Silver producer Hecla Mining has agreed to sell its subsidiary, Hecla Quebec, to Orezone Gold for up to $593 million in total consideration. Through the transaction, Orezone will acquire the operating Casa Berardi gold mine and a portfolio of exploration properties in Quebec. “The sale of Hecla Quebec represents an important milestone in Hecla’s transformation as we concentrate capital allocation…
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Alliance to close Mettiki coal mine
Nearly 200 workers in West Virginia have been issued a layoff notice as Alliance Resource Partners confirmed late last week that its Mettiki Mountain View operation in Tucker County will close its doors. All 199 employees of the coal operation were issued Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices with furloughs effective April 1. Alliance said Mettiki employees not…
Read MoreTitan kicks on graphite production at Kilbourne
American graphite production is advancing the critical minerals race thanks to the start of graphite concentrate production at its Kilbourne demonstration facility, located within its Empire State mine complex in New York. As Titan has now successfully produced natural flake graphite concentrate, it will transition to the production of material for customer and government qualification programs, which it said marks…
Read MoreTrump administration taking 10% stake in USA Rare Earth
USA Rare Earth confirmed this week that it has a letter of intent with the federal government that gives the company funding access to $1.6 billion and the administration a 10% stake. The LOI, which comes from the Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Program, includes a proposed $277 million of federal funding and $1.3 billion in a senior secured loan from…
Read MoreUnited States Antimony acquires critical minerals facility
Critical minerals producer United States Antimony has secured the property acquisition of a critical minerals flotation facility in Montana. The deal, which closed January 16, includes property and equipment in Radersburg, between Helena and Bozeman, not far from its Thompson Falls smelter. The fully operational campus was purchased for $4.75 million in cash. The miner has earmarked $2 million in…
Read MoreRio Tinto ups Kennecott’s solar power capacity
Rio Tinto has confirmed it recently energized a new 25-megawatt solar plant at the Kennecott copper operations complex in Utah, showcasing a circular critical-minerals supply chain in which tellurium produced at the site is used to manufacture the panels now powering it. Together with the 5-MW solar plant completed in 2023, Kennecott now has 30MW of solar capacity. The move…
Read MoreMining equipment starting up at Borealis
Canadian junior Borealis Mining has confirmed the mobilization of mining equipment at its Borealis gold operation in Nevada, pushing forward to the company’s ultimate goal of restarting operations. The company, which has retained contractor CMI (Ledcor) to perform the work at the mine, said that the heavy mining equipment, production drill rigs and support equipment are now arriving at the…
Read MoreIoneer, Cat dealer Empire announce Rhyolite Ridge pact
Ioneer and Empire Southwest, the Caterpillar dealer for Arizona, Nevada and parts of eastern California, have signed a master service agreement for sales, services, goods, technology, and equipment rental that will help to advance the Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron project in Nevada. Rhyolite Ridge, located in Esmeralda County, Nev., is the largest undeveloped lithium-boron ore reserve in the world outside of…
Read MoreAclara, Argonne National Lab partnering on AI digital twin
Canadian miner Aclara Resources’ U.S.-based subsidiary, Aclara Technologies, has entered a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory to develop an artificial intelligence-enabled digital twin for Aclara’s heavy rare earth separation process. Under the terms of the agreement, the two will leverage Argonne’s SolventX modeling platform alongside Argonne’s advanced computing, process modeling,…
Read MoreAWS to use Nuton copper in data centers
Rio Tinto announced a two-year agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that will see AWS become Nuton Technology’s first customer following an industrial-scale deployment of the bioleaching technology at Gunnison Copper’s Johnson Camp mine last month. AWS will use the first Nuton copper ever produced in components of its U.S. data centers, while also providing cloud-based data and analytics support…
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