(Kitco News) – A very clear trend is emerging for investors, one that is intricately tied with the electrification of the world. With this trend, one commodity has proven to be indispensable, according to Pierre Lassonde, chairman emeritus of Franco-Nevada.
“The greening of the world is going to be a renaissance of copper mining, and I don’t think it has clued in with the governments and the environmental groups, but the intensity of copper use going forward will essentially triple.
Still plenty of potential in Faro lead-zinc mine, says serial entrepreneur Don McInnes
The tiny Yukon town of Faro, a four-hour drive northwest of Whitehorse, would never have existed were it not for the nearby lead-zinc mine of the same name, which is said to have been the largest in the world at the time it was built in the late 1960s.
At its peak the town was home to 2,100 people, with the Faro mine accounting for 35% of Yukon’s GDP.
(Bloomberg) — European automakers are in discussions with Australian rare earths explorer Arafura Resources Ltd. about sourcing elements that help power electric cars from outside China, which dominates global supply.
The miner is developing the A$1 billion ($728 million) Nolans project in Australia’s Northern Territory that will cover as much as 10% of global demand for the type of rare earths used in permanent magnets for electric motors.
It is a year since Horizon Nuclear Power, a company owned by Hitachi, confirmed it was pulling out of building the £20 billion Wylfa nuclear power plant on Anglesey in north Wales.
The Japanese industrial conglomerate cited the failure to reach a funding deal with the UK government over escalating costs, and the government is still in negotiations with other players to try and take the project forward.
It was thumbs-up for digitally-native, mission-driven jewelry brand Brilliant Earth (NASDAQ NDAQ -1.1%: BRLT) on its first day of public trading. The stock value blew past its opening price of $12 per share to close at $17.16, a 43% rise.
Taking a cautious turn right before its NASDAQ debut, Brilliant Earth reduced its original $14 to $16 per share price range and halved its plans to sell some 16.7 million shares to 8.3 million. But by mid-afternoon, it topped $16 per share to reach a day’s high of $18.23. By end of day, nearly 8 million shares were sold.
https://www.corporateknights.com/
It’s time for companies and securities regulators to make sure the whole truth of Indigenous rights claims are brought to light through corporate risk disclosures
There was once a time when the worst thing that could happen to investors in Canadian junior mining companies was that their windfall could turn out to be so-called moose pasture (i.e., worthless from a minerals perspective).
Junior mining companies search for new deposits of minerals and are known to be high-risk, high-return investments. Today, however, a significant risk for investors is the fact that their claims are often located on the homelands of Indigenous Peoples with inherent governing authority.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
By now, coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, was supposed to be well on its way to the industrial graveyard. Thanks, you nasty old brute, you gave us a century and a half of cheap electric power; now your time is up, for the sake of the planet.
Yet like a senior citizen with a new heart transplant, coal is getting a second wind and refuses to die. Prices and demand are soaring and fleets of new coal plants are under construction in high-growth parts of the planet.
With the rising tide of battery electric vehicles making a splash all across the world, the most coveted natural resource needed to power our vehicles is no longer petrol but a mineral called ‘lithium’. While it’s debatable whether lithium is the most important element found in a lithium-ion battery, its extensive mining across certain global hotspots has come under heavy criticism.
The very process of mining lithium is not only energy-intensive and polluting, it may also be linked with destabilising the ecosystem nearby due to extensive saltwater depletion from the edge of the ‘salars’ through which lithium is extracted.
Late in August, at a precisely specified point in the low Arctic, a geologist named Dave Freedman stood in a raw wind and a limitless expanse of tundra and began to thwack with a sledgehammer at a rock outcrop jutting up from the soil.
Freedman, 29, works for a company called KoBold Metals, and the process that had brought him to this pair of GPS coordinates in Quebec’s far north was complex. But the rock had had its own journey.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Metallum Resources posts feasibility study showing almost nine-year mine life near Lake Superior’s north shore
A Vancouver zinc exploration company wants to revive mining on the north shore of Lake Superior, 20 kilometres north of Schreiber.
Metallum Resources said there’s enough high-grade zinc and copper in the ground at its Superior Lake Zinc Project to mine for a minimum of 8.5 years as the company probes for more resources this fall around a former mine site, 150 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.
After languishing at historical lows for the better part of the last decade, uranium suddenly came back from the dead. Prices have surged about 40% just in September, outpacing all other major commodities.
In just a few weeks, millions of pounds of supply was scooped up by the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust. It’s a massive bet on nuclear energy’s prominence in a carbon-free future. The problem is — at least for the investors who poured more than $240 million into the fund — the debate is still raging over whether and how nuclear can come to the forefront.
https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/
Deal involving Vancouver miner will consolidate one of the largest new gold districts in Nevada
To consolidate one of the largest new gold districts in Nevada, AngloGold Ashanti is buying out Vancouver-based Corvus Gold Inc. for a total transaction cost of US$370 million.
Acting for Corvus is Blakes Cassels & Graydon, Cassels Brock & Blackwell and Dorsey & Whitney. The Cassels Brock team includes Jen Hansen, Jeffrey Roy, Jackson Phillips, David Overall, Chris Norton and Chris Hersh. Stikeman Elliott is advising AngloGold.
The effort to better acknowledge and include First Nations peoples in the Australian mining industry is advancing as more Indigenous initiatives are introduced and more Indigenous contracts awarded.
While some mining companies can still improve their Indigenous engagement, there are instances that indicate a concerted effort to prioritise First Nations recognition and involvement.
(Bloomberg) — China is at risk of the same energy-crunch chaos seen in Europe, with a state-run newspaper warning that coal-fired power plants will struggle to keep the lights on this winter.
The nation’s coal-based power producers, which account for more than 70% of the country’s electricity generation, are unable to buy enough fuel after prices surged, state-run China Energy News said in a report dated Sept. 18.
As Kitco reported previously, the world’s total uranium production amounted to 47,731 tonnes in 2020, a significant 13% decline over 2019 (54,742 tonnes), and the lowest level of global uranium output in more than a decade.
Based on data by the World Nuclear Association, Kitco ranked the world’s top ten largest uranium mines by reported / estimated production in 2020. These biggest mines are ready to ride the rising uranium wave.
1. Cigar Lake, Canada. 3,885 tU.
