May 12, 2012 – Republic of Mining

Good reason for optimism around Ring of Fire progress – Point of View – by Brian MacLeod (Sudbury Star – May 12, 2012)

May 12, 2012

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper and Brian MacLeod is the managing editor. brian.macleod@sunmedia.ca

When a mining project moves from pre-feasibility to the feasibility stage, it’s often done through a news release and follow-up interviews with the press. It’s a significant step, but not usually the whopper we saw this week when U.S. firm Cliffs Natural Resources made its announcement.

What made this one different is the size — $3.3 billion all told — and the announced location of a proposed $1.8-billion ferrochrome smelter in Sudbury to process material from the Ring of Fire chromite deposit in northwestern Ontario.

As well, Cliffs officials indicated they had come to an understanding with the province on the cost of power. And so we saw press conferences in Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Cleveland on Wednesday. While people in Greater Sudbury were happy, the Liberals took a beating elsewhere.

We have Sudbury’s back on Cliffs: Ministry – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – May 12, 2012)

May 12, 2012

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

Ontario’s air standards are among the most stringent in the world, so the Ministry of the Environment will have its eye on Cliffs Natural Resources as it develops its $3.3-billion Ring of Fire project.

That project includes a $1.8- billion ferrochrome processing plant to be built near Capreol. Mining projects such as Cliffs’ are subject to extensive environmental assessments both federally and provincially, says Environment ministry spokeswoman Kate Jordan.

Cliffs will have to receive “numerous” provincial approvals before moving forward with the project. Those environmental assessments will include identifying and predicting how the company can mitigate the environmental effects of these projects.

Cliffs will have to demonstrate that its smelter will meet all provincial minimum applicable standards, specifically related to chromium, said Jordan. The province has different standards for different types of chromium.

[Yukon] Gold rush – by Jason Unrau (National Post – May 12, 2012)

May 12, 2012

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

TheYukon mining boom shows no signs of slowing,but environmentalists fear forthe safety of the Peel watershed

At the turn of the 19th century it played host to the famed Klondike Gold Rush that drew thousands to the rugged wilderness in search of riches, but now the Yukon entertains a newer, more modern kind of mining rush.

For the past two years, mineral exploration here has been through the roof, nearly half-a-billion dollars spent searching for the next motherlode of gold, silver, copper, zinc, molybdenum or tungsten and nearly 200,000 claims staked.

“From July [2011] I flew 10 months worth of hard staking and we probably singlehandedly staked 25 to 30,000 claims,” said Ben Drury, a pilot with Horizon Helicopters, one of the many charter services in the Yukon that benefited from the staking craze.

The end of thought? [Jeff Rubin: The End of Growth] – by Philip Cross (National Post – May 11, 2012)

May 12, 2012

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

Philip Cross is the former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada.

Jeff Rubin forgets that knowledge, not cheap oil, brings growth

Jeff Rubin is the kind of guy I want to like. He made a remark in 2005 about sheiks and mullahs controlling oil supplies that provoked his handlers at CIBC, where he was chief economist for 20 years, to send him on a course to heighten his sensitivity and political correctness. If my former employers at Statistics Canada had been nearly as skittish, I could have spent much of my 36 years there taking courses. Anyway, the course apparently had its desired effect on Rubin, as his new book on The End of Growth is as politically correct as it gets when it comes to decrying our addiction to autos and suburbs, our indifference to climate change, and ultimately our grubby materialism.

This book is an extension of his previous work, in which he predicted high oil prices were here to stay, and would fundamentally alter how and where we live and work. In this book, he extends this thesis to claim that permanently high oil prices will permanently cripple economic growth. The book notes that this may not be all bad, since the end of growth would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, although I think for most people that would not take the sting out of being unemployed.

[Northern Ontario Alienation] Forget flying flag half mast … it’s time to light a match – by Wayne Snider (Timmins Daily Press – May 11, 2012)

May 12, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

At a time provincial Liberal cabinet ministers are strutting around the south — their chests all puffed out with pride — bragging about all the good they are doing for Northern Ontario, mayors from across the region are doing their damnedest to let everyone know the real reason behind such upper body over-inflation.

The government is full of hot air.

One day after Ohio-based Cliffs Resources announced it will invest $1.8 billion to build a chromite processing facility in Capreol — creating hundreds of direct jobs in the process — municipal leaders were calling the government out on Northern issues.

Kapuskasing Mayor Al Spacek, president of the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM), and Timmins Mayor Tom Laughren, chairman of the Northeastern Ontario Municipal Association (NEOMA), were front and centre at meetings in North Bay this week with other Northern political and business leaders. They were hell bent on spreading the word.

First Nation leaders threaten to pull support for Ring of Fire – by Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – May 11, 2012)

May 12, 2012

http://www.wawataynews.ca/

First Nation leaders are threatening to pull support for mining in the Ring of Fire, after Cliffs Resources’ announced it plans to locate its chromite processing plant in Sudbury.

Cliffs announced on May 9 that the mining company will go ahead with the $3.3 billion Ring of Fire project, which includes the chromite mine east of Webequie, a transportation route running south from the mine site to connect to highway 17 near Aroland, and a ferrochrome processing plant in Sudbury.

The decision goes against the wishes of First Nations and municipal leaders in northwestern Ontario, who wanted to see the processing plant located in Greenstone.

“It’s obvious the province and Cliffs haven’t been listening to First Nations, and what their concerns and their aspirations are,” said Nishnawbe Aski Nation Deputy Grand Chief Terry Waboose. “Today is a classic example of development going ahead without adequate consultation, input and consent from our First Nations.”