March 22, 2013 – Republic of Mining

Anglo American is a South African company, Minerals Minister reminds new CEO – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – March 22, 2013)

March 22, 2013

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

“Mark, this Anglo American plc, it’s ours. It’s a South African company,” Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu reminded incoming Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani at a Chamber of Mines function in his honour.

“We hope you’ll make sure that it remains South African,” the Minister added. Her comments follow those of African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who last month emphasised the South African roots of Anglo American and lamented reference to it as a British company.

Mantashe contended that allowing companies to migrate to global stock exchanges had impacted negatively on South Africa’s own exchange and denied the country part of its economic heritage.

Shabangu also raised the point of regret by some of Anglo American being allowed to domicile in a London listing: “When we speak, sometimes people say that we made a mistake to allow Anglo to list in London. Well, because it has happened, we’re not going to pursue that now, but what we want to see is Anglo continuing to brand itself as a South African company,” she said, adding that, with the appointment of Cutifani, the country was positive that would happen.

Finding the Truth: Facts Behind Cyanide Beach Film – by Levi Rowe (March 22, 2013)

April 5, 2015March 22, 2013

Levi Rowe is a Santa Barbara college student majoring in Entrepreneurship with a minor in Philosophy. levil.rowe@gmail.com

The recent film produced by John Dougherty, called Cyanide Beach, attempts to link Augusta Resource – and thereby Rosemont Copper – to a closed mine – the Furtei mine, in Sardinia, Italy. The producer aims to incite public fear and raise alarm over the proposed Rosemont Copper mine outside of Tucson, Arizona, with the goal of delaying and ultimately stopping the project.

The trouble with Cyanide Beach is that, like many “investigative” pieces, Mr. Dougherty started with a conclusion and worked backwards. When one starts research with a clear goal, or hypothesis, one must be extremely careful to adjust the hypothesis as their research disproves the original hypothesis. The investigator, or researcher, must resist the urge to become personally invested in their hypothesis lest they begin to distort facts and findings to fit the intended (hoped) result.

When these flawed, distorted findings are shared with the public as a means to inform, what we end up with is a grossly misinformed public. And that’s the case with Cyanide Beach.

Miners could face funding squeeze on projects after changes to mine development tax – by Peter Koven (National Post – March 22, 2013)

March 22, 2013

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

The federal government is scrapping some tax breaks for Canadian miners, but keeping one important one in place.

The industry was caught off-guard by an announcement in the budget that pre-production mine development expenses will be treated differently. They are currently treated as “Canadian exploration expense” (CEE) and are 100% deductible. Now the government wants to treat them as “Canadian development expense” (CDE) meaning they would only be deductible at a rate of 30% per year.

This means companies will be paying taxes before a mine is in production and they have recovered those development expenses, experts said. It introduces new risk, especially for junior companies trying to develop mines. They could have more trouble issuing flow-through shares to fund construction of projects.

On a less surprising note, the budget phases out accelerated capital cost allowances on mining machinery and equipment. A similar phase-out was announced several years ago in the oil and gas sector, and industry experts figured it would eventually happen in mining.

On the positive side, the junior mining industry is pleased the budget renewed the 15% mineral exploration tax credit. The credit, introduced in 2000, was designed to draw more exploration spending into Canada. The industry views it as increasingly crucial today, as raising capital for greenfield exploration has become extremely tough amid a rough bear market.

Tempers flare at hearing on Central Arizona copper mine – by Michelle Peirano (Arizona Daily Star – March 22, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://azstarnet.com/

RESOLUTION COPPER SEEKING LAND SWAP FOR C. ARIZ. PROJECT

WASHINGTON – Cronkite News Service – A four-hour congressional hearing grew testy Thursday as House members considered a bill to swap thousands of acres of private and federal land to make way for a massive copper mine in Central Arizona.

The bill to trade land near Superior with Resolution Copper Mining passed the House last year but stalled in the Senate, and is back now for its eighth year.

Supporters said the deal, which would give Resolution access to a copper-rich piece of government land, would bring thousands of jobs and more than $6 billion in new taxes to the state over 40 years of operation. “The economic benefits are staggering,” said Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, who co-sponsored the bill with Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, both of Arizona.

The company says the mine would be the largest copper producer in the country and would account for 25 percent of the world’s copper, turning out 1 billion pounds or more a year.

Ontario MPP attacks Mining Act reforms, warns of red-tape delays – by HazMat Staff (March 21, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://www.hazmatmag.com/

Norm Miller, MPP for Parry Sound — Muskoka, is challenging amendments to Ontario’s Mining Act with just two weeks left before they are fully implemented by the province.

Miller is warning provincial officials that the new detailed plans required by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines will create significant delays for Ontario mining companies, costing them millions of dollars, while drowning the province in red tape.

Historically, Canadian mining companies have been able to drill their mining claims without provincial permission. As of April 1, 2013, companies will need to submit details of almost every stage of their exploration plans and consult with affected First Nations.

“By forcing prospectors to now file detailed plans for activities as simple as flipping stones and driving stakes, the regulatory burden is increasing on this critical first step in the mining process,” said Miller, speaking at Queen’s Park on March 7, 2013. “When these amendments were passed, the current government announced they would modernize the system and promised to bring the Mining Act into the 21st century. Judging by the response so far, it sounds more like a step back.”

The amendments detail how the broader principles in the revised Act will work in practice. In 2009, the present amendments to the Mining Act were passed by the Ontario Legislature through Bill 173 – An Act to Amend the Mining Act.

‘Elk River is being poisoned’ by coal mining, study finds – by Mark Hume (Globe and Mail – March 21, 2013)

March 22, 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.

VANCOUVER – As it flows through the Rocky Mountains, near Fernie in southeastern British Columbia, the Elk River seems the picture of environmental health, with its crystal-clear waters supporting a world-famous sports fishery.

But a new study by U.S. researchers warns that all is not well below the surface, where invisible pollutants – including selenium, a metal-like element that can cause spinal deformities in young fish – have reached alarming levels.

“We’ve basically learned that the Elk River is being poisoned,” Sarah Cox, interim director of the Sierra Club of B.C., said Wednesday.

Ms. Cox said a report co-authored by Richard Hauer, of the University of Montana, shows that selenium, nitrate and phosphate levels in the Elk are far higher than expected. “This study … clearly shows selenium has been collecting to toxic levels,” she said. “This is a huge problem.… Definitely alarm bells are ringing.”

Environment Canada had an investigative team in the Elk Valley last summer collecting water and fish egg samples, but on Wednesday the federal government wasn’t able to immediately find a spokesperson to comment.

Mandarin Need Cited as Feds OK’d 95 Chinese Miners for Gething coal project – by Jeremy J. Nuttall (The Tyee.ca – March 19, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://thetyee.ca/

FOI docs show greenlighting of foreign temp staffing of second coal mining project in BC.

Months after controversy gripped a Chinese-backed company’s efforts to bring in temporary foreign workers to mine coal in British Columbia rather than hire Canadians, newly surfaced documents show the federal government granted a key dispensation to a different, similarly Chinese backed B.C. project to hire nearly a hundred workers on the basis that they spoke Mandarin.

The project that drew criticism and court challenges in the fall was HD Mining’s attempt to hire 201 foreign workers for its Murray River coal project near Tumbler Ridge, B.C. Newly revealed Services Canada files show that a partner company in HD Mining was itself given permission to bring in almost 100 foreign workers after listing Mandarin as the sole language requirement.

The documents, released through a Freedom of Information Act request, include Labour Market Opinions related to hundreds of jobs at Canadian Dehua International Mines’ Gething coal project near Hudson Hope, B.C. Currently the project is in the advanced exploration phase, according to the provincial ministry of mines. The LMOs, granted in the first half of 2012, are required to show the company made sufficient efforts to hire Canadians for the positions.

Arsenic release fears: federal government seeks emergency cleanup of toxic [Yellowknife] mine – by Bob Weber (Canadian Press/The Tyee – March 17, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://thetyee.ca/

YELLOWKNIFE – Federal officials are scrambling to clean up a crumbling, abandoned northern gold mine that is in imminent danger of releasing massive amounts of arsenic, asbestos and other toxins.

“It’s pretty scary stuff,” said Mark Palmer, senior adviser on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development’s Giant Mine Project, which describes a proposed cleanup of collapsing, poison-filled buildings and caverns on the shore of Great Slave Lake as an emergency response.

“We are worried they are going to fall down and if that happens there will be a release.” The Giant Mine just outside Yellowknife was an economic mainstay for 50 years. But its gold was locked within crystals of arsenopyrite, and after the mine finally closed in 2004, about 237,000 tonnes of highly toxic, water-soluble arsenic trioxide remained on the site.

Most of the arsenic was blown back underground, where huge dustpiles of it sit in 15 subterranean chambers, some big enough to swallow an 11-storey building. About 3,600 cubic metres of arsenic and arsenic-contaminated material remain in surface structures — uncontained and, in many cases, exposed to the elements.

Ontario Mining Association News Release: Let’s bring silver out from the shadows

March 22, 2013

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

In some quarters, silver is sometimes viewed as – well let’s politely call it – a lesser precious metal. However, in the name of fairness, perhaps it is time to take a look at what this metal means to the economy of Ontario – and to modern society.

In 2011, 147 tonnes of silver were produced from a variety of sources in Ontario. The value of this output was more than $168 million. Ontario is the largest silver producer in Canada turning out about 28% of the national total production level of 532 tonnes.

All silver produced in Ontario is a by-product of other mining operations. There are no primary silver mines in Ontario. In fact, in Canada, Alexco Resources owns and operates the Bellekeno silver mine in the Yukon, which is the only operating primary silver mine in the country. In 2012, the company’s total production of silver totaled more than 2,150,000 ounces.

Ontario-originated silver is generally a by-product from a variety of gold mining operations in the province and the major nickel-copper mines in the Sudbury Basin. Also, in Timmins, Xstrata Copper’s Kidd Operations has long been a major source of silver output in Ontario.

While this metal does have a monetary role and it remains a key component of jewelry creation, the Silver Institute based in Washington D.C. says the industrial demand for silver is soaring and likely to reach record heights in 2014. One of the main industrial uses of silver was in photography but the technological shift to digital cameras has lessened those applications.

Ageing baby boomers, few replacements threaten U.S. mining sector—NRC Report – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – March 22, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://www.mineweb.com/

The retirement of the baby boomers who comprise the bulk of the mining-related workforce could mean problems for mining, academia, and even the American life style, says a new report.

To read the report, “Emerging Workforce Trends in the Energy and Mining Industries: A Call to Action,” go to http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18250

RENO (MINEWEB) – A new report by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Engineering is concerning that the loss of a large number of experienced energy and mining workers in industry, academia, and government may actually impact the high standard of living and importance of the United States in the global economy.

For example, the Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA) expects that 46% of the coal-sector workforce will be eligible to return in five years.

“Not only are there too few younger workers in the pipeline to replace them, but there is little time to capture the knowledge of experienced employees before they leave,” said the NRC’s Committee on Emerging Workforce Trends in the U.S. Energy and Mining Industries.

Canada budget extends tax credit for junior mining firms – by David Ljunggren (Reuters Canada – March 21, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://ca.reuters.com/

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s federal budget on Thursday met a key demand of the mining industry by proposing to extend a 15 percent mineral exploration tax credit for investors in flow-through shares.

The credit – used mainly by junior mining firms – has raised an average of C$800 million ($784 million) a year in new financing, according to the budget document. In the run-up to the budget the mining industry had lobbied Ottawa to keep the credit, which had been due to expire on March 31 this year.

“Given the ongoing economic uncertainty and to support the mineral exploration efforts of junior mining companies, (the budget) proposes to extend the credit for an additional year, until March 31, 2014,” said the document.

Extending the measure is projected to cut federal revenues by a total of C$100 million over the 2013/14 to 2014/15 fiscal years.

Flow-through shares allow companies to renounce or “flow through” tax expenses associated with their Canadian exploration activities to investors, who can then deduct the expenses in calculating their own taxable income. The credit is an additional benefit for investors in flow-through shares.

How Silver Wheaton prospers despite mining slump – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – March 22, 2013)

March 22, 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.

When Randy Smallwood goes hunting for a mine acquisition, he has one hard and fast rule: Bet on the asset, not the management team.

Rather than a stinging rebuke of his mining brethren, the mantra is what has helped Mr. Smallwood, a geological engineer by training, build Silver Wheaton Corp. into the world’s largest precious metals streaming company after he helped found it in 2004.

“We look for management-proof projects,” the chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Silver Wheaton said during a recent visit to Toronto. “We want assets that will be good under any management team.”

Silver Wheaton makes its money by purchasing streams of future silver and gold production from companies that mine it as a byproduct; Silver Wheaton can then sell the precious metals into the spot market, usually at a higher price. The company invented the so-called streaming business, under which it makes a lump-sum, upfront payment and then pays the production cost for ounces on delivery from mines typically focused on copper, lead, zinc or nickel.

Long relegated to the fringes of the mining industry, streaming is now drawing mainstream attention as miners face soaring costs at the same time as debt and equity markets have slammed shut.

China leader’s first trip highlights growing clout of BRICS nations – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – March 22, 2013)

March 22, 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.

JOHANNESBURG — For a glimpse of a potential new world order, take a look at the carefully chosen plans for the first overseas trip by China’s new President.

Fresh from his triumph in China’s leadership transition this month, Xi Jinping won’t be paying his respects in Washington or Europe on his debut foreign tour. Instead, on Friday, he flies to Russia – and then onward to three resource-rich African countries, in a trip laden with symbolic and political meaning.

The centrepiece of Mr. Xi’s nine-day “diplomatic blitzkrieg,” as some in the African media are calling it, is the annual summit of the BRICS group of nations, to be held in the South African coastal city of Durban next week. The BRICS themselves are evolving into a political entity, offering China a chance to lead the group and campaign for a multipolar world where the West is less dominant.

Originally an economic bloc, BRICS – now comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is venturing further into politics and security. The summit will feature an unexpectedly heavy agenda of global issues, from the Syrian war to the planned creation of a development bank to compete with the World Bank, with $50-billion in seed money.

In B.C., Northern Gateway has poisoned the well – by Gary Mason (Globe and Mail – March 22, 2013)

March 22, 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.

When Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced plans this week to strengthen Canada’s oil-spill defences, critics were swift to disparage the proposed measures.

It was just a cynical effort to deflect widespread criticism the government was receiving in Vancouver for closing the apparently much-loved Kitsilano Coast Guard station, some groused. It was a too-late PR ruse designed to salvage the Northern Gateway pipeline initiative, others said. B.C. New Democratic MP Nathan Cullen maintained that the initiatives were an exercise in greenwashing – a term for efforts designed solely to propagate the perception that an organization’s goals are environmentally friendly.

Intentional or not, Mr. Oliver’s news conference served to illustrate just how poisoned energy policy debate is in Canada, particularly as it pertains to the construction of oil pipelines.

As things stand, there is almost nothing that the federal government can say on this subject – at least in British Columbia – that isn’t going to be immediately denounced. Mr. Oliver can assert that his plan would bring Canada closer to a “world-class” system for oil tanker safety, but few care and fewer still believe him. He could promise that every oil tanker entering the port of Vancouver, or leaving the port of Kitimat, would have eight tugboats surrounding it to guarantee it would never run aground; it wouldn’t matter.

NEWS RELEASE: PDAC Applauds Federal Budget’s Support of the Mineral Exploration Sector

March 22, 2013

March 22, 2013 09:02 ET

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – March 22, 2013) – The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada applauds the Harper government’s budget announcement of a renewed commitment to the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (METC), as well as key investments in skills training and aboriginal communities.

“The mineral exploration industry is a key driver for our economic recovery and provides critical economic stimulus to some of Canada’s most remote communities,” said Ross Gallinger, PDAC executive director. “The Government of Canada’s support for industry is recognized and appreciated.”

Exploration and mining remain a strategically important sector to the Canadian economy. The industry generates revenue and stimulates growth across the length and breadth of the country, from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland, from Southern Ontario’s salt mines to the metal and diamond mines of the Far North. The sector has a substantial economic impact on our nation’s north and on Aboriginal communities.

“We are pleased that the federal government has demonstrated their support for our sector by renewing the METC. This program has a proven track record of keeping jobs and investment in Canada and will continue to encourage investment in Canadian exploration projects,” said Gallinger. “This is a positive step on behalf of the government to ensure that Canadian companies have access to the financial instruments necessary to remain competitive, particularly given the capital-raising challenges many exploration companies are currently facing.”