He says the current deal-making environment has worsened, lamenting a diminished availability of high-quality projects meeting the team’s investment criteria. He suggests the industry’s chronic underinvestment in exploration and development for new mines is partly to blame.

Smallwood also outlines in an interview during a recent industry event in Toronto with The Northern Miner’s western editor, Henry Lazenby, how Wheaton plans to achieve its long-term objective of reaching and maintaining over 850,000 gold-equivalent oz. of yearly production.

Watch the full video here:

Nickel geology overview

Nickel deposits come in two forms: hard rock sulphide deposits, which consist of nickel-bearing minerals known as pentlandite and nickel laterite deposits.

Sulphide deposits are scattered worldwide, from northern Europe, South Africa, Canada and Western Australia.

We then have the laterites, which typically form in high-rainfall equatorial regions. As rain dissolves and removes minerals and elements from the soil it leaves behind immobile elements like nickel, iron and aluminium. That leads to a natural concentration of nickel in these regions.

There are outliers. Shifts in the global climate over geological history have enabled places like arid inland Australia to form laterite deposits. This region was once bathed in tropical rainfall and lush jungle.

But of the two sources of nickel, sulphides are far easier to process and refine into high-purity products, the ideal choice when it comes to EV battery material. For this reason, sulphide miners have retained a competitive edge.

However, that started to shift in 2018 when the world’s largest nickel producer, China’s Tsingshan Holding Group, announced a $700-million plan to produce battery-grade nickel from nickel laterites. Processing laterite ore into high-purity nickel uses a system known as High-Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL). The innovation unlocked a swathe of new supply and Indonesia’s nickel output exploded after integrating HPAL technology in 2018.

Cloudy data in nickel outlook

In early March, the Macquarie Group’s nickel expert, Jim Lennon, claimed supply gluts could be overblown.

That assessment was based on a recent visit to China where Lennon claimed the demand for stainless steel and other nickel alloys is far higher than the official numbers report. According to Lennon, nickel inventories are also far lower than the stated figures. In other words, he believes the consensus forecast of a nickel oversupply is wrong.

It’s an interesting perspective. Chinese officials are known for under- or over-reporting figures to suit political motives.

But are Lennon’s observations, alone, enough for investors to move into this beleaguered market? Perhaps.

Resource stocks coming off a low base can result in large ‘recovery gains’ as sentiment creeps back into the market. It’s also worth noting that U.S. officials recently excluded Indonesian nickel from lucrative tax credits as part of its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). That’s thanks to a tight interlink between Indonesian operators and Chinese investors.

So, where does that leave investors?

Everything is not what it seems in the nickel market and that’s where contrarian opportunities are born. Given that China plays a major role in supply and demand, this suggests there could be a lot more to this story. The data remains cloudy, meaning there could be more surprises in the months ahead.

A prime value opportunity may emerge with several nickel producers and explorers trading at multi-year lows.

I’ll explore that with my Diggers and Drillers readers over the coming months.

James Cooper runs the commodities investment service Diggers and Drillers. You can also follow him on X @JCooperGeo.

The detailed structural study seeks to enhance the understanding and exploration of the promising lithium-bearing system identified in a recently completed discovery drill program.

That study had identified numerous high-priority targets for further examination thanks to the combination of geochemical soil data and a high-resolution drone magnetic survey.

Volta said the discovery drill program confirmed the presence of at least six near-surface spodumene-albite pegmatite-hosted lithium, cesium, and tantalum pegmatites within a 300-meter corridor. The area is still open for further expansion, indicating the possibility of more discoveries, the company said.

“Structural geology is one key to understanding the emplacement and evolution of lithium-bearing pegmatites,” Fred Breaks, the company’s technical advisor, said in the statement. “The structural study is crucial at this project stage and will further generate prospective targets for our exploration program.”

Northwestern Ontario has become a hub for lithium exploration, with many junior players engaging in active staking and land acquisition activities. Unlike companies focused on precious and base metal exploration, lithium junior miners face a more complex operating environment. 

There are no lithium refineries in the province for converting lithium oxide into high-quality battery-grade material known as lithium hydroxide, though  companies such as Rock Tech Lithium (TSX-V: RCK) are trying to fill this gap. 

The clean technology firm inked earlier this month a binding cooperation agreement with BMI Group to build Ontario’s first refinery at the former Norampac paper mill site. 

Volta Metals is in the final stages of preparing its exploration program for 2024, which will involve comprehensive geochemical sampling, mechanized trenching, and, depending on outcomes, diamond drilling.

Echoing a demand last week by activist Tribeca Investment Partners, investors said the polluting fossil fuel would be a lucrative option – for a decade or two at least – even as it is phased out in favour of renewable energy.

The Swiss-based miner and trader is set to see its coal unit grow sharply after it completes a $6.9 billion deal to buy the majority of Canadian miner Teck’s one, but said it plans to list the combined assets separately in New York.

Glencore is already a top producer of thermal coal with output of around 110 million tonnes a year, and also has coking coal assets.

By buying Teck’s business, in a deal set to close by the third quarter this year, it will add 20 million tons of annual steelmaking coal capacity and create a powerhouse that analysts say should generate $5-$6 billion a year in free cash flow.

A greater focus on climate risk in recent years has seen a number of pension and investment funds, financiers and insurers cut support for coal companies, leading some including Rio Tinto and Anglo American to sell or spin theirs out.

While doing so can lead to a share price bump, critics say the assets are often shifted into the private markets and run for longer with no investor oversight, potentially leading to a worse climate outcome.

For a long time, Glencore had adopted the same line, and said ditching coal would do little to cut its emissions, only to change its mind after the Teck deal was agreed, with chief executive Gary Nagle saying it would consult shareholders for their views on spinning off once the acquisition is concluded.

Ahead of any vote on the plan, though, three top-15 investors spoken to by Reuters said they would oppose the attempt to spin off its coal assets.

One top-10 shareholder said they ‘strongly disagree’ with the idea and had already told the company. The shareholder declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak publicly.

Andrew Mason, head of active ownership at Abrdn, which holds shares in Glencore, said: “In most circumstances, we do not believe that simply divesting as quickly as possible will achieve the best outcome.”

“Companies need to have credible strategies that support real-world decarbonisation,” he said, adding that a timed phase-out would facilitate a “just transition” to a greener future that minimised the impact on workers and communities.

A responsible wind down of coal is better than a divestment, given the “rapidly diminishing” global carbon budget, the emissions allowed before the world breaches its goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, said Naomi Hogan at non-profit climate group Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR).

“Fundamentally, good corporate governance requires Glencore to take responsibility for the emissions from its coal portfolio,” Hogan added.

Glencore’s carbon emissions rose 8.8% in 2023 from the previous year partly due to higher coal production, but were still down 21.8% from a 2019 baseline, according to its annual report.

“This is an extremely concerning step backwards for Glencore,” Hogan said in a note.

According to the Climate Action 100+ investor group, Glencore’s efforts to-date are mixed, as it failed to meet or partially meet their climate expectations on issues including capital expenditure and decarbonisation strategy.

Data from LSEG, however, places it among the best-performing of its peer group on a range of environmental, social and governance-related metrics, ranking it 4th out of 455 companies.

As well as the environmental argument, Tribeca said the coal assets would continue to be profitable as long as they were active and could benefit the rest of the portfolio – something the top-10 investor echoed, citing a likely surge in demand for cheap electricity from data centres in the years ahead.

Ian Woodley, portfolio manager at Old Mutual, agreed: “The likelihood is in 10 to 12 years, we’ll have another big upcycle, maybe once, maybe twice. And you see just how much cash the assets generate.”

After hitting an all time high above $400 a ton in 2022 when countries sought alternatives to Russian gas after the start of the war in Ukraine, thermal coal prices now trade around $130, while coking coal rose to above $300 a ton last year.

“In a private company, that would be paid out as dividends, but Glencore can take that cash and invest it in the rest of their portfolio,” Woodley added.

(By Clara Denina and Simon Jessop; Editing by Veronica Brown and David Evans)

After a 22% decline over six weeks, industry experts and analysts say that the uranium market has likely set a new floor thanks to a strong demand outlook.

“We have reached a bottom,” said Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, a nuclear industry research firm. “The fundamentals are still strong, with increased demand and supply that hasn’t fully responded.”

Uranium futures are trading at $88.50 a pound in New York — down from the 16-year high reached in February, but still well above last year’s average price of $66.60 a pound.

There are indicators uranium’s new floor is at around current levels, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Mike Kozak said in an interview, predicting that fundamental buyers will come back into the market and drive up prices again.

Bullish investors are betting on the long-term prospects of the radioactive metal due to a growing supply gap and increased demand as governments worldwide turn to nuclear power to counter climate change. Such demand comes as Canada’s Cameco Corp. and Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom, which together account for half of global supply, warned of supply setbacks in the coming years.

Kazatomprom, the No. 1 producer, said during its March 15 earnings call that it is projecting a 21 million pound supply deficit in 2030 — a shortfall that would multiply to 147 million pounds by 2040.

Geopolitics may also affect the supply outlook. The US introduced a bill in December that would ban imports of enriched Russian uranium — the kind used to fuel nuclear reactors and weapons. The bill needs to be passed by the US Senate and signed by President Joe Biden to be enacted.

Still, with other uranium miners looking to dust off mothballed operations in response to higher prices, there are risks a rally could fizzle out quickly, much in the same way that a boom in battery metals markets turned to bust over the past couple years.

Treva Klingbiel, president of uranium price provider TradeTech, said she doesn’t see demand for nuclear fuel easing any time soon.

“We have a number of geopolitical factors that have a really significant influence on buyer behavior, even though fundamentally nothing has changed” she said. “Buyers can use the spot to tell them the sentiment of the day, but must look at the long-term market to see that it is marching steadily up, it hasn’t taken a hiccup at all.”

(By Maria Clara Cobo)

Goldboro is an advanced-stage gold project located in Guysborough county. To date, Signal has progressed the project through several permitting milestones, with the most recent being the environmental assessment approval in August 2022.

Applications for the key remaining permits have all been submitted, and the company said it remains committed to working to obtain these permits within the next 12 months.

At the same time, Signal’s exploration team continued to grow the mineral resource at Goldboro. It now has measured and indicated resources of 1.42 million oz. (15.7 million tonnes at 2.82 g/t gold) for the open pit, and 1.16 million oz. (5.9 million tonnes at 6.09 g/t gold) underground.

A 2021 feasibility study on the project demonstrated an approximate 11-year life of mine with average gold production of 100,000 oz. per annum and an average diluted gold grade of 2.26 g/t.

Its after-tax net present value, discounted at 5%, is pegged at C$328 million, with an internal rate of return of 25.5% and projected payback of 2.9 years. The initial capital cost is estimated C$271 million, and the life-of-mine sustaining capital is C$63.1 million.

Still, this “robust, high-grade project with significant leverage in an increasing gold price environment” is being substantially discounted, Signal said in its media release, adding the company is “focused on being capital efficient, with an emphasis on minimizing shareholder dilution and maximizing value.”

“Signal Gold recognizes that a larger, better capitalized, or cash flow generating company could be better positioned to advance or assist in the advancement of Goldboro over the development timeline,” it said.

Shares of Signal Gold shot up 11.7% to C$0.095 by 10:40 a.m. in Toronto. Over the past 52 weeks it traded within a range of C$0.08-C$0.35 The gold junior has a market capitalization of C$23.9 million ($17.7m).

The funds will be used to support a pilot project to process 5,000 kg per day of raw materials into approximately 2,500 kg of extracted platinum group metals per year.

Founded in 2020, pH7 is headquartered in Vancouver and was recently listed on the Cleantech Group’s 2024 Global Cleantech 100. The new process enables efficient metal extraction from low-grade resources or difficult substrates in a cost-effective way, it said.

The company has created a proprietary closed-loop process using advanced chemistry to extract and refine critical metals that will help the mining sector transition to renewable energy in an environmentally and economically sustainable way, the ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said in a news release.

Metal alloys including platinum group metals, copper and tin produced by pH7 are then refined by industrial customers. This method results in significantly less greenhouse gas emissions, electricity and water usage compared to mining or other recycling methods.

“BC is home to a growing clean-energy sector, accounting for 20% of Canada’s world-leading cleantech firms that are having positive impacts globally,” Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, said.

“With near net-zero environmental impact in the extraction of critical metals and minerals, pH7 is demonstrating the kind of innovative thinking that can transform mining around the world.”

Since 2008, the ICE Fund has committed approximately C$112 million ($83m) to support pre-commercial clean-energy technology projects, clean-energy vehicles, research and development, and energy-efficiency programs.

“The clean, green future we envision requires more critical metals than we have access to currently,” said Mohammad Doostmohammadi, founder and CEO of pH7 Technologies.

“Through innovation and collaboration, we look forward to bringing our cleantech solution to help scale the extraction of metals and make existing processes much more sustainable and cost-effective.”

The underwriters have the option to buy up to an additional 15% in overallotments.

Calibre says the proceeds will be used towards continued development of the Valentine gold project in Newfoundland; the El Limon and La Libertad gold mines in Nicaragua, and the Pan gold mine in Nevada. Provision has also been made for more exploration and for general corporate and working capital purposes.

Chief among Calibre’s projects is the wholly owned Valentine open pit gold development in central Newfoundland. This will be the largest gold mine, producing 195,000 oz. per year for the first 12 years, in Atlantic Canada. Production is planned for the first quarter of 2025.

The Valentine project has estimated proven and probable reserves of 2.7 million oz. of gold in 512.6 million tonnes grading 1.62 g/t gold. Total measured and indicated resources (inclusive of reserves) contain 3.4 million oz. in 64.6 million tonnes grading 1.90 g/t gold. Additional Inferred resources are 1.1 million oz. in 20.8 million tonnes grading 1.65 g/t gold.

In Nicaragua, the El Limon mine has produced more than 3.5 million oz. of gold and the La Libertad and the La Libertad mine has produced about 1.9 million oz. The two mines have a probable reserve containing 6.8 million oz. of gold. Both are 100%-owned by Calibre.

The Pan gold mine in Nevada, also 100%-owned, is an open pit and heap leach operation. The smallest of Calibre’s mines, producing about 45,400 oz. of gold in 2022, Pan has tremendous exploration potential with targets both to the north and south of the operation.

The world’s No. 2 gold miner wants to continue exploring the region, it said, after its success at the Kibali gold mine in northeastern DRC. The mine yielded 343,000 ounces of gold in 2023, representing nearly 8.5% of the company’s output for the year.

“Kibali has transformed what was previously the disadvantaged northeast region of the country into a new economic frontier and a flourishing commercial hub,” Barrick CEO Mark Bristow said in a news release.

“Of our $5 billion investment in the DRC, more than half has been spent with local contractors and suppliers,” Bristow said.

Last year, Barrick announced it intended to search for additional copper deposits in Zambia and the DRC as part of its efforts to expand its presence in the African copper belt.

The Swiss company totalled 432.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent last year, compared with in 2022, reversing the downward trend of recent years.

In its 2024-2026 Climate Action Transition Plan (CATP), Glencore noted it was still “on track” to meet its 15% reduction of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for its industrial assets from 2019 levels by the end of 2026, and of 50% by the end of 2035.

The rest of Glencore’s revised climate plan is much like a previous plan it released — but this time includes the interim 2030 target.

“[The new plan] reflects a wide range of inputs, including analysis of the evolving market landscape, new regulatory requirements, mining and energy peer approaches, the IEA’s latest modelling, stakeholder inputs, and emerging insights from the most recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) dialogue,” chief executive officer Gary Nagle said in a statement.

“We have also undertaken extensive engagement with our shareholders and appreciate their time and support as we have developed this CATP,” Nagle noted.

Glencore, like most of the world’s biggest listed companies, published its first climate action plans in 2020 in a bid to help with reaching the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of capping temperatures within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The Baar, Switzerland-based firm, one of the top global thermal coal exporters, has faced backlash for being one of the few top miners still involved in the extraction of the fossil fuel used to generate electricity.

After facing pressure from major investors and shareholders, Glencore committed to run down its coal mines by the mid-2040s, closing at least 12 by 2035.

“We recognize the different roles of thermal coal and steelmaking coal – and the different transition pathways for both,” Nagle said while presenting the new strategy.

The executive noted the company “remains committed” to the responsible phase-down of its coal portfolio and is not progressing any greenfield thermal coal investments. 

The company continues to produce and recycle commodities considered key for today’s cleaner transition technologies. Nagle said the speed and direction of Glencore’s decarbonization efforts are significantly shaped by geopolitics, policy decisions, and technological advancements.

Tackling Scope 3 emissions

Glencore plans to cut “Scope 3” emissions — those produced when customers burn or process a company’s raw materials — by 30% by 2035 and achieving net zero Scope 3 emissions by 2050.

The company did not include its marketing activities in the these goals. It justified the decision by saying that, by trading in the third party volumes, its activities do not generate additional Scope 3 emissions, “which in the ordinary course are associated with the transformation or use of the product by third parties”.

Glencore recently acquired a 77% interest in Teck’s (TSX: TECK.A, TECK.B)(NYSE: TECK) steelmaking coal business, Elk Valley Resources (EVR). The transaction remains subject to mandatory regulatory approvals and is expected to close by no later than Q3 2024.  

Yellow Giant is an underground gold and silver project on British Columbia’s north coast on Banks Island on the eastern shore of the Hecate Strait, 110 km south of Prince Rupert. 

Benjamin Mossman appealed the decision that found him guilty of 13 environmental violations, including discharging mine waste, failing to report environmental spills and dumping, and discharging substances in concentrations exceeding permitted amounts.

The court ruling had found that former CEO Benjamin Mossman was “actively or passively involved” in the Yellow Giant mine exceeding permitted amounts of zinc on multiple occasions, polluting fresh water lakes and creeks in and around the exploration sites.

Banks Island Gold filed for bankruptcy in 2016.

In the March 15 ruling, the judge also said previously dropped charges of failing to report the pollution to authorities would have to be heard at a new trial because of errors in an earlier ruling, CBC News reported.

The discovery in the emerging Sore area returned significant intercepts such as 26.45 grams gold per tonne over 2.5 metres, including a higher-grade segment of 108.5 grams gold per tonne over 0.5 metre, including 1.05 grams gold over 40.7 metres and 1.33 grams over 17.9 metres. This area has not seen any previous diamond drilling within 1 km, the company said in a release.

“A new discovery, greenfield and on a blind target, further highlights the prospectivity of the Aurion-B2Gold 290 sq. km JV property and the quality of B2Gold’s exploration team,” Aurion CEO Matti Talikka said.

Company shares reached an intra-day high of C$0.62 apiece before settling at C$0.59. Aurion has a market capitalization of C$79.5 million.

Results are pending for about 4,000 metres of diamond drilling completed this year.

However, the drilling program was halted after Rupert Resources (TSX: RUP) entered discussions on March 11 to buy B2Gold‘s 70% interest in the JV. Aurion says it is considering its options regarding its right of first refusal. It will have until May 9 to decide whether to exercise the right, granted under a 2019 shareholders agreement between the partners.

The discovery is located 1.7 km northwest of the Kettukuusikko prospect and 38 km northwest of the Helmi discovery.

Rupert is also focused on the Central Lapland belt. Its Rupert Lapland project contains the multi-million-ounce Ikkari discovery, located 50 km southeast of Agnico Eagle Mines’ (TSX: AEM; NYSE: AEM) Kittila gold mine and the Pahtavaara mine and mill.

The JV between and B2Gold covers about 290 sq. km along the Sirkka Shear Zone, which is a significant structural feature in the region known for hosting various gold occurrences. The area has yielded numerous discoveries, showcasing the high prospectivity and potential for further discoveries within the belt.

In its request for arbitration, LG Energy alleges that Sigma Lithium is in breach of certain provisions in connection to a lithium supply agreement entered in 2021.

“The claims are completely without merit and intends to defend its interests vigorously,” Sigma said in a statement.

US-listed shares of Sigma were down 1.6% at $12.35 in extended trade.

In 2021, Sigma and LG Energy had entered into a six-year offtake agreement for battery grade sustainable lithium concentrate scales from 60,000 tons per year in 2023 to 100,000 tons per year from 2024 to 2027.

(By Kabir Dweit and Arunima Kumar; Editing by Alan Barona)

By Tuesday afternoon, stock in the Toronto-based company had fallen 29% since Friday to C$2.21 apiece, valuing Global Atomic at C$462.7 million. It was as low as C$2.03 on Tuesday and has traded in a 52-week range of C$1.28 to C$3.91.

Global Atomic plans to start Dasa’s $424.6 million construction after June and commission the mine by the end of next year, according an updated feasibility study this month. The military coup in July led the US to suspend government funding for Dasa, but the company raised C$15 million in January by selling stock and says it will pursue more financing in a 60% borrowing, 40% equity-raising model.

“With the situation in Niger being fluid, in addition to current advanced discussions with project lenders, the company is also pursuing other financing strategies to meet its project funding requirements,” president and CEO Stephen G. Roman said in a release on Monday. “Given strong third-party interest in Global Atomic’s high-grade uranium project and our plans for near-term production, there are many groups interested in funding the Dasa project.”

The spot price of uranium oxide, also called yellowcake, was $91 per lb. on Tuesday, down from $107 per lb. last month, but still at its highest level since 2007. The metal is at nearly double its year-ago price on rising demand for electricity production without the air pollution of fossil fuels, and a forecast supply deficit. China alone plans to build about 150 reactors over the next decade.

Shares in other uranium producers, such as Canada’s Cameco (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ) and Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom (LSE: KAP), the world’s largest, gained 2% on the Niger developments, but declined on Tuesday to near Friday’s close.

US bases

American troops have been in Niger to fight regional Islamic insurgents since a 2012 agreement. The West African country supplies about 5% of global uranium demand making it the seventh-largest producer, including about 20% of the European Union’s needs. Numerous junior and large companies are exploring in Niger. French-state owned Orano said last month it was restarting production that was suspended after the coup.

David Talbot, a uranium market expert and managing director of Toronto-based Red Cloud Securities, said that despite the uncertainty in Niger, the country has been a steady uranium producer for more than 50 years and the government has respected operations by foreign companies.

“Even with the recent removal of French troops from the country, Niger has respected Orano’s business and we would expect it to do the same with Global Atomic and others,” Talbot said in a note on Tuesday. “For now, the key catalyst for Global Atomic remains the closing of its project debt financing.”

The main shareholders in Global Atomic are Toronto-based Sprott Asset Management with nearly 8% through exchange-traded funds, and New York’s Global X ETFs and investment firm VanEck. The January stock fundraising included $5 million from Bermuda-based Regent Mercantile Holdings led by Stephen Dattels, who also has an interest in Pasofino Gold (TSXV: VEIN) and its Dugbe gold project in Liberia.

Global Atomic raised Dasa’s probable reserve by 50% to 73 million lb. uranium oxide in 8 million tonnes grading 4,113 parts per million uranium oxide, according to the new feasibility study. The company has signed offtake agreements for 1.3 million lb. of uranium a year from a plant expected to produce about 3 million lb. annually over a proposed 23-year mine life.

Sahel region

Western nations such as France, which has long stationed troops in its former colonies, have been trying to help countries in West Africa’s Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert stem the growth of Islamic insurgents over the past few decades. The US began its Africa Command in 2007. But recent coups, including in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, have hardened the resolve of some countries to lessen ties with the West and turn to Russia and its mercenary outfit Wagner Group for support.

In an alarming development for the US, Niger is considering a yellowcake supply deal with Iran, The Wall St. Journal reported on Sunday. The West has been trying to block Iran’s access for decades to nuclear material that could help it build an A-bomb.

The pivot prompted a US delegation including Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Molly Phee to visit Niger last week and press the regime under General Abdourahamane Tiani to organize elections, address security concerns and kill the Iran deal. But the Americans didn’t meet with Tiani. He issued a statement criticizing the condescending attitude of the visitors for not following protocol, denied there was a deal with Iran and cancelled the security arrangement with the US.

The US operates two bases there including one for drones built in 2021 for an estimated $100 million, according to Reuters. It remains unclear if all the 1,300 US soldiers in the country will have to leave.

Nuclear fuel

Besides countering Islamic insurgents, the West also wants to increase its uranium fuel processing. The US, Canada, Britain, France and Japan committed a total of $4.2 billion in December to build new plants since Russia’s Rosatom controls more than half the world’s capacity. Some Western nations are considering whether to sanction Rosatom and yellowcake exports to Russia.

For uranium investors, the price crash in battery metals nickel, lithium and cobalt may be a cautionary tale about the energy transition’s demand at this stage. Nuclear power has held out promise for decades but safety concerns, accidents and construction cost overruns have limited its appeal. The cure for high metal prices is high metal prices, The Economist noted last month.

But the Toronto-based Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U.U for USD; U.UN for CAD), the largest investment fund in the physical metal, with $5.5 billion under management, remains boosterish while noting constraints in Niger.

“The situation in Niger is still developing, and Orano continues to face logistical challenges with both accessing the required reagents and exporting uranium,” Sprott exchange-traded fund project manager Jacob White said in blog-post on Monday. “Uranium’s recent pullback from the triple digits may be an attractive entry point in the overall uranium bull market.”

The report, commissioned by the Kootenay-based environmental organization, underscores a substantial disparity between the C$1.9 billion required by the province for Teck to reserve for emergency shutdowns and mine reclamation, and the projected expenses of the company’s initiatives to combat selenium pollution resulting from coal mining in BC’s Elk Valley.

Selenium, a naturally occurring element toxic to fish in high concentrations, has been seeping for decades from waste rock piles surrounding Teck’s coal mines.

Teck, in response to Reuters, said Wildsight’s estimates were inaccurate and inconsistent with calculations made under BC government policy.

“Their provisions with respect to capital spend do not align with BC government policy and their use of simplified assumptions overstate ongoing water treatment operating costs alone by 50-60%,” Dale Steeves, Teck’s director of stakeholder relations said.

The report, conducted by consulting firm Burgess Environmental, calculated the C$6.5 billion by assessing the costs of implementing Teck’s current plan, which involves constructing water treatment plants until 2027 and operating them for 60 years.

Since 2014, Teck has allocated over C$1.4 billion towards mitigating selenium concentrations, with plans to invest an additional $150 million to $250 million by the end of 2024.

The miner sold its coal assets to Glencore and two Asian steelmakers for $8.9 billion last year as it shifts its focus to critical metals like copper. The deal is pending approval from the Canadian government.

Glencore declined to comment on the report.

“We hope that both Glencore and the Canadian government will give careful consideration to this report as they assess the sale, ensuring accountability for the selenium crisis is upheld throughout the ownership transfer,” said Simon Wiebe, mining policy and impacts researcher at Wildsight.

(With files from Reuters)

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the UB scientists present a global atlas of unburnable oil. This map was designed with environmental and social criteria that warn which oil resources should not be exploited to meet the commitments of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015 to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The atlas reveals that to limit global warming to 1.5°C, it is essential to avoid the exploitation of oil resources in the most socio-environmentally sensitive areas of the planet, such as natural protected areas, priority areas for biodiversity conservation, areas of high endemic species richness, urban areas and the territories of Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation.

It also warns that not extracting oil/coal resources in these vulnerable places would not be enough to keep global warming below 1.5°C as indicated in the Paris Agreement.

New roadmap

In this context, the unburnable oil atlas provides a new roadmap to complement the demands of international climate policy—based primarily on demand for fossil fuels—and to enhance socio-environmental safeguards in the exploitation of energy resources.

“Our study reveals which oil resources should be kept underground and not commercially exploited, with special attention to those deposits that overlap with areas of high endemic richness or coincide with outstanding socio-environmental values in different regions of the planet,” lead researcher Martí Orta-Martínez said in a media statement. “The results show that the exploitation of the selected resources and reserves is totally incompatible with the achievement of the Paris Agreement commitments.”

Orta-Martínez pointed out that there is now a broad consensus among the scientific community to limit global warming to 1.5°C to avoid reaching the tipping points of the earth’s climate system, such as melting permafrost, loss of Arctic sea ice and the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and forest fires in boreal forests.

“If these thresholds are exceeded, this could lead to an abrupt release of carbon into the atmosphere – climate feedback – and amplify the effects of climate change and trigger a cascade of effects that commit the world to large-scale, irreversible changes,” he said.

Carbon budget nearly exhausted

To limit average global warming to 1.5°C, the total amount of CO2 emissions that must not be exceeded is known as the remaining carbon budget. In January 2023, the remaining carbon budget for the 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5°C was about 250 gigatonnes of CO2 (GtCO2).

“This budget is steadily decreasing at current rates of human-induced emissions—about 42 GtCO2 per year—and will be completely used up by 2028,” Lorenzo Pellegrini, first author of the article, said.

Pellegrini noted that the combustion of the world’s known fossil fuel resources would result in the emission of about 10,000 GtCO2, 40 times more than the carbon budget of 1.5°C.

“In addition, the combustion of developed fossil fuel reserves – that is, those reserves of oil and gas fields and coal mines currently in production or under construction – will emit 936 GtCO2, four times more than the remaining carbon budget for a global warming of 1.5°C,” co-author Gorka Muñoa said. “The goal of no more than 1.5°C global warming requires a complete halt to exploration for new fossil fuel deposits, a halt to the licensing of new fossil fuel extraction, and the premature closure of a very significant share (75%) of oil, gas and coal extraction projects currently in production or already developed.”

With this prospect, the authors call for urgent action by governments, corporations, citizens and large investors such as pension funds to immediately halt any investment in the fossil fuel industry and infrastructure if socio-environmental criteria are not applied.

”Massive investment in clean energy sources is needed to secure global energy demand, enact and support suspensions and bans on fossil fuel exploration and extraction, and adhere to the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty,” the team concluded.

Samples from the Denise, Gratien, Grey Cat, and Team gold zones were tested by gravity, flotation and leaching. Gold and silver were recovered from a Knelson MD-3 concentrator at a coarse primary grind of 80% passing 184-416 μm. All samples were amenable to gravity recovery, ranging from 34% (in lower grades) and up to 72% in higher grades.

A single flotation test was performed on a 2-kg subsample of each of the gravity tailings. The samples were treated with potassium amyl xanthate and methyl isobutyl carbinol at a natural pH for 10 minutes. Under these conditions an additional 70.1% to 93.1% of the gold was recovered.

Amex said that direct cyanidation of the gravity tailings may recover gold and silver as well as does flotation.

The flotation test was performed on half the flotation tailings. The slurry was reground to 70% passing 90 μm and leached in a bottle roll for 48 hours at pH 10.5 to 11.0. Cyanidation as tested gave excellent results, recovering 79.0% to 96.7% of the gold in the tails.

Eldorado Gold (TSX: ELD; NYSE: EGO) recently spent C$15 million on charity flow-through shares of Amex and now holds a 9.9% interest in Amex.

Even better was the highest ever assay from the first hole of 2024 at the Reid property – 675 metres at 0.25%, including 142 metres at 0.32% and 24 metres at 0.40% in REI24-17.

Mark Selby, CEO of Canada Nickel, said: “Our 2024 exploration program has started very strongly with the best drill interval to date at Reid and a new discovery at Newmarket. The long drill interval of higher-grade material at Reid is very encouraging and the first section delineating an over-800-metre width of target ultramafic sequence – nearly two times thicker than Crawford – highlights the very large-scale potential of this property.

“The initial Newmarket results are also very encouraging, despite the fact we were only able to drill at the least attractive geophysical target due to seasonal logistical constraints,” he continued. “This initial drilling occurred on the edge of the eastern end of the 7-km long Newmarket target, which is contiguous with the Mann Southeast target and is part of an overall geophysical target more than three times larger than Crawford,” Selby continued.

The Newmarket target is 35 km east of the Crawford project, and the Reid target is 16 km to the southwest.

The Crawford project has measured and indicated resources in two separate zones. The pit-constrained M+I mineralization in the East zone includes 1.03 billion tonnes grading 0.23% nickel, 0.013% cobalt, 6.31% iron, 0.60% chrome, plus platinum and palladium. In the Main-West zone, the M+I resource is 1.54 billion tonnes grading 0.22% nickel, 0.013% cobalt, 6.91% iron, 0.58% chrome, plus palladium and platinum.

Within the resources of both zones, are proven and probable reserves of 1.72 billion tonnes grading 0.22% nickel, 0.013% cobalt, 0.014 g/t palladium, 0.009 g/t platinum, 6.44% iron and 0.57% chrome.

The East and the Main-West zones also contain close to 1.69 billion inferred tonnes with similar of slightly lower grades.

Canada Nickel is developing the Crawford nickel sulphide deposit, located in the Timmins-Cochrane mining camp of Ontario, as an open pit mine. The project has a 41-year mine life, during which time it will produce 3.5 billion lb. of nickel, about 53 million lb. of cobalt, 490,000 oz. of palladium and plating, 58 million tonnes of ire, and 6.2 million lb. of chromium.

Not only will the mine be net-zero as to carbon emissions, but Canada Nickel is building one of the largest carbon capture projects in Canada. The facility will capture and store 1.5 million tonnes of carbon annually by injecting carbon dioxide into the tailings where it will bind chemically to create inert carbonate minerals.

The first drawdown will be for C$2.75 million, and is expected to close within the next two weeks, the Canadian lithium developer said, noting that this initial fund will be used to accelerate work at its planned lithium processing facility located in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

In July 2023, Avalon announced it is teaming up with Finnish mining tech group Metso to build what would be the first battery-grade lithium facility in the province. Under the partnership, the company would be able to license Metso’s technologies to produce lithium hydroxide cathode materials for the global EV market.

A month prior to the announcement, Avalon finalized the purchase of a 383-acre industrial property with unique access to a deep-water port, rail, road and other critical infrastructure to house the lithium processing facility.

“We are very pleased to continue our long-term relationship with Avalon, dating back to our first investment together in 2017, by making this new investment to support Avalon’s processing facility in Thunder Bay,” Phillip Valliere, managing director at the Lind Partners, said in a statement.

“We are optimistic of their Thunder Bay strategy and believe that Avalon has a unique opportunity to become a significant player in the lithium supply chain for EV battery manufacturers in Ontario.”

The entire financing is in the form of a convertible security. The security in the first drawdown will have a two-year term and accrue a simple interest rate obligation of 10% per annum, which is prepaid and attributed to the face value upon issuance, resulting in a face value of C$3.3 million.

Lind will be entitled to convert the face value amount over a 24-month period at a conversion price equal to 85% of the five-day trailing volume weighted average price of Avalon’s common shares prior to the date of conversion.

Shares of Avalon Advanced Materials gained 5.9% by 10:30 a.m. ET on the financing announcement, trading at C$0.09 apiece, at the lower end of its 52-week range of C$0.08-C$0.18. The company’s market capitalization sits at C$48 million ($35.4m).

Tumbling metal prices account for more than half all of impairment charges, declared when fixed assets fall below market values, the study of 105 TSX-listed mining companies found. They incurred $68 billion in charges from 2002 to 2015. Using unfamiliar technology and locating in developing countries also contributed, data show.

Metal price drops accounted for 143 of 268 cases and $25.2 billion in impairment charges, according to the study published last month in Resources Policy, an international journal on mineral rules and economics with editors in the United States, Australia and China. The research appears appropriate at a time when nickel and lithium prices have crashed from 2022 highs as gold has set new records.

“While impairments have been shown to be a common occurrence across mining companies, they also are a major contributor to the industry’s low average returns,” said the authors led by Andrew Gillis of Edmonton-based Aurora Hydrogen.

“The degree of impairments is higher at mines in developing countries and at mines where the geographic location and mining processes are new to the company operating the mine,” said the authors, which included John Steen and W. Scott Dunbar of the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and Andrew von Nordenflycht of the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC.

Get lucky

Forecasting by its nature is uncertain. But some firms get lucky and only face a few impairments, while others get unlucky and suffer many or large impairments, the authors said. Their targeted years of research coincided with the rise of the commodity super-cycle 20 years ago followed by the financial crisis and declining metals prices from 2012.

The group recommended mining companies should improve their forecasting of mineral reserves, capital costs, production costs and commodity prices, which all impact future cash flows. It noted how C-suites might blame falling metal prices for impairments because other slips in capital or operating costs could be directly attributed to their own forecasting. The flip side is that rising metal prices can hide some other forecasting errors. And forecasting in foreign lands is simply more difficult, the authors said.

“Higher impairments in developing countries stem from lower information availability about market conditions and/or more volatile local market prices and conditions,” the authors said. “The sources of uncertainty are just greater, making forecasts harder and forecast errors easier, even for experienced forecasters.”

In the end, the researchers recommended more studies on forecasting. They could try to pinpoint the root causes of forecasting errors through personal interviews with project participants, detailed comparisons of feasibility studies and actual outcomes as well as assessing their methods of error prevention.

“Asset impairments have been identified as a primary determinant of long-term shareholder returns across Canadian mining firms,” the authors said. “Our findings suggest looking more closely into price forecasting procedures at mining companies to see if certain techniques or circumstances lead to more or fewer price-driven impairments.”

According to the Oslo-based business intelligence company, exploration efforts are underway in Australia, the US, Spain, France, Albania, Colombia, South Korea and Canada.

In its report, Rystad points out that one of the most promising elements of natural hydrogen – also called white or gold hydrogen – is its cost advantage over other forms of hydrogen due to its natural occurrence. 

Grey hydrogen, produced from fossil fuels, costs less than $2 per kilogram of hydrogen on average, while green hydrogen, produced using renewable electricity, is currently more than three times pricier. The cost of renewable hydrogen is expected to come down as electrolyzer pricing falls in the coming years, and yet, white hydrogen is still expected to be cheaper.

At present, Canada-based producer Hydroma extracts white hydrogen at an estimated cost of $0.5 per kg. Depending on the deposit’s depth and purity, projects in Spain and Australia aim for a cost of about $1 per kg, solidifying white hydrogen’s price competitiveness.

In addition to the cost advantage, white hydrogen can also have a low carbon intensity. At a hydrogen content of 85% and minimal methane contamination, the carbon intensity is around 0.4 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per kg hydrogen gas (H2) – including embodied emissions and hydrogen emissions. At 75% hydrogen and 22% methane, the intensity rises to 1.5 kg CO2e per kg H2.

“Although still in its infancy with lots of uncertainty, white hydrogen has the potential to be a game-changer for the clean hydrogen sector as an affordable, clean natural resource, thereby shifting the role of hydrogen from an energy carrier to part of the primary energy supply. However, the actual size of the reserves is still unclear, and the transportation and distribution challenges of hydrogen remain”, Minh Khoi Le, head of hydrogen research at Rystad, said in a media statement.

Through the US Inflation Reduction Act, companies are eligible to receive production tax credits (PTC) when the lifecycle carbon intensity is below 4 kg CO2e per kg H2. The highest PTC tier grants $3 per kg if hydrogen production meets the carbon intensity threshold of 0.45 kg CO2e per kg H2. As such, low-carbon white hydrogen production in the US could be eligible for the highest PTC, making it appealing for producers.

Not a new thing

Le explained that despite being accidentally discovered in Mali approximately 37 years ago, the accumulation of hydrogen underground was previously thought to be unlikely due to hydrogen’s ability to seep through rock layers. However, new equipment, such as hydrogen-sensing gas probes, are now available to detect dissolved hydrogen in rock formations at depths of up to 1,500 metres. These probes use spectrometers to measure and analyze dissolved gases in deep boreholes. Researchers are currently developing probes that can reach deeper depths, up to 3,000 meters underground.

White hydrogen is mainly produced through natural reactions, such as serpentinization, where water reacts with iron-rich minerals at elevated temperatures. Enhanced serpentinization using catalysts such as magnetite, could help to accelerate natural hydrogen-producing reactions.

Radiolysis of water is another source of natural hydrogen. This process involves radioactive elements within the earth’s crust splitting water due to ionizing radiation.

The word is spreading

Rystad Energy’s report notes that the South Australian government added hydrogen to its list of regulated substances in 2021. This led to many companies applying for exploration permits in the region, with Gold Hydrogen securing a five-year license to develop its Ramsay project. The company found high hydrogen concentrations of up to 86% during drilling in late 2023. Gold Hydrogen plans to conduct further drilling in 2024 and launch a pilot feasibility study.

The dossier also highlights the fact that governments in countries like France and the US have promised financial support to expedite the exploration and extraction of naturally occurring hydrogen projects. Currently, there is only one operational white hydrogen project in Bourakebougou, Mali, producing around 5 tonnes of hydrogen annually. This small-scale project has been in operation for a decade, providing power to a village. Other projects in various parts of the world are still at an early exploration stage, with the first European natural hydrogen production expected to start in 2029.

After two years of testing, the Energy & Mines Digital Trust (EMDT), a collaboration between the Government of British Columbia, private-sector and industry associations, has launched digital credentials for mining operators to streamline the process of sharing confidential information securely. 

Major mining operators in BC can now receive their Mines Act Permit as a digital credential, to prove their required operational permit status to investors, customers and regulators. The digital credential is tamper-proof and contains data verified from the Government of BC.

Mines can use digital credentials to submit Towards Sustainable Mining scores and share verified environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data to increase competitiveness in sustainability-focused markets.

The BC government has been often critiqued by industry for long delays in a system perpetually backlogged with permitting applications. There are eight new mines or mine expansions in the pipeline worth a potential total investment of C$6.6 billion ($4.9bn), while new critical minerals mines could generate C$800 billion ($600bn), according to the Mining Association of British Columbia.

Seabridge Gold’s KSM project, in the province’s Golden Triangle, is currently ranked both the biggest gold project in the world and the third largest copper project.

But the provincial government has said permitting solutions are a priority, and in an emailed statement to MINING.com, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said it has made progress improving timing and transparency of permitting processes to support sustainable economic development, while maintaining environmental protections.

“Since March 2022, we have reduced the backlog of permits by 52%. Budget 2024 includes C$24 million to support ongoing dedicated resources for mine permitting, consultation and engagement with First Nations, as well as to sustain the ongoing improvements to mining regulatory processes, creating a strong foundation for realizing critical mineral and broader mining sector opportunities,” the Ministry said. 

The EMTD is part of a C$6.6 million investment in technology to ensure that internal major mine permitting processes are coordinated and efficient, it said. 

“The project’s been ongoing for a number of years and in January we went live,” Nancy Norris, senior director of ESG & Digital Trust, BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, told MINING.com in an interview.

Norris said the EMTD is also working closely with the United Nations to take what has been learned from the project to an international context within the framework of UN sustainability goals. 

Norris is also co-lead on the UN Transparency Protocol project, which is adapting the learnings from the BC Digital Trust work to international supply chains, such as Critical Raw Materials.

“One of the issues with blockchain, having one platform where everyone pushes their data to is that it’s very difficult, especially in the mining sector for something like that to scale and be globally adopted,” Norris said.   

“You need something that’s very flexible, low cost, easy to implement so that each actor along a supply chain can just link their data basically and they can share as much data as they’re comfortable sharing, which gets at that kind of commercial privacy and competitiveness.”

The first phase of the project was about getting technically ready and able, and the province has so far issued two digital credentials.

“Having those types of credentials that you can then share that information builds along the supply chain,” Norris said. “Through the UN project, we’re talking to smelters and downstream operators along the supply chain [about] what kind of data needs to be surfaced to meet the requirements of these large consuming economies like the EU and the US that are starting to legislate.”

Norris pointed to the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism – its tool to put a fair price on the carbon emitted during the production of carbon intensive goods that are entering the EU, and to encourage cleaner industrial production in non-EU countries.

Each actor along the supply chain will be able to prove the end products’ sustainability factors about it, such as carbon intensity and water usage levels.

“The whole purpose of this is to be able to differentiate producers that are actually adhering to sustainable practices and be able to report on them in a way that can be consumed by importers in the EU or the US so those products could actually get premium price,” Norris said.

“What we’re trying to do is create the digital tools that will enable this kind of uplift for miners that are actually working diligently towards making their production more sustainable.”

Ambassador Cong Peiwu said the Canadian government is “wrong” to prevent Chinese investors from buying majority stakes in domestic mining companies, like it did in 2022 when it forced three Chinese state-owned firms to divest from a trio of lithium companies.

“Politicizing normal commercial cooperation and using national security as a pretext for political interference is wrong. China has expressed firm opposition to this,” said Cong in an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday.

“We’ll continue to do business on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit.”

The comments follow remarks by Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson last week warning miners that Chinese stakes will face strict national security reviews.

Chinese investment has continued to flow through Canada’s mining sector more than a year after Trudeau moved to tighten its foreign ownership rules.

This year alone, Zijin Mining Group Co. initiated plans to buy a 15% stake in Canadian copper company Solaris Resources Inc., Ganfeng Lithium Group Co Ltd. moved to take a 15% stake in Vancouver-based Lithium Americas Argentina Corp. and Yintai Gold agreed to buy gold explorer Osino Resources Corp. for C$368 million ($271 million).

Canadian government officials, speaking on condition they weren’t named, have told Bloomberg they are tracking the issue closely and are considering whether further measures are needed beyond the current national security review regime.

While Wilkinson warned that recent transactions will be subject to rigorous reviews, Cong urged Canada’s government to “respect market laws, rather than shouting slogans against China and waging these wrong-placed accusations against China by over-stretching the concept of national security.”

China has found an ally in Canada’s cash-strapped junior mining firms, some of which have called on Ottawa to relax tougher rules on Chinese investment while the sector struggles to raise capital while commodity prices are low.

China’s investments provide capital to those firms at a time when metals have become an essential ingredient to the global transition away from fossil fuels. Minerals including lithium, copper, nickel and cobalt are key components of electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines, though countries like Canada and the US have pushed to build a domestic supply chain to reduce China’s dominance in the global mining industry.

“Critical mining is about those materials to be used in sectors like new-energy vehicles,” said Cong. “That’s good for the whole world. We’re talking about coping with climate change.”

(By Jacob Lorinc and Brian Platt)

CHART: China’s Belt and Road mining investment hits record

Drill hole NFGC-23-1820 cut 16.7 metres grading 36.2 grams gold per tonne from 45.3 metres depth, while 45 metres away hole NFGC-23-1827 returned 14.7 metres at 33.7 grams from 87.5 metres down-hole, New Found Gold said on Wednesday.

The holes were drilled from the west to the east to better test how a secondary set of gold veins and associated structures intersect at Iceberg on the Keats-Baseline fault zone, the company said.

“Infill and definition drilling at Iceberg and Iceberg East have provided us with a comprehensive picture of the near-surface expression of this portion of the fault,” Melissa Render, vice-president of exploration, said in a release. “The fault has demonstrated several times over that it is a very important structure.”

New Found is expanding the drill program at Iceberg and Iceberg East, using seismic data to help target more gold mineralization in the fault. The company started drilling on the project five years ago, completing 500,000 metres by last year and added another 150,000 to the planned total. There’s been no resource declared yet.

The Queensway project has consistently reported strong drill results, topping The Northern Miner’s weekly Drill Down rankings several times since it burst onto the scene in 2019 with a hole at the Keats target returning 19 metres grading 92.9 grams from 96 metres downhole.

Gold region

Queensway, on a 1,662-sq.-km area accessible via the Trans-Canada Highway 15 km west of Gander, is part of a region that has drawn investor Sprott Asset Management, Labrador Gold (TSXV: LAB; US-OTC: NKOSF) and Exploits Discovery (TSXV: NFLD) among others. MarathonGold was acquired in a $345-million all-stock deal in January by Calibre Mining (TSX: CXB) for its Valentine project now under construction about 200 km west of Gander.

Also from Iceberg on Wednesday, drill-hole NFGC-231838 cut 5.9 metres grading 40.5 grams gold from 14.1 metres depth and hole NFGC-23-1914 returned 12.8 metres at 13.9 grams gold from 29 metres. Drill hole NFGC-23-1323 intercepted 7.35 metres of 42.8 grams gold from 109 metres depth.

The near-surface Iceberg-Iceberg East high-grade segment of the Keats-Baseline fault has a strike length of 655 metres. When combined with the 400-metre high-grade segment of Keats Main, this near-surface, high-grade corridor covers over 1 km of strike. Iceberg-Iceberg East is 300 metres northeast of the Keats target along the Appleton fault zone.

The fault runs southwest to northeast with targets such as Monte Carlo, Keats West and K2 on its west side. The east side holds the Keats, Keats North, Iceberg, Iceberg East, Golden Joint, Lotto, Jackpot and Everest discoveries.

Disclosure: The Northern Miner Group is owned by Earthlabs, which has been an investor in New Found Gold.

“We are excited to partner with Kinross on our PWC project. Their global proven track record speaks for itself as well as specific regional expertise that includes ownership and operations of two gold mines in Nevada (Round Mountain and Bald Mountain),” Riley Gold CEO Todd Hilditch said in a news release.

Under a venture option agreement signed Thursday, Kinross will assume operatorship of the PWC project and can earn an initial 60% interest in PWC by incurring a minimum of $10 million in qualifying work expenditures.

The Canadian gold major can earn an additional 15% interest (for a total 75% interest) by incurring at least another $10 million in qualifying work expenditures within two years of exercising the initial earn-in option.

Upon exercise of the initial earn-in option, a Nevada-registered joint venture company will be established for Kinross and Riley to hold their respective interests in PWC. Upon exercise or termination of the second earn-in option, the parties will fund ongoing operations of the JV based on their proportionate interests.

There is a dilution provision stating that should Riley’s interest in the JV company be reduced to 10% or less, the company’s interest will then be converted to a 2% net smelter return royalty.

In addition to the earn-in, Kinross will also take a 9.9% equity interest (on a partially diluted basis) in Riley through a private placement. In total, the placement consists of 8 million units priced at C$0.15 each for total proceeds of C$1.2 million.

Shares of Riley Gold surged 30% to C$0.20 on the TSX Venture Exchange by 11:20 a.m. ET, within the upper range of its 52-week range of C$0.09-C$0.24. The gold junior has a market capitalization of C$6.3 million.

PWC project

Located in Lander county, Nevada, PWC consists of approximately 24.7 km² in the heart of the gold-producing Cortez District, also known as the Battle Mountain-Eureka trend. The property adjoins Nevada Gold Mines complex, a joint venture between Barrick Gold and Newmont.

Drilling on the PWC project was first conducted in 1992, but since 1994, other operators such as Agnico-Eagle and Barrick Gold (Placer Dome) generally focused on offsetting early drilling that intersected gold mineralization in the lower plate of the Roberts Mountain thrust. 

Results from the historical drilling include 4.6 metres grading 2.594 grams gold per tonne at 324 metres, including a high value of 3.84 g/t gold at 283 metres.

The Vancouver-based BMC, owned by private, UK-based firm BMC Ltd., is developing the critical minerals project located 115 km southeast of Ross River. KZK was paused last year when the Kaska Nation said the federal and Yukon governments didn’t address their concerns over wildlife and the environment at the mine’s proposed site.

“The decision document reapproves the project to proceed through the regulatory phase of permitting,”Allan Nixon, vice president of external relations told The Northern Miner on Wednesday. “This is very positive news and we are pleased to have a new decision document. We are just in the process of reviewing it in detail as there have been some changes in a few of the terms and conditions.”

“We will continue to engage with Kaska to ensure we address any remaining concerns they may have and to ensure we are maximizing opportunities for their participation in and benefit from the project.”

The document, issued on Friday, represents a green light on BMC’s path towards developing KZK, one of the few pre-production critical minerals projects in the Far North to advance past the feasibility study stage and into permitting. BMC first submitted its proposal for mine in 2017.

Kudz Ze Kayah, or ‘caribou country’ in the Kaska language, will cost $376 million to develop, and the open pit operation would have a nine-year life. According to a 2020 feasibility study, KZK has an after-tax net present value (at a 7% discount rate) of $617 million, and an internal rate of return of 45.9%. The mine would produce 7.8 million oz. of silver, 56,500 oz. of gold, 235 million lb. of zinc, 32 million lb. of copper and 56 million lb. of lead in concentrate annually during steady-state operations.

The decision document presents the outcome of talks held in February between the Yukon and federal governments, the Ross River Dena Council (RRDC), Liard First Nation (LFN) and community members. Those consultations were ordered by Yukon Supreme Court chief Justice Suzanne Duncan, who found last January that the Crown failed in its duty to consult and accommodate Kaska’s environmental concerns.

New conditions on KZK

Government authorities concluded in the document that KZK should go ahead without review but under a new terms and conditions.

Regulators must consult with the Kaska on KZK’s technical details and its potential impacts on Indigenous rights; the Kaska will play a key role in the review of mine closure plans and land use; and Kaska will be consulted about reviewing environmental monitoring and financial security.

“(Governments) are committed to working closely with Kaska in the regulatory process to determine if the Kudz Ze Kayah project can proceed to licensing,” reads the document issued by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board.

The Yukon government will also set up an independent Finlayson caribou herd oversight committee composed of territorial officials, LFN and RRDC members. That body will monitor protection measures, such as temporary pauses of rock blasting and transportation routes to minimize disturbances to caribou.

Scott Donaldson, CEO of BMC, told The Northern Miner at PDAC last week that he looks forward to sitting down with the Kaska and working through the decision document.

“I’m confident we’ve worked very hard to adopt as many of the Kaska requests as we possibly could,” he said.

Donaldson said BMC’s next steps are its permitting issues and consultations, with a final investment decision on the project expected in the first half of next year.

The Kaska Nation chief did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kaska sought review

The dispute over KZK began in June 2022, when the federal and territorial governments approved it following an environmental and socio-economic assessment.

But weeks later, the Kaska, on behalf of the RRDC announced a civil lawsuit against the governments, alleging it wasn’t properly consulted over the mine’s potential environmental impacts, including on caribou herds.

The RRDC petitioned the court to review how regulatory authorities had approved KZK, which led to a judicial hearing in Whitehorse last April, where lawyers for the Kaska, BMC, the Attorney General of Canada and Yukon presented arguments for their respective positions.

Duncan reserved her position at the time until January, when she found that the federal and territorial governments partially fulfilled their duties to consult.

KZK mainly consists of the ABM open pit mine, with smaller resources in the Krakatoa open pit and underground mines. ABM hosts probable reserves of 15.7 million tonnes grading 5.8% zinc, 1.7% lead, 0.9% copper, 138 grams silver per tonne and 1.3 grams gold for contained metal of 135,800 tonnes copper, 265,700 tonnes lead, 915,000 tonnes zinc, 665,800 gold and 69.5 million oz. silver.

Cominco began exploring around the KZK deposit in 1977. Drilling in 1994 revealed copper, lead and zinc mineralization. BMC purchased the project from Teck Resources’ (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) in 2015.

Northwest Expo holds 40.3 million indicated tonnes grading 0.1% copper and 0.7 gram gold per tonne for 100 million lb. copper and 871,000 oz. of gold, Northisle said on Wednesday. The deposit holds 30.6 million inferred tonnes at 0.1% copper and 0.6 gram gold for 62.8 million lb. copper and 558,000 oz. gold, the company said.

“Today’s new resource estimate at Northwest Expo has exceeded our expectations of defining a 40-to-50-million-tonne resource within the gold enriched Zone 1,” Northisle president and CEO Sam Lee said in a release. “This sets a strong basis for the rapid advancement of a potential high margin, near surface deposit.”

Shares in Northisle rose more than 11% to C$0.44 apiece in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon, valuing the company at C$99.2 million. They’ve ranged from C$0.12 to C$0.49 over the past 52 weeks.

Northisle is working on a prefeasibility study for North Island and is considering a staged approach with lower capital spending than the C$1.4 billion estimate in a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in 2021. The project, near BHP’s (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) former Island copper mine in Vancouver Island’s far north, holds about 8 million oz. gold in resources.

The entire project holds 567.7 million indicated tonnes grading 0.2% copper, 0.3 gram gold per tonne and 0.007% molybdenum for 2.4 billion lb. copper, 4.9 million oz. gold and 88.2 million lb. molybdenum. It has 447.9 million inferred tonnes at 0.2% copper, 0.2 gram gold and 0.006% molybdenum for 1.4 billion lb. copper, 3 million oz. gold and 54.9 million lb. molybdenum.

Higher-grade areas

A staged development would prioritize the higher-grade areas of the Northwest Expo, Red Dog and Hushamu targets. Studying the concept is expected to be completed by July and form the basis for advanced economic and technical studies, it said.

Northisle is planning to drill after March to increase the indicated resource and to step out south of Zone 1 in Northwest Expo and at the West Goodspeed discovery.

The Northwest Expo target has a net smelter revenue value of C$55 per tonne for the indicated resource as a whole and C$67 per tonne for a higher-grade zone in it, which is more than twice the net smelter value in the project’s PEA, the company said. The project also has 88% gold and 76% copper recoveries and a strip ratio of 2.5:1 waste vs ore, it said.

North Island has an after-tax net present value of C$1.1 billion with an 8% discount rate and a 19% internal rate of return, according to the PEA. The study assumed metal prices of $3.25 per lb. copper, $1,650 per oz. gold and $10 per lb. molybdenum.

The project lies on a 340-sq.-km property stretching 50 km northwest from the now closed Island copper mine. BHP produced copper and molybdenum concentrates there, as well as gold, silver and rhenium as by–products, from 1971 to 1995.

The Penco module covers a 6 sq. km. area hosting an ionic clay deposit rich in heavy rare earths, with measured and indicated resources totalling 27.5 million tonnes grading 2,292 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO), for 62,900 tonnes of contained TREO.

Under the investment agreement, CAP will make a strategic investment in REE Uno, Aclara’s Chilean subsidiary which owns the Penco module as well as all its mining concessions in the country, in exchange for a 20% equity participation in the REE unit.

This initial capital, according to Aclara’s calculations, gives REE Uno a pre-money valuation of $116.5 million. It will be paid in three tranches: $9.7 million upon closing, $12.5 million in January 2024 and the remaining $6.9 million in January 2026.

The initial capital injection from CAP will support the ongoing development of the Penco module throughout its permitting, community relations and feasibility study phases. It will also allow the company to reallocate its current cash reserves towards advancing its other project: the Carina module in Brazil.

Drawing upon CAP’s experience in environmental permitting from multiple mining projects in Chile, Aclara anticipates strengthened support for the forthcoming Penco environmental impact assessment (EIA) permit application.

CAP’s involvement includes a thorough review and constructive contributions to the application preparation, as well as accompanying Aclara throughout the review and approval process by Chilean environmental agencies, the TSX-listed miner said.

CAP also has an option to invest an additional $50 million in REE Uno for an additional 20% equity interest once the requisite environmental permit is secured for the Penco module. This second investment represents a pre-money valuation of REE Uno of $150 million.

The option for additional investment post-receipt of the environmental permit is intended to cover a significant part of the equity portion associated with the construction of the Penco module. This provision mitigates financing risks linked to the module’s construction, Aclara said.

The Chilean group can also invest up to 19.9% in Aclara itself by participating in any private placement or public offerings that Aclara may make over the next threes years. This includes a residual top-up right to maintain its pro rata voting right in the REE miner.

The companies will also form of a 50/50 joint venture to develop metals and alloys for the rare earths permanent magnet industry. CAP will invest $3 million in exchange for its 50% of the shares of the newly established joint venture company.

The establishment of a metals and alloys company represents the initial phase of Aclara’s strategic vision to vertically integrate its rare earths concentrate production towards the manufacturing of permanent magnets.

This move aims to offer a geopolitically independent alternative supply of permanent magnets to the market, Aclara said, adding that the new company will harness CAP’s expertise in metal refining and ferro-alloyed special steels, synergizing with its thorough understanding of the rare earths and permanent magnet industry.

The transaction reflects the valuation of Aclara at the time of the company’s initial public offering in late 2021 after it spun off from Hochschild Mining, and is indicative of the belief both parties have in establishing Aclara as a leading producer of clean rare earths.

The pre-money valuation of the initial investment plus the 50% interest in the new JV company represent a total value of $119.5 million, which reflects Aclara’s pre-money valuation at the IPO.

“We are thrilled to partner with CAP to develop our Penco module and strategy in Chile, as well as joining efforts to start developing Aclara’s capabilities in the vertical integration of the rare earths and permanent magnets industry,” Aclara chairman Eduardo Hochschild said in a news release.

“This alliance with Aclara represents a historic milestone for Grupo CAP, marking the first step in our strategy to become leaders in the production of essential materials for decarbonization and energy transition,” Juan Enrique Rassmuss, chairman of CAP, added.

Shares of Aclara Resources surged 30.1% to C$0.51 as of 11:30 a.m. ET, for a market capitalization of C$83.8 million ($62.2 million). The stock traded between C$0.36 and C$0.60 over the past 52 weeks.

Once the funding and some other obligations are met, the two firms could also form a joint venture under which Marubeni would gain 20% interest in the three mining projects located within trucking distance of Hudbay’s processing facilities in Flin Flon, Manitoba, the company said.

The agreement follows a memorandum of understanding the companies signed in July.

The agreement would allow Hudbay to explore its large Flin Flon land package to potentially bring another mine into production and utilize its idle processing infrastructure in the region, Hudbay CEO Peter Kukielski said.

Canada is home to a large mining sector for minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt and has been wooing firms involved in all levels of the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain.

However, it has also tightened foreign investment rules for the critical minerals sector over national security concerns and had forced three Chinese investors to sell their stakes in Canadian mineral companies in 2022.

($1 = 1.3486 Canadian dollars)

(By Sourasis Bose; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

The planned listing, although the exact exchange wasn’t named, would start in this year’s third quarter to join more than 40% of the world’s public mining companies on the Canadian stock market, Southern Cross said on Tuesday. The company holds the Sunday Creek project and the Redcastle and Whroo joint ventures in Victoria and the Mt. Isa project in Queensland.

“A dual listing in both Australia and Canada will provide direct exposure to a diverse class of global investors,” managing director Michael Hudson said in a release. “It includes those North American investors who have over the last seven years directly benefited from the huge capital growth that has come from the Victorian goldfields.”

With about 70% of Southern Cross’ shareholders located outside of Australia, the company is betting the dual listing will more efficiently allow Australian and North American investors in on the company’s growth and high-grade gold story. The Sunday Creek project posted hole SDDSC107 which cut 0.7 metre at 3,511 grams gold per tonne from 684.3 metres depth. The hole’s first 30 cm graded 7,330 grams gold.

Southern Cross closed 20% higher on Tuesday in Sydney at A$2.05 apiece, valuing the company at A$184.1 million. Sweden-focused Mawson Gold (TSXV: MAW), which owns 51% of Southern Cross, gained 12% to close at C$0.65 in Toronto for a market capitalization of C$197.5 million.

Mawson Gold

Mawson Gold says it intends to distribute its shares in Southern Cross to Mawson shareholders this year. Mawson holds the Skellefteå North gold discovery and a portfolio of historical uranium resources in Sweden.

The Sunday Creek project, about 60 km north of Melbourne, lies within 194 sq. km of exploration tenements. It used four rigs to drill 19,000 metres on the Apollo, Rising Sun, Golden Dyke and Christina targets from September. Ten holes are being processed or in progress, the company said. The host rocks are intensely-altered in a steeply dipping zone where gold and antimony form in a relay of vein sets.

“When observed from above, the host resembles the side rails of a ladder where the sub-vertical mineralised vein sets are the rungs that extend from surface to depth,” the company said. “At Apollo and Rising Sun these individual ‘rungs’ have been defined over 600 metres depth extent from surface to 1,000 metres below surface, are 2 metres to 30 metres wide, and are 20 metres to 100 metres in strike.”

The company’s drill program has discovered 45 ‘rungs’ defined by high-grade intercepts to more than 7,000 grams gold. Step-out drilling is aiming to uncover the potential extent of this mineralized system.

The project is in the Melbourne structural zone in the Lachlan fold belt where the Sunday Creek mineralization is an interbedded turbidite sequence of siltstones and minor sandstones, the company said. They metamorphosed to sub-greenschist facies and folded into a set of open north-west trending folds.

If constructed, Vancouver-based Teck’s recycling facility would be the largest recycling plant on North America’s western coast and have the capacity to recycle the equivalent of 35,000 metric tons annually of battery material each year, Price told the SAFE Critical Minerals Summit in Washington, D.C.

He declined to estimate the facility’s potential cost, but said the facility would process batteries from roughly 140,000 electric vehicles each year.

“There’s a big opportunity for us to play a bigger role in the circular economy,” Price told the conference, a gathering of policymakers, executives, investors and politicians to discuss critical minerals supply for the energy transition.

Mining companies are increasingly eyeing the recycling space as a potential growth area, especially as consumers and regulators increasingly advocate for the circular economy, in which materials and minerals are recycled and used again in a continuous manufacturing loop.

For example, Albemarle, the world’s largest mining company, has announced plans to incorporate recycling into its planned North American processing hub. And metals trading and mining giant Glencore is a major investor in Ontario battery recycler Li-Cycle Holdings.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Read More: Li-Cycle stock surges on $75 million investment from Glencore

The initial agreement is for New Gold to purchase up to 350,000 tonnes of ore mined at Bralorne and process it at their mill located at the New Afton mine. The agreement may be extended by mutual consent.

Terry Harbort, Talisker’s president and CEO, said: “Talisker is very pleased to have signed this important ore purchase agreement with New Gold. Having completed the portal and decline construction and our resource conversion drilling, this agreement clears the pathway for our planned 2024 production at Bralorne.”

The company has completed over 150,000 metres of drilling at Bralorne, identifying 86 veins, 75 of which are open in all directions. The resources are given as 117,300 indicated tonnes grading 8.85 g/t gold, containing 33,400 oz., and 8.0 million inferred tonnes at 6.32 g/t gold, containing 1.6 million ounces. Mineralization is known to extend to 2,000 metres below surface.

Underground test mining is planned to a depth of 700 metres. The Mustang adit has been enlarged, and the decline is complete. New development is underway to gain access to the Alhambra and BK-9870 veins on levels 3700, 3800 and 3900. Ore removal is to begin by the middle of 2024.

Talisker noted that there is district-scale potential at Bralorne. There are seven historical mines and 47 known mineral occurrences along a 33-km belt. Two of the historic resources include 186,000 oz. of gold at the Congress mine and grades as high as 329 g/t gold during first-pass drilling at the BRX mine.

The Porgera mine in the hills of the Pacific island country was under care and maintenance from April 2020 to December 2023 while Barrick and partner Zijin Mining renegotiated terms with the government. Hiring is going better than envisioned and the mine will ramp up this year, Bristow said in an exclusive interview with The Northern Miner last week.

“We poured our first bar of gold under the new company – we don’t make too much fuss about it,” Bristow said with a laugh in the Barrick headquarters in Toronto before turning more serious. “We’ve got some work to do re-erecting the power towers after people blew them up.”

Tribal conflicts and protests have downed power lines several times since Porgera started production in 1990 under Canada’s Placer Dome which Barrick acquired in 2006 and may continue even with the new agreement. Assaults on illegal miners and toxic waste claims dogged the operation, like at the Acacia mine in Tanzania.

But Bristow, who’s led the company since it merged in 2019 with the South African company he built, Randgold Resources, transformed Acacia after what he called “a great deal for a crippled organization.”

Barrick had 72% of Acacia but no management control when authorities shut it down forcing the company to take it private and renegotiate operations over several years. At the giant Reko Diq copper project in Pakistan, it took a decade to resolve arbitration in Barrick’s favour, and four years to sort out Papua New Guinea’s nationalization of Porgera.

Reko Diq

Now, Porgera has an ownership structure where locals control more than half the company and its profit, similar to how Barrick is developing Reko Diq with half split evenly between the central government and Baluchistan state, leaving Barrick with half. Operating in locations deemed risky is about building partnerships because without permissions, the mines shut, Bristow says.

“It’s all about licence to operate,” he said. “Mining rights are binary. You either have a mine or you don’t. You can’t sort of say ‘I’m in a tough jurisdiction, so I’m going to discount it by 20%.’ I mean, there’s no such thing.”

All gold miners have benefited from the metal achieving record prices this month – $2,177.10 per oz. on Monday – which Bristow ascribed to global risks such as slackening economic growth and rising geopolitical tensions.

But Barrick’s gold and copper production fell slightly in 2023. The company has had to contend with an 18-month delay to permits at the Goldrush project, part of its Nevada Gold Mines partnership with Newmont (NYSE: NEM; TSX: NGT), and a slow start to commissioning at the Pueblo Viejo mine expansion in the Dominican Republic.

Reported talks to acquire the shut Cobre Panama copper mine in Central America from First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM), which Bristow again denied, saw no deal even though it would have suited the CEO’s penchant for expanding more into the energy transition metal and turning around troubled assets. Especially ones marred by poor relations with governments.

Site visits

Bristow, a hands-on CEO, visits each of the company’s roughly 20 sites at least three times a year, with the fourth round reserved for those that need attention or new initiatives.

“I don’t believe in offices,” the South African native said. “For mining to be successful and agile, the mine management should own their businesses. That calls for a better quality general manager on the mines and we look to more CEO-style people.”

Bristow has long stated his aversion to paying a premium for projects. Between China increasing its reach in the world economy more aggressively from about 2005, through a 2011 gold price peak and fall until it started rising again in 2019, the CEO figures the industry had to write off almost US$80 billion in value because of deals often sweetened with cash on top of premiums.

“There are moments when you will pay a premium, it depends how the market values the asset,” he said. “When you pay premiums on premiums, you’ve got to rely on the gold price to get yourself into the money. I’ve never done that.”

Bristow’s Randgold Resources brought African assets into the merger with Barrick, including the Loulo and Gounkoto mines in western Mali, Tongon in Ivory Coast and Kibali in the Democratic Republic of Congo where it doubled the gold reserve within two years to 10 million ounces. Kibali, Africa’s largest gold mine, still has 10 million oz. in reserves more than a decade after starting production.

Greenfields expansion

This year, Barrick is focused on Nevada, where the company is increasing greenfields exploration spending to replicate discoveries like Fourmile and Goldrush with a 20-million-oz. find that could boost Barrick’s gold production. It was 4.1 million oz. last year.

At Goldrush underground, where permits at last arrived in December, crews are preparing to install ventilation ducts allowing annual output to increase to 400,000 oz. by 2028 from 130,000 oz. this year, the CEO said. Permit delays had affected cash flow, he said.

While mining in the U.S. might be considered less risky than say, the remote northeast DRC home of Kibali, America has its own hazards, such as litigation by anti-mining groups and lengthy permits processes. During the pandemic, when many states suffered lack of revenue for services, Barrick and Newmont stepped up to pay their taxes in Nevada ahead of time.

“No matter how you own it, a mine is actually is a national asset,” he said. “When you invest in it to develop it, you should be investing in its people and its businesses, and people should benefit out of it and the economic benefits should be split. It should be shared.”

A research panel will look for ways to reduce contamination from coal mines in BC’s Elk Valley flowing into Lake Koocanusa, a reservoir straddling the border and into US rivers. Due to pollution concerns in this watershed, the US and Canada asked International Joint Commission (IJC) to establish a board of experts and knowledge holders by June that will study the issue over two years and devise options for action.

Indigenous groups in British Columbia, Montana and Idaho had lobbied for intervention by both federal governments to stop the flow of coal pollution, the Associated Press reported.

Elevated levels of selenium have reportedly been found in fish and fish eggs from Montana’s Kootenai River, downstream from coal mines in the Elk River Valley. A legal action filed in May 2023 in Montana named Teck Coal Ltd. as one of three defendants in a request for judicial review by environmental groups in Montana and Idaho over levels of contamination from its British Columbia mines in US waters.

“Our two countries are committed to a collaborative, science, and Indigenous knowledge based, action-oriented path forward,” US Ambassador to Canada David L. Cohen and the Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman said in a joint statement.

The two nations will work in partnership with Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples, consistent with the principles outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They’ve asked the IJC to assist federal and Indigenous governments, British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana, to establish a formal governance structure for the study board by the end of June.

Teck closed the sale of a minority interest in its coal business to Nippon in January. The remaining sale of 77% of the business to Glencore (LSE: GLEN) is expected to close in the third quarter.

The Louvem property consists of 12 mining claims and is located 5 km east of Malartic, Québec. The project was originally acquired along with the Regcourt property under a March 2020 purchase agreement with Monarch Mining (TSX: GBAR).

O3 first acquired a 50% interest in the Louvem project by issuing 4,546 common stock and granting Monarch a 0.5% NSR royalty, and then acquired the remaining 50% by paying C$10,000 cash. The NSR has a buyback of C$300,000. Eldorado will now assume the obligation of this royalty.

As for the NSR royalty retained by O3, Eldorado is granted the right to repurchase half of that (equal to a 0.25% NSR interest) from O3 for an immediate payment of C$250,000, to be paid in a lump sum.

The sale provides O3 with additional funds to advance its portfolio of gold exploration assets in Val-d’Or, which span more than 650 sq. km. Together, these projects host 2.86 million gold ounces of measured and indicated resources at 1.18 g/t, and 770,000 gold ounces of inferred resources at 3.04 g/t.

Eldorado is owner of the Lamaque mine complex in Val-d’Or, consisting of the Triangle gold deposit located 2.5 km south of the historic world-class Lamaque and Sigma mines. It currently hosts proven and probable gold reserves of 877,000 ounces at 6.12 g/t gold to support a mine life of 11 years.

Shares of O3 Mining gained 1.4% to C$1.43 apiece by 2:20 p.m. ET. The company has a market capitalization of C$125.4 million. Eldorado Gold’s stock was up 0.4% at C$16.54 for a market capitalization of C$3.3 billion.

Decarbonization emerges as one of the industry’s foremost challenges, as the survey conducted last month with 75 mining company decision-makers revealed.

Survey respondents anticipate heightened scrutiny from investors this year regarding their decarbonization strategies.

Findings indicate that fewer than a quarter have made formal commitments to achieve all scope-related carbon emission reductions by 2050 or earlier. About a quarter have not yet made formal commitments but are actively developing emission reduction plans. Moreover, 10% lack both ESG and carbon reduction strategies, while 7% either do not intend to implement such strategies or face challenges in reducing emissions at present, according to KMPG data.

Scope 1 encompasses greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions directly owned or controlled by organizations, while scope 2 includes indirect emissions resulting from the production of purchased energy. Reducing scope 3 emissions, which traverse the company’s value chain, poses a considerable challenge.

“Many in the industry face substantial hurdles to reducing scope 3 emissions, particularly due to Canada’s limited smelting or refining capacity for critical minerals,” wrote Heather Cheeseman, national mining leader for KPMG in Canada.

Intermediary minerals produced in Canada are shipped to smelters worldwide.

“Until Canada develops smelting or refining capabilities for mined minerals, miners will encounter limitations,” Cheeseman said.

According to the survey, nine out of 10 Canadian mining leaders are optimistic about the country’s potential to emerge as a global leader in critical minerals.

However, an overwhelming majority (98%) said there is an urgent need for increased investment, government commitment, and favorable tax policies to bolster the sector’s growth.

Read More: Canada plans scrutiny of Chinese offtake deals, minister says at PDAC