March 5, 2013 – Republic of Mining

In Canada’s crowded market, junior miners get the shaft – by Peter Koven (National Post – March 5, 2013)

March 5, 2013

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

For many junior miners, the question is no longer about whether they can raise money at the PDAC conference this year. The question is how they will even get there.

Using a search engine tool on mining analyst John Kaiser’s website, it appears that a mind-boggling 94 companies with negative working capital are listed exhibitors at the conference.

“I think a lot of them aren’t going to show up,” Mr. Kaiser said. “I don’t know how they can afford to fly to Toronto and pay for the hotels.”

That sums up just how awful the market conditions are for junior mining companies today. Despite relatively healthy commodity prices, they are suffering through a surreal bear market in which risk capital has flowed out of the sector and is simply not available to most of them anymore. They routinely have market values below the cash on their balance sheet, and the idea of spending cash is scary when it is so tough to find any more. Their share prices have been slashed, and are routinely down 90% or more in the past 12 or 18 months.

“You have a horrendous washout in the market where institutional money has departed, and retail money has no interest in it,” said Mr. Kaiser. He figures there are nearly 700 companies on the TSX Venture Exchange with less than $200,000 in their treasuries. All the Venture mining companies combined have raised only $110-million this year, according to Financial Post data.

China’s PDAC absence conspicuous – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – March 5, 2013)

March 5, 2013

http://www.mineweb.com/

It can be argued the Chinese need to pay more attention to early stage exploration – otherwise they leave the field open to others committed to the long game in minerals and metals.

TORONTO (MINEWEB) – It must be said. The Chinese are MIA at the PDAC – absent in playing an important role in funding and driving Canadian mineral explorers and exploration. In my PDAC miles so far this year, it strikes me that by now the Chinese should be an undercurrent in Canadian exploration and investment.

They are instead the anomaly.

Their role here – in the still undisputed centre of global mineral exploration – should be a natural extension of their interests and needs. The Chinese have a dominant position as metal consumers. They are exhausting high quality domestic resources. They are, intelligently so, closing their smaller, dirtier and more dangerous mines. And, of course, they have an abundance of cash and perhaps more importantly a stated desire to secure supply. That cannot, as the case has largely been so far, mean a role focused just on mineral development. Longterm supply demands, more than anything else, calls for careful attention to early stage exploration.

Yet so few early stage exploration companies boast an important Chinese investor. It’s clear, coming from the floor at the PDAC, the Chinese are not plying the crowd of PDAC in droves looking for investments or that they have already done so and invested.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s PDAC Speech (March 4, 2013)

March 6, 2013March 5, 2013

(L to R) Honourable Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario; Michael Gravelle, Minister of Northern Development and Mines (Photo by Stan Sudol – republicofmining.com

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Good Afternoon. Thanks Michael for that kind introduction. I’d like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit.

I want to welcome to Toronto all of our friends from Northern Ontario and beyond. I’m excited to be here and to get a chance to talk to you about your work, and how it will inform the work that I’m going to do, along with our new government.

As I was on my way here today, I was thinking about how inspirational you are to a politician like me. As prospectors, a key part of your efforts come down to the belief – the deep seeded knowledge – that if you keep working and working, if you stay focused on your goal, eventually there will be a big pay-off.

In mining, just like in government, hope springs eternal! And trust me, I need that kind of motivation right now! But really, the work that you do holds many lessons for what I am working toward on behalf of this province. You are the embodiment of hard work, dedication and resolve.

It is not an industry for the weak of heart. But your association also bridges the expanse between Ontario’s history and its future.

Resource development – that unstoppable quest for value in our natural landscape – that is a proud part of who we are.
As a province, but also as a nation. This is the work on which Ontario has been built.

Mining is the reason that Toronto is the financial services centre of Canada.

Aboriginal training alliance formed to build skills in Ontario’s north – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 5, 2013)

March 5, 2013

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – A memorandum of understanding (MoU) creating a new training alliance was on Monday inked at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC’s) yearly convention, paving the way for a skilled Aboriginal workforce to be trade-ready to contribute to the development and exploitation of the ‘Ring of Fire’ chromite belt, in the far-north of Ontario.

During the Aboriginal forum reception, the Matawa First Nations Management’s Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment and Training Services (KKETS), Toronto-based junior Noront Resources and the Confederation College of Applied Arts and Technology signed a MoU that would pave the way for the parties to work collaboratively to expand opportunities for the development of a “highly skilled Aboriginal workforce for mining activity” associated with Noront’s Eagle’s Nest project.

Signing of the five-year MoU followed on the heels of federal Industry Minister Tony Clement on Sunday pledging government’s full support to develop the remote Ring of Fire area, which was estimated to hold a resource of more than C$50-billion in minerals, as fast as possible.

Development of the remote region has, however, been slow owing to issues regarding First Nations’ involvement, environmental regulation and infrastructure.

“I can assure you that I am fully committed to working closely with these communities in the coming months and years, reaffirming our government’s commitment to collaborative and responsible resource development,” he told a gathering of journalists.

At the world’s biggest mining convention, schmoozing benefits charities – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – March 5, 2013)

March 5, 2013

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.

Despite the doom and gloom, the mining industry is good at rising above it all, confident that good times always follow bad ones, so even when times are tough they try to give a little back.

Pronounced by its citizens – the 30,000 or so global mining industry players that attend each year – as the Peedac (PDAC), the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada annual conference is more than just a marathon of presentations by miners, analysts and industry service providers.

Attracting industry players from 125 countries around the world, the PDAC is the world’s largest mining convention, and also the first big event in the calendar year, providing a unique opportunity for CEOs, engineers and financiers to rub shoulders with allies and rivals.

Amidst the schmoozing along Bay Street hot spots are the events that mix socializing and networking with charities to support the communities where companies mine, in Canada and abroad.

One such event is Bullion Belts, a boxing match at the Ritz Carlton hotel in downtown Toronto that pitches professional boxers against one another while investors and mining executives watch on. The proceeds from sponsors like Iamgold, an Africa-focused miner, go to the Right To Play charity, which aims to take children in poor countries off of street corners and put them on playing fields.

NEWS RELEASE: Ring of Fire could be stainless steel powerhouse: Bisson

March 5, 2013

QUEEN’S PARK – Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson made the following statement in the provincial legislature today about the Ring of Fire mining development.

“We’ve listened to this government now in three budgets—probably three or four—and at least two throne speeches talk about the wonderful opportunity that presents itself in the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario. We have some of the best mineralogical ability in that part of the province when it comes to chromite, when it comes to nickel, when it comes to other metals.

“We’re looking at this government and saying, ‘Where have you been for the last three or four years?’ There is an opportunity here to position Ontario as a stainless steel producer. You need chromite, you need nickel and you need iron ore, all things that belong here in Ontario, and if all we’re trying to do is to create a mine up in the Ring of Fire, I think we’re selling Ontario short. We should be trying to position this as a stainless steel play for the province of Ontario.