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.

Kinross Gold Corp. investors are bracing for more bad news about a troubled expansion in Mauritania, with concern building after the company turfed its CEO ahead of a long-awaited update on the gold project. Kinross stock was down 5.6 per cent to $7.56 a share on Thursday, even as some of its larger peers rose, pointing to market expectations that more bad news may be coming on the Tasiast gold project.

“We do not believe the timing of the CEO replacement and the Tasiast expected guidance update on Aug. 8 is coincidental,” Credit Suisse analyst Anita Soni wrote in a report on Thursday, a day after Mr. Burt was dismissed in the wake of consecutive quarters of disappointing news. Kinross is one of the worst performers among major gold companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

“The timing suggests that an escalation of project costs will be forthcoming,” she said. Kinross says a change in CEO was needed to help guide a reevaluation of capital spending at the company, which has been focused on Tasiast and two other development projects, Lobo-Marte in Chile and Fruta del Norte in Ecuador. Mr. Burt’s last day was Wednesday; he could not be reached for comment. Read the rest of this entry »

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

Driven by diamonds

The idea of finding diamonds in Saskatchewan was met with scepticism in the 1980s. A Russian geophysicist, Dr. J.G. Strnad, predicted the existence of diamondiferous kimberlites, noting the large geophysical anomalies in the province’s sedimentary basin. Knowledgeable diamond miners thought the anomalies too large to be kimberlites. The targets in Saskatchewan certainly were outside (and outsized) their experience in South Africa.
 
But Strnad was right. The first kimberlite in the Fort à la Corne area was drilled by De Beers in 1988. The next year a venture of Cameco and Uranerz drilled another. The properties were combined as the Fort à la Corne (FALC) joint venture in 1992. Ten years later the JV had a large number of targets, and prioritizing them was difficult.
 
Not so for Shore Gold of Saskatoon. The company drilled the Star kimberlite in 1996. With one good target, drilling expanded, and eventually in 2002 a bulk sample program was begun. Read the rest of this entry »

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

As you have probably presumed by now, I’m “pro” mining; otherwise I wouldn’t be working here and writing about the Canadian mining industry and what it’s worth to our economy, and the rest of the world.

In fact, the owners of the magazine, and the industry itself, for that matter, wouldn’t allow someone with my exposure and inside scoop(s) on the business to be anything but supportive of a resource as valuable as mining.

Naturally, I do have moments when I question the behaviour of some of the industry’s fraternity when I hear and read about their seemingly call us disregard for the environment, but on the whole, I’m proud to be associated with the industry.

And why not? When I see what Canadian mining companies are doing insofar as discovering and ultimately producing and converting minerals into essential products, one can’t help but be enthusiastic about the industry.

Let’s face it, no other sector within the industrialized world would exist if it wasn’t for mining and, aside from agriculture (which is also becoming more and more reliant on “mined” fertilizers), it’s the most important thing we do. Read the rest of this entry »

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

It’s a given that China is a country Canada must deal with, but the idea that Canada must sell out to China is not. Currently, China’s state-owned oil company CNOOC is attempting to make a big play in Alberta’s oilsands with its proposed takeover of Nexen. The deal needs the approval of the federal government and despite Stephen Harper’s recent warming to China and his commitment to expanded trade, he must say no to this deal.
 
Harper is a believer in free trade among nations, but with China we don’t have free trade or anything close to it. Supporters of the deal claim it would be hypocritical of Canada to push for free and open trade and then turn down CNOOC’s offer to buy a Canadian oil company. Not so.
 
CNOOC, which stands for China National Offshore Oil Corporation, wants to buy all of Nexen which has oil rights in Alberta, the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea. There is no chance a Canadian company could attempt a similar takeover of CNOOC. One of the other major problems with allowing the takeover is that CNOOC is not a private company operating on a level-playing field. Read the rest of this entry »

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

CALGARY — China’s largest overseas acquisition to date, CNOOC Ltd.’s US$15.1-billion bid to purchase Canadian oil and gas producer Nexen Inc., was crafted to surpass foreign-investment requirements in Canada and the United States, yet risk remains that the landmark bid from the state-controlled company will not proceed.
 
The risk is reflected in Nexen’s share price, which is trading about $2 below the bid price, a significant discount that suggests the market is worried political noise could drown out the benefits. “If the stock is down $2 per share, that is the price of uncertainty,” said Glen Hodgson, chief economist at The Conference Board of Canada.
 
Observers say the primary risk in both countries is politics. There are concerns, expressed publicly and privately, about the perceived loss of control of energy resources, worries that the bid could open the floodgates to a flurry of Chinese purchases in Canada, and that ultimately it is being used by the communist country for foreign-policy reasons over and above business considerations.
 
In Canada, the deal’s hurdles include passing the vague ‘net benefit test’ under the Investment Canada Act and convincing the Competition Bureau the deal will not lessen or prevent fair competition. Read the rest of this entry »

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

As CNOOC Ltd. unveiled its takeover bid for Nexen Inc. in Calgary last week, the Chinese government was barring overseas companies from bidding directly in an auction for a piece of China’s shale gas reserves, estimated to be one of the largest in the world. Foreign players were only allowed in via joint ventures with local companies, ensuring they play second fiddle to domestic producers. Bear in mind that China desperately needs Big Oil as its companies have little experience in drilling for shale. Still, it didn’t swing the door wide open.
 
While Canada puts out the welcome mat for global companies to invest in its resources and buy out its companies, it appears the rest of the world isn’t playing by the same, open rules.
 
It’s not a strategy peculiar to China. Across the world, major oil-producing countries beef up and are biased toward domestic producers even if they allow foreign players to enter the market. Leaving OPEC producers aside, even the Western energy-producing countries have a national champion or flagship energy company, although they often don’t have full control over their affairs: BP PLC (U.K.), Statoil (Norway), Total SA (France), Eni SpA (Italy) were all carefully nurtured by their governments for decades before they became global powerhouses. 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.

Interestingly, both Ontario and Quebec are proposing significant changes to their respective mining legislation.
 
In Ontario, the public comment period closed on May 1, 2012, on six regulatory proposals under the Ontario Mining Act that were posted on the Environmental Registry (EBR) in March 2012 by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM). Feedback received is now under review.
 
The proposals were for amendments to certain existing regulations and introduction of new regulations to implement substantive changes made to the Mining Act in 2009.
 
The EBR postings were simply concept-level descriptions of what the regulations would address although the regulatory text itself was not provided. Until such time as specific draft regulations and associated policies and standards documents are released to the public, industry and First Nations, it is difficult to predict whether the concepts will be codified into law substantially as described. The regulatory proposals are outlined below. Here are features of the proposed regulatory changes in Ontario: Read the rest of this entry »

www.mineweb.com

Analysts and investors alike are wondering what the CEO shakeup at Kinross Gold possibly means, with some speculating the gold miner will either be broken up or sold.

TORONTO (Bloomberg) -  Kinross Gold Corp. (K)’s switch to a new chief executive officer is fueling speculation Canada’s fourth- biggest gold miner will be broken up or sold.
 
Kinross, which has lost 35 percent of its market value this year, announced Aug. 1 that J. Paul Rollinson, previously vice president for corporate development, would replace Tye Burt. The CEO for more than seven years, Burt led Kinross in four takeovers, including the C$8 billion ($7.9 billion) acquisition of Red Back Mining Inc. in 2010 that led to a C$2.49 billion writedown 17 months later.
 
Gold miners struggling with rising costs at multibillion- dollar projects may be tempted to acquire Kinross or buy parts of it, Adam Graf, a New York-based analyst at Dahlman Rose & Co., said in a telephone interview.
 
“I think the majors have to be scratching their heads and saying, I don’t want to buy anything that’s pre-production because my shareholders don’t have the patience for it,” Graf said. Read the rest of this entry »