Twitter

Barrick CEO says gold mining industry still needs to consolidate – by Felix Njini and Steven Frank (Bloomberg News – October 7, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Barrick Gold Corp.’s top executive says the gold industry needs more consolidation so it can increase exploration to boost depleting reserves, lure more generalist investors and improve efficiencies.

The flurry of deals that characterized the sector in the past two years will likely continue, with miners in Australia already “stamping their mark” on the industry, Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow said in a virtual South African mining conference.

Mergers and acquisitions are likely to dominate the sector in Africa, and are needed in Canada, where the world’s second-largest gold miner is based.

Read more

Ford goes electric, Ontario poised to win – by Brian Lilley (Toronto Sun – October 7, 2020)

https://torontosun.com/

It’s being billed as the best news for Ontario’s automotive sector in 15 years and while it’s not a new plant, it is a new lease on life for one of the anchors of the industry.

On Thursday morning, Premier Doug Ford will stand with Ford Canada CEO Dean Stoneley and Unifor president Jerry Dias to announce a major investment in the plant.

Ford Canada will announce a $1.2 billion investment in their Oakville plant while Ford, the premier, will announce $295 million from the province. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, expected to join via video link, will announce the federal government will also put $295 million into the plant.

Read more

U.K. Exhibition showcasing work of Black miners is unveiled – by David Sedgwick (New Post Leader – October 7, 2020)

https://www.newspostleader.co.uk/

Digging Deep, Coal Miners of African Caribbean Heritage presents recently unearthed stories and memories of former coal miners of Black and African-Caribbean heritage within UK mining history.

The exhibition at Woodhorn Museum, in Ashington, is part of Black History Month, which runs until October 31.

It forms part of the Black Miners Museum Project – led by Nottingham News Centre CIC – which aims to grow lasting partnerships with mining museums across the UK by celebrating and remembering coal miners of Black and African-Caribbean heritage.

Read more

OPINION: The Green Revolution is coming but is overly hyped – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – October 3, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

When Goldman Sachs published a landmark study this summer on clean energy, the greenies cheered. The Wall Street giant didn’t really say anything new, but its conclusions reinforced the notion that the oil era is winding down and that renewable energy would soak up the bulk of the entire energy industry’s investment dollars.

Specifically, the report, “Carbonomics: The green engine of economic recovery,” said that renewable power will emerge as the No. 1 area of energy spending in 2021, usurping oil and gas spending for the first time, and that the green transition will drive US$1-trillion to US$2-trillion per year – per year! – in infrastructure investments, while generating as many as 20 million new jobs worldwide.

All encouraging news, if true, and even better news for the planet. The United Nations has predicted all sorts of life-threatening calamities if carbon emissions push average global temperatures beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Read more

Diamonds found with gold in Canada’s Far North offer clues to Earth’s early history – by Michael Brown (Folio.ca – October 6, 2020)

https://www.folio.ca/

The presence of diamonds in an outcrop atop an unrealized gold deposit in Canada’s Far North mirrors the association found above the world’s richest gold mine, according to University of Alberta research that fills in blanks about the thermal conditions of Earth’s crust three billion years ago.

“The diamonds we have found so far are small and not economic, but they occur in ancient sediments that are an exact analog of the world’s biggest gold deposit—the Witwatersrand Goldfields of South Africa, which has produced more than 40 per cent of the gold ever mined on Earth,” said Graham Pearson, researcher in the Faculty of Science and Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate in Arctic Resources.

“Diamonds and gold are very strange bedfellows. They hardly ever appear in the same rock, so this new find may help to sweeten the attractiveness of the original gold discovery if we can find more diamonds.”

Read more

Brazilian niobium miner CBMM eyes European car market – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – October 7, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Brazil niobium miner Companhia Brasileira de Metalurgia e Mineração (CBMM) has inked a deal with British high-performance luxury carmaker Briggs Automotive Company (BAC) to supply niobium for the production of ultra-light, high-speed cars.

CBMM will work with BAC to develop a new sports car using high amounts of niobium a metal that makes steel more resistant.

The partners expect the final product, a race car for use on the streets, will be more fuel-efficient due to its light weight and greater speed.

Read more

OPINION: Ottawa’s quixotic jolt to our electric-battery industry is riskier than it’s letting on – by Andrew Coyne (Globe and Mail – October 7, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Perhaps the giddiest part of a Throne Speech that seemed at several points to be high on intoxicants was that bit about how Canada was poised to become a world leader in the production of electric batteries, on the unassailable grounds that “Canada has the resources” from which electric batteries are made.

It’s a theme the government, and particularly Industry Minister Navdeep Bains, has been pushing with some regularity. Canada is “rich in key ingredients like lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt and aluminum,” he told the Toronto Star’s Tonda MacCharles in a prespeech interview.

All these resources lying about, just waiting to be converted into world-leading electric batteries – it’s a wonder no one’s thought of this before.

Read more

Crisis: More studies needed: The U.S. responds to a critical minerals “emergency” with additional reports – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips -October 1, 2020)

http://resourceclips.com/

A national emergency normally calls for action. But although the U.S. faces “an unusual and extraordinary threat”—not referring to insurrectionary riots but foreign dependency on critical minerals—the country intends to respond with more studies and reports. Such was the gist of President Donald Trump’s September 30 executive order.

Yet he made his awareness of the problem manifest. Referring to 35 critical minerals the U.S. deems essential for uses including national security, economic well-being, electronics, transportation and infrastructure, Trump cited U.S. Geological Survey data showing his country imports over half its supply of 31 of the 35 minerals. For 14 of the minerals, the U.S. depends completely on foreign sources.

That leaves the country vulnerable “to adverse foreign government action, natural disaster or other supply disruptions. Our national security, foreign policy and economy require a consistent supply of each of these minerals.”

Read more

Northern Dynasty eyes controversial Alaska mine as high gold prices encourage ecologically dicey projects – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – October 7, 2020)

https://financialpost.com/

Last week, Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. issued a press release that declared its Pebble Mine, located in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, as the “most significant” source of rhenium in the world.

Rhenium, one of the rarest elements in the earth’s crust, is prized in military and industrial applications for its high melting point yet remained unheard of to most investors until U.S. President Donald Trump included it on a list of critical elements in 2017 whose permitting should be prioritized and streamlined.

Advertising the Pebble Mine as a significant source of rhenium marks the latest strategy by Northern Dynasty to advance its long delayed, highly controversial, project — a polymetallic deposit that contains copper, gold, molybdenum, rhenium and various other metals.

Read more

Market caps decline in metals, mining due to US dollar strength, ESG issues – by Taylor Kuykendall and Gaurang Dholakia (SP Global.com – October 6, 2020)

https://www.spglobal.com/

BHP Group and Rio Tinto continued to dominate the list of top metals and mining companies by market capitalization in September, as the sector collectively lost value against a strengthening U.S. dollar and reports of numerous environmental, social and governance issues.

The 25 largest companies in the space held a total market cap of US$817.07 billion as of Sept. 30. Rio Tinto and BHP Group had an aggregate market value of $220.39 billion, more than a quarter of the combined total of the 25 companies.

Market cap percentage changes were calculated based on reported currencies, while the analysis bases company rankings on market values converted into U.S. dollars.

Read more

In a world that needs metals, how can we mine more responsibly? – by Ryan Stuart (The Narwhal – October 6, 2020)

The Narwhal

It may not have the allure of gold, but as a key component of solar panels, next generation batteries and computer memory chips, there is a rush on finding new deposits of tellurium, a so-called critical metal.

It’s produced in small amounts as a by-product of heavy metal mining, but a potentially richer source is in the Coast Mountains, south of Smithers, B.C. That’s where Vancouver-based Deer Horn Capital hopes to dig up 10,000 tonnes of rock in 2021 as a bulk test, a first step toward building a small tellurium, gold and silver mine.

But even before the company starts blasting, Deer Horn is breaking ground. It is one of the first mining-related firms in Canada to join the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, or IRMA.

Read more

BC’s Quesnel Trough: 1,000 km of mineral potential – by Ellsworth Dickson(Resource World – October 2020)

https://resourceworld.com/

The Quesnel Trough, also known as the Quesnel Terrane, is a Triassic/Jurassic-age arc of volcanosedimentary and intrusive rocks that hosts a number of alkalic copper-gold porphyry deposits with copper gold and silver values and sometimes molybdenum.

The Trough runs northwest some 1,000 km from the U.S. border in south-central British Columbia to close to the Yukon border. In addition to the copper-gold porphyry deposits, the Quesnel Trough, the longest mineral belt in Canada, is also known for several types of gold deposits.

The Teck Resources open pit Highland Valley Mine, which is, in fact, located about 50 km southwest of Kamloops, is expected to produce annual copper production of between 155,000 and 165,000 tonnes per year from 2021 to 2023.

Read more

Tesla is in talks with top miner BHP over nickel-supply pact – by Yvonne Yue Li and David Stringer (Bloomberg News – October 6, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Tesla Inc. is in talks with BHP Group on a nickel deal as the electric-car maker targets higher production and seeks to avoid a supply crunch, according to people familiar with the matter.

Talks are held up on pricing, and no final agreement has been reached so far between the automaker and BHP, the world’s largest miner, said one of the people, requesting anonymity because the talks are private.

The discussions come as Tesla works to raise the amount of the metal used in vehicle batteries to improve performance, and as it makes a push into in-house cell production.

Read more

Editorial: Cell phones are killing gorillas (Iowa State Daily – October 6, 2020)

https://www.iowastatedaily.com/

The United States throws away about 152 million phones every year. Worldwide, 400 million people have an old, spare cell phone that they keep.

Besides the fact that throwing away cell phones is e-waste, properly disposing of and recycling your old phones can help an endangered species: the Western lowland gorillas.

A mineral called coltan is found in cell phones, which is mined in the rainforests the gorillas call home, thus destroying their habitats.

Read more

Nickel supply to drop by 2025 – Macquarie – by Esmarie Iannucci (MiningWeekly.com – October 6, 2020)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Global financial services provider Macquarie Group has called for investment into the nickel sector, despite an anticipated oversupply in the near-term.

Speaking at the Paydirt Nickel conference, in Perth, Macquarie consultant Jim Lennon said that immediate investment in the nickel sector would be required to meet the potential “explosive” demand post 2025.

“Covid-19 has obviously had a negative impact on the supply/demand fundamentals for nickel, with the market shifting from a deficit to a surplus, and these conditions could last for a few years,” Lennon said.

Read more