For months, economists have debated why the price of so many commodities — from aluminum, iron ore and copper to natural gas and lumber — have been so volatile: Are these the first signs of structural shifts in supply chains related to the energy transition, or just temporary blips?
There’s consensus on a few points: The pandemic, by halting and then restarting supply chains, threw supply and demand fundamentals out of whack, and pushed many commodity prices up.
https://www.floridasportsman.com/
Dave Markett, a Tampa Bay fishing guide who regularly fishes Piney Point, told those in attendance at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s 2021 Redfish Summit that, “We need to hold the people that are responsible for our water degradation accountable and that they pay a price.”
Markett went on to demand that “phosphate needs to be funding the cost of seagrass restoration,” and ended with a dire prediction: “We are one tropical storm away from a disaster of unimaginable proportions.” Agree. And agree.
Iron ore extended its slump below $100 a tonne and copper prices dropped in New York on Monday as China stepped up restrictions on industrial activity and fears about the collapse of the country’s largest property developer intensified.
According to Fastmarkets MB, benchmark 62% Fe fines imported into Northern China were changing hands for $92.98 a tonne, down 8.7% from Friday’s closing. Prices have collapsed about 60% since hitting a record in May, and are below three figures for the first time in more than a year.
The head of Sprott Asset Management has hit back at suggestions that its aggressive buying of uranium could corner the market for the nuclear fuel and spark regulatory interest.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Sprott chief executive John Ciampaglia said the physical uranium trust that Sprott launched in August would help rebalance the 180m-lb-a-year uranium market — driving prices to a level that spurred greater production of the radioactive material.
BEIJING (AP) — Global investors are watching nervously as one of China’s biggest real estate developers struggles to avoid defaulting on tens of billions of dollars of debt, fueling fears of possible wider shock waves for the financial system.
Chinese regulators have yet to say what they might do about Evergrande Group. Economists expect them to intervene if Evergrande and lenders can’t agree on how to handle its debts. But any official resolution is expected to involve losses for banks and bondholders.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Norman B. Keevil likely won’t be shedding any tears if Teck Resources Ltd. sells its core coal business. Teck’s chairman emeritus, who first joined Canada’s biggest base metals company in the 1960s, says Teck has always evolved with the times, dipping into one commodity, then moving on to another, based on market demand.
“You should read my book. It’s called Never Rest on Your Ores,” Mr. Keevil said in an interview. “Teck started as a gold company, and then it became a copper company.
Less than a week after Vancouver-based Millennial Lithium Corp. asked shareholders to vote on a proposed all-cash buyout by China’s Ganfeng Lithium Corp., a second buyer has emerged and bid 6.1 per cent higher, offering $377 million in cash.
Millennial did not disclose the second buyer’s identity, but a source told the Financial Post it is Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, or CATL, as Bloomberg News reported.
Please note that this article is from April 2014 – Stan Sudol
Located 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, the Ring of Fire mining camp contains billions worth of chromite — among the best deposits in the world — plus nickel, copper, platinum group elements, gold, zinc and vanadium.
In 2007, an interesting mix of six geologists and junior mining executives – Richard Nemis, Mac Watson, Neil Novack, John Harvey and Don Hoy — collectively found the most significant mineral discovery in Canada since the Sudbury Basin in 1883 and the Timmins gold camp in 1909.
(Kitco News) Gold dropped more than $40 in the aftermath of better-than-expected U.S. retail sales on Thursday. And analysts are now saying that prices are in “no man’s land” as U.S. economic outlook shifts ahead of the Federal Reserve interest rate announcement.
The U.S. retail sales numbers beat expectations in August, rising 0.7% following a drop of 1.8% in July. Market consensus calls were projecting to see a drop of 0.8%.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Ardiden sells controlling stake in three lithium projects to Green Technology Metals
A new Australian lithium exploration company wants to tap into the global clean energy movement, starting in northwestern Ontario.
Shareholders for Ardiden, a gold exploration company operating in the Pickle Lake area, have agreed to sell up to 80 per cent ownership of its lithium projects in the region to Green Technology Metals, formerly known as Great Northern Lithium Pty.
New registrations of global passenger electric vehicles (EVs) surged by 109% year-on-year during the first six months of 2021, Adamas Intelligence has found in a new report.
In its report entitled ‘State of Charge: EVs, Batteries and Battery Materials’, Adamas analysts found 4.16 million new units were registered versus 1.99 million units in the first half of 2020.
Redwood Materials Inc., the battery recycling company created by Tesla Inc. co-founder J.B. Straubel, has been keeping a big secret: It isn’t really a recycling company.
Sure, Redwood has risen quickly to become the biggest lithium-ion battery recycler in the U.S.. But Straubel didn’t leave Tesla in 2019 just to clean out America’s junk drawers. His broader goal, described to Bloomberg for the first time, is to move a huge chunk of the battery-component industry from Asia to the U.S.
The Narwhal
As the federal election looms, leaders of all political stripes are promising to increase the zero-emission transportation sector through incentives and investments as a key tool to tackle the climate crisis. But there’s a catch.
Positioning Canada as a leader in electrifying the transportation sector also means increasing mineral extraction to fuel that growth. Batteries that propel electric vehicles are powered by minerals like lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel.
China has ordered its companies that broke laws and environmental standards in the Democratic Republic of Congo to cease operating and leave the country – at a time when the African nation’s government is aiming to renegotiate “infrastructure for minerals” deals with Beijing.
It came after South Kivu province suspended six Chinese firms’ operations over illegal mining and destruction of the environment. The companies had missed a deadline to register their activities with the Congolese authorities.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
With reserves dwindling at its existing operations, Glencore has staked $1.3 billion on a new mine that will reach more than two kilometres — picture four CN Towers — below the surface.
“We’ve been mining around Sudbury for a long time now,” vice-president Peter Xavier told a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce audience Thursday, as keynote speaker for the group’s AGM. “That means a lot of near-to-surface, easy-to-find deposits are long gone, so the future is very much at depth.”
