Fortune Minerals Ltd T.FT

Canaries in the cobalt mines:

[Spuds21]

Canaries in the cobalt mines:

• Exxon Mobil’s CEO expects every new passenger car sold in the world to be electric by 2040.
• The Vancouver auto e-tailer Canada Drives raised $40 million from lender Goeasy. 
• Revenue rose at BlackBerry’s Internet-of-Things division, which includes auto software, despite an overall sales slowdown.
• U.S. Senator Joe Manchin said Democrats have scrapped an EV incentive that could have hurt Canadian plants.
• The federal government is pushing back new emissions standards on gasoline and diesel for another year.
• The Chinese battery maker CATL’s share sale raised US$6.7 billion and Polestar went public via SPAC. 
• A Canadian rare-earths firm was targeted by Chinese propagandists posing as Texans.
• LG Energy Solution is considering other options for its plan to build a plant in Arizona, citing economic concerns.

 
 

TSX sees mining “renaissance” 

 
 

If it feels like every day this week marked a new critical-minerals announcement … Well, you’re not far off there. 

Quick recap: Ford struck a lithium deal in Australia with Tesla supplier Liontown Resources; Imperial Oil is working with a lithium miner in Alberta; Stellantis is investing €50 million in the lithium miner Vulcan Energy; Electra Battery Materials is considering a new cobalt refinery in Bcancour, Que.; the Toronto investment manager Waratah Capital Advisors is mulling a sale or IPO of its lithium-royalties business; Ivanhoe Electric posted the biggest public-market debut in the past month on the NYSE; a significant lithium deposit was discovered in Quebec and will restart mining there; and Ontario has its first minister focused solely on mines since 1970. 

The announcements come amid a scramble to build a local EV battery-supply chain. 

All said: Toronto Stock Exchange CEO Loui Anastasopoulos told Reuters that critical-mineral mining could lead the market in raising capital this year, rather than tech firms. “We are cautiously optimistic … but something quite interesting will happen in the mining space over the next 12 to 24 months,” he told the wire service.

 
 

Mining the internet: 

• Consumers face long wait times to buy an EV, and patience is wearing thin, with gas prices above 200 cents per litre in almost every province. Several automakers told The Globe and Mail that wait times for EV models could stretch into next year, while car buyers told the National Observer they were on waitlists ranging from six to 18 months. The EV shortage comes amid a wider new-car shortage that dealers now think could last until 2024.
• Ford has recalled its new F-150 Lightning, including 220 vehicles in Canada, for issues with tire-pressure-monitoring software. It comes after Toyota and Subaru both recalled their new EV SUVs last week due to the risk of the wheels coming loose. 
• Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun is part of a new push to allow more autonomous-trucking tests in California. She signed an open letter to the governor, alongside Canadian entrepreneurs Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora, and Alex Rodrigues, CEO and co-founder of Embark. The CEO of Gatik, which has a Toronto office and runs AVs for Loblaw, is also a signatory.

Now hiring: Some good news this week in a dim economy. Jobs in the “carbon-reducing motor vehicles” sector jumped 25 per cent in 2021 in the U.S., and it was one of the few categories of energy-related jobs that did not decrease in 2020. Overall motor-vehicle jobs rose nearly 12 per cent last year, with more than 30 per cent job growth for plug-in-hybrid makers in the U.S., where the auto industry is deeply entwined with Canada’s.

[red]

FT is in a good space in the near perfect CM BM storm occurring all around us.... like we are on the Eye of it. 

[parahyangam]

There is a storm of another kind coming.  It will dwarf battery metals demand. Massive global demand for fabricated steel and metallurgical coal. Why did Fortune surrender the Arctos leases two months before defaulting on the Lascaux silver mine loan? Whose idea was this? It is well beyond incompetence. Why did POSCO not buy out the other 50% of Arctos they did not already own? Forget

[Wallyneptune]

A shareholder with logic 

[Jim1712]

Dude.  Maybe you should read all of the past material on Mount Klappan /Arctos.   First Nations was never and will never allow it to be developed.  End of story.    Nico is a much better story. A refinery/ battery recycling plant and mine with three great metals and the full support of First Nations.  Green energy ! Jim 

[Wallyneptune]

Then why did they buy it in the first place?

[parahyangam]

POSCO invested over 150 milllion in Arctos, initially for a paltry 20% ownership in exchange for Fortune shares. Did POSCO do this without any guarantees? Just a wild turkey shoot? In May 2014 the BC government, who no doubt was involved in the initial Arctos guarantee negotiations, gave Fortune an interest free loan for 18 million lasting 10 years for nothing more than parking the Arctos 

[Wallyneptune]

I think you have Jim speechless keep up the good work tic tok tic tok Wally