Toll processing facility would be first of its kind in North America
A major expansion is definitely in the cards to restart a mothballed refinery in northeastern Ontario that’s gearing up to serve the electric vehicle market.
Toronto’s First Cobalt is skipping a staged approach to reopening the plant, situated outside the town of Cobalt, and is opting instead on focusing their construction efforts on quadrupling production capacity.
The plant is currently configured to process 12 tonnes of cobalt sulphate a day. Expansion would boost that to 55 tonnes and would represent five per cent of the world’s cobalt refining capacity.
Canada’s junior gold mining sector is on track for its best year for financing in nearly a decade as companies take advantage of soaring gold prices to load up on cash and advance long-delayed exploration and development projects.
Fuelled by a weak U.S. dollar and expectations of inflation, gold prices have raced higher in recent months, hitting US$1,900 an ounce on Friday, only about US$20 below the historic high in 2011.
This runup has allowed dozens of Canadian mining firms, long out of favour with investors, to tap equity markets in a wave of bought deals.
(Kitco News) – The juggernaut that is the gold market remains unstoppable it started the week hitting an all-time high against the U.S. dollar.
The gold market made its historic move Sunday evening during the Asian trading session. First spot gold hit its all-time high above $1,920 and then August futures quickly followed suit. August gold last traded at $1,922.70 an ounce, up more than 1% on the day.
Although the record has been a significant target for analysts and investors, it is also seen by some as just a small speed bump within a much bigger uptrend.
SUDBURY — Earlier this week, Tesla boss Elon Musk called for global mining companies to boost their production of nickel, a key element in making batteries for electric cars.
“Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way,” Musk said Wednesday, as the company announced second-quarter results. “Don’t wait for nickel to go back to some high point you experienced five years ago … Wherever you are in the world, please mine more nickel.”
Musk made the comments as Tesla is boosting its production of electric vehicles. Overall, demand for the type of nickel needed in electric car batteries grew by 28 per cent in 2019 alone.
Notwithstanding the historical hype of the Klondike Gold Rush in Canadian society, the two most important mining events in our history are the discoveries of the Sudbury nickel mines in 1883 and the Cobalt silver boom of 1903.
Both were the result of railroads – the construction of the Canadian Pacific to British Columbia in Sudbury’s case and the building of the provincial Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, going through Cobalt, which was for the colonization of northern Ontario.
But the similarities end there. Sudbury was built with U.S. capital and strategic technology. Cobalt was largely built and significantly financed by Canadian business and was the start of Canada’s global reputation as mine finders and builders. The two camps had much overlap but were also very distinct in their own rights.
Ohio-born businessman Samual J. Ritchie was the driving force who really started mining production in the Sudbury Basin with the founding of the Canadian Copper Company in 1886. A subsequent merger in 1902 with the New Jersey-based Orford Copper Company, which had the vital technology to separate the nickel from the copper in Sudbury’s complex ore, lead to the creation of the legendary International Nickel Company. (INCO)
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 Tesla Inc. depends on.
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 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:
(L to R) Antoine Schwartzmann, Stephen Stewart, Charles Beaudry, Keith Benn, Chitrali Sarkar
Who says mining is not sustainable? The recent announcement by IAMGOLD to start building a C$2 billion Cote Lake open pit gold mine 140 km north of Sudbury which will employ 1,000 workers during peak construction and roughly 450 full-time middle-class jobs is welcome news. The mine life is expected to be around 18 years, however, ongoing exploration may extend the life of mine.
Vale’s Creighton mine which started production in 1901, is still going strong 8,000 feet below surface. The deeper the company goes, the richer the nickel/copper and PGM content of the ore gets. Kirkland Lake’s Macassa gold mine started production in 1933. With new discoveries at deeper levels and a roughly $320 million investment for a new mine shaft, Kirkland Lake Gold’s CEO Tony Makuch is extending the mine’s life for another 30 to 40 years!
Northern Ontario’s mining camps have seen many mines whose lifespans have lasted 50 years or much longer while hundreds of others with shorter operations have still provided tens of thousands of jobs and billions in economic activity for the Ontario economy over the past century.
Meanwhile car manufacturing at Oshawa’s General Motors plant started in 1907 and unfortunately closed in 2018, dealing a devastating blow to southern Ontario’s auto-focused economy. Similarly, in 2011, Ford Motor Company permanently closed its St. Thomas assembly plant that opened in 1967. Now there are rumour’s that Ford may be closing its giant auto assembly plant in Oakville.
IAMGOLD greenlights construction on Côté open-pit gold mine
IAMGOLD has given the green light to go ahead with construction on a major gold mine near Gogama, a project that is being called a “gamechanger” for the entire region, but especially Greater Sudbury.
Not only that, but IAMGOLD’s Côté Gold Project will be one of a handful of mines in Canada to utilize autonomous vehicles for haulage and exploration drilling — a literal mine of the future.
Company president-CEO Gordon Stothart confirmed the Toronto gold miner remains wedded to using this leading-edge technology in making an announcement of the upcoming start of construction later this year of the more than $1.3-billion, district-scale, open-pit gold mine near Gogama in northeastern Ontario.
Copper futures prices rallied on Tuesday after the agreement of a massive economic stimulus plan in Europe, optimism about a covid-19 vaccine and ongoing worries about pandemic-hit supply from top producer South America.
Copper for delivery in September trading in New York changed hands for $2.9750 a pound ($6,560 a tonne) in early afternoon trade, up 2% from Monday’s settlement.
Copper futures prices are on track for the highest close in two years and are now up by more than 50% from the covid-19 lows struck in March.
The president of Sudbury’s Centre of Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) says he hopes a federal investment into the mining technology sector provides the catalyst to get more Sudbury technology products out on the international market.
If approved by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, the $40 million into MICA – the Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator – would help connect the innovators with the manufacturers, with an emphasis on developing environmentally friendly technology.
“I think some amazing work, amazing companies are coming out of Sudbury,” Charles Nyabeze said. “They’re actually advancing clean, smart technologies, but they do need help.”
Gold miner Iamgold on Tuesday announced a construction decision for the $1.3-billion Côté gold project, in Ontario, Canada, creating more than 1 000 jobs during its construction.
The project, near Gogama, south-west of Timmins, is a 70:30 joint venture with Sumitomo Metal Mining.
The decision enables construction to start in the third quarter, with activities ramping up into the fourth quarter. The current timeline is to enter into commercial production in the second half of 2023.
The coronavirus pandemic opened Americans’ eyes to the vulnerability of our supply chains and our over-reliance on critical goods from foreign nations.
Many people suddenly realized, at the height of the pandemic, that the important medical products we urgently needed – like masks and ventilators – were coming from abroad.
And it is not just medical products. We are dependent on countries that are not reliable trading partners for automotive parts, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and even naturally occurring materials like uranium and critical minerals.
(Bloomberg) — A year ago, you couldn’t get Wall Street to touch most gold miners’ stocks. Today, it’s throwing billions at the industry.
Precious-metals miners once seen as too leveraged and high-risk for the typical investor raised $2.4 billion in secondary equity offerings during the second quarter, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s the most since 2013 and seven times more than the funds they raised a year earlier.
With the Covid-19 crisis threatening economies worldwide and gold prices soaring on the heels of monetary and stimulus programs, precious-metals companies have become the darlings of the investment community.
Putting nature above business considerations has the potential to generate 395 million jobs and $10.1 trillion in business opportunities by 2030, the latest report by World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests.
Unprecedented job losses and economic uncertainty following the outbreak of covid-19 have governments looking into ways to stimulate growth in a safe manner. According to the WEF experts, the answer can be found in what they call a “nature first” approach.
“The global economy is inextricably linked to the health of our planet,” the report says. “How we produce, manufacture, consume and ultimately manage our waste is straining nature’s ability to cope.”
The iron ore boom powering the profits of the world’s biggest mining companies is showing no sign of fading thanks to stronger-than-expected Chinese steel demand.
Despite multiple forecasts over the past 12-months that the iron ore price was overdue for a fall it has done exactly the opposite, rising this week to a new 2020 high of $107 a ton, up 30% over the past four months.
Given that the biggest miners produce iron ore at a cash cost of around $13/t that latest price implies a gross profit margin, before accounting and other charges, of close to 700%.
