Welcome back to your weekly mining news recap, and happy Labour Day long weekend! Before you hit the highway to the cottage, let us catch you up on the mining news from CIM Magazine and elsewhere that you may have missed. In this week’s headlines: Tahoe’s kidnapped Escobal contractors are returned safely, Taseko gets the go-ahead from a B.C. court to begin exploration drilling at New Prosperity, and wall-to-wall coverage of the Trans Mountain federal court decision.

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Mark Selby, chief executive at Royal Nickel Corp. (RNC), has a plan to disrupt the Canadian nickel industry, the Financial Post reported on Monday. The company wants to produce a product similar to nickel pig iron, which it can use to bypass Canadian smelters and break into the much larger Chinese market. To do this, RNC is attempting to raise $1 billion to build its Dumont project in Quebec’s Abitibi region.

Twelve security contractors working at Tahoe Resources’ Escobal Mine in Guatemala were kidnapped last Friday. According to the company, the contractors were injured, but released to the police a short time later. The company said the kidnappers are part of a group that refer to themselves as the “Peaceful Resistance Group of Mataquescuintla,” which had set up a vehicle roadblock earlier in the week.

Lead smelting production has resumed at Teck Resources’ Trail complex, following a shutdown last week. Smoke from the British Columbia wildfires had previously caused the company to close its Linde plant at Trail, which supplies oxygen to the operations, and as a result lead smelting was halted, while zinc smelting was unaffected. Teck spokesperson Chris Stannell said that “regional air quality conditions continue to be actively monitored.”

A massive boom in the demand for lithium has started a “water war” in Chile, Reuters reported. Indigenous groups, copper miners, lithium producers, and the state government are all staking their claim over water rights in the salt flats of the Salar de Atacama, which contains over one-third of the world’s supply of lithium. Oscar Cristi, Chile’s head of water authority, seeks to rein in water usage in a region where the demand continues to grow.

Taseko Mines has been given the green light to start exploration at its New Prosperity site after the British Columbia Supreme Court dismissed the Tsilhqot’in Nation’s petition to quash the company’s permit. With Taseko given permission to begin work, the Tsilhqot’in Nation has called upon B.C.’s NDP government to cancel the exploration permit and has stated that they will be “exhausting all options” to prevent work from starting.

In other court news, the Federal Court of Appeal voided the final Trans Mountain Pipeline approval on Thursday, ruling that the National Energy Board’s report was “so flawed” the federal government could not have relied on it to make its final decision, and that the feds failed to adequately consult with First Nations groups. First Nations and environmental groups reacted to the decision with joy, while industry groups expressed frustration. Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the government’s purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline was the “right decision,” while Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, one of the pipeline’s biggest supporters, has opted to remove her province from the federal climate plan until the situation is resolved.

Running a mining operation in a country with a high level of political tension can be dangerous. In his column from our August issue, experienced financier and advisor Mauro Chiesa provides his six strategies to reduce political risk in international mining projects. Engaging and supporting the local communities where mining projects occur goes a long way in helping to reduce risk.

Have a great long weekend! The CIM national offices will be closed on Monday, Sept. 3.