June 20, 2012 – Republic of Mining

K+S turns sod on first new potash mine in Saskatchewan in 40 years – by Bruce Johnstone (Saskatoon Star Phoenix – June 19, 2012)

June 20, 2012

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

The company that’s building the first new potash mine in Saskatchewan in 40 years is the same company that helped build the last new potash mine in the province in the 1970s, before it was taken over by the then-NDP government to become Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan’s Lanigan mine.

But Nobert Steiner, CEO of K+S Group of Kassel, Germany, which is building the $3.25-billion solution potash mine near Bethune, 80 km northwest of Regina, says there are no hard feelings about the forced sale of the former Alwinsal mine to the Blakeney government for $76.5 million in 1977.

“Even more than a generation later, you can hardly believe that such an act could happen in a country belonging to the western world,’’ Steiner told participants at a sod-turning ceremony at the Legacy project site Tuesday. “However, after so many years, we are not looking back in anger anymore.’’

In fact, Steiner said K+S, which first came to Saskatchewan in the 1960s and started producing potash in 1968, was welcomed back to the province by none other than Premier Brad Wall. (Steiner said the K in K+S stands for Kali or potash in German, while the S stands for Salz or salt.)

Ring of Fire moving too fast, say chiefs – by Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – June 20, 2012)

June 20, 2012

http://www.wawataynews.ca/

Development of the Ring of Fire is moving far too fast for First Nations to adequately prepare, say the chiefs of two northern First Nations whose traditional lands overlap the proposed mining area.

Both Chief Eli Moonias of Marten Falls First Nation and Chief Cornelius Wabasse of Webequie First Nation say they are not against development, and they both want to ensure that First Nations benefit from any mining projects that do go ahead in their area.

But both agree that current pace of planning for the Ring of Fire, and the proposed schedule laid out by Cliffs Natural Resources for the first project in the region, does not give their communities time to prepare for the major changes facing them.

“I’d like to have time before everything starts so that we’re satisfied that we’re taking the right direction, so we’re not jumping to conclusions here,” Moonias said.

Marten Falls wants to further explore negotiations with the provincial government over resource revenue sharing, Moonias said. He also wants to see what happens with the judicial review of the environmental assessment, currently before the courts, before making any decisions on whether to support or oppose the proposed Ring of Fire projects.

NEWS RELEASE: Mining Association of Canada elects new Chairperson: Ian Pearce of Xstrata Nickel

June 20, 2012

Pearce brings 30 years of mining experience to his new role

OTTAWA, June 20, 2012 /CNW/ – The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) is pleased to announce that Ian Pearce, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Xstrata Nickel, has been elected Chairperson of MAC for a two-year term. Effective today, Mr. Pearce replaces Doug Horswill, Senior Vice President of Teck Resources Limited, who began his term in June 2010.

“We would like to thank Doug for his leadership over the past two years and we welcome Ian to his new role,” said Pierre Gratton, MAC’s President and CEO. “Ian brings three decades worth of mining expertise with him and has been actively involved in many of the Association’s activities. MAC and the Canadian industry at large will surely benefit under his direction.”

Mr. Pearce has been an active member of the MAC Board since 2007. He is also a member of the Executive Committee and the Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) Governance Team. In these roles, he provides support and input on the Association’s operations and provides guidance to MAC’s TSM initiative, which works to improve member company performance in the areas of corporate social responsibility and the environment.

Mining Boom in Great Lakes States Prompts Environmental Concern – by Jim Malewitz (Stateline/Pew Centre – May 24, 2012)

June 20, 2012

Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Center on the States that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy. http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline

BIG BAY, Michigan – For thousands of years, the Salmon Trout River held fast to a deep secret, as its pristine waters flowed into Lake Superior. Below the river’s headwaters, and hidden underneath 1,000 feet of sand, clay and rock, lie 4.1 million metric tons of ore speckled with valuable metals — primarily nickel and copper — a deposit that’s valued at as much as $5 billion.

The treasure is no longer a secret here on the Yellow Dog Plains, a region of Michigan’s Western Upper Peninsula marked by large swaths of untouched lands. The staccato of the hydraulic drill now overpowers the sound made by birds flying overhead, and trucks kick up dust where trees once stood. “I see something new every time I come here,” says Catherine Parker, noting a yellow electrical cord stretching across the ground, seemingly without end. The winding dirt road she drives is now bordered by a path of utility lines recently installed. It’s an addition that Parker, who doesn’t own a cell phone, says ruins the aesthetic.

Kennecott Minerals, a local subsidiary of the London-based mining giant, Rio Tinto, discovered the deposit about a decade ago. The company, which owns at least 400,000 of acres of mineral rights on the peninsula, is nearing completion of the nearly $500 million Eagle Mine, set to become the first primary nickel mine in the United States.

Queen’s Park continues to disappoint – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – June 20, 2012)

June 20, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Northerners can’t seem to get any satisfaction from Queen’s Park. When we want our provincial politicians to do something for us, they don’t it.

Even when they finally look like they’re doing something right, they screw it up. This has been no more evident than since the Ontario Liberals presented their budget. This, of course, came on the heels of the government’s announcement that it was going to privatize the Ontario Northerland Transportation Commission.

Naturally, we thought, great timing. Here we have the New Democrats in a position to force the Liberals hands by using the budget vote as leverage in preventing the sale of the ONTC.

As we know, the NDP made some demands and the Liberals made some concessions but the issue Northerners were particularly keen on — preventing the sale of the ONTC — was not part of that package.

Pacific Rim Mining locked in closely watched fight with El Salvador – by Jeff Gray (Globe and Mail – June 20, 2012)

June 20, 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.

Tom Shrake, the American mining industry veteran who heads Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Corp., is nothing if not an optimist.

He’s had no end of troubles: His staff in El Salvador have faced intimidation at gunpoint by local opponents of his proposed mine. Anti-mining groups have accused his company of involvement in the killings of local activists, charges he vehemently denies and for which he says there is no evidence. And the government of the tiny, impoverished country has decided to block all mining within El Salvador’s borders out of fear that a mishap could contaminate the country’s water supply.

But Mr. Shrake says he remains committed to digging for gold and, he argues, digging the local population in northern El Salvador out of poverty. This month, he got a green light to keep fighting for that plan from a World Bank investment tribunal in Washington – a fight being watched closely by the mining industry, international trade lawyers and anti-mining activists.

“We don’t want to go to court. We never wanted to go to court … But they left us no choice,” Mr. Shrake said in an interview from Reno, Nevada, where he is based.

The New Conquistadors [Canadian Miners Conlfict/Image in Panama] – Mellissa Fung, Paul Seeler and Lynn Burgess (CBC National News Documentary – June 18, 2012)

April 5, 2015June 20, 2012

Click here to watch the documentary “The New Conqistadors”: http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/thenewconquistadors/

Starting in the early 16th Century, Spanish explorers arrived in Central and South America in search of gold, silver and spices. While the term “Spanish Conquistadors” references an era of great Spanish power and influence, for the indigenous people living in the lands the Conquistadors reached, it was considered a time of exploitation, disease and oppression.

Five hundred years later, there are some – particularly in the indigenous communities of Latin America – who are seeing this as new era of economic conquest, one with significant environmental and social consequences. This time, the new “conquerors” are Canadian mining companies.

These “new conquistadors” have generated enormous wealth for Canada and the countries in which they do business. Canadian mining companies often have “sustainable development” programs that provide a range of opportunities for locals and attempt to offset the negative environmental effects of mining. However, the economic, environmental and social changes these mines bring to rural communities have generated considerable debate in Latin America. This project is intended as a catalyst for discussion.

Ontario: The Golden Province – Global Business Reports Ontario Profile (May 2012)

June 20, 2012

Global Business Reports is an international provider of industry specific reports to the global trade and investment community. This article is from a profile about Ontario mining for Engineering & Mining Journal.

Editorial researched and written by Ramona Tarta, Karim El Badrawy, Angela Harmantas, and Amanda Lapadat of Global Business Reports.

Ontario is Canada’s leading gold-producing province, comprising 53% of the country’s output

With low-grade gold deposits now feasible, many in the mining community have looked to Ontario’s established mining camps as guaranteed moneymakers throughout this opportunistic period. Red Lake, Kirkland Lake, and Timmins are undergoing revitalization and, in addition, mining companies have ventured off into less traditional territory, exploring for gold and creating new mining frontiers.

A Rich History

Ontario’s modern mining industry can be traced back to the summer of 1903 in what is presently the small town of Cobalt. Ironically, the mining industry in Northern Ontario, a region known for its gold camps, was spurred on by the discovery of the precious metal’s often underappreciated “little brother,” silver. By most accounts, the discovery of silver at Cobalt was a fluke; a railroad worker from the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway serendipitously located a huge silver vein while expressing his annoyance with a local fox.

Coal: The rising star of global energy production – by Neil Reynolds (Globe and Mail – June 20, 2012)

June 20, 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.

Coal has had a good run in the past five years – sweeping up the energy equivalent of the Academy Awards for best foreign film in four of them. (Though shot principally in China, these epic productions mostly starred American or Australian actors.) Notwithstanding its bad-boy reputation as a despoiler of the heavens and the Earth, coal has emerged as the fastest growing of all fossil fuel. It works hard (especially when pulverized into powder and burned super-hot). It’s relatively cheap.

And it has substantially cleaned up its environmental act. Honest. Energy expert Robert Bryce says, for example, that the cleanest U.S. coal-fired electricity plants now exceed all traditional Environmental Protection Agency pollution standards. Combine these advantages and you have blockbuster box office.

BP’s annual statistical review reports that global coal production increased 6 per cent last year, twice the celebrated rate of increase in global natural gas production. This most notorious of fuels now accounts for 30 per cent of global energy consumption – the highest percentage since 1969. It will almost certainly account for more in the years ahead. It is, after all, one of the cheapest primary sources of energy in the world. And its reserves are, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible.

Reaching agreements [Ring of Fire First Nations] – by Jodi Lundmark (Tbnewswatch.com – June 19, 2012)

June 20, 2012

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

The chief of Neskantaga First Nation wants a government-to-government agreement for decision-making on matters concerning the Ring of Fire. Chief Peter Moonias wants to see the Ontario government and First Nations leaders sitting at the same table, talking to each other and creating an agreement on how to make decisions for resource development in the north.

“That’s what I want to see. That’s what’s needed up there or else we’re going to forever be doing this fighting all the time,” said Moonias.

The province has an obligation to consult with each First Nation and Moonias said he hasn’t been talked to by anyone from the government or any of the mining companies. He said speaking to just a few of the First Nations won’t work because one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to the Ring of Fire. Moonias also said they want an environmental assessment done before development begins.

“It has to happen whether people like it or not. The impacts on that thing is so great. I don’t think very many people know how serious that mine is going to be, how big that mine is going to be,” he said.