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Canada to speed up crucial mineral mining - energy minister

Canada plans to enhance its energy security by slashing the time it requires to establish brand-new important mineral mines by nearly a decade with improved permitting processes, energy minister Jonathan Wilkinson informed on Tuesday.

Ottawa is focused on six crucial minerals essential to making electrical cars and wind turbines: lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper, and so-called rare earth elements.

Wilkinson said the mining and processing of critical minerals was currently too dominated by China.

( We're) looking at how do we optimise the regulatory and long-term procedures so you can take what is a 12 to 15-year procedure and bring it down to maybe five, he said.

There are ways you can just do things smarter ... There's. no factor that you can't do allowing of different things. between provincial and federal governments at the exact same time,. instead of doing them sequentially.

Canada prepares to minimize the time to authorize mining permits by. much better funding the regulatory agency to eliminate documents. backlogs and running allowing and ecological evaluation. processes at the same time.

The country will have to continue importing cobalt,. Wilkinson said, due to its minimal resources of the metal. China. controls most of the world's refined cobalt and unusual earths. products.

To cover costs, Canada is putting in place financial investment tax. credits to spend for a significant piece of the capital. related to new mining and mineral processing jobs,. Wilkinson said.

Funds are also all set to be provided for infrastructure. like transmission lines and roadways that will assist accelerate the. development of brand-new minerals, he included.

The government is also investing billions of dollars in. several companies' battery factory projects in Canada, consisting of. Swedish battery producer Northvolt and German automobile producer. Volkswagen.

A loan assurance program is being put in place too to. offer access for native neighborhoods to inexpensive debt for. investing as equity individuals in existing and future. projects, Wilkinson stated.

In July, a group of 5 First Country neighborhoods opposed. versus mining strategies in the so-called Ring of Fire, an area. in the remote James Bay Lowlands of northern Ontario that is. seen as the next frontier for mining metals such as copper,. cobalt and nickel.

Wilkinson stated enhancing allowing and environmental. evaluations would not lead to corner-cutting.

I think the environmental community likewise recognises that. there is no energy shift without significantly improved. volumes of crucial minerals, he stated.

(source: Reuters)