The Northern Miner June 26 2023 Issue 13

Mining deal-making declines, but

Building More Mines Act will give more sway to experts over bureaucrats, says minister

ONTARIO | Indigenous communities have raised concerns about speed of approvals

Ontario’s new Building More

Mines Act aims to drastically cut timelines of mine permits and plans to get operations opened faster, says Mines Minister George Pirie.

Originally drafted as Bill 71, the new legislation amended the Mining Act and received royal assent on May 18. Regulations to support the act are under develop-

In an interview on June 14 at his office in Queen’s Park in Toronto, Pirie told The Northern Miner that in the committee meetings on environmental regulations before the act was passed, the ministry heard the environmental process described as a “merry-go-round” of consultations.

“Things that used to take two months, now take routinely two to five years,” he said. “An endless process of questions and replies and more questions and more replies. So, we want to use the experts that are in the field rather than the bureaucrats… to simplify the process and get to the right endpoint quicker.”

Speaking specifically about the role of experts with mine closures, Pirie said the final certification of those plans will still be done by himself and the ministry. But in the new act, experts, who are referred to as ‘qualified persons’ will provide most of the input on the closure plans, as well as certify most aspects of the plans.

“That would shave [part of the environmental process] from two to five years versus two months. That’s a significant advantage… so that the business of permitting these mines is conducted at the speed of business,” he said.

This change proved contentious during legislative assembly debates on Bill 71 in the spring. Ted Hsu, MPP for Kingston and the Islands and other MPPs drew attention to the vagueness of the term ‘qualified persons’ and its potential for conflict of interest, according to Hansard transcripts.

In April, Hsu noted that ministry officials would no longer be doing the assessment of mine plans.

“The difference is that the people assessing mine closures now can move into the private sector and potentially work at the same firm and be paid out of the same revenue as those other kinds of qualified personnel who evaluate a mine’s potential to protect investors,” he said.

Pirie responded that the ministry will still give input on the plans and has final say on closure processes.

In April, Guelph MPP Mike Schreiner made a motion to amend the act by inserting the clause that qualified persons See MINES ACT / 8

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Chile offers lithium policy details in new document

SOUTH AMERICA | Exploration permits to be tendered in first half of 2024

Almost two months after Chile first announced a national lithium strategy, the government has published a 33page document providing details on the policy’s objectives, schedule and expected milestones.

Copper giant Codelco and the national mining company Enami will be granted lithium exploration and exploitation permits before year-end. These licences will only cover those salt flats where they already have projects in different stages of development, the official paper said.

Codelco, Enami and their subsidiaries will be able to decide whether to associate or not with non-state companies, it added.

Tenders for lithium exploration will open to private companies in the first half of 2024, the document says. In cases where results show mining potential, the company that conducted the exploration work will have preferential access to an exploitation licence in association with a state-run firm, National Lithium.

Chile is the world’s No. 1 copper producer and second largest for lithium, but while its copper output is dominated by state-owned Codelco, lithium production has been in the hands of publicly listed miners SQM (NYSE: SQM) and Albemarle (NYSE: ALB).

According to the document, the Atacama salt flat is the only one

qualified as strategic. It’s the country’s largest reserve of the metal, with more than 90% of the local sources identified to date.

The government wants to expand production both in Atacama and in any or all of the other 18 salt flats that have been identified.

SQM’s

Geologist José Cabello of consulting firm Mineralium said the Atacama and Maricunga salt flats host combined lithium potential of 10.8 million tonnes, corresponding to 64% of global reserves.

pools in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. SQM exploration of lithium will depend on the characteristics of each salt flat, the kind of activity (exploration versus exploitation) and the presence of incumbents,” the document says.

“The state’s involvement in public-private partnerships for the

Global demand for lithium is projected to quadruple by 2035,

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reaching 3.8 million tonnes. Available supply by then is expected to sit at 2.5 million tonnes. According to the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco) the nation will double its 2021 production to 336,000 tonnes of lithium per year by 2035. TNM

Record wildfires halt Canadian operations in June

NATURAL DISASTERS | Thick smoke lifts from southern Ontario, northeast US

Ontario and Quebec-focused miners are recovering after persistent wildfires interrupted activities early this month.

Record-setting wildfires have been wreaking havoc across Canada since March, reaching peak intensity in June. Experts have marked the ongoing wildfire season as the most severe in Canadian history, sparing no provinces or territories except Nunavut.

Government data sources show Quebec has borne the brunt of the 2023 wildfire onslaught, witnessing a surge in frequency and intensity compared to previous years.

The impact of these fires has extended beyond the affected regions, with thick smoke blanketing Ottawa, Toronto, and large parts of southern Ontario from June 5 to 7. The air quality in these areas reached its highest level on Environment Canada’s Air Quality Health Index, posing a significant risk to public health.

As of June 8, Quebec alone reported an alarming count of 137 active fires, while Ontario battled 54 blazes, according to Canada’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, as of June 9, there were 422 active wildfires across Canada. So far this year there have been 2,402 wildfires burning 45,000 sq. km of land.

While the fires affected several mining operations and more than a dozen developers and explorers over the first two weeks of June, some had been able to resume activities as of press time on June 19.

Hecla Mining (NYSE: HL) suspended operations at its Casa Berardi mine in Quebec on June 6, when the access road to the mine was shut. The company announced a restart on June 15, after the province partially lifted the ban on road access. Mining infrastructure has not been affected.

The Iron Ore Company of Canada, majority-owned by Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO; LSE: RIO; ASX: RIO), experienced transportation disruptions. The Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway was suspended due to fire, smoke hazards, and damage to telecommunication and power lines. Operations at its Labrador City mine have also been halted.

Champion Mining (TSX: CIA: ASX: CIA) saw suspended rail service to its Bloom Lake iron ore operation near Fermont, Que., starting in late May. Service had

been restored as of June 10.

Wesdome Gold Mines (TSX: WDO) suspended underground and surface exploration activities at the Kiena mine in Quebec on June 8. Essential surface activities such as mill operation, shaft maintenance, and paste fill placement underground were still being carried out, and the company was able to resume all activity at the site as of June 13.

Reuters reported that Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX: AEM) said some sites where operations were reduced between June 2 and 5

have returned to normal. However, exploration activities carried out by the Quebec regional exploration team remained suspended.

Osisko Mining (TSX: OSK) said on June 5 it had suspended all activities at the Windfall gold project in Quebec and evacuated staff, as did Troilus Gold (TSX: TLG) from its namesake project site in northern Quebec and Wallbridge Mining (TSX: WM) from its Fenelon gold project in the province.

Explorers Québec Nickel (CSE: QNI), Q2 Metals (TSXV: QTWO), Champion Electric Metals (CSE: LTHM), Bonterra Resources (TSXV: BTR), Archer Exploration (CSE: RCHR), Cosmos Exploration (ASX: C1X) and Mosaic Minerals (CSE: MOC) also reported suspending activities at their Quebec projects.

Similarly, Patriot Battery Metals (TSXV: PMET) ceased field exploration operations at its Corvette property in northern Quebec on June 4. However, the company was able to continue lithium processing and advance its camp construction activities, and said June 14 it would remobilize its teams after the government lifted restrictions on access to the area.

Meanwhile, Brunswick Exploration (TSXV: BRW) suspended exploration activities at its three camps in northern Quebec. The company has also halted operations in the Saskatchewan region due to wildfire risks. TNM

AI poised to shake up how the mining industry talks to investors

TECHNOLOGY | Data analysis to speed up technical reporting, says VRIFY CEO Steve de Jong

Hudbay Minerals, Copper Mountain shareholders approve merger

M&A | Combined entity will be Canada’s third-largest copper miner

“If you build it, they will come” has proven as true for interactive mining tech firm VRIFY as it did in the movie Field of Dreams

Just as building a baseball diamond drew players in Kevin Costner’s sports-drama film, VRIFY’s creation of a 3-D mine mapping platform in 2017 has drawn dozens of clients seeking a better way to communicate with investors.

“We’re seeing realization by the market… that we as an industry in the mining sector need to find new and better ways to communicate what we do,” said Steve de Jong, VRIFY CEO in an early June interview with The Northern Miner “The old, ‘here’s a cross section and a PowerPoint and would you like to invest in my company’ doesn’t work as well as it used to.”

Founded by de Jong and George Salamis, VRIFY has seen a bump in growth over the last year, with annual recurring revenue growing by $800,000 in the first quarter, compared with growth of $150,000 in the same quarter in 2022. Annual revenue now stands at $5 million a year, and de Jong says the provider of interactive 3-D mine maps VRIFY’s current offering allows executives to present ore reserves and mine structures in a rich, visually-appealing and user-friendly way. For its next stage of growth, VRIFY plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) to further enhance the experience.

At the end of May, VRIFY’s fundraising efforts were rewarded with $6 million from mining technology investors RCF Jolimont Innovation, Beedie Capital and Tiny.

De Jong said the investment will go towards growth of its sales and marketing teams and future products, as its growing development team of designers and coders now has more than 20 people.

The Vancouver-based company wants to use AI to assess how presentations can be most effective for users by analyzing massive amounts of data. “Every piece of VRIFY content that you could create, [you’ll get] a list of suggestions, and that might be how often you pause in

your presentation, how much time you spend on various 3-D components,” de Jong said. “And that’s all going to be driven by looking at what makes a successful presentation, whether it’s going to use that to continually feed better and better presentations that really hit home with investors and stakeholders.”

Even though it’s relatively early days in the application of AI to mining, de Jong aims for disruptive change to the way mining communication works.

With drill core information, for example, lots of money have been spent on photographing cores, only for the photos to go into a pile and collect dust. AI can be deployed to drill even deeper into the complex data in those photos and correlate them with assays to look for patterns that humans can’t easily see.

“I think that’s where you’re really going to start to see trends and other elements that…we weren’t able to recognize before. Mineral exploration, I think that’s going to be the biggest benefactor of AI. And in the near term the strongest applications are going to come from the biggest data sets,” de Jong said.

One of the largest changes that de Jong believes AI will bring is cutting timelines for producing technical disclosures and documentation. And using AI-informed chatbots will bring the information to investors faster than it would take a CEO or geologist to respond to an email about drill results.

“I [could] record my 60-second response with my 3-D model. You’ll get it back five minutes later. When you introduce AI to that, you can actually start to create chatbots that can walk you through that 3-D model… with no editing on my side at all,” de Jong explained. “I do think you’re going to start to see companies upload all of their public disclosure, technical documents [and] data and use essentially chatbots that really supercharge any investor relations person’s ability to communicate what they do as a whole.”

Since its founding six years ago, VRIFY has experienced growth in spurts. In 2019, it partnered with Kirkland Lake Gold to launch the online KL Gold Deal Room that matches gold companies with investment opportunities.

Guiding all its actions, including its most recent $6-million financing, is VRIFY’s belief that the mining industry needs to change how it communicates with all stakeholders, including community groups and Indigenous groups.

“The only way we’re going to be able to effect that change is to make a tool that’s easy to use, where it actually does take less time to do one than the other.” TNM

Hudbay Minerals (TSX: HBM; NYSE: HBM) and Copper Mountain Mining (TSX: CMMC) shareholders have approved the resolutions required to complete their planned merger.

The deal hands Hudbay the Copper Mountain copper mine in British Columbia, located about 20 km south of Princeton and 300 km east of the port of Vancouver.

It also makes the combined company Canada’s third largest copper miner, after Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) and Vale (NYSE: VALE), with an estimated 2023 production of 53,000 tonnes.

The transaction is the latest in a wave of buyout offers across the mining sector — including Glencore’s (LSE: GLEN) pursuit of Teck — as companies rush to expand their copper footprint.

The red metal is a hot target as it is seen as indispensable to the global energy transition from fossil fuels.

Hudbay said the acquisition will result in an estimated US$30 million per year of operating efficiencies and corporate synergies. These include nearly US$20 million annually from operating cost reductions through the applica-

tion of the company’s operating efficiency practices to the copper mine.

Under the terms of the deal, each Copper Mountain shareholder will receive 0.381 of a Hudbay common share for each Copper Mountain common share held.

The transaction values the single-asset copper company at $2.67 per share.

Existing Hudbay and Copper Mountain shareholders will own about 76% and 24% of Hudbay, respectively.

The combined company will own three long-life operating mines, including Constancia in Peru, as well as Snow Lake and Copper Mountain in Canada, with exploration and expansion upside.

It will also have three large-scale development projects — Mason, Copper World and Llaguen — and one of the largest mineral resource bases among intermediate copper producers.

The parties expect their joint copper production this year to surpass the 150,000 tonnes in the second quartile position on the copper cost curve..

The strategic and financial benefits from the deal, expected to close around June 20, position the combined company for a valuation re-rating, according to Hudbay. TNM

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“MINERAL EXPLORATION, I THINK THAT’S GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST BENEFACTOR OF AI. AND IN THE NEAR TERM THE STRONGEST APPLICATIONS ARE GOING TO COME FROM THE BIGGEST DATA SETS.”

STEVE DE JONG, CEO, VRIFY

GLOBAL MINING NEWS • SINCE 1915 www.northernminer.com

It seems as if few parts of Canada will be spared from the unusually disruptive and destructive wildfire season now well under way. The blazes started in B.C. and Alberta in March, with Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario getting hit starting in late May.

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While wildfires are regular occurrences across much of Canada, this year they have displaced tens of thousands of people — including in some cases, entire towns (Chibougamau, Lebel-sur-Quévillon).

Figures from SOPFEU, Quebec’s forest fire prevention agency, attest to the season’s premature and severe start. At press time, the province had seen a total of 458 fires as of mid-June, compared to the 10-year average of 238 at this time of year. The total area burned at that point was 9,930.7 sq. km, a huge swath of land compared to the 10-year average of just 76.5 sq. km, measured at the same mid-year point of 2022.

Across Canada on June 19, there were 421 active fires blazing, with more than 200 deemed out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

The scale and intensity of the fires have prompted a multi-jurisdictional and international effort. The all-hands-on-deck response has not only seen local and provincial firefighting forces and federal resources spring into action, but hundreds of firefighters and supporting personnel flying in from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, France, Costa Rica and Chile to help beat back the flames.

The fires in Quebec have put both mining and exploration activities in the province at risk. More than a dozen mining companies, ranging from operating mines (such as Hecla Mining’s Casa Berardi), and developers (Osisko Mining) to exploration companies (such as Patriot Battery Metals) have had to temporarily suspend operations and evacuate their people.

The situation in Quebec was easing somewhat at press time, with about 100 active fires compared with 160 in early June. However, the fires remain unpredictable — and it’s still early in the season, which doesn’t end until October. On June 20, for example, five days after announcing it would restart its Casa Berardi mine following a June 6 suspension, Hecla said it would once again need to suspend operations.

Expert emergency planners

Thankfully, miners are expert planners for emergencies — including natural disasters such as wildfires.

EY Canada’s Mining Health and Safety leader, Rana Labban says that applies to both mining operations and smaller exploration outfits.

All companies go through very rigorous risk assessment and risk management processes before setting up a site, Labban says. They identify the types of risks they could fac, such as natural disasters, what they need to protect (people, assets), and what resources are available to them including infrastructure and local emergency services.

“The first thing that comes to all the executives’ minds is safeguarding their people — health and safety,” Labban says. “When we have people (onsite), we need to derisk the operation. So if the context is that the organization is smaller, are they exploring within a larger area with a lot of explorers, or are they a remote site with a small team?” she says. “They look at opportunities to improve their emergency response and emergency evacuation scenarios. So if there’s a group of people, even if it’s different companies, they usually come to [a] mutual aid type of arrangement where they would support each other in an evacuation.”

Maple Gold is one of the companies that’s been able to help the firefighting efforts this year, said CEO Matthew Hornor from the VID Mining conference in Quebec City on June 19. The company has hosted about 30 firefighters on and off at its camp in the Abitibi, north of Val-d’Or.

The junior hasn’t been affected by the fires and Hornor believes Maple is well prepared for emergencies. “We have a no fire policy in the bush at all times anyway, our housing is elevated and not surrounded by shrubs or trees,” he said, adding that personnel are mindful that they’re in the middle of nature and not to “do anything silly” that could get them in trouble. However, the scale and intensity of the fires does give Hornor pause. “It’s not that far away from us — they have a big job on their hands,” he said. While the wildfire situation this year is extreme by any account, Theo Yameogo, EY Americas and Canada Mining & Metals leader, notes wildfires themselves are not a new hazard for miners.

“When I worked in Saskatchewan, once a year, we would have to shut down for a couple of days, just for precautionary purposes because the fires in northern Saskatchewan would come close to the main site,” he said, adding that companies also work in extreme conditions, such as the sub-Arctic. Although companies are prepared to deal with emergencies, governments may need to provide extra aid in some situations.

“I think where government can come in is when it’s extreme or severe… Just like what happened with Covid. Because it’s super critical for the economy,” Yameogo said.

One thing we may see next year is an increased focus and spending on fire prevention, compared to this year’s necessary focus on fire suppression.

An OECD report published in May, Taming Wildfires in the Context of Climate Change, notes that spending on the latter remains up to six times higher than on prevention.

Companies may also start to disclose more of the climate risks they are already assessing as part of their risk management processes, as well as to qualify for insurance. Disclosure is also encouraged by the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations, which are being adopted by more companies.

“Climate risk disclosure is not mandatory, but rapidly becoming an expectation of key stakeholders,” Kent Kaufield, EY Canada ESG Markets leader & chief sustainability officer, told The Northern Miner in an email.

“We are seeing an increasing number of companies proactively disclose more details around climate and/or natural disaster risks. We anticipate TCFD will be more frequently leveraged to help companies disclose climate-related opportunities and risks moving forward.” TNM

It is disconcerting for one’s hero to be described as “comically absent-minded,” with “peculiar habits of speech” (including talking to himself) and a smile of “inexpressible benignity.” Nevertheless, a hero he is, and we are celebrating, on this side of the pond, the birth 300 years ago of the ‘father’ of capitalist thinking and modern economics.

Adam Smith wrote perhaps the most important book on economics. In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he explained how rational self-interest in a free-market economy leads to economic well-being.

Smith, who never married and died in July 1790, aged 67, proposed three basic laws of economics. First, he argued that humans were self-serving by nature but that this benefitted the whole of society. Second, he suggested that competition results in a better product for a lower price (with profits flowing from capital investments, and that capital gets directed to where profit can be maximized). Third, in his law of supply and demand, Smith explained that market forces normally ensure sufficient goods are produced, at the lowest price, to meet demand.

In the 18th century, a nation’s wealth was generally seen in terms of its stock of gold and silver. Importing goods from abroad was considered damaging because it meant that wealth was surrendered, and exports were good because precious metals were received in payment.

As a result, Great Britain maintained an array of controls to protect its metal wealth, with taxes on imports, subsidies to exporters and protection for domestic industries. Smith showed that this behaviour was folly, and that both sides became better off from an unrestricted exchange. A nation’s wealth, he argued, is not the quantity of gold and silver in its vaults, but the total of its production and commerce (what today we call gross national product).

The Wealth of Nations deeply influenced the politicians of the time, and provided the intellectual foundation for an era of free trade and economic expansion.

Born in June 1723, Smith was raised by his widowed mother in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. He entered the University of Glasgow at 14 on a scholarship and went on to attend Balliol College in Oxford. Smith graduated with an extensive knowledge of European literature and an enduring contempt for English schools. Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, which he found intellectually stifling (he attributed this to the wealth of Oxford and the professors there being financially independent of their ability to attract students).

He returned to Scotland, and in 1752 became chair of moral philosophy at Glasgow University. The date is particularly noteworthy because this was the year that England (and its colonies) changed from the Julian Calendar (adopted by Julius Caesar in 45 BC) to the Gregorian Calendar (fully 170 years after this new calendar had been adopted in most of Europe). The change included the dropping of 11 days from September 1752 and altering the start of the year from March to January.

Smith left academia in 1764 to tutor the young Duke of Buccleuch, and for two years they travelled through France and Switzerland. With the life pension he had earned from the Duke, Smith retired to write The Wealth of Nations, which was published in 1776 (the same year as the American Declaration of Independence was signed).

One of Smith’s best known dictums was: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” In other words, it is the self-interest of mining companies (and politicians) that will ultimately deliver the metals and minerals that society requires.

In a lesson for us all, Smith famously disliked whatever went beyond plain common sense, and he never moved above the heads of even the dullest readers. A particular message, perhaps, for our advisers on governmental and public relations. TNM

Dr. Chris Hinde is a mining engineer and the director of Pick and Pen Ltd., a U.K.-based consulting firm. He previously worked for S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Metals and Mining division.

How miners are dealing with Canada’s extreme wildfire season

Lithium funding starts in the aquifer, says Zelandez

Securing investment for lithium brine projects rests on convincing investors of both the resource size and quality, and its strong net present value (NPV). Access to accurate and trustworthy data at the exploration stage and proper and timely advice is also crucial.

Lithium projects in the Americas dominate investor attention following the passage of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the United States and amid industry projections of shortfalls in the supply of battery-grade lithium to meet energy transition demands. Resource definition and proving project viability for new lithium project developers are more crucial than ever to attract investment.

Investors, including those at private equity firms, financial institutions, and large mining companies, are more than busy reviewing competing lithium projects. They experience a regular and ongoing feed of resource estimates from a long list of firms eager to land funding. One of the keys to speeding up investment funding is getting the resource estimate right. Even with billions of dollars of subsidies potentially available for lithium schemes under the IRA, financiers are very unlikely to fund lithium brine projects without robust resource definition.

Assessing lithium brine resources according to NI 43-101 or JORC standards is critical to investors. Any project’s resource potential, economics, risk, regulatory compliance, and indeed its very economic credibility are heavily dependent on these standards carried out by Qualified Persons (QP). Even more important is that these resource estimates be properly and speedily interpreted so lithium project developers and potential financial backers can advance confidently and close on financial terms.

Interpretation and advice

are key

Data is data, but only proper and actionable interpretation of this data can influence project financing for leading projects in Argentina, Chile, and North America. Only through appropriate interpretation of resources and reserves can investors and lenders evaluate a project’s feasibility, commercial value, and potential risks. Technical and commercial due diligence is also essential for potential investors and buyers who need support assessing lithium brine projects.

Proper advice and insight into sub-surface conditions are of paramount importance. Resource estimates can account for a significant portion of the criteria many financial institutions use to determine if they will give the green light to funding. It remains a commercial reality that only a fraction of junior mining projects secure backing, even with strong metals prices and an expected shortfall in critical minerals supply. Get this part wrong, and any project will struggle to get off the ground.

Quantifying the size of resources and reserves can be managed to ensure that the size is accurately defined so that decisions can be made quickly. Using advanced downhole geophysical technologies with enhanced resolution, logging tools can properly assess underground resources and are crucial in quantifying the size of resources and reserves. Timely processing and interpretation of this data, using the latest methodologies in

aquifer characterization, is also needed to maximize the chances of securing commercial backing and de-risking the project in investors’ minds.

Rewards do come

A Chilean lithium brine operator seeking potential funding wanted to properly define its underground resource using advanced logging tools offered by Zelandez. Providing insights and advice on porosity and permeability to the client’s existing exploration model allowed the company to advance the delimiting of its aquifer units and, in turn, refine the size of its lithium reserve.

It also gave more certainty to their future production expansion plans and gave investors fresh insights into the commerciality of the project’s expansion.

Borehole magnetic resonance, which works like an MRI scanner for rock, is a vital technology used in this effort and is a core component in generating data to obtain funding.

An international mining company in Argentina recently worked with Zelandez to get porosity and permeability data as quickly as possible and deliver a feasibility study to advance the project. Getting these results within a couple of days of finishing each well allowed an earlier completion of the initial resource estimate and fundraising success.

Limiting project risks to facilitate funding is not restricted to the well. Other risks faced by lithium brine operators in this relatively new industry include project technical risk and water challenges, especially in water-scarce and arid areas where the protection of water resources is paramount to local government authorities and federal agencies.

Challenges in recruiting and retaining skilled staff impact the lithium brine sector like the rest of the mainstream mining sector. One potential area for recruiting staff is to tap into the talent pool in the oil and gas industry.

Private equity, mining royalty companies, financial institutions, and wealth funds have a demanding checklist for any mining scheme. Politics, ESG, commodity, and currency price risks are factors in project financing calculations. That may explain why so few mining schemes get funding. Fundamentally, decisions will turn on NPV analysis or discounted cash flow.

NPV is king

It is critical to demonstrate the potential NPV of a project during the exploration phase, as NPV is the leading indicator that investors will start with when evaluating the possible commercial and financial lending terms. The stakes are high for all stakeholders as investors typically look at a valuation of over US$1 billion.

Without a detailed and convincing data set and analysis of the sub-surface resource, few lenders will come on board to fund an adventurous junior firm with ambitions to develop new lithium brine supplies for the market. Not having a convincing resource interpretation will likely prove fatal in the face of due diligence by potential investors. NPV is based on resources and reserves as the basis of the production capacity of any project. A great services firm will be able to find resources in aquifers that previously were not seen. The best will be able to provide the detailed interpretation and analysis that will convince investors that the

resource and the NPV stand up to investigation.

Vital data

Project investors will avoid schemes where the sub-surface data is incomplete or doubtful. Due diligence is heavily pinned on adequately understanding the resource and potential production rates. These are vital factors that help to determine if a project can move towards economic feasibility and is commercially robust.

Downhole geophysics based on modern wireline logging techniques is crucial in mapping and understanding the resource. In many ways, wireline logging scans of rock deliver valuable insights to advance projects and highlight their potential for investors.

A better understanding of aquifers can also ease technical risks of unforeseen geological challenges, adversely impacting project cost and timetable to first production.

Geological advisory services to classify total resources are also needed to win over potential inves-

tors, support mining projects’ economic viability, and reduce risk. Backed by well data, QPs can successfully upgrade inferred resources to indicated and measured resources and onto probable and proven reserves. With this in hand, project developers can easily highlight the outlook for lithium production. Analysts at McKinsey & Company predict lithium could be in extremely short supply if no further projects are developed. Almost 60% of today’s lithium is mined for battery-related applications, and this could reach 95% by 2030.

Quite simply, know your aquifers and obtain a mastery of the sub-surface through high-resolution data. Without a proper and timely interpretation of this data, project developers risk losing out on investment and project sanction for a critical mineral that will accelerate our future energy transition. TNM

Fireweed names Mactung as largest high-grade tungsten deposit in world

YUKON | Resource shows project hosts almost 302M kg of tungsten

Fireweed Metals (TSXV: FWZ; US-OTC: FWEDF) has released a new resource estimate for its Mactung tungsten project in the Yukon and Northwest Territories which Fireweed says confirms it as the world’s largest high-grade deposit of the critical mineral. The resource comes one year after purchasing the historic asset, located right next to its Macmillan Pass zinc-lead-silver project, for $15 million from the Northwest Territories government.

Indicated resources (both open pit and underground) total 41.5 million tonnes grading 0.73 tungsten trioxide (WO3) for nearly 301.6 million kilograms of WO3.

Inferred resources total 12.2 million tonnes at 0.59% WO3, con-

taining 72.1 million kg of WO3

Fireweed president and CEO Brandon Macdonald called the resource “impressive” and “worldclass” in a news release on June 13.

“This not only reaffirms Mactung’s unmatched combination of grade and scale but establishes it as a truly strategic critical minerals project for the West with the underground resource alone able to supply much of North America’s expected demand for decades,” he said.

The deposit also contains copper and gold byproducts in the portion amenable to underground mining. The indicated resource is 12.2 million tonnes grading 1.05% WO3, 0.058% copper, and 0.078 gram gold per tonne, and the inferred resource is 2.8 million tonnes grading 0.73% WO3, 0.02% copper, and

0.017 gram gold.

Mactung is 13 km north of the Macmillan Pass project camp and airstrip. It was discovered and staked in 1962, and went through many owners until 1997 when North American Tungsten acquired it.

The project was given the environmental go-ahead in 2014, but the following year, North American was granted creditor protection (related to its Cantung mine to the south), and the government of the Northwest Territories bought the property for $4.5 million. Shares in Fireweed rose 9.2% in the days after the resource news to $1.08 in Toronto at press time. Fireweed shares traded in a 52-week window of 51¢ and $1.09, valuing the company at $146.2 million. TNM

TNM DRILL DOWN:

Australia’s Musgrave Minerals delivers week’s top assay as suitor makes takeout offer

Our TNM Drill Down features highlights of the top gold assays of the week (June 9-16). Drill holes are ranked by gold grade x width, as identified by our data provider Mining Intelligence. (www.miningintelligence.com)

The top gold drill result of the week came from Musgrave Minerals’ (ASX: MGV) Cue project in Western Australia’s Murchison province on June 13. Reverse-circulation hole 23MORC154 cut 15 metres of 60.3 grams gold per tonne starting from 14 metres for a grade x width value of 905. (True widths are estimated at 45-70% of apparent widths.) The resource conversion drilling, at the Break of Day deposit, returned multiple intercepts above the average resource grade of 10.2 grams gold from within the project’s planned open pit. The Break of Day and White Heat deposits host a global resource of 982,000 tonnes grading 10.4 grams gold for 327,000 oz., with 70% of the total falling in the indicated category. Total resources at Cue stand at 12.3 million tonnes grading 2.3 grams gold for 927,000 oz.

Musgrave reported receiving an unsolicited, all-share takeover bid by Westgold Resources (ASX: WGX) on June 6. The offer of one Westgold share per 5.37 Musgrave shares implied a value of A30¢ per Musgrave share. The board has advised shareholders not to take action until it can fully evaluate the offer.In April, Mus-

grave released a prefeasibility study for a first phase of mining at Cue outlining a five-year operation producing 337,000 oz. gold at an all-in sustaining cost of A$1,315 per ounce. The company is working on a prefeasbility for a second stage of mining, expected in next year’s first quarter.

Wesdome Gold Mines’ (TSX: WDO) producing Eagle River mine in Wawa, Ont., returned the week’s second-best assay with hole 925-E-231. The hole, reported on June 13, cut 9.4 metres of 83.2 grams gold starting at 447.3 metres depth for a width x grade value of 782. The true width of the interval was

6 metres at 40.7 grams gold (width x grade of 244.2). The interval and others reported, expanded the highgrade 300 East zone, which starts at 750 metres depth, downplunge 200 metres to the 1,600metre level. Wesdome says that while quartz veining is typically under 1.5 metres true width, the longer intercept came from an area where several structures are believed to intersect. The area, with wider zones of mineralization and more complex geology, is similar to the already mined 303 lens, which had an average muck grade of 46.1 grams gold and was located about 400 metres up-plunge.

Heliostar Metals’ (TSXV: HSTR) Ana Paula project in Mexico’s Guerrero state, returned the third best gold result. Hole AP-23-293 cut 129.2 metres of 6 grams gold starting at 55.5 metres for a grade x width value of 775. The intercept included 46 metres of 13.4 grams gold, which contained 28.5 metres at 17.4 grams gold. Drilling at the project, which Heliostar acquired from Argonaut Gold in March for US$30 million, is focused on redefining Ana Paula as a high-grade underground mine. The highlight intercept was from an area of the deposit referred to as the HighGrade Panel. Heliostar says the

results represent a 139% increase over modelled resource grades at a 5-gram gold per tonne cutoff, demonstrating the deposit could grow with further drilling. As an open-pit operation, the project would have an eightyear mine life, based on an updated prefeasibility study for Ana Paula that was completed in February. The study pegged initial capital costs at US$233.6 million, with a post-tax net present value of US$279 million at a 5% discount, and an internal rate of return of 31%. Heliostar says a resource update along with metallurgical testing and an underground mine design are all in the works for 2023. TNM

EV Nickel doubles Shaw Dome resource near Timmins

ONTARIO | Junior says next step is a PEA, while eyeing production within four years

An updated resource at EV

Nickel’s (TSXV: EVNI)

Shaw Dome project in northern Ontario adds more than 24 million tonnes of contained metal to the W4 deposit over a previous estimate in 2010.

Open pit and underground measured and indicated resources at the southeastern W4 deposit now come to 1.4 million tonnes grading 0.98% nickel for 31.1 million pounds. Inferred resources total 559,214 tonnes at 0.98% nickel for 12.1 million contained lb., the company said in a release on June 12.

The update moves 72% of the resource into the measured and indicated categories, EV said.

“This is a major step on our mission to accelerate the clean energy transition with our Clean Nickel,” said president and CEO Sean Samson.

“Expanding the total measured, indicated, and inferred resources to more than 43 million pounds of nickel sets up our two-track strategy of defining near surface, high-grade nickel resources and

combining them with the largescale projects in the Shaw Dome. We have the best of both worlds including an avenue to potentially be in production in the next three to four years from W4 and continue advancing the transformational, large-scale CarLang.”

The CarLang deposit at Shaw Dome is just north of W4. Shaw Dome is about 25 km southeast of Timmins.

The resource update will form the basis for a preliminary economic assessment (PEA), Samson said, without specifying a timeline.

EV said in January that a PEA was planned for CarLang for the spring.

The 2010 estimate put total indicated resources at 677,000 tonnes grading 1% nickel for 14.8 million lb., and inferred resources at 171,000 tonnes grading 0.91% nickel for 3.3 million pounds.

The new resource extends to 500 metres depth, compared with 400 metres previously. W4 remains open at depth and along plunge, EV said.

The company acquired the project from Rogue Resources (TSXV: RRS) in March 2021 and has since added land around it to expand Shaw Dome to 300 sq. km.

In a research note about the update on June 13, Red Cloud Securities analyst Taylor Combaluzier said Shaw Dome is prospective for the small-scale, higher-grade deposits like W4 and the larger, lower-grade deposits at CarLang.

“We believe the next step for EV Nickel, beyond a PEA to demonstrate the economics of W4, is to delineate additional high-grade deposits at the Shaw Dome that could form a larger consolidated high-grade resource to feed into a centralized processing facility,” he said.

Combaluzier said Red Cloud maintains its buy rating for EV and its target price of $1.00 per share.

EV shares traded at 12¢ near press time in Toronto, in a 52-week window of 7¢ and 36¢. TNM

Glencore bids for Teck Resources’ coal unit

M&A | Coal assets seen as second prize to Teck’s copper mines

Glencore (LSE: GLEN) confirmed on June 12 it had approached Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A, TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) with a proposal to buy the Canadian miner’s steelmaking coal business, in the latest twist in one of the mining industry’s biggest takeover battles in a decade.

The Swiss giant, which does not typically take “no” for an answer in M&A matters, originally wanted to buy Teck entirely. While it succeeded in thwarting the Vancouver-based miner’s plan to split into two companies, Glencore did not give up on the idea.

After being rejected several times, the miner and commodities firm has approached Teck with a proposal to buy its steelmaking coal business for an undisclosed valuation, as an alternative to the US$23-billion takeover bid.

Glencore said that, if successful, it would create a new company combining its own coal assets and Teck’s in one to two years, after paying down debt. The move would create a coal mammoth with few rivals in scale anywhere in the world, producing over 100 million tonnes of thermal coal and 30 million tonnes of steelmaking coal a year.

The company said it also “remains willing to pursue” its original offer to buy the whole company.

One of many Teck confirmed that Glencore was one of several proposals it was considering for its coal business. It noted that talks between them were preliminary, conditional and non-binding.

The discussions signal a potential dialling back of hostilities after

the two companies have been engaged for months in a public battle over Glencore’s unsolicited bid to buy Canada’s largest diversified miner. Analysts say Glencore’s new plan gives it an opportunity to exit the hugely profitable but polluting thermal coal business. They noted that Teck’s steelmaking coal operations, however, represented a “disappointing” second prize to the Canadian company’s copper mines.

Teck has the Highland Valley Copper mine in B.C., the Quebrada Blanca and Carmen de Andacollo copper mines in Chile and an interest in the Antamina copper-zinc mine in Peru.

The company is also in the midst of expanding Quebrada Blanca. The project, dubbed QB2, is one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper resources.

“We would view the sale of the coking coal assets to Glencore as an

attractive ‘middle ground’ for both companies,” Deutsche Bank analyst Liam Fitzpatrick said. “It would provide Teck with a cleaner exit from coal and allow Glencore to split its own business into CoalCo and MetalsCo.”

The experts echoes Glencore chief executive Gary Nagle’s position. He said in May that buying Teck’s coal business only would be a “distant second” in terms of benefits that could be achieved by merging. TNM

Lithium Americas produces first carbonate at Argentina’s Caucharí-Olaroz

BATTERY METALS | Production to rise by 20,000 tonnes LCE per year by end of 2025

by the board in May, at an annual meeting on July 31.

If it goes ahead, the split would see the new Lithium Americas owning the Thacker Pass lithium project in Nevada and investments in Green Technology Metals (ASX: GT1) and Ascend Elements.

It would also distance Lithium Americas from one of its top shareholders, China’s Ganfeng Lithium, which in 2018 snatched SQM’s

stake in Caucharí-Olaroz and took control of the project in 2020. The other new company, Lithium Argentina, would focus on the assets in the South American country. They include a 65% stake in the Sal de la Puna lithium project, located in the Pastos Grandes basin of Salta, previously owned by Arena Minerals, which Lithium Americas bought in December last year. The acquisition closed in April. TNM

Lithium Americas (TSX: LAC; NYSE: LAC) has produced its first lithium carbonate at the Caucharí-Olaroz project in Argentina’s Jujuy province.

While the material is not battery-quality, the miner noted that additional purification processing equipment to achieve battery-quality lithium carbonate will be on site in the second half the year, as planned.

“The initial production achieved as part of commissioning is an exciting step as Caucharí-Olaroz continues to advance toward first

production of battery-quality lithium carbonate,” president and CEO Jonathan Evans said in the June 12 news release.

During the ramp-up stage to production capacity of 40,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), the company expects the Caucharí-Olaroz project to operate below designed capacity, producing lithium carbonate under battery-quality specifications.

The Vancouver-based miner plans to increase capacity by 20,000 tonnes a year of LCE by the end of 2025. The expansion has already been approved by seven neigh-

bouring communities, Lithium Americas said in its latest corporate presentation.

Caucharí-Olaroz is named after the two salt flats in northwest Argentina where the project is located. The $979-million project is owned by Lithium Americas (44.8%), China’s Gangfeng Lithium (46.7%) and local authority body JEMSE (8.5%) and operated via local company Minera Exar.

The company announced a plan in November to split its Argentine and North American units into two separate entities.

Shareholders will vote on the business reorganization, approved

Codelco CEO leaves as copper giant faces lithium role, output slump

C-SUITE | Andre Sougarret put in more than 20 years with state miner

Chile’s state-owned Codelco said its chief executive, Andre Sougarret, is stepping down after less than a year in the job, as the world’s largest copper producer grapples with declining production and its new role in the country’s lithium industry.

Sougarret, an engineer who gained prominence for leading the rescue of 33 miners trapped in a northern mine in 2010, will remain in his post until Aug. 31, Codelco said in a statement.

The 58-year-old cited difficulties in reconciling the demands of running the giant miner with those of his personal life, but said he would stay while the company seeks a replacement.

Sougarret took over last August from Octavio Araneda, who spent 36 years with Codelco. At the time, Araneda said he was leaving due to

health reasons. Shortly after, however, he joined private Chilean miner Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO) as director of operations.

Sougarret began his career at Codelco in the El Teniente Division in 1993. In 2012, he joined Antofagasta Minerals as general manager of Esperanza and, later, of Centinela.

He has also held the role of vice president at the National Mining Company (Enami), before leaving for Mexico as director of operations of Minera Fresnillo.

The mining professional returned to Codelco at the end of 2020 to take over as vice-president of northern operations until he was appointed executive president last year.

Production at 25-year low

Codelco’s copper production has fallen this year by more than 11% to a 25-year low, despite investing about US$3.5 billion a year to revamp its aging mines.

The state miner has recently been charged with the role of representing the Chilean government in new public-private contracts to mine lithium.

Critics have said that Codelco does not have the knowledge and expertise in the lithium industry, as it does with copper. Its chairman Máximo Pacheco disagrees and has said what matters the most is Codelco’s track record in mining as well as its international reputation, financial capacity and experience with private sector partners.

“We would be an extraordinarily short-sighted company if we don’t enter the lithium business,” Pacheco told a local newspaper on June 7. Chile, the world’s top copper-producing country and No. 2 for lithium, has seen policy shifts this year, with President Gabriel Boric hiking royalties for private mining firms and announcing plans for more state control over lithium. TNM

are “not employed or otherwise related to the proponent” but his proposal was voted down.

While some Indigenous communities have criticized the bill, saying that they were not consulted about it, Pirie emphasizes that the ministry will achieve those shorter timelines without sacrificing the duty to consult with Indigenous people or environmental regulations.

An area of the act where the provincial government also aims to change decision-making to boost efficiency is by shifting duties from directors to the minister. Previously, the ministry’s director of exploration would decide whether to issue permits to companies, taking into account if an explorer had conducted sufficient consultation with Indigenous groups and comments received about a permit.

Hearing Indigenous concerns Some of the loudest critical voices about the act have been from Indigenous communities. Allan Gustafson, chief of the Whitesand First Nation in northwestern Ontario said in a letter to Pirie in April that the act will “increase the speed and access of industry and investors” to the nation’s homeland, while the “encroachment” of mining companies and explorers on its traditional territory continues.

Gustafson said the First Nation wasn’t consulted on the act’s amendments, adding that no future activities will occur on its lands without consultation.

“The cheque writers, other than a guy like Eric Sprott, are just not there for a lot of the exploration space,” Ing said by phone in Toronto where he’s served small and midsize companies since the 1980s. “We need success, we need a great drill hole and I’m not seeing very many.”

He’s looking abroad to South America and Africa. Companies on his radar include Endeavour Mining (TSX: EDV; LSE: EDV) in Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Senegal; Omai Gold Mines (TSXV: OMG; US-OTC: OMGGF) in Guyana and Centamin (TSX: CEE; LSE: CEY) in Egypt.

“Centamin, they were ballsy enough to go into that country and now I see that Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) is going in,” he said. “That’s what I’m looking at, companies with potential that can grow, then they will be a tidbit for some of the intermediates or the majors.”

Beaty, who founded Pan American Silver (TSX: PAAS; NASDAQ: PAAS) and Lumina

Copper among others, is more optimistic on the financing front, even for juniors to make their own deals instead of being bought out.

“Available finance is not just selling shares, but it’s also selling royalties or streams, it’s borrowing money from banks, venture capital funds and private equity funds,” he said. “There’s actually quite a bit of capital available in the market right now.”

Likewise, Ing said talk of a recession couldn’t compete with the impact of some $2 trillion spent by governments boosting economies during the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine increasing commodity prices. Even high interest rates won’t hold back economies or M&A, he said. Other factors driving deals are the mining industry’s declining reserves and how company stock market values per ounce of reserves in the ground make many juniors inexpensive.

Focus on commodities

Agreeing with him is Tim Clark, who became CEO of explorer Fury Gold (TSX: FURY; NYSE-AM: FURY) in 2021 after 23 years in finance with Bank of Montreal, Merrill Lynch and Barclays.

“The big guys will try for highgrade assets and might sell off a

couple of other secondary assets, but those are phenomenal assets to some other companies,” he said by phone from his car near Boston.

“All of a sudden you create this giant kind of consolidation effect and prices come up in a big way.”

The market for juniors is weak at the moment partly because of illiquidity, with investors focused on commodities instead of companies, he said.

“When you’re buying gold for recessionary purposes, no one’s buying equities. They’re buying commodities,” Clark said. “If you’re truly a bull on gold, you shouldn’t buy gold, because there’s not an upside, it might move 10-20% when the mid-caps and small caps will move 100%.”

Fury Gold, which holds a joint venture with Newmont (NYSE: NGT; TSX: NEM) next to its Éléonore mine in Quebec and a project in Nunavut, could eventually be a target but it needs more discoveries to create the scale a major would be interested in, Clark said.

Frank Port, founder and chief investment officer of Kelowna, British Columbia-based Bridgeport Capital, part of a four-member private equity consortium that manages $500 million, says three of his top five picks for mergers have already happened this year, including Gold Fields’ (NYSE: GFI; JSE: GFI) joint venture with Osisko Mining (TSX: OSK) on the

Windfall project in Quebec.

“The short list for targets looks like Taseko Mines (TSX: TKO; NYSE-AM: TGB; LSE: TKO) and Centerra Gold (TSX: CG; NYSE: CGAU),” he said. “Mergers will move into fifth gear by this yearend and 2024-25 will be a frenzy as the realization sets in there is a major shortage of copper. The world as we know it is about to get very expensive.”

Beaty says he’s cautious about green metals such as lithium when technological change like the introduction of a new type of battery could make them redundant. He also questions how governments are funding billions of dollars for exploration as part of their economic nationalism when the more important mining gap with China is its control of processing plants.

He hedges the concerns with his interest in Strategic Resources (CVE: CR). In March, it completed a reverse takeover of Orion Mine Finance’s BlackRock, which has a Quebec deposit of vanadium and plans for a processing plant. Beaty is investing in vanadium’s role in making steel. Should new technology make the mineral a more commercial battery metal, that’s a bonus.

“If the green metal market actually becomes real for vanadium, then it’s going to be a really fabulous investment,” he said. “It’s a nice way to get involved in the green energy market, not rely on it.” TNM

That role will continue under the act, but the minister can also exercise those powers.

In contrast, the role of director of mine rehabilitation will be removed and its powers vested in the minister.

Pirie said the shifting of those duties and powers puts Ontario’s mining laws in line with other Canadian jurisdictions, such as Quebec and Newfoundland.

“The positions and the jobs that these directors are doing, they’re still there, the work still has to happen,” he said. “But ultimately, because capital is mobile, capital moves to the jurisdiction where in fact the investments can be made quicker… We want to ensure that we’ve got the best climate for investment for mining in Ontario.”

Flexibility on reclamation

The act also changes other processes around reclamation, including financing of closure plans. Companies can now provide financial assurance of their plans in phases that match the development schedule of a site, instead of showing that assurance up front and all at once.

“The complete process might be worth many multi-millions [of dollars]. And so if you’ve got a phase in your mine that’s going to be developed 10 years from now, then provide for the financial liabilities at that time, rather than doing it 10 years earlier,” Pirie said.

Another legislative change to closure that’s likely to draw the ire of environmental groups focuses on the condition of reclaimed land at former mines.

Previously, the land at reclaimed sites regarding public health and the environment had to be “improved,” while now it has to be “comparable to or better than it was” before the site’s recovery.

Pirie explained that the change now allows for the reprocessing of existing mine tailings and heap dumps.

“There’ll be situations like we’re looking at in Sudbury with the heap dumps, and the slag heaps and the tailings, to reprocess those using bioleaching to recover rare earths. That change is done to reclaim what would have been waste facilities,” he said.

The letter, published by online news site NetNewsLedger went on to say that the province must be held accountable for its “exploitive and aggressive approach to mining in First Nations Treaty lands, traditional territories, and homelands contrary to the principles of reconciliation and the effect on Treaty rights.”

When contacted by The Northern Miner, the First Nation declined to comment further.

And in May, Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa said in a legislative debate that future mines could take 50 to 100 years to open

“You’re just talking to certain First Nations that are willing to work with you. When you do that, you’re dividing and conquering First Nations,” he said. “It is on you if you pass this bill without talking to all First Nations. It has already been done, where you continue to have no informed consent from First Nations.”

Asked how the province will reassure Indigenous communities that their concerns will be heard when it comes to mining projects on their lands, Pirie said the answer is simple.

“There isn’t a word in the new bill that’s changed from the old bill in relation to the duty to consult and or the province’s worldclass environmental regulations,” he said.

As the Ontario government jostles to attract investment along all stages of the critical minerals supply chain to capture the benefits from exploration through manufacturing, a funding dispute between the federal government and Stellantis over its planned $5-billion EV battery plant in Windsor has recently been in the news. In early June, Ontario pledged to pay one-third of the cost of the plant, a joint venture with LG Energy, though the exact amount won’t be made public until a deal is signed.

The Northern Miner asked Pirie how he, as mines minister, feels about $1.6 billion of provincial funding going to the plant instead of to exploration and mining.

“We’ve got to get the minerals out of the ground to secure the supply chain to ensure that those battery plants will be built and operated from the minerals that are mined in northern Ontario,” he said. “This is all about creating jobs in the mining industry for southern Ontario, northern Ontario and Indigenous communities. There’s an urgency to get this done.” TNM

“MERGERS WILL MOVE INTO FIFTH GEAR BY THIS YEAR-END AND 2024-25 WILL BE A FRENZY AS THE REALIZATION SETS IN THERE IS A MAJOR SHORTAGE OF COPPER. THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT IS ABOUT TO GET VERY EXPENSIVE.”

FRANK PORT, CIO, BRIDGEPORT CAPITAL

Aston Bay sees future in Arctic copper by dropping local processing in favour of ore sorting

Aston Bay Holdings (TSXV: BAY; US-OTC: ATBHF) and American West Metals (ASX: AW1) are betting on new methods to prove the economics of a copper project farther north in Canada’s Arctic than almost anyone has tried.

The Storm copper project, in the Northwest Passage in Nunavut, is early stage with about 6,500 metres of drilling and a first resource estimate planned for this year. The aim is to avoid using water, building a deep-water port or leaving tailings on the permafrost, Aston Bay CEO Tom Ullrich said in a midJune interview with The Northern Miner. Processing would be done elsewhere.

“We want to do something completely different and that is use an ore sorting type of operation, a very small footprint with extremely low capital spending,” Ullrich said by phone in Toronto where Aston is based. “We won’t be discharging any water, we won’t have to clean any water, and that will allow us to really compress the permitting timeframe.”

Ore sorting, done by sophisticated sensor technology to increase grades headed for processing, would reduce the footprint and building cost by eliminating the need for a plant with a traditional flotation circuit and tailings facility using millions of litres of water on the frozen tundra. It’s part of an opportunity for project developers to consider environmentally sensitive areas such as the Far North. They can search for green metals to feed the surging demand forecast for transitioning away from fossil fuels while making less of an impact on the local environment than traditional mines.

Storm lies about 200 km south of Canada’s most northerly mine, the Polaris zinc-lead operation run from 1981 to 2002 by Teck Resources’ (TSX: TECK.A, TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) predecessor Cominco, which also used to own Storm and did about 9,000 metres of drilling there. Aston Bay acquired the 4,125-sq.-km site from Commander Resources (CVE: CMD) in 2013 after Cominco let the licences lapse in 2007.

The project on Somerset Island, 112 km south across the passage from Resolute (population 200), is supplied by sea three months of the year and by air to its landing strip. Developing any project so remote has its costs.

“Capital spending in the Arctic is going to be more expensive, but even if it’s $50 million or $100 million, it’s very, very low,” said Ullrich, former chief geologist for North America at Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO). “The thing with the ore sorting is you’d have no sulphide tailings that you’d have to deal with. Wet sulphide tailings are a big problem, particularly in the Arctic.”

Project operator American West, which must spend $10 mil-

lion on exploration to earn 80% of Storm, is continuing drilling this year after hole ST22-05 last year cut 41 metres grading 4.2% copper from a depth of 38 metres. Surveys show gravity anomalies with strike lengths of several kilometres. The companies want to complete a scoping study to provide rough cost estimates by year’s end.

Drilling of 32 holes at Storm shows 400,000 sq. metres of mineralization across four prospects with an average minimal thickness of 24 metres and an average mineralized interval grade of 2.15% copper, American West says on its website.

The shallowness of mineralization probably indicates an open-pit operation, Ullrich said. A test has processed ore to a 54% concentrate. That would be loaded in bulk bags onto barges ashore and pulled to a ship at sea for delivery to a distant plant for more processing. No port would be necessary, the CEO said.

The site is enduring the mucky spring thaw at the moment as it prepares for drilling in July and August of about 4,000 metres using a reverse-circulation unit hauled around by helicopter. As much as 2,000 metres of exploration diamond drilling is also planned, Ullrich said, declining to give costs.

It will probe anomalies found by surveys that are several hundred metres deep and appear to be part of a sedimentary copper system, the CEO said. Drill hole ST22-10

returned 68.8 metres of chalcopyrite, pyrite and sphalerite mineralization from 277 metres downhole.

BHP (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) entered an earn-in agreement with Aston in 2016 but walked away from the deal the next year after about 2,000 metres of

drilling, Ullrich said.

According to a deal agreed with Aston in 2021, Perth, Australia-based American West pays for all work until the completion of a feasibility study and production decision. The company owns two projects in Utah.

The West Desert project, about 160 km southwest of Salt Lake City, holds 33.7 million indicated and inferred tonnes grading 3.83% zinc, 0.15% copper and 9.1 grams silver per tonne, according to a February resource filing under Australian Joint Ore Reserve Committee regulations. The early-stage Copper Warrior project is about 420 km

NATURAL RESOURCES

Trusted. Independent. Committed.

southeast of Salt Lake City.

Aston Bay is also exploring two projects in central Virginia, the Buckingham gold vein about 100 km west of Richmond, and the Mountain base metals project south of Lynchburg.

Cominco’s Polaris mine received federal aid such as waived environmental hearings and a government icebreaker to ship out ore processed on a barge. Aston and American West are considering federal grants announced in its recent critical minerals push, Ullrich said.

The property also holds the Seal zinc project which could be explored more and developed after Storm, he said.

“The near-term value really is in the copper here,” the CEO said. “And so we’d like to get at that as quickly as possible.” TNM

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Our fit-for-purpose solutions encompass the skills of qualified geologists, geostaticians, analytical chemists, mineralogists, metallurgists, process engineers and mining engineers brought together to provide accurate and timely mineral and process evaluation services across the entire mining life cycle.

Ero Copper expands into nickel at Caraíba in Brazil, plans to double copper output

SOUTH AMERICA | Umburana system offers bounty, exploration upside for both battery metals

Brazil-focused Ero Copper (TSX: ERO; NYSE: ERO) is reporting new drill results for nickel targets at Caraíba as it advances the Tucumã project to double the company’s copper output by 2025.

The Umburana nickel system, discovered in September, lies about 20 km from Ero’s main operation Caraíba in the Curaçá Valley of the eastern state of Bahia.

In Umburana’s VB zone, diamond drill hole VB-41 cut 11.2 metres grading 1.86% nickel, 0.26% copper and 0.05% cobalt (2.08% nickel equivalent), Ero said in a news release on June 8. The interval included 5 metres at 3.71% nickel, 0.13% copper and 0.09% cobalt (4% nickel equivalent).

In the Lazaro zone at Umburana, hole LZ-25 returned 46.1 metres at 0.2% nickel, 0.04% copper and 0.03% cobalt (0.28% nickel equivalent), including 2.6 metres at 0.75% nickel, 0.18% copper and 0.06% cobalt (0.96% nickel equivalent).

BMO Capital Markets expects more substantial results near yearend after more drilling, mining analyst Jackie Przybylowski wrote in a note on June 9.

“Ero expects to delineate a larger number of open pittable and underground mineable nickel deposits in time,” Przybylowski said. “We expect a bigger release in ‘the great reveal’ later this year circa November.”

Vancouver-based Ero is poised to benefit from the battery metals surge in demand as it also develops the US$305-million Tucumã copper project in the northeastern state of Pará. Construction was about a third completed by the end

of March. Foundations for the primary crusher and ball mill are to be completed within days.

Przybylowski said Ero’s focus on copper and nickel in Brazil provides a unique competitive advantage.

“The company leverages its strong intellectual capital in Brazil including its experienced exploration team and its connections in the country,” she said. “Ero is in the flow on information and opportunities.”

Drilling at Umburana has determined a strike length of about 5 km, Ero said. Mineralization forms outcrops at the surface and remains open to depth to the north and between the VB and Lazaro zones.

Metallurgical tests suggest most of the system’s nickel is within sulphides instead of silicate minerals that would make it unrecoverable.

Recoveries so far are between 77% and 91%. More tests are being done to determine whether saleable concentrate grades are achievable, and if so, overall nickel recoveries, the company said.

“The Umburana system demonstrates the Curaçá Valley’s potential to be a globally significant magmatic sulphide district for both copper and nickel,” Ero CEO David Strang said in the release. “Our exploration team has identified several new and distinct nickel targets within the Curaçá Valley with similar geological signatures to the Umburana system, which we are currently drilling or plan on drilling later this year.”

Shares in Ero Copper gained more than 5% in mid-June to $27.63 apiece at press time in Toronto,

within a 52-week range of $10.54 to $28.05, valuing the company at $2. 5 billion.

Setting copper sights high

In April, Ero hiked its copper output forecast to 125% of last year’s amount by 2025. It is aiming for a range of 100,000 to 110,000 tonnes, replacing a January forecast of 92,000 to 102,000 tonnes.

The price of copper, at US$3.8 per lb. at press time, gained more than US10¢ in the first two weeks of June, but has remained below the important US$4 per lb. mark it last hit in April. Factory output has slowed in Europe and the United States because rising interest rates and inflation hurt demand. China grew faster than expected in the first quarter but has suffered a

building sector downturn.

In January, Ero hedged 33,000 tonnes of its copper production, about three-quarters of forecast 2023 output, with a base price of US$3.50 per lb., protecting a “meaningful portion of the company’s revenue,” it said. Copper hit a low this year of US$3.59 per lb. on May 25.

Caraíba, 385 km northwest of the state capital of Salvador, includes the Pilar and Vermelhos underground copper mines and the Surubim open pit mine. Ero is advancing plans to maintain annual ore production at 3 million tonnes by building a new shaft and recovering higher grades at Pilar and expanding the mill to 4.2 million tonnes capacity from the current level of 3 million tonnes. Caraíba is expected to produce 44,000 to 47,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate this year.

The Xavantina gold operation in Mato Grasso state had its best output of 12,443 oz. in the first quarter as ore grades doubled from a year earlier to 11.9 grams per tonne. However, higher costs are expected with falling grades this year. The Matinha vein is on track to begin production in the second half, ahead of next year’s originally planned start, the company said in April.

Company-wide, gold output is expected to grow by 40% from 2022 levels to a range of 55,000 to 60,000 oz. per year beginning in 2024, the company said.

“Ero management continues to promise delivery of meaningful catalysts — year-end 2023 and over the next couple of years,” BMO’s Przybylowski said. “Ero’s copper could be highly valued, commanding a green premium in the future; the company is forward thinking on this important issue.” TNM

Arizona Metals probes copper-gold deposit at decades dormant Kay Mine

UNITED STATES | Recent drilling confirms high-grade mineralization in past-producing area

Arizona Metals (TSX: AMC; US-OTC: AZMCF) says its latest drill results show the potential to expand the old Kay Mine copper-gold deposit in Arizona, which hasn’t been mined in almost 70 years.

Hole KM-23-103 cut 10.5 metres grading 6.2% copper equivalent composed of 2.4% copper, 3.25 grams gold per tonne, 6.1% zinc and 36.1 grams silver from a depth of 386.3 metres, Arizona Metals said in a news release on June 12. The intercept included 2.7 metres at 10.5% copper equivalent and 1.5 metres at 8.9% copper equivalent.

The hole confirms high-grade copper and gold mineralization found earlier in hole KM-21-19 and suggests a high-grade gold zone in the deposit’s western part, the company said. Kay Mine could be part of a much larger property-wide mineralized system, it said.

“The high-grade copper and gold drill results reported today continue to demonstrate the expansion potential of the Kay Mine deposit,” CEO Marc Pais said in the release. “Surface outcrop sampling at the Western target has returned sig-

nificant grades of both copper and gold, extending the strike length of mineralization exposed at surface in this area to approximately 800 metres.”

The 5.3-sq.-km project, about 70 km north of Phoenix, lies amid scores of current and past-producing mines in the leading copper-producing state in the United States. Arizona Metals, which in 2018 signed a letter of intent to acquire the site from Silver Spruce Resources (CVE: SSE), touts the location as within a two-hour drive of two smelters.

Toronto-based Arizona Metals is drilling the final 1,250 metres in a 75,000-metre phase-two program that began in early 2021 at the site near Black Canyon City in Yavapai county. The company is preparing for a US$32 million third phase to test targets west of Kay Mine and possible northern and southern extensions. It had US$49 million in cash at the end of March.

Also reported on June 14, hole KM-23-105 cut 7.3 metres grading 4.6% copper equivalent, including 2 metres at 8.7% copper equivalent, from a depth of 553.2 metres.

The hole also returned 28.8 metres grading 1.2% copper equivalent,

including 2.3 metres at 5.9% copper equivalent from 13.7 metres deeper.

“This hole confirms the excellent continuity, thickness and grade of mineralization within a previously unexplored 50-metre gap in the central part of the Kay Mine deposit,” Arizona Metals said.

The company’s phase-one program in 2020 drilled 6,700 metres

on areas explored by the minerals unit of ExxonMobil in the 1970s and 1980s. It reported reserves in 1982 of 6.4 million tons (5.8 tonnes) at a grade of 2.2% copper, 2.8 grams gold per tonne, 3.03% zinc and 55 grams silver.

Exxon didn’t produce ore, nor did subsequent owners after Exxon sold the site to Rayrock Mines in

1990 and Silver Spruce acquired the property in 2017.

Kay Mine dates to a 19th century discovery followed by smallscale mining of 635 tonnes. Kay Copper dropped shafts and built underground levels from 1918 until the company failed because of low metal prices and court action in the late 1920s without producing ore, Arizona Metals says.

From 1949, the site was mined by various operators including Black Canyon Copper, Shattuck-Denn Mining and Republic Metals, producing about 2,730 tonnes until a cave-in closed the mine in 1956. No one has mined it since.

Arizona Metals has also been drilling at the Western target since February. The first two holes, KM-23-104 and branch hole KM-23-104A, have been completed and assays are currently pending.

Arizona Metals owns the Sugarloaf Peak property, an open-pit target about 200 km west of Phoenix. It has an historical resource of 1.5 million oz. at grades of 0.5 gram gold per tonne.

Shares in Arizona Metals traded at $3.30 apiece at press time in Toronto, within a 52-week range of $3.13 to $5.13, valuing the company at $379.6 million. TNM

Surge Copper PEA outlines three-decade mine at Berg in BC

CRITICAL MINERALS | Copper-moly project could produce 121M lb. of red metal

BY BLAIR MCBRIDE

urge Copper (TSXV: SURG; US-OTC: SRGXF) has released a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for its Berg project in central British Columbia that outlines a long-life asset with total payable production of 3.7 billion lb. of copper.The study, published on June 14, puts preproduction capital costs at $2 billion and the project’s mine life at 30 years. The PEA calculates Berg’s after-tax net present value at $2.1 billion, using an 8% discount rate. The project’s internal rate of return is pegged at 20%, based on long-term metal prices of US$4 per lb. copper, US$15 per lb. molybdenum, US$23 per oz. silver, and US$1,800 per oz. gold.

Life-of-mine annual payable production is estimated at 191 million copper equivalent lb., including 121 million lb. of copper.

“The Berg project now represents one of the largest primary copper development projects in Canada, and this PEA confirms some of the unique features and key selling points of the project,” said Surge CEO Leif Nilsson in a release.

He added that the project can deliver critical minerals needed

for the global energy transition, link into the existing hydroelectric power grid and has a strong economic return profile under several long-term metal pricing assumptions.

The company is earning a 70% interest in Berg from Centerra Gold (TSX: CG; NYSE: CGAU).

The study outlines a large, openpit mining operation with a mineral inventory of about 978 million tonnes grading 0.22% copper, 0.02%

molybdenum, 4.5 grams silver, and 0.02 grams gold, on average. Mining would be sequenced into six phases that target higher-value areas of the deposit earlier in the mine life and stockpiles lower-grade material for future mill feed.

A two-year construction period is estimated for the mine, requiring sustaining capital of $1.7 billion over its life and reclamation and closure costs of $200 million.

Berg’s mill and concentrator

processing plant would operate at a 90,000-tonne-per-day capacity and produce separate copper and molybdenum concentrates through a conventional sulphide flotation and molybdenum separation flowsheet.

Surge estimates it would cost about $6 to $8 million to advance Berg to the prefeasibility stage over an 18-month period.

The Berg site is just west of Surge’s Ootsa advanced explora-

tion property containing the Seel and Ox porphyry deposits, and Imperial Metals’ (TSX: III) Huckleberry copper mine. The roadaccessible project is about 70 km southwest of the town of Houston. It’s also located within the traditional territories of the Cheslatta Carrier and Wet’suwet’en Nations, and near the communities of the Skin Tyee, Nee Tahi Buhn, and Witset First Nations.

An updated resource, filed on June 7 is also included in the PEA. Measured and indicated resources at Berg are now pegged at 1 billion tonnes grading 0.23% copper, 0.03% molybdenum, 4.6 grams silver per tonne and 0.02 gram gold for 5.1 billion lb. of copper, 633 million lb. of molybdenum, 150 million oz. silver and 744,000 oz. of gold.

Inferred resources come to 542 million tonnes grading 0.17% copper, 0.02% molybdenum, 3.7 grams silver and 0.02 gram gold for about 2 billion lb. copper, 288 million lb. molybdenum, 65 million oz. silver and 284,000 oz. gold.

Surge shares were down more than 7% near press time in Toronto at 12¢ apiece, touching the bottom of the company’s 52-week range of 12¢ and 22¢. It has a market capitalization of $23.5 million. TNM

BY NORTHERN MINER STAFF

Iacono also discovered the Deep Zone at the Marmato mine in Colombia, before Gran Colombia — renamed GCM Mining — merged with Aris Gold in September 2022 to become Aris Mining (TSX: ARIS; US-OTC: TPRFF), the largest gold miner in Colombia and one of the biggest producers in the Americas. Now Iacono and some of his former colleagues from GCM Mining are turning their attention to polymetallic projects in Europe. They believe their company, Denarius Metals (TSXV: DSLV; US-OTC: DNRSF), can work the same magic at its flagship Lomero project in southern Spain’s Iberian Pyrite Belt, a region with the largest concentration of pyrite-rich massive sulphides on the planet.

Iacono had heard about the copper-zinc-lead-silver-gold project from his contacts in Europe, and like Segovia, Lomero was in a bankruptcy process. “Many of the projects Serafino has brought into our group have been mired with some challenges,” says Mike Davies, who worked at GCM Mining before moving to Denarius as its chief financial officer. “But all of them had enormous potential.”

Denarius paid off Lomero’s creditors and secured the rights to explore the project, 10 km from Sandfire Resources’ (ASX: SFR) Matsa copper operations, where three underground mines (Aguas Tenidas, Magdalena and Sotiel) pro -

duce copper, zinc and lead concentrates. Sandfire acquired Matsa in February 2022 for US$1.9 billion.

Lomero is close to other large producers as well, including Atalaya Mining’s (LSE: ATYM) Rio Tinto copper mine (46 km); First Quantum Minerals’ (TSX: FM) Las Cruces copper mine (110 km); and Lundin Mining’s (TSX: LUN) Neves-Corvo copper-zinc-lead mine (136 km).

“We love the Iberian belt because of the massive sulphides,” Davies says. “Good neighbours give us confidence. It is a historic district, exploration potential is solid, and the jurisdiction is open to mining. What’s more, Spain and the EU have made critical minerals an important part of their mandate.”

The 100%-owned project, 135 km from Seville, is also just 100 km from the port of Huelva on the Atlantic

Ocean. Mining started at Lomero in the 1850s and continued until 1990. A small amount of mineralized material came from the two pits at Lomero and Poyatos, but most of the historic production (2.6 million tonnes) came from underground.

Denarius completed its Phase 1 surface validation and infill drill program in July 2022 and completed an initial resource estimate in September. The drill program determined that Lomero is amenable to both open pit and underground options and outlined 10.7 million inferred tonnes grading 0.5% copper, 0.4% lead, 1% zinc, 2 grams gold per tonne and 21 grams silver (1.6% copper-equivalent). Contained metal stands at 106 million lb. copper, 96 million lb. lead, 240 million lb. zinc, 693,000 oz.

gold and 7.4 million oz. silver (373 million lb. copper-equivalent).

The resource was based on 83 drill holes (26,000 metres) and mineralization was identified over a 1 km strike length and to a vertical depth of 400 metres.

The Phase II program of 42 holes (13,225 metres) was completed in February and the company is working on an updated resource estimate that it hopes to finish by the end of the third quarter. It plans to complete a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) before year-end.

The company believes that copper, zinc and lead grades in the second drill program bode well for the resource update this fall. Average copper grades in the centre of the deposit ranging from 0.6% to 1.9% copper over intervals of up to 15.7 metres are better than the current resource, while zinc and lead grades in the eastern part of the deposit range from 1.1% up to 11% for zinc over intervals of up to 6.7 metres, and for lead from 1.6% to 5.1% over intervals up to 6.7 metres.

Project financing may also come through off-take agreements, according to the company. “We’re seeing a lot of interest from offtakers already,” Davies says. “They are in-demand critical metals and off-takers are keen to see the results of our PEA. They are all very bullish on copper and zinc and could be a source of potential financing for projects such as this one that can tie-in long-term supply for refineries.”

Denarius’s second asset in Spain is the Toral zinc project, about 400 km northwest of Madrid and 250 km from Glencore’s (LSE: GLEN) zinc smelter. It is earning up to an 80% stake from Europa Metals. Over 60,000 metres of historic drilling has been done at Toral and a 2022

JORC-compliant resource outlined 7 million indicated tonnes grading 5% zinc, 3.7% lead and 29 grams silver (8.9% zinc-equivalent) for 349,000 tonnes zinc, 260,000 tonnes lead and 6.6 million oz. silver. Inferred resources measure 13 million tonnes grading 4.1% zinc, 2.3% lead, 19 grams silver (6.5% zinc equivalent) for 540,000 tonnes zinc, 300,000 tonnes lead and 8 million oz. silver.

Assay results from its drill program this year included 8.7 metres grading 1.7% zinc, 9.4% lead, 44.3 parts per million silver and 0.1% copper (11% zinc-equivalent).

Denarius hasn’t forgotten its Colombian roots, however, and is advancing its Zancudo goldsilver project, 57 km from Medellin. Gran Colombia and Iamgold (TSX: IMG; NYSE: IAG) drilled Zancudo between 2011 and 2022 and a resource estimate completed at the end of last year outlined 2.8 million tonnes grading 6.5 grams gold and 112 grams silver (8 grams goldequivalent).

Denarius has hired a local contract miner and plans to start mining by 2024, deploying cash back into exploration.

“It’s a neat little company with a lot going on,” Davies says. “With billions of dollars of metals in the ground, we think the potential of our projects is tremendous.”

Denarius’ largest shareholders are Aris Mining (17%) and management and insiders (23%). Ruffer LLP, an investment management company in the U.K., owns about 10%.

The preceding Joint-Venture Article is PROMOTED CONTENT sponsored by Denarius Metals and produced in cooperation with The Northern Miner. Visit www.denariusmetals. com for more information.

Canadian Copper grabs majority stake in Murray Brook VMS project

NEW BRUNSWICK | Junior calls deal ‘transformative’

Appian sells nickel-copper mines in Brazil to ACG for US$1 billion

M&A | Glencore, Volkswagen and Stellantis involved in offtakes, funding

Canadian Copper (CSE: CCI) is acquiring a 72% stake in the Murray Brook project, located in New Brunswick’s Bathurst mining camp, from Votorantim Metals Canada.

In return for the majority stake in the asset, Canadian Copper will pay $1 million cash and issue 2 million units to Votorantim. It will also assume $2 million of the seller’s bonds provided to the provincial government and grant it a 0.25% net smelter return. Upon commercial production, Votorantim would receive another $2 million. MetalQuest Mining holds the remaining 28% of the project.

Murray Brook represents the fifth largest volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit within the Bathurst camp, which ranks third globally as a major VMS district.

The sulphide’s measured and indicated resource is estimated at 18 million tonnes grading 0.47% copper, 2.73% zinc, 0.99% lead, 42 grams silver per tonne and 0.59 gram gold, for roughly 183 million lb. of copper, 1.1 billion lb. of zinc, 390 million lb. of lead, 42 million oz. of silver and 339,000 oz. of gold. The advanced-stage deposit is open laterally and at depth, with potential for nearmine and prospective regional exploration.

A 2013 preliminary economic assessment (PEA) outlined a 10-year operation that would produce 91.4 million lb. of zinc, 9.2 million lb. of copper, 13.6 million lb. of lead and 1.3 million lb. of silver annually. Its initial capital cost was estimated at $261 million.

Canadian Copper noted that additional metallurgical test work completed in 2019, which significantly improved metal recoveries over the PEA figures, could improve the

project’s economics. A new copper stringer zone discovery 25 metres outside of the known open-pit mineralization could also increase the mine life.

“Our objective to secure majority ownership of the Murray Brook deposit has been central to our growth strategy since 2022. This potential acquisition of a large, advanced-stage polymetallic asset is transformative for Canadian Copper,” Simon Quick, CEO of Canadian Copper, said in a news release.

The transaction will consolidate the company’s ownership across 18 km of the Caribou Horizon trend, connecting its Murray Brook West exploration asset to the west and the Murray Brook deposit to the east. These assets connect the Restigouche and Caribou mines, which have produced more than 700 million lb. of zinc, plus copper, lead, and other precious metals, since 1970, and are now in care and maintenance. The Caribou mine hosts an operating process plant including milling, flotation, and a tailings storage facility.

Quick said the Murray Brook project would complement the company’s current Chester asset with estimated measured resources totalling 120 million lb. of copper.

“This opportunity enables possible synergies with the Chester deposit through the implementation of hub and spoke processing. Several deposits in the region extend beyond 1,000 metres in depth, thus we are excited to test the vertical depth extent of Murray Brook beyond the previously explored 350 metres,” he said.

Shares of Canadian Copper traded at 12¢ in Toronto at press time, in a 52-week range of 6¢ and 25¢. The company has a market capitalization of $7.2 million. TNM

Appian Capital Advisory is selling its wholly owned Atlantic Nickel and Mineração Vale Verde operations in Brazil to ACG Acquisition Co. (LSE: ACG) for US$1 billion cash.

Private equity firm

The deal includes the sale of Appian’s gold royalty on Mineração Vale Verde (MVV) to ACG for a further US$65 million.

The companies said the transaction will position ACG as the only London-listed nickel sulphide producer of scale. The firm has entered into long-term investment partnerships with Glencore (LSE: GLEN), PowerCo (Volkswagen’s in-house battery development subsidiary) and Stellantis (owner of Fiat and Peugeot), for offtake and funding.

Glencore will invest $100 million in ACG equity. Stellantis and mining investment fund La Mancha will each provide an equity investment of the same amount, while PowerCo will make a $100 million nickel prepayment.

Upon closing, ACG will be renamed ACG Electric Metals and issue new shares, making Glencore, Stellantis and La Mancha owners of 51% and leaving 49% for free float.

Appian’s sale comes just over a year after it began legal proceedings against Sibanye-Stillwater (NYSE: SBSW; JSE: SSW) in a US$1.2-billion claim. According to the South African miner’s financial reports, a trial is set to begin in June 2024.

Appian put the two operations up for sale in 2021, which were initially snatched by Sibanye. The South African miner backed out of the multi-million dollar deal a few months later, citing a “geotechnical event” at the Santa Rita mine in northeastern Brazil. The British investment firm said at the time the instability quoted by Sibanye was a “localized” crack in the mine’s pit wall, which had been fixed and would have no impact on the open-pit mine’s life.

Appian acquired Atlantic Nickel, owner of the Santa Rita open pit nickel mine, in the Brazilian state of Bahia, in 2018. The same year Appian also purchased MVV, owner of the Serrote greenfield open-pit copper-gold asset located in Brazil’s northeastern state of Alagoas. Open-pit operations at Santa Rita resumed in 2020 and are expected to last until 2028, with annual production estimated at 16,000 nickel equivalent tonnes a year. Santa Rita will then be transitioned into an underground mining operation, extending the life of the mine from eight to 34 years.

Appian recently updated the definitive feasibility study for Serrote project, which outlines a 14-year mine life with production of about 20,000 tonnes of copper equivalent a year.

Shortages of copper, cobalt, nickel and other industrial materials needed for the shift to a low carbon world are expected, due to both underinvestment in the mining sector and accelerating demand of those metals. TNM

Cornish Metals to start dewatering South Crofty tin-copper mine

ENGLAND | Asset was in production for 400+ years before closing in 1990s

Cornish Metals (TSXV: CUSN; LSE: CUSN) is ready to start dewatering at its South Crofty tin-copper project in Cornwall, southwest England, as it moves closer to reopening the past-producing mine.

In a June 13 news release the company said the first of two submersible pumps is in place for the initial phase of dewatering this summer.

The South Crofty mine was closed in 1998 following more than 400 years of almost continuous production.

South Crofty and United Downs copper-tin projects in 2016. A year later, it finished a preliminary economic assessment, which demonstrated the economic viability of re-opening the operation.

Cornish Metals also acquired additional mineral rights in Cornwall, covering an area of about 150 sq. km that holds past-producing mines which were historically worked for copper, tin, zinc, and tungsten.

Last year, the company raised about US$51 million in funding, which it will use to build a water treatment plant,

the mine, and complete a feasibility study.

There is currently no primary mine production of tin in Europe or North America and the U.S. has included the metal in a list of minerals considered critical to the country’s economic and national security.

South Crofty could generate up to 5,000 tonnes of tin a year, with first production expected in 2026. The company said the mine will create up to 270 direct jobs and support a further 750 in the region, one of the U.K.’s most underprivileged. TNM

GLOBAL COPPER SNAPSHOT:

EIGHT COMPANIES KEEN TO PLUG THE COPPER SUPPLY GAP

Copper is critical for a lower carbon future but as deposits are becoming harder to find and a supply deficit looms, miners are keen to find new sources of the red metal. Here’s a look at eight companies with interesting copper projects.

n ALTA COPPER

Alta Copper (TSX: ATCU; USOTC: DNCUD), which changed its name from Candente Copper in May, owns 100% of Cañariaco, a copper project in northern Peru, about 150 km of the city of Chiclayo.

Cañariaco is among the largest copper deposits in the Americas not held by a major mining company and consists of two key deposits — Cañariaco Norte and Cañariaco Sur — and a porphyry target Quebrada Verde. All are within a 4-km trend and are part of what the company describes as “an extensive porphyry complex” spanning 5 km in length and an average width of 2 km.

A preliminary economic assess-

ment (PEA) of Cañariaco Norte last year envisioned an open pit mine producing 173 million lb. copper, 31,395 oz. gold and 703,588 oz. silver annually over an initial mine life of 28 years. Preproduction capex was estimated at US$1 billion with a payback of 7.1 years at a metal price of US$3.50 per lb. copper. The early-stage study forecast an after-tax net present value (8% discount rate) of US$1 billion and an internal rate of return of

Woodjam Project

16.3% based on a copper price of US$3.50 per lb.

The PEA was based on measured and indicated resources of 1.1 billion tonnes grading 0.4% copper, 0.1 gram gold per tonne and 1.7 grams silver (0.4% copper-equivalent) for 9.3 billion lb. copper, 2.1 million oz. gold and 59.4 million oz. silver.

The deposit also contains inferred resources of 410.6 million tonnes averaging 0.3% copper, 0.1

gram gold and 1.4 grams silver (0.32% copper-equivalent) for 2.7 billion lb. copper, 600,000 oz. gold and 18.1 million oz. silver. The resource used a copper-equivalent cut-off grade of 0.15%.

The company is working on an updated PEA and plans to have it done in the third quarter.

Cañariaco Sur is about 1.3 km south of Cañariaco Norte and has an inferred resource based on 15 holes drilled into the eastern por-

tion of a large geochemical anomaly. It contains 2.2 billion lb. copper, 1.2 million oz. gold, 15 million oz. silver and 18.9 million lb. molybdenum contained in 385 million tonnes grading 0.3% copper, 0.1 gram gold, 1.2 grams silver and 22 parts per million molybdenum (0.32% copper-equivalent). The resource used a 0.15% copper cut-off grade.

Fortescue Metals (ASX: FMG) holds about 25% of Alta’s shares outstanding and high net worth individuals in Peru own roughly 20%.

Alta Copper has a market cap of roughly $38 million.

n ARRAS MINERALS

Arras Minerals (TSX: ARK) is focused on exploration in Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country and former Soviet republic that ranks among the world’s top 10 copper producers.

Arras has assembled a 3,000-sq.-km land package in the Pavlodar region of northeastern Kazakhstan. Its flagship property, the Beskauga gold-copper-silver deposit, is about 300 km northeast of the country’s capital, Astana, and roughly 130 km from KAZ Minerals’ Bozshakol copper-gold mine. Bozshakol and Beskauga are situated in the country’s underexplored Chingiz Volcanic Arc.

Arras has an option to acquire Beskauga from CopperBelt AG, a private Swiss mineral exploration company.

Shortly after Arras completed a resource estimate on Beskauga in June 2022, Canadian mining giant and copper producer Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/B; NYSE: TEC) took a 9.9% stake in the junior. In a private placement last November, Teck acquired 6.7 million common shares at 45¢ per share for proceeds of up to $3 million.

The June estimate outlined an indicated resource of 111.2 million tonnes grading 0.49 gram gold per tonne, 0.3% copper and 1.3 grams silver per tonne for 1.8 million oz. of contained gold, 334,000 tonnes of copper and 4.8 million oz. gold. Inferred resources add 92.6 million tonnes grading 0.5 gram gold, 0.24% copper and 1.1 grams silver for 1.5 million oz. of gold, 222,000 tonnes of copper and 3.4 million

oz. of silver.

The resource was based on 118 historic diamond drill holes (45,606 metres) that Copperbelt AG drilled between 2007 and 2017, and four new drill holes (3,694 metres) completed by Arras. All holes were drilled from surface and vary in depth between 150 and 1,164 metres.

The project’s surrounding infrastructure includes paved road access, 1,100 kVA power lines and heavy rail all within a 25-km radius.

Arras Minerals has a market cap of $19 million.

n ENDURO METALS

Enduro Metals (TSXV: ENDR; US-OTC: ENDMF) holds one of the largest contiguous land packages in the heart of northwestern British Columbia’s Golden Triangle. Its 688-sq.-km Newmont Lake project contains its flagship copper-gold porphyry discovery Burgundy Ridge.

The discovery hole at Burgundy Ridge in 2021 returned 331 metres grading 0.4 gram gold per tonne, 0.3% copper, 0.5% zinc, and 5.5 grams silver (0.7% copper equivalent) starting from 5.5 metres in drill hole BR21-001. The hole included a sub-interval of 146 metres grading 0.6 gram gold, 0.4% copper, 0.5% zinc and 8.2 grams silver (1% copper-equivalent).

Burgundy sits in a 20-km northeast-southwest structural corridor comprising a complex series of trans-arc geological structures that the company says closely resemble those seen at Galore Creek and KSM. Seabridge Gold’s (TSX: SEA: NYSE: SA) KSM project is about 50 km to the southeast, and Galore Creek, a 50:50 partnership between Newmont (TSX: NEM) and Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/B; NYSE: TECK) is about 40 km to the northwest.

In May, the company said it has identified two additional areas of

interest at Burgundy: the first after reviewing historic assessments that reported up to 21.5% copper and 880.4 grams silver at surface about 5 km southwest of Burgundy, and a second prospect to the northeast.

In addition to Burgundy Ridge, Newmont Lake has three key targets of interest: High-grade epithermal/ skarn gold along the McLymont Fault; porphyry-style alteration typical of alkalic copper-gold porphyries at North Toe, and a 9- by 4-km geochemical anomaly hosting gold, silver, copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt and lead mineralization along the Chachi corridor.

At the McLymont Fault zone, drill hole NW20-09 returned an 8.9 metre interval grading 31.1 grams gold, 6.5 grams silver and 1.1% copper (32.6 grams gold-equivalent) starting from 159.9 metres and another 0.6-metre interval 162.5 metres downhole grading 225.3 grams gold, 25.9 grams silver and 4.9% copper.

Mining entrepreneur Rob McEwen invested in a private placement in 2020 and is among the company’s largest shareholders.

Enduro Metals has a market cap of about $21 million.

n FARADAY COPPER

Faraday Copper (TSX: FDY; USOTC: CPPKF) is focused on its Copper Creek project in southern Arizona, about 70 km northeast of Tucson.

The company completed a PEA in May. The study envisions a series of open pits that will fully fund development of a bulk underground mine for a combined total mine life of 32 years. Surface mining would provide mill feed until year 11. A four-year open pit ramp-down coincides with the underground production ramp-up, with steady state underground production achieved by year 12.

The early-stage study estimates Copper Creek could produce 51,100 tonnes of copper equivalent per year with peak production of 82,100 tonnes in year two. Over the mine life, Copper Creek would generate 3.2 billion lb. copper, 45.1 million lb. molybdenum and 9.7 million oz. silver (3.4 billion lb. copper equivalent).

Initial capital costs are pegged at US$798 million, with a four-year payback period. Additional sustaining costs and expansion capital run to US$1.7 billion over the life of mine. The project’s after-tax net present value (7% discount rate) runs to US$713 million and the internal rate of return to 16%.

The PEA was based on an updated resource estimate of 4.2 billion lb. copper contained in 421.9 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.45% copper, 0.008% molybdenum, and 1.1 grams silver per tonne (0.48% copper equivalent). Copper Creek’s inferred resource measures 83.6 million tonnes grading 0.34% copper, 0.007% molybdenum, and 0.6 gram silver (0.36% copper equivalent) for 628.2 million lb. copper.

The resource at Copper Creek remains open at depth and laterally and there are more than 400 breccia occurrences mapped at surface, 17 of which were included in the resource estimate.

Strategic shareholders in the company include the Lundin family, Murray Edwards and Pierre Lassonde.

The company has a market cap of about $133 million.

n FORAN MINING

Foran Mining’s (TSX: FOM; USOTC: FMCXF) flagship project is the McIlvenna Bay volcanogenic-hosted massive sulphide deposit in southeastern Saskatchewan, about 375 km northeast of Saskatoon and 65 km west of Flin Flon, Man.

The company describes McIlvenna as the largest undeveloped VMS deposit in the region. Mineralization begins within about 25 metres of surface and extends to 2 km down-plunge, where it remains open at depth and along strike.

A February 2022 feasibility study forecast an 18-year mine life based on a 4,200 tonne-per-day throughput rate and estimated average annual production of 72.8 million lb. copper-equivalent over the first 15 years of mine life.

Initial capital costs were pegged at $368 million with life-of-mine sustaining capital of $481 million. The project generates an after-tax net present value (7% discount rate) of $1.05 billion and internal rate of return of 38%, with a 2.2year payback period.

The study used a 2021 resource estimate of 39.1 million indicated tonnes grading 1.2% copper, 2.16% zinc, 0.14% lead, 0.41 gram gold per tonne and 14 grams silver (2.04% copper-equivalent). Inferred resources stand at 5 million tonnes grading 0.94% copper, 2.56% zinc, 0.17% lead, 0.27 gram gold and 16 grams silver (1.77% copper-equivalent).

The company closed a US$150-

million senior secured project credit facility with a fund managed by Sprott Resource Lending Corp. at the end of 2022.

Foran discovered the Tesla zone, about 300 metres north of McIlvenna, in June 2022. Assays include 10.1 metres grading 3.1% copper, 3% zinc, 32 grams silver and 0.25 gram gold (4.62% copper-equivalent) from 905 metres in hole TS22-06A; and 32.1 metres grading 2% copper, 1.1% zinc, 21.5 grams silver and 0.02 gram gold (2.61% copper-equivalent) starting 1,020 metres downhole, including 3.6 metres of 4.2% copper, 2% zinc, 29.5 grams silver and 0.001 gram gold (5.12% copper-equivalent) in TS-23-08.

In addition, Foran is exploring the Bigstone project, about 25 km southwest of McIlvenna Bay.

The company has a market cap of about $826 million.

n GLADIATOR METALS

Gladiator Metals (TSXV: GLAD; US-OTC: GDTFR) is focused on copper exploration in the Yukon. It has the option to earn 100% of the Whitehorse Copper project.

The Cowley Park prospect, which sits at the southern end of the project about 25 km from Whitehorse, has been the focus of its initial exploration work since signing the six-year option agreement in November 2022.

The company reported shallow copper-skarn mineralization in its first drill program, totalling 2,632 metres, at Cowley Park this summer. Initial assay results released in June for seven of the 14 holes drilled included 16 metres grading 2.3% copper from 79 metres down-

hole within a broader interval of 92 metres grading 0.71% copper in drill hole CP-006. Drill hole CP002 cut 13 metres of 1.44% copper and 0.15% molybdenum starting from 28 metres, and a 113-metre interval of 0.79% copper that included 33 metres of 1.48% copper from 71 metres.

Other notable results were 13.2 metres of 2.26% copper from 22.8 metres in drill hole CP-003 and 71 metres of 0.72% copper in drill hole CP-001 that included 20 metres of 1.43% copper from 42 metres depth.

A second, 2,000-metre drill program is scheduled to start in July.

The company also plans to continue its work logging and assaying about 10,000 metres of unassayed core from exploration drilling by previous owners.

In May, Gladiator released results from a handful of historic holes on the Cub trend, about 3 km west of Cowley Park. The holes included 16.6 metres of 2.59% copper from 76 metres at the Gem prospect; 23.5 metres of 2.91% copper from 42 metres at the Keewenaw prospect; and 34.8 metres of 1.65% copper from 8.9 metres at the Black Cub South prospect.

The 53.8-sq.-km Whitehorse Copper project includes 30 known prospects within a 35- by 5-km area, the company says.

Gladiator has a market cap of about $16 million.

n OROCO RESOURCE

Oroco Resource (TSXV: OCO; US-OTC: ORRCF) is advancing its flagship Santo Tomás copper porphyry project in Mexico’s northwestern Sinaloa state.

Santo Tomás, in the western Si-

erra Madre mountain range, straddles the border between the states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua and is about 14 km from Jinchuan Group’s Bahuerachi project. The deep-water port of Topolobampo on the Pacific Ocean is about 160 km to the southwest.

In May, Oroco completed a resource estimate based on 62,678 metres of drilling in 156 holes (including about 100 historic holes). The deposit’s North zone contains 487.3 million indicated tonnes grading 0.32% copper, 0.009% molybdenum, 0.03 gram gold per tonne and 2.1 grams silver (0.36% copper-equivalent). Contained metal counts are 3.4 billion lb. copper, 92 million lb. molybdenum, 393,000 oz. gold and 32.7 million oz. silver (3.9 billion copper-equivalent lb.)

Inferred resources for the North and South zone measure 560 million tonnes grading 0.32% copper, 0.007% molybdenum, 0.03 gram gold and 2 grams silver (0.36% copper-equivalent), for 4.2 million lb. copper, 96 million lb. moly, 501,000 oz. gold and 38.5 million oz. silver (4.7 billion lb. copper-equivalent).

The final assay results from Oroco’s 2021-2023 drill program were released in early May, including 229 metres of 0.47% copper equivalent from 568 metres downhole in drill hole NO46; and 387 metres of 0.5% copper equivalent in hole NO47 starting from 204 metres.

Prior exploration between 1968 and 1994 defined the deposit and Bateman Engineering completed a prefeasibility study in 1994. The historic study contemplated an open pit mine producing up to 300 million lb. copper a year, plus gold and silver, in a concentrate.

The company began work on a PEA of the North and South zones last September.

The project has access to nearby infrastructure — roads, high-voltage power lines and a high-pressure gas line — all within a 20-km radius.

Oroco has a market cap of $162 million.

n TERTIARY MINERALS

Tertiary Minerals (AIM: TYM) is earning stakes in five exploration licences in Zambia. It has data sharing and technical agreements on two of the licences — Mukai and Mushima North — with First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM; NYSE: FQM).

Mukai is adjacent to First Quantum’s Trident project, which includes the Sentinel copper deposit

and the Enterprise nickel mine, and lies to the west of Arc Minerals’ (LSE: ARCM) Zambia copper project, a joint venture with Anglo-American (LSE: AAL).

First Quantum’s data on Mukai includes geological mapping and interpretation; airborne magnetics, electromagnetics and radiometrics; soil sampling and drill results from its adjacent Tirosa copper-nickel project. According to Tertiary, soil sampling in the 1960s by Roan Selection Trust showed that a copper soil anomaly on Tirosa continues into the Mukai project areas.

Tertiary’s Mushima North prospect is just east of the Kalengwa copper mine, which operated from 1968 until 1982. First Quantum explored the licence in the mid to late 2010s and undertook airborne VTEM-magnetic and regional soil geochemical surveys. Gravity anomalies associated with anomalous copper in soils and recently assayed drill core are indicative of iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) style mineralization, Tertiary says.

In June, Tertiary received geophysical data for the Konkola West prospect from its local partner

Mwashia Resources. Mwashia received the data from privately held KoBold Metals, which has a stake in the nearby Mingomba deposit. KoBold collected the airborne gravity, magnetic and radiometric data for Konkola West’s licence area as part of a wider regional airborne geophysical survey in 2021 targeting downdip and alongstrike extensions of the contiguous Musoshi-Lubambe-Mingomba-Konkola copper deposits. Copper mineralization at its Jacks prospect was first reported in the 1990s. First Quantum carried out reconnaissance soil sampling in the 2000s. Tertiary completed soil sampling in October 2022 and soil anomalies were defined with a peak value of 535 parts per million (ppm) copper.

At Lubuila, the company has collected 425 samples and preliminary results indicate a copper-insoil anomaly defined over an area of about 1,000 by 680 metres with peak copper values of 306 ppm and an average value of 125 ppm copper. Tertiary Minerals has a market cap of roughly £2.3 million ($3.9 million). TNM

MINERALS LTD

• Prefeasibility Study

Funded and Underway

• Updated Resource Estimate and Preliminary Economic Assessment in 2023

• Drilling Program Recently Completed

• Opportunities to Expand and Enhance project Identified

Description Font: Gill Sans MT www.panoro.com

Hummingbird Resources pours first gold at Kouroussa mine in Guinea

WEST AFRICA | Kouroussa to reach commercial production in H2

Osino’s Twin Hills feasibility outlines 13-year gold mine in Namibia

GOLD | US$365M mine offers 28% post-tax IRR

Hummingbird Resources (AIM: HUM) said on June 9 it had poured first gold at the Kouroussa mine in Guinea the previous day, ahead of schedule and on budget.

Commissioning at the mine began in early May. At the time, the company said it expected first gold by the end of June.

Kouroussa, Hummingbird’s second operating mine, is now expected to ramp up to commercial production during the second half of 2023.

“[This] is a major strategic milestone for the company, transforming Hummingbird into a multi-asset, multi-jurisdiction gold producer, that more than doubles our production profile to 200,000 ounces per annum,” chief executive officer Dan Betts said in a statement.

The mine is expected to churn out an average of between 120,000 oz. and 140,000 oz. of gold annually for the first three years of commercial production. After that, the mine will average 100,000 oz. of gold a year over an initial sevenyear life.

Hummingbird’s first producing mine was Yanfolila, in Mali, which poured its first gold in 2017.

Kouroussa is located in the prolific Siguiri basin, which covers several West African countries.

The company acquired the Kouroussa project, which comprises two key deposits as well as several exploration targets from Cassidy Gold in September 2020.

Hummingbird shares traded at 22¢ apiece at press time in Toronto, in a 52-week window of 28¢ and 55¢, valuing the company at $89.2 million. TNM

Osino Resources (TSXV: OSI; US-

OTC: OSIIF) is eyeing first gold production at its Twin Hills project in Namibia starting in late 2025 or early 2026, based on a positive feasibility study it released on Jun. 12.

The Twin Hills project has a life of 13 years at a production rate of 5 million tonnes annually. It will cost US$365 million to build, and at US$1,700 per oz. gold, offers a payback of 2.2 years. Sustaining capital is estimated at $41 million.

At a spot gold price of US$1,750 per oz., Twin Hills has a net present value (5% discount) of US$480 million and an internal rate of return of 28% post tax. At US$1,950 per oz. gold, the after-tax numbers would be US$656 NPV and 36% IRR. Life of mine cash flow would be a respectable US$721 million at the lower gold price or US$958 million at the higher price.

“We are very pleased with the results of this (feasibility study) which confirms Twin Hills as a technically simple, long-life and

low-cost gold project with very strong economics and plenty of upside,” said Osino’s president and CEO Heye Daun, in a release.

Daun added the company is starting detailed engineering work right away with the aim of making a “fully financed” construction decision by the end of the year.

The Twin Hills deposit, in Namibia’s Damara orogenic belt, is described as a sedimentary-hosted and structurally controlled lode gold occurrence.

The processing plant will recover 92% of the gold in ore using three-stage crushing, ball milling, gravity separation, pre-oxidation, and a carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit. Tailings are to be dry-stacked.

With a cut-off grade of 0.45 gram gold per tonne, proven and probable reserves are 64.5 million tonnes grading 1.04 gram gold for 2.2 million oz. Measured and indicated resources stand at 84.3 million tonnes grading 1.08 grams gold per tonne for 2.9 million oz. Inferred resources are estimated at 7 million tonnes grading 1.10 gram gold for 250,000 oz. TNM

Albemarle to buy Lithium Power’s Australian unit

M&A | Post-sale, Aussie company to focus on Maricunga brine project in Chile

Lithium Power International (ASX: LPI) has scrapped the demerger of its Western Australian lithium assets in favour of a US$21 million (A$30 million) sale of the three projects to U.S. giant Albemarle Corp. (NYSE: ALB).

The cash transaction would see Albemarle acquire full ownership of Greenbushes, Pilgangoora and Tabba Tabba projects, which Lithium Power was attempting to spin off into a separate company — Western Lithium — that would have listed on the ASX.

“Despite the significant progress we had made towards an IPO of Western Lithium in the past months, this asset realization will provide a significant uplift to the pre-money valuation of our Western Australia asset portfolio,” chief executive Cristóbal García-Huidobro said in the statement.

The Australian miner will focus on the development of its flagship Maricunga lithium brine project in Chile, after the deal closes, which is expected to happen in early July.

The project sits in the remote

namesake salt flat, which is only 5% the size of the Salar de Atacama, though it holds high-grade lithium deposits in some areas, which has made it attractive to prospective miners.

According to an updated definitive feasibility study for stage one of Maricunga, the project can produce 15,200 tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent per year over a mine life of 20 years.

Stage one of the Maricunga project is fully permitted for construction, Lithium Power said. It received its environmental permit in 2020 by Chile’s environmental assessment agency. The watchdog was explicitly named in the country’s lithium strategy announced in April as the organization that will be in charge of environmental aspects of any future lithium project in Chile.

Lithium Power has been very positive about the possible implications of Chile’s lithium policy for its project.

“Rather than focus on what the legislation means for the future of the Chilean lithium industry, our focus is on what it means for our Maricunga lithium project and how it will transform the Chilean lithium industry through its development,” García Huidobro said in April. “We welcome President Boric’s National Lithium Strategy has the potential to accelerate the development of the Stage Two of the project, the CEO said.

“We embrace the objective of Chile’s current administration to promote public-private associations as the path forward for the development of the Maricunga Stage Two project,” the company’s boss said.

World’s second highest concentration Copper giant Codelco, which explored the Maricunga salt flat for almost seven years until May 2023, said at the end of that month that the area seems to have the world’s second highest lithium concentra-

tion.

“Of 132 samples analyzed in the laboratory, which were extracted from 10 wells, we have obtained concentrations ranging between 517 and 1,787 milligrams per litre are observed, with an average of 1,073 mg/l and a median of 978 mg/l,” Codelco said in the statement.

The world’ stop copper producer noted its exploration work on Maricunga is now officially finished, which opens the door to interested partners to continue where Codelco left off.

Chile is the world’s no. 1 copper producer and second largest for lithium, but while its copper output is dominated by Codelco, lithium production has been in charge of publicly listed miners SQM (NYSE: SQM) and Albemarle.

President Gabriel Boric wants to expand production both in the Atacama and in any or all of the other 18 salt flats that have been identified, but under public-private partnerships.

Chile said last week it plans to open tenders for lithium exploration to private companies in the first half of 2024. TNM

TORONTO STOCK EXCHANGE / JUNE 12—16, 2023

Over the June 12-16 trading period, the S&P/ TSX Composite Index inched 83.31 points or 0.42% higher, to 19,975.37. The S&P/TSX Global Mining Index gained 2.26 points or 2.1% to 109.68 and the S&P/ TSX Global Base Metals Index gained 7.21 points or 3.89% to 188.01. The S&P/TSX Global Gold Index fell by 02.38 points or 0.82% to 286.73 and spot gold ended the week US$9.45 per oz. higher, or 0.48%, at US$1.969.75 per ounce.

The week’s top gainer in value terms was First Quantum Minerals, which saw its shares close $3.56 higher on June 16 at $33.23 after global number-two gold miner Barrick Gold made an informal offer to acquire the company, according to a Bloomberg report that cited anonymous sources. The June 15 report suggests Barrick made overtures to First Quantum in the last few months as part of its search for ways to expand in copper, two people said. First Quantum indicated it wasn’t keen on a combination and declined to enter any substantive talks, according to the report. Canada’s First Quantum has long been viewed as a takeover target in the mining industry, primarily for its massive copper mine in Panama. The operation, which accounts for about 1.5% of global copper production, recently emerged from a months-long dis-

pute with the Panamanian government.

Avalon Advanced Materials was among the week’s top percentage gainers, closing 50% higher at 15¢ per share. During the week, Avalon announced a $63-million joint venture arrangement with SCR-Sibelco to come aboard as a development partner for its plans to build a lithium hydroxide processing facility in Ontario. Sibelco, a Belgium-based global manufacturer, advanced some financing to assist with the property acquisition. The provincial government will likely come aboard as a funder given the Ford government’s economic priority on creating a domestic supply chain to feed the EV battery plants in southern Ontario. If the plant is built, the new partners could

TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE / JUNE 12—16, 2023

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index gained 3.5 points or 0.6% over the June 12-16 trading session to end at 613.82.

This week’s top value gainer was Los Andes Copper, which closed $3.69 higher at $16.49. On June 16, a Chilean court ruled the company could restart drilling at its flagship Vizcachitas project, lifting an injunction against the company that lasted more than a year. In March 2022, the Second Environmental Court in Chile issued a preliminary injunction suspending the drilling program at Vizcachitas because of concerns it could impact the food source of the Andean cat, a threatened species. Last July, the court decided that drilling could resume subject to certain conditions. Los Andes and its consultants have since worked to obtain certain government agency filings and approvals required by the court as conditions.

Kalo Gold shares closed the week 150% higher at 10¢ per share after announcing a recent exploration update for its Vatu Aurum gold project in Fiji. According to the company, field exploration activities are ongoing with bulk-leach extractable gold sampling defining a 33-km-long northeast-trending gold corridor across two tenements covering 367 sq. km. Stream-sediment sampling has also identified several high-priority tar-

get drainage areas including the Drudrusavu prospect, a “very strong gold anomaly” with samples returning up to 580 parts per billion gold. Kalo says it now has developed several datasets including geological mapping, multi-element geochemistry, petrography, litho-geochemistry, geophysics, hyperspectral and drill hole data to help it find more gold. All these layers will now be integrated into a generative study to rank and prioritize targets for follow-up work including drilling.

The most active issue this week was Kiplin Metals, which is exploring the Cluff Lake Road (CLR) uranium project in Saskatchewan’s southwestern Athabasca Basin. The company saw 87 million shares change

U.S. MARKETS / JUNE 12—16, 2023

Stocks in New York gained during the June 12-16 trading week after the United States Federal Reserve held off raising interest rates for the first time in more than a year. The decision followed signs of a slowing economy and 4% inflation, its lowest in more than two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 422.34 points or 1.2% to 34,299.12 and the S&P 500 rose 110.73 points or 2.6% over the week to 4,298.86.

Brazil-focused Ero Copper was the best performer, gaining 14% to US$20.75 per share after reporting 2.08% nickel equivalent among new drill results for targets at Caraíba in the eastern state of Bahia.

BMO Capital Markets expects more substantial results near year-end after more drilling at Caraíba’s Umburana nickel system, mining analyst Jackie Przybylowski wrote in a note on June 9.

“Ero expects to delineate a larger number of open pittable and underground mineable nickel deposits in time,” Przybylowski said. “We expect a bigger release in ‘the great reveal’ later this year circa November.”

Vancouver-based Ero is also developing the US$305 million Tucumã copper project in the northeastern state of Pará. It aims to double

the company’s copper output by 2025.

Hudbay Minerals followed with a 10% gain to US$5.18 after shareholders on June 14 approved the US$439-million acquisition of Copper Mountain Mining.

The new larger Hudbay, to be Canada’s third-largest copper producer behind Teck Resources and Vale, plans output to reach 53,000 tonnes this year.

Its mines will include Copper Mountain 300 km east of Vancouver, Snow Lake 700 km north of Winnipeg and Constancia in Peru. The acquisition will save Hudbay US$30 million in operating costs, it said.

Hudbay also has three large-scale development projects, Mason in Nevada, Copper World in Arizona and Llaguen in Peru.

be the first mid-stream lithium processor in Ontario and possibly Canada. The companies are also partnering on Avalon’s lithium exploration projects, including its preliminary economic assessment-stage Separation Rapids lithium project near Kenora.

The week also saw 20 million B2Gold shares change hands, with the stock closing 32¢ higher at $4.77 per share. B2Gold has been adding to its landholdings in Cana-

da’s Far North, most recently increasing its holding in Snowline Gold to 9.9%. Snowline’s flagship, district-scale Rogue project in the Yukon hosts the Valley discovery, a bulk-tonnage, reduced intrusion-related gold system with geological similarities to multi-million-ounce deposits currently in production, such as Kinross Gold’s Fort Knox mine in Alaska and Victoria Gold’s Eagle mine in the Yukon. TNM

hands to close 2¢ higher at $16.49 per share. The company has been riding the coattails of a 120% increase in uranium spot prices since 2020. Peter Born, director of Kiplin, said on June 16 the substantial increase in the price of uranium demonstrated the growing recognition of nuclear power as a key solution for achieving sustainable energy goals.

Kiplin’s summer program, contracted to

Grander Exploration, will involve geophysical surveying focused on the prospective central part of the property. The company believes that the CLR property’s combination of multiple EM (electromagnetic) conductors, magnetic lineaments, radon gas, and radioactivity anomalies make it a highly prospective location for discovering a basement-hosted uranium deposit. TNM

Shares in Johannesburg-based DRDGold increased by 9% to US$12.48 after the company, which is 50.1% owned by Sibanye-Stillwater, raised gold output by 4% and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization by 54% in the first quarter compared with the previous three months.

The company, which recovers gold from tailings, said it is debt-free and is favourably

considering its final cash dividend of the year in August.

DRDGold operates two subsidiaries. Ergo, east of Johannesburg, has a processing capacity of 1.8 million tonnes per month. Far West Gold Recoveries, on the other side of the city, can process 600,000 tonnes per month. Gold is extracted from surface sand and slime through a high-pressure water system. TNM

METALS, MINING AND MONEY MARKETS

LME WAREHOUSE LEVELS

Metal stocks (in tonnes) held in London Metal Exchange warehouses at opening on June 1, 2023 (change from May 24, 2023 in brackets):

Aluminum Alloy 1920 (0)

PRODUCER AND DEALER PRICES

Coal: Central Appalachia, 12,500 Btu, 1.2 S02-R,W: US$76.90

Coal: Powder River Basin, 8,800 Btu, 0.8

Alio Gold Inc. (ALO.WT) - 10 Warrants to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $7.00 until expiry

Alio Gold Inc. J (ALO.WT.A) - One Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $8.00 until expiry

Aris Gold Corporation (ARIS.WT) - One

Warrant to purchase one Common Share of the Issuer at $2.75 until expiry.

Aris Gold Corporation (ARIS.WT.A) - One

Warrant to purchase 0.5 of one Common Share of the Issuer at $2.75 until expiry

Aris Gold Corporation (ARIS.WT.B) - One Warrant to purchase of one Common Share of the Issuer at $2.21 until expiry

eCobalt Solutions Inc. J (ECS.WT) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at US$1.95 per share until expiry

Excellon Resources Inc (EXN.WT.A) - One warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $2.80 until expiry

Excellon Resources Inc. (EXN.WT) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of the issuer at $1.40 per share until expiry Excelsior Mining Corp. (MIN.WT) - One

Warrant to purchase one Common Share of the Issuer at $1.25 until expiry.

ABE Resources Inc. (ABE.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.15 per share.

Alpha Lithium Corporation (ALLI.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $1.10 per share.

Alpha Lithium Corporation (ALLI.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $1.10 per share.

American Cumo Mining Corp. (MLY.RT)2 rights and $0.07 are required to purchase one share

American Lithium Corp. (LI.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.30 per share.

Antioquia Gold Inc. (AGD.RT) - One (1)

Right and $0.042 are required to purchase one share.

Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU.RT) - Fourteen (14) Rights exercisable for one common share at $2.70 per common share.

Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $5.50 per share.

Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU.WT.A) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $4.25 per share.

Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU.WT.B) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $2.20 per share.

Avidian Gold Corp. (AVG.RT) - Three rights and $0.11 are required to purchase one Share.

Boreal Metals Corp. (BMX.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.50 per share.

Boreal Metals Corp. (BMX.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.30 per share.

Cabral Gold Inc. (CBR.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.80 per share.

Caldas Gold Corp. (CGC.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $2.75 per share.

Cascadero Copper Corporation (CCD. RT) - One right and $0.015 are required to purchase one Share.

Cordoba Minerals Corp (CDB.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $1.08 per share.

Cordoba Minerals Corp (CDB.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $1.08 per share.

Cordoba Minerals Corp. (CDB.RT) - One (1)

Right exercisable for One (1) Rights Share at $0.05 per Share.

Cordoba Minerals Corp. (CDB.RT) - One right to purchase one common share at $0.54 per share.

Denarius Silver Corp. (DSLV.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.80 per share.

Elevation Gold Mining Corporation (ELVT. WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $4.80 per share.

Elevation Gold Mining Corporation (ELVT. WT.A) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.70 per share.

Empress Royalty Corp. (EMPR.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.75 per share.

Equinox Gold Corp (EQX.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $3.00

TSX WARRANTS

Gran Colombia Gold (GCM.WT.B) - One

warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $2.21 until expiry.

Karora Resources Inc. (KRR.WT) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $0.50 until expiry.

Liberty Gold Corp. Wt (LGD.WT) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $0.90 until expiry may 16, 2019

Lithium Americas Corp (LAC.WT) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $0.90 until expiry

Lydian International Limited (LYD.WT)

- One Warrant to purchase one additional ordinary share of the Issuer at $0.36 per share until expiry

Nevada Copper Corp. (NCU.WT) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $0.20 until expiry

Nevada Copper Corp. (NCU.WT.A) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $0.22 until expiry

Nomad Royalty Company Ltd. (NSR.WT) -

One Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $1.71 until expiry.

Novo Resources Corp. (NOVO.WT.A) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of

TSX VENTURE WARRANTS

per share.

Eros Resources Corp. (ERC.WT) - One (1)

Right exercisable for (1) Unit at $0.05 per Unit.

Falco Resources Ltd. (FPC.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $1.70 per share. Firefox Gold Corp. (FFOX.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.60 per share. Firefox Gold Corp. (FFOX.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $3.00 per share.

Freeman Gold Corp (FMAN.WT.U) - One warrant to purchase one common share at US$0.65 per share.

Giga Metals Corporation (GIGA.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.60 per share.

Giga Metals Corporation (GIGA.WT.A) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.45 per share.

Giyani Metals Corp. (EMM.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.60 per share.

Goldstar Minerals (GDM.RT) - One Right to purchase one common share at $0.03 per share.

Goldstar Minerals Inc. (GDM.RT) - One (1) Right and $0.05 are required to purchase one common share.

Hot Chili Limited (HCH.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $2.50 per share.

Kaizen Discovery Inc. (KZD.RT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.51 per share.

LaSalle Exploration Corp. (LSX.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.15 per share.

Lion One Metals Limited (LIO.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $2.75 per share.

Lion One Metals Limited (LIO.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $1.25 per share.

LithiumBank Resources Corp. (LBNK.WT)One warrant to purchase one common share at $2.00 per share.

LSC Lithium Corporation (LSC.RT) - One (1) right exercisable for One (1) Unit at $0.40 per Unit.

Mako Mining Corp. (MKO.RT) - Rights exercisable for One (1) share at $0.10 per share.

Mako Mining Corp. (MKO.WT.A) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.60 per share.

Manganese X Energy Corp. (MN.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.15 per share.

Maple Gold Mines Ltd. (MGM.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.40 per share

Maple Gold Mines Ltd. (MGM.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.40 per share

Mexican Gold Corp. (MEX.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.12 per share.

Millennial Lithium Corp. (ML.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $4.25 per share.

Millennial Lithium Corp. (ML.WT) - One right to purchase one common share at

the Issuer at $3.00 until expiry.

Novo Resources Corp. (NVO.WT.A) - One

Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $3.00 until expiry.

Platinum Group Metals Ltd. (PTM.WT.U) -

One Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at US$0.17 until expiry

Royal Nickel Corporation (RNX.WT) - One Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $0.50 until expiry.

Sandstorm Gold (SSL.WT.B) - One Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at US $14.00 until expiry.

Sherritt International Corporation (S.WT)Each whole Warrant entitles the holder to acquire between 1.00 and 1.25 additional common shares (as bulletin 2018-0062 table ) determined based on the Applicable Reference Cobalt Price at an exercise price of $1.95 per Warrant at any time prior to the Expiry Date Treasury Metals Inc. Wt (TML.WT) - One Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $1.50 until expiry.

Trevali Mining Corporation (TV.WT) - One Warrant to purchase one common share of the Issuer at $0.23 until expiry.

$4.80 per share.

Millennial Precious Metals Corp. (MPM. WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.50 per share.

Mineworx Technologies Ltd. (MWX.RT)For every one (1) Share held, Shareholders will receive one (1) Right exercisable for One (1) Share at $0.015 per Share.

Mineworx Technologies Ltd. (MWX.RT)One right to purchase one common share at $0.015 per share. Northern Vertex Mining Corp. (NEE.WT)One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.80 per share.

Novo Resources Corp. (NVO.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $4.40 per share.

Orezone Gold Corporation (ORE.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.80 per share.

Orezone Gold Corporation (ORE.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.80 per share.

Osisko Development Corp. (ODV.WT.A)One warrant to purchase one common share at $14.75 per share.

Osisko Development Corp. (ODV.WT.B)One warrant to purchase one common share at $8.55 per share.

Osisko Development Corp. (ODV.WT.U)One warrant to purchase one common share at US$10.70 per share.

Osisko Development Corp. (ODV.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $10.00 per share. Rock Tech Lithium Inc. (RCK.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $4.50 per share.

Sandfire Resources America Inc. (SFR.RT) -

Forty one (41) Rights exercisable for One (1) Share at $0.15 per Share.

Sandfire Resources America Inc. (SFR. RT) - Eight (8) Rights exercisable for One (1) share at $0.06 per unit.

Silver Mountain Resources Inc. (AGMR. WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.70 per share.

Silver Mountain Resources Inc. (AGMR. WT.A) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.45 per share.

Star Royalties Ltd. (STRR.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $1.00 per share.

Three Valley Copper Corp. (TVC.WT) - 20 warrants to purchase one Class A common share at $6.66 per share.

Tintina Resources Inc. (TAU.RT) - Nine(9) Rights exercisable for one share at $0.06 per share.

Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (UCU.RT) - One (1) right exercisable for one share at $4.00 per share.

Vision Lithium Inc. (VLI.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $0.15 per share.

Vizsla Silver Corp. (VZLA.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $3.25 per share.

Westhaven Gold Corp. (WHN.WT) - One warrant to purchase one common share at $1.00 per share.

Yellowhead Mining Inc. (YMI.RT) - One (1) Right and $0.12 are required to prchase one Share