Britishvolt says UK’s political turmoil has put off investors

Bloomberg News | November 3, 2022 | 

Credit: Britishvolt

Beleaguered battery startup Britishvolt Ltd. blamed the UK’s political chaos for putting off investors but said the cheap pound is now making it an attractive prospect for American investors.


“We’ve had lot of political change and that sort of instability,” said Chairman Peter Rolton, speaking at the site of the company’s proposed factory in Blyth, northern England.

“We lost many investors,” he added. “They were already nervous about the UK.”

Britishvolt was heralded as a key part of the country’s drive toward an electric car manufacturing boom. It planned to produce millions of batteries needed by carmakers ahead of a 2030 deadline for sales of new vehicles that run off fossil fuels.

However, this week it announced short-term bridging finance in a bid to avoid entering administration.

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s government triggered a rout on gilts and the pound in September after revealing extensive subsidies for families’ and businesses’ energy use, alongside sweeping, unfunded tax cuts.

Rolton was speaking alongside the opposition Labour Party’s Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds who was visiting the site, north of Newcastle.

“It’s the government’s actions with the mini budget that’s made the situation harder for Britishvolt,” Reynolds said. “It’s had an impact on the investability of the UK and how people perceive the UK.”

However, Rolton said sterling’s drop against the dollar had its advantages. “The pound make us a cheap date,” he said. “Investors are thinking ‘hang on a minute we are getting more bang for our bucks’ — so there has definitely been an uptick in interest.”

The less than three-year-old business has the funds to keep it going until early December, while staff have taken a pay cut for November to help it stay afloat.

Rolton said that the company had sought £30 million from the UK government over the weekend, but its request had been rejected. Government funding was key to getting overseas investors to commit funding, Rolton said.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Glencore Plc, one of the world’s biggest mining and commodity trading companies, was among lenders that provided less than £5 million in the form of a bridging loan, after the company said it’s pursuing “positive ongoing discussions” with potential funders and has received approaches from “several more international investors in the past few days.”

(By Eamon Akil Farhat and Siddharth Philip)

Equinox Partners launches website with aim to improve board governance in gold mining

Staff Writer | November 3, 2022

Image by Jo Johnston from Pixabay.

Equinox Partners, a long-term value investor, announced Thursday the launch of “Directors Without Stock” to amplify its investment stewardship policy.


The New York-based hedge fund, with over $700 million in total assets under management with more than half in gold and silver junior miners, announced its new investment stewardship policy toward directors of public companies last month. Equinox Partners will vote against directors who have served for two or more years but hold less than two years of director’s fees in the company’s stock.

It sets “a clear, lower-bound for director share ownership,” according to chief investment officer Sean Fieler.

The website lists directors of gold and silver mining companies in the MVIS Global Junior Miners Index (GDXJ) who fail the firm’s stewardship policy and includes the director’s photo, name, company, total shares owned, value of shares owned, annual compensation, ratio of value of shares to compensation, and years on board, Equinox said in a news release.

Key results on the website include:

• Of the 95 gold and silver mining companies in the index with readily available public filings, there were 590 directors, of which 125, or 21%, that failed the Equinox Partners stewardship policy;

• Of those 125 that failed, 37 owned no stock at all;

• Of those 37 that owned no stock, the average board tenure was 8 years; and

• By eliminating the two-year minimum tenure constraint, 311 directors, or 53%, would fail the Equinox Partners policy.

By adopting a clear, lower-bound for director share ownership, Equinox Partners said it is pushing back on the growing indifference of boards to non-executive director stock ownership and the decision of some companies to prohibit non-executive directors from owning stock all together.

Equinox said it believes financially aligned directors are more likely to prioritize returns on and of owners’ capital. In comparison, the Canadian E&P industry is an example of a similar capital-intensive industry that has incentivized more insider ownership and prioritized disciplined capital allocation.

“Directors who lack any meaningful financial alignment with shareholders are going to tend to things that aren’t in the financial best interest of shareholders,” Fieler said in a statement.

“Insider ownership amongst the gold miners is worsening, as passive investors push board turnover that does not always align with the interest of shareholders. We hope our policy and this new site can be a step in a different direction.”

British researchers come up with intelligent design process for furnaces
Staff Writer | November 4, 2022

Smelter. (Image courtesy of Mechatherm International Limited).

Researchers at England’s Aston University and Mechatherm International Limited (MIL) have developed a more intelligent design process for furnaces and ancillary equipment for the global aluminium industry.


According to the academic-industry team, the project has considerably reduced product development time and costs and has a projected annual sales turnover of more than £7.4 million over the next three years.

MIL is a leading provider of casthouse equipment for the aluminium industry. The company currently operates under the challenging circumstances imposed by Brexit and the covid-19 pandemic, which has seen its costs increase over a number of years.

To create further growth, the firm decided it was essential to streamline its engineering practices, resulting in reduced overheads.

Their collaboration with Aston University has allowed them to reach this objective, as it led to the optimization of the company’s automation techniques used in the design of its products.

Feeding an AI system with millions of records of data, the company was able to automate the process of advising furnace operators when action should be taken to maximize a machine’s efficiency. This is particularly useful when the time comes for a furnace to receive or transfer material, as reducing the delays associated with normal operation can increase efficiency.

A simple traffic light system was installed on a new screen giving operators an easy visual to make the choice to attend to the load.

” In technology terms, this would equate to using an offline brain watching and learning how the furnace operates, gauging energy use per cycle and suggesting when the optimum parameters have been met,” a media statement by MIL reads.

The joint project has also resulted in a high level of upfront detailed engineering, but at the fraction of the time and cost.

“This partnership has allowed us to produce a system which has saved time and resources, enabling us additional time to develop innovative solutions for the material recycling market and alternative hydrogen-fueled furnace concepts,” Owen Tollerfield, chief mechanical engineer at Mechatherm International Limited, said in the press brief.

Aguia Resources secures $2.9 million for Brazil mine

Cecilia Jamasmie | November 4, 2022 | 

Rio Grande do Sul is home to a large number of farmers and agronomists. 

(Image courtesy of Aguia Resources.)

Aguia Fertilizantes, a unit of Australia’s Aguia Resources (ASX: AGR), has secured financing for the first phase of its Três Estradas phosphate fertilizer project in southern Brazil.


The company will receive 15 million reais ($2.97m) from the southern regional development bank BRDE to build the initial phase of what it will be the first phosphate mine in Rio Grande do Sul state and in the country.

“This credit will allow us to proceed with the Três Estradas phosphate project, generating development and income for Lavras do Sul and strengthening the agribusiness of Rio Grande,” the company’s Brazil CEO Fernando Tallarico said in the statement.

Aguia’s goal is to explore the Lavras do Sul deposit, where an estimated 105 million tonnes of phosphate lie, for an initial 18 years. It is also developing a nearby copper project.

The company, which received a key construction permit for Três Estradas earlier this week, said developing the mine will cost 35 million reais (almost $7m).

The next phase in the permitting process will be obtaining an operation licence. There is also the project’s environmental permitting, which Aguia said is under discussion in a public civil action sponsored by the Brazilian Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Although it had a first favourable decision, there is still an injunction request which could prevent the company from starting construction until the court makes a ruling.

The mine will produce organic phosphate fertilizer commonly known as direct application natural fertilizer.

Aguia expects that after the ramp-up period of the mine and processing plant, it will produce about 300,000 tonnes a year, over the 18-year mine life.

Scheduled to be completed in 12 months, the project will contribute to Brazil’s goal to reduce imports of overall fertilizer to 45% of total domestic consumption by 2050 from the existing 85%.

The nation’s phosphate consumption is 7 to 8 million tonnes per year, but it imports 72% of demand from countries like Morocco and Jordan.

Instead of phasing down coal the world is burning more than ever

Bloomberg News | November 4, 2022 |

An open pit coal mine. Credit: AdobeStock

Last November in Glasgow, the world’s climate leaders were locked in a fierce debate over whether the final draft of the summit’s agreement should include a pledge to “phase-out” or “phase-down” coal.


Since then, the more appropriate term would probably be “phase-up.”

Even as the globe is increasingly battered by floods, droughts and storms caused by climate change, the fuel that contributes most to planet-warming emissions is undergoing a renaissance. Global coal power generation could set a record for a second-straight year and remains the world’s biggest source of electricity. Consumption has surged in Europe to replace shortfalls in hydro, nuclear and Russian gas, while top producer China is extracting record volumes from mines to insulate itself from volatile global energy markets.

Prices of exported coal have skyrocketed to records and futures contracts suggest they’ll remain at historic highs for years to come. And while plans for spending on new mines and power plants are a fraction of what they were a few years ago, that companies are still investing in new projects at all is alarming to climate scientists who say the fuel needs to be phased out by 2040 to avoid the worst effects of climate change. As politicians and activists gather in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh this weekend to consolidate the work of Glasgow, Paris and other past COP summits, coal’s resilience demonstrates the mountain the world still need to climb.

“It’s very much hanging in the balance at the moment about whether coal will set a new record this year, whether gas will set a new record and whether power sector-emissions will set a a new record,” said Dave Jones, a lead analyst at the climate think tank Ember in London. “The power sector is the most important that you need to be seeing emissions reductions from this decade. That means that this is far more than a blip. This is a moment where governments have got to get serious.”

For coal titans who’ve grown accustomed to being a punching bag for environmentalists, this year has not only been profitable but also a rare and welcome chance to remind the world of the value of the cheap and reliable energy they provide.

“Decarbonization is necessary, but it must take place in a responsible and coordinated way and we continue to maintain that this is a journey that will take decades, not years,” Mark Vaile, chairman of Australian miner Whitehaven Coal Ltd. said at an Oct. 26 investor meeting, after the producer posted record annual earnings this year. “Traditional energy sources like coal are critical to providing a reliable baseload of energy.”


Coal has long been mired in controversy. Cheap to mine, easy to transport and simple to burn, it powered the world into the industrial age as it blackened skies and choked lungs. Even after technology reduced direct air pollution, coal continued to be the leading source of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as it releases more carbon dioxide than oil or natural gas, and mining it unleashes torrents of even-more-potent methane.

In order for the world to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency says coal power plants need to be eliminated in developed nations by 2030 and in the rest of the world by 2040. And yet hundreds of billions of dollars are forecast to be invested in new coal assets through the middle of the century, and key nations like China and India are forging ahead with plans to roll-out vast new power plant capacity.

Last year was supposed to be the beginning of the end for the dirty fuel. Consumption had declined in both 2019 and 2020. Alok Sharma, president of the United Nations-led COP26 climate conference, spent the year urging world leaders to “consign coal to history” when they met in Glasgow in November.

Instead, a strong industrial rebound from the pandemic drove coal consumption to a record. Widespread power outages in the world’s top coal users China and India made leaders there double-down on ensuring supplies of the fuel were available to keep their economies humming. And in Scotland, a tearful Sharma apologized to delegates when a pledge to “phase-out” coal was changed to “phase-down” at the last-minute, on the insistence of Beijing and New Delhi.

Things haven’t gotten much better this year. Coal power generation rose about 1% over the previous year through August, according to data from Ember. In Europe, it’s been needed to replace Russian gas to help overcome lower output from nuclear and hydropower. In China, a historic drought in July and August sapped reservoirs of its massive dams, requiring a surge in coal consumption to fill the void. In the US, coal power plant retirements are being delayed and production of the fuel will increase 3.5% this year as miners seek to meet surging demand from around the world and take advantage of record prices.

One of the ironies of the rise in coal use this year is that it’s been tied to droughts that have reduced hydropower generation and left river levels too low for nuclear power plants to operate at full capacity.

And in the two countries that burn 70% of the world’s coal, work is underway on even more power plants that use the fuel. An executive from China’s top engineering firm said he expects the nation to approve more new coal plants through 2025 than the entire fleet of nations like the US. Meanwhile, India plans to expand its coal fleet by about a quarter through the end of the decade unless there’s a substantial drop in the cost of storing electricity.

The result is that even as investments in wind and solar generation jump to records, it’s very possible that emissions from the power sector rise to a new high this year, according to Ember. UN climate scientists have warned that they have to be cut in half by 2030 to be on path to limit rising temperatures to about 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial times. Emissions from US power plants will increase 1.5% in 2022, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Surging demand has boosted prices for coal to record levels, with benchmark Newcastle coal futures trading around $360 a ton, about six times higher than they were two years ago. Forward contracts are currently trading at above $260 a ton through 2027. Not a single forward contract was above $75 just two years ago.

That’s meant a windfall for miners like commodities giant Glencore Plc, which reported first half earnings from its coal unit that surged almost 900% to $8.9 billion — more than Starbucks Corp. or Nike Inc. made in an entire year. Coal India Ltd., a top global producer, saw profit nearly triple. Chinese companies that extract more than half the world’s coal posted first-half earnings that more than doubled to a combined $80 billion.

Investors have paid attention. Shares for miners like Glencore and Australia-based New Hope Corp. have risen to records this year. Analysts have even suggested giving them a break on environmental-social-governance grounds, arguing they’re doing a social good by providing electricity that keeps families warm, businesses open and workers employed.

Even so, investments in coal have been dwindling as shareholders and banks increasingly refuse to approve new spending on projects either on ethical grounds or because of concerns they’ll be forced to shut long before they can generate a profitable return.


Urgewald, a German nonprofit environmental and human rights organization that tracks active coal projects, said about 473 gigawatts of new coal power plants are still in various stages of planning, compared to about 1,600 gigawatts in the pipeline as recently as 2017. Still, if all the operations still planned are built that would increase the global fleet by nearly a quarter.

“The point may be not so far away when retirements outweigh new additions and the fleet stops growing,” said Heffa Schuecking, director of Urgewald. “The real problem is if we want to cut emissions in half by 2030, then something like half the fleet would have to be retired.”

Plans to expand coal power generation in places like China and India may not make state-owned utilities there happy. With coal prices so high, companies that burn the fuel to generate electricity sold at regulated rates have seen profits ebb. New wind and solar power is far cheaper than coal in both countries, according to BloombergNEF data.

“Power firms are caught in the middle of deciding whether to take advantage of the brief window of looser coal power expansion rules, or focusing more on narrower profits on high costs,” said Zhang Mohan, an analyst with CITIC Futures.

Outside of China and India, plans for new production capacity are limited. Along with expectations that gas will remain costly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that should keep prices high as supply won’t be able to catch up with demand.

“The world can’t just turn off all of its coal powered generation,” said Robert Bishop, chief executive officer of New Hope, which is aiming to lift production and studying potential coal sector acquisitions. “It’s going to take some time and there just isn’t enough supply response coming on, so we think prices will remain elevated.”

Still, the year hasn’t been devoid of hope for those working to reduce emissions. Even as China invests in new coal mines and power plants, it’s putting even more money into clean electricity and energy storage that could eventually crowd fossil fuels out of the grid. The US Inflation Reduction Act promises to speed investments in wind and solar in a market that’s been a laggard relative to its wealth and emissions profile.

And in Europe, the looming energy crisis and surging fossil fuel prices have boosted demand for renewables, with imports of solar panels from China on the continent more than doubling over the first half of the year. The risks of relying on Russian pipeline gas have accelerated plans to also reduce overall use of that fuel, a factor that could over the medium-term offset emissions from coal’s recent revival, academics at Princeton University wrote in a paper published last month. Germany’s top utility RWE AG said in October that while it would boost coal use in the short-term through the winter, it would bring forward by eight years to 2030 its exit from the fuel.

It all suggests only a brief reprieve for coal, as companies and nations keep a close watch on their emissions trajectory. “If we burn more now, we need a deeper dive afterward,” said Sebastian Roetters, an energy campaigner with Urgewald.

(By Dan Murtaugh and David Stringer, with assistance from Qian Chen, James Fernyhough, Will Wade and Todd Gillespie)

India’s massive silver demand cutting world’s warehouse stocks

Bloomberg News | November 4, 2022 |

Stock image.

Indian silver consumption is forecast to surge by around 80% to a record this year, as traders draw down inventories in warehouses from London to Hong Kong after two Covid-riddled years.


Indians bought historically low amounts of silver in 2020 and 2021 as supply chains and demand were hit by virus outbreaks. While consumers rushed to jewelry stores to buy gold in last year’s final quarter when pandemic restrictions eased, pushing sales to an all-time high, silver demand grew by less than 25%.


This year, silver sales are back on track. Local purchases may surpass 8,000 tons in 2022 from about 4,500 tons last year, said Chirag Sheth, principal consultant at Metals Focus Ltd. That’s up from an April estimate of 5,900 tons.

“We are seeing a jump in purchases among retail customers, similar to what we saw in gold last year, because of pent-up demand,” Sheth said.

Imports during the January to August period were 6,370 tons compared to just 153.4 tons during the year-before period, according to the latest data from the nation’s trade ministry. For 2021, the country shipped in only 2,803.4 tons.


India imports about half of its silver from the UK, mainland China and Hong Kong. Buying is mainly from London Bullion Market Association-accredited warehouses, with inventories in those vaults now falling, according to Sheth.

“While gold is brought into the country by air, silver is mostly by sea,” Sheth said. “But now because of the huge demand, everything is coming by air.” Wait times for sourcing the metal have also gone up, with suppliers taking about 20 days to dispatch an order, he said.

Silver holdings in London vaults fell to 27,101 tons at the end of September, the lowest since records began in 2016, according to the LBMA. Prices in India have fallen about 6% this year, while gold has risen around 5%. Futures of the white metal on local exchanges are trading at 58,869 rupees per kilogram, still well below the record of 77,949 rupees touched in 2020.

Jewelry demand comprises more than a third of total consumption in India, while nearly a quarter goes to the industrial sector and the rest is used in silverware and other applications. The metal is popular in rural areas where it’s viewed as “poor man’s gold,” because it’s many times cheaper than its fellow precious metal.

“Silver was relatively cheaply priced compared to gold, so that is probably one of the reasons why investors were buying” the metal, including in the US and Europe, Perth Mint Treasurer Sawan Tanna said. “In terms of institutional silver demand, we saw that in India there was huge demand in the form of silver large bars, purely because the spot price of silver was relatively low historically.”

Demand for silver in India may be strong for the next three to four months before stabilizing, Sheth said. Consumption in 2023 will not be as robust as this year, he said.

(By Swansy Afonso and Sing Yee Ong, with assistance from Eddie Spence)

Buying conflict-free tin and coltan out of Congo just got harder

Bloomberg News | November 4, 2022 

A miner from Kamatanda, one of the mining areas in the Katanga province in southeastern DRC. (Wikimedia Commons)

Buying tin, tantalum and tungsten that doesn’t support violence in central Africa has become more complicated after an industry-led program monitoring the supply chains downgraded its relationship with the region’s main mineral-tracking group.


The Responsible Minerals Initiative, which helps more than 400 of the world’s biggest corporations avoid purchasing metals that fuel or fund violence, said this week that its auditing process won’t recognize the findings of the International Tin Supply Chain Initiative without companies doing extra due diligence on the source of their minerals.

RMI, whose members include Apple Inc. and Walmart Inc., removed ITSCI from its list of “recognized upstream programs” that monitor mineral supply chains because it has not reapplied for recognition by the group, RMI said in an emailed response to questions.

ITSCI said RMI’s decision was “a surprise” and that it was “committed to constructive and open dialogue and engagement” with the program in a statement on its website Thursday.

ITSCI was developed more than a decade ago by tin and tantalum industry groups to stop mining from supporting conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo by tagging minerals at mines and tracking them through the supply chain.

It has faced criticism regarding reliability, including from anti-corruption group Global Witness, which in April said it had “spectacularly failed in its original goal of ensuring traceability of ‘conflict-free’ minerals.”

After the decision, “any company that is serious about responsibly sourcing minerals and that is sourcing minerals from ITSCI supply chains must now pressure ITSCI to overhaul its governance and be more transparent,” the London-based group said in a new report Friday.

The illicit-mineral trade has long fueled eastern Congo’s conflicts, which began nearly three decades ago as violence from the Rwandan civil war and genocide spread over the border, igniting a series of wars. Despite a 2003 peace deal, fighting persists, with more than 100 armed groups active in the region and millions of people displaced.

Most of the minerals from eastern Congo are dug by hand, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs, and programs like RMI and ITSCI have tried to ensure that companies could still buy conflict-free minerals from the region.

RMI has given companies using the ITSCI system until July to adjust to the changes.

(By Michael J. Kavanagh)

Column: Canada slams the door on China in critical minerals race

Reuters | November 4, 2022 | 

Saskatchewan produces a large volume of lithium-enriched brine water. 

(Image courtesy of Prairie Lithium.)

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)


Canada has just upped the ante in the global competition to secure critical minerals.

The Canadian government this week ordered Chinese companies to divest their holdings in three Canadian-listed junior mining companies planning to develop lithium deposits.

The ban comes within days of Canada announcing a tougher policy on investment in the minerals sector by state-owned entities, particularly those from China, which dominates the processing of key energy transition metals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earths.

The order to divest follows what the government said was a “multi-step national security review process, which involves rigorous scrutiny by Canada’s national security and intelligence community.”

It promised to continue to “act decisively when investments threaten our national security and our critical minerals supply chains, both at home and abroad.”

The move marks a hardening of geopolitical battle-lines in the metals sector and raises the question of what Canada and its metallic allies might do next in the name of national security.

Protecting the pipeline

The three impacted Canadian companies – Power Metals Corp, Ultra Lithium Inc and Lithium Chile Inc – are sitting on lithium deposits in Canada, Argentina and Chile respectively.

Power Metals’ properties in Ontario also contain tantalum and caesium, both of which are also classified as critical minerals by Canada and the United States.

All are next-generation projects, part of a growing pipeline needed to feed the world’s hunger for lithium.

And all have recently announced strategic investments by Chinese players offering not just money but processing expertise and off-take commitments.

Sinomine, one of the world’s largest rare earth producers, took a 5.7% stake in Power Metals for C$1.5m in a January fund-raising round.

Zangge Mining Co, a major Chinese lithium and potash producer, lifted its interest in Ultra Lithium to 14.2% in May and in June entered into an agreement to finance development of the Laguna Verde lithium project in Argentina.

Chengxin Lithium used a private placement by Lithium Chile in May to boost its stake to 19.4% for C$28 million.

All three Chinese companies have fallen foul of Canada’s newly beefed-up Investment Canada Act and must now divest their holdings.

The three abandoned brides will have to find new partners with the government proviso that suitors “share our interests and values.”

Widening the net

Canada’s new policy on critical minerals investment is wide-ranging and far-reaching.

It’s not just China’s state-owned players that will come in for extra scrutiny, but also any private investors “assessed as being closely tied to, subject to influence from, or who could be compelled to comply with extrajudicial direction from foreign governments.”

The policy covers not just mining but all stages of the minerals processing chain.

It extends, most obviously in the case of Ultra Lithium and Lithium Chile, to overseas assets as well as domestic.

Canada’s critical minerals list, updated in March this year, is extensive, covering not just the esoteric rare earths family and energy-transition inputs such as lithium, cobalt and nickel but also mainstream industrial metals such as aluminium, copper and zinc.

These are currently highly globalised markets, pivoting around China as the world’s largest user of industrial metals.

Canada, for example, has for many years been a supplier of mined copper concentrates to China, shipping 430,000 tonnes last year.

Such mine off-take deals may not be immune from Canada’s national security considerations.

“We will need to be very thoughtful going forward about what we are willing to allow,” said Canadian Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilson in a June interview with the Globe and Mail. “It is not just true of ownership, but I think we also have to be looking at things like long-term off-take agreements,” he added.

Canada’s overriding priority, Wilson explained, is one of “protecting itself in an area that is clearly strategic and ensuring that those supply chains will be robust for our allies.”
Metal bloc

Canada’s clamp-down on Chinese investment in critical minerals should be seen in the context of an emerging metallic NATO of like-minded countries looking to reduce their dependence on the China and Russia.

The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), launched in June this year, includes Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, Britain, the United States, and the European Commission.

The nascent alliance is still fractious.

The United States’ Inflation Reduction Act, linking electric vehicle subsidies to domestically produced metals, has infuriated both the European Union and South Korea.

Heated negotiations are currently taking place between US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and the European Commission, which is looking for some form of exemption for friendly countries.

Assuming the current spat can be smoothed out, there is the clear potential for other members to halt Chinese investment into their respective mineral sectors.

Australia is already doing so. In April it blocked an attempt by the Chinese state-owned Baogang Group to take a 13% share in Northern Minerals, which owns the Browns Range rare earths deposit in Western Australia.

In the same month it also blocked Yibin Tianyi Lithium Industry from taking a stake in AVZ Minerals, which has lithium projects, with associated tin and tantalum, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Canada’s definition of domestic critical resources to include any company listed on its stock exchange will resonate amongst both the heavyweight mining companies in Britain’s FTSE-100 and the many junior resource companies listed on London’s AIM market.

All will need to heed the Canadian government’s advice to its companies that they “carefully review their investment plans to identify any potential connections to (…) or entities linked to or subject to influence by hostile or non-likeminded regimes or states.”

The metallic uncoupling of China and the rest of the world has just entered a new, more aggressive phase as governments overrule free markets to defend their supply chains.

Canada’s three-pronged attack on Chinese investment is just the start of the next chapter in the great critical minerals game of nations.

($1 = 1.3736 Canadian dollars)

(Editing by David Evans)

Livent looks to Canada for lithium growth opportunities – CEO

Reuters | November 3, 2022 

Nemaska’s Whabouchi lithium deposit in Quebec’s James Bay region, 300 km northwest of Chibougamau. (Credit: Nemaska Lithium)

Lithium producer Livent Corp is eyeing acquisitions in Canada and other countries as it looks to boost its production and processing of the metal used to make electric vehicle batteries, its chief executive told Reuters.


Already one of the top global producers of the metal, Livent has expansions underway across the globe, including Canada, but wants to grow more to meet rising demand for the metal from the electric vehicle (EV) and renewable energy industries.


“We see Canada as a core part of our expansion capacity,” Paul Graves, Livent’s CEO, said in a Thursday interview. “We have to get bigger. We can’t just sit still.”

The Philadelphia-based company last month named Sarah Maryssael as its chief strategy officer to pursue potential lithium deals across the globe. Livent poached Maryssael from Tesla Inc, where she oversaw the automaker’s lithium, cobalt and nickel sourcing.

Related: Livent in deal to buy Nemaska, extend Tesla contract

Livent earlier this week posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings and raised the midpoint of its annual forecast, though the company trimmed the forecast’s top end due to inflation concerns.

Livent has been steadily growing in Canada since forming a joint venture in 2020 to buy Quebec’s Nemaska lithium project, which is now expected to open by 2025 and produce 34,000 tonnes of lithium. Graves said Nemaska could eventually produce 100,000 tonnes annually, but Livent would still seek other growth opportunities in Canada.

Graves, CEO since 2018, added that Livent is interested in deals in Argentina, where it operates a lithium brine project, and Australia. However, Livent would not buy a lithium mine without having adequate processing capacity nearby, he added.

Livent counts General Motors Co, BMW and Tesla as key customers.

Canada’s government has been generally supportive of EV minerals projects, although on Wednesday it ordered three Chinese companies to divest from Canadian critical mining projects, citing national security concerns.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Industry groups welcome C$10 billion in Ottawa’s budget update
Staff Writer | November 4, 2022 | 

Mining Association of Canada president and CEO Pierre Gratton addressed the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBOT) on Wednesday, January 23 – 

Image courtesy of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade

Canada’s major mining industry group and a green energy think tank are welcoming nearly C$10 billion spread over tax credits for clean technology, mining project approval improvements, innovation research and industry training announced in a federal budget update.


Ottawa is offering C$6.7 billion in tax credits over five years for up to 30% of investments in clean technologies such as battery storage, electric industrial vehicles and small nuclear reactors, according to the Liberal government’s fall economic statement issued Thursday.

It also gives C$1.28 billion over six years to several federal departments, including the Impact Assessment Agency, to speed the project approvals process; C$962.2 million over eight years to modernize the National Research Council; and C$802.1 million over three years for the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy.

“This investment tax credit will serve to benefit Canada’s mining industry in several ways as the deployment of zero emission vehicles and non-green-house gas emission solutions is accelerating across our sector,” Pierre Gratton, president and chief executive officer of the Mining Association of Canada, said in a news release. “This tax credit will support our sector in accomplishing its climate action priorities.”

Mark Zacharias, executive director at Vancouver-based Clean Energy Canada, a research group at Simon Fraser University, said the tax credit was a suitable response to the United States boosting its own clean energy industries with $1.7 billion in incentives in recent legislation by the Biden administration.

“Canada simply had to respond,” Zacharias said in a statement after the budget update. “It’s a recognition of a global reality in which our largest trading partners are mapping out their clean industrial futures and planting flags.”

Canada is among the Western nations trying to boost and protect the critical mineral industries it needs for a transition to clean energy that is estimated to cost trillions of dollars globally. Ottawa announced a national critical minerals strategy in April, which it plans to update by year’s end, and toughened foreign investment rules last month. This week it ordered three companies based in China, which controls some 80% of rare earth elements in global markets, to divest from Canadian projects.

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson had said on Oct. 25 that Canada would respond to the US tax incentives in its Inflation Reduction Act. Wilkinson, who served on the board of Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Canada, also spoke about the need to promote the hydrogen fuel industry in Canada.

Zacharias and Gratton welcomed the budget update’s increase to 40% of a previously announced investment tax credit for clean hydrogen.

Wilkinson and provincial counterparts such as Ontario Mines Minister George Pirie have said how Canada must cut its mining approval times. Gratton criticized the federal Impact Assessment Agency for an “unsatisfactory job” reviewing projects.

“It is imperative that more knowledgeable subject-matter experts, rather than just more staff, be hired,” Gratton said. “Canada has had tremendous success attracting new investment into the battery value chain on the promise of a reliable supply of battery materials, and now we have to deliver.”

Zacharias said Ottawa’s increased clarity on its policies to foster clean energy innovation and improve training are needed to improve Canada’s competitiveness.

“The idea that climate action is also economic action has never been truer,” Zacharias said. “We’ve had climate plans with economic benefits. This is economic planning with climate benefits.”

Canada to set up tax credits for clean tech, launch growth fund

Reuters | November 3, 2022 |

Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. Photo by Freeland’s press office

Canada will introduce tax credits for clean technologies worth up to 30% of investment costs in a bid to close competitive gaps with the United States in scaling up green technologies, the government said on Thursday.


It will also launch a growth fund, first announced in April, by the end of the year with a capitalization of C$15 billion ($10.92 billion) to help mitigate the risks private investors take on when investing in new technologies and infrastructure.

The clean-tech tax credits will be offered for investors in net-zero technologies, battery storage and clean hydrogen, according to the so-called fall economic statement (FES) presented to the House of Commons by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The new green transition measures are “a step in the right direction helping Canada compete with the US on advanced clean manufacturing,” said Scott MacDougall, a senior advisor at the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think-tank.

However, it “falls short of what’s needed to put Canada on track to achieve its climate goals, missing major increased funding to support net-zero electricity generation and infrastructure,” he added.

Freeland last month promised an initial “response” to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed into law by US President Joe Biden earlier this year and contains generous incentives for consumers and businesses to make the low-carbon transition.

Canada on Thursday proposed a 2% tax on corporate stock buybacks, similar to a measure in the IRA, that is meant to “encourage corporations to reinvest their profits in their workers and business,” the FES said.

The tax will generate an estimated C$2.1 billion over five years and will come into force on Jan 1, 2024.

“In terms of trying to foster business investments, I don’t think it’s well targeted,” said Robert Asselin, senior vice president of policy at the Business Council of Canada.

The government also promised an investment tax credit for hydrogen in next year’s budget, saying the cleanest producers would qualify to get back at least 40% of their investment, and Freeland promised more action on the green transition.

“These investments represent only a down payment on the work that lies ahead,” Freeland told lawmakers after she presented the document.

One of the investment offerings foreseen by the growth fund are so-called “contracts for difference”, which could help investors in carbon capture and storage mitigate the risk that a future government eliminates Canada’s carbon pricing system.

In next year’s budget, Canada will introduce new measures to increase advanced manufacturing competitiveness, the document said.

($1 = 1.3736 Canadian dollars)

(By Steve Scherer and Julie Gordon; Editing by Deepa Babington)

Blockades at Peru’s Las Bambas copper mine hit operations
Reuters | November 3, 2022 | 

Las Bambas copper operation. Photo by MMG.

The huge Las Bambas copper mine in Peru has started to reduce operations due to recent blockades, the mine said in a statement Thursday.


Las Bambas, owned by Chinese firm MMG Ltd, is one of the largest copper mines in the world, but has suffered frequent disruptions from largely poor indigenous communities.

Peru is the world’s No. 2 copper producer.

“We have been forced to begin a progressive slowdown of our operations since Oct. 31,” the company said in a statement.

“There is also the threat of new interruptions to our Las Bambas operations in the very near term.”

On top of frequent road blockades, Las Bambas fully stopped operations for over a month this year when two communities that had sold land to make way for the company re-entered those areas.

While one community was evicted, the other – called Huancuire – remains in the property, the company said.

Related: Peruvian Indigenous community wants to become a shareholder in Las Bambas mine

“The weakening of the state’s capacity to combat conflicts is notable,” Peruvian mining industry group SNMPE said in a statement.

The disruptions against Las Bambas follows protests at another large mine, Hochschild Mining PLC’s Inmaculada, which produces gold and silver.

Hochschild said on Wednesday that protest had been lifted.

(By Marco Aquino; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Peruvian Ministry of Environment rejects law that exonerates bankrupt miners from environmental assessments

Valentina Ruiz Leotaud | November 5, 2022 

Peruvian Congress. (Image by Congreso de la República del Perú, Flickr.)

The Peruvian Ministry of Environment (Minam) issued a media statement over the weekend rejecting Congress’ approval of Bill 412, which exonerates mining companies that declare bankruptcy from complying with environmental assessment processes.


The bill’s passing, which was also criticized by the executive power, was done under the legal concept of ‘insistence,’ meaning that a second round of voting was not necessary. It was initially tabled by congressman César Revilla of the right-wing Fuerza Popular party.

In detail, the bill establishes special measures for companies undergoing asset restructuring. The measures are framed within the General Law of the Bankruptcy System.

After its approval in the plenary session, the law was sent back to Congress by the executive power with a number of observations. However, the board of spokespersons decided to exonerate it from the observations made by the Economy and Energy commissions and submit it to a single vote that concluded in its approval by insistence.

“We strongly reject the approved text, since it allows mining companies in a precarious economic situation or bankruptcy to have a legal argument that will affect the health of the population and that does not guarantee any environmental protection,” the ministry’s communiqué reads. “This will also encourage any company in this sector to modify or incorporate elements without environmental approvals in its operations or mine closure plans. Furthermore, they will be able to operate without financial guarantees to ensure proper mine closure.”

The Minam also said that, together with National Environmental Certification Service for Sustainable Investments, it has declared the new law as non-viable and that it is hard to believe that the bill was forced upon the Peruvian people through insistence.

“We call on the Congress of the Republic to evaluate this approved norm that puts at risk the wellbeing of the population, as well as the environment and natural resources, since it does not guarantee compliance with environmental regulations that ensure that companies will properly deal with their environmental liabilities,” the statement notes.