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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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Cameco ‘disappointed and surprised’ by sudden suspension of its Kazakhstan mine – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – January 03, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

The mine was expected to contribute 4% of global uranium production this year

Cameco Corp. kicked off the new year with a surprise for its investors: Its joint-venture mine in Kazakhstan suspended production without warning. “We are disappointed and surprised by this unexpected suspension and we will be seeking further clarification on how this transpired,” Cameco said in a press release on Thursday.

The Saskatoon-based company owns 40 per cent of the mine through Inkai LLP; Kazatomprom JSC, the national atomic company of Kazakhstan, owns the other 60 per cent.

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Codelco eyes $800M extension to keep Gabriela Mistral open until 2055 – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – December 23, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Chile’s state-owned copper producer Codelco said on Monday it has applied for an environmental permit to extend the life of its Gabriela Mistral mine by over 25 years, pushing the current closure date from 2028 to at least 2055.

The $800 million proposal aims to sustain production at the open-pit mine in Chile’s Antofagasta region, which has been operational since 2008. A key component of the plan is the transition away from using domestic land-based water by 2035. Instead, the mine will rely on third-party water sources that comply with environmental standards. In exchange, Codelco has pledged to supply an equivalent amount of water to the local community.

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Magna Mining forks over a dollar for 30,000 hectares of Sudbury base metal properties – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – December 18, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Local mine developer swings its second major land acquisition deal in 2024

Sudbury’s newest and boldest miner, Magna Mining, continues to expand its footprint in the Sudbury basin. The junior mine developer has signed an asset acquisition agreement with NorthX Nickel to pick up a raft of former mine and exploration properties that hold some promising base metal potential.

And it’s a pretty sweet cash deal for Magna. One dollar. The properties, scattered all over the corners of the Sudbury basin, amount to about 30,000 hectares that Magna believes have significant upside based on the geology and the record of high-grade hits from drilling programs carried out by previous companies.

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Tiny But Vital Metal Markets Rush to Adjust to Chinese Clampdown (Bloomberg News – December 21, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Chinese curbs on exports of three niche metals to the US have already rattled the market. Now, a bigger clampdown looks set to have far-reaching ramifications for supply chains feeding American defense and chip-making industries.

Beijing this month slapped a ban on US-bound exports of gallium, germanium and antimony in a tit-for-tat move in a technology trade war. The metals are important because they have crucial uses in many Western industries from military tech to semiconductors to satellites.

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The Jewelry District, Episode 137: Guest Ian Smillie – by Kathy Passero (JCK Online – December 18, 2024)

JCK Online

JCK editor-in-chief Victoria Gomelsky and news director Rob Bates talk with human rights activist and author Ian Smillie, one of the architects of the Kimberley Process. Ian’s unlikely career began when he volunteered to teach high school in Sierra Leone more than 50 years ago and has led him to become a leading advocate for ending the “blood diamond” trade.

In this episode, Ian discusses his quest to improve life for artisanal miners, the threats they face from the rise of lab-grown stones, and his new memoir about a life dedicated to combatting global poverty. Victoria and Rob welcome Ian Smillie, a Canadian human rights activist who was instrumental in the campaign against blood diamonds.

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Nickel executives raise alarm over potential flood of Indonesian imports stemming from free trade agreement – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – December 22, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s new free-trade agreement with Indonesia is causing an uproar in the nickel industry, with some executives saying that Ottawa should be clamping down on the Southeast Asian country, instead of opening up the domestic market to a flood of cheap supply produced at questionable environmental standards.

Earlier this month, International Trade Minister Mary Ng announced the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which will see tariffs phased out on many goods between the two countries as of 2026. The trade deal had been in the works for several years. Canada already has no tariffs on imports of nickel from Indonesia.

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‘As much money out the door as they possibly can’: Biden administration keeps grants coming – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – December 18, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

The Biden Administration continues to announce major funding deals for many of Canada’s critical minerals companies

The United States government says it will provide a US$754-million loan to construct a synthetic graphite plant in Tennessee to Novonix Ltd., whose chief executive Chris Burns is based in Halifax, where it maintains its research labs, though it is publicly listed in Australia.

The loan is just one example of how U.S. President Joe Biden‘s administration’s focus on building out a North American critical minerals supply chain has often accrued to the benefit of Canadian-based companies, many of which have struggled to raise money on public markets in the face of moribund commodity prices.

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Uh Oh Canada – by Diane Francis (Substack – December 19, 2024)

https://dianefrancis.substack.com/

Canada has just joined a growing list of rich democracies that cannot get their political or economic act together. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on his way out. The electorate is fed up with financial problems, high taxation, and unscreened immigration. Similar political battles plague two other G7 nations, France and Germany.

All three governments sag because they prioritized social engineering and political correctness over enterprise and economic development. Their electorates are divided. Worse, the Europeans live in a dangerous region and wrestle with re-arming, a flood of Ukrainian refugees, and fending off Russian cyberattacks, sabotage, espionage, and political interference.

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Column: Electric dreams turn into a nightmare for battery metals – by Andy Home (Reuters – December 20, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

It’s been a brutal year to be in the battery metals business. Prices of lithium, nickel and cobalt collapsed in 2023 and have continued grinding steadily lower over the course of 2024. A sector that was once racing to build new supply has been closing mines and deferring projects as low prices bite into the cost curve.

The road to an electric future has turned out to be much bumpier than expected with demand from the all-important electric vehicle (EV) sector not living up to expectations. This is also a story of massive oversupply with too much new capacity brought online at exactly the wrong time.

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Looking ahead in B.C. and Yukon – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – December 16, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Recent strong gold and metal prices have many mine-makers looking to western Canada for opportunity

Seemingly, North Americans look to the west for opportunity. And when we in Canda look left, we see British Columbia and Yukon. Opportunities abound there for miners, so let us jump in. Where better to begin than with one of the world’s largest copper, gold, and silver resources all wrapped up in the Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) project belonging to Seabridge Gold.

With reorganization and a new focus on gold, the company bought what is now the KSM project from Placer Dome in 2000. The property is located 65 km northwest of Smithers, B.C. Exploration began in earnest in 2006, and by 2010 a prefeasibility study (PFS) was released estimating there were 8.5 million oz. of gold, 7 billion lb. of copper, and 133 million oz. of silver in the ground.

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Copper price: What’s in store for 2025 – by Frik Els (Mining.com – December 13, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Copper trading was febrile in 2024 attracting speculators well outside commodity circles who were desperate to connect the metal to what has become the ultimate market pump action – AI. AI data centers were going to do for copper what the energy transition and electric cars couldn’t, at least not in the short term.

Military spending was also hoisted up the flagpole of copper demand to see who saluted, according to chatbots. In May, Comex copper hit an all-time intraday high of nearly $5.20 a pound or $11,500 per tonne. Positioning went to such net lengths that dollar trading volumes scaled $100 billion (twice the Dow daily average) in one 24 hour period.

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Opinion: Canada needs swift reforms to lift its troubled mining sector – by Mark Selby (Globe and Mail – December 16, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Mark Selby is the founder and CEO of Canada Nickel Co.

Canada’s mining industry must overcome significant obstacles to unlock vast reserves of critical minerals essential to our modern economy. From securing development financing to navigating regulatory bottlenecks while competing against well-funded global players like China, bringing Canadian resources to market has never been so challenging.

The Canadian mining sector is teeming with projects stuck in the “Valley of Death” – the precarious stage between initial exploration success and full-scale production where many promising ventures fail to secure the backing needed to fund the years of permitting and engineering work required to begin production.

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Miners navigate high risks, ransoms in West Africa – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – December 16, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Mali’s military government is trying to arrest the CEO of the world’s second-largest gold company while the junta in Niger has tightened its stranglehold on a French state-owned uranium mine. African dictators are ratcheting up the risk for Western miners.

A combination of resource nationalism, coups and jihadist-linked terror is making West Africa an increasingly difficult region to navigate for Western mining companies. On Monday, Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) warned that it will suspend operations at its Loulo-Gounkoto mine in Mali if shipments of gold remain blocked.

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