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Agnico Eagle deal to buy Kirkland Lake Gold criticized – by Niall McGee and Andrew Willis (Globe and Mail – September 29, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. plans to acquire Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. in an all-stock transaction that the companies say will create a “true Canadian mining champion,” but the deal garnered a lukewarm reception on Bay Street, with some investors questioning the strategic rationale.

Toronto-based Agnico said on Tuesday it intends to pay 0.7935 of its shares for each Kirkland share, or about 1 per cent higher than Kirkland’s average close over the 10-day period as of last Friday, essentially making it a nil-premium deal valued at more than $13-billion.

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Agnico’s low-premium Kirkland deal propels stock drop – by Yvonne Yue Li (Bloomberg News – September 28, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Shares of Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. fell after the two Canadian miners announced a “merger of equals” that offered investors a lower deal premium than other gold combinations.

The $13.4 billion (US$10.6 billion) transaction creates one of the world’s biggest bullion producers and follows other large takeovers in recent years that reshaped the industry.

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Maritime mining community shows solidarity with Sudbury, Ont. rescue effort – by Ryan MacDonald (CTV News Atlantic – September 28, 2021)

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/

GLACE BAY, N.S. — The whole country is watching the dramatic rescue of the Sudbury, Ont. miners with bated breath on Tuesday, but even more so in Maritime mining communities. As the workers continue to resurface, so too, are some strong feelings.

“You’re trying to put yourself in their place, the fear that they’re going through,” said Eric Spencer, a coal miner of 30 years in Glace Bay, NS. Spencer says for any miner, not being able to get back to the surface is their worst fear realized.

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South Africa Miners Back Gradual Move Away From Coal-Fired Power – by Antony Sguazzin (Bloomberg News – September 27, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — South Africa’s mining industry has given its backing to moving the continent’s most developed economy away from coal but said it must be done gradually and responsibly.

In a presentation to the country’s Presidential Climate Change Coordinating Commission late last week the main body representing the industry said that 60% of the country’s $302 billion economy is reliant on energy produced from coal.

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Agnico Eagle buying Kirkland Lake Gold in $13.4-billion deal – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – September 28, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Companies seek to find operational, exploration synergies in Abitibi gold camp of northeastern Ontario, western Quebec

Agnico Eagle and Kirkland Lake Gold are merging to create a Canadian and global mining powerhouse.

The gold mining companies are framing this proposed $13.4-billion all-share acquisition by Agnico Eagle as creating a “merger of equals” to establish a “best-in-class gold mining company” built around each other’s mining assets and the considerable exploration potential in the historic and fertile Abitibi Greenstone Belt in northeastern Ontario and northwestern Quebec.

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Centerra ups the ante as it accuses Kyrgyzstan of high-grading Kumtor – by Staff (Mining.com – September 27, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Centerra Gold (TSX: CG) has asked an international arbitrator to impose ‘urgent interim measures’ on the Kyrgyz Republic and state miner Kyrgyzaltyn JSC to address alleged “critical operational and safety issues” at the Kumtor mine.

In its latest application, Centerra seeks immediate relief pending a final award in the arbitration to prevent the defendants from “causing irreparable damage to the mine.”

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Gold price sees double-digit drop as Yellen says failure to raise debt ceiling will trigger financial crisis, undermine U.S. dollar – by Anna Golubova (Kitco News – September 28, 2021)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) If the debt ceiling is not raised in time, the U.S. will default, which would trigger a financial crisis and undermine the U.S. dollar, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.

“If the debt ceiling is not raised, there would be a financial crisis, a calamity. It would undermine confidence in the dollar as a reserve currency … It would be a wound of enormous proportions,” Yellen said during her testimony before the U.S. Senate.

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NEWS RELEASE: Agnico Eagle and Kirkland Lake Gold Announce Merger of Equals to Create Highest-Quality Senior Gold Producer (September 28, 2021)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

(All amounts expressed in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted)

TORONTO, Sept. 28, 2021 /CNW/ – Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (TSX: AEM) (NYSE: AEM) (“Agnico Eagle” or the “Company”) and Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. (TSX: KL) (NYSE: KL) (ASX: KLA) (“Kirkland Lake Gold”) announced today that they have entered into an agreement (the “Merger Agreement”) to combine in a merger of equals (the “Merger”), with the combined company to continue under the name “Agnico Eagle Mines Limited”.

The Merger will establish the new Agnico Eagle as the gold industry’s highest-quality senior producer, with the lowest unit costs, highest margins, most favourable risk profile and industry-leading best practices in key areas of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”).

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Gold Is For War – by Clem Chambers (Forbes Magazine – September 27, 2021)

https://www.forbes.com/

Gold is a favorite for old fogies like me, but spanning the digital age gap as an early adopter of “online” in the 1980s, I grok and love crypto. Crypto is a kind of digital gold, or you might say gold is a kind of Boomer bitcoin.

People dismiss gold as a barbarous relic and governments de-emphasize its importance as a relic. So what is the point of a dense yellow metal only good for trinkets, electronic contacts and dodgy dentistry? Why do governments keep huge piles of it in extremely heavily guarded vaults?

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VALE NEWS RELEASE: EMPLOYEES CONTINUE TO EXIT VALE’S TOTTEN MINE (September 28, 2021)

SUDBURY, September 28, 2021 – Vale informs that the return of employees to surface at the Company’s Totten Mine in Sudbury, Ontario continues this morning following the successful ascent of several individuals overnight.

On Sunday, 39 employees were unable to exit the mine due to damage in the shaft that houses the conveyance used to transport employees between surface and underground. While conditions in the shaft were evaluated, employees reported to underground refuge stations as part of the company’s standard procedures.

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Trapped Totten Mine workers should be on surface by Monday evening (updated) – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – September 28, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

As of early Monday evening, 39 miners at Totten Mine were still making their way up a series of ladders after being trapped about a kilometre underground for more than a day. “All mines have a secondary egress, or exit, for situations where the cage is inoperable,” said Danica Pagnutti, corporate affairs specialist with Vale.

In this case the shaft was damaged by a scoop bucket under the cage, she said, making the normal route to surface impassable. The employees, who punched in Sunday morning, were working in various areas between the 3,000- and 4,000-foot levels, Pagnutti said, when the incident occurred early Sunday afternoon.

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Appian Capital in talks to sell Atlantic Nickel for $1bn – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – September 27, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

London-based private equity fund Appian Capital is said to be in advanced negotiations to sell its Atlantic Nickel unit in Brazil for around $1 billion, with Canada’s Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A | TECK.B) (NYSE: TCK) cited as one of the likely buyers.

According to O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, the Vancouver-based miner’s main interest is Atlantic Nickel’s Santa Rita open pit nickel-cobalt mine, in the northeastern state of Bahia.

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Top copper miners show some love for Peru’s leftist leader – by James Attwood (Bloomberg News – September 23, 2021)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Some of the world’s biggest miners say they like what they’re hearing from Peru’s new leftist government of late, further easing fears that drastic policy changes could stall future output in the No. 2 copper nation.

Freeport-McMoRan boss Richard Adkerson said at an industry event last week he was left “encouraged” from a recent meeting with President Pedro Castillo, a former rural union activist from a Marxist party. At the same conference two days earlier, BHP Group’s president for minerals in the Americas, Ragnar Udd, complimented the government’s “strategic” approach.

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It’s a $50b-a-year export industry. How long until coal’s rivers of gold run dry? – by Nick Toscano and Mike Foley (Sydney Morning Herald – September 27, 2021)

https://www.smh.com.au/

If the end of coal is near, it’s hard to see it among the open pits and billowing cooling towers of Victoria’s Latrobe Valley and the Hunter in NSW. Canyons of brown and black coal, set between green paddocks and sloping hills, loom large in these mining districts and dominate their economies as a source of great wealth, just as they have for a century or more.

A global push is accelerating to eliminate the use of thermal coal — the worst-emitting source of energy — to restrain the planet’s rising temperature and avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

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39 Sudbury miners trapped underground since Sunday afternoon – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Elliot Lake Today – September 27, 2021)

https://www.elliotlaketoday.com/

Exiting Vale’s Totten Mine via a ‘secondary egress ladder system’

Thirty-nine employees at Vale’s Totten mine who have been stuck underground since Sunday afternoon are exiting the mine via a “secondary egress ladder system” with the support of Vale’s mine rescue team.

This is after the conveyance for transporting employees was taken offline, following an incident in the shaft.

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