Gabriel Resources investors flee after miner loses $4.4-billion arbitration claim against Romania – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – March 15, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

Investors shave nearly $900 million off market cap in one of swiftest, largest single-day losses for a Canadian junior miner

Yukon-based Gabriel Resources Ltd. once harboured ambitions to build one of Europe’s largest gold and silver mines in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, which has been mined by humans for at least 2,000 years. But the proposed mining area is now on the UNESCO World Heritage list and Gabriel just lost an eight-year legal battle with Romania that has left the company’s future uncertain.

Gabriel’s experience is a cautionary tale that shows how shifting attitudes around resource extraction and an evolving global financial system have changed the business of mining.

Read more

Gold’s mystery rally baffles analysts – by Harry Dempsey and Mary McDougall (Financial Times – March 12, 2024)

https://www.ft.com/

Hopes of US rate cuts alone are unlikely to have driven latest leg higher, say strategists

The price of gold has surged 7 per cent in just over a week to hit record highs, leaving longtime market watchers struggling to explain what has been one of the yellow metal’s most curious rallies.

The sudden price move has lifted the haven asset above its previous peak reached in December to hit nearly $2,195 per troy ounce on Friday, according to LSEG data. Some commentators have attributed the move to growing expectations of US interest rate cuts, which would make the non-yielding asset relatively more attractive.

Read more

Gold mine with history of contaminating B.C. creek fined $276K – by Betsy Trumpener (CBC News British Columbia – March 15, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

Barkerville Gold Mines’ penalty reduced in part because of COVID restrictions on business: report

A gold mining company that discharged contaminants into a B.C. creek more than a thousand times since 2017 has now been fined over $275,000 for its most recent violations of environmental rules, according to a March 2024 report from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy.

Barkerville Gold Mines, owned by Osisko Development since 2019, operates two gold mines and a processing mill east of Quesnel, B.C., in the mountainous Cariboo region about 440 kilometres north of Vancouver. The environmental violations took place at its underground Bonanza Ledge gold mine.

Read more

Did Idris Elba’s ‘Goldfather’ video boost gold prices? – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – March 15, 2024)


https://financialpost.com/

Price of gold hitting records but likely more due to central bank stockpiling than film star’s documentary

For several months a one-hour video starring charismatic film and television star Idris Elba has been heavily circulated via YouTube. Titled “Gold: A Journey with Idris Elba,” the documentary-style production never made it to the Oscars for obvious reasons.

Funded by the World Gold Council, the production is a professionally-produced vehicle that clearly aims to portray the gold council’s corporate members — from Canada’s Agnico-Eagle and Barrick Resources to China’s Shandong Gold Group — as leaders of a wondrous industry producing a dazzling product that glitters around the world.

Read more

Remediation project at Long Lake gold mine expected to finally begin to clean up arsenic tailings – by Angela Gemmill (CTV News Northern Ontario – March 13, 2024)

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/

An environmental cleanup project is expected to finally get going in Sudbury this year. It was in 2015 when arsenic was discovered in an old gold mine site near the extreme western part of Long Lake, but several delays prevented the project from moving forward until now.

The two tailings ponds above the glory hole are what will be remediated. “What they’re doing is scraping all of the tailings together and putting them together into a compound,” chair of the Long Lake Stewardship Committee, Scott Darling explained.

Read more

Argonaut Gold digs into its ramp-up problems at Dubreuilville – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 7, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Magino Mine team looks to get open-pit mine and mill up to speed

A 35 per cent selloff of Argonaut Gold stock last week took CEO Richard Young by surprise. A less-than-stellar performance since the start of mining at Argonaut’s Magino Mine, outside Dubreuilville, hasn’t exactly resonated with investors as the Toronto gold company’s stock has plunged from a high of 72 cents a share last August to 28 cents this week.

The open-pit mine and mill operation has been hampered by a number of start-up issues that’s driven up costs and has the Toronto gold company looking to finance its US$128.7-million debt.

Read more

Romania wins legal battle against a Canadian miner over failed plans to open a gold mine (CTV/Associated Press – March 9, 2024)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA – The Romanian government has won a yearslong legal dispute with a Canadian mining company seeking damages over failed plans to open a gold and silver mine in the Eastern European country.

Gabriel Resources was seeking US$4.4 billion (four billion euros) in damages from the Romanian state, which owned a 20 per cent stake in the mining project in Rosia Montana, a mountainous western region that contains some of Europe’s largest gold deposits. The Romanian government withdrew its support for the project in 2014.

Read more

Cobalt’s boomtown blues – by John Sandlos (Canadian Mining Journal – March 7, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Every mine develops at a different pace. The discovery of a major mineral deposits may create feverish excitement, but an actual mine may remain undeveloped for decades, waiting for a favourable alignment of investors, infrastructure developments, or market conditions.

Some mines develop rather suddenly, however, leading to the “rush” conditions that have been romanticized in popular culture. Mineral rushes may lead to riches for some, but they also can create impossibly difficult conditions for miners and their families, including poor housing, hunger, diseases, and high accident rates in the mines.

Read more

Gold’s shock rally has analysts grasping for explanations – by Ernest Hoffman (Kitco News – March 6, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Gold’s surprising rally to new all-time highs has even seasoned industry professionals scratching their heads as to the true cause.

“It is clear that despite the West’s disaffection for gold […] demand in China is more than offsetting the shortfall, with monumental volumes flowing from West to the East,” wrote Metals Daily CEO Ross Norman in a LinkedIn post. “As such, this rally seems to have caught Western experts and forecasters by surprise – a stealth rally if you like – which suggests to me the buying is beyond the immediate purview of most of us.”

Read more

Gold prices are going higher, but it remains the only antidote to an overvalued S&P 500 and global uncertainty – Sprott’s McIntyre – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – March 6, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – The gold market continues to move from one record close to another, even as its all-time highs remain elusive, which should attract investors’ attention, according to one fund manager.

Regardless of whether the gold’s four-day rally to $2,150 an ounce is sustainable or not, prices are going higher in the long term, said Ryan McIntyre, Managing Partner at Sprott Inc., in an interview with Kitco News.

Read more

‘Once-in-a-generation buy’: Newmont CEO touts stock as miner attempts to raise US$2B – by Jordan Fleguel (Bloomberg News – February 27, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

The head of Newmont Corp., the world’s largest gold producer, says that his company’s current stock price is the lowest it will be for a generation as the miner attempts to consolidate its collection of top-tier assets.

The U.S.-based gold giant recently announced that it will seek to sell six mines and two other projects in order to generate US$2 billion in cash as it transitions to a portfolio of solely tier-one assets; the world’s largest and most-sought after gold mines.

Read more

Canadian gold miner agrees to sell itself to Chinese company in possible test of Ottawa policy – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – February 26, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

Yintai Gold to buy Osino Resources for $368 million

Ottawa’s policy of preventing Chinese companies from investing in Canadian-listed firms may be put to the test after Vancouver-based Osino Resources Corp. agreed to be bought by Yintai Gold Co. Ltd. for $368 million.

Yintai’s main interest in Osino seems to be the latter’s gold project in central Namibia. The Twin Hills Gold project is expected to have a 13-year mine life with average gold production of more than 169,000 ounces per year, according to a third-party study. The project is expected to generate about US$1.5 billion with a relatively low cost of about $365 million to build the mine.

Read more

Dubreuilville gold mine one of the ‘highest grade, fastest growing deposits in the world’ – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 23, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Discovery of more high-grade zones at Island Gold could mean longer mine life for Alamos Gold

Gold reserves and resources have increased at the Island Gold Mine, outside Dubreuilville, for the eighth consecutive year. Island Gold continues to be Alamos’ catalyst of growth as the Toronto gold company released its end-of-2023 mineral reserves and resources for its operations in Canada and Mexico.

Alamos reported a 16 per cent increase in reserves and resources to 6.1 million ounces at Island Gold, which was acquired by the company in 2017.

Read more

Northwest First Nation wants to bring a stop to mine road construction – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 23,2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Cat Lake seeks injunction to halt First Mining Gold’s access road, pending judicial review

A northwestern Ontario First Nation in close proximity to First Mining Gold’s Springpole Project is heading to court, seeking to stop construction of an access road to the proposed mine site.

Cat Lake First Nation imposed a mining moratorium in 2023 on all mining-related activity within its traditional territory, which includes the Vancouver mine developer’s open-pit project.

Read more

Newmont to sell six non-core assets in Canada, Australia – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – February 22, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Newmont Corp (NYSE: NEM) said on Thursday it plans to sell six non-core assets, including its Éléonore mine in Quebec, the Musselwhite and Porcupine mines in Ontario, the Coffee project in the Yukon Territory and its 70% stake in the Havieron joint venture with Greatland Gold (LON: GGP) in Western Australia.

The world’s largest gold miner, which completed the acquisition of Newcrest Mining in November, said that proceeds from the transactions will be used to cut debt. The company, which had $8 billion in debt at the end of 2023, has set a near-term debt-reduction target of $1 billion.

Read more