This past year has been an exciting one for the staff of SEMCO Publishing and North American Mining magazine, and even more so for Miners News, which at the time of this writing is just over four months old. Despite its relative youth, Miners News had a tremendous growth in readership and interest. Here are the Top 5 North American stories of the newsletter’s life so far.
1) MSHA announced proposed rule for safety program
In this story from September, we took a look at the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s new proposed rule that it said would require mine operators with six or more employees to create a wirrten safety program for mobile equipment and powered haulage, except belt conveyors, at surface mines in the country as well as surface areas of underground mines.
This rule is still not finalized. Read more in the original story here.
2) Standard Lithium, Koch advancing lithium project plan in U.S.
In mid-December, Standard Lithium and Koch Engineered Solutions made a joint announcement about a new proposed commercial lithium plant in southern Arkansas. Koch earmarked funding for the project totaling US$100 million, but at press time nothing more has been released about its readiness timeline.
Read more here.
3) Bridger coal mine to close its doors
Many saw this news as inevitable, but it was not pleasant to hear nonetheless: Pacific Minerals, dba Bridger Coal, announced in late September that its Bridger operation, the only underground coal miner remaining in Wyoming, was set to close and issued layoff warnings to its staff. It had been a stalwart in American coal mining since the 1970s.
Read more here.
4) Miners return to surface after Canadian mine incident
Vale had a bit of a rough road safety-wise in the second portion of 2021, including this story from last September. A total of 39 of its workers from the Totten operation in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, were returned to the surface after damage to the mine’s personnel shaft.
Thankfully, no one was hurt. Read more here.
5) Agnico Eagle, Kirkland Lake merge to create gold behemoth
Finally, this September story could easily also rank as a top M&A announcement for mining in general in North America last year: the confirmation that Agnico Eagle Mines was planning a merger of equals with Kirkland Lake Gold in a C$13.5 billion stock deal.
The companies’ shareholders went on to approve the plan on Nov. 26 during a special meeting. In fact, the resolution was approved by approximately 99.86% of the votes cast by Agnico Eagle shareholders at the meeting, with a shareholder turnout of 69.62%.
Closure of the deal is still pending but is expected sometime this quarter. Read more about the deal from the original story here.
Honorable Mention:
Featured MINExpo Companies
Did you attend MINExpo 2021? Despite the ongoing pandemic, it had a quality turnout, and many companies wanted to share in the pre-event excitement with descriptions of their plans, including new releases, new services and special presentations. To see more from our featured companies, read more information here for the original story that appeared in North American Mining.
Watch next week’s edition of Miners News for the Top 5 APAC region stories from 2021.