Canada’s rich and varied landscape has made it a historically vital country for the production of metals and minerals. From the gold-rushes of past centuries to the industrial demands for metallurgic coal to the increasing need for commodities used in clean energy technologies – mining specialists have for hundreds of years come to Canada for the vast riches and resources lying beneath its surface. These are the mining projects to watch in Canada in 2020.
A startup backed by several billionaire investors led by Bill Gates, plan to mine for cobalt in an area roughly the size of New York City in northern Quebec. The startup is San Francisco-based KoBold metals and they’ve acquired rights to the 1,000 km2 area located south of the Raglan nickel mine owned by Glencore. The company, founded in 2018, plan to use data analytics and advanced mapping to collect geophysical data that will help them locate cobalt deposits. In their words, they want to build a “Google Maps for the Earth’s crust.”