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Agnico Eagle CEO Sean Boyd says more room for consolidation in gold sector – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – July 30, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Sean Boyd, the chief executive officer of Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd., says there is room for more consolidation in the “fragmented” global gold sector, but operators have to be careful not to repeat the sins of the past.

Even as gold prices have hit a record high over the past year, mergers and acquisitions activity has been relatively quiet, especially compared with the previous rush of big deals from a decade ago.

The industry also saw an aggressive round of consolidation about three years ago, with heavyweights Barrick Gold Corp., Newmont Corp. and Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. pulling the trigger on multibillion-dollar deals.

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Egyptian government, Canadian company sign 4 contracts for gold exploration (Daily News Egypt – July 28, 2021)

https://dailynewsegypt.com/

The Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority (EMRA) and the Canadian company, Barrick Gold Corporation, have signed four contracts related to gold exploration in the Egyptian territories.

The Canadian company is the largest gold production company of its kind in the world, and is ranked second globally in the activity of gold search.

The contracts were signed by EMRA head Khaled El-Sheshtawy and Joel Holiday, Vice President of Barrick Gold, who signed via videoconference. Tarek El Molla, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, was present to witness the signing of the contracts.

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New Australian technology tracks down gold thieves and blood diamonds – by Jessica Sier (Australian Financial Review – July 30, 2021)

https://www.afr.com/

Geologist and chemical scientist John Watling can tell you exactly where your diamonds come from.

Not just what the Tiffany’s or Cartier packaging says, or the murky certification offered by the world’s largest diamond miners, De Beers and Alrosa, but right down to the exact patch of dirt in the exact mine.

Used for more than 20 years by West Australian police investigators to catch gold and diamond thieves, Watling’s provenance company Source Certain this week announced a deal with SCS Global to become the embedded technology in a new international standard to combat blood or conflict diamonds – gems mined illegally in war zones.

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Coal-spewing China has taken the world’s climate hostage – by Terry Glavin (National Post – July 29, 2021)

https://nationalpost.com/

While we’ve been busy beating up on Albertans and their oil, Beijing has been laughing at us

After having ransacked the economies of the world’s liberal democracies and wrecked what is still quaintly called the “rules-based international order,” Xi Jinping’s police state in Beijing has now made it abundantly clear that under Xi’s supreme-leader command, the People’s Republic is determined to seize the global agenda on climate change.

And if the world responds with Canadian-style accommodation and capitulation, Beijing will persist in its ambitions — even to the point of taking the global climate hostage while the rest of us, as well as the Chinese people, suffer the consequences of catastrophic climate change.

More heat domes, more apocalyptic floods, more ruinous ecological collapse.

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BHP charges up Nickel West with clean energy – by Nickolas Zakharia (Australian Mining – July 30, 2021)

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BHP plans to install two solar farms and a battery storage system to power the Mt Keith and Leinster mines at its Nickel West operations in Western Australia.

The clean energy sources are expected to cut emissions from electricity at the two mines by 12 per cent based on its 2020 financial year levels.

The Northern Goldfields Solar Project will include a 27.4-megawatt solar farm at Mt Keith, and a 10.7-megawatt solar farm and 10.1-megawatt battery at Leinster to reduce diesel and gas power.

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Opinion: Grassy Mountain mine decision hurts community and Alberta’s reputation – by Eric Lowther (Edmonton Journal – July 29, 2021)

https://edmontonjournal.com/

Eric Lowther was a member of Parliament, representing Calgary Centre in the House of Commons, as well as a municipal councillor for Rocky View County.

It is just not right. After nearly five years engaged in a rigorous government process, successfully meeting an ever-increasing number of regulatory requirements, bolstered by the support of First Nations communities and affected residents, after doing everything right and being willing to do even more, the company proposing the Grassy Mountain coal mine was effectively told to go away.

It’s like applying for a position, writing the tests, going through numerous personal evaluations — passing every single one — and being encouraged along the way, only to be told at the end of process that the position never really existed. That’s nasty, that’s wrong and that is what happened to Benga Mining.

And it is also what happened to the hardworking people in the municipality of Crowsnest Pass.

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How yellowcake shaped the West by Jonathan Thompson (High Country News – July 30, 2021)

https://www.hcn.org/

The ghosts of the uranium boom continue to haunt the land, water and people.

In late August 2018, in the heat of one of the warmest and driest years on record in the Four Corners country, under a blanket of smoke emanating from wildfires burning all over the place, I piloted the Silver Bullet — my trusty 1989 Nissan Sentra — to the quiet burg of Monticello, Utah.

I was on my way from one camping site on the Great Sage Plain to another on Comb Ridge, where I would feed my misanthropic side with a searing hike down a canyon, seeking out potholes that still had a smidgen of stagnant water left over from the last rain.

I took a detour through Monticello to look into one of the most contentious fronts of the long-running public-land wars, the battle over uranium mining and milling and even radioactive waste disposal. San Juan County’s public lands played a major role in what I call the Age of the Nuclear West, which reached its multi-decade apex during the Cold War and hasn’t ended yet.

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Sri Lanka: World’s largest star sapphire cluster found in backyard – by Anbarasan Ethirajan (BBC News/Yahoo News – July 27, 2021)

https://news.yahoo.com/

Sri Lankan authorities say the world’s largest star sapphire cluster has been found in a backyard – by accident.

A gem trader said the stone was found by workmen digging a well in his home in the gem-rich Ratnapura area.

Experts say the stone, which is pale blue in colour, has an estimated value of up to $100 million in the international market.

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Ancient Sites, Sacred Snake Raise Risks for Australian Resources – by James Thornhill (Bloomberg News – July 29, 2021)

https://ampvideo.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Sacred sites, endangered sawfish and mythical rainbow serpents are the latest challenges confronting commodities powerhouse Australia as the nation’s top mining companies meet for their biggest annual conference.

Since the destruction last year by Rio Tinto Group of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal rock shelter at Juukan Gorge, the industry has been scrambling to deal with a backlash over heritage protection and environmental issues.

A national enquiry into the incident and new laws being drafted by the Western Australia government could have an impact on some A$18 billion ($13 billion) in projects planned by mining giants operating in the Pilbara, the nation’s iron-ore heartland, as well as other resources projects.

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We’re getting too far ahead on our climate policies that kill oil and gas jobs – by Jack Mintz (Financial Post – July 29, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Federal policies that halt fossil fuel development too quickly can have only one result: to make us poorer

Is Canada moving too quickly with climate-change policies to kill oil and gas jobs? After all, while we are pushing up the carbon price to $170 per tonne by 2030, the U.S. doesn’t even have a pricing policy yet.

And on top of our aggressive carbon pricing, we are also adopting important — and burdensome — new measures such as clean fuel standards, electric-vehicle substitution and building retrofits.

The federal government has also declared plastics toxic and introduced aggressive environmental regulations to stop fossil-fuel development.

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Column: Rio’s lithium project will test mining’s ESG credentials – by Andy Home (Reuters – July 29, 2021)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Rio Tinto’s decision to invest $2.4 billion in developing the Jadar lithium mine in Serbia is big news. For the company with its heavy exposure to the iron ore sector, it’s a major strategic pivot to the fast evolving battery metals space.

For the lithium market, it marks the first entry of a big international mining company into what is a supply landscape dominated by specialty incumbents.

It’s hugely significant for Serbia, which is trying to attract investment to its mining sector, and it’s hugely important for the European Union, which has identified its Balkan neighbour as a key link in its mineral securities chain.

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Romania’s Roman gold mines get UNESCO heritage status – by Stephen McGrath (Associated Press News – July 28, 2021)

https://apnews.com/

BUCHAREST (AP) — Ancient Roman mining galleries in a mountainous Romanian region that has been at the center of a long, fierce battle between a Canadian mining company and environmentalists were added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list Tuesday.

Rosia Montana, located in western Romania, is home to Europe’s largest gold deposits. Gabriel Resources, a Canadian mining company that gained concession rights in 1999, planned to extract the gold and silver over a 16-year period.

The mining project, which the Romanian government owned a 20% stake in, also would involve razing four mountain tops, displacing hundreds of local families and leaving behind a waste lake containing cyanide, a toxic chemical used in the process of gold extraction.

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BHP and Forrest may be better together on nickel play (Australian Financial Review – July 28, 2021)

https://www.afr.com/

BHP might have trumped Andrew Forrest’s bid for a Canadian nickel miner, but there’s no reason the pair can’t form a partnership on this project.

The prospect of iron ore titans Andrew Forrest and BHP duking it out over a Canadian nickel junior is obviously delicious. But the rational move is for the old foes to get into bed together on what both clearly see as a great opportunity amid a broader rush for battery minerals.

BHP announced on Tuesday night a $C325 million ($351 million) bid for Noront, which has a highly rated nickel project called Eagle’s Nest in Ontario’s Ring of Fire region (how Game of Thrones is that?) some 1200 kilometres north of Toronto.

The Big Australian’s bid, which has the support of the Noront executive team (which owns 9.9 per cent of the company), is pitched at a 75 per cent premium to the takeover bid by Forrest’s Wyloo Metals in May.

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Rio Expands in Battery Metals With $2.4 Billion Lithium Mine – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Misha Savic (Yahoo Finance/Bloomberg News – July 27, 2021)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — Rio Tinto Group plans to spend $2.4 billion building a lithium mine in Serbia, in the latest sign that the biggest miners are pushing into metals poised to benefit from the green-energy transition.

The biggest producers are churning out record profits after commodities rallied this year, raising the question of what the industry will do with all the extra cash.

Most have been focused on returning money to shareholders through dividends and buybacks — analysts are expecting more big payouts in the coming weeks, including from Rio itself when the world’s second-biggest miner reports financial results on Wednesday.

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Fight over nickel assets heats up with BHP’s $258m Noront bid – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – July 27, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

BHP (ASX, LON, NYSE: BHP) has offered C$325 million ($258.45 million) for Canadian nickel miner Noront Resources (TSX-V: NOT), trumping a bid by Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo Metals, as top miners race to secure supplies of battery metals.

The world’s largest miner is offering C$0.55 per share of Noront, representing a premium of 129% to the firm’s closing price on May 21, a day before Wyloo’s proposal.

Noront is recommending that shareholders accept the bid, which comes through BHP Lonsdale, a subsidiary that already owns 3.7% of the Canadian nickel producer.

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