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Industry leaders converge in Sudbury for annual mining conference – by Staff (Sudbury Star – September 29, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Several big companies planning to launch or expand operations in city

Sudbury’s role as a vital mining hub was highlighted during a three-day conference last week, and the city was proud to be part of it. “The conversations we’ve been having this week at MINExpo confirm what we’ve always known – Greater Sudbury is a critical player in the global mining industry,” said Mayor Paul Lefebvre in a release. “Hearing first-hand from these industry leaders that we are vital to their expansion plans is a testament to the strength of our community and the sector.”

Lefebvre and city representatives met with a number of key industry leaders, including original equipment manufacturers, potential national and international investors, as well as local organizations, to explore collaboration and expansion opportunities.

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How much gas does gold prices have next week after prices touched $2,700 an ounce? – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – September 27, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – After hitting record highs for the last six days, the gold market is taking a breather as it experiences some technical selling pressure heading into the weekend.

Solid buying momentum briefly pushed gold above $2,700 an ounce on Thursday. However, some analysts express growing concerns that the precious metal’s rally may be a bit overdone. December gold futures last traded at $2,669 an ounce, down nearly 1% on the day; however, prices are up nearly 1% from last Friday.

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Gold repatriation shifting from north to south – by Rick Mills (Ahead of the Herd/Mining.com – September 27, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

In 2017 Germany brought home nearly $31 billion of gold bars that had been stored in New York and Paris after World War II. The Financial Times gives a good account of how Germany amassed, lost and then got its gold back.

Perhaps no other country (except maybe Zimbabwe) understands the value of bullion as a store of value than Germany. Hyperinflation during the Weimar Republic of the 1920s had citizens piling near-worthless Deutsche marks into wheelbarrows just to buy bare necessities.

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Burgundy Diamond Mines pauses plan for critical Ekati expansion (CBC News North – September 25, 2024)

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

Company also asking N.W.T. gov’t to reduce burden of ‘onerous’ mining regulations

The company that owns the Ekati diamond mine in the N.W.T. has paused a plan to develop an underground project at one of the mine’s pits — a plan it previously said was critical to Ekati’s future.

Burgundy Diamond Mines notified the Wek’èezhìı Land and Water Board Tuesday that it would be withdrawing its application for the Sable Underground development. It previously said its entire business could hinge on that project, and without it, Burgundy “risks the financial viability and sustainability of the business.”

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The Mavericks of Metals Are Back, Rocking a $15 Trillion Market – by Mark Burton, Alfred Cang, Archie Hunter and Jack Farchy (Bloomberg News – September 29, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — In 2002, the metals industry was jolted into uproar, after a US warehouse owner announced it would start charging a fee to safely buckle up each cargo being trucked from its depots in the London Metal Exchange’s storage network.

Overnight, traders trying to access metal backing the LME’s futures contracts were hit with tens of thousands of dollars in extra costs for work that took a matter of minutes. If any refused to pay, their metal stayed put, meaning the warehouse could keep charging rent. After furious complaints, Metro International Trade Services was reprimanded by the LME for charging to discourage withdrawals from its sheds.

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U.S. Ramps Up Hunt for Uranium to End Reliance on Russia – by Ivan Penn and Rebecca F. Elliott (New York Times – September 2024)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Miners aim to meet a growing demand for emissions-free energy, though a failure to clean up old sites haunts the industry.

More than 1,400 feet below an Arizona pine forest, miners are blasting tunnels in search of a radioactive element that can be used to make electricity. Two states north, in central Wyoming, drillers have been digging well after well in the desert, where that element — uranium — is buried in layers of sandstone.

Uranium mines are ramping up across the West, spurred by rising demand for electricity and federal efforts to cut Russia out of the supply chain for U.S. nuclear fuel.

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Four Barrick employees arrested in Mali by Russia-backed military regime – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – September 30, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Four senior employees of Barrick Gold Corp. have reportedly been arrested in Mali in the latest sign of rising tensions between the Toronto-based mining company and the authoritarian military regime that runs the West African country.

The four Malian employees of Barrick were arrested for alleged financial crimes, according to a report by Reuters, but no details have emerged.

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Rio Tinto, BHP & Glencore ‘Feeling the Pinch on Copper’ – by Sean Ashcroft (Mining Digital.com – September 30, 2024)

https://miningdigital.com/

Major diversified miners including Rio Tinto, BHP Group & Glencore are feeling the pressure of a slowdown in global economic growth and declining commerce

Some of the world’s biggest mining companies are struggling to balance investor expectations for hefty returns against the necessity of paying a premium to acquire pure-play copper companies. The challenge comes as global demand for the metal drives valuations to new heights, reports Reuters.

Major diversified miners, including Rio Tinto, BHP Group, and Glencore, are feeling the pressure of a slowdown in global economic growth and declining commodity prices. These factors have led to a significant decrease in their share prices, ranging from 10% to 15% this year.

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Inside the Fight for the Ring of Fire – by Laura Trethewey (MACLEANS Magazine – September 30, 2024)

https://macleans.ca/

In Ontario’s hinterlands, a battle is brewing between First Nations, prospectors and the provincial government over a multi-billion-dollar motherlode of metals

Coleen Moonias grew up in the 1980s in Lansdowne House, a tiny Ojibwe community in northwestern Ontario. In winter, when the temperature plunged to 50 below zero, the interior walls of her home glittered with frost. Her parents hung blankets as insulation.

In summer she foraged with her cousins for berries, fending off swarms of mosquitoes that rose from the surrounding peatlands. The nearest neighbouring community was nearly 100 kilometres away; Coleen’s entire world was this small place bound by blood and marriage. But Lansdowne House was sinking into Attawapiskat Lake, and so, when Coleen was eight years old, its residents moved to a new location nearby, which became Neskantaga First Nation, home to about 400 people.

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‘Nobody alive has ever seen something like this’: Inside the plan to sell the biggest gems on Earth – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – September 28, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

Vancouver-based miner Lucara found a 2,492-carat diamond in August. Since then, the company’s CEO has urged patience in the hunt for a buyer as the sector looks to dig itself out of a price slump

The morning of Aug. 19 started off much like any other at Lucara Diamond Corp.’s Karowe mine in Botswana, a roughly 270-metre deep open pit on the edge of the Kalahari desert that operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But on that day, a 2,492-carat diamond — believed to be the second largest ever held by a human — completed a journey from hundreds of kilometres inside the Earth’s mantle up to the planet’s surface.

After billions of years of travel, its fate upon arrival fell into the hands of William Lamb, chief executive of Lucara, whose sector has been going through its own upheaval amid a collapse in the price of diamonds in recent years.

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Britain’s last coal-fired electricity plant is closing. It ends 142 years of coal power in the UK – by Jill Lawless (Associated Press – September 30, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s last coal-fired power plant is closing on Monday, ending 142 years of coal-generated electricity in the nation that sparked the Industrial Revolution.

The Ratcliffe-on-Soar station in central England is finishing its final shift at midnight after more than half a century of turning coal into power. The U.K. government hailed the closure as a milestone in efforts to generate all of Britain’s energy from renewable sources by 2030.

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Firm Prices at De Beers and Alrosa Likely Here to Stay – by Joshua Freedman (Rapaport Magazine – September 19, 2024)

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Miners press ahead with policy of supply flexibility.

As the industry gathered in Hong Kong for the Jewellery & Gem World (JWG) show this week, important talks about the diamond industry’s difficulties were happening elsewhere. Executives from Alrosa, which continues to sell rough despite being cut off from much of the market, met with customers and other trade members in India and Dubai over the past few days to explain how they viewed the current challenges, insiders told Rapaport News this week.

Their message: The miner is in no rush to reduce rough prices. Instead, the policy of not flooding the market — a likely consequence of price reductions — will continue, according to the sources. Buyers will be able to choose whether to make purchases.

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Lithium Battery Fire Halts Work at Los Angeles, Long Beach Port Terminals – by Laura Curtis (Bloomberg News – September 26, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Several terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach remained closed Friday after a tractor-trailer overturned on a vital artery for cargo and a fire among its payload of lithium batteries burned for a second day.

“The batteries have been damaged, and are on fire and off-gassing, with reports of one battery exploding,” the LA Fire Department said in an alert about the incident that began Thursday.

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A milestone moment at Sault, Michigan’s big dig – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – September 27, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $3-billion lock project soldiers on to 2030 completion

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers delivered a update on its US$3.22-billion construction project to carve out a new lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

The Lake Superior side of the approach wall for ships was declared substantially complete on Sept. 17. The contractors, Kokosing-Alberici, of Westerville, Ohio, were awarded that segment of the project – valued at US$117 million – beginning in September 2020.

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Saudi Arabia intensifies mining tech push in meetings with US firms – by Mohammed Al-Kinani (Arab News – September 29, 2024)

https://www.arabnews.com/

JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia is ramping up its adoption of advanced mining technologies as top minister met with senior executives from the US firms at MINExpo International 2024.

During his visit to Las Vegas, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar bin Ibrahim Alkhorayef held bilateral meetings with these firms to discuss localizing innovative solutions for mining operations and exploring promising investment opportunities in the sector.

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