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Day: June 16, 2011

Ontario Mining Association (OMA) members partner to help train, graduate and hire First Nations employees

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Mining is the largest private sector employer of Aboriginals in Canada.  Aboriginals
represent 7.5% of the mining workforce.  Between 1996 and 2006, there was a 43%
increase in the number of Aboriginals employed in the mineral sector rising from
2,600 to more than 4,500.  In the five years since 2006, this number has increased
significantly as more mining exploration and development takes place in areas
close to Aboriginal communities. (OMA)

Six First Nation members, who graduated recently from an underground miner training program, have found instant employment with Ontario Mining Association members Northgate Minerals and Dumas Contracting.  A partnership between these companies and the Matachewan First Nation under the Matachewan Aboriginal Access to Mine Jobs Training Strategy (MAATS) created these employment opportunities.

The second group of graduates under this MAATS program included David Batisse, Dustin Roy, John Cloutier and Chad Larkman from the Matachewan First Nation, Katlin Maurer from Beaverhouse First Nation and Kohl Porter of the Mattagami First Nation.   Three of the graduates have been hired by Northgate Minerals and three have been hired by Dumas Contracting.

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Ontario’s Ring of Fire: An Issue of Sustainability – by Patrick Whiteway (Canadian Mining Review Blog – May 29, 2011)

Canadian Mining Review: Discussing ideas and issues related to mining in Canada 

Our national mineral development strategy should include a requirement
to use mineral resources to our advantage by processing them prior to export.
(Patrick Whiteway)

The close proximity of Ontario’s Ring of Fire, Manitoba’s Thompson Nickel Belt and low carbon-emitting hydro power, give Canada an unparalleled opportunity to become a long-term, sustainable producer of stainless steel, the enviro-metal. If only the sustainability of the northern boreal forest could be assured as well.

Massive deposits of chromite and nickel have been discovered in the ‘Ring of Fire’ under the boreal forest of northwestern Ontario and plans by Cliffs Natural Resources and Noront Resources respectively to develop them are well underway. How this development is managed by the federal and provincial governments could be historically significant for resource development in Canada.

The scale of the undertaking is huge. It could, in the next 10 years, create Canada’s first chromite mine and with an appropriate level of visionary leadership, could also transform Canada into the lowest-carbon-emitting source of stainless steel on the planet.

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Papua New Guinea [Ramu nickel laterite project] and China’s New Empire – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – January 3, 2009)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. Please note that this article was orginally published January 3, 2009.

MADANG, Papua New Guinea

When Chinese engineers landed in Papua New Guinea in 2006 to inspect their latest mineral acquisition, they faced an arduous journey through the tropical wilderness. They drove over crumbling roads to the Ramu River, then found natives with dugout canoes to paddle them upstream. Next, they hired another team of locals with machetes to slash a rough trail for eight hours through the steamy jungle, dodging poisonous snakes and malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

“It was terrible,” recalls Wang Chun, the chief engineer. “You couldn’t breathe.”

Today, less than three years later, a series of small Chinatowns has emerged in the jungle — complete with Chinese food, Chinese satellite television channels and crews of Chinese migrant labourers living in cheap dormitory huts. Where once was wilderness, you find the workers of China Metallurgical Group Corp., toiling seven days a week and chattering about their families back home in Beijing and Sichuan.

It hasn’t been easy. The state-owned mining company has dealt with violent clashes with local landowners, striking workers, attacks from the media and unfriendly police who arrested more than 200 Chinese technicians on charges of illegally entering the country.

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NEWS RELEASE: Sherritt Provides Revised Estimates for the Ambatovy [Nickel Laterite] Project

TORONTO, June 14, 2011 – Sherritt International Corporation (TSX: S) today announced, following completion of a review of the estimated schedule and associated capital cost of the Ambatovy Project, that the Board of Directors has approved a revised schedule that anticipates first metal in first quarter 2012 and an associated capital cost estimate of US$5.5 billion, excluding financing charges, foreign exchange and working capital requirements. Sherritt will fund its 40% of the capital cost increase directly from funds on hand.

The 16% (US$740 million) increase from the prior estimate is attributable to:

• inaccurate bulk material quantity estimates (including piping and electrical materials), the additional cost to procure, ship and install the materials, as well as the impact of poor performance by certain contractors (US$300 million, or 41% of the increase);
• additional service costs associated with the extension of the schedule, including site support services (which include food and accommodation), and additional EPCM services (US$195 million, or 26% of the increase); and

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Nickel Sulfide Versus Laterite: The Hard Sustainability Challenge Remains – by Gavin M. Mudd (2009)

Gavin M. Mudd works at the Environmental Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, CLAYTON, Victoria, Australia 3800 (Gavin.Mudd@eng.monash.edu.au)

“A major concern with this increasing proportion of laterite nickel is that, although technology such as HPAL now exists to make processing of laterite ores more viable (technically and financially), it is widely perceived to be at a higher environmental cost.” (Gavin M. Mudd – 2009)

ABSTRACT

There are widespread nickel resources around the world, but divided principally between nickel sulfide or laterite (oxide) resources. Historically production has been dominated by sulfide ores but future production is increasing shifting to laterite ores. The principal reason for this historically is that sulfide ores are easier to process, through conventional mining, smelting and refining, compared to laterite ores which require intensive hydrometallurgical processing (such as high pressure acid leaching or HPAL).

This means that laterite ores typically require substantially more energy and chemicals to produce than sulfide nickel. Given that many major nickel companies report annually on their sustainability performance, such as Eramet, Inco (now Vale Inco), WMC Resources (now BHP Billiton), Norilsk Nickel, there is data available to examine in detail the differences in the environmental costs of nickel sulfide versus laterite.

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NEWS RELEASE: Watts Griffis McOuat releases Cu-Ni-PGE Study [for best Canadian exploration targets]

Watts, Griffis and McOuat Limited (“WGM”) is Canada’s longest running (established in 1962) independent firm of geological and mining consultants providing value-added professional services of the highest standards to the global mineral resource industry.

May 10th, 2011

WGM has completed a yearlong study of potential Cu-Ni-PGE exploration targets in Canada. The objective of the study was to identify underexplored areas that exhibit significant exploration potential.

WGM’s team, led by J. Konnunaho, a geologist from the Finnish Geological Survey and an expert in such mineralization, reviewed and prepared an outline of prospective areas in Canada hosting the most favourable depositional environments that could contain such types of mineralization. The study identified and examined 26 such settings, all of which have various levels of demonstrated potential for hosting Cu-Ni-PGE deposits. Targets were then selected based on the following search criteria;

1) current economic potential;

2) accessibility to exploration (remote areas impact exploration costs);

3) geological setting, the presence of those features most favourable for Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization;

4) demonstrated historical and or recent exploration results;

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The Charges Against Big Nickel [in 1946 by U.S. government] – by Richard Mills (Jun 9, 2011)

Richard Mills owns no shares of any companies mentioned in this report and none are advertisers on his site www.aheadoftheherd.com

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information

In 1946, in New York City, the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice filed a complaint against Inco and its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, International Nickel Co. Inc.

Canada’s Inco, at the time, owned 90% of the world’s nickel ore and supplied 90% of U.S. nickel needs.

The charges brought were:

■Conspiracy to prevent competition in the nickel industry
■Fixing prices
■Making cartel agreements with I. G. Farbenindustrie, A. G. and two French companies to prevent competition and peg prices in the world market

The Department of Justice said the nickel industry ceased to be competitive earlier in the century when Charles Schwab arranged a merger between Canadian companies with nickel ore and U.S. companies with the chemical process for separating nickel from copper. Holdings of this combine were consolidated under Inco, Ltd. in 1928.

How ironic that in 2010 the US did not have any active nickel mines. Nickel has a very interesting history and is still extremely important in the everyday functioning of our modern economies.

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Is a Profitable Nickel Laterite (HPAL) Mine a ‘Black Swan’? – by Patrick Whiteway (Canadian Mining Review Blog – January 31, 2011)

Canadian Mining Review: Discussing ideas and issues related to mining in Canada 

Thoughts on mining nickel laterites inspired by two recent books: ‘Linkages of Sustainability’ and ‘The Black Swan.’  

It’s October 2008 and I’m relaxing in a second-row seat of an air conditioned tour bus. It’s crossing the Swan River in beautiful downtown Perth, Australia, when the driver suggests to passangers that the river should be called the Black Swan River. That’s because 300 years ago, he explains, European explorers first visited this part of Western Australia and saw black swans for the very first time. Up until then, the only swans they had seen were white ones. Seeing black swans on this wide, lazy river revolutionized their thinking.

Reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s best-selling book “The Black Swan,” could revolutionize your thinking. This book is all about highly improbable events. Taleb skillfully questions how we think about these events that turn out to have serious consequences. He calls them ‘black swans’ and as I’ll show here, they have a significant role to play in the mining industry.

As a Canadian mine engineer who has visited and written reports on many mines in Canada, I can tell you that improbable events, sometimes called simply luck, surprises, randomness or human error, have enormous consequences for the success or failure of many mines. The only successful, high pressure acid leach (or HPAL) nickel laterite operation in Australia is one of my favorite examples.

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Nickel plunging into bear market on biggest glut in 4 years – by Agnieszka Troszkiewicz and Maria Kolesnikova – Bloomberg News (National Post – June 13, 2011)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

www.bloomberg.com

At a time of scarcity in everything from crude oil to copper to corn, nickel is heading for the biggest glut in four years, driving prices lower into 2012.

Next year’s surplus will rise to 60,000 metric tonnes from 12,000 tonnes in 2011, making nickel the most oversupplied metal relative to output or use, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the most-accurate forecaster tracked by Bloomberg over two years. New mines will boost supply 11% in 2012, the most in 17 years, Macquarie Group Ltd. says. Prices may drop 12% to US$20,000 a ton by Dec. 31, the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 17 analysts and traders shows.

“I’m not particularly optimistic about nickel,” said Ian Henderson, who manages about US$10 billion of natural-resource assets at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in London, including the Global Natural Resources Fund, which doubled in two years. “I don’t think there is a commercial logic for the price where it is today. A nickel price of US$15,000 is entirely possible.”

While raw-material producers are failing to extract enough copper and oil and droughts threaten crops, nickel supply is expanding faster than demand.

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