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North bouncing ‘back faster’ compared to other parts of Canada – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – June 15, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

While COVID-19 has rocked communities across Canada, many in Northern Ontario are faring better than elsewhere.

“As we cope with the challenges of the pandemic’s second and third waves, these impacts are becoming more regional in nature — a reflection of the vastness of this country and its diverse population,” said Anil Arora, chief statistician with Stats Canada, during a virtual presentation hosted by the Northern Policy Institute on Monday.

“Northern Ontario has not been hit as hard by the pandemic as my home province of Alberta, for example,” he said, adding the region has also seen “business activity bounce back faster” than in the rest of Ontario.

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Cobalt ‘Bubble’ Will Burst, Ivanhoe Executive in Congo Says – by Michael J. Kavanagh (Bloomberg News – June 14, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The demand for cobalt is a bubble that will burst as new battery technology reduces the need for the metal, according to the head of the chamber of mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Congo holds more than half the world’s cobalt reserves, but the market’s negative perception of the central African nation’s business climate means companies will soon find alternative ways to create the power needed for the green energy revolution, Louis Watum of the Federation des Entreprises du Congo told a virtual conference on Monday.

“I’m not a fan of cobalt,” said Watum, who is also an executive at Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. and previously ran their Congo operations. “Cobalt is a bubble that is going to burst.”

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Ganfeng Lithium to buy 50% of Mali mine for $130 million – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – June 14, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

China’s Ganfeng Lithium, one of the world’s top producers of the commodity used in electric vehicle batteries, is acquiring a 50% stake in a special purpose vehicle that owns the Goulamina hard-rock mine in Mali for $130 million.

Ganfeng, which counts automakers Tesla and BMW among its customers, said the move will grant it at least half of Goulamina’s first-phase annual output, estimated in 455,000 tonnes of spodumene.

Mali’s government can take 10% of the equity free of charge and pay in cash for up to 10% more, the company said.

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Voisey’s Bay underground expansion delivers first ore – by Staff (Canadian Mining Journal – June 14, 2021)

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

June 11 marked the milestone first production of ore from the underground expansion project at the Voisey’s Bay nickel-cobalt mine owned by Vale SA (NYSE: VALE). The mine is located on the north cost of Labrador, about 35 km south of Nain, Nfld.

Underground production is expected to extend the life of the mine until at least 2032. Two separate deposits – Reid Brook and Eastern Deeps – have been developed. At peak production, they will produce 40,000 tonnes of nickel in concentrate yearly, or a processing rate of 2.6 million t/y.

The expansion also increases economic participation by the local Innu and Nunatsiavut Inuit communities. Indigenous employment has more than doubled to about 500 people. Sixty-five per cent of all procurement contract were awarded to indigenous-owned businesses.

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Canada, EU form raw materials pact to cut reliance on China – by John Follain (Financial Post/Bloomberg – June 15, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Canada and the European Union launched a new partnership to secure supply chains for critical minerals and reduce dependence on China in a push for jobs and to counter climate change.

“With EU partners, we talked about what we can do to build a cleaner economy for years to come,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Tuesday after meeting with EU chiefs in Brussels.

“To begin with, in order to continue creating good, green jobs for the middle class, we must secure supply chains for critical minerals and metals that are essential for things like electric car batteries.”

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Brazil to deploy police to protect Yanomami from miners (France24.com – June 14, 2021)

https://www.france24.com/en/

Brazil said Monday it would deploy a special security force to protect the Yanomami indigenous reservation, whose residents have clashed recently with illegal miners encroaching on native lands in the Amazon rainforest.

The measure comes after Brazil’s Supreme Court last month ordered far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s government to adopt “necessary measures” to protect the Yanomami and Mundurucu peoples’ reservations from wildcat gold miners.

Justice Minister Anderson Torres gave a federal force of police and firefighters a 90-day renewable mandate to “preserve the public order” on Yanomami lands.

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Fertilizer markets boom on mixed fundamentals – by Julia Meehan (The Fence Post – June 14, 2021)

https://www.thefencepost.com/

LONDON — International fertilizer markets are currently experiencing an unseasonal boost in prices and demand, with some prices hitting historical highs. The major question now for producers, traders, co-operatives and farmers, is if current levels will be sustained and what availability will look like moving through the second half of 2021?

While some markets are exclusively impacted by production cuts, rising feedstock costs, sanction cuts, rising freight rates a major driver giving the market confidence is record crop prices.

AMMONIA

The unabated strength of ammonia, which has also been driving prices up for urea and nitrates, looks to remain a challenging market, where, on almost a daily basis, production problems are announced.

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Column: A nickel refinery tops U.S. battery metals wish list – by Andy Home (Fiancial Post/Reuters – June 14, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The United States government should invest in nickel refining capacity in coordination with its allies, according to the Biden Administration’s 100-day review of critical supply chains.

“If there are opportunities for the U.S. to target one part of the battery supply chain, this would likely be the most critical to provide short- and medium-term supply chain stability,” the report said.

It’s an unexpected priority. Nickel isn’t on the U.S. list of critical minerals. Although the country depends on imports, 68% of supplies come from what the report calls “allied nations” such as Canada, Australia, Norway and Finland.

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After two collapses, a third Vale dam at ‘imminent risk of rupture’ – by Juliana Ennes (Mongabay.com – June 14, 2021)

https://news.mongabay.com/

A dam holding back mining waste from Brazilian miner Vale is at risk of collapsing, a government audit says.

The same company was responsible for two tailings dam collapses since 2015 that unleashed millions of gallons of toxic sludge and killed hundreds of people in Brazil’s southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

The retired Xingu dam at Vale’s Alegria iron ore mine in Mariana — the same municipality where a Vale tailings dam collapsed in November 2015 in what’s considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to date — is at “serious and imminent risk of rupture by liquefaction,” according to an audit report from the Minas Gerais state labor department (SRT), cited by government news agency Agência Brasil.

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[Nevada Mining] One ore body, once divided – by Suzanne Featherston (Elko Daily Free Press – June 14, 2021)

https://elkodaily.com/

The gold mining operation at Carlin is the largest in the world, with a massive ore body that has yielded millions of ounces of gold over its more than 60-year history in northeastern Nevada.

Up until recent history, the Carlin Trend was mainly divided between two senior gold mining companies — Barrick Gold Corp. and Newmont Corp. On the surface, that meant fences separated properties. Underground, boundaries took the form of vertical walls.

Practically, neither company had a full understanding of how the ore body behaves from beginning to end. Sometimes the same geologic feature had different names depending on what side of the line it fell on.

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OPINIONS: Most Indigenous people support resource development: poll – by John Desjarlais Jr. and Heather Exner-Pirot (iPolitics.ca – June 14, 2021)

https://ipolitics.ca/

John Desjarlais Jr. is Cree-Métis from Kaministikominahikoskak. He’s general manager of Great Plains Construction, and an advisory board member with the Indigenous Resource Network. Heather Exner-Pirot is a research adviser to the Indigenous Resource Network and a fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute.

In the polarized “environment versus economy” debate we’re having, there’s often an assumption, or an assertion, that Indigenous peoples are mostly against resource development.

This is manifested in blockades, protests at legislatures and university campuses, and cries from activists that they stand in solidarity with Indigenous people when they stand against mining, oil and gas, commercial fishing, hydro, and forestry projects.

For those familiar with the matter, this has always been a bit puzzling. Resource development is often the biggest economic driver of Indigenous communities, since it provides revenues for nations and well-paying jobs closer to home. Indigenous businesses are 40 times more likely to be involved in the extractive industry than Canadian ones.

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Vale’s Otranto says it’s ‘disappointing’ bargaining committee recommends rejecting second offer – by Staff (Sudbury.com – June 14, 2021)

https://www.sudbury.com/

The head of Vale’s North Atlantic Operations said today he’s disappointed the Steelworkers Local 6500 bargaining committee is unanimously recommending striking members reject a second offer from the company.

The union’s bargaining committee announced today it is recommending to its 2,500 members that the new offer be rejected, as it includes “similar take-aways with minimal improvements” over the initial offer.

On June 1, Local 6500 overwhelmingly rejected an initial contract offer, with 70 per cent of members voting against the offer on a voter turnout of 87 per cent.

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How a massive outbreak at Nunavut’s Baffinland mine sent ‘sparks’ of the Delta variant across the country – by Jennifer Yang (Our Windsor.com – June 12, 2021)

https://www.ourwindsor.ca/

On May 2, the Baffinland mine in Nunavut made a troubling announcement: For the first time in the pandemic, COVID-19 was spreading inside its remote northern work camp. What the press release did not say is that at least one worker had tested positive for Delta, a highly transmissible variant never seen before in the territory.

The mine suspended operations, and workers that the company’s contact tracers deemed “low risk” started flying home. But soon after, some of those employees began testing positive — and Nunavut health officials realized the virus had spread further than initially believed.

Today, Baffinland’s Mary River mine is the site of one of Canada’s largest-known outbreaks of Delta, the variant of concern that first emerged in India and is 50 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant that fuelled Canada’s third wave.

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Yet another nail in the coffin of Canada’s energy industry – by Lorne Gunter (Toronto Sun – June 12, 2021)

https://torontosun.com/

Coal produces “unacceptable environmental effects.” Plastic is “toxic.” The oilsands should be “phased out” and pipelines aren’t worth fighting for (except, of course, for the ones that bring gasoline, propane and other fuels to Ontario and Quebec right before a federal election).

With an announcement Friday that Ottawa was effectively proclaiming federal jurisdiction over all thermal coal-mining projects, so the feds could protect fish and Indigenous people, the Trudeau government has hammered yet another nail in the coffin of Canada’s energy industry.

Just how do the federal Liberals propose to fund their Great Reset without the revenues from Canada’s resource industries, let alone heat and light every home in the country, fuel every truck that delivers food to grocery stores, and power greenhouses, factories and public transit?

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Andrew Forrest’s $100b Congo power play – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – June 13, 2021)

https://www.afr.com/

“Fortescue will not work with those who intend to ship in thousands of workers
and ship them out once the project is completed,” he said. “We intend to upskill
the economies that we enter.”

Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest has secured the inside running on developing the world’s largest hydro power project – which alone carries a $US80 billion ($103.8 billion) price tag – and associated port, green hydrogen and green ammonia capability in the troubled Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dr Forrest said Fortescue’s green energy and green hydrogen projects in Africa were not confined to the DRC and included projects in Kenya and Ethiopia, with investors and financiers already indicating a willingness to commit more than $US100 billion.

He put Fortescue’s weight behind the Grand Inga dam project on the Congo on Sunday as part of his ambition to diversify the iron ore miner into a global force in green energy and green hydrogen.

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