July 30th, 2025 - The Mine Wire

METALS MARKET

🇨🇦 🇺🇸 BREAKING: The Bank of Canada is holding its key interest rate at 2.75% this morning while the U.S. Federal Reserve is largely expected to hold its own interest rate despite intense pressure from President Trump to lower rates.

🇺🇸 The United States announced a trade deal with the EU whereby most goods will see a maximum tariff of 15%, although steel & aluminum will continue to see a 50% tariff (although a quota system is being negotiated). Additionally, Trump announced that India will see a 25% tariff come August 1st plus additional penalties for buying Russian oil.

^{**For our chart above we are taking prices from Tuesday 4pm EST to Tuesday 4pm EST, so not the typical week of Monday through Friday.}

KEEPING AN EYE ON GOVERNMENT DECISIONS

Here are some of the notable government policy moves this week:

• 🇨🇦 Canada’s Fraser Institute has published its annual survey of mining companies, 2024. The survey is an attempt to assess how mineral endowments and public policy factors such as taxation and regulatory uncertainty affect exploration investment. This year, they evaluated 82 jurisdictions with Finland coming in 1st, Nevada 2nd and Alaska 3rd. Rounding out the top 10 were Wyoming, Arizona, Sweden, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland & Labrador, Guyana, and Norway. The least attractive jurisdictions for investment were Ethiopia, Suriname and Niger followed by Nova Scotia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Guinea (Conakry) and Minnesota. Definitely worth a read. (Fraser Institute)

• 🇨🇦 The Ontario government has announced a new intake of the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund (CMIF) with more than $7m up for grabs. With the new call for applications open from July 23rd, 2025, to October 1st, 2025, the fund will accelerate the research, development and commercialization of made-in-Ontario technologies in Ontario’s mining sector by supporting projects in four priority areas: Innovative techniques for deep exploration and mining; Recovery of minerals; Battery supply chain; and Mining innovation. The CMIF contributes a maximum of 50 per cent of eligible project costs up to $500,000 per project. Definitely worth a look. (Ontario Government)

• 🇨🇦 More details were out on the Alberta governments payout to Atrum Coal. The company's notice says it received just under $137m last week and will receive another $6m after it completes some reclamation work. Initially, it was seeking more than $3.5bn in damages. (CBC)

• 🇨🇦 A reminder for those in Canada, Federal pre-budget submissions are also open until August 28th, 2025. You can submit your thoughts as an individual or organization here → (Gov’t of Canada)

• 🇺🇸 The United States Department of the Interior is taking steps to unlock critical minerals from mine waste. The Department has been directed to streamline federal regulations on the recovery of critical minerals from mine waste, while updating guidance to make mine waste recovery projects eligible for federal funding. It also prioritizes review of plans to recover uranium and other minerals from abandoned mines and directs the U.S. Geological Survey to map and inventory federal mine waste sites. (DOI)

• 🇸🇦 The Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources has announced that 31 local and international companies have qualified to compete in Round 9 of the exploration tender across three new mineral belts in Saudi Arabia. Readers will recognize names like Altius Minerals, Barrick, Gold Fields, Hancock Prospecting, Ma’aden, McEwen and Vendanta among others. (Saudi Press Agency)

• 🇬🇭 Ghana has cancelled Rocksure International’s $1.2bn bauxite lease and is now seeking a large foreign partner to develop one of West Africa’s richest untapped bauxite reserves. Sources say the government is in advanced talks with Dubai-based Emirates Global Aluminium as well as a few Chinese firms.

MINING MATTERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

• 🇨🇦 Hats off to the teams at Newmont and Hy-Tech Drilling for bringing three workers to safety after being trapped underground for 60 hours. The workers had sheltered in a MineARC refuge chamber designed to support 16 people. Hy-Tech Drilling said it best on Facebook, “After more than 60 hours underground at Red Chris, Kevin, Darien, and Jesse are safely back on surface — thanks in no small part to their calm mindset and how closely they followed every safety protocol they’d trained for. Their focus, resilience, and trust in the process made all the difference. We’re proud of them and deeply grateful to everyone who worked around the clock to support their return.” Great work gentlemen!

• 🇨🇳 In sadder news, six university students in China drowned while on a field visit to Zhongjin Gold Corp’s copper molybdenum mine in northern China. Reuters reported that, “The students fell into a flotation cell - a piece of mining equipment that uses a liquid solution to extract copper from crushed ore - after protective grates collapsed.” A stark reminder that safety must always be paramount at every mine site. (Reuters)

• 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 Torex Gold Resources (TSX: TXG) is acquiring Prime Mining Corp. (TSX: PRYM) for C$449m. The Transaction will result in Torex owning a 100% interest in Prime Mining's multi-million ounce Los Reyes gold-silver project in Mexico, a jurisdiction where Torex Gold has experience.

• 🇨🇦 McEwen Inc. (TSX: MUX) announced its intention to acquire Canadian Gold Corp. (CVE: CGC). If the transaction proceeds, Canadian Gold would become a fully-owned subsidiary of McEwen. The proposed terms would convert one Canadian Gold common share into 0.0225 of a McEwen common share which represents an offer price of $0.35 per Canadian Gold Share. This is a premium of 26% to the 30-day volume weight average price as of market close on July 25th, 2025. McEwen is down 6.8% since the news broke while Canadian Gold has seen a slight increase.

• 🇦🇺 The Australian and South Australian governments are providing a joint investment of A$275m to support the Whyalla Steelworks during its transition to new ownership. This funding will allow the administrator, KordaMentha, to maintain operations, pay wages and suppliers, and conduct essential works to prepare the steelworks for sale. The sale process for the steelworks formally opened on June 24th.

• 🇦🇺 Glencore has confirmed it is preparing to put its major Mount Isa and Townsville sites in Queensland into care and maintenance mode in a major blow to the country. For months, Glencore has been lobbying both state and federal governments for support to keep the smelter operating, which processes third-party ore from companies like BHP, but government support has come up short. Queensland Minister for Natural Resources and Mines Dale Last said the state made a reasonable offer and would not be “writing a blank cheque for a multinational company that returned $2.2bn to its shareholders just months ago.” Our own view? There is zero reason for a company to use profitable operations to subsidize unprofitable ones over a sustained period of time. We want more investment in mining, not less and that means being responsible with investor dollars.

• 🇦🇺 Fortescue announced that it is scraping its green hydrogen projects in Australia and the United States. The company is looking at options to repurpose the assets and land but expects a preliminary pre-tax write-down of US$150m.

• 🇨🇮 Zijin Mining has emerged as the front runner to acquire Barrick Mining's Tongon gold mine in northern Ivory Coast for up to $500m, according to Reuters. (Reuters)

• 🇺🇸 Luxury electric vehicle manufacturer Lucid Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID), is joining with critical mineral producers Alaska Energy Metals, Graphite One, Electric Metals, and RecycLiCo, to form the newly launched Minerals for National Automotive Competitiveness Collaboration (MINAC). The group aims to accelerate the development of domestic critical mineral resources and the procurement of these minerals for use in automotive manufacturing by U.S.-based automakers and Tier 1 suppliers. (Lucid Group)

MINING BITS

• 🇦🇺 Aussie mining veteran Gerry Noonan went viral with his expletive-heavy response to a question on electrification in mining operations. "We have coal, because we have the biggest coal deposits in the world, but we're not allowed to burn the f***ing stuff, so the world's rooted, really." He went on to say, “It’s alright to be idealistic, but you have to be realistic. And until the lights go out, the idiots that want to be green on everything and not do mining and not do coal, not do anything, they’re going to have to go back and use candles and live in tents.” The viral interview was shared by Travis Ricciardo, a co-host of the Money of Mine podcast, which then elicited a response from Elon Musk, "If he looks up, he will see something called 'The Sun'. Ricciardo responded with “Coal is ancient solar power, compressed over millions of years. A natural wonder that affords reliable energy when the sun goes down.” Ricciardo went further and said, “Just like my neighbour. Not an idiot, but he is a f***wit." If you watch one thing this week, watch this —> (Travis Ricciardo X)

• 💎 Only Natural Diamonds covers 8 famous diamonds and their scandalous stories. I mean if that doesn’t make you click on the link/story, we don’t know what will. Read here —> (Natural Diamonds)

• 🇨🇦 An excellent op-ed by Pierre Gratton, President & CEO, of the Mining Association of Canada on what Canada needs to do to foster a more attractive investment and regulatory environment. Investing in public geoscience, federal and provincial exploration tax incentives, infrastructure, affordable energy while improving regulatory timelines and ensuring logistics stability are all discussed. (The Hub)

• 🇨🇳 The Visual Capitalist ranks the world’s largest coal producing countries. While it may not feel like it depending on where you live, coal is the world’s leading source of power, accounting for 34% of global electricity generation in 2024. China produced 51.7% of all coal or 4.78 bn tonnes. India was next with 11.7% or 1.085bn tonnes. Indonesia rounded out the top 3 with 9% or 836.1m tonnes. The US and Australia came in at 5% each with just over 460m tonnes each. (Visual Capitalist)

• 🇺🇸 In the Copper business? Having discussions with policy-makers in the United States. Then you may want to read some of these arguments by the Center for International & Strategic Studies. They point out that the United States currently imports half of its copper and the majority of refined copper imports originate from Chile (65 percent), followed by Canada (17 percent), Mexico (9 percent), and Peru (6 percent). If these countries face tariffs, they may simply shift to exporting to China or other jurisdictions. They have four recommendations, one of which is eliminating tariffs with strategic allies. Read more here —> (CSIS)

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