September 18, 2012 – Republic of Mining

It’s business as usual, asbestos company says – by Monique Beaudin (Montreal Gazette – September 18, 2012)

September 18, 2012

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

Reopening set despite Ottawa, PQ actions

MONTREAL – The company planning to reopen Quebec’s only asbestos mine says Ottawa’s decision to stop opposing the addition of asbestos to an international hazardous-substances list will not stop the mine’s relaunch next spring.

And despite a promise by the Parti Québécois to cancel a $58-million loan to reopen the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, a company spokesperson said work to prepare the mine to reopen is continuing.

“The status remains unchanged as far as the mine is concerned,” said Guy Versailles, a spokesman for Balcorp Ltd., part of a consortium of investors in the mine. The mine received the loan in June, and at least $7 million has been disbursed, Versailles said.

Adding asbestos to the hazardous-substances list under the United Nations Rotterdam Convention would require exporting countries to inform importing countries about the hazards of using it, and to include safe-handling and proper precautionary measures.

Baffin Island mega-mine gets green light from Nunavut agency – by Randy Boswell (Montreal Gazette – September 17, 2012)

September 18, 2012

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

A Nunavut review agency’s approval on Friday of a massive, $4-billion iron mine on Baffin Island not only green-lights one of the biggest industrial projects ever in the Canadian Arctic, it also offers some belated vindication for Sir Martin Frobisher, the 16th-century English explorer who dreamed that Baffin’s rocks might someday yield unimaginable riches.

Though Frobisher’s own quest for gold in the future Nunavut was proven futile by the end of the 1570s, his perilous voyages to what was then the outer limit of the known world set the stage for British — and ultimately Canadian — sovereignty over the vast Arctic archipelago, including Baffin Island and the colossal Mary River ore deposit now set to be mined by Toronto-based Baffinland Iron Mines Corp.

The planned mine and town site, located near the island’s northern tip, would see almost 20 million tonnes of high-grade iron ore excavated annually from a huge open-pit operation, transported 150 kilometres south along the world’s northernmost railroad to a new deep-water Arctic port, then shipped to European smelters on a fleet of mammoth, custom-made ice-breaking barges.

Nickel price drop only temporary, TD economist says – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury Northern Life – September 17, 2012)

September 18, 2012

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

No need for ‘panic’: mining supply association director

The head of commodity strategy for TD Securities said nickel prices may reach as high as $9 a pound by the second quarter of next year. Speaking at a Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA) meeting Sept. 17, Bart Melek said nickel prices have sunk in recent months because China just isn’t buying as much of the metal as it once did.

That’s because the country has accumulated a significant stockpile of metals. But as they start to run out, nickel prices will pick up again, he said. TD is predicting that nickel prices will be at $8.23 in the last quarter of 2012, $8.50 in the first quarter of 2013 and $9.00 in the second quarter of 2013.

Currently, nickel prices are sitting at around $8.25 a pound. They reached as low as $7 a pound in August. “I have about $9 in the second quarter of 2013,” Melek said.

“Before that, inventories will have pretty much whittled down. We will already see an impact of production cuts around the world in nickel facilities, bringing that market into a bit of a deficit.

NEWS RELEASE: Australia’s mining sector in the balance

September 18, 2012

Baker & McKenzie launches global report examining the challenges and opportunities facing the world’s key mining destinations

Australia, 17 September 2012 – Baker & McKenzie, the world’s largest law firm, has launched a report highlighting significant concerns about the future of Australia’s mining sector.

The Firm surveyed more than 300 senior industry leaders across six key mining jurisdictions – Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Indonesia and South Africa – and the research suggests that investors in Australia are more pessimistic about the future of mining investment in this country than those investing in the other jurisdictions surveyed.

Of the executives commenting on Australia, 75% said that investing in the mining sector has become more complicated and costly due to factors such as increasing regulatory and environmental obligations, complex and uncertain project development requirements and the rising costs of mine development and operation.

The level of Commonwealth and State Government involvement in the Australian mining industry is also causing concern to investors, with 61% of respondents believing that the Government is too involved in the industry and 72% believing that sovereign risk is on the increase.

Harvard Losing Out to South Dakota in Graduate Pay: Commodities – by Joe Richter (Bloomberg.com – September 18, 2012)

September 18, 2012

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Harvard University’s graduates are earning less than those from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology after a decade-long commodity bull market created shortages of workers as well as minerals.

Those leaving the college of 2,300 students this year got paid a median salary of $56,700, according to PayScale Inc., which tracks employee compensation data from surveys. At Harvard, where tuition fees are almost four times higher, they got $54,100. Those scheduled to leave the campus in Rapid City, South Dakota, in May are already getting offers, at a time when about one in 10 recent U.S. college graduates is out of work.

“It doesn’t seem to be too hard to get a job in mining,” said Jaymie Trask, a 22-year-old chemical-engineering major who was offered a post paying more than $60,000 a year at Freeport- McMoRan (FCX) Copper & Gold Inc. “If you work hard in school for four or five years, you’re pretty much set.”

Air Creebec flies high as Plan Nord ramps up – by Fancois Shalom (Montreal Gazette – September 18 2012)

September 18, 2012

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

Airline Inaugurates its new $10-million hangar and terminal at Trudeau airport

Jean Charest may be gone, but he is far from forgotten – by Air Creebec at least. “We view (the former premier’s) Plan Nord as really a personal friend,” said Sylvain Dicaire, chief financial officer of the Val d’Or-based airline owned by the Cree nation. “We couldn’t agree with it more.”

Since its founding in 1982, the airline has banked heavily on northern development – mostly mining, forestry and Hydro-Québec.

But Charest formalizing the economic development of Quebec’s far north as a premier strategic objective for the government means that “the sky is the limit for us now,” Dicaire said. The occasion Monday was itself a testament to the benefits of that interest.

On its 30th anniversary, Air Creebec inaugurated its new $10-million hangar and terminal on the edges of the runway at Dorval’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport – built with a $1.3-million subsidy from the province, Dicaire noted. Plan Nord may be a formal stamp, but in truth, Dicaire said, “we sensed it before (it was launched).”

Summit boosts Vladivostok’s profile – by Jonathan Manthorpe (Vancouver Sun – September 17, 2012)

September 18, 2012

The Vancouver Sun, a broadsheet daily paper first published in 1912, has the largest circulation in the province of British Columbia.

Russia spent $22 billion to build gateway port for Europe-bound Asian goods

When Vladivostok was asked to host the summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum Russian leader Vladimir Putin saw an opportunity to reverse the steady decline of a region that covers a third of the country’s territory.

In the years leading up to the weeklong APEC summit earlier this month Moscow and other levels of government spent about $22 billion to establish the port city of Vladivostok as the gateway for Asia to the resource-rich eight provinces of Pacific Russia.

The plans are also to make Vladivostok the hub of a transportation network that will allow the overland export of Asia’s manufactured goods to Europe and the Middle East, cutting at least 20 days off the time taken to ship by sea.

At the same time, Vladivostok and the surrounding province are in the early stages of crafting their own manufacturing industries, primarily automotive and home appliance factories at this point. The investments in Vladivostok sparked by the APEC summit are impressive.

Australian mining seen as vulnerable to competition from emerging nations – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – September 18, 2012)

September 18, 2012

www.mineweb.com

Australian mining is losing global market share to rapidly emerging resource-rich economies, says a report from the Minerals Council of Australia.

To download the report, Opportunity at risk, Regaining our competitive edge in mineral resources, go to www.minerals.org.au

RENO (MINEWEB) – Australia’s mining boom is not over, says a study commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia, but its dynamics have changed and its policy demands are greater and more urgent.

The report by the Australian strategy consulting firm, Port Jackson Partners, is the “most detailed panorama yet painted of the burgeoning cost environment in Australia, our deteriorating reputation as a place to do business and the threat this poses to our ability to capture market share and future investment,” said the Minerals Council.

In the study, Port Jackson Partners suggest that over the next 20 years, demand for key minerals will increase by between 50% and 200%. While growth in iron ore demand slows as infrastructure is developed, “there is likely to be new growth in demand for products such as copper, aluminium and other minerals and metals and consumers demand more sophisticated products.”

Celebrating a ‘blue-eyed sheik’ – by Peter Foster (National Post – September 18, 2012)

September 18, 2012

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

Peter Lougheed took a managerial approach to economic affairs, which very much reflected the spirit of the times

Peter Lougheed, who died, much honoured, last week, was very good to me, both as a topic and, on one occasion, as an unpaid publicist. It was the fall of 1979. My first book, The Blue-Eyed Sheiks, had just come out and I was on a promotional tour in Calgary. Premier Lougheed was due to give a speech in the city and I decided to turn up and give him a copy.

Mr. Lougheed not only graciously accepted the tome, but — to the astonishment and delight of both myself and my real publicist — proceeded to take it with him to the podium, hold it aloft, and even read snippets off the back cover!

In an attempt to give some idea of the petroleum wealth that was flowing Alberta’s way, I had compiled a list of the lengths of time it would take the province to buy certain assets. They could, for example, have snapped up General Motors of Canada with 188 days provincial revenue, and the Montreal Canadiens in just two days and 16 hours. The exercise was a little hokey (at least in those two cases). Nevertheless, Mr. Lougheed read out a few of the examples, and was clearly not displeased with such indications of the province’s wealth.

Right thing to do is ban extraction of asbestos – by David Olive (Toronto Star – September 18, 2012)

September 18, 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.

The Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) was too generous last Friday in lauding Ottawa’s announcement that day that Canada will stop objecting to the listing of asbestos as a dangerous material under the U.N.’s Rotterdam Convention on exports of hazardous materials.

“Canada has a moral obligation, backed by well-grounded evidence, to close down this [industry] and stop exporting a potentially hazardous material to countries that are ill-equipped to protect the health of workers who handle asbestos fibres,” said Erica Di Ruggiero, chair of the CPHA.

“The Government of Canada has made a good public health decision,” she said. Ottawa has done no such thing. There is nothing to stop continued exports of Canadian asbestos. The feds’ hands were forced by Quebec premier-elect Pauline Marois, who in the closing days of the recent Quebec general election, vowed to cancel a $58-million loan guarantee offered by the Charest government to revive Canada’s sole asbestos mine, in the Eastern Townships community of Asbestos.

China helping nickel: analyst – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 18, 2012)

September 18, 2012

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

Three key drivers will boost commodity prices in the second half of 2013 — China, China and China — says an economist with TD Securities. China consumes about 40% of the world’s nickel and copper, and its economy is “not c o l l a p s i n g ,” despite some naysayers, says Bart Melek.

China has $3.6 trillion in reserve, a minimum debt to gross domestic product ratio and a “big political incentive” to keep growing, Melek told about 100 people at a breakfast meeting Monday of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association.

Stability is important in the one-party state, whose government is determined to keep people employed and food on the table, said Melek. China has also embarked upon a five-year plan to move 20 to 25 million of its citizens every year from rural areas to cities. That requires more housing and transportation services that require copper, nickel and iron ore.

China’s economy may be growing more slowly than it was, but it’s still growing three to four times as fast as our economy, said Melek, head of commodity strategies at TD Securities. Melek is forecasting economic stability in the United States as well, because of a monetary policy to hold interest rates at 0% to 2015.

Lack of criminal charges angers [Sudbury] Steelworkers convention – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 18, 2012)

September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

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

The international president of United Steelworkers is joining a chorus of outrage over a police decision not to lay criminal charges in the 2011 deaths of two men at Vale Ltd.’s Stobie Mine.

Leo Gerard, in Sudbury to attend the USW District 6 triennial convention, said the investigation his union conducted into the deaths of Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, was one of the finest it has done.

It took eight months and resulted in a 200-page report with 165 recommendations, chief among them that criminal charges be laid against Vale under the Westray Bill of the Criminal Code of Canada.

“When you see what happened at Stobie, and you see what happened here in town with the police deciding not to lay any charges … I’ve been around a long time. I know that stuff,” Gerard said. Both his union’s and the Ministry of Labour’s investigations “said there was deliberate ignoring (of ) certain safety infractions,” said Gerard.