Republic of Mining

Head of Alberta coal mining panel says trust in regulatory system to be examined – by Bob Weber (Globe and Mail/Canadian Press – May 31, 2021)

June 1, 2021

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A public consultation committee on coal mining in the Rocky Mountains will consider why Albertans’ level of trust in the province’s regulatory bodies is so low, the panel’s head said Monday.

In an hour-long phone-in show on CBC Radio, Ron Wallace said he’s concerned by results of a recent government survey on coal mining. Wallace pointed out that of about 25,000 respondents, 85 per cent said they were not confident that the industry was being adequately regulated.

“If people have diminished confidence that the regulators are protecting the public interest, then that’s a major thing,” he said.

Northern Sask. First Nation erects security checkpoint in response to uranium exploration and COVID-19 (CBC News Saskatchewan – May 31, 2021)

June 1, 2021

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/

The Clearwater River Dene Nation (CRDN) in northern Saskatchewan has erected a security checkpoint on a highway that runs through its land in response to uranium mining exploration in the area and worries about the spread of COVID-19.

In a news release issued Monday, Clearwater Chief Teddy Clarke said the Saskatchewan government has repeatedly approved mining exploration without any meaningful consultation with local trappers, elders or community leaders.

“The Government of Saskatchewan ran roughshod over the rights of the Dene People in this region for decades.

Norilsk could become Russia’s official Arctic capital – by Polina Leganger Bronder (The Barents Observer – May 31, 2021)

June 1, 2021

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

The city was built from the mid-1930s by Norillag prisoners forced to work in the mining and metallurgical copper and nickel plants under harsh climate conditions. In recent years, Norilsk is mainly famous for its devastating environmental situation with huge air pollution and oil spill to the tundra river systems.

Norilsk is part of Krasnoyarsk Krai, whose governor Aleksandr Uss now proposes the city should get the official status as Russia’s Arctic capital.

His proposition is part of a larger strategic plan, which is intended to be completed in the next few months. The plan’s main aim is to develop Norilsk. Once the plan is set in motion, it is expected the governor and his team will present the project to President Vladimir Putin.

Dundee expands into Ecuador with IVN Metals buy – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 31, 2021)

June 1, 2021

https://www.mining.com/

Canada’s Dundee Precious Metals (TSX: DPM) will add its first project in the Americas to its portfolio by acquiring all the shares it doesn’t already own in junior miner INV Metals (TSX: INV), which owns the advanced-stage Loma Larga gold project in southern Ecuador.

As part of the deal, Dundee will buy each of the issued and outstanding common shares of INV Metals it does not currently hold for 0.0910 of a DPM common share, or about C$0.80 a piece. This represents a 63% premium to the closing price of INV Metals stock on the Toronto Exchange on May 28.

Dundee, which owns about 23.5% of INV’s common shares, noted the transaction had strong shareholder support. It also said that IAMGOLD (TSX:IMG) (NYSE:IAG), which is IVN’s largest shareholder, is supporting the deal.

HPAL Nickel Tailings Question Still Unanswered – by Anthony Milewaski (The Assay – May 26, 2021)

June 1, 2021

Home

In the post-COVID-19 global economic recovery, unprecedented stimulus plans by governments look to accelerate the emerging “Green Economy”.

This approach will ultimately pivot on the metals used to make batteries, and specifically lithium-ion batteries – the current and next generation battery chemistry of choice.

Ironically, lithium-ion batteries actually comprise anything from 30% to 80% nickel, with only a minute proportion being lithium. As a result, it will be nickel mining that plays the leading, mission-critical role.

Dispute Over a Coal Industry Pits Poland Against Its Neighbors – by Andrew Higgins (New York Times – May 30, 2021)

June 1, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/

BOGATYNIA, POLAND — The huge hole in the ground, dug ever deeper and wider by generations of Polish strip miners feeding their country’s voracious appetite for coal, has devoured a dozen villages and nibbled away at land and homes in a 19th-century spa town on its rim.

The hole has grown so big, sucking in water from miles around, that wells over the border in the Czech Republic are running dry, local residents say.

Michael Martin, a German train driver who lives in a Czech village across the border from the Polish mine, said the well in his garden, previously his main source of water, is now nearly dry and he runs a pipe to a deeper communal well more than 100 yards away.

Zimbabwe Threatens to Seize Platinum Concession From Eurasian Resource Affiliate – by Ray Ndlovu and Godfrey Marawanyika (Bloomberg News – May 30, 2021)

June 1, 2021

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg)- Zimbabwe’s mines minister has informed Todal Mining Ltd., a venture controlled by Eurasian Resources Group, that its platinum mining concessions could be seized because no progress has been made in developing them.

The Bokai and Kinonde concessions may be taken over under the “use-it/lose-it principle” which allows the state to repossess idle mining claims, Minister Winston Chitando said in a letter to Todal dated May 28 and seen by Bloomberg. The mines ministry confirmed the veracity of the document.

“I note with concern that over the last few years there have been several changes to the work program to make this project progress to production stage,” Chitando said in the letter.

Indigenous leaders say discovery of children’s remains at Kamloops residential school is beginning of national reckoning – by Jana G. Pruden and Kristy Kirkup (Globe and Mail – June 1, 2021)

June 1, 2021

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

As the discovery of the remains of 215 children at one of Canada’s largest residential schools continues to reverberate around the country, Indigenous leaders and community members say it is only the beginning of an important – but painful – national reckoning.

“Kamloops is one school,” said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, referencing the more than 130 residential schools that once operated across the country.

“I’ve said before that the residential school system was a genocide against First Nations people, Indigenous peoples. Here is the evidence. Nobody can deny that.”

Vale workers in Sudbury reject contract offer and go on strike – by Erik White (CBC News Sudbury – June 1, 2021)

June 1, 2021

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Picketlines are up at Vale’s mines, mill and smelter in Sudbury as the union representing 2,400 workers have voted down a tentative agreement with the mining giant.

United Steelworkers Local 6500 says in a statement on its website that 87 per cent of members cast ballots in a ratification vote Monday night and 70 per cent rejected the deal the union bargaining committee was recommending.

“Thank you for your overwhelming support to return us to the bargaining table,” reads the statement. “We are newly energized with this result and are looking forward to bringing your message to the company to let them know our work is not complete.”

Northwestern Ontario First Nation seeks to stop mineral exploration on ‘sacred’ space – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – May 31, 2021)

May 31, 2021

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Ginoogaming First Nation seeks protection for 100-square-mile area

A northwestern Ontario First Nation is seeking a court injunction to stop mineral exploration in a 100-square-mile area it wants set aside as a protected space for spiritual practices.

Ginoogaming First Nation will appear in Superior Court in Toronto on June 1 to stop prospector Michael Malouf from working in an area it considers a “sacred and cultural keystone area” within the community’s traditional territory.

Michael Malouf is president of Quaternary Mining & Exploration Company. Ginoogaming is next to the town of Longlac, 300 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

Bolsonaro vows to keep mining out of Yanomami reservation in Brazil – by Cecillia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 31, 2021)

May 31, 2021

https://www.mining.com/

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro promised the Yanomami Indigenous peoples he would respect their wishes to keep mining out of their reservation in the Amazon, though he still plans to use other Indigenous lands for commercial agriculture and mining.

In a video released late on Sunday, the former Army captain is seen talking to Indigenous leaders in Maturacá, an Amazon village at the western end of the Yanomami reservation.

The group, the largest of South America’s tribes that remain relatively isolated from the outside world, asked the right-wing president to protect their lands from mining, particularly from illegal diggers.

Trudeau’s EV ambitions need strategic shift, nickel CEO says – by Yvonne Yue Li and Stephen Wicary (Bloomberg News – May 31, 2021)

May 31, 2021

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Canada needs a better strategy to build up an electric-vehicle supply chain and become a North American battery hub that takes advantage of a global push toward cleaner energy.

That’s the parting advice Sherritt International’s outgoing CEO David Pathe has for the Canadian government and an industry set to disrupt everything from mining to automaking.

“Canada as a whole, with some leadership from the federal government, needs to be more strategic about how we develop that industry from a national industrial policy perspective,” Pathe, 50, said in a Friday interview.

Noront suitor Wyloo Metals looks to spend $25 million to study viability of Ontario battery metals plant – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – May 31, 2021)

May 31, 2021

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Australian private equity firm Wyloo Metals Pty Ltd. says it intends to spend $25 million to study the viability of building a battery metals processing plant in Ontario, if it succeeds in its attempt to buy Ring of Fire operator Noront Resources Ltd.

Last week, Wyloo Metals, a subsidiary of Perth-based investment holding company Tattarang, said it was prepared to buy Toronto based Noront for $133-million in cash, or roughly a 31 per cent premium to its market value.

Toronto-based Noront has not responded directly to Wyloo Metal’s proposal yet, but it has moved to put a “poison pill” in place, that would temporarily prevent Wyloo from taking the company over.

As electric vehicles take off, we’ll need to recycle their batteries – by Madeleine Stone (National Geographic – May 28, 2021)

May 31, 2021

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/

Electric car batteries contain critical minerals like cobalt and lithium. We’ll need to recycle them unless we want to keep mining the earth for new ones.

When Ford unveiled the F-150 Lightning last week — an all-electric version of the best- selling vehicle in the United States—it was a big moment in the short history of electric cars. The 530-horsepower, 6,500-pound truck’s sticker price of just under $40,000 ($32,474 with a federal tax credit) drew comparisons to Ford’s Model T, the vehicle credited with making cars accessible to the middle class.

In the first 48 hours after the battery-powered behemoth debuted, Ford received close to 45,000 pre-orders for it, equivalent to nearly 20 percent of all EVs registered in the U.S. last year.

The F-150 Lightning, along with the hundreds of other EV models top automakers are rolling out in the next few years, signals that the EV revolution is finally going mainstream. But as this industry, which is key to combating climate change, matures, a new challenge is emerging: how to acquire all of the minerals needed to make EV batteries.

What on earth are rare earths and where can you find them? An explainer – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – May 28, 2021)

May 31, 2021

https://financialpost.com/

Used in everything from electric vehicles to solar panels and headphones, rare earths are all around us, but the path to get them into products is complex

In one of his first acts after taking office earlier this year, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a review of the rare earth supply chain, a group of 17 elements that are increasingly important to modern technology.

Used in electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, military defence programs such as missile guidance systems, headphones, motors and many other advanced technologies, nearly all politicians have come round to the idea that they’re critical to the future economy and security.

“I don’t think the average person realizes how deeply rare earths have seeped into the fabric of daily life,” said Ryan Castilloux, an analyst at Adamas Intelligence, a research firm, in Ontario. “They’re all around us.”