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China to ramp up coal production to meet demand – by Sohrab Darabshaw (Metal Miner – July 21, 2021)

https://agmetalminer.com/

While the rest of the world is trying to com to grips with the European Union’s proposed carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) – which calls for the levying of charges on non-E.U. products in relation to their embedded carbon footprint — China, on the other hand, is currently grappling with a slightly different energy-related issue.

A massive heat wave in some parts of the country coupled with a shortage of coal because of China’s spat with chief supplier Australia has sent coal prices soaring.

Now, China, the world’s biggest consumer of coal, plans to add almost 110 million tons (MT) per year of advanced production capacity in the second half of this year to meet the rising demand of coal.

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Mining Boss Sees Fervor Calming With Peru Leftist to Take Office – by James Attwood (Bloomberg News – July 21, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Peru’s mining industry is hopeful of avoiding the kind of drastic measures that would stifle investment and future production when Pedro Castillo takes office in the world’s No. 2 copper producer.

While the president-elect may have spoken of taking some extreme measures during the campaign, he may be more measured once in office, according to Victor Gobitz, president of Peru’s Institute of Mining Engineers.

During a tense and polarizing election process, the rural union activist from a Marxist party vowed to nationalize energy assets, block certain projects and take a bigger share of the mineral windfall to fight poverty.

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Stainless steel strength and supply hits reinforce nickel – by Andy Home (Mining.com/Reuters – July 21, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Nickel is making a comeback. A strong pandemic recovery rally was rudely interrupted in March, when China’s Tsingshan Group said it intended to produce battery-grade nickel at its Indonesian operations.

Converting what is currently a process stream for Tsingshan’s stainless steel production to an input for electric vehicle cathode chemistry would undermine nickel’s bull narrative of a looming shortfall of battery-quality metal.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month nickel price slumped from a seven-year high of $20,110 per tonne to $15,665 over the first half of March. It has since clawed its way back to a current $18,400 with ripples of tightness appearing across nearby time-spreads against a backdrop of falling LME inventory.

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Vale, Steelworkers complete two days of talks; more talks planned – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – July 20, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Labour expert says he’s not surprised Local 6500 members have rejected the company’s contract offers

While no deal has yet been reached between Vale and its striking workers, there is some hope in the air as the two sides resumed talks this week.

“The bargaining teams for both Vale and USW Local 6500 did return to the table Monday with the assistance of a third-party facilitator,” said Danica Pagnutti, corporate affairs specialist with Vale.

“The intent of these discussions is for both parties to seek a path forward that will help in ending the current dispute.” Pagnutti said the talks are expected to continue throughout the week, but Vale will not be commenting on the nature of the discussions out of respect for the process.

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Conservationists cheer latest proposal to protect land in Nunavut – by David Venn (Nunatsiaq News – July 20, 2021)

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The Nunavut Planning Commission’s new proposal for what parts of the territory should be protected from industrial activity is getting some early approval from World Wildlife Fund Canada.

That’s because the new draft of a land-use plan for the territory identifies more caribou and walrus calving areas and marks them as off limits year-round.

Specifically, the government uses Inuit traditional knowledge and a study from the Qikiqtaaluk Wildlife Board to mark calving grounds on Baffin Island, and these areas would be protected for the first time.

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Northeast gold junior miner signs exploration agreement with First Nations – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – July 20, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Gatling Exploration strikes partnership with Matachewan, Wahgoshig First Nations

A gold exploration company in the Kirkland Lake area has inked an exploration agreement with Matachewan and Wahgoshig First Nations.

Vancouver-based Gatling Exploration is working a gold property known as the Larder Project, 35 kilometres east of Kirkland Lake. The agreement sets out a framework for communication and a working relationship between the company and the First Nations.

One objective of this deal is to identify opportunities for Indigenous-owned businesses and members to participate in the company’s exploration activities, which may include training.

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Province pours $7.9 million into forestry, mining in northeastern Ontario – by Colleen Romaniuk (Sudbury Star – July 19, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

The provincial government announced more than $7.9 million in funding on Monday to support the forestry and mining sectors in northeastern Ontario. The money will support 16 different projects and create and maintain 112 jobs in the Sudbury and Algoma districts.

The funding is being delivered through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC) and includes significant investments in the mining supply and service sector in Greater Sudbury.

“This is an important infusion of high-tech capacity in the supply chains of forestry and mining.

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Teck’s VP of sustainability named MABC’s Mining Person of the Year – by Vladimir Basov (Kitco News – July 19, 2021)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – The Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC) is pleased to announce Marcia Smith, Senior Vice President, Sustainability and External Affairs, Teck Resources Limited, as British Columbia’s 2020 Mining Person of the Year.

The Mining Person of the Year award publicly recognizes an individual who has shown outstanding leadership advancing and promoting the mining industry in areas of innovation, safety, sustainable development, and corporate social responsibility within British Columbia.

“The 2020 Mining Person of the Year award honors Marcia Smith for her leadership in shaping Teck’s approach to sustainability and ESG performance, and for her role in advancing responsible mining and sustainable business practices within British Columbia’s mining sector,” said Michael Goehring, President and CEO of the Mining Association of BC.

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India’s Conflict Diamonds: Buxwaha – by Anish Tore (News Click – July 20, 2021)

https://www.newsclick.in/

A new ecological social contract may emerge if the Save Buxwaha Forest movement attains its objectives.

They say diamonds are forever. So is the ecological damage diamond mines cause, say environmental activists protesting against the proposed diamond mine in Madhya Pradesh’s Buxwaha forest.

Blood or Conflict Diamonds is a term used for organised crime networks in African countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola etc, where the money from diamond smuggling is used to fund endless civil wars. A diamond mine in Buxwaha may generate another kind of conflict, one between man and nature.

The Buxwaha forest movement is different from earlier environmental struggles in some crucial ways:

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G-20 Countries struggling to drive economies to net-zero transition (Mining Review Africa – July 20, 2021)

https://www.miningreview.com/

Bloomberg Philanthropies and BloombergNEF has released a new Climate Policy Factbook outlining the progress that each G-20 member country has made toward moving to a low-carbon economy.

The report was released to increase transparency and inform policy priorities ahead of upcoming international climate negotiations, including the G-20 Summit and Ministerial Meetings, the 75th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, and COP26.

The Climate Policy Factbook highlights three concrete areas in which immediate government action is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius: 1) phasing out support for fossil fuels, 2) putting a price on emissions, and 3) encouraging climate risk disclosure. In each of these areas, the report found that the policies of many G-20 countries were significantly off course.

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EV Metal Index quadruples year-on-year as lithium, nickel prices rally – by Editor (Mining.com – July 19, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

MINING.COM’s EV Metal Index quadrupled from May 2020 and added nearly 18% in value from the previous month, racking up the third best monthly total on record.

The EV Metal Index, which tracks the value of battery metals in newly registered passenger EVs (including hybrids) around the world, came in at $477 million in April, an increase of 326% over the same month last year and bringing the year-to-date total to $2.03 billion.

Total battery capacity of EVs sold during the month tripled year on year to 19.2 GWh, according to Adamas Intelligence, which tracks demand for EV batteries by chemistry, cell supplier and capacity in over 100 countries.

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Auteco Minerals builds gold ounces at Pickle Lake – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – July 15, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

An Australian junior mining company poking around an old Pickle Lake gold mine continues to find exploration success.

After finishing up a 45,000-metre drilling program last month, Auteco Minerals posted a new resource update for its Pickle Crow Project, showing an inferred gold resource of 1.7 million ounces at 8.1 grams per tonne, up 71 per cent from their previous estimates. The high-grade side of that estimate shows 1,470,000 ounces at 10 grams per tonne.

The Perth-headquartered company picked up Pickle Crow early last year through an earn-in, joint venture arrangement with First Mining Gold. They’ve been running an aggressive exploration program ever since at the historic northwestern Ontario gold mining camp.

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NEWS RELEASE: Joint Statement by Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources and the European Commissioner for Internal Market (Natural Resources Canada – July 19, 2021)

OTTAWA, ON, July 19, 2021 /CNW/ – Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Seamus O’Regan Jr., and the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, released the following joint statement on the framework for Canada-EU Strategic Partnership on Raw Materials.

“The security of supply chains for the minerals and metals essential to the transition to a carbon-neutral and digitized economy is a priority for both Canada and the European Union.

Through this strategic partnership, developed jointly between Natural Resources Canada and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, we will focus on enhancing the security and sustainability of trade and investment, integrating raw material value chains and leading by example on environmental, social and governance standards.

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The close: Markets tumble as COVID-19 surge sparks fresh worries over durability of global economic recovery – by David Berman (Globe and Mail – July 20, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Stocks, commodities, bond yields and the Canadian dollar fell sharply in one of the most severe setbacks for financial markets since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines earlier this year, raising questions about whether the global economic recovery is stumbling.

The turbulence follows strong gains over the past year that lifted a number of equity benchmarks to record highs as recently as last week.

But the rallies stretched stock valuations to their highest levels since the technology bubble of the 1990s, even as central banks considered withdrawing extraordinary stimulus and some observers warned that economic growth may have already peaked – making stocks sensitive to a downturn.

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Coal firm appeals rejection of Grassy Mountain open-pit mine – by Ian Vandaelle (BNN Bloomberg – July 19, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

The company behind a proposal to build a massive open-pit coal mine along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains is appealing a regulatory decision that halted the development last month.

Australia-based Benga Mining Limited said Monday it launched a legal appeal process to dispute the rejection of the Grassy Mountain steelmaking coal mine by a joint provincial-federal review panel, taking issue with a number of the panel’s findings.

Benga Chief Executive Officer John Wallington said in a release the company disagreed with the Joint Review Panel (JRP) and Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) methodology and conclusion, including Benga’s view that the regulators did not properly take into account First Nations’ support for the project.

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