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What are Canadian Mining Stocks

Like all economic sectors of this developed industrial country, Canada’s mining industry is a heaven of stability in the conditions of already abating economic and financial crisis. There are some leading publicly traded mining companies in Canada you may consider investing in.

From times immemorial, mankind has been intrinsically and wholeheartedly attracted to gold. So much so that the Church has, at some point, condemned this obsession, and labelled in it one of the seven deadly sins - “greed”. However, investing in gold mining companies is hardly considered a sin nowadays.

Here are some of the leading gold producers in Canada: Barrick Gold, Gold Corp, and Kinross Gold Corp. With as many as twenty-six operating gold mines on the territory of Canada and around the globe, Barrick Gold is the leading gold producer in Canada. Traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker ABX, the company has set up gold mines in some of the most prospective gold-yielding areas in the world such as Africa, Australia Pacific and the United States. Publicly traded at the stock exchanges in Toronto (ticker: G) and New York (ticker: GG), Gold Corp is the second largest gold producer in Canada. The company is headquartered in Vancouver, BC. Established back in 1993, Kinross Gold Corp is the third largest gold producer in Canada and it is also among the leading senior gold mining companies in the country.

Although Canada’s diamond mining industry is relatively young – established in 1998, it has seen an extraordinary, not to say, unprecedented, growth since then. At present, Canada has two operating diamond mines: The Ekati Mine started operating in the autumn of 1998, and the Diavik mine opened in the early 2003. Latest statistical data shows that in the period between 1997 and 2002, value added in the diamond mining industry grew from nill to well over half a billion US dollars. It is also worth mentioning that the production of the Ekati diamond mine is approximately 3 million carats of rough diamonds per year, while the Diavik diamond mine operates as a joint venture of Diavik Diamond Mines Inc and Aber Diamond Corporation, which in turn operates as a subsidiary of the mining giant, Rio Tinto.

Canada’s copper production accounts for a significant part of the country’s mining sector. Here are the leading copper producers, with largest shares in this sector of the economy. Named after Sir Walter Scot’s character, the Ivanhoe Mines Ltd is Canada’s leading copper producer. The company has also been developing copper mining projects in Asia Pacific, and it is traded on the stock exchanges in Toronto and New York under the symbol IVN. Other important copper producers in Canada are TECK Comico and First Quantum Minerals.

Canada’s leading uranium producers are Cameco, Uranium Participation Group and Frontier Development Group Inc, while the country’s leading platinum producers are Platinum Group Metals and Eastern Platinum Ltd.

Canada’s silver mining sector also offers good investment opportunities with the leading players here being Silvers Standard Resources and Silvercorp Metals Inc. Silver Standard is traded on the TSX under the ticker SSO while the shares of Silvercorp Metals are traded on NYSE and TSX under the ticker SVM.