Republic of Mining

Glencore posts $2.6 billion loss, scraps dividend – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – August 6, 2020)

August 6, 2020

https://www.mining.com/

Miner and commodities trader giant Glencore (LON: GLEN) posted a $2.6 billion loss for the first half of the year and scrapped its dividend, as the coronavirus pandemic dented global demand and lowered prices and production at its mining division.

Despite the virus impact, the Swiss firm managed to remain profitable on an operating basis. Glencore posted $1.5 billion in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, but booked $3.2 million in impairment charges.

The company said it was putting balance sheet strength ahead of shareholder returns, as net debt climbed 12% to $19.7 billion at the end of June.

Barrick backs new global industry standard for mine tailings dams – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – July 5, 2020)

August 6, 2020

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

North Shore miner Barrick Gold is endorsing a new international standard for managing current and future mine tailings facilities with the aim of preventing waste dam failures.

The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management was born from a year-long review process by United Nations Environment Programme, Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the International Council on Mining and Minerals.

With more than 12,000 tailings storage facilities globally, the goal of the review was to establish a standard of the safer management of mine waste, by strengthening environmental, social, governance and technical practices of the mining industry across the entire lifecycle of these facilities.

How microbes could help clean up Nova Scotia’s abandoned mines – by Emma Smith (CBC News Nova Scotia – August 6, 2020)

August 6, 2020

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/

‘We want to develop a treatment that you would apply … that would block the arsenic and the mercury’

Researchers from three Maritime universities are hoping microbes collected from the bottom of a lake near an abandoned gold mine in Dartmouth, N.S., will provide a model for how to clean up contaminated sites across the province in a quicker and less-intrusive way.

Last May, a research team took a boat to the middle of Lake Charles, not far from the former Montague gold mine, where extensive mining took place from 1860 to about 1940.

They lowered a plastic tube 30 metres into the water and scooped up 200-year-old sediment, which provides a snapshot of the lake before, during and after the mine was in operation.

Gold price pushes well above $2,000, much more upside possible – by Jim Wyckoff (Kitco News – August 5, 2020)

August 5, 2020

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) Gold prices are sharply higher and hit a record high of $2,048.00, basis October Comex futures, in early U.S. trading Wednesday.

Silver prices are also sharply higher and hit a seven-year high of $27.195, basis September Comex futures. October gold futures were last up $35.00 an ounce at $2,043.50. September Comex silver prices were last up $0.987 at $27.03 an ounce.

Gold and silver are continuing on a bullish rampage. Both metals continue to see support from safe-haven demand amid the worrisome rise in Covid-19 infections, geopolitical developments and concerns about problematic price inflation in the coming months.

U.S.-based investor proposes $700-million rescue plan for TMAC, urges Ottawa to reject sale to China – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – August 5, 2020)

August 5, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A U.S.-based activist investor is urging the Canadian government to reject the proposed acquisition of Arctic miner TMAC Resources Inc. by a Chinese state-owned gold company and is proposing an alternative capital infusion plan that would see TMAC remain as a standalone.

James Rasteh, head of New York City hedge fund Coast Capital Management, said in an interview he can raise $700-million from his investors that would negate the need for TMAC to be acquired by Shandong Gold Mining Co. Ltd.

“We can absolutely raise the capital,” Mr. Rasteh said. In May, Shandong proposed an all-cash acquisition of TMAC worth $207.4-million, a small premium to its then market share price.

Lynas gets green light for waste treatment plant in Malaysia – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – August 4, 2020)

August 5, 2020

https://www.mining.com/

Malaysia has approved Australian rare earths miner Lynas Corp’s (ASX: LYC) application to build a permanent disposal facility for waste treatment, a minister said on Tuesday.

The miner, the world’s only major producer of rare earths outside China, can now proceed with construction of the waste plant, on a site identified by the Pahang state government, Khairy Jamaluddin, science, technology and innovation minister said, The Edge Markets reported.

In August last year, the Sydney-based company was able to renew the operating license for its Malaysian processing plant for six months, subject to conditions that included identifying a site for a permanent facility to store its low-level radioactive waste.

This lithium exploration project could revitalize the Sask. oil industry – by Taylor Rattray (CTV News Regina – August 4, 2020)

August 5, 2020

https://regina.ctvnews.ca/

REGINA — A new project is bringing lithium exploration to Saskatchewan, and it could have major implications for the province’s oil industry.

Prairie Lithium Corp. is part of a project that will take oilfield brine water, and extract lithium through a series of chemical reactions.

“The lithium-free brine water is then sent back down hole for disposal, and the extracted lithium can be sent for further refining into battery-grade materials,” said Zach Maurer, president and CEO of Prairie Lithium Corp.

Spectre of atomic bomb still looms over N.W.T. community 75 years after Hiroshima – by Katie Toth (CBC News North – August 5, 2020)

August 5, 2020

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

Please note that the Germans and Japanese were also working to develop an Atomic bomb. https://lat.ms/39XwV1P and https://bit.ly/3fv8Oc6 – RepublicOfMining.com

Délı̨nę is haunted by its connection to the Manhattan Project and creation of the nuclear bomb

Seventy-five years after two nuclear bombs were dropped in Japan — killing hundreds of thousands of people in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — one small community in the Northwest Territories is still haunted by its connection to the blasts.

Across Great Bear Lake from the 533-person hamlet of Délı̨nę sits the historic mining site of Port Radium.

Workers originally mined radium for medical use. But at the height of the Second World War, the Canadian government quietly called for uranium production as part of the country’s involvement in the Manhattan Project.

How Close Was Hitler to the A-Bomb? – by Von Klause Wiegrefe (Spiegel International – March 14, 2005)

August 5, 2020

https://www.spiegel.de/international/

The United States needed 125,000 people, including six future Nobel Prize winners, to develop the atomic bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The uranium enrichment facility alone, including its security zone, was the size of the western German city of Frankfurt. Dubbed the Manhattan project, the quest ultimately cost the equivalent of about $30 billion.

In his new book, “Hitler’s Bomb,” Berlin historian Rainer Karlsch claims Nazi Germany almost achieved similar results with only a handful of physicists and a fraction of the budget.

New evidence of Japan’s effort to build atom bomb at the end of WWII – by Jake Adlstein (Los Angeles Times – August 5, 2015)

August 5, 2020

https://www.latimes.com/

Reporting from Tokyo — In August 1945, the U.S. dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, as Japan and the rest of the world prepare to mark seven decades since the end of World War II in the Pacific, new evidence has emerged about the Japanese military’s own secret program to build a nuclear weapon.

A retired professor at the state-run Kyoto University recently discovered a blueprint at the school’s former Radioisotope Research lab, Japan’s Sankei newspaper and other local media reported recently.

The notebooks were related to research work by Bunsaku Arakatsu, a professor at the university whom Sankei said was asked by the Japanese navy to develop an atomic bomb during the war.

OPINION: Canada must acknowledge our key role in developing the deadly atomic bomb – by Setsuko Thurlow (Globe and Mail – August 1, 2020)

August 5, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Please note that the Germans and Japanese were also working to develop an Atomic bomb. https://lat.ms/39XwV1P and https://bit.ly/3fv8Oc6 – RepublicOfMining.com

Setsuko Thurlow is a Canadian nuclear disarmament campaigner who survived the bombing of Hiroshima.

On Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, the largest bell in the Peace Tower at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa will ring 75 times to mark the dropping of the two atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The arrangement was made by the Green Party’s Elizabeth May and Canada’s Speaker of the House, Liberal MP Anthony Rota. The bell ringing by the Dominion carillonneur Andrea McCrady will be livestreamed by the Peace Tower Carillon website so that it may be heard across Canada and around the world.

As someone who witnessed and experienced the consequences of nuclear war, I very often have brutal images in my mind of the atomic bombing.

Column: Elon Musk should invest in Sudbury – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – July 28, 2020)

July 31, 2020

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Elon Musk is practically begging nickel miners to boost production as potential future shortages would severely impact his ability to manufacture electric vehicles as the metal is a key component for the batteries on which Tesla Inc. depends.

Historically, nickel has always been a boom/bust metal due to the fact the world only produces about 2.1 million metric tonnes of the material a year as opposed to a more commonly used metal like copper at 20 million metric tonnes. And roughly only half of nickel production is of the Class-1 type that is used in batteries that run electric vehicles.

Currently, the cost of nickel is nearing a cyclical bottom, hence the reluctance of nickel miners to invest the possible near billion dollars it takes to bring on a new mine.

Musk is a multi-billionaire and his company stock is at an all-time high. Instead of whining to the mineral industry to invest “their shareholder money” in new nickel production at a time of low returns here are some suggestions to calm his fear of future shortages:

Larder Lake junior miner using AI to find gold targets – by Staff (July 30, 2020)

July 31, 2020

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Gatling Exploration contracts Windfall Geotek to dig through the data

Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a role in helping Gatling Exploration chase down some gold targets near the established mining camp of Kirkland Lake.

The Vancouver junior miner has engaged AI experts, Windfall Geotek, to use its advanced Computer Aided Resource Detection System (CARDS) to identify targets at the company’s Larder Gold project, 35 kilometres east of Kirkland Lake in McVittie and McGarry Townships.

Gatling said in a July 30 release that the targets will be evaluated and then explored using more traditional exploration techniques.

Australian miners Rio Tinto and Fortescue post record iron ore shipments as China industrial recovery continues – by Su-Lin Tan (South China Morning Post – July 31 2020)

July 31, 2020

https://www.scmp.com/

Australian mining giants Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group have joined BHP Group in reporting record shipments of iron ore, the bulk of it to China, as an infrastructure and property construction boom in the world’s second largest economy drives a rebound in steel production.

The companies have reported record earnings on the back of the iron ore shipments, even though exports of other minerals like aluminium and copper remain in the doldrums as the coronavirus pandemic saps global demand.

Australia’s record iron ore exports to China, combined with a surge in shipments of coking and thermal coal, indicate trade in the key industrial ingredients has not suffered because of a diplomatic spat between the two countries.

Ottawa orders federal review of Alberta coal mine expansion – by Emma Graney (Globe and Mail – July 31, 2020)

July 31, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ottawa will re-examine a major expansion planned for the Vista coal mine in Alberta, saying Thursday a federal environmental assessment is necessary given how much the project would increase the site’s size and production.

The existing Vista coal mine is nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, near the town of Hinton.

Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told The Globe and Mail the expansion project would have “significant” environmental effects that fall under federal jurisdiction, thus triggering the need for an assessment.