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Flat drilling activity in Canada will result in more layoffs amid low-growth outlook for oil – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – November 13, 2019)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Next year could see almost 14,000 oilfield jobs lost: CAODC forecast

CALGARY – Drilling activity in Western Canada is poised to remain flat over the next year as drillers believe oil and gas sentiment is nearing an “all-time low” in the face of fresh forecasts that predict weak Canadian industry growth over the longer term.

The Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors’ annual activity forecast released Wednesday predicted there will be 13,731 direct and indirect jobs losses in the oilfield during 2020.

The association has said its member companies have already moved 29 drilling rigs to the United States “in order to find work and generate cash flow” and those rigs include the larger, higher-technology rigs used to drill deep, horizontal wells in new formations in Western Canada.

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Could there be a second Sudbury mining camp? – Staff (Northern Ontario Business – November 15, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Inventus Mining claims “breakthrough” that opens “new exploration frontier” in Sudbury Basin

An exploration company probing for nickel and other base metals on the outer fringes of the Sudbury Basin is claiming a “breakthrough” on one of its properties.

Inventus Mining Corp. said it’s found the same kind of rock formations on its Sudbury 2.0 property that’s known to host Sudbury’s “world class” nickel, copper and platinum group metals deposits.

In a Nov. 14 news release, Toronto-based Inventus heralds the “opening of a new exploration frontier” in the basin, based on the discovery of three offset dykes and a breccia belt more than 14 kilometres long.

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Lithium producers hit by first big downturn of electric vehicle era – by Ernest Scheyder (CNBC/Reuters – November 13, 2019)

https://www.cnbc.com/

LOS ANGELES, Nov 13 (Reuters) – The burgeoning lithium industry, which produces the powerhouse metal used to make electric vehicle (EV) batteries, has entered its first major downturn, an unwelcome bruising for investors eager to help combat climate change.

Albemarle Corp, Tianqi Lithium Corp and others have been producing more lithium than automakers need. Global supply exceeds demand by about 5 percent, according to Canaccord data.

That comes as electric vehicle sales in China – the world’s largest EV market – fell nearly a third in September amid sliding government subsidies, the third consecutive monthly decline, according to Jefferies.

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How Alberta pays Quebec’s bills: Four charts that show Alberta picks up the tab – by Bobby Hristova (National Post – November 15, 2019)

https://nationalpost.com/

The nearly $240B Albertans have paid out as part of net federal fiscal transfers is more than one-and-a-half times as much as B.C. and Ontario combined

In just 11 years, Albertans have paid out almost $240 billion to the rest of Canada. That number is more than one-and-a-half times as much as B.C. and Ontario combined, whose taxpayers pitched in $54.6 billion and $97.9 billion respectively, the other two largest net contributors to the federal balance sheet.

The money is sent to Ottawa as part of net federal fiscal transfers — basically the residents of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario pay more in federal taxes than they get back in federal programs and transfers — they are net positive contributors to the federal finances. And in Alberta’s case it has been doing that for a lot of years.

Other provinces are net negative contributors — they get more back in federal programs and transfers than they give in taxes. In Quebec’s case its net negative contributor was minus $171.3 billion from 2007-2018.

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World’s biggest miner names Canadian as new CEO, raises intrigue about potash ambitions – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – November 14, 2019)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Decision could have consequences on whether BHP pushes forward with a massive potash project in Saskatchewan in the coming years

Canadian Mike Henry will be the next chief executive of giant Australian miner BHP Group, a decision that could have consequences on whether it pushes forward with a massive potash project in Saskatchewan in the coming years.

Henry, 53, takes the helm in January, leaving a month or so for him to transition from his current role as head of BHP’s Australian mining operations, where the company’s iron ore mines that account for nearly half its revenue are located.

One item on his eventual to-do list, though not necessarily at the top, will be whether the company will allocate $5 billion to construct the first phase of its Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan. The project would initially add four million tons of potash to the market and as much as four times that over time, which could drastically alter the supply and demand dynamics for existing producers such as Saskatoon-based Nutrien Ltd.

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DEBUNKER: Bolivia’s Lithium Isn’t The New Oil – by Keith Johnson and James Palmer (Foreign Policy – November 13, 2019)

https://foreignpolicy.com/

The recent ouster of Bolivian President Evo Morales has sparked plenty of theories, especially on the left. One of the most prominent has been the idea that the military’s intervention is a coup intended to ensure U.S. control of a critical global resource: lithium.

That’s part of a tradition that sees U.S. foreign policy as being essentially about controlling natural wealth by any means necessary—one rooted in real American practices, from the deployment of U.S. Marines in defense of the United Fruit Company’s interests in Central America to President Donald Trump’s repeated orders to troops to protect oil, not Kurds, in Syria. But in this instance, the idea, heavily touted in the online left-wing media and by the occasional politician, is fundamentally mistaken.

Lithium is undoubtedly important to the future economy, because it’s one of the key components in lithium ion batteries that power everything from laptops to many electric cars. U.S. strategists have been interested in it since the 1960s for just these reasons.

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China in focus as West debates critical minerals challenge – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – November 13, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Western powers will attend talks in Brussels next week on curbing China’s dominance of rare earths and other critical resources and EU officials will present their vision to create entire green supply chains.

The talks, on Nov. 19, have taken place annually for much of this decade, bringing together diplomats and industry representatives from the European Union, Japan and United States.

They have yet to weaken China’s power, especially over rare earths, and global trade tensions aggravate the situation. In a daily news briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said it was not possible to “guide or monopolize” a certain sector or market in a closely connected world.

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Noront considers building small-scale ferrochrome pilot plant in Sudbury – by David Helwig (Soo Today – November 14, 2019)

https://www.sootoday.com/

Also, here’s about as detailed an accounting of what Noront has told us about the Sault plant as we can muster

Fifteen months after Sudbury was rejected as the future home of a billion-dollar Noront Resources Ltd. smelter, it appears the Nickel City may yet win a skinny-downed slice of ferrochrome pie.

Before building its controversial ferrochrome processing plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Noront wants to test its technology with a small-scale demonstration plant. Greater Sudbury is under consideration as the prototype’s location.

This previously undisclosed part of Noront’s plans was one of many new details that surfaced during six hours of formal and informal presentations by executives of the junior mining company late last month in the Sault. The tsunami of new information, released in a widely-criticized format, went largely unreported in media reports.

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United States sitting out race to mine ocean floor for metals essential to electronics (CBS News – November 13, 2019)

https://www.cbsnews.com/

One of the most high-stakes races in history is underway, with colossal riches waiting for the winners. It’s a race to a little known frontier: the bottom of the sea. Around the world, thousands of engineers and scientists are in fierce competition to build the first undersea robot that can mine the ocean floor.

The explosion of interest in deep sea mining is driven by the demands of our high-tech economy. The deep ocean is the El Dorado that contains metals like nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements, essential for use in cell phones, supercomputers and electric cars. They’re also critical for a green future of solar and wind power.

Dozens of nations, including Russia and China, are racing to get there first. But not the United States. As Bill Whitaker reports, America must sit on the sidelines of this great treasure hunt. Whitaker’s report will be broadcast on the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m. ET and 7 p.m. PT on CBS.

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Jihadist Groups Cash In on Artisanal Gold Rush in West Africa – by Katarina Hoije (Bloomberg News – November 14, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Artisanal gold mines in West Africa’s Sahel zone have become a source of financing and recruits for Islamist militants in the region as they secure sites or levy illicit taxes, according to the International Crisis Group.

“The main jihadist groups in the Sahel benefit financially from gold extraction — an activity that they consider lawful — in their areas of influence,” the Brussels-based advocacy group said in a report. “They do so in ways that vary from region to region.”

Armed groups with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have claimed hundreds of lethal attacks in West Africa. An insurgency that began in northern Mali in 2012 has spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and is threatening coastal states including Benin and Ivory Coast.

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Vale Manitoba Operations head believes there is an ore body equivalent to a new mine near Thompson – by Ian Graham (Thompson Citizen – November 13, 2019)

https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

A proposed $1 billion investment in Vale’s Thompson mines in the next five years could generate nearly $8 billion in economic activity over the next 45 years, the company’s head of Manitoba Operations told the Thompson Chamber of Commerce Nov. 13.

“What we’re looking at is exploring our ore bodies,” said Gary Eyres, estimating that the proposed investment would be equivalent to opening a new mine in Thompson and saying that it is possible another mine shaft could be excavated down to as far as 6,300 feet. Right now, mining areas extend down to 4,800 feet below the surface. “We haven’t found the end of the ore body yet. Somewhere close by, I believe, is the next Thompson mine.”

If the investment goes ahead, it would result in $7.9 billion worth of economic activity between now and 2065, $7.4 billion more than putting the mines on care and maintenance until 2043 would create. It’s also $5.4 billion more economic activity than would be generated by simply mining out the current areas of T1 and T3 by 2043.

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Global miner BHP taps Australia head Henry as new CEO – by Sonali Paul and Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – November 13, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – BHP Group Ltd (BHP.AX) (BHPB.L) on Thursday named its Australian head Mike Henry to succeed Andrew Mackenzie as the miner’s chief executive, shunning calls from some investors for fresh blood from outside the Anglo Australian giant.

Mackenzie, 62, will step down on Dec. 31 ending nearly seven years in charge of the biggest global miner, during which time he overhauled the company, spinning off a raft of assets and cutting costs sharply.

Henry, a 53-year-old Canadian who joined BHP in 2003, has led its Australian operations over the past three years, including its biggest earner, iron ore, and the world’s largest metallurgical coal operations.

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Glencore Canada to shut Brunswick smelter, union laments ‘devasting blow’ (MiningWeekly.com – November 13, 2019)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The Canadian unit of global mining and commodities trader Glencore on Wednesday announced the permanent closure of the Brunswick lead smelter, which it said had become uneconomic after the closure of the Brunswick mine in 2013.

The company said that the decommissioning process would begin immediately and the smelter, in Belledune, would cease all operations by the end of the year, affecting more than 400 workers.

Glencore head of zinc and lead assets, Chris Eskdale said in a news release that the decision to cease lead smelting operations was a “very difficult one”.

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Coal communities and the demonization of Thatcher and Obama – by John Kemp (Reuters U.S. – November 8, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Mine closures and employment losses have left deep economic, social and political scars on the main coal-producing regions of the United States and the United Kingdom.

Britain’s former coal mining communities remain among the most deprived in the country decades after the pits closed as they have struggled to attract new industries.

Perhaps as a result, there was a close correlation between former coalfields and some of the highest percentage votes for Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum. In the United States, the eastern coal regions have above well above average poverty rates and worse outcomes for health and mortality.

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Is China locking up Indonesian nickel? – by Richard Mills (Ahead-of-the-Herd.com – October 2019)

https://www.aheadoftheherd.com/

As it has done with cobalt, graphite and rare earths, China appears to be locking up the nickel market. Nickel’s top producer, Indonesia, in early September decided to accelerate a scheduled ban on ore export shipments, from 2022 to January 1, 2020.

The ban which instead took immediate effect on Oct. 28, is to encourage the building of domestic smelters instead of exporting raw nickel, and other metals, for processing abroad. (the country did the same thing in 2014 but lifted the ban three years later).

No coincidence

Is it any coincidence that Indonesia decided in September to ban nickel ore exports, just a few weeks after a meeting between Indonesian president Joko Widodo and Chinese industrial executives, including Xiang Guanda, who in partnership with his wife, runs Tsingshan Holding Group?

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