According to billionaire Eric Sprott, New Found Gold's Queensway project in Newfoundland could become "the greatest gold discovery in the history of Canada." Courtesy of New Found Gold.

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 Manitoba’s $50.7 million investment in cleaning up orphaned and abandoned mines, the search and rescue mission for Trevali’s missing miners in Burkina Faso and Mexico’s nationalization of its lithium industry.

As protests around copper mines intensify in Peru, the country has declared a state of emergency near Southern Copper Corp’s Cuajone copper mine, as reported by Mining.com. The ongoing protests have brought 20 per cent of the country’s copper output to a stop, with MMG’s Las Bambas mine shut down again for the third time this year after nearby residents set up camp inside the mine. Protests around mining operations have focused on concerns about drinking water, against a backdrop of growing social unrest around the cost of living in the country.   

Mexico officially nationalized its lithium industry yesterday, putting its estimated 1.7 million tonnes of lithium resources off limits to outside investment, as reported by Mining.com. The law may very well introduce international tensions for Mexico as it would disrupt China’s Bacanora Lithium’s Sonora project and may also violate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).           

The search for eight missing workers goes on at Trevali’s Perkoa mine in Burkina Faso after a flash flood breached the protective berms around the open pit, and flooded the underground mine. President and CEO Ricus Grimbeek travelled to Perkoa with other senior officials and has stated that search and rescue efforts will continue until the missing workers are found, with no date in sight for operations to resume. Trevali has also pulled its 2022 production guidance as a result.

The goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for a project has become a key part of the pitch for miners pursuing investment. While commitments to net-zero are common, the task of supporting these stated ambitions with verifiable and credible accounting is still a work-in-progress.  

Accompanying the calls for decarbonization is the growing challenge of mining lower grade copper as high-grade resources become depleted. Many companies are looking to optimize the leaching process, with green-friendly options such as glycine leaching and bioleaching – using bugs to do the work – attracting more and more research effort.

 

The diplomatic shocks to the global economy caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are now being felt by the mining industry when it comes to operating costs. In its first quarter operations review for 2022, Rio Tinto declared cost increases reflecting the biggest hike in raw material cost since the 1973 oil crisis. Another risk to economic growth noted in the report was the rise in interest rates globally.

Manitoba is investing $50.7 million in a program to clean up orphaned and abandoned mines in the province over the next five years, as reported by CTV News. To date, the existing program has done remediation work at 39 high and moderate-risk sites involving debris clean up, shaft caps installation, mine openings sealing and tailings demolition and covering. The investment will also go towards the creation of a new program for long-term care, maintenance and surveillance of the rehabilitated mines.

Ontario’s recently unveiled Northern Energy Advantage Program (NEAP) will offer rebates on electricity costs to industrial facilities in Northern Ontario as an effort to foster investment in the northern part of the province and advance net-zero goals. The program, which is a revamp of the earlier Northern Industrial Electricity Rate (NIER) program, notably introduces a new investor class stream, which has already allowed Algoma Steel to build an electric arc furnace.

Famed investor Eric Sprott made his biggest investment yet in precious metals, having purchased $125.9 million worth of shares in New Found Gold Corp, as reported by the Financial Post. The company’s first drill hole,  announced in January 2020, struck 92.86 grams of gold per tonne, spread over 17 metres at a depth of 96 metres. “It’s going to prove to be maybe the greatest gold discovery in the history of Canada, if not in the world,” said Sprott.

That’s all for this week. If you’ve got feedback, you can always reach us at editor@cim.org. If you’ve got something to add, why not join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram pages?