Welcome back to your weekly mining news recap, where we catch you up on some of the news you may have missed. This week we have stories about the effect the ongoing Vale strike in Sudbury is having on the nickel market, Cameco suspending Cigar Lake and how COVID-19 has changed mining education forever.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to present serious challenges to how educational institutions operate, and mining education has been no different. The shift to virtual mining training has meant a lot of drastic changes to the ways universities and colleges across Canada deliver their curricula, and many of those changes may stick around after the pandemic is finally over. Some see many of these changes as positive for the industry, as virtual learning will allow students and professionals to upskill more quickly and efficiently to meet the market demands of a rapidly evolving industry.

After a difficult last couple of years, things are looking up on the commodities market, with experts speculating as to whether we are entering a commodities supercycle. Marc Desormeaux, senior economist at Scotiabank, said this is due to the resurging strength of the global economy as vaccination rates go up and fiscal stimulus projects in the U.S. and China get underway. On the supply side, potential shortages of copper and iron ore could raise prices as President Biden’s sweeping infrastructure plans will require significant amounts of industrial materials.

The Tent Mountain open-pit metallurgical coal mine will be subject to a federal impact assessment, CBC reports. Canadian Environment and Climate Change Minister Johnathan Wilkinson said the mine, which Australian company Montem Resources is hoping to re-open and expand after 38 years of closure, could impact cross-border environments in Alberta and British Columbia, and may affect Indigenous rights under the 1982 Constitution Act. Another Montem coal project, Grassy Mountain, was recently denied permission to proceed by the Alberta Energy Regulator, but the company said it believes “a number of factors differentiate” the two projects.

Falco Resources and Glencore have signed an agreement in principle for Falco to develop its Horne 5 gold-copper project near Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, Canadian Mining Journal reports. The agreement outlines the terms of an operating licence and agreement to be finalized in Q3, 2021, including the establishment of a joint technical and strategic committee to collaborate on development of Horne 5. The agreement will allow Falco to rehabilitate an existing shaft owned by Glencore on a site where Falco holds mineral rights below 200 metres and beyond the shaft, but where Glencore owns the mining concession.

The ongoing strike at Vale’s Sudbury operations is straining the supply of nickel that is crucial to developing batteries for electric vehicles, Bloomberg reports. Sudbury is one of the only producers of nickel pellet, and manufacturers are switching to battery-grade nickel briquette in response to the disruption, leading to a 25 per cent rise in premiums on the latter. Adrian Gardner, principal analyst for nickel markets at research firm Wood Mackenzie, isn’t optimistic about a quick resolution to the Vale strike and anticipates the labor dispute could extend for many months.

On July 1, Cameco suspended mining at its Cigar Lake uranium mine in Saskatchewan as a precaution against a wildfire currently burning near the facility, S&P Global reports. The company is removing 230 non-essential workers from the site, a decision made in consultation with wildfire management officials from the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, while 80 essential workers will remain to “maintain the facility in a safe state.”

Geological organizations from Canada, the United States and Australia have teamed up to launch an interactive map of deposits of rare earth elements and other critical minerals such as cobalt and lithium, Reuters reports. The online map features over 7,000 mineral samples from over 60 countries and can be used by countries and companies as a tool for targeting future exploration zones.

The Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, announced that Canada would be investing $20 million in the ELYSIS limited partnership, a joint venture launched in 2018 by Alcoa and Rio Tinto. The investment will help the project further research and commercialize technology to reduce the carbon footprint of Canada’s aluminum smelting industry.

Pyrite, or “fool’s gold,” has gotten a bad rap for ages, despite containing two kinds of real gold: microscopic particles of gold contained within the pyrite, or alloys of gold and pyrite. But scientists have discovered yet another kind – gold atoms that can “decorate” imperfections in pyrite’s crystal structure, as Curtin University researcher on the discovery Denis Fougerouse describes it. The discovery, according to Fougerouse, “may help gold miners more efficiently extract gold from pyrite, potentially reducing greenhouse emissions,” since the imperfections can “potentially offer an enhanced partial leaching or a target for bacteria to attack and break down the crystal,” reducing the need for large reactors to extract it.

Vale announced that it will be spending $150 million to extend the life of mine by ten years and up production at its Thompson, Manitoba mine operations, as part of the first phase of its mine extension project, the Thompson Citizen reports. The project will see the construction of new ventilation raises and fans, the increase of backfill capacity and the addition of power distribution infrastructure, which will improve employee work conditions, and provide the electrical power necessary to mine at greater depths.

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