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Welcome back to your weekly mining news recap, where we catch you up on some of the news you may have missed. This week’s headlines include Generation Mining releasing a feasibility study for its palladium and copper project, Rio Tinto’s chairman Simon Thompson stepping down and Nutrien Potash laying off employees.

The Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), set up to address potential human rights abuses by companies operating abroad, is ready to take on complaints. However, CORE’s role is already being viewed as ineffectual by some non-governmental organizations and human rights experts, who are concerned that the office will not be able to fulfill its mandate because the federal government has not given it the powers to compel documents and witness testimonies when investigating complaints.

Generation Mining has completed a feasibility study for its open-pit Marathon palladium and copper project, with a projected 13-year life. Results from the study showed that at prices of US$1,725 per ounce of palladium and US$3.20 per pound of copper, the project’s net present value would be $1.07 billion with a six per cent discount rate. Marathon plans to begin construction on the mine by 2022 and begin commercial production by 2024.

Rio Tinto and the government of Mongolia have agreed to a new arrangement to finance the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine, after an earlier  cost increase of US$1.45 billion had caused tensions between the two, as reported by Mining.com. The Mongolian government asked the miner and its majority-owned Turquoise Hill Resources subsidiary to revisit the economic benefits of the expansion plan or face the potential cancellation of the deal. Rio Tinto and Turquoise hill have also been at odds trying to find solutions on how to finance the project. Turquoise Hill’s CEO Ulf Quellmann has since resigned after Rio Tinto said it planned to vote against his re-election at the annual shareholders meeting later this year, as reported by The Globe and Mail.

A scientific study commissioned by Agnico Eagle has found the mining road near its Meliadine Mine is having almost no impact on caribou migration patterns in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut, as reported by CBC. Community members and the Kivalliq Inuit Association have criticized the results of the scientific study, saying that more reporting and analysis is needed since the initial data analyzed was “unrealistic” and “narrow.” A technical memorandum provided by the company found that 132 out of 135 caribou crossed the mining road between 2014-2019.

The Délınę Got'ınę government has signed an agreement with the Canadian government that will give the community more control over the cleanup process of abandoned mines near the Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, as reported by CBC. The abandoned mines are one of eight mining sites that are “high risk,” which the government plans to remediate in the next 15 years. Also included in the government’s remediation plan is the former Giant mine, located in Yellowknife, which over 70 years produced more than 237,000 tons of arsenic trioxide and released poisonous dust into the air and water in the area. The Yellowknives Dene First Nation (YKDFN) is expecting the process for an official apology from the federal government for contaminating its land to start in June –  a first for Canada –  as reported by CBC.  Additionally, the YKDFN is asking for compensation and more federal involvement in the $1 billion remediation project on its traditional lands. 

Golden Predator Mining is acquiring Viva Gold in an agreement that will create a company focused on two gold mining projects: Brewery Creek mine in Yukon and Tonopah gold project in Nevada, as reported by Canadian Mining Journal. Under the agreement, Viva Gold shareholders will be receiving 1.6 shares of Golden Predator in exchange for each Viva share and, upon closing the transaction, they will hold about 27 per cent of Golden Predator shares.

This year’s Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration’s MINEXCHANGE conference opened virtually with a keynote address by Douglas Silver, a mineral economics expert. Silver’s presentation focused on looking past the COVID-19 pandemic and into its future implications on the mining industry. He predicted that the way society functions has changed forever and placed an emphasis on the importance of supporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards moving forward.

Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson and non-executive director Michael L’Estrange are stepping down from the board after the former acknowledged in a statement that he is accountable for the destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred Indigenous site in Western Australia, as reported by Aljazeera. A parliamentary inquiry over the destruction recommends that the company will have to pay restitution, rebuild the destroyed site and commit to a permanent moratorium on mining in the area. A full inquiry report is due later this year.

Nutrien Potash is laying off “fewer than 50” of its employees in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in an effort to “drive efficiencies” in its finance department and “remain competitive” in the industry, as reported by 650 CKOM. The company’s CEO Ken Seitz said Nutrien is supporting staff during this transition and revealed that some of the employees will also be transferred to other areas of the business.

Rio Tinto and Alcoa have completed construction on an Industrial Research and Development Centre in Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec, for its joint Elysis venture. Experts at the centre will be advancing a technology that will remove greenhouse gases from the aluminum smelting process.

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