Canada

It’s 2021, and the wild ride 2020 has taken us on continues. There were quite a few developments in the critical minerals realm over the past few months (for a recap see our two summary posts here and here, but if you thought things were about to slow down, you might be wrong. While emphases will change with a new Administration at the helm in Washington, DC, the urgency of our nation’s critical mineral woes will continue to warrant action.

As stakeholders prepare to address this year’s challenges, the Geological Survey of Canada, Geoscience Australia and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have teamed up to offer some foundational insights to inform the policy discourse.

Sponsored by the World Community of Geological Surveys and hosted by the American Geosciences Institute, a three-part Critical Minerals Forum will bring together experts from geological survey organizations from different parts of the globe who will share their latest geoscience research and discuss future initiatives.

According to the American Geosciences Institute, the presentations during the event series

“will focus on advanced mineral system models that are appli¬cable to critical minerals and new methods for modelling mineral potential in buried, remote, and/or other challenging mineral exploration settings. Both of these research themes are included within the new Critical Mineral Mapping Initiative that is being conducted between the Geological Survey of Canada, Geoscience Australia, and the United States Geological Survey. Global efforts to expand this collaboration, including the development of an online geo¬chemical portal for critical mineral deposits, will be discussed as part of this special session and is open to further contributions, research, and analysis.”

Here are the coordinates:

Advances in critical mineral research: A forum in memory of Victor Labson
Americas: 12 February 2021, 11:00-14:30 EST
Europe and Africa: 19 February 2021, 11:00-14:30 CET
Asia and Oceania: 26 February 2021, 11:00-14:30 AWST

For more information, and to register, click here.

From a U.S. perspective, arguably the biggest news in the critical minerals sector in recent weeks has been U.S. President Trump’s latest executive order on critical minerals, which, according to analysts, is the first one in this field “that has the potential to bring some meaningful changes.”

Aside from calling on the Department of the Interior to invoke the Defense Production Act to expand and strengthen our domestic mining and processing capacity, the order directs agencies to “prioritize the expansion and protection of the domestic supply chain for minerals and the establishment of secure critical minerals supply chains,” and to direct agency resources accordingly, to ensure that these “do not depend on resources or processing from foreign adversaries.”

In its effort to secure U.S. supply chains, the U.S. will, among other things, leverage “cooperation and coordination with partners and allies, including the private sector” — an area into which the Trump administration has made forays in recent months with the signing of various cooperative agreements on critical minerals with Australia and Canada.

The recently agreed-upon three-year labor deal between Unifor, the labor union that represents Canadian autoworkers, and Ford Motor Company of Canada Ltd, must be viewed in this context.

Under the agreement, Ford will spend nearly $2 billion on its Canadian plants, including $1.8 billion toward the production of five electric vehicle models in its Oakville, Ontario plant, with production starting in 2025. The governments of Ontario and Canada, respectively, are contributing $295 million for a total spend of $590 million, towards retooling the Oakville EV plant.

According to news reports, the upgrade of the plant will elevate Oakville into Ford Motor Company’s No 1. electric vehicle factory in North America.

During the contract negotiations leading up to the agreement, in what constitutes a clear acknowledgment of the strategic importance of controlling the entire supply chain, Ontario’s premier Doug Ford made clear that the province was willing to invest to not only assemble EVs, but to also have battery manufacturing done in Ontario.

The Canadian federal government’s investment into EV technology ties into its post-pandemic recovery plan. As Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains wrote earlier this fall in Policy Options magazine:

“With Canada’s natural resources and skilled workforce providing a competitive advantage, we absolutely must support the development of the next generation of battery supply chains, right here in Canada. The ability of Canadian industry to pivot quickly has been on display since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a matter of months, Canadian manufacturers were able to retool their existing production lines and set up new manufacturing facilities to produce much-needed PPE and other critical supplies. There is no reason we cannot see the same kind of rapid retooling of existing facilities – and eventually the construction of new ones – to take on the manufacture of battery materials. Doing so would provide positive results across various sectors, including mining and critical minerals, automotive and bus manufacturers, research and development — all of which drive economic growth.”

Now that the new U.S. Executive Order has declared a critical minerals “national emergency,” we will see whether Canada’s actions in the EV sector find an echo on the U.S. side of the border — and one that draws on the collective strengths of two of the world’s most technologically advanced democracies.

As the U.S. explores its options when it comes to diversifying our critical minerals supply chains away from China in the wake of COVID-19, Europe is coming to grips with its own mineral supply challenges. According to European metals association Eurometaux, the region “has reached a critical fork in the road,” as it grapples with [...]

Russia is certainly making headlines this week.  Quite obviously, much of the media attention is focused around President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that Russia has approved a vaccine for the coronavirus (after less than two months of testing) — but developments in the critical minerals realm also warrant attention: A top Russian government official has told [...]

It’s official. On January 9, 2020, the governments of the United States and Canada formally announced the finalization of the Canada-U.S. Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals Collaboration to advance “our mutual interest in securing supply chains for the critical minerals needed for important manufacturing sectors, including communication technology, aerospace and defence, and clean technology.” [...]

While most of the headlines regarding the trade war between the United States and China — and, for ARPN followers, the underlying tech war over who which country will dominate the 21st Century Technology Age — focus on the main players in Washington, DC and Beijing, the ripple effects of this confrontation can be felt [...]

After years of missed opportunities to prioritize mineral resource policy, the U.S. government is stepping up its efforts to secure critical mineral resource supply chains.   The latest case in point is the drafting of a “joint action plan” with our neighbors to the North to reduce reliance on Chinese supplies of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) — which, [...]

“The specter of using rare earths as an economic weapon makes clear that the current trade war between the U.S. and China is in fact one front in a larger tech war – a competition to see which country will dominate the 21st Century Technology Age,” says ARPN principal Dan McGroarty in a new piece [...]

While specialty and tech metals like the Rare Earths and Lithium continue to dominate the news cycles, there is a mainstay metal that has – for good reason – been making headlines as well: Aluminum.  Bloomberg recently even argued that “Aluminum Is the Market to Watch Closely in 2019.”  Included in the 2018 list of 35 [...]

A recent Bloomberg story we featured last week put a face on the specter of trade war over aluminum and steel, and retraced the history of this symbiotic U.S.- Canadian trade relationship and what our very own Dan McGroarty has called the “world’s most integrated defense industrial base.”   Digging a little deeper, a new Wall [...]