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NEWS RELEASE: Ontario Building Fortress Am-Can by Accelerating Strategic Resource Development (January 13, 2025)

Province’s critical minerals can power prosperity and security on both sides of the border

TORONTO — Today, Premier Doug Ford outlined Ontario’s plan to accelerate strategic resource development, including Ontario’s critical minerals in the Ring of Fire region, to build Fortress Am-Can, a renewed strategic alliance between Canada and the United States that is a beacon of stability, security and long-term prosperity.

The United States and Canada are each country’s most significant trading partners, representing trillions of dollars in annual economic activity and millions of jobs on both sides of the border. Fortress Am-Can will leverage Ontario’s unique advantages to help America bring jobs back home as it decouples from China, including by establishing a new Am-Can Critical Mineral Security Alliance that invests in and builds out American and Canadian critical mineral supply chains, including by significantly expanding Am-Can processing capacity.

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This company helped build an Alaska mine without a tailings dump. Can it build 2 more? – by Max Graham (Alaska Public Media/Northern Journal – January 7, 2025)

https://alaskapublic.org/

Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse has little patience left for mines that aren’t getting built.After 40 years in Alaska’s mining industry, he is tired of permitting delays, lawsuits and the state’s lack of infrastructure.

So a bell chimed in his head four years ago when he read a vague line in a corporate report proposing an unusual kind of gold mine — one that could be ready for construction in just a couple of years, instead of the dozen or more that some projects take. The idea was simple: Dig a typical pit and mine the ore — but send the rocks somewhere else for the heavy industrial process of separating out the gold.

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Why Teck’s Trail smelter may hold leverage against Donald Trump’s tariff threat – by Derrick Penner (Vancouver Sun – January 12, 2025)

https://vancouversun.com/

Canada can help its case countering incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s punishing tariffs with germanium produced by Teck in Trail.

With a population of just over 8,000, the smelting and mining city of Trail may hold some leverage in helping Ottawa counter U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs on Canadian imports.

Trump this week doubled-down on his expansionist rhetoric, threatening to use “economic force” to annex Canada, and suggesting his administration would use military force to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal. “We don’t need anything they have,” Trump said Wednesday, referring to Canada during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

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Opinion: Instead of joining the U.S., Greenland should join Canada in an economic union – by Bart Edes (Globe and Mail – Janaury 13, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Bart Édes is a professor of practice at the Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University, and a distinguished fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. He is the author of Learning from Tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Prepare for the Next Big Disruption.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is apparently in an expansionist mood. Coercing Canada to become part of the United States through “economic force” is not the only such threat he has made. Mr. Trump has also revived his idea of taking over the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland, which during his first term he had mused about buying. On Jan. 7, Donald Trump Jr. travelled to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, to bring attention to his father’s expressed wish to take over the world’s largest island.

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New research explores impact of Ring of Fire mining on First Nations in northern Ontario – by Sarah Law (CBC News Thunder Bay – January 11, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Focus is on embedding reconciliation into corporate polices

A new research project is exploring the human rights impacts of mining operations on First Nations in the Ring of Fire — a vast mineral-rich area in northern Ontario. The partnership, announced Wednesday, is between the Anishnawbe Business Professional Association (ABPA) and University of Toronto Faculty of Law’s international human rights program.

The research has already begun and is examining how mining companies are engaging with First Nations, with the goal of strengthening their policies on Indigenous relations and sustainability. Jason Rasevych is a member of Ginoogaming First Nation and president of the ABPA.

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Mali starts seizing gold stocks at Barrick site, company memo says – by Fadimata Kontao and Portia Crowe (Reuters – January 13, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

BAMAKO/DAKAR Jan 13 (Reuters) – Mali’s government has begun enforcing a provisional order to seize gold stock at Barrick Gold’s Loulo-Gounkoto site, the Canadian miner said in a note to Malian staff, warning again that it may have to suspend operations at the complex.

The move suggests that Mali’s military-led authorities are not ready to back down in a standoff over a contract based on new mining rules as they push for a greater share of revenues from Western miners. “A provisional order to seize our existing gold stock was issued last week and the Malian government began its enforcement on Jan. 11,” Barrick said in the staff memo.

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Wabun Tribal Council boss goes to bat for Newmont – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – January 7, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Batise respectful of Takywa Tagamou Nation’s position, but disagrees with their portrayal of gold miner

Newmont isn’t the “bad actor” that it’s being made out to be. Wabun Tribal Council executive director Jason Batise reaffirmed his organization’s support that the gold mining company has proven itself as a good corporate citizen and solid First Nations partner in operating its mines in the Timmins and Chapleau area.

Timmins-based Wabun issued a news release last week throwing its support behind Newmont-owned Porcupine Mines in the face of a legal claim filed last November by Takywa Tagamou Nation (TTN).

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Trudeau ‘wish list’ fell short for miners in green energy transition – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – January 7, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

Cabinet ministers implemented few policies that addressed the challenges, miners say

Speaking to a group of mining industry professionals at a conference in early 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it clear what role he saw for their sector in the future. “The mining industry cannot only drive the clean (energy) transition, but profit from it,” he said.

Now, as Trudeau plans to exit as the federal Liberals’ leader after 12 years, many inside the mining sector are hopeful that their industry is already in the early stages of a revitalization, driven by exactly what Trudeau described years ago: cutting global carbon emissions will significantly increase demand for metals, which will lead to new investment in mining companies and greater government support.

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Are lab-grown diamonds too bling for their own good? – by Staff (Northern Miner – January 7, 2025)

Global mining news

Diamonds grown in the lab are shining brighter than natural stones by grabbing market share, but their kryptonite could be the low prices and large carats indicating they really are in a different category, analysts and companies surveyed by The Wall Street. Journal say.

Post-pandemic demand for diamonds surged in 2021-2022, but then prices dropped by 8% compared with the first quarter of 2020 and lab-grown diamond (LGD) prices plunged by three quarters, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing industry analyst Paul Zimnisky.

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Stubbornly resilient lithium supply remains hurdle to recovery – by Annie Lee (Bloomberg News – January 7, 2025)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

A persistent lithium glut and the prospect that some mines could be restarted if prices rise means the battery metal is unlikely to mount a significant recovery this year.

Lithium prices have plunged since late 2022 on oversupply and slower-than-expected growth in electric vehicle demand. The rout has resulted in some mining capacity being suspended, but most analysts still see a surplus this year, although they forecast it will be smaller than in 2024.

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Canada aims to become world’s biggest uranium producer as demand soars – by Ilya Gridneff, Jamie Smyth and Camilla Hodgson (Financial Times – January 4, 2025)

https://www.ft.com/

Demand for emissions-free power and energy security mark a turnaround for the resource-rich

Canada is racing to become the world’s biggest uranium producer as prices for the radioactive metal surge in response to soaring demand for emissions-free nuclear power and geopolitical tensions threaten supplies.

Cameco, the country’s largest producer, said that production of uranium would jump by almost a third in 2024 to 37mn pounds at its two mines in the heartland of the country’s uranium industry in northern Saskatchewan.

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Barrick mine in Mali could be forced to close within a week, company says – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – January 6, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. says it will be forced to shut down its operations in Mali within a week if the military junta continues to restrict its gold exports from the West African country.

The Toronto-based company disclosed on Monday that the regime had imposed yet another restriction on the company’s operations by issuing an interim attachment order on its existing gold stock at its Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex.

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Australian uranium company given go-ahead to absorb Canadian counterpart – by Michael Joel-Hansen (Saskatoon Star Phoenix – December 30, 2024)

https://thestarphoenix.com/

Paladin Energy gets green light from federal government to take over Fission Uranium

A major acquisition in Canada’s uranium sector is going forward after getting approval from the federal government.

Paladin Energy Ltd., which is headquartered in Perth, Australia, has been given the green light to take over Kelowna, B.C.-based Fission Uranium Corp., which has been developing its Patterson Lake South Project (PLS) in northern Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin. The mine there is set to begin production in 2029.

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Two bids made for Glencore stake in New Caledonia’s Koniambo Nickel (Reuters – January 8, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

Two potential buyers for Glencore’s stake in mothballed New Caledonian nickel producer Koniambo Nickel SAS (KNS) have submitted offers following site visits late last year, KNS said.

Part of a loss-making nickel industry in French-controlled New Caledonia, KNS halted its operations in March after commodity group Glencore decided to sell its 49% interest.

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The Blood in Our Phones – by James North (Truth Dig.com – January 6, 2025)

https://www.truthdig.com/

A lawsuit filed by the Democratic Republic of Congo seeks to hold Apple and its suppliers to account for decades of profiting off conflict minerals.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is bringing criminal complaints in Europe against Apple, the tech giant, charging it with sourcing materials for its electronics in ways that contribute to vicious violence in the war-torn eastern DRC.

In part, the lawsuit accuses Apple of acquiring Congolese minerals that have been illegally smuggled through Rwanda, which borders DRC to the east. Apple denies the charges. So far, the mainstream U.S. media is mostly ignoring the story, continuing its decades-long indifference to what continues to be one of the greatest humanitarian disasters since World War II.

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