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Day: May 3, 2012

Higher resource prices lead to more deals done – by Bryan Borzykowski (Globe and Mail – May 3, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

This has been a busy year for Brian Pukier, a partner with law firm Stikeman Elliott LLP and head of its Toronto mergers and acquisitions group. After a slow summer last year, the M&A space is finally back to normal, he says. “We’d always like more deals, but our firm is keeping busy,” he says.
 
Mr. Pukier’s firm does a lot of work in the resource space; he’s seen a lot of deals done in mining, energy and oil and gas, in particular. He points to high commodity prices, demand from Asia and higher overall confidence in the economy as reasons for the increase.
 
M&As won’t return to 2006-2007 levels, when everyone was making deals, he says, but the rest of the year will only get better. “As long as banks are lending, which they are, then I think we’re going to stay at least consistent,” he says.
 
While this country’s M&A market is doing nicely, the same can’t be said for the rest of the world. Global M&A activity last quarter was down 23 per cent year-over-year, according to Dealogic, a London, U.K.-based company that helps banks analyze capital markets.

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Quebec’s Front-Line Forests [Plan Nord] – New York Times Editorial (May 2, 2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/

In April, the government of Premier Jean Charest introduced a bill in the Quebec National Assembly that seeks to protect nearly 150 million acres — half of northern Quebec, an area the size of France — from industrial development, including logging, mining and petroleum exploration. The bill matters, not just to Canada but to the world: The boreal forests and tundra of northern Canada remain a relatively intact ecosystem, absorbing more carbon than the world’s tropical forests and providing a vital buffer against global warming. Industrial development would weaken that buffer, and, as things stand now, there is almost nothing to prevent it.

As envisioned by Mr. Charest, the bill would have made a firm commitment to prevent all industrial activity. As revised by government bureaucrats, the latest version promises only that, at some future point, steps will be taken to “protect the environment, maintain biodiversity, enhance the natural heritage and promote the sustainable use of resources.” Mr. Charest is the leader of a majority government, so the bill will almost certainly pass. Before it does, it needs to be strengthened to prohibit even piecemeal development in this sensitive region.

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N.Y. Times praises Plan Nord but raises concerns – by Michelle Lalonde (Montreal Gazette – May 3, 2012)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

MONTREAL – A recent editorial in the New York Times praises Premier Jean Charest’s Plan Nord bill as “a remarkable precedent,” but critics note it also adds to growing pressure on Charest to strengthen the bill so that it truly protects from development half of northern Quebec, as Charest promised in his re-election campaign.
 
The $80-billion Plan Nord was billed by Charest as a way to preserve half of Quebec’s north by 2035, while allowing sustainable mining and forestry in the other half.

“The bill matters,” the editorial in Tuesday’s Times says, “not just to Canada but to the world: The boreal forests and tundra of northern Canada remain a relatively intact ecosystem, absorbing more carbon than the world’s tropical forests and providing a vital buffer against global warming.”
 
The editorial goes on to say that Charest had made a firm commitment to prevent all industrial activity in 150 million acres — half of northern Quebec, an area the size of France — but that government bureaucrats have watered down his intentions. The bill now promises only that at some future point steps will be taken to protect the environment and promote the sustainable use of resources.

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Confusion on the ground [Ontario mineral exploration and Miners United] – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – May 2012)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

Exploration industry mobilizes on new regs, First Nation issues Develop the North, park the south. That was on a popular button making the rounds at the Northwestern Ontario Mines and Minerals Symposium in Thunder Bay last month. The blue sky weather mirrored the optimism at the annual spring fraternity gathering of prospectors and junior
explorers.

But there was also an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with Queen’s Park over new mining regulations coming into force this summer, and the provincial government’s hands-off approach to smoothing tensions between industry and First Nations.

A March story published in the Globe and Mail covering a Toronto meeting of a group of 60 frustrated prospectors and junior exploration executives – dubbed Miners United – only brought to light what has been talked about in industry circles for years. That secret six-figure deals have been made between some companies and First Nations in order to gain access to claims on Crown land that Aboriginals consider traditional territory. For many small junior miners and prospectors, it’s setting an ever-increasing dangerous pattern of cash payouts that will hurt the early grass roots stages of exploration.

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Duel between Potash Corp and BHP far from over – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – May 3, 2012)

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

The hostile takeover battle ended 18 months ago, but the fight to dominate Canada’s potash resources seems far from over between Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. and BHP Billiton Ltd.
 
After fending off the Australian mining giant’s $39-billion bid with Ottawa’s help, Potash chief executive Bill Doyle said he remains a doubter about BHP’s Plan B — to build a Canadian-based global potash business from the ground up, starting with its proposed Jansen mine.
 
In an interview, Mr. Doyle suggested BHP’s construction progress at the Jansen mine and its expanding presence in Saskatoon are just part of “horse racing” in a competitive business.
 
“Until they decide to push ahead, we’ll believe it when we see it,” he said during a stop in Calgary, where he attended a meeting of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives this week.

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Barrick defends itself against Occupiers – by Dana Flavelle (Toronto Star – May 3, 2012)

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Under siege by the Occupy Toronto movement, Canada’s largest gold miner spent a large part of its annual general meeting Wednesday defending its track record as a responsible corporate citizen.

A heavy police presence ensured most Occupy protestors remained in Simcoe Park across the street from the Metro Convention Centre where Barrick Gold Corp. held its annual gathering of shareholders.

But even before a proxy holder representing indigenous groups in Chile raised some difficult questions inside the corporate meeting, Barrick founder and chairman Peter Munk acknowledged the protestors’ presence.

“Last night, I went home and to avoid the demonstrators who try to Occupy Wall Street, who try to Occupy Bay Street — I’m sure they’re all well-meaning and determined people and I was going to ask my driver, don’t avoid them, take me there. I want to talk to them. I don’t have all the facts — but wiser heads than me prevailed and I was taken home through a difficult route.”

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[Cliff’s] Smelter decision expected – by Star staff (Sudbury Star – May 3, 2012)

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

A decision on where to locate a $1.8-billion Ring of Fire chromite smelter will be made in days, the CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources said this week. Joe Carrabba said Tuesday in Thunder Bay the decision is imminent, CBC Radio reports.

Cliffs, a Cleveland-based mining company, has used a former mine site in Capreol to build a test case for the facility, which would process chromite from northwestern Ontario.

In an email Wednesday, Patricia Persico, the senior manager of media relations for Cliffs, confirmed the company will make the announcement sooner rather than later. However, she said, a date and time has not yet been set.

A number of groups and communities in Northern Ontario have lobbied hard for the smelter, which would create 400 to 500 jobs. Native leaders in northwestern Ontario also say the plant should be built on their land, closer to the mine.

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Home of the World’s Greatest Mining Business: Sudbury – by Ross Harkness (Star Weekly – March 14, 1953)

The Star Weekly, which ceased publication in 1973, was the weekend supplement to the Toronto Star.

The real silent service is not the Royal Navy; it is the Canadian nickel industry. While Labrador, Chibougamau, Kitmat and Alberta have been reveling in the white light of publicity, the Sudbury basin of Ontario has gone quietly about he business of building up the most gigantic mining enterprise in Canada and the biggest of its kind in the world.

It is hard to avoid talking in superlatives when the people of Sudbury boast, quite truthfully, that no civilized man in the Western world passes a day of his life without using in some form or other a product of their rocky environs.

They will tell you, and the dominion bureau of statistics confirms it, that Sudbury workers are the highest paid in Canada, earning an average of $66.05 a week, compared with and average of $54.47 in Toronto and $50.75 in Montreal.

They boast, and the department of labour agrees, that they are the most unionized area in Canada, and that their local 598 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers is twice as big and twice as rich as any other in Canada.

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