Publication: CIM Magazine
Less is more
The retrofit at Rio Tinto’s Kitimat operation has the smelter producing more without an increased footprint In 2011, Rio Tinto announced plans to modernize the 60-year-old Kitimat Aluminum Smelter in north-central British Columbia. Four years and $ 6 billion later, construction of the new smelter was complete. The plant has been operating at full capacity... Read more »
Publication: CIM Magazine
From white rocks to green products
Hudson Resources sees multiple uses for the unique deposit at its White Mountain project Large deposits of pure, highly calcic anorthosite have only been discovered in two places in the known universe: Hudson Resources’ White Mountain project in Greenland and the moon. The Vancouver-based miner’s project contains high calcium, low-sodium anorthosite, an igneous rock that... Read more »
Publication: CIM Magazine
Steelmaking coal price surge reinvigorates Canadian mines
By Kylie Williams Metallurgical coal prices took a wild ride in 2016. Following the Chinese government’s decision to close coal mines and decrease domestic production at the beginning of the year, prices rocketed from US$84 per tonne in the spring to over US$200 per tonne by the fall. Coal has not approached such heights since... Read more »
Publication: CIM Magazine
B.C. mining industry down in 2015, bracing for recovery: survey
By Kylie Williams It should come as no surprise that the annual PricewaterhouseCoopers Mining Industry Survey labeled 2015 “another tough year” for mining companies in British Columbia. With key commodity prices, particularly metallurgical coal and copper, on a downward trend for the fifth year in a row, gross mining revenues for the province fell to... Read more »
Publication: CIM Magazine
Komatsu moves underground with Joy Global acquisition
By Kylie Williams Komatsu, the world’s second largest manufacturer and supplier of earth-moving equipment, announced on July 21 it would buy Joy Global, a leading manufacturer of surface and underground mining equipment, for US$3.7 billion cash. The deal is expected to close in mid-2017 and will add underground mining equipment and super large-sized loading equipment... Read more »
Publication: CIM Magazine
Federal government announces carbon pricing scheme
By Kylie Williams Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a national carbon pricing scheme in early October that would require all provinces and territories to have a carbon price or cap-and-trade system in place by 2018, or adopt the federal government’s “floor price” of $10 per tonne of CO2 in 2018, increasing to $50 per tonne... Read more »