KWG CEO says rail access is the way to go – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – May 24, 2013)

Norm Tollinsky is the editor of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal, a quarterly magazine that showcases the mining expertise of Northern Ontario. http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

“What we’re more concerned about is the use of the route to benefit our interests in the mineral deposits.”

Frank Smeenk, president and CEO of junior miner KWG Resources, can’t think of one good reason to build a road to the Ring of Fire, a remote mineral-rich region in Ontario’s James Bay Lowlands.

“It never occurred to me that anyone would ever contemplate shipping hundreds of millions of tonnes of (chromite ore) over a period of decades if not centuries any way other than by railroad,” he declared in an interview with Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal.

KWG owns 30 per cent of the Big Daddy chromite deposit, and through subsidiary Canada Chrome Corporation, rights to a string of mining claims along an esker stretching some 330 kilometres through wetland terrain from the CN Rail line to the Ring of Fire. Cliffs Natural Resources, which owns 70 per cent of Big Daddy is currently undergoing an environmental assessment and feasibility study to develop its adjacent 100 per cent-owned Black Thor chromite deposit, potentially leaving KWG and its shareholders out in the cold.

KWG’s staking of the route along what it calls “a unique linear sand ridge that stands proud of the vast wetlands” was one way to preserve some leverage over Cliffs and generate returns for its shareholders.

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Cliffs VP makes case for Ring of Fire road – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – May 24, 2013)

Norm Tollinsky is the editor of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal, a quarterly magazine that showcases the mining expertise of Northern Ontario. http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

Volume, cost and safety taken into consideration

A senior executive with Cliffs Natural Resources offered a detailed explanation of the company’s position in favour of road access to the Ring of Fire at a standing room only session on the final day of the PDAC in March.

“We looked at a lot of different options,” said Ken Pavlich, vice-president of operations for the company’s global ferroalloys business. “After eliminating the obvious non-starters like trying to get to James Bay or Hudson Bay, we decided that the only viable options for our project began at the concentrator and ended at the CN Rail line.

“From that, we looked at three different rail zones and two different road zones and, within each, we looked at multiple routes trying to figure out what would work.

“This was not a two-week or a two-month project,” said Pavlich. “It was more like a two-year project. We put a lot of time and a lot of effort into it because this is going to be the most difficult part of the project in terms of construction.”

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Excerpt from “Lawyers, Families, and Businesses: The Shaping of a Bay Street Law Firm, Faskens 1863-1963″ – by C. Ian Kyer

To order a copy of Lawyers, Families, and Businesses, please click here: http://www.irwinlaw.com/store/product/712/lawyers-families-and-businesses 

In Lawyers, Families, and Businesses: The Shaping of a Bay Street Law Firm, Faskens 1863–1963, noted lawyer and historian, Ian Kyer, provides a superbly researched and fascinating study of the origins and development of the law firm now known as Fasken Martineau Dumoulin. Beginning in colonial Toronto in 1863 where two young lawyers, William Henry Beatty and Edward Marion Chadwick, established their partnership in “one room, half furnished,”

Kyer follows the first 100 years of mergers, redirections, challenges, and advances that today have resulted in an international firm of over 700 lawyers practising on three continents. In the process of giving readers a view of the evolution of the practice of law in Canada as seen from the perspective of one particular firm, Kyer also provides in-depth and original accounts of the interrelationships among law firms, family connections, business development, and political influence in Canadian history.

This is an insightful, compelling, social history of one of Canada’s most important law firms.

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Canada Travel: Britannia Mine Museum a fine family spot in British Columbia – by Camille Bains (Canadian Press/Toronto Star – May 23, 2013)

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.

Kids can pan for gold and explore the history of gold mining at this museum on the Sea to Sky Highway between Vancouver and Whistler, B.C.

BRITANNIA BEACH, B.C.—A big yellow dump truck along the Sea to Sky highway is no match for the mountains-and-ocean view between Vancouver and Whistler, but curious travellers would be in for a treat if they stopped at an adjoining museum that holds the secrets of a bygone era.

The Britannia Mine Museum features the history of the copper mine that was once the largest in the British Empire and employed 60,000 workers between 1904 and 1974, when it was closed.

The museum that made its debut the following year and is a national historic site has been steadily expanding since then.
Besides a kids’ play area and a gold-panning station that’s a huge hit, the museum includes a guided train tour of a former service tunnel, similar to the 210-kilometre tunnels where workers toiled six days a week.

Guide Isabelle Akerhielm warns visitors in hard hats that the tunnel will go dark for a few seconds “and you won’t be able to see your hand in front of your face, guaranteed.”

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Still up in the air [Thunder Bay power plant] – by Leith Dunick (tbnewswatch.com – May 23, 2013)

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

Premier Kathleen Wynne promised Northwestern Ontario will have the energy it needs.

What she didn’t say Thursday during a brief visit to Thunder Bay was how the province would accomplish the feat. Wynne waltzed deftly around several direct questions about the future of the Thunder Bay Power Generating Station, which supporters of its closure suggest will save the province $400 million.

“This is an ongoing discussion. This is not a dead issue by any stretch of the imagination. We’re still working with the community and the Ministry of Energy is very much engaged with this,” Wynne said.

“I stand by that commitment to make sure we have the generating capacity necessary.” Asked about a demand earlier this month by Mayor Keith Hobbs to either re-start the conversion of the plant to natural gas, a plan halted by former energy minister Chris Bentley, or apologize like she did to southern Ontarians over the gas-plant closure scandal, once again Wynne toed the party line.

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Minnesota lawmakers raise taconite tax to help pay for Iron Range school construction – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – May 24, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Minnesota’s per-ton tax on taconite iron ore produced in the state will increase a dime this year, and the extra money will be dedicated to help rebuild and retool Iron Range schools.

The taconite provision was included in the 2013 Legislature’s final omnibus tax bill, which Gov. Mark Dayton signed into law Thursday.

The per-ton tax on taconite will increase to $2.56. Half the increase is part of an annual inflationary increase — this year, about 5.3 cents per ton produced. But there’s also an additional increase of a nickel per ton.

“We’re capturing that 10.3 cents to build and rebuild facilities for schools within the taconite tax relief area,” said state Rep. Tom Anzelc, DFL-Balsam Township, who served on the House Tax Committee and helped craft the taconite tax changes. “It’s something that’s long overdue and the school districts simply can’t handle on their own.”

That money will be made available for school construction and improvement projects through bonds issued by the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board. The extra money for school construction projects won’t affect other recipients of taconite tax revenue, such as homeowners, counties, towns and city governments and the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board. They all should get about the same amount as last year out of the taconite tax pool.

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Mining Stirs Tensions in Mexico – by Jean Guerrero (Wall Street Journal – May 23, 2013)

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

OCOTLAN, Mexico—An influx of mining investments throughout Latin America is bringing badly needed investment, but is also causing tensions in some communities, pitting those who see mines as job creators against those who view them as predatory, in some cases threatening scarce resources like water.

Here in the Ocotlán valley in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, two outspoken opponents of a subterranean mine run by a small Canadian firm, Fortuna Silver Mines Inc., FVI.T +5.21% were killed in separate incidents in the past year. Dozens were beaten or threatened. Two local government officials who approved the mine, including the then-mayor, were killed by an anti-mining mob.

From 2006 to 2011, mining exploration investment in the region jumped 150% to $4.55 billion, top in the world and equal to one in every four dollars, according to the mining industry information company Metals Economics Group. The investments are creating jobs, roads and other benefits in some of the most neglected corners of the developing world. But it is also creating tensions in a region with a long and complicated history with mining.

In 2012, six anti-mining activists died in clashes with police in Peru, where a $5 billion project by Colorado’s Newmont Mining Corp. NEM +0.81% was put on hold due to concerns about water supply. In central Guatemala, an outspoken mining opponent was shot multiple times by gunmen on a motorcycle in June.

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Wynne ready to face [Northwestern Ontario] challenges (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – May 24, 2013)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

Ontario’s premier is happy she’s finally getting a chance to do her job. Kathleen Wynne was named premier earlier this year, and came into the job amidst a variety of crises, such as the gas plant controversy, the teacher standoff and a budget battle in which the Progressive Conservative party said it wouldn’t support the Liberal budget before any of its members even saw it.

But now, Wynne has worked out a deal with the provincial NDP that will see the NDP support the budget, avoiding an election and keeping the minority Liberal government in power.

“We’re pleased to be able to say that,” a smiling Wynne said at the Hoito on Thursday during her first-ever visit to Thunder Bay as premier. She’s been here before in her other Liberal roles; she was here, for example, a few days after last year’s flood in her role as minister of municipal affairs and housing.

“We’re in a minority parliament, so that sense of uncertainty doesn’t go away completely,” she said. “But that’s OK, because that keeps us sharp. “There’s a lot of work to do now. Yes, we have the support of the NDP to pass the budget, but that doesn’t mean that implementing the budget isn’t a huge priority. Once we get it through the legislature — we’ve got some work to do on that in the next few weeks — the implementation is really important to me.

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Industry, jobs and the environment (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial – May 23, 2013)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

It goes without saying, but there has to be a balance between environmental protection and economic interests, particularly in Northern Ontario. The economies of Northern towns and sensitive ecosystems depend on it. However, that balance was called into question this week by Resolute Forest Products, which pulled out of negotiations on the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement over how much land to set aside for conservation.

While environmentalists accused Resolute of not living up to its promises to protect habitat for caribou, the company said “draconian” demands by environmental groups would have forced the closure of multiple mills and multiple projects in both Ontario and Quebec.

Two of those projects in Northwestern Ontario — the restart of the Ignace sawmill and a new sawmill project in Atikokan — would have been shelved, and a Fort Frances paper mill would have closed, the company said, if it agreed to environmentalists’ terms.

Resolute said it put forward proposals for more protected areas, including an additional 204,000 hectares of forest for conservation in Northern Ontario, but it wasn’t enough for environmentalists. Company spokesman Seth Kursman said that the company “was not about to negotiate people’s livelihoods away.”

“Many communities have already been hit by the forest industry crisis, (so) we could not unilaterally support such measures,” he said.

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Child Miners Speak: Key Findings on Children and Artisanal Mining in Kambove DRC – (World Vision – May 2013)

World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. http://voices.worldvision.ca/home/

Executive Summary

Child labour is a highly complex problem interlinked with poverty, a lack of social services and alternative employment, education and health impacts, and exploitation. The challenge we have is to understand the specific circumstances and needs of working children and their families, in particular settings. From there, we can develop appropriate and effective solutions that address these circumstances and needs, and sustainably move children out of the worst forms of labour. Simplified calls to eradicate all child labour often ignore the complexity of the problem, the persistence of poverty, and the difficult choices children face.

Child miners in one community in the DRC’s southern Katanga province speak to this reality throughout this report. A key objective for the research was the direct participation by children. They themselves described the circumstances, impacts and drivers of their work as miners, as well as possible solutions to the challenges they face. This was then compared to, and supplemented by, parents, other community members, and mining stakeholders.

By listening carefully, we heard that:

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Children as young as 8 working in Congo copper mines in Democratic Republic of Congo – by Tanya Talaga (Toronto Star – May 24, 2013)

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.

World Vision has documented the voices of children kept out of school to work in a copper and cobalt artisanal mine in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo and has found that “this type of hard labour is robbing children of their childhood.”

Child labour in developing world garment factories is a tragic, known occurrence but a new report on children as young as eight toiling away in African mines sheds light on a forgotten group. World Vision, a Christian relief organization, documented the voices of children kept out of school in order to work in a copper and cobalt artisanal mine in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The key goal of this project, entitled “Child Miners Speak,” was to build trust and talk specifically to children to ask them how they feel about working in the harsh conditions of the mines, said Harry Kits, World Vision’s senior policy adviser for economic justice.

“This type of hard labour is robbing children of their childhood,” Kits said in an interview Thursday.

After speaking with 50 children in Kambove, aged eight to 17, World Vision documented children ill with various infections from working in polluted water or being exposed to mercury or uranium.

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Australia coal firms dig in for years of mine closures, job cuts – by Rebekah Kebede (Reuters U.K. – May 24, 2013)

http://uk.reuters.com/

PERTH, May 24 (Reuters) – Australian coal miners are steeling themselves for years of production cuts, job reductions and asset sales as swelling shipments from international rivals lower hopes of a recovery in prices for coal.

Prices have slumped around 30 percent since their peak two years ago as coal flooded global markets, especially from the United States where cheap gas has cut domestic demand and led to a nearly 50 percent jump in thermal coal exports last year. Even robust Chinese and Indian demand growth is failing to soak up the plentiful supply.

To boost their thinning margins, miners in Australia such as BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Glencore Xstrata and Peabody have trimmed output and laid off thousands. Clinging to barely profitable operations, coal producers now face the prospect of further cost-cutting, which they fear could benefit rivals when the market recovers.

“Everyone is waiting to see who blinks first,” said Tom Sartor, an analyst with Morgans Stockbroking in Brisbane. “You don’t want to be the one curtailing production knowing that it’s going to benefit your competitor.” Australia’s coal industry has become a victim of its own success. In its rush to meet growing Chinese demand, producers churned out more and more coal, and miners are now stuck with more than they can sell.

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Saskatchewan finds small solutions to big pipeline problems – by Yadullah Hussain (National Post – May 24, 2013)

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

Stunned by Enbridge Inc.’s Kalamazoo River oil spill in 2010 that disrupted its sole market access in Saskatchewan, Crescent Point Energy Corp. found an unlikely ally: an agriculture company.

Toronto-based Ceres Global Ag. Corp owns a stake in Southern Stewart Railway set up to transport grain from Stoughton, Sask., to Regina, from where it connects to other lines. But floods over the past two years had wrecked its agriculture business, and the province’s burgeoning oil production seemed like a good way to bring its trains back into active duty.

The arrangement took off. Within the space of a year, SSR was shipping nearly 30,000 bpd of oil out of Saskatchewan, helping Crescent Point and others escape the heavy oil discounts plaguing Canadian producers.

“The Kalamazoo river leak was a bit of an eye opener as a lot of our production is in Saskatchewan and we are not blessed with the number of pipeline alternatives they have in Alberta, so we really had one way of getting our crude to the market, and that’s the Enbridge mainline system,” said Trent Stangl, vice-president at Crescent. “The SSR has been a key part of our rail plan for southeast Saskatchewan.”

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Oil sands deals lose traction – by Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – May 24, 2013)

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.

CALGARY — There’s a buyers’ strike in the oil sands. At least a half dozen energy companies have come up dry in efforts to attract the rich bids they envisaged when they put oil sands assets on the auction block in the past year, showing downward pricing pressure on a sector touted as the cornerstone of Canada’s economic growth.

Would-be buyers and joint venture partners are balking at deals amid a combination of wildly volatile Canadian crude prices, rising development costs and weakening returns, a situation that could force the industry to temper heady expectations for long-term oil sands production growth.

Marathon Oil Corp., Murphy Oil Corp. and Athabasca Oil Corp. had sought buyers and partners in the Northern Alberta oil sands, but now have changed their minds – or in Athabasca’s case, have told investors to hang tight after the company failed to clinch deals that had once appeared imminent.

Those companies join ConocoPhillips Co., Koch Industries Inc. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC in being disappointed after putting properties up for sale that may have once attracted bids totalling in the billions of dollars. Those three say they have rethought their plans after offers failed to meet expectations.

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Liberal win in B.C. provides ‘greater clarity’ on pipeline: Kinder Morgan – by Kelly Cryderman (Globe and Mail – May 23, 2013)

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.

Calgary — The pipeline company behind the proposed Trans Mountain expansion from Alberta to the West Coast says the B.C. Liberals’ electoral victory this month is a “pro-economy, jobs and investment” result, and provides greater clarity as to what conditions the company must meet in order to get shovels in the ground.

Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson said when he heard the Clark Liberals had won on May 14, “what I felt is we had a greater clarity of what those conditions were and what the interests were that we were facing in British Columbia.”

Speaking to reporters after a panel discussion with Mr. Anderson in Calgary on Thursday, Vern Yu of Enbridge Inc. – the proponent of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project – also said he believes the B.C. Liberals under Christy Clark have a more firm idea “of what’s necessary to get the project across the finish line” than their NDP challengers.

Both pipeline companies are keen to take advantage of what is burgeoning demand to ship growing volumes of Alberta bitumen to foreign buyers. But the rush to markets from the West Coast has been impeded by concerns about the environmental consequences of spills or an increased number of supertankers travelling from B.C. ports.

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