NEWS RELEASE: Minister Oliver Highlights Economic Impact of Canada’s Natural Resources

September 4, 2012

TORONTO — The Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, today unveiled updated figures highlighting the significant contributions of the natural resources sector to the Canadian economy.
 
The new figures, generated by Natural Resources Canada using the latest Statistics Canada data, enable a better understanding of this economic impact by taking into account the value of goods and services purchased by the natural resources sector from other industries. This analysis also offers a more comprehensive account of the number of jobs supported by the sector.
 
“In addition to the approximately 800,000 Canadians directly employed in the natural resource sector, another 800,000 people across Canada in every province and territory are employed by industries serving the sector,” said Minister Oliver. “Put that together and you have close to 1.6 million jobs that depend on natural resources — about 10 per cent of all the jobs in Canada. This truly demonstrates the expansive impact this sector has on the Canadian economy.”
 
Newly estimated numbers demonstrate that, together, the energy, mining and forestry sectors directly account for 15 per cent of Canada’s nominal GDP in 2011.

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Natural resources drive 20% of Canada’s economy, Ottawa says – by Heather Scoffield (Canadian Press/National Post – September 4, 2012)

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

The department’s most recent calculations project $650 billion in investment
in about 600 major resource projects over the next 10 years. That’s up from
previous estimates of $500 billion. “That $650-billion figure represents hundreds
of thousands of high-quality, well-paying jobs for Canadian middle-class families
in every sector of our economy, in every region of the country,” Oliver said.
(National Post – September 4, 2012)

OTTAWA — The federal Conservatives have re-calculated the national economic impact of energy and mining to help bolster their strong support of the natural-resource sector against environmentalists and others. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver says his officials have figured out how much income the sector brings to the economy — instead of just counting barrels of oil and tonnes of metal.
 
In 2011, the figures show, energy, forestry, metals and minerals directly accounted for 15% of the country’s income. When indirect effects are taken into account, Oliver said, natural resources drive 20% of the economy — and about 10% of all the jobs in Canada.
 
“It’s not all oilsands and it’s not all Alberta,” Oliver said in the text of a speech Tuesday to the business community in Toronto. “It is forestry in British Columbia, potash and uranium in Saskatchewan, mining in Ontario’s Sudbury basin, hydro power in Quebec and all the related supply chains.”

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South African police, security shoot and injure 4 at gold mine in latest mining clash – by Michelle Faul (The Associated Press/Regina Leader-Post – September 4, 2012)

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

JOHANNESBURG – South African police and security guards fired rubber bullets and tear gas Monday at sacked gold miners who were attacking colleagues to block them from working, the mine owner said. Police said four people were wounded at the mine that used to be partially owned by the president’s nephew.
 
The clash at the Gold Fields mine east of Johannesburg, reported by police and Neal Froneman, the CEO of Gold One International, was the latest violence to hit South Africa’s mines in months of unrest.
 
Company spokesman Sven Lunsche said some 12,000 of the company’s workers “continue to engage in an unlawful and unprotected strike” that began Wednesday. He said it involved an internal dispute between local union leaders and members of the National Union of Mineworkers, the country’s largest union.
 
After apartheid ended in 1994, South Africa pressed to share the country’s vast mineral wealth with its impoverished black majority. But the hoped-for result has not occurred. A small black elite has become billionaires off mining while most South Africans continue to struggle against mounting unemployment, deeper poverty and a widening gap between rich and poor that makes the country one of the most unequal on Earth.

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The Doer [Robert Friedland – Mining Entrepreneur] – by Peter Koven (National Post – September 4, 2012)

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

On paper, Robert Friedland’s influence on the Canadian mining world seems to be waning. The legendary promoter showed a rare sign of weakness this year, losing control of Ivanhoe Mines and its massive Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia to British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, and Friedland has seemingly disappeared from public view. So why can’t people stop talking about him?

Because love him or hate him, there’s no disputing Friedland’s imprint on the industry. From mastering the art of mining stock promotion in the 1980s and 1990s, to correctly calling the China boom and forging business ties with Asia in the 1990s and early 2000s, Friedland has always been the trailblazer everyone else tries to follow. In the few months the self-made billionaire has spent out of the limelight, investors have speculated wildly about when and where he will pop up next. Such speculation has never been easy where Friedland is concerned.

After a stint as a hippie in the 1970s, during which he befriended Steve Jobs, Friedland embraced the junior mining world and set up shop in Vancouver. He has rarely strayed from the headlines in the years since. He developed a big gold mine in Colorado, which was later shut down after an environmental accident (earning Friedland the “Toxic Bob” nickname that still sticks).

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China, Canada: When is reciprocity not reciprocity? – Globe and Mail Editorial (September 4, 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.

The federal government’s foreign-takeover policy is moving into uncharted territory. The application by CNOOC Ltd. for approval of its proposed acquisition of Nexen Inc. has just been filed, but it had already emerged as a matter of international diplomacy. In these circumstances, the government’s retreat from clarification of its foreign-investment policy, and of the meaning of “net benefit,” should be reconsidered.
 
Clarity was promised after the rejection of the controversial application of BHP Billiton in its attempted takeover of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. Evidently, the government then found it hard to articulate foreign-investment principles and reverted to a case-by-case approach. Recent statements by Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, and Christian Paradis, the Minister of Industry, raise an inference that in some instances Canada may want to set some of these applications in a much broader context.

The Chinese government has a controlling interest in CNOOC, but the company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange; it has its fair share of Canadian shareholders. The Canadian government is eschewing talk of a direct linkage of the CNOOC application to broader access to the Chinese economy, but is nonetheless canvassing the concepts of leverage and reciprocity.

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CNOOC’s bid for Nexen a sign of China’s future – by Matthew McClearn (Canadian Business Magazine – September 03, 2012)

Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-publishing business magazine in Canada.

If you applied Murphy’s Law to the oilsands, the result would look a lot like Long Lake. The oilsands project was predicated on a novel Israeli-developed gasification process intended to reduce the project’s natural gas consumption. Now that natural gas has become dirt cheap, the benefits of this technically challenging approach hardly seem worth the effort. Long Lake’s startup in 2008 was delayed nearly six months, and it has lagged well behind schedule ever since.

The anticipated flood of 72,000 barrels per day turned out to be more of a trickle. (During this year’s first quarter, it reached 34,500 barrels per day.) The cost overruns were horrendous even by Fort McMurray standards. Long Lake is, in short, the Florida swampland of Alberta’s oilsands region. All of which prompts the question: Who’d want to buy it?

On July 23, the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) revealed its offer to purchase all shares of Long Lake’s majority owner, Nexen. It’s prepared to pay dearly: at 61% above the share price, the premium is roughly double the average in Canadian acquisitions. That’s likely sufficient to dissuade others from bidding. (CNOOC is nothing if not determined: it already owns Nexen’s former partner at Long Lake, Opti Canada, having bought that insolvent company last year for $2.1 billion.) Fortunately for CNOOC, Long Lake is actually something of a sideshow: most of Nexen’s assets lie outside Canada—in the U.K., Yemen and the U.S.

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Remote Canadian diamond mines rely for supply on world’s longest ice road- by Levon Sevunts (Alaska Dispatch – September 2, 2012)

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/

A late March blizzard has finished blowing over much of Canada’s Northwest Territories and Ron Near’s job just got more interesting. A retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, Near is in charge of the world’s longest ice road that connects Yellowknife, the territorial capital, to three diamond mines: Ekati, Diavik and Snap Lake.
 
The Tibbit to Contwoyto Winter Road – named after the first and the last lakes on the ice road – is a joint venture between BHP Billiton, which owns the Ekati Mine, the Diavik Diamond Mines Inc., which manages the Diavik mine, and DeBeers, which owns the Snap Lake Mine.
 
The ice road is the only overland resupply route for the mines. They depend on it to truck in a year’s worth of supplies and equipment: everything from diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate for mine explosives to earth moving machines.
 
And with the ice road open only eight to 10 weeks every year, resupplying the mines is a monumental logistical undertaking executed with military precision.

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South Africa’s gold and platinum miners – between a rock and a hard place – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – September 4, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

Wage demands and labour unrest fuelled by inter-union rivalries and maverick politicians like Julius Malema are putting South Africa’s gold and platinum mines in jeopardy.

LONDON (Mineweb) –  It can’t be a comfortable place to be – running a South African centred gold or platinum mining company at the present time. Serious labour disputes, which can boil over into violent confrontations, when one has workforces the size of those on most of the significant mining operations, has to be very worrying for top management, particularly when a high profile, charismatic, supposedly sidelined politician like Julius Malema – who has long called for mine nationalisation – starts getting involved. Indeed, the Malema factor may prove to be the most disturbing development of all unless the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party can somehow bring him to heel.
 
On this subject reports surfaced in the South African press yesterday of an arrest warrant being issued for Malema on corruption charges and of an investigation for tax evasion.  Perhaps a recipe for making a martyr out of a maverick whatever the truth of the allegations!
 
Supposedly the violence which afflicted the Marikana platinum mine with its more than 20,000 employees, and which led to the deaths of over 40 people, was drummed up through inter-union rivalries with a new union the AMCU, trying to muscle in on the established NUM which it saw as part of the ANC establishment and claimed was not fully representing the miners’ aspirations. 

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[Sudbury] Families of mine victims want inquiry – by Sebastien Perth (Sudbury Star – September 4, 2012)

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

While hundreds came out for the inaugural Family Fun Fest at Bell Park to celebrate Labour Day, three families were there to honour their loved ones’ memories. Family members of Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram where at the park gathering signatures to convince the government of Ontario to hold an inquiry into the mining industry.
 
Family members say it’s time to have another look into the industry since it has been more than 30 years since the last inquiry, with many deaths due to mining accidents.
 
Ethan Dufoe, father of Lyle Dufoe, who died in a Timmins mining accident in 2007, says there’s been too many deaths since the last review of the Mining Act.
 
“The act hasn’t been reviewed in 30 years, when they had Ham Commission review it (1974). There’s been 92 deaths in Ontario since then. One of them my son,” Dufoe said.

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