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Base metals, gold exploration kicks into high gear, north of Timmins – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – May 6, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

A junior mining startup company has raised more than $4.4 million to go exploring for base metals on its property near Timmins.

Growing investor interest in the fledgling exploration outfit and its Crawford nickel-cobalt sulphide property, 40 kilometres north of the city, prompted Canada Nickel Company to upsize its flow-through share financing offering last month.

Helmed by renowned nickel developer Mark Selby, Canada Nickel is a spinoff of Noble Mineral Exploration, the latter being the owners of a sizeable swath of land, next to the Kidd Creek Mine Complex.

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Rockcliff makes new Nickel-PGE discovery at [Flin Flon, Manitoba] Tower property (Resource World – May 6, 2020)

https://resourceworld.com/

Rockcliff Metals Corp. [RCLF-CSE; RO0-FSE; A2H60G-WKLN] has made a new high-grade nickel-PGE (platinum group element) discovery on its 100%-owned Tower property in the Snow Lake area of central Manitoba. This new discovery, termed the TGR nickel-PGE prospect, has returned significant assay results.

TGR is located only 600 metres south of the company’s high-grade, copper-rich Tower deposit. The TGR mineralization was discovered in a previously unexplored area and is associated with ultramafic rocks of the Thompson nickel belt (TNB).

The TNB is a world-class over-300-kilometre-long mining belt with over 60 years of production from high-grade nickel mines with associated copper and cobalt.

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Independent review confirms magmatic nickel/copper/PGM deposit for Kavango – by Marleny Arnoldi (MiningWeekly.com – April 29, 2020)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

London-listed Kavango Resources has published a new independent technical review on the exploration potential of the company’s Kalahari Suture Zone (KSZ) project, in Botswana.

Kavango is searching for “Norilsk-style” deposits in the KSZ, which the technical review has confirmed the presence of.

The review, completed by Dr David Holwell using a mineral systems approach, confirms the presence of ten key geological features, which are also present in world-class magmatic sulphide copper, nickel and platinum group metal (PGM) deposits at Norilsk, in Siberia; Voisey’s Bay, Thomson Nickel Belt and Raglan, in Canada; and Jinchuan, in China.

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Sudbury: Expect more earthquakes as mines dig deeper, Vale says – by Casey Stranges (CBC News Sudbury – April 27, 2020)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Mining giant Vale says seismic activity around its Sudbury-area mines is likely linked to its deep drilling operations, and it’s a possibility that more incidents will follow.

Natural Resources Canada recorded two earthquakes last week. A 3.6 MN (magnitude) tremor hit Creighton Mine Thursday morning, and a 3.0 MN quake forced Garson Mine to stop operations Friday night and all day Saturday.

According to Natural Resources Canada’s website, it’s unlikely that any quake that registers below 5 MN would cause damage above ground, though tremors were felt as far away as Lively.

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Nickel Exploration and Mining – outlook and update – by Kathrine Moore (Resource World – April 28, 2020)

https://resourceworld.com/

NICKEL IS A BASE METAL with many uses; from coins to skyscrapers it is part of our daily life, including the kitchen sink. But not all nickel is equal. Different types of nickel are used for different purposes. Mark Jarvis, CEO of Giga Metals, spoke to Resource World about the nickel industry, nickel demand and types of nickel.

According to Jarvis, 70% of all nickel produced is used to feed stainless-steel mills. Most of that nickel is class 2 nickel, including nickel pig iron, an iron nickel alloy, a type of low-grade ferro-nickel. A small amount of class 1 or pure nickel, on average 5% of the nickel units, is necessary for steel making,

All other uses of nickel require class 1 nickel, including storage batteries and batteries that power electric vehicles. Jarvis explained that class 1 nickel is nickel that can be economically upgraded to 99.9% nickel or better.

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Nickel prices on a roller-coaster ride – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – April 25, 2020)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

With so many factors at play around the world, the price of nickel is heading back up after looking to drop below the US $5 a pound mark just a few weeks ago.

The COVID-19 pandemic, of course, has shuttered economies and cut into global demand for nickel. At the same time, Indonesia has banned the export of nickel ore, which will tighten supplies and affect large nickel purchaser China.

On Friday, nickel closed at $5.50 a pound, close to the average world price of nickel in March, which was $5.40 a pound. About three months ago, however, nickel was selling for almost $6.50 a pound.

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Canada Nickel’s Mark Selby sees Dumont-style deposit at Crawford – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – April 22, 2020)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Mark Selby led a team that raised over $100 million and advanced the Dumont nickel-cobalt project in Quebec from an initial resource to a fully permitted, construction-ready project for RNC Minerals (TSX: RNX).

Now the mining executive believes he’s onto the next big nickel project in Canada with Crawford – a large tonnage nickel-cobalt sulphide discovery, 20 km north of Glencore’s enormous Kidd Creek base metal mine in Ontario’s Timmins camp.

The chairman and CEO of Canada Nickel Company (TSXV: CNC) says there are similarities between Crawford and RNC Minerals’ Dumont project – one of the world’s largest undeveloped nickel sulphide deposits containing about 6.1 billion lb. nickel in proven and probable reserves.

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DeepGreen to make run for battery metals from seafloor – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 7, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

DeepGreen Metals, a Canadian start-up planning to extract cobalt and other battery metals from the seafloor, has added a new area to its seabed portfolio, which it believes could potentially help it solve the bottleneck supply of critical battery metals needed for the world’s green energy transition.

The strategic acquisition of Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML), announced Tuesday, gives the Vancouver-based company exploration rights to a third area inside the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific Ocean.

The 4,000-kilometre swath of ocean, stretching from Hawaii to Mexico, is known for containing enough nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese to build over 250 million electric vehicle batteries.

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Nickel drilling campaign turns up PGMs: Canada Nickel makes palladium-platinum find near Timmins – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – April 7, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

A fledgling junior mining company searching for nickel and cobalt, north of Timmins, has discovered a zone of palladium and platinum.

Canada Nickel Company, a spinoff of Noble Mineral Exploration, announced the discovery after the results came back from a drilling program on their Crawford nickel-cobalt sulphide project, 40 kilometres north of the city.

According to an April 6 news release, this separate zone sits north and next to the nickel sulphide discovery that was made early last year. A first-time resource calculation was posted in early March.

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BofA sees nickel taking big COVID-19 hit – by Henry Lazenby (Mining Journal – April 2020)

https://www.mining-journal.com/

With global GDP forecast to grow at just 0.3% this year, translating into a 2.8% year-on-year contraction to nickel demand, about 150,000 tonnes of surplus metal or 10% of global supply could accumulate.

Industry players including Vale, Sumitomo, Glencore and South32 have all shown concern over nickel fundamentals, prompting production responses that “should ultimately limit the supply overhang”, according to the bank.

“Similar to copper, we therefore believe prices could rally, when a treatment (not necessarily a vaccine) is found or the isolation measures show success,” BofA said.

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Column: Collapsing auto sector a body blow for industrial metals – by Andy Home – Reuters U.K. – March 27, 2020)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – France’s Recylex has just announced the temporary closure of both its German lead smelter and two battery-recycling plants, one in Germany and one in France.

The decision is due to a “strong drop in demand, especially in the automotive sector, in a context of sharply lower metal prices,” the company said. It will surely not be the last lead producer to mothball its production facilities.

Lead is umbilically tied to the automotive sector. Lead-acid batteries account for around 80% of global usage of the metal. And carmakers just about everywhere have halted their own production lines due to the spread of the coronavirus and the lockdowns on activity that have followed in its wake.

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Glencore shutters Quebec mines; operations in Sudbury continue – by Staff (Sudbury Star – March 27, 2020)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Glencore said Thursday its Raglan nickel and Matagami zinc operations in Quebec will be on care and maintenance for the next three weeks. Nickel from Raglan is shipped to Glencore’s Sudbury operations, where it is processed. Operations in Sudbury will continue to run.

“The government of Quebec has ordered all non-essential businesses to close in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. Accordingly, our Raglan (nickel) and Matagami (zinc) operations in Quebec will be on care and maintenance for the next three weeks,” Glencore said in a statement. “In Ontario, the government has issued a similar decree, but mining has been designated an essential business and therefore our assets can continue to operate.”

The company said it is halting operations at its smaller mines around the world due to government restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus but added its larger operations were not materially impacted.

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Mincor crowns Kambalda district projects as highest grade nickel sites – by Salomae Haselgrove (Australian Mining – March 25, 2020)

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Mincor Resources has confirmed a 132 per cent increase to its nickel sulphide reserves in the Kambalda district, Western Australia.

Its reserves are now sitting at 65,400 nickel tonnes, which announcement was concurrent to the completion of Mincor’s definitive feasibility study (DFS) for its nickel restart plan.

The DFS confirmed the potential of Mincor nickel operations to become a five-year operation, producing 63,000 tonnes of recovered nickel-in-concentrate.

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Federal judge hands Twin Metals major win in fight over mining near Boundary Waters – by Jennifer Bjorhus (Star Tribune – March 17, 2020)

http://www.startribune.com/

Copper-mining opponents assailed the decision as a “slap in the face.”

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has dealt a significant blow to environmental groups fighting to protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from copper-nickel mining in Minnesota.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the Trump administration acted within its authority when it reissued two mineral leases for the proposed Twin Metals copper-nickel mine in 2018.

The Obama administration had previously denied the company’s request to renew its two leases to mine on 5,000 acres of public land in Superior National Forest after the U.S. Forest Service concluded that copper mining so close to the Boundary Waters was too risky, and it could cause “serious and irreparable harm” to an “irreplaceable wilderness area.”

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No plans to shutter Vale or Glencore operations in Sudbury due to COVID-19 – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – March 18, 2020)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale has no plans to curtail or suspend its Greater Sudbury-area operations due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“There has been no discussion of suspending operations in our North Atlantic Operations other than Voisey’s Bay and that there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 amongst Vale employees to date,” Vale spokeswoman Danica Pagnuti said Tuesday. “In terms of Vale’s efforts to address COVID-19, since late January Vale has been taking all necessary measures to support the prevention of the COVID-19 at its sites. “

Pagnutti said a technical crisis committee and another executive committee were created to manage the actions resulting from this pandemic. To ensure everyone’s safety, all worldwide non-essential business trips have been cancelled or postponed until further notice, and the same approach is being taken for events.

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