Twitter

U.S. ‘falling behind’ in global race to develop electric vehicle supply chain – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters U.S. – September 17, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is losing the race to extract and refine minerals used to make electric vehicles and should do more to spur domestic production, a bipartisan group of senators said on Tuesday.

The push comes as China has grown to dominate the market for lithium, rare earths, cobalt and other so-called strategic minerals used to make a plethora of consumer products, a dominance that politicians have said poses a strategic threat to the United States.

The Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a Tuesday hearing in part to keep the topic fresh in the national dialogue even as attention begins to lurch toward the 2020 presidential campaign.

Read more

Newmont’s Incoming CEO Says No ‘Fire Sale’ Coming for Assets – by Vinicy Chan and Millie Munshi (Bloomberg/Yahoo.com – September 17, 2019)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — Newmont Goldcorp Corp. is ready to sit tight on asset sales, even if that means not reaching a previously announced goal of as much as $1.5 billion in divestments.

That’s according to Tom Palmer, the company’s incoming chief executive officer. The world’s largest gold producer will be focusing on optimizing its current assets and is happy overall with its portfolio, other than a previously announced sale of Red Lake in Canada, he said.

“We’re in no rush to sell anything,” Palmer said in an interview Tuesday at the Denver Gold Forum. “There will be no fire sale in Newmont Goldcorp.”

Read more

Britain’s biggest mining project in peril as Sirius bond aborted – by Barbara Lewis and Noor Zainab Hussain (Reuters U.K. – September 17, 2019)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Sirius Minerals (SXX.L) scrapped a plan to raise $500 million in a bond sale on Tuesday, delaying a project to mine for fertiliser under a national park in northern England and halving the value of its shares.

The company had already suspended the bond issue in August. Sirius blamed market conditions aggravated by uncertainty over Britain’s departure from the European Union for its failure to secure funding.

Sirius said on Tuesday the government had turned down a renewed request for backing in August. The company said it would conduct a six-month review to work out cost savings and would slow development of the project.

Read more

The Red Lake resurgence: Miners and explorers seek ever more gold from this busy Ontario district – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – September 16, 2019)

http://resourceclips.com/

A new gold producer on the way, attention-grabbing assays from a well-financed junior and high hopes for the price of gold—could that in any way explain the current excitement at Red Lake? A region that’s produced 30 million ounces since its first rush in 1926 still has more gold to mine and, explorers believe, more mines to find.

Just as Newmont Goldcorp TSX:NGT was considering the sale of its Red Lake operations, Pure Gold Mining TSXV:PGM began building Madsen Red Lake, billed as Canada’s highest-grade gold development project. But, as far as juniors are concerned, the district’s biggest newsmaker has been Great Bear Resources’ (TSXV:GBR) Dixie Lake property.

While focused on British Columbia’s Golden Triangle in 2017, Great Bear optioned Dixie from Newmont, also getting decades of data from over 160 historic holes. Given the succession of companies that drilled and departed, the data might have seemed more encumbrance than encouragement.

Read more

Revving up Greenland’s mineral production will take time – by Virginia Heffernan (Northern Miner – September 16, 2019)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The MV Happy Dragon had just sailed into safe harbour at Charleston, South Carolina when Hurricane Dorian forced the vessel back out to sea to await better weather.

The cargo ship was carrying more than 14,000 tonnes of anorthosite from Vancouver-based Hudson Resources’ (TSXV: HUD; US-OTC: HUDRF) White Mountain mine in Greenland for customers in the paints, coatings and fibreglass markets. Hudson has an agreement with Terra Firma, a privately-held chemical distributor, to market its anorthosite in the U.S. and a 10-year off-take agreement with an unnamed fibreglass producer.

Could White Mountain and other mineral deposits — especially those containing rare earth elements (REEs) used in most electronic devices and in the aerospace and defense industries— be what U.S. President Donald Trump had in mind when he offered last month to buy Greenland, an offer Denmark called “absurd”? That’s at least part of the story.

Read more

Yukon Zinc, owner of Wolverine mine, put into receivership – by Jackie Hong (Yukon News – September 16, 2019)

https://www.yukon-news.com/

Yukon Zinc Corporation, the company that owns the troubled Wolverine mine, has been put into receivership. Yukon Supreme Court Justice Suzanne Duncan approved an order putting PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. in charge of the company’s affairs Sept. 13 following a short hearing in Whitehorse.

Under the order, PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. will be allowed to, among other things, “take possession of and exercise control” over the Wolverine mine, carry out care and maintenance activities, manage legal proceedings and debts, and sell, transfer or lease assets as required.

The order is the result of a petition the Yukon government filed back in July, in which it requested Yukon Zinc be put into receivership due to “increasing uncertainty about Yukon Zinc’s ability to manage the site.”

Read more

Statewide View Column: Closing down coal gives China’s, India’s iron industries an edge – by Isaac Orr (Duluth News Tribune – September 16, 2019)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Xcel Energy recently made headlines by announcing it wished to close down its coal-fired power plants 10 years before they were previously scheduled to retire.

However, it would be nothing short of a disaster for Minnesota’s mining industry, both present and future, if Minnesota Power pursued a similar path by closing the coal-fired Boswell Energy Center at a time when China and India are greatly expanding their use of coal.

Mining requires an enormous amount of energy. In fact, the MinnTac mine in Mountain Iron reportedly uses more electricity and natural gas than the entire city of Minneapolis, and only the coal-fired Boswell Energy Center can provide the affordable, reliable, around-the-clock electricity needed to keep Minnesota mines competitive in a global marketplace.

Read more

Vale misled public on dangerous dams, prompting Brazil probe: source – by Marta Nogueira, Jake Spring and Christian Plumb (Reuters Canada – September 17, 2019)

https://ca.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Faced with public outrage after its second mining dam collapse in four years killed at least 240 people in Brazil, Vale SA misrepresented what it had done to shut down its riskiest dams, a review of the company’s statements shows.

Fabio Schvartsman, Vale’s then-chief executive, said at a nationally broadcast news conference days after the dam burst in late January that the company had already decommissioned nine “upstream dams” in the wake of a 2015 disaster involving the same type of structure, and planned to dismantle 10 more over the next few years. The company repeated the claim in a statement on its website.

Reuters asked Vale for details on these moves on February 5, seven days after Schvartsman’s news conference. In March, some five weeks later, Vale gave Reuters a list of nine dams that it said it had closed since 2014, a year before the Mariana disaster.

Read more

[Australia] Opinion: Mining employment returns to boom-time footing – by Matthew Stevens (Australian Financial Review – September 17, 2019)

https://www.afr.com/

An imminent return to boom-time employment levels in the Australian mining sector is likely to accelerate labour cost inflation that is already evident in the industry’s most active hubs in Western Australia and Queensland.

A landmark review of near-term investment intentions by the Australian Mines & Metals Association has identified $41 billion worth of projects that are likely to be installed across our mining nation over the five years to 2024.

As a result, AMMA anticipates that direct employment by the mining sector will grow by about 8 per cent – or more than 20,000 – between now and 2024. The AMMA study quoted an unnamed gold mining executive as saying:

Read more

OPINION: The oil geo-political risk premium that should never have disappeared is suddenly back – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – September 17, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The weekend attack on an enormous Saudi crude oil-processing plant reintroduces a key factor – a geopolitical risk premium – that had largely disappeared from the price. The premium could remain permanent if any next attack were to take out a giant oil field. This one did not.

The skillful attack on the Abqaiq plant, which prepares crude for delivery in pipelines by removing its sulphur and other guck, and the nearby Khurais oil field put the vulnerability of Saudi oil infrastructure on full and instant display.

Drones, or possibly cruise missiles, hit several big tanks at Abqaiq and other equipment, sending clouds of black smoke billowing upward. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen took credit for the damage, though U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, without supporting his claim with evidence, placed the blame squarely on Iran even though some reports said the attacks may have come from Iraq or from within Saudi Arabia.

Read more

In the Neskantaga First Nation, undrinkable water is a crisis of health and faith – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – September 16, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Why can mining companies build water treatment plants for their
workers in remote locations in a timely manner that have no problems?

And why could a dinky little country of 4.5 million, take less than five years, in the early 1880s, to build the longest railroad in the world, at that time, through some of the harshest geography on the planet and yet a modern, industrialized G-7 C$2 trillion economy not be able to provide clean drinking water to all affected FNs in ONE political
mandate of roughly four years?? – Stan Sudol

After a quarter-century of Canada’s longest boil-water advisory, the people of Neskantaga thought their water crisis could not possibly get worse. They were wrong.

The breakdown of two electric pumps has left the isolated First Nations community without any water in some of its homes this week, and only a trickle of unchlorinated water in others. Its school has shut down, and nearly 100 people were flown to Thunder Bay on emergency evacuation flights on Sunday, with more evacuations scheduled for Monday evening.

Some residents are already reporting headaches and skin infections from the water, according to Chief Chris Moonias. The federal Liberals have pledged to eliminate all of the 56 remaining boil-water advisories in First Nations communities across Canada by March, 2021. But the prolonged crisis at Neskantaga and other First Nations has raised doubts about whether or not that promise will be met.

Read more

In Planet’s Fastest-Warming Region, Jobs Come With Thaw – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – September 17, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The Canadian Arctic is melting, and two new gold mines are booming.

James Kalluk spent much of his childhood inside an igloo in Canada’s far north, close to the Arctic Circle. Building that kind of home requires temperatures low enough to freeze the region’s countless lakes, a particular consistency of snow and a long-bladed knife the Inuit call a pana.

“Today, there’s not much snow and it’s harder to make an igloo,” said Kalluk, now in his early 70s. “You may find a spot here or there that’s good, but the snow is very difficult now. It’s different.”

The loss of snow and ice are causing Canada to heat up much faster than the rest of the world—more than twice the global rate of warming, according to a national scientific assessment published in April. The farther north you go, the more accelerated the warming.

Read more

California Miners Call for Legislation to Fight China’s Grip on Rare Earth Minerals – by Brad Jones (The Epoch Times – September 16, 2019)

https://www.theepochtimes.com/

California miners have been warning Congress about China’s ever-tightening grip on rare earth minerals needed for national defense for years, and now they’ve taken their message to the White House.

In the last year or so, representatives of Public Lands for the People (PLP), a national mining rights advocacy group based in Southern California, and Scott Harn, editor and publisher of ICMJ’s Prospecting and Mining Journal, have made five trips to Washington, D.C. to meet with lawmakers, their aides, and federal government departments.

PLP’s researcher Clark Pearson was invited to the White House in 2018, and since then he and Harn have spent a total of 35 days in Washington meeting with President Donald Trump’s key advisors.

Read more

Nickel mining indefinitely suspended in southern Philippines: official – by Enrico Dela Cruz (Reuters U.S. – September 16, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

MANILA (Reuters) – A nickel mining hub in the southern Philippines, which produces mostly high-grade material, has suspended extraction operations indefinitely as the regional government conducts an industry audit, a top government official told Reuters on Monday.

The government of Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) has suspended operations of all four mining companies in its jurisdiction, said Environment, Natural Resources and Energy Minister Abdulraof Abdul Macacua.

The Philippines was the world’s second-largest nickel ore producer in 2018 after Indonesia, with both Southeast Asian nations as the top two suppliers to biggest buyer China.

Read more

Exclusive: Greece seeks new mining jobs, higher royalties in talks with Eldorado – by Angeliki Koutantou (Reuters Canada – September 16, 2019)

https://ca.reuters.com/

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece is in talks with Canada’s Eldorado Gold to secure higher royalties from its mining development projects and new jobs, Energy Minister Kostis Hatzidakis said on Monday.

Vancouver-based miner Eldorado has two operating mines and two development projects in northern Greece and its planned investment is viewed as one of the biggest in the country in years. The projects have, however, repeatedly stalled over licensing delays and environmental concerns.

They have become flagship schemes for Greece’s new conservative government, which took office in July with a pledge to unblock foreign investments and help boost economic output crimped by a quarter through years of financial turmoil.

Read more