Editorial: One precious metal to rule them all

In this issue, we hail to the yellow precious metal. So far, gold has been on a remarkable run in 2024. The price of gold hit several record highs, including US$2,160 per oz. in March, US$2,265 per oz. in early April, and US$2,435 per oz. at the end of the third week of May. Since late May, gold prices have begun to settle. In June, the spot price of gold has been hovering around the US$2,300 per oz. mark. However, the surge continued as of the beginning of July, and by the time of drafting this article at the end of the third week of August, the prices were nearing a record US$2,500 per oz.

This surge has been driven by various factors, including geopolitical uncertainty, inflation concerns, and central banks’ reluctance to cut interest rates. Additionally, the World Gold Council’s mid-year outlook attributed the upward price movement to continued central bank buying, Asian investment flows, and resilient consumer demand. Overall, gold futures have increased by nearly 13% this year, and experts are expecting gold to be higher going into Q4.

Here in Canada, we recently celebrated the opening of two major gold mines in Ontario: Equinox’s Greenstone gold mine, located 275 km northeast of Thunder Bay, and Iamgold’s Côté Gold, located near Sudbury in northwestern Ontario. Two articles in this issue (pages 14-19) feature the recent updates on both mines.

While the article on page 12 initially paints a gloomy picture of Victoria Gold’s Eagle gold mine heap leach pad failure, it also offers the Yukon Chamber of Mines’ view of the current situation and the proposed course of action to deal with the impact of the incident on the environment and the local community. 

On another subject, since NASA is predicting a moon mining trial within the next decade, the article on page 21 sheds some light on the current and future endeavours to mine the moon.

Featured articles on maintenance, equipment, lubricants, technology, and communications can be found on pages 27-38 of this issue. Additionally, our regular columns on ESG and History of Mining discuss several interesting topics.

MINExpo International 2024 is at the end of September, and The Northern Miner group and the Canadian Mining Journal will be present at booth #222. Visit our booth to collect free copies of this issue and the annual Top 40 ranking August issue.

Finally, ESG related matters will dominate our October issue, as we focus on innovations that will lower carbon output and reduce environmental footprint. Additionally, there will be a feature report on mining in Quebec and the Maritimes. Relevant editorial contributions should be sent to the Editor in Chief no later than September 7, 2024.