Bolivia pushes for Latin America-wide lithium policy
Cecilia Jamasmie | March 24, 2023 |

Most lithium is produced in South America, Australia and China.

 (Image of Bolivia’s Salar Uyuni: Flickr.)

Bolivia’s government is calling on its lithium-producing neighbours to forge ahead with the idea of setting a Latin America-wide policy on the exploitation of the coveted battery metal.


The idea, part of a broader initiative involving Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile to form an OPEC-like cartel, seeks to collectively boost the bargaining power of these countries, President Luis Arce said in a speech in La Paz.

“We must be united in the market, in a sovereign manner, with prices that benefit our economies, and one of the ways, already proposed by (Mexico’s) President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is to think of a kind of lithium OPEC,” Arce said, local paper La Razon reported.

Bolivia holds the world’s largest lithium resources at 21 million tonnes, according to the US Geological Survey. The area of sprawling salt flats known as the “lithium triangle”, which includes northern Chile and Argentina, has about 65% of the globe’s known resources of the white metal.

If Peruvian, Mexican and Brazilian potential reserves were added, the region would hold nearly 70% of the world’s lithium reserves. This would translate into a restructuring of the world economic scenario around the energy transition and a provide a new, sound source of income for Latin American economies, according to the Latin American Strategy Centre for Geopolitics (CELAG).

Bolivia, which has almost no industrial production or commercially viable reserves, inked in January a deal with a consortium that includes Chinese battery giant CAT to jointly extract lithium from its Uyuni and Oruro salt flats.

The partnership would give the group of companies, which also includes mining giant CMOC, rights to develop two lithium plants.

Arce, who wants to industrialize Bolivia’s lithium before the end of his term in 2025, expressed concern about foreign meddling in the lithium business, particularly from the United States.

“We don’t want our lithium to be in the Southern Command’s crosshairs, nor do we want it to be a reason for destabilizing democratically elected governments or foreign harassment,” he said.

Chile, Argentina and Bolivia have been talking about creating a lithium cartel since July last year. They now seek to integrate other Latin American nations with an incipient lithium industry, including Brazil and Mexico.

Analysts, including Geopolitical Monitor’s Arman Sidhu, believe that bringing the idea to fruition is likely to spark opposition from environmentalists and indigenous groups that contributed to left-wing victories in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil.

He also warned of additional obstacles, including China’s monopolist position in the industry, investors’ fears and the long-term political viability of such an idea.

Latin America’s Bid To Challenge China’s Dominance In The Lithium Market

By Michael Kern - Mar 24, 2023

• Bolivia is spearheading a plan to establish a Latin America-wide policy on lithium exploitation and create an OPEC-like cartel with Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.
• 
  
• The region contains the world's largest lithium reserves and could hold almost 70% of the global reserves if potential reserves in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru were included, providing a new source of income for Latin American economies.
• 
  
• The plan is likely to face opposition from environmental and indigenous groups, while China's dominant position in the industry and investors' fears pose additional obstacles.

The government of Bolivia has called on its neighbors, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, to work on setting a Latin America-wide policy on the exploitation of lithium. The idea is part of a broader initiative to form an OPEC-like cartel to collectively boost these countries' bargaining power. 

President Luis Are spoke in La Paz, saying, "We must be united in the market, in a sovereign manner, with prices that benefit our economies, and one of the ways, already proposed by (Mexico's) President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is to think of a kind of lithium OPEC."

Bolivia has the world's largest lithium resources at 21 million tonnes, according to the US Geological Survey. The "lithium triangle" area of northern Chile and Argentina, which includes sprawling salt flats, has about 65% of the globe's known resources of the metal.

The region could hold nearly 70% of the world's lithium reserves if Peruvian, Mexican and Brazilian potential reserves were added, providing a new source of income for Latin American economies and a restructuring of the world economic scenario around the energy transition, according to the Latin American Strategy Centre for Geopolitics (CELAG).

Bolivia inked a deal with a consortium that includes Chinese battery giant CAT to jointly extract lithium from its Uyuni and Oruro salt flats in January. The partnership would give the group of companies, including mining giant CMOC, rights to developing two lithium plants. 

President Are wants to industrialize Bolivia's lithium before the end of his term in 2025 but remains cautious of the potential geopolitical implications that it may bring. 

President Are explained, "We don't want our lithium to be in the Southern Command's crosshairs, nor do we want it to be a reason for destabilizing democratically elected governments or foreign harassment." 

Chile, Argentina and Bolivia have been discussing creating a lithium cartel since July last year. They aim to integrate other Latin American nations with a nascent lithium industry, including Brazil and Mexico. 

Analysts, including Geopolitical Monitor's Arman Sidhu, believe the plan will likely face opposition from environmental and indigenous groups that contributed to left-wing victories in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. He also warned of additional obstacles, including China's potential unwillingness to have its dominance in the industry undermined.

Opponents argue that lithium mining, which can involve vast amounts of water, can cause significant environmental damage, particularly to local communities. 

There have also been concerns about the rights of indigenous people in the region who may be affected by mining the metal. 

Supporters argue that developing a lithium industry in Latin America could boost the region's economies, particularly as demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy grows.

In recent years, China has been the dominant player in the lithium market, controlling a significant proportion of the world's supply of the metal. 

China's position has led to concerns about the security of supply, particularly as demand for lithium is likely to increase due to the ongoing renewable energy and electric vehicle boom.

Developing a lithium cartel in Latin America could help counterbalance China's position in the market and provide greater security of supply for the rest of the world.

The idea of a lithium cartel is still in its early stages, and it remains to be seen whether it will come to fruition. 

It could represent a significant shift in the global lithium market and provide a new source of income for Latin American economies. 

Whether this will be achieved without significant opposition remains to be seen, but the potential benefits of a lithium cartel may be too substantial to ignore.

By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com 

Albemarle to build $1.3 billion lithium plant in South Carolina
Reuters | March 22, 2023 | 

South Carolina. Credit: Adobe Stock

Albemarle Corp said on Wednesday it had chosen Chester County, South Carolina, as the location for a $1.3 billion lithium processing plant it hopes will cement its status as a cornerstone of the rapidly growing US electric vehicle industry.


The facility, which was first announced last year without a specific location, will double the company’s lithium processing capacity and thus its ability to supply key customers – including Tesla Inc – who are hungry for more North American supplies of the battery metal.
Already the world’s largest lithium producer with major facilities in Chile, China and Australia, Albemarle has moved aggressively to expand in the United States, which it sees as its next major area of growth thanks to tax credits and other incentives offered by the US Inflation Reduction Act.

The South Carolina plant will be able to process 50,000 tonnes of lithium each year from rock Albemarle plans to mine in North Carolina as well as from recycled batteries. That’s roughly enough of the white metal to make 2.4 EVs annually.

“This facility will help increase the production of US-based lithium resources to fuel the clean energy revolution while bringing us closer to our customers as the supply chain is built out in North America,” Albemarle chief executive Kent Masters said in a statement.

Construction of the 800-acre project is expected to begin late next year, though the company did not provide a timeline for when the site will open. The plant should employ 300 workers with an average annual pay of $93,000.

The company received a lithium processing grant last year from the White House. Despite the recent softening in lithium prices, Albemarle has said it expects demand to continue to rise.

Shares of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company fell 1.6% to $219.33 in afternoon trading.

(By Sourasis Bose, Arunima Kumar and Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Anil D’Silva, Vinay Dwivedi and Diane Craft)

Chile pushes new lithium extraction method in risk to future supply

Bloomberg News | March 22, 2023 

Salting the lithium fields (Stock image by jobi_pro.)

Chile’s government plans to require all new lithium projects to tap a production technique that’s barely used commercially anywhere in a bid to reduce water losses.


The requirement — mentioned by Mining Minister Marcela Hernando in a presentation Wednesday — may constrain future production in a country with the world’s biggest reserves of the key ingredient in electric-vehicle batteries at a time of growing demand.


Chile, the world’s No. 2 lithium supplier, has been losing market share, with output restricted to just two companies — SQM and Albemarle Corp. — from a single salt-flat in the Atacama desert. The two firms currently pump up vast amounts of brine, storing it in giant evaporation ponds for a year or more before processing it and shipping it off to Chinese and Korean battery makers.

As simple as it is profitable, the process uses far less fresh water, chemicals and energy than hard-rock mining. But it means billions of liters of salty water is vaporized in one of the most arid places on Earth, which some say is a threat to wildlife.

As the Chilean government prepares to unveil a policy to develop new deposits, it will require projects to use a more selective or direct process that would mean far less evaporation — and probably less output and profit. Both SQM and Albemarle are investigating such techniques, which are relatively untested commercially.

“For us, any future development has to done with direct extraction,” Minister Hernando said.

With direct lithium extraction, or DLE, brine can be reinjected back into salt flats, reducing the environmental impact and accelerating production. But it has to be adapted to the particular conditions of each salt flat.

The administration of Chile’s left-leaning President Gabriel Boric is creating a bigger role for the state in lithium. Its new policy will include the creation of a state lithium company, with which private firms would partner to develop projects in unexplored brine deposits.

Last year, contracts awarded to private companies under the previous government were rescinded amid growing resource nationalism and a push to introduce less polluting production techniques.

(By James Attwood)

The world’s wettest mines: Measuring precipitation at mine sites

Nicholas LePan - Mining Intelligence | March 22, 2023 | 


The mining industry faces increasingly complex challenges from the weather, climate change, and a global push to become more sustainable. But mining is complicated, restricting operations can cost millions of dollars and needed supply of metals.


Weather and changing climatic conditions will affect mining operations and supporting infrastructure. As severe weather events continue to rise, companies and investors must consider the impact on equipment, employee safety, the availability of transportation routes, along with the price of water and energy supplies.

Mining Intelligence looked at the annual average precipitation from over 3500 in operation mine sites around the world to reveal the world’s wettest mines.

Making it rain: The world’s wettest mines

Average Annual Rain Fall at Mine Sites:

Source: Mining Intelligence

This data is for mine sites that are currently in production, including open, open-pit/underground, surface and underground operations.

Source: Mining Intelligence

Rain and Mining Operations

Mines and mining infrastructure are large and irreversible industrial projects with heavy capital expenditures, which are designed to operate for decades in challenging environments. Investors, engineers, and company management face an almost infinite variety of considerations and must balance the trade-offs between constructing lower risk designs and declining economic returns.

As a result, this means that planning is very important to secure the long-term technical and economic sustainability of mining investments. Mine plans and investment decisions should capture the type and kind of uncertainty that surrounds a mining project, and understand the precipitation of a mine location is one such risk.

The risks of heavy precipitation include:

Land transportation route disruption

Degradation of roads

Disruption in delivery of input materials such as steel, timber, cement, hydrochloric acid, and cyanide, or consumables such as diesel, tires, and reagents

Tailings dam failures

Release of contaminated water into surrounding areas

Remediation costs

Increases in environmental liability

Impacts on community health and safety

If heavy rainfall leads to flooding, then this can lead to operational disruptions, which include mine closure, washed-out roads, and unsafe water levels in tailing dams. Experts observed 10 percent annual production losses from wet weather at an open-pit coal mine.

Extreme weather also affects different commodities in different ways. For example, iron and zinc are the most exposed to flood occurrences, at 50% and 40% of global volume at risk, respectively.

Without this knowledge or data, many investors and those who make decisions are making decisions blind.

More data is here.

Rio Tinto to publish site-by-site water usage data

Staff Writer | March 22, 2023

  
Image from Rio Tinto.

In an effort to mark World Water Day 2023 on Wednesday, Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO; ASX: RIO) is making public detailed information about annual surface water usage across its various sites in over 35 countries. The information is displayed through an interactive map on the company’s website.


The interactive database details permitted surface water allocation volumes, the site’s annual allocation usage, and the associated catchment runoff from average annual rainfall estimate. This five-year historic comparative data will be updated annually.

In 2019, Rio Tinto made a commitment to drive good water stewardship and improve disclosure to stakeholders by publishing site-by-site surface water usage data for all managed sites by the end of 2023.

This commitment is in line with the water reporting guidelines of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) Water Stewardship Position Statement, which sets out ICMM members’ approach to water stewardship, Rio said.

It includes commitments requiring members to apply strong and transparent water governance, manage water at operations effectively, and collaborate to achieve responsible and sustainable water use.

“Water is an essential resource, critical to sustaining biodiversity, people, and economic prosperity. It is also a resource we share with the communities and nature surrounding our operations, so it is essential that we carefully manage our use and hold ourselves accountable to our stakeholders,” Rio Tinto CEO Jakob Stausholm said in a media statement.

“This interactive database brings a new level of transparency and will enable us to engage more deeply with our stakeholders, seek their feedback on our disclosure and continue to focus our efforts on becoming better water stewards for today and future generations,” Stausholm said.

Use the interactive platform here.

LIBERAL STATE CAPITALI$M
Canada budget to have tax credit for equipment used to produce EVs – sources

Reuters | March 24, 2023 | 

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

Canada will introduce in its budget next week a 30% investment tax credit to boost clean-tech manufacturing, especially in the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain, two government sources familiar with the document said on Thursday.


The tax credit for capital investments in manufacturing equipment will be a “significant piece” of a bundle of measures aimed at putting Canada’s green-transition effort on the same level as the United States, said one source.

The credit will be available for future investments in equipment used to extract and process critical minerals used in EVs, a second source said, and to purchase equipment used in manufacturing along the entire EV supply chain, including for batteries.

In addition, the tax credit will be able to be used to buy equipment to produce nuclear energy fuels and heavy water, for making electrical energy storage, and for producing solar panels or wind turbines, the second source said.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will present the 2023-2024 fiscal year budget to parliament on Tuesday. Neither source was authorized to speak on the record. A finance ministry spokesperson declined to comment.

Freeland has promised to bolster Canada’s green energy stimulus after the US last year passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which provides massive incentives for those who invest in clean technology there.

“In an ideal scenario, this will incentivize expanded critical minerals extraction and processing in Canada, and ideally a lot of that will then be purchased and fed into a growing net-zero manufacturing base in the US,” the first source said. US President Joe Biden is due to arrive in Ottawa on Thursday for an official visit that officials say will include an agreement between the two countries to enhance cooperation clean energy and technologies.

Related Article: Biden reaches moment of truth for electric vehicle tax credits

Last year, Canada budgeted C$3.8 billion ($2.8 billion) to scale up exploration and infrastructure for critical minerals. Pierre Gratton, president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada, said more investment is badly needed. Countries across the globe are scrambling to take advantage of a rapid shift to low-carbon energy. Canada has an abundance of the critical minerals used to produce EVs.

“The US does need us… and right now, we’re not on track to deliver,” Gratton said. “So these measures, if they turn out to be in the budget, will help us make sure we can deliver.” Canada sends three-quarters of its exports south of the border, and the automobile industries of the two countries are highly integrated.

Neither source put a price tag on the measure, but they did say it would not apply to projects where investments have already been agreed, such as the two Canadian battery plants planned by carmakers Volkswagen and Stellantis NV.

Canada has limited financial firepower compared with what the US put forward in the IRA, which many experts say will lead to more than $1 trillion in investment.

Earlier this month, a source told Reuters that green transition budget measures would focus on increasing the capacity of the electricity grid, on battery manufacturing and on mass timber construction, without providing details.

Last autumn, Canada announced investment tax credits for companies that purchase finished clean energy systems, like solar panels. Instead, the new tax credit will apply to manufacturers buying equipment to build things like solar panels.

“It’s about building out the industrial base in Canada,” the second source said.

($1 = 1.3659 Canadian dollars)

(By Steve Scherer; Editing by Denny Thomas, Bill Berkrot and Marguerita Choy)

Russia-linked Polymetal may list in Abu Dhabi
Bloomberg News | March 24, 2023 | 

Credit: Polymetal International Plc

Polymetal International Plc may list in Abu Dhabi, becoming the first company with majority Russian operations to trade in the Middle East, as the gold miner re-domiciles from Jersey to Kazakhstan.


Polymetal is in advanced talks with the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange as keeping its London listing after re-domiciling is proving difficult, according to people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified as the matter is private. “We are studying the listing at ADX, but no decision is yet taken,” a spokesman for Polymetal said by email.

The United Arab Emirates is benefiting from Russian money and trade flows since the invasion of Ukraine, leading to Western concerns that it may be helping to ease the impact of sanctions on Moscow. Polymetal is not sanctioned.

Other companies with Russian roots are also looking at listings in the UAE, although they haven’t taken steps toward doing so, two other people said, without naming any of them.

Polymetal, which has its primary listing in London, is studying moving its domicile to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, after the Kremlin banned sales of strategic assets by owners in jurisdictions it considers non-friendly after the invasion of Ukraine. Shifting to a Russia-friendly domicile from Jersey would open the way for Polymetal to pursue a plan it announced last July of splitting its Russian assets — which account for 70% of its sales — from the remainder in Kazakhstan.

Should Polymetal make that change, it would be considered a foreign company in the UK, forcing it to issue depository interest on its shares to keep a London listing. Chief Financial Officer Maxim Nazimok said on March 16 that the miner hadn’t so far managed to find a provider of a depository interest program, and was considering a Middle East bourse as an alternative. It would also have a listing in Kazakhstan.

The trading of shares and depository receipts of Russian companies in London and New York was suspended last year.

(With assistance from Ben Bartenstein)

Russia says gold stash grew during war, lifting veil on reserves

Bloomberg News | March 22, 2023 |

(Image from Vladimir Putin’s website)

Russia’s gold holdings jumped by 1 million troy ounces over the last year as the central bank bought the metal amid sanctions on its reserves imposed by the US and its allies over the invasion of Ukraine.


The Bank of Russia said it held 74.9 million ounces of gold at the end of February, unchanged from the previous month and up from 73.9 million a year earlier. Over the same period, total holdings of foreign exchange and gold dropped to $574 billion from $617 billion.

The gold hoard was worth $135.6 billion on Feb. 28, 2023, the central bank said.

The disclosure came as Russia has gradually resumed release of some economic indicators it stopped issuing publicly last year in the wake of the sanctions. Russia has the world’s second-highest gold mine output and its central bank has for years been among the biggest buyers globally.

But Russia’s bullion has been shut out of western markets since an import ban in June. Local producers, who previously shipped most of their metal to London, were forced to find new customers in Asia.

Next-gen explosives for mining, military developed

Staff Writer | March 23, 2023 

Blasting in an open-pit mine. (Reference image by CSIRO, Wikimedia Commons).

Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have come up with a way to create “switchable” high explosives that won’t detonate unless activated by being filled with an inert fluid, such as water.


The goal behind their efforts is to mitigate accidental detonations of stored explosives.

In a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers explain that for military planners, personnel who work with explosives and communities near operations such as mining and munitions, the volatility of certain high explosives presents a potential hazard. Impact, heat and friction are all sensitivities that can produce an unplanned explosion.

As an example, they mention the accidental detonation of stored ammonium nitrate in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2020 killed more than 200 people. Equivalent to an earthquake, the explosion levelled the port district and was felt across the country and the region. While unusually large, the event was not unprecedented; one estimate showed that 500 unplanned explosions occurred at munitions plants from 1979 to 2013.

The Los Alamos team used additive manufacturing techniques to fabricate high-explosive charges with a lattice structure that by itself cannot sustain detonation.

In experimentation that marked the first time quantifying the effectiveness of the high-explosive charges, the team found that an unfilled charge’s Gurney energy—the propulsion resulting from an explosive’s gaseous products expanding—was 98% lower than that of an equivalent water-filled charge. This means that the unfilled high-explosive charges can be safely transported, handled and stored without risk of detonation.

Their experiments also led them to tune the detonative performance of the system by changing the mechanical properties of the fluids in fluid-filled charges. The team found that replacing water with higher-density fluids increased propulsion by up to 8.5% and decreased detonation velocity by 13.4%. The results point to the technology’s possible tenability for a variety of industrial purposes.

“The data suggest a tuneability allowing to optimize the energy delivery for different applications,” said Cameron Brown, a scientist at Los Alamos and lead author on the paper. “Insight into the Gurney energy and detonation velocity of filled and unfilled charges presents a path forward for quantifying the detonative performance of switchable explosives with different structural parameters, and optimizing them for mining, oil and gas exploration, blasting or military applications.”

Further experimentation and data will help evaluate performance with different charge structures and fill fluids.

The improved technology, though, offers a path for improving industrial safety and even for making safe things like unexploded ordinance, which in many places can be a hazard for civilians during or after conflicts.

Opinion: Contentious deep sea mining code talks enter final stretch

Bloomberg News | March 22, 2023 |

Credit: UK Seabed Resources

A growing number of countries are calling to delay plans to strip-mine the seabed for metals to make electric car batteries as US defense giant Lockheed Martin Corp., the biggest corporate player in deep sea mining, exits the nascent industry.


Last week’s sale of Lockheed’s UK Seabed Resources subsidiary to Norwegian startup Loke Marine Minerals was announced just as the United Nations-affiliated organization tasked with regulating deep sea mining kicked off a conference in Jamaica. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is meeting to hit a July deadline for approving regulations that would allow unique deep ocean ecosystems to be mined as soon as 2024. Tensions at the conference are rising as scientists, lawyers and activists charge the Authority’s administrative arm, known as the Secretariat, with pushing a pro-mining agenda. Last week, some of the ISA’s 167 member nations accused ISA Secretary-General Michael Lodge of overstepping his role as a neutral administrator.

As the conference got underway, the UK’s delegate also revealed Lockheed’s effective withdrawal from the industry, with the sale of UK Seabed Resources for an undisclosed price. “Following a detailed analysis of the business it was clear that there was a better owner for our UK Seabed Resources (UKSR) business,” a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said in an email.

Lockheed’s interest in deep sea mining dates to the 1970s, and its British subsidiary has held ISA licenses since 2013 to explore the seabed for cobalt, nickel and other metals. (The company retains US licenses, issued decades ago, to explore for minerals in the Pacific Ocean.) Lockheed’s sudden departure from deep sea mining — just as the industry reaches the possible cusp of commercialization — leaves no Western mining contractor with pockets deep enough to finance the billions of dollars needed to launch a seabed mining operation.

The ISA conference is taking place amid rising demand for cobalt, nickel and other metals used to make batteries for electric cars, and comes less than two weeks after 193 nations reached agreement on a landmark treaty to protect marine biodiversity in international waters. Pressure to delay or ban implementation of seabed mining centers on the lack of scientific knowledge about deep sea ecosystems targeted for exploitation.

On Thursday, UK delegate Gavin Watson told the ISA Council, the organization’s 36-nation policymaking body, that his country would not support “the issuing of any exploitation licenses for deep sea mining projects unless and until there is sufficient scientific evidence about the potential impact on deep sea ecosystems systems.”

Amid the growing strain, multiple accredited ISA observers say Secretariat staff on Monday threatened them with expulsion for taking photos and video of the conference proceedings and ordered them to delete files from their phones. Accredited observers also include the US, the Holy See and other nations that are not ISA member states.

“There was an ISA staff member positioned above the observers all day to essentially police our behavior, which was certainly very unnerving,” said Diva Amon, a deep sea scientist representing the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative at the meeting. Amon, a longtime participant at the ISA, was the 2018 recipient of a research award from the secretary-general.

Arlo Hemphill, Greenpeace USA’s lead for deep sea mining and ocean sanctuaries, said he was approached by a Secretariat staffer as he charged his phone. “This woman came over to me and said, ‘I was told you were filming.’ I said I wasn’t and then she told me if I was caught filming, she would rip my badge off and remove my credentials,” says Hemphill, who has attended six ISA meetings. “It felt very authoritarian.”

Duncan Currie, an international lawyer and representative of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, an accredited ISA observer, said he witnessed Secretariat staff ordering observers to put down their phones. A video reviewed by Bloomberg Green shows Secretariat employees standing behind a group of observers and then approaching them when they appeared to be taking photos.

ISA spokesperson Stefanie Neno said in a statement that only journalists are permitted to shoot photographs and video at ISA proceedings. The policy she cited, however, refers only to accredited media, not observers.

On Sunday, The New York Times published a March 16 letter that a German government minister sent to Lodge, objecting to what she characterized as his improper interference in delegates’ discussions of alternatives to approving mining licenses should regulations not be in place by July. “In the past, you have actively taken a stand against positions and decision-making proposals from individual delegations,” wrote Franziska Brantner, Germany’s minister for economic affairs and climate action. All ISA member states “must be able to trust that the Secretariat will respect its duty of neutrality.“

Lodge replied the next day. “This is untrue and I reject such a baseless allegation,” he wrote in a March 17 letter to Brantner posted by the Times.

Neno said the ISA “is fully committed to protecting the marine environment and regulating economic, exploratory and scientific activity in the deep sea,” adding: “The role of the Secretariat is not to pass judgment on the position of member states, but to facilitate negotiations and ensure that discussions are informed by the best available science.”

But the Secretariat has at times appeared less than neutral. The organization created a video and coloring pages for children about deep sea mining so they can “learn about the deep sea, its incredible creatures, its environment and the work of ISA to explore and protect it.” And souvenirs for sale at the ISA meeting in Jamaica include “nodule bracelets,” a reference to polymetallic nodules set to be mined on the seabed. Scientists estimate polymetallic nodules are the habitat for half of the larger species found in the region of the Pacific Ocean targeted for mining.

Costa Rican Ambassador Gina Guillén Grillo on Monday tweeted that, “Member states should drive the International Seabed Authority: decisions must come from them & must not be pushed by those who have only administrative duties. Mining the seabed cannot be rushed because of the economic interests of a few.”

The ISA was established by UN treaty in 1994 to regulate the industrialization of the seabed in international waters and to ensure the protection of the marine environment. Since 2001, the Authority has issued exploration contracts to state-backed enterprises, government agencies and private companies to prospect for minerals over more than 500,000 square miles of the seabed in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. As part of that process, each mining contractor must be sponsored by an ISA member nation, which is responsible for ensuring compliance with environmental regulations. But investigations by Bloomberg Green, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times have revealed the closeness of the Secretariat to the mining companies the Authority regulates, as well as the influence some of those companies exert over small Pacific island nations that sponsor their contracts.

In speeches, Lodge has downplayed the potential environmental impact of seabed mining and decried what he describes as inaccurate media coverage of the ISA. In 2020, he threatened to sue Radio New Zealand for defamation for referring to him as “cheerleader” for the seabed mining industry.

The ISA Council had spent more than six years laboriously deliberating regulations that would allow mining to move forward, with a non-binding 2020 target for completing them. Then in June 2021, Nauru, a Pacific island nation with a population of 8,000, invoked a provision in a UN treaty that requires the ISA to finish regulations within two years.

Nauru is a sponsor of a subsidiary of The Metals Company, a Canadian-registered venture formerly known as DeepGreen that also holds mining contracts sponsored by two other small Pacific island nations. If the ISA does not approve regulations by July, it may be required to provisionally approve The Metals Company’s application for a mining license under whatever environmental protections are in place at the time.

That prospect has prompted France, Germany, France, Spain, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Chile, Panama, Palau, Fiji and the Federated States of Micronesia to call for a moratorium or pause on deep sea mining. Brazil, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland and other countries have indicated that they would not approve any mining contracts until adequate environmental protections for the seabed are enacted.

“The ocean’s health, people and natural ecosystems are already reeling from pollution, overfishing, acidification and extreme weather events,” said Hinano Murphy of French Polynesia, one of the indigenous representatives from the Pacific who addressed the Council on Monday. “With a ban on deep sea mining, however, we see the chance to stop the needless damage before it starts.

(By Todd Woody)

Mitsubishi enters Casino project in Yukon, acquiring 5% stake in Western Copper
Staff Writer | March 24, 2023 |

Site of the Casino copper-gold project in Yukon. Credit: Western Copper and Gold

Western Copper and Gold (TSX: WRN) announced Friday a strategic equity investment by Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials to further advance the company’s Casino copper-gold project in Canada’s Yukon Territory towards development.


Mitsubishi has agreed to acquire approximately 5% of Western’s outstanding shares at $2.63 per share. The exact number of shares to be issued (and by extension, total proceeds received) will depend on whether Rio Tinto Canada elects to exercise its pre-existing right to participate in equity financings by the company to maintain its current ownership interest of approximately 7.84%.

Assuming Rio Tinto elects to exercise its participation right in full, then it is expected that approximately 8.09 million shares will be issued to Mitsubishi for gross proceeds of C$21.3 million, and around 880,000 shares will be issued to Rio Tinto for gross proceeds of C$2.3 million.

Western Copper’s shares gained 0.8% by 12:45 p.m. ET on the investment by Mitsubishi. The Vancouver-based miner has a market capitalization of C$362.3 million ($263.7m).

In connection with the investment, Western and Mitsubishi will enter into an investor rights agreement whereby the latter could appoint a member to the Casino project technical and sustainability committee and have one or more representatives on the Western board.

Mitsubishi will also have the right to participate in future equity financings to maintain its ownership in the company. These rights can be exercised within 24 months of Mitsubishi’s investment, unless its share ownership falls below 3%.

“The investment by Mitsubishi Materials is a strong endorsement of the Casino project. We look forward to working with Mitsubishi Materials to advance Casino,” Paul West-Sells, CEO of Western Copper, said in a news release.

Following the investment, Western will remain the sole owner and operator of the Casino project, which it has been developing since 2008. The project encompasses the construction of a conventional open pit mine along with a mineral processing plant and heap leach facility, for which the environmental and socio-economic impacts are currently being reviewed by the Yukon government.

Located 300 km northwest of Whitehorse, the Casino property is host to a porphyry copper-gold-silver deposit containing 2.4 billion tonnes of measured and indicated resources at grades of 0.14% copper, 0.19 g/t gold and 1.5 g/t silver, for 7.6 billion lb. copper, 14.5 million oz. gold and 113.5 million oz. silver.

In summer 2022, Western published a feasibility study on the Casino project, outlining an after-tax net present value, at an 8% discount rate, of C$2.3 billion with an internal rate of return of 18.1%.

Over the 27-year project life (in the case of heap leach, 24 years), annual production would reach 163 million lb. copper, 211,000 oz. gold and 1.3 million oz. silver, the study shows.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

JPMorgan’s mystery ‘nickel’ rocks: The hunt for clues begins with a kick

Bloomberg News | March 24, 2023 

Nickel briquettes. Image courtesy of Sherritt International Corp.

The revelation that about $2 million of “nickel” on the London Metal Exchange was actually just bags of stones has thrown a spotlight on the sprawling web of warehouses and metal stashes underpinning the billions of dollars of derivatives traded daily on the LME.


Over the past week, warehouse staff from Busan in South Korea to Genoa in Italy have rushed to check tens of thousands of two-ton bags of nickel – in some cases, by literally kicking them.

The LME advised warehouse operators to wear steel toe-capped boots for safety, one person who received the instructions said. The rule of thumb: If it hurts when you kick it, it’s probably nickel.

The mass inspection, which also included more carefully calibrated checks like weighing and scanning the bags, came after the LME last week announced it had discovered “irregularities” in nine nickel contracts. Bloomberg has reported that the contracts – now invalidated – belonged to JPMorgan Chase & Co. No other issues were found across the LME’s global network of warehouses, the exchange said on Thursday.

Attention will now turn to the question of how the bags of stones could have been bought and sold as nickel on the LME – long viewed by traders as the one place where they don’t need to second guess the contents of their cargoes.

The first sign of trouble came after some of the bags of “nickel” were bought from an LME-registered warehouse in Rotterdam by two trading companies, Trafigura Group and Stratton Metals. When the bags were delivered out, their weights didn’t match the paperwork. Inside, rather than nickel briquettes — which look like lumps of charcoal for barbecuing — the bags had stones instead.

When the rest of the Rotterdam warehouse was searched, the bags underlying nine LME contracts belonging to JPMorgan were also found to contain stones.

There are two possible explanations: either the bags were already full of stones when they were first delivered into Access World’s Rotterdam warehouse, or someone sneaked into the warehouse to steal the nickel.

Access World is leaning toward the second theory, according to people familiar with the matter, because it has a record of the material being weighed when it first entered the warehouse.

It’s far from the first time the metals industry has had to deal with scandals and theft, and nickel’s high value makes it a favorite of fraudsters. Just last month, Trafigura said it had been the victim of a “systematic fraud” whereby it spent some $600 million on cargoes of nickel that turned out not to contain the metal. (Trafigura has said the LME saga isn’t connected to its legal case over the alleged fraud.) In 2017, banks lost over $300 million after discovering fake warehouse receipts for nickel stored in Access World warehouses in Asia — in that case, outside of the LME’s network.

Metals traders joke about how the oldest known written complaint – on a clay tablet housed in the British Museum – details a deal gone wrong over substandard copper.

But in today’s world, the LME’s system is the one place where metal is assumed to be unquestionably safe. The exchange’s contracts, which are the global benchmark for industrial metals like copper, nickel and zinc, are backed by physical metal in the network of warehouses around the world.

While the vast majority of trades on the exchange are purely financial transactions involving hedge funds seeking to bet on the price of metals, or producers looking to hedge, anyone who holds a contract to expiry receives a parcel of metal in an LME-registered warehouse. The whole system relies on warehouse companies to vouch for the metal they have loaded in when they produce an LME “warrant” – a warehouse receipt that can be delivered against an LME contract.

“Elevated prices on base metals make them a natural target for fraud and theft,” said Simon Collins, former head of metals at Trafigura and the CEO of digital trading platform TradeCloud. “Commodity companies need to protect themselves via stringent procedures around people, processes and technology.”

Access World has said it believes the nine warrants suspended by the LME were an isolated case, “specific to one warehouse in Rotterdam.” A promotional video for the company’s facility in Rotterdam’s port area shows a brightly lit warehouse filled with stacks of shiny metal, as well as numerous security cameras.

One headache for investigators is that it’s far from clear when any nefarious activity took place: the material was first delivered into the Rotterdam warehouse several years ago, according to people familiar with the matter.

It may have gone undetected for years, because of a quirk specific to the nickel market. Unlike aluminum and copper, which are kept in neat stacks in warehouses, most of the nickel in the LME is in the form of briquettes in bags. Warehousing and shipping companies typically don’t look inside the bags, checking only that the seals haven’t been tampered with. They issue warehouse receipts on what is called a “said to contain” basis – meaning they cannot vouch for the contents.

The number of problem bags was small, affecting only a few dozen tons of nickel. But the news that just a few of the LME’s nickel contracts were compromised has led traders to reconsider the assumption that LME registered metal is always perfectly secure.

The price of nickel for immediate delivery plunged to the biggest discount to three-month futures in 15 years this week, in a sign that some traders were suddenly wary of taking delivery of LME nickel contracts.

Read More: Nickel price slumps as global production soars

For the LME, the warehouse issue represents yet another headache as it wades through the fallout of its last nickel crisis a year ago. It also comes as the exchange is finally preparing to resume regular trading hours in nickel — now scheduled for Monday — when the market will open during the Asian day for the first time since early March 2022.

(By Jack Farchy, Archie Hunter, Alfred Cang and Mark Burton)

Graphic: The impact of vehicle sizes on mineral demand in the EV market

MINING.COM Staff Writer | March 24, 2023 | 

Source: Benchmark Mineral Intelligence

As the electric vehicles (EV) market grows, a debate is developing about the amount of minerals needed to supply the demand for EV batteries.


Following the US’ push for electrification with the Inflation Reduction Act, the European Union recently unveiled its Critical Raw Materials Act to “significantly improve” domestic extraction, processing, and recycling capacity for metals such as lithium and rare earths.

Other nations like Canada and South American countries are also discussing how to benefit from the expanding market.

The infographic above by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence demonstrates how different models and battery types impact critical mineral demand.

While a Tata Motors Tiago battery contains only 1.1kg of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), a Tesla Semi truck requires over 500kg of LCE to operate.

Canada and U.S. don't feel the same way about each other — and it may be getting worse, poll reveals

Canadians are taking U.S. President Joe Biden's first visit to Canada, late in his first term, as a sign that the relationship between the countries isn't improving

Elianna Lev
Thu, March 23, 2023 

In light of President Joe Biden’s visit to Canada, a new survey gives surprising insights into how people across this country feel about our current relationship with the U.S.

The results of the recent poll, conducted by Maru Public Opinion and GZERO Media, find that Canadians’ feelings towards the U.S. still aren’t where they used to be, even in a post-Trump era. However, those feelings aren’t mutual.

How is Canada's relationship with the U.S.?


When reflecting back over the last year, compared to how things were during the Trump presidency, 30 per cent of Canadians felt that the relationship with our neighbours to the south is getting worse. That’s compared to 23 per cent who felt things were improving.

Nearly half - 47 per cent - felt the relationships stayed the same. It’s quite a different feeling when it comes to how Americans feel about us - one quarter (25 per cent) said the relationship is improving, compared to 17 per cent who felt it’s worse.

The majority - 58 per cent - felt the relationship has stayed the same.

John Wright is the executive vice president Maru Public Opinion. He says Canadians are interested in Biden’s visit to Canada and what he has to say, but there’s an element of weariness amongst the public. While we have cross border issues like trade and the economy that ties the two countries, there are a series of other issues like global warming, supply chains and military involvement in other parts of the world that need addressing urgently.

The fact the president has taken as long as he had to come to this country and because of some of those overarching issues that may not be on the table for this visit, there’s a group of people in this country that see it as the relationship worsening.John Wright, Executive Vice President, Maru Public Opinion

Canadians, Americans agree on one thing: China and Russia

One thing that the poll found Americans and Canadians are on the same page about is the threat to democracy from foreign agents in China and Russia. The vast majority of Canadians and Americans - 93 per cent for both - believe boosting security and intelligence efforts to stop foreign powers undermining democracy should be a priority.

“It’s a significant priority in both countries' populist that their leaders make it a priority to do what they can to stop it,” says Wright.

A similar percentage of people in both countries felt that Canada (71 per cent) and the U.S.(78 per cent) should have closer military defence relations. A majority of people polled on both sides felt that increasing joint North American military and defence capabilities should be a priority. Eighty-six per cent of Canadians and 90 per cent of Americans felt increasing these capabilities would guard against threats from countries like China and North Korea.

Wrights says the sharing of and support for all the military issues is much higher than you would have found 20 years ago.

“What’s conspired to that is that we live in a world where most Canadians believe that we’re already war footing with other countries right now,” he says. “The public is much more sensitized to military issues.”