Vale's Sudbury Smelter Complex - Vale Photo

Vale is spending $2 billion on the largest environmental project in the history of the company to reduce sulpher dioxide emissions at their Sudbury smelter.

When the project is completed, the sulpher emissions will have been decreased by over 95% over the past thirty years.

BNN interviews Jennifer Hooper: Vale Vice-President of Sustainability:

http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip589421

http://www.mineweb.com/

On the release of Metals Economics Group’s Corporate Exploration Strategies, Jason Goulden looks at why green fields exploration is falling and where companies are looking for new ounces

Interviewer: Mineweb.com’s Geoff Candy

GEOFF CANDY:  Welcome to this Mineweb.com Newsmaker podcast – joining me on the line is Jason Goulden, he’s the vice president for research at the Metals Economics Group – they released last week, their 22nd edition of the Corporate Exploration Strategies and they estimate that the 2011 budget for non-ferrous metals exploration is going to jump to $18.2bn.  Perhaps if we look first at where this exploration is taking place, you mention in the report that it’s the high risk regions that have seen some growth to 23%.  Does that imply a higher tolerance for risk or the fact that they can’t find anything in less risky areas?

JASON GOULDEN:  A little bit of both actually – as exploration tends to increase year-on-year and at times when we have very high exploration like we do now, companies tend to be a little more tolerant to that risk – they will go into those countries, where we see strong dips and exploration spending like we did in 2009 – that’s the first exploration spend that tends to be cut.  Read the rest of this entry »

Metals Economics Group’s 22nd Corporate Exploration Strategies Study

U.S. dollar currency is used throughout this press release.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 23, 2011 – According to Metals Economics Group’s (MEG) 22nd edition of Corporate Exploration Strategies (CES), the estimated total 2011 budget for nonferrous metals exploration surged to $18.2 billion. Despite increased volatility in recent months, metals prices—the primary driver of exploration spending—have remained relatively strong in 2011, giving confidence to the industry; as a result, exploration budgets increased by $6.1 billion, up 50% from 2010 to set a new all-time high. (Note: nonferrous exploration refers to expenditures related to precious and base metals, diamonds, uranium, and some industrial minerals; it specifically excludes iron ore, aluminum, coal, and oil and gas.)

Estimated Global Nonferrous Exploration Budgets and Indexed Metals Price*, 1993-2011**

© Metals Economics Group, 2011

Read the rest of this entry »

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The temperature was a frigid -40 C. The boy was found drunk, wearing a T-shirt and didn’t know where he lived. Without the outreach organization the Red Coats — and the financial support it gets from United Way — the boy could have died on Sudbury’s streets that night, Jeanne Warwick- Conroy said.

Thanks to a large donation from Vale and the United Steelworkers, and the money raised by Sudburians this year, the United Way is able to continue supporting the community. The annual Vale-United Steelworkers fundraiser more than doubled what it raised in 2010, to the tune of $734,710.

“It’s an amazing amount of money,” Warwick-Conroy, the chair of the 2011 United Way campaign, said Tuesday afternoon. “We are so delighted. They’ve worked so hard, they’re so generous, and they will be helping 54 agencies in the city of Sudbury to meet their goals.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Sudbury will continue to shine as one of Canada’s few diamond cutting and processing facilities because of a new agreement with the Government of Ontario.

Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci announced Tuesday that Vancouver- based Crossworks Manufacturing Inc. will receive the 2012-2015 allocation of diamonds from Victor Mine.

Crossworks runs the diamond processing facility in downtown Sudbury, employing 29 people to cut and polish the precious gems. The number of employees will increase to 50 during the next three years, said Bartolucci, who is minister of Northern Development and Mines.

Under an agreement between De Beers, which owns Victor Mine, and the Ontario government, 10% of diamonds mined at Victor must be processed in Ontario. Read the rest of this entry »

Montreal, Canada – December 21, 2011 – KWG Resources Inc. (TSXV: KWG) advises that it is working  with the United Way of Thunder Bay to facilitate donations of up to $2 million for the founding by Wasaya Group of residences for students of the Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School.

Chief Theresa Okimaw-Hall, Executive Director of KWG’s transportation subsidiary Canada Chrome Corporation explained,

“KWG will complete a private placement of flow-through shares to fund its half of the current drilling program at the Big Daddy deposit being conducted by Cliffs Natural Resources.  The purchasers of the flow-through shares will then donate the shares to the United Way of Thunder Bay. The funds derived from their sale, through a working agreement with KWG Resources and the Wasaya Group/WasayaWee-Chee-Way-Win Inc. will then be made available for the acquisition, furnishing and maintenance of residences for students attending the Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

Across Northern Canada, the mining and transport industries mourn the death of John Zigarlick Jr.  One of the North’s modern-day mining visionaries and builders, he died suddenly in Edmonton Dec. 17, of natural causes.  He was 74.

It was his audacious decision in 1980 to build the Lupin Gold Mine by air that secured his place in mining history.   As President of Echo Bay Mines, he bought a Boeing 727 and a Hercules freighter and airlifted 64 million pounds of material from Yellowknife. This and other developments vaulted Echo Bay into the spotlight as a mid-tier world gold miner.

Lupin was also the genesis of the 600 km Tibbitt to Contwoyto ice road, first built in 1982, that supplied the mine for the rest of its 18 year life.  By the early 1990s, John had left Echo Bay and, in a joint venture with the Inuit of western Nunavut, started the Nuna Corporation which since 1997 has built and operated the road for the NWT’s diamond mines. John grew Nuna into a multi-layered construction, training and consulting services to mining and exploration companies across the arctic. Read the rest of this entry »