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No need to panic, but beer makers can’t get enough cans (Financial Post – October 7, 2020)

https://financialpost.com/

John Sleeman was looking for cans of Sleeman Cream Ale at a store, but couldn’t find them. “There were no cans,” the founder of Canada’s third-largest brewery said.

Instead, he settled for bottles, because Sleeman Breweries Ltd. and other Canadian beer brewers are struggling to get enough cans to meet their needs in the midst of a months-long can shortage in North America.

The can shortage means consumers’ preferred brand of beer — or pop, for that matter — might not always be available in the kind of package they want it in. But brewers this week said that, in most cases, they aren’t actually running out of packages to put their liquid in, just the most popular package.

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RBC will not finance Arctic refuge drilling, and puts restrictions on coal, under new investment guidelines – by Kathryn Blaze Baum and James Bradshaw (Globe and Mail – October 3, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Royal Bank of Canada will not provide direct financing for exploration or development projects in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska, according to a new policy that also imposes restrictions on financing for coal mining and power generation.

The RBC guidelines for sensitive sectors and activities, released on Friday, come less than two months after U.S. President Donald Trump finalized his administration’s plans to allow drilling in the country’s largest wildlife refuge.

In a statement, the bank said it periodically reviews and updates environmental and social risk-management policies based, in part, on the expectations of clients and stakeholders.

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Ring of Fire supply road ownership, financing remain unclear as environmental assessment begins – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – October 6, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Webequie’s engineering consultants open virtual open houses to take the temperature of the James Bay region

It’s unclear if construction on a Ring of Fire supply road can proceed without consensus by First Nation communities across the James Bay region.

Don Parkinson, a consultation lead working for Webequie First Nation, didn’t directly answer that question posed to him in an Oct. 6 virtual community meeting over whether road development will be allowed to begin without approval by nearby and outlying communities, like Neskantaga First Nation, with publicly expressed opposition to the project.

“My response to that is: let’s talk openly about the project and get these issues on the table and then we can look at solutions,” he said, in invited those communities to come forward to share their issues and concerns.

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More jobs, greater royalty payments attached to Hope Bay sale, company reps say – by Derek Neary (Nunavut News – October 5, 2020)

https://nunavutnews.com/

TMAC Resources is promoting the long-term advantages of selling its assets, including the Hope Bay gold mine, to China’s Shandong Gold Mining amid the unpredictability of Covid-19 and uncertainty over the federal government and the Kitikmeot Inuit Association’s stance on the pending transaction.

Several mine workers at Hope Bay tested positive for the coronavirus in late September and the company subsequently imposed a temporary travel embargo.

TMAC shareholders approved the $149 million (U.S.) sale to Shandong in June, but the Government of Canada still must decide whether a national security review is required.

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Covid-19 industry survey finds high confidence in mining sector leadership – by Alisha Hiyate (Northern Miner – September 22, 2020)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The Northern Miner and Canadian Mining Journal conducted a reader survey to gauge how the sector is faring through the Covid-19 pandemic, which began officially in March. The survey was open in July and August, with 384 people from the sector taking time to respond to a combination of multiple-choice and open-ended questions.

Respondents represented principally mining and exploration companies, suppliers to the industry, and consultants, with a smattering of respondents who identified as investors, or as being part of financial institutions, government or NGOs.

The survey captured a range of views, from the optimistic: “We believe that [the situation] has been handled very well and we are stronger for it,” to others indicating that they are just “scraping by.”

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$11.5 Billion Australian Merger Could Trigger A Global Gold Rush – by Tim Treadgold (Forbes Magazine – October 6, 2020)

https://www.forbes.com/

There’s a new member of the world’s mining elite with a friendly merger in Australia creating a top 10 gold producer in a move which could potentially act as a trigger for a wave of similar deals.

The $11.5 billion amalgamation of Norther Star Resources and Saracen Mineral Holdings has been expected since last year when the two became joint owners of the Fimiston mine on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie, Australia’s gold capital.

Also known as the Superpit, the mine has been in continuous production for more than 100 years and ranks as one of the biggest man-made holes on the earth’s surface and one of Australia’s biggest mines.

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‘The Coal Industry Is Back,’ Trump Proclaimed. It Wasn’t. – by Eric Lipton (New York Times – October 5, 2020)

https://www.nytimes.com/

PAGE, Ariz. — For decades, waves of electricity poured from this behemoth of a power plant on the high desert plateau of the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona, lighting up hundreds of thousands of homes from Phoenix to Las Vegas as it burned 240 rail cars’ worth of coal a day.

But as the day shift ended here at the Navajo Generating Station one evening early this year, all but a half-dozen spaces in the employee parking lot — a stretch of asphalt larger than a football field — were empty.

It was a similar scene at the nearby Kayenta coal mine, which fueled the plant. Dozens of the giant earth-moving machines that for decades ripped apart the hillside sat parked in long rows, motionless. Not a single coal miner was in sight, just a big, black Chihuahuan raven sitting atop a light post.

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Canadian miner mulls buying mothballed gold assets in Zimbabwe – by Felix Njini (Bloomberg News – October 5, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Caledonia Mining Corp. said it’s in talks to acquire assets that would expand its gold-mining operations in Zimbabwe.

The Toronto-based gold producer is targeting both privately held assets and mothballed mines owned by the state, according to spokesman Maurice Mason. He declined to name the companies Caledonia was talking to, but said the miner hopes to make an announcement on at least one of the assets by the end of this year.

Acquisitions could help Caledonia boost its annual output more than eightfold to half a million ounces as the company considers investing US$400 million in Zimbabwe over the next decade.

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Canadian “flawless” diamond sets online record of $15.7m at auction – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – October 5, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

A rare, flawless 102-carat white diamond found at the now closed Victor mine in Canada, has sold for $15.7 million (HK$122m), a record price in an online auction.

The small egg-size diamond was cut from a larger 271-carat rough, found in 2018, and then cut and polished for more than a year.

The bidding on the stone began in an online auction in September, culminating with an in-person auction at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on Monday evening.

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FOCUS: China to reassess domestic base metals mines to bolster resource security – by Julian Luk (Metal Bulletin – October 5, 2020)

https://www.metalbulletin.com/

After United States sanctions cut off supplies of microchips for Huawei smartphones, alarm bells began to ring out across all Chinese industries deemed as pivotal to the country’s future development, but reliant on imported materials.

And the base metals sector is one of the key areas, according to the chairman of Zijin Mining, Chen Jing-He. “Now we know the importance of securing the supply of microchips and food, but how about the feed for metals production – mined metals?

China relies heavily on base metals imports, so if foreign sanctions cut off our supplies, it could be even worse than running out of smartphone chips,” Chen told delegates at a recent strategic development conference on gold held in Beijing.

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Sherritt CEO pins future on demand for nickel for electric-car batteries – by Andrew Willis (Globe and Mail – October 6, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk pulled his latest stunt at an annual event called Battery Day in late September. He staged the gathering in a California parking lot and invited 200 Tesla shareholders to watch from their electric cars and honk if they liked what they heard.

There was a lot of honking. The sound was music to the ears of Sherritt International chief executive David Pathe, whose Toronto-based company mines the nickel and cobalt that make electric car batteries possible.

“Battery Day was a big event for us,” said Mr. Pathe, who spent the past eight years running a debt-heavy miner that had few big events to celebrate. “We expect to see significant growth as all the automakers roll out their electric strategies.”

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Newfoundland: An Unexpected Gold Exploration Destination – by Phil Gracin (The Deep Dive – October 4, 2020)

https://thedeepdive.ca/

Newfoundland is often overlooked by investors when searching for investment opportunities in the gold sector. The prolific Abitibi Greenstone Belt that runs through Northern Ontario and Quebec understandably attracts major interest, as does the Golden Triangle region of British Columbia with its many gold mines. Regions such as Newfoundland are off to the side of people’s vision.

Although not often on investor’s radar screens, Newfoundland has an extensive mining history. Small-scale mining dates back to the 1770’s, but it became a major industry only in the 1860’s, with the discovery of major copper at Notre Dame Bay and the Wabana iron ore deposits on Bell’s Island.

In 1905 a major lead-zinc-copper deposit was discovered near the town of Buchans in central Newfoundland. It was difficult to mine because there were no known milling processes that could adequately separate the mineral sulphides.

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The tech crisis that isn’t: China controls the world’s rare earth supply chains – by Scott Fulton 111 (ZDNET.com – October 2, 2020)

https://www.zdnet.com/

They’re called either the Diaoyu Archipelago or the Senkaku Islands — eight rocks just a few miles wide, if that, situated about 125 miles southwest of Okinawa.

They’re uninhabited, and generally so strategically unimportant that during negotiations for the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951 that established Japan’s territorial borders, diplomats forgot to mention them. They remained “occupied” by the US until 1972.

Today, Japan claims them, but so does China and so does Taiwan. From a distance, they look like the tops of old furniture floating just above the waterline after a flood.

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Can mineral extraction ever be environmentally acceptable? – by David Jessop (Virgin Islands Daily News – October 4, 2020)

http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/

In August, the price of gold reached a record high of $2,073 per ounce. It did so as investors concerned about the impact of COVID-19, global economic instability, and falling bond yields, decided it was a safe haven.

Coincidentally, the spike occurred as Guyana’s Stabroek News published an investigative report in collaboration with InfoAmazonia and media partners in Brazil and Venezuela which described how a significant part of the Republic’s informal gold production is trafficked abroad.

A few weeks later InfoAmazonia published a more detailed account. “Tracing Tainted Gold,” described how across the Guiana Shield, mercury trafficking networks are enabling gold produced by small miners to be laundered; how it is moving across uncontrolled borders and through the region’s ports; suggesting that it is entering legitimate global supply chains, and possibly ending up in products made by some of the world’s biggest corporations.

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New Caledonia voters choose to stay part of France – by Charlotte Antoine-Perron (Associated Press/CTV News – October 4, 2020)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

NOUMEA, NEW CALEDONIA — A majority of voters in New Caledonia, an archipelago in in the South Pacific, chose to remain part of France instead of backing independence Sunday, leading French President Emmanuel Macron to call for dialogue, as the referendum marked a crucial step in a three-decade long decolonization effort.

In a televised address from Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed “an expression of confidence in the Republic with a deep feeling of gratitude… and modesty.”

Macron promised pro-independence supporters “this is with you, all together, that we will build New Caledonia tomorrow.” He praised the “success” of the vote and called on New Caledonia residents to “look to the future.”

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