(Bloomberg) — The worsening squeeze on India’s coal supply is triggering a power crisis that’s threatening to stall the world’s fastest-expanding major economy.
Coal-fired power stations had an average of four days’ worth of stock of the fuel at the end of last month, the lowest level in years, and down from 13 days at the start of August. More than half the plants are on alert for outages.
The authorities must do more to curb the costly menace
In what has become a familiar recourse to lamentation when concrete action was needed, Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Uche Ogah, recently accused private jet owners of aiding and abetting gold smuggling in the country.
“Gold smuggling in Nigeria is often done using private jets. That is the very reason private jet ownership and operations need to be streamlined in the country,” he said without providing any evidence about those responsible and how they would be bought to account. Yet, according to him, over $9 billion is lost annually to illegal mining in the country.
https://www.northernminer.com/
The mega-merger of Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX: AEM; NYSE: AEM) and Kirkland Lake Gold (TSX: KL; NYSE: KL; ASX: KLA) unveiled to the market on September 28 “makes a lot of strategic sense” but is likely to be the last blockbuster M&A deal by a major in the Canadian mining sector, according to Haywood Securities mining analyst Kerry Smith.
“Most of the big deals are done,” Smith says in an interview. “There are going to be acquisitions of assets by some of the mid-tiers—that’s what’s going to come next. I think we’ll see mid-tier mining companies buying single-asset development stage companies; companies like Rupert Resources, Moneta, and Belo Sun Mining and others — companies that are in super-easy jurisdictions to work in.”
In a sector where investor confidence is extremely low, mining companies re-kindled efforts to explore alliances and partnerships to bring promising projects online and share the risk between parties during the recently concluded in-person Colorado mining conferences.
On Tuesday, global miners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (AEM) and Kirkland Lake Gold (KL) announced that they have agreed on a merger of equals, with the combined company to continue under the former’s name.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
A junior mining outfit is taking an analytic approach to get the geological big picture around a former Sudbury-area gold mine. MacDonald Mines Exploration has engaged GoldSpot Discoveries, a Toronto mining technology company, to help with exploration on its SPJ Project, 40 kilometres northeast of the city.
MacDonald believes there’s a large gold system of interconnected deposits on its 18,930-hectare land package in Davis, Street and Scadding Townships. The property contains the former Scadding Gold Mine, which produced 29,000 ounces of gold in the 1980s.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/
Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has reinstated his decision to subject a thermal coal mine expansion in Alberta to a federal review after a court ordered him to rethink it.
“Following the reconsideration process, I have determined that the physical activities warrant [federal] designation,” Wilkinson said in a statement regarding the proposed Vista expansion project.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Peter Marrone, executive chairman and founder of Yamana Gold (TSX: YRI; NYSE: AUY; LSE: AUY), shared his views on the company’s ‘generational’ strategy and assets — mines with several decades of mine life — in a keynote interview at The Northern Miner’s Global Mining Symposium on September 24.
Marrone, who set up the company in 2003, noted that Yamana, which has five producing mines spread across Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Canada, has proportionally more generational mines than many of its peers and the number of generational mines its portfolio is disproportionate to its size.
BHP (ASX, LON, NYSE: BHP) said on Friday it had produced the first nickel sulphate crystals from its plant in Kwinana, outside Perth, a part of the miner’s strategy to grow its battery metals footprint to meet expected soaring demand.
Nickel is a key component for electric vehicle (EV) cathodes, and the world’s no. 1 mining company expects demand for the metal from the batteries sector alone to increase by 500% over the next decade.
https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/
Found within the newest territory of Canada, Nunavut may seem barren and inhospitable, yet it has provided resources and succor to its First Peoples for thousands of years.
While European colonizers and the indigenous peoples in their ancestral home suffered many differences, it was the shared efforts of the two groups in trade and labor that bridged this gap, eventually leading to the formation of Nunavut itself.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
David Jacobson was the U.S. ambassador to Canada from 2009-2013 and is vice chair, BMO Financial Group.
Nineteenth-century British statesman Lord Palmerston once said, “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” It therefore follows that there is a natural rhythm to how and when nations choose to compete and when they choose to co-operate for the common good – even among long-time friends such as Canada and the United States.
With a new government elected in Canada, there is an opportunity to co-operate for the common good with the Biden administration on a number of key diplomatic and strategic initiatives with serious and long-term implications for both countries.
NARSAQ, Greenland — This huge, remote and barely habited island is known for frozen landscapes, remote fjords and glaciers that heave giant sheets of ice into the sea. But increasingly Greenland is known for something else: rare minerals. It’s all because of climate change and the world’s mad dash to accelerate the development of green technology.
As global warming melts the ice that covers 80 percent of the island, it has spurred demand for Greenland’s potentially abundant reserves of hard-to-find minerals with names like neodymium and dysprosium. These so-called rare earths, used in wind turbines, electric motors and many other electronic devices, are essential raw materials as the world tries to break its addiction to fossil fuels.
Gary Lew has had many opportunities to move south to be closer to his children but he and his wife Bella are reluctant to leave Timmins. “We enjoy the life, we enjoy the people here. That’s why we have a hard time moving,” he said.
“Timmins is still the best place to raise children. It’s all kinds of recreation, friendly people. I have no regrets because I’ve made lots of friends here.” Lew, 83, has been living in the area since he first arrived in South Porcupine from Hong Kong as a 12-year-old boy in January 1950.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
While government workers are required to prove if they are vaccinated against COVID-19, it’s a very different story in the private sector. Almost none of northeastern Ontario’s largest industrial employers have vaccination policies.
The Algoma steel mill in Sault Ste. Marie says it does not require its 2,800 employees to be vaccinated. Vale, with some 4,000 workers in Sudbury, didn’t answer CBC’s questions, but United Steelworkers Local 6500 says there is no policy in place.
Mining giant Rio Tinto’s control over the Nechako River watershed in Northern B.C. is being challenged by three impacted First Nations and the Regional District of Bulkley Nechako.
According to a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the regional district and the Saik’uz, Stellat’en and Nadleh Whut’en First Nations, the parties want to see a new water flow regime for the river “that benefits all people within the watershed,” plus the establishment of a new river governance regime.
The Ontario government, media and the public have paid attention to little else but COVID-19 for the last year and a half; now that the province is making real progress on the virus, it’s time to switch focus to Ontario’s significant and fundamental economic problems.
While there are disturbing increases in case numbers elsewhere in the country, Ontario continues its gentle downward curve. Hospitalization numbers are stable and death numbers are low.
