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Trudeau has neglected defence — and our enemies will take advantage – by Diane Francis (Financial Post – September 28, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Canada’s Liberal government has abrogated its defence obligations. Our military capability has been reduced through neglect and defunding, and Canada, with more coastline than any other country on earth, has a peanut-size navy and virtually no presence in the increasingly important Arctic.

Canada’s allies, and its enemies, have taken notice, which will only serve to diminish our influence over international defence policy and participation in western alliances — areas Canada has historically played an outsized role in.

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Column: China’s coal crunch is self-inflicted, costly and temporary – by Clyde Russell (Reuters – September 30, 2021)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia (Reuters) – China is paying a high price for policies that curbed domestic coal output and imports, and led to a shortage of the fuel that still largely powers the world’s second-largest economy.

The good news for Beijing is that while the scarcity of coal will cause problems for energy-intensive industries, such as steel and aluminium, the situation is likely to be resolved relatively quickly.

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Jakarta to jolt sliding nickel price – report – by Frik Els Mining.com – September 29, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Nickel is having a bad week as China’s power crisis spreads from factories to households and its clampdown on steelmakers crimps the stainless market, still responsible for the bulk of demand.

Despite automakers’ clamour, less than 10% of nickel ends up in the battery supply chain, and market action is concentrated in Asia, specifically the Indonesia-China stainless steel industries. Nickel market watchers are not unaccustomed to ups and downs and Old Nick’s copper is having quite the year.

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‘Very tight’ copper belies market turmoil, industry leader says – by James Attwood (Bloomberg News – September 29, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

As investors weigh swirling macro-economic factors, market fundamentals for copper — a key metal in global construction and transportation — remain solid, according to an industry veteran.

Prices for the bellwether commodity this year will average more than $4 a pound, Diego Hernandez, head of Chilean mining society Sonami, said in an interview Tuesday. That would be a record annual average.

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Gold miners Agnico Eagle, Kirkland Lake propose $13.5 billion mega-merger – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – September 29, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd., largest and second-largest gold producers in Canada, on Tuesday announced an all-stock merger, valued at around $13.5 billion that creates a new gold mining giant with its center of gravity in Canada.

The merged entity would keep the Agnico Eagle name and produce about 2.5 of its 3.4 million ounces of gold per year from mines in Canada. The deal comes about one year after gold, a traditional safe haven in times of economic uncertainty, reached an all-time peak at US$2,067 per ounce in August 2020.

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Ford making its biggest single manufacturing investment ever to build electric vehicle factories – by Peter Valdes-Dapena (CNN Business – September 28, 2021)

https://www.cnn.com/

(CNN)Ford Motor Co. and South Korea-based energy company SK Innovations are investing $11.4 billion to build two new enormous manufacturing campuses for electric vehicles, creating more than 10,000 new jobs and representing Ford’s largest-ever single manufacturing investment in the company’s 118-year history.

Ford’s share of the investment will be $7 billion, Ford executives said. Ford previously announced it will spend $30 billion by 2025 on its shift to building more electric vehicles and that it expects 40% of its sales, worldwide, to be fully electric vehicles by 2030.

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Energy Transition Faces Metal Supply Deficit, Canada Miners Say – by Yvonne Yue Li (Bloomberg News – September 29, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The world needs more mines to meet demand for copper and other battery metals required to shift to less polluting energy sources — even if such moves are seen as environmentally unappealing, according to Hudbay Minerals Inc. financial chief.

Any credible prognosis shows that copper faces a structural deficit of five to seven million tons starting in the next three or four years, Hudbay Chief Financial Officer Steve Douglas said Wednesday at Bloomberg’s Canadian Fixed Income Conference. And yet, any energy transition can’t happen without copper, he said.

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Update: Totten mine workers all safe after wet, long and arduous climb – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – September 29, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Imagine scaling 25 fire towers. That’s essentially what underground workers at Totten Mine had to do after their cage was rendered inoperable on Sunday. “That’s a feat,” remarked one official with the United Steelworkers, which represents Vale miners. “It’s a fairly steep incline, usually around 72 degrees, like a ladder standing on the side of your house. So you are using your arms, your legs. It is physically and mentally challenging.”

As of Wednesday morning, all 39 miners who became trapped Sunday afternoon had safely made it to the surface, according to the company. The final four were individuals who needed a bit more help due to health issues or fitness levels, so their exit took longer.

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Mining is essential to low-carbon transition – by Pierre Gratton (Winnipeg Free Press – September 29, 2021)

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

Pierre Gratton is president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada.

WHAT do the green technologies essential to getting us to net-zero, such as solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear energy and electric car batteries, all have in common? A dependence on metals, like nickel, iron, cobalt, uranium, zinc and copper, to function.

The question is not whether we require minerals and metals to reach our climate goals, but rather if Canada will become the supplier the world needs.

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COMMENTARY: The humbling of giants: The rise and decline of the Iron Range — Essay – by Aaron Brown (Minnesota Reformer – September 28, 2021)

Home

Mesabi means giant. That means that I was raised in the land of giants on the Mesabi Iron Range of northern Minnesota. In my youth, I saw those giants as the elected leaders who fought for my homeland in St. Paul and Washington, D.C.

When I was 10 I watched my grandfather, Marvin Johnson, run for the first and only time in my life. Twenty years after his body was crushed in a mining accident, he sprinted into the street to shake then-Gov. Rudy Perpich’s hand at the Keewatin Fourth of July parade. His admiration was greater than the pain.

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Geologist: Much more gold to be found at Mexico’s Guerrero belt (BNAmericas.com – September 28, 2021)

https://www.bnamericas.com/en/

The Guerrero gold belt (GGB) has grown to one of Mexico’s biggest yellow metal mining zones following less than 30 years of exploration – and it probably holds at least 10Moz yet to be found, David Jones, a geologist and renowned GGB expert, tells BNamericas.

The belt, a roughly 80km strip of mineralization, has established Guerrero as one of Mexico’s top four gold producing states, rivaling Chihuahua and only trailing Sonora and Zacatecas – all of which have far longer mining histories.

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How Kirkland Lake morphed from gold sector rump into Agnico Eagle’s prized asset – by Tim Kiladze (Globe and Mail – September 29, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s Kirkland Lake Gold Corp. has pulled off the near impossible, morphing from an afterthought in the gold sector into a merger partner with Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd., one of the world’s most respected miners.

To do it, Kirkland defied the odds. It proved miracle deposit discoveries are still possible, and it offered investors something extremely rare in the gold sector: solid cash flows earned from mixing high-grade ore with low-cost operations.

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The future of driving is here—and it’s electric – by Craig Welch (National Geographic – October 2021)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/

At Volkswagen’s assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, car bodies soar high above the concrete floor on conveyors, like seats on a slow-moving carnival ride. Every 73 seconds one gets lowered onto a power train, and soon body and chassis begin rising together.

As I watch, workers in roller chairs carrying pistol-shaped power wrenches glide beneath a Passat sailing by at chest height. They fasten rock guards and skid plates to the undercarriage before holstering their tools to await the next car.

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NEWS RELEASE: Global Atomic Signs Letter of Intent with CMAC-Thyssen for Portal and Underground Development (September 29, 2021)

Toronto, ON: Global Atomic Corporation (“Global Atomic” or the “Company”), (TSX: GLO, OTCQX: GLATF, FRANKFURT: G12) has signed a letter of intent with CMAC-Thyssen Mining Group to collar the portal and complete initial underground development at the Dasa Uranium Project in the Republic of Niger. The selection of CMAC-Thyssen resulted from a multi-party bidding process that required bidders to have project experience in West Africa.

The Box-Cut excavation is scheduled to begin in January 2022 using local contractors in Niger. CMAC-Thyssen plans to mobilize to the Dasa Site in February 2022. Once the Box-Cut excavation is complete, CMAC-Thyssen are expected to Collar the Portal in April 2022 thus initiating the Dasa Underground Development Campaign.

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Column: Power is a double-edged sword for global metals sector – by Andy Home (Reuters – September 28, 2021)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The world will need a lot more of metals such as copper, nickel and aluminium if it is going to decarbonise. The potential “green” demand boom from more renewable energy, more power infrastructure and more electric vehicles is tomorrow’s promise for such “energy transition” metals.

Yet, as first China and now Europe is discovering, power is a double-edged sword for metals producers and manufacturers. A power crunch in China has idled over two million tonnes of the country’s aluminum production capacity.

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