I've been in Canada for the last few months so a casual 10am start for me!
I found it strange that Chris was in attendance given we are a small exploration company focused on one "commodity". The webinar focused on the big picture of the strategy which includes 31 critical minerals and the strategically chosen 6 minerals to progress more quickly. One of those is Lithium.
Good on him for further exposing Winsome and being involved in the process!
Chris was up at 1am in WA to join the webinar.
The webinar consisted of a spokesperson for SGS, CIM magazine, and also Marcella Munro
from Teck (big mining company who deals with Govt). She is also Co Chair of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Critical Minerals Council.
Main takeaways
Working on improving workforce / infrastructure
- SGS have struggled in the past in terms of employing people overseas as the visa process has taken at times, up to 9-12months. Following this the employee has said I'll get another job.
- Marcella touched on improving human resources to carry out the Critical Minerals Strategy. This was geared towards further inclusion of indigenous and increasing gender diversity e.g. more females
- Everybody concluded that these projects will require a tremendous amount of workers for construction phases and when in operation. That is currently absent in the James Bay region as well as other areas.
- Concensus that the infrastructure of roads and electricity needs to develop to assist emerging mines as Canada has remote assets.
Emphasis on the supply chain
- Marcella placed a lot of emphasis on downstream, recycling and smelters which is shown by the increased investment of automakers. She also placed emphasis on ESG and environmental impacts.
- Becancour has broken ground and the cathode facility construction is underway.
- Chris has personally been to the site
- (not from the webinar but the federal Govt and Quebec Govt have both contributed $322 million each to the cathode facility)
For an overview of the increased investment.ent refer to the image below!
All in all, everybody acknowledges, the lack of workers, the lack of expertise, the lack of investment and long road to permitting.
There was talk from the editor of CIM if is there enough resources to bring into production and or enough historical data and geoscience to explore and prove up Critical minerals.
In relation to this, Chris said, there is around 5 projects that have an MRE and want to produce in the next few years and that a lot of these have a mine life of 20+ years. There are also plenty of data that juniors can access for potential critical minerals. Lithium in particular hasn't been logged or assayed but past results can be used by looking at path finder elements.
To sum up, it is a very broad strategy, one that all of the attendees agreeing that it needs to be generational, rather than a 5 year plan considering what is required.
Change needs to happen
Canada has opened 4 new mines since 2005.
Personally, I feel they have placed a lot of emphasis on manufacturing, recycling and refining rather than infrastructure and development of mining projects. However, we should start to see more roads being built and access to electricity by the governemnt as mines running on diesel generators are not part of the plan towards Net zero.
While there are exploration incentives and support, the support for recycling and refining take centre stage. A lot of money is also being poured into R&D.
The money spent on regulatory processes for development projects is more geared towards the environment and ESG in terms of net zero as well as indigenous communities inclusion to projects. Not sure how creating framework around this will bring mines into production faster though!
You can find a full overview of the strategy and money spent by clicking on the link below.
Sept 2023
https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/critical-minerals-in-canada/canadian-critical-minerals-strategy.html
(20min delay)