(Bloomberg) — Gold’s record-setting rally this year has puzzled market watchers as bullion has roared higher despite headwinds that should have held it back. With prices sagging this week, the explanation may lie in China.
After weeks of debate about whether a mystery buyer was stoking the rally, several prominent figures in the global gold market are coming to the conclusion that the major new driving force is a legion of fleet-footed retail investors on the Shanghai Futures Exchange.
Stepping up liquefied natural gas exports would help Asia lower emissions by getting off coal and boost Canada’s economy at the same time
Pierre Poilievre‘s Axe the (carbon) Tax campaign is a spectacular success. But the Conservative party needs its own plan to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Paradoxically, it’s a fossil fuel that provides the answer. Canada’s rich endowment of natural gas offers us the chance to both reduce global emissions and also rescue a Canadian economy ravaged by the Liberal government.
How? By exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China, Japan, South Korea and the other coal-dependent Asia Pacific countries. Switching from coal to natural gas reduces CO2 emissions by 50 per cent while also eliminating the toxic compounds and lung-clogging particulates that shorten the lives of millions living in smog-stricken Asian cities.
TORONTO, April 23 (Reuters) – Canada and its Five Eyes Alliance partners are working on put forward a response to tackle the price manipulation of critical metals, Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday.
The U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have what is called the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network and the finance ministers from these countries met last Thursday for the spring session of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington.
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Ottawa has granted Airbus a waiver from sanctions targeting Russian titanium that could interfere with its business in Canada, two government sources say. Reports of the decision Wednesday prompted anger from Ukrainian Canadians and criticism from the Official Opposition.
The sanctions in question were only applied by Canada in February this year. Back then, Ottawa announced sanctions on Russia’s VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation, one of the world’s largest producers of titanium.
BHP Group Ltd. proposed a takeover of Anglo American Plc that valued the smaller miner at £31.1 billion (US$38.9 billion), in a deal that would create the world’s top copper producer while sparking the industry’s biggest shakeup in over a decade.
The biggest mining company proposed an all-share deal in which Anglo would first spin off controlling stakes in South African platinum and iron ore companies to its shareholders before being acquired by BHP. The total per-share value of the non-binding proposal was about £25.08, BHP said, a 14 per cent premium to Anglo’s closing share price on Wednesday.
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Hometown mine builder on a fast pace to put former INCO asset back into early production by year’s end
Seventeen months after acquiring a dormant INCO nickel and copper mine in Sudbury, Magna Mining said it’s ready to begin test mining later this year.
The hometown mine developer announced April 23 it has all the required approvals and permits in place to begin advanced exploration, both on the surface and underground, at its Crean Hill Mine project located in the southwest corner of the Sudbury basin.
Copper prices have risen all week, buoyed by surging investor confidence amidst ongoing concerns over tight supply conditions for the metal. The London Metal Exchange (LME) saw copper prices climb as much as 4.4 per cent this week from Monday’s level.
‘This is the second secular bull market that we’ve seen in copper this century, and it’s just starting now,” said Max Layton, global head of commodities research at Citi. “Investors have been holding off [but] they just can’t afford to hold off anymore. A very large number of [them] have a small to moderate copper position now that they didn’t have six to eight weeks ago.”
Nunavut Mining Symposium runs until Thursday; trade show open to the public on final day
Leaders from the three regional Inuit organizations in Nunavut came together Tuesday to discuss mining and its impact on the territory. The session was part of the annual Nunavut Mining Symposium, which opened April 22 and runs until April 25 at the Aqsarniit hotel in Iqaluit.
The panel, moderated by former Nunavut senator Dennis Patterson, included Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. vice-president Paul Irngaut, Qikiqtani Inuit Association president Olayuk Akesuk and Kivalliq Inuit Association chief operating officer Gabe Karlik.
https://www.mining-technology.com/
Miners in Australia are feeling the brunt of the global nickel price crash, from mine closures to forecast reductions and government intervention. How did things get so bad and is recovery possible? Annabel Cossins-Smith investigates.
The global nickel market has been volatile for years now. The price rollercoaster of 2022 saw prices for the metal soar, plummet and then soar again in the space of eight months. This instability prompted the London Metal Exchange (LME) to suspend nickel trading altogether in March 2022, when global prices initially rallied more than 250% in one day, and later to begin “enhanced monitoring” of nickel to ensure trading activity was fair and to prevent market distortion.
More recently, the nickel market has experienced an unprecedented, drawn-out price slump that has put operations around the world – and particularly in Australia – in jeopardy. A significant oversupply of cheap, low-grade nickel pig iron (NPI) coming almost entirely from China and Indonesia, is the key cause of the price slump. Combined, the two countries produce around 70% of the world’s nickel. Indonesia alone accounted for roughly half of global production in 2023, which is expected to rise significantly by the end of the decade.
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Since Rio Tinto bought Canada’s Alcan in 2007, the Anglo-Australian mining giant has been good at making big promises, but slow to fulfill them. This is especially proving to be the case with its plan to produce zero-carbon aluminum.
The Quebec aluminum operations that Alcan built up over more than 80 years until its US$40-billion takeover by Rio Tinto remain among the world’s most profitable. Rio’s eight wholly and jointly owned smelters in the province mostly rely on cheap and emissions-free hydroelectric power from dams that Alcan itself built, providing a competitive and environmental advantage over U.S., Chinese and Russian rivals that use coal-based electricity.
The remarkable heritage and ecology of Barroso are at risk amid an EU push to secure minerals for a ‘green transition’
As the sun begins its gradual descent in the mountains of Barroso, in northeast Portugal, it casts golden hues upon the region’s vast pine and oak forests. The air fills with the gentle hum of bees collecting nectar from the heather that blankets the rugged landscape in swaths of vivid purple and pink.
August is the peak season for honey, when the heather is in full bloom. Carlos “Libo” Goncalves is as busy as his bees. After taking his horses up the oak-studded hills that surround the village of Covas do Barroso, he dons his protective gear and hurries to the hives he has spread across his village’s common lands.
(Bloomberg) — A little-known Australian company is becoming the Western face of a Chinese nickel behemoth. In under a decade, Nickel Industries Ltd. has gone from a relatively small miner to the world’s sixth-biggest producer of a metal used in products from batteries to stainless steel.
Riding a Chinese-led boom in Indonesia’s nickel sector, it owns or has stakes in five plants in the country that churn out more of the commodity than household names like BHP Group Ltd.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The U.K. prime minister said Tuesday the country is putting its defense industry on a “war footing” by increasing defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade, and pledged to send arms worth 500 million pounds ($620 million) to Ukraine.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the increase as the “biggest strengthening of our national defense for a generation.” “In a world that is the most dangerous it has been since the end of the Cold War, we cannot be complacent,” Sunak said at a news briefing alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a visit to Poland. “As our adversaries align, we must do more to defend our country, our interests and our values.”
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Infrastructure project would bring permanent road to Indigenous communities and connect lithium deposits to markets
Ottawa appears willing to put some significant funding dollars behind the long-overdue Berens River bridge and road project in northwestern Ontario.
Yet it still remains a mystery on how much is being allocated to this key piece of Indigenous-led infrastructure project that will link seven remote communities to the provincial highway system for the first time and allow a lithium mine development company to connect to the marketplace.
Honda has agreed to establish a new, multibillion-dollar electric vehicle operation in Ontario, according to government sources.
OTTAWA — Japanese automaker Honda has agreed to establish a major new, multibillion-dollar electric vehicle operation in Ontario, according to federal and provincial government sources.
The deal is expected to be announced Thursday at Honda’s existing factory in Alliston, north of Toronto, where the company will reveal plans to bring a “massive project” to Ontario for the manufacturing of electric vehicles, batteries and other components, government sources with knowledge of the situation told the Star.
