenic trioxide locked in the subterranean caverns of Giant Mine on the edge of Yellowknife, an unwanted byproduct from what was once one of the largest gold mines in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Consider that it only takes 140 milligrams of arsenic trioxide to kill a person; there’s enough of the poison here to kill 1.7 trillion people.

The local indigenous people refer to the arsenic as a sleeping monster. Company and government officials hoped the arsenic would remain frozen underground forever. But mining operations and climate change caused the permafrost to melt, raising fears in the city of 20,000 people that toxic material could mix with the runoff and slither into the nearby waters of Great Slave Lake, the world’s 10th-largest freshwater body.

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Explainer: What is the Ring of Fire and when will it be developed? – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – May 5, 2025)

Project Location & Study Area (CNW Group/Webequie First Nation and Marten Falls First Nation)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

One analyst calls this part of Northern Ontario ‘the most important mining discovery in Canadian history’

It spans an area of Ontario bigger than Quetico Provincial Park — itself nearly as big as Algonquin Park — but few people have visited and you won’t find it easily on a map. Tip: if you Google Winisk River Provincial Park, that will at least get you in the right neighbourhood.

As murky as it might be geographically, however, geologically and economically it has been thrust under a spotlight — particularly of late, as both Queen’s Park and Ottawa look to parry U.S. trade moves and build domestic might going forward. The Ring of Fire has become a household name, and a source of superlatives.

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Nations Rising – A story of Nisga’a strength – by A.J. Roan (North of 60 Mining News – May 2, 2025)

 

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

For Entire Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqpCmlUfwwo

New documentary tells the story of overcoming oppression to reclaim home and power, enabling future generations to thrive.

For more than a century, the Nisg̱a’a people of Northern British Columbia’s Nass Valley fought to reclaim their land, their rights, and their voice, a long journey brought to life in Nations Rising – A Nisg̱a’a Story, which weaves the tale of history, culture, resilience, and modern self-determination into a living portrait of a nation rising anew.

Long before modern boundaries were drawn, the Nass River valley of northwestern B.C. served as a gathering place for many Indigenous peoples, a basin of life where rivers, forests, and mountains sustained generations.

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Rio Tinto weighs up rare earths market – by Kristie Batten (Mining.com – May 1, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto is weighing a move into rare earths and other critical minerals as it responds to shifting global market dynamics and trade tensions. Following the company’s annual general meeting in Perth on Thursday, chief executive Jakob Stausholm said the board had discussed rare earths this week and would take a “serious look” at their potential role in Rio Tinto’s portfolio.

Stausholm said that as the company continues to optimize its iron ore operations in the Pilbara and advances developments like the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea, it’s also reshaping its aluminum, copper, and lithium businesses to support the energy transition.

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Mining In Canada: Critical Minerals Exploration – Revival of Thompson nickel belt: Drilling into Manitoba’s untapped potential – by Misty Urbatsch (Canadian Mining Journal – May 1, 2025)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Misty Urbatsch is the CEO, president, and director of Core Nickel Corp.

Core Nickel Corp. (CSE: CNCO) is quickly gaining traction as an emerging exploration company targeting high-grade nickel sulfide systems in northern Manitoba. Since listing in late 2023, the company has raised $3.9 million in capital, secured nearly $0.5 million in non-dilutive government funding, launched multiple drill programs, and initiated airborne surveys across key assets — all while firmly establishing itself in the globally significant Thompson Nickel Belt.

The company’s exploration efforts are centered on the Thompson Nickel Belt, the world’s fifth-largest nickel belt and a globally significant source of high-grade nickel sulfide. Though more than five billion lbs. of nickel have been mined from the region, large portions of the belt remain underexplored using modern geological and geophysical techniques.

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Opinion: Oil and gas, not cars, still pay Canada’s bills, and critical metals are soon to follow – by Patricia Mohr (Financial Post – May 2, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

Energy exports are almost two and a half times the value of exported cars, and critical minerals are coming on fast

Times haven’t changed as much as many people seem to think. Canada’s vast resource potential still generates both big economic opportunities and important diplomatic leverage in our relations with the United States and others. With our small domestic consumer market, we still owe much of our prosperity and influence to the export of commodities and resource-based manufactures.

Despite recent rhetoric, Canada has long been and still is an “energy super-power.” We are the world’s fourth-largest producer of crude oil and a trusted member of the West’s nuclear-fuel supplier group. With effective resource management and huge potential in liquefied natural gas (LNG), our global role in energy will only expand in coming years.

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The future for Alaska mining is golden – by Shane Lasley (North of 60 Mining News – May 2, 2025)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Record gold prices and rising production are expected to push Alaska’s 2025 gold output value north of $3.4 billion.

With the gold shattering the $3,000-per-ounce ceiling without hesitation and Alaska mines poised to break above the 1-million-oz mark this year, the future of Alaska’s mining sector is golden. This combination of record gold prices and production positions Alaska’s mining industry to crush all previous records this year when it comes to the value of the minerals and metals produced in the state.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) calculates that Alaska’s mining operations produced $4.7 billion of non-fuel minerals – gold, zinc, silver, lead, and aggregate products – in 2024. Adding the coal produced for in-state power plants bumps this total up to roughly $4.8 billion.

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Alamos Gold sees mine expansion on the horizon at Dubreuilville – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – May 1, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Toronto gold miner takes big-picture outlook at Island Gold after first quarter results fail to impress markets

Completion of the multi-million-dollar expansion at Alamos Gold’s Island Gold mine, outside Dubreuilville, is on track for the first half of 2026.

The gold potential at the prolific high-grade underground mine is key to the Toronto company’s three-year strategy to become a million-ounce-per-year producer, combining its mines in Northern Ontario and Mexico with another on the way in Manitoba.

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With Minerals Deal, Trump Ties Himself to Future of Ukraine – by Kim Barker (New York Times – May 1, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

The text of the agreement, made public by Ukraine’s government, made no mention of the security guarantees that Kyiv had long sought.

The minerals deal signed by the United States and Ukraine on Wednesday could bring untold money into a joint investment fund between the two countries that would help rebuild Ukraine whenever the war with Russia ends. But Ukraine’s untapped resources that are the subject of the deal will take years to extract and yield profits. And those could fail to deliver the kind of wealth that President Trump has long said they would.

It is not yet clear how the nine-page deal, the text of which Ukraine’s government made public on Thursday, will work in practice. Many specifics need to be worked out, but the deal will set up an investment fund, jointly managed by Kyiv and Washington.

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Brazil low-cost lithium production: A potential global reference, but internal challenges may delay progress – by Leticia Simionato (Fastmarkets.com – May 2, 2025)

https://www.fastmarkets.com/

“Brazil can be seen as a low-cost reference compared with other global spodumene producers. We compete very well with several geographies: better costs due to geological issues, cheaper labor and electricity… There’s a list of factors that makes us competitive, ” Vinicius Alvarenga, chief executive officer of Companhia Brasileira de Lítio (CBL), told Fastmarkets in an interview.

CBL currently produces 45,000 tonnes per year of spodumene concentrate, of which 30,000 tonnes is exported – mainly to China – while 15,000 tonnes are used in the company’s own refinery, which produces around 2,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE). Half of the produced LCE is exported and half is used domestically. Additionally, CBL is currently working on a project to increase mining production to 100,000 tpy of spodumene and expand its chemicals production to 6,000 tpy of LCE.

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Casino Mining defends heap leach plan as distrust of gold extraction method lingers – by Gabrielle Plonka (CBC News North – May 01, 2025)

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

Company vice-president says Casino would have ‘significant differences’ from the Eagle gold mine

The heap leach facility at the Casino mine will be different from the one that failed last summer at the Eagle gold mine in the Yukon, according to the mining company. The Casino mine — which is still in the environmental assessment phase — is 300 kilometres northwest of Whitehorse via Carmacks, on what the company says is one of the largest copper-gold deposits in Canada.

Shena Shaw, Casino Mining’s vice-president of environmental and community affairs, gave a presentation at the Association of Yukon Communities’ annual general meeting on April 25.

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Spotlight: Ontario projects to watch – by Staff (Northern Miner – May 1, 2025)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Ontario is among the world’s top 10 mining jurisdictions and is rich in base and precious metals as well as a suite of critical minerals. Here’s a look at eight companies with interesting projects to watch.

Canada Nickel

Canada Nickel expects to receive final permits and make a construction decision on its Crawford nickel sulphide project before the end of this year.

Crawford, 42 km north of Timmins, contains the second-largest nickel reserves in the world with 1.72 billion proven and probable tonnes grading 0.22% nickel, 0.013% cobalt, 0.014 gram palladium per tonne, 0.009 gram platinum, 6.44% iron, 0.57% chrome and 1.61% brucite.

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Pentagon’s AI metals program goes private in bid to boost Western supply deals – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters – May 2, 2025)

https://www.msn.com/

(Reuters) -A U.S. government-created artificial intelligence program that aims to predict the supply and price of critical minerals has been transferred to the control of a non-profit organization that is helping miners and manufacturers strike supply deals.

Launched in late 2023 by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Open Price Exploration for National Security AI metals program is an attempt to counter China’s sweeping control of the critical minerals sector, as Reuters reported last year.

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