LONDON — Substantial new nickel supplies from top producer Indonesia in years ahead will ensure prices don’t return to levels that sparked chaotic trading in March, despite robust demand growth from stainless steel and electric vehicle battery makers.
However, prices now around $21,000 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange (LME), though down about 80% since hitting all-time highs in March, are still high enough to incentivise investment in new production capacity.
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Mine supply vendors will showcase their equipment at action at NORCAT’S Mining Transformed show in September
Nowhere else in the world can you go to see state-of-art mining technology being put to work in an underground mine so that buyers and investors can check out the goods and services up for sale.
An event called Mining Transformed is currently being planned for Sudbury from Sept. 26-29 by NORCAT and will be the world’s first tech exhibition in an underground operating mine. Already the sellers have bought up all the available exhibition space at NORCAT”s Underground Centre, a mine located in Levack on the outskirts of the city.
The nickel market is hostage to two mercurial players: Russia’s Vladimir Potanin and China’s Xiang Guangda. Nicknamed the Nickel King and nickel’s Big Shot, both the bosses of Norilsk and Tsingshan have swayed the market for decades.
But now the pair’s impact on nickel trading is even more outsized, thanks to the war in Ukraine and the fallout of Xiang’s big short, which was built up on the belief his company can again transform the fundamentals of the nickel supply chain.
Pierre Gratton is the President and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada.
By now it is a foregone conclusion that in order for net-zero to be achieved the increased adoption of low carbon technologies is essential, with mining propelling the current seismic energy transition.
Electric cars cannot exist without lithium, nickel and cobalt, nuclear energy without uranium, wind turbines and solar panels without copper, zinc, iron and steel making coal.
(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk has called for more investment in global lithium refining to ease shortages in battery materials — and promised those who seize the opportunity it’s as lucrative as “basically minting money.”
“I’d like to once again urge entrepreneurs to enter the lithium refining business. The mining is relatively easy, the refining is much harder,” Tesla Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Musk said on a Wednesday earnings call, adding there are software-like margins to be made in lithium processing. “You can’t lose, it’s a license to print money.”
Mining giant aims to start production year early in 2026
BHP Group Ltd. has gone from lukewarm to hot on its Jansen potash mine in Saskatchewan, announcing Tuesday that it is working to accelerate first production by a year to 2026, and that it intends to speed up future expansions as potash prices continue to soar.
The Australian mining giant also reported in its year-end operational review that work on Jansen’s shaft, which already runs one-kilometre deep, was completed in June at a total cost of US$2.97 billion.
Glencore’s proposed metallurgical coal mine advances to public comment period
It has been nearly a decade since the Sukunka metallurgical coal mine proposal near Chetwynd and Tumbler Ridge was first pitched to the BC Environmental Assessment Office. The project, estimated to cost $450 million to build, is still in play, and the project will soon enter a final review by the BC Environmental Assessment Office (EAO).
The clock has been stopped on the review several times to allow the company to respond to numerous questions and concerns raised about environmental impacts – from impacts on fish to greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on caribou habitat.
The world’s first serious nuclear accident occurred in Ontario in 1952, followed by a second incident there in 1958. A look back at these events now that the federal government is compensating workers who took part in cleanup efforts.
GEORGE KIELY IS at a loss for words. On a July morning in 2021, I phone to get his reaction to the federal budget tabled three months earlier. One measure had caught my eye: $22.3 million set aside for several hundred workers who cleaned up Chalk River Laboratories after two nuclear accidents in the 1950s. I hadn’t known about these incidents.
(Bloomberg) — As battery makers scramble to procure cobalt, nickel and other metals to meet rising consumer demand for electric cars, governmental opposition to strip-mining the seabed for minerals is mounting.
The deep ocean contains the largest estimated deposits of minerals on the planet, potentially worth trillions of dollars. But in recent weeks, Chile, Fiji, Palau and other nations have called for a moratorium on ocean mining until there is a better understanding of the environmental consequences of destroying little-explored and unique deep-sea ecosystems that play an undetermined role in the global climate.
PolyMet Mining Corp (POM.TO) and Teck Resources Ltd (TECKb.TO) said on Wednesday they will form a joint venture to develop their Minnesota copper and nickel mining projects.
The new company, known as NewRange Copper Nickel LLC, will share costs to develop the two proposed mines, which aim to produce metals used to make electric vehicles and other green technologies.
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Nutrien Ltd. is buying Brazilian retail fertilizer company Casa do Adubo S.A. as it forges ahead on an expansion into Latin America despite a difficult global economic environment.
Saskatoon-based Nutrien, the world’s biggest fertilizer company, did not disclose financial terms for the deal, but said it would add roughly US$400-million in sales and expand its reach in Brazil to 13 states from five.
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Tartisan Nickel wants to put former Falconbridge mine back into production
A former Falconbridge nickel deposit near Kenora looks to have the legs and the economics to be put back into production.
Tartisan Nickel released a preliminary economy assessment (PEA) of its Kenbridge Nickel Deposit last week. The PEA study projects a nine-year mine with production of 52.6 million pounds of nickel and 30.7 million of copper over that span.
Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says the convergence of Canada’s automotive and mining sectors is working to lure more companies to Canada to make electric cars and the batteries that power them.
Over eight weeks last spring, automakers and battery companies announced more than $13 billion in new investments in the electric vehicle manufacturing sphere in Canada, including batteries and their components, buses and electric cars.
The USGS has collaborated with several international organizations working to track and monitor illegal mining and armed groups funded by natural resources around the world.
The concept of conflict diamonds or “blood diamonds” emerged in the late 1990s when it became evident that several violent civil wars in Africa were connected to mining and trading of rough diamonds. In 2006, the U.S. Geological Survey was asked by the U.S. Department of State to help address illegal diamond mining in Africa.
Since then, the USGS has collaborated with several international organizations working to track and monitor illegal mining and armed groups funded by natural resources around the world. USGS scientists help detect where illegal mining is likely taking place and develop realistic production numbers to determine a country’s true capacity for mining and exporting various resources.
(Bloomberg) — A lithium producer for carmakers including BMW AG and Tesla Inc. is beginning work to assess battery metals projects in Xinjiang, deepening links between electric vehicle supply chains and a region at the heart of human-rights allegations against China.
Ganfeng Lithium Co., China’s top producer of the material, is partnering through a subsidiary with a state-backed entity to accelerate exploration for and potentially develop lithium, nickel and other critical metal assets in the region.
