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 Glencore’s Horne smelter revising its arsenic emissions strategy, the U.S. and China striking a rare earths deal, and McIlvenna Bay workers returning to the site following wildfire evacuation.

On Friday, Dundee Precious Metals announced a US$1.3-billion bid for Australia- and U.K.-listed Adriatic Metals, which is currently ramping up its Vareš silver-lead-zinc-gold underground mine in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Adriatic acquired the Vareš project in 2017, began construction in 2022, and is currently progressing toward its nameplate capacity of 800,000 tonnes per year.

The Glencore Kidd Operations team claimed first place at the 2025 Ontario Mine Rescue provincial competition, hosted in Timmins from June 3 to 5. Competing against seven other regional teams, they excelled in demonstrating their expertise in firefighting, first aid and the use of specialized rescue equipment. The team, last provincial champions in 2013, will represent Ontario at the International Mine Rescue Competition in Zambia in April 2026.

McEwen Mining has begun construction of a new ramp system and portal at its Stock gold mine in Timmins, Ontario. This will grant underground access to three key gold zones and support cost-effective exploration drilling. Gold production is expected to start in the East zone during the second half of this year. The company sees this development phase as a timely opportunity to drive down production costs, as global gold prices reach record levels.

Taseko Mines, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation and British Columbia have finalized an agreement that settles a long-running conflict involving the mineral claims for the New Prosperity copper-gold project, as reported by Mining.com. The agreement concludes all litigation and confirms that any future development will benefit the nation and occur only with its informed consent. Under the agreement, the B.C. government will pay Taseko $75 million, and in return, Taseko will transfer a 22.5 per cent equity interest in the project’s mineral tenures to a trust established for the Tŝilhqot’in Nation.

Glencore’s Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, has scrapped its Aeris modernization project, choosing instead an optimized plan to reduce arsenic emissions, as reported by Mining Weekly. The project, which aimed to modernize the smelter with advanced in-house technology to cut emissions, is being abandoned due to complex construction challenges, an extensive overhaul of the production process and technical limits to the incorporation of new technologies without disrupting copper output. The new approach is expected to deliver more reliable improvements in air quality. Government approval is required for the revised strategy.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new agreement in which China will supply rare earth minerals and magnets to the United States, while the U.S. will allow Chinese students to study at American universities in exchange, as reported by Reuters. The deal aims to lift China’s export restrictions on rare earth minerals, which had been a major hurdle in earlier trade negotiations. Trump said the deal is pending final approval from him and China’s President Xi Jinping.

Foran Mining has begun a phased return of personnel to its McIlvenna Bay project site after regional wildfire threats in Saskatchewan eased, with a full return to site anticipated by the end of the week. Over 500 employees were evacuated on May 22. The site is intact, and construction ramp-up is under way. The Manitoba communities of Flin Flon, Snow Lake and Lynn Lake remain under mandatory evacuation orders.

In 2023, Cementation Canada completed the longest continuous raise bore in the Americas—1,076 metres—at Vale Canada’s Thompson T3 nickel mine in Manitoba, as reported by Mehanaz Yakub for the May issue of CIM Magazine. The dual-shaft ventilation project, part of the Thompson Mine Extension Project, helped to improve airflow to support deeper mining and extended the mine’s life by at least 10 years. Despite challenges like extreme cold and unstable surface ground, the project was completed safely and on schedule.

Mine permitting delays stem less from bureaucracy and more from outdated industry practices rooted in old methodologies, argued Davide Elmo in the May issue of CIM Magazine. He called on the mining sector to modernize engineering practices and education, while integrating technology, sustainability and community engagement from the outset. Elmo emphasized the importance of early-stage collaborative frameworks involving Indigenous rightsholders and technical experts, and advocated for incorporating closure and reclamation planning from the beginning of the mine design process.

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