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Day: May 27, 2013

Gold Bets Cut to Five-Year Low as Prices Whipsawed: Commodities – by Tony C. Dreibus (Bloomberg News – May 27, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Hedge funds are the least bullish on gold in more than five years as speculation about the pace of money printing by central banks whipsawed prices, driving volatility to a 17-month high.

Money managers cut their net-long position by 9 percent to 35,686 futures and options as of May 21, the lowest since July 2007, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Holdings of short contracts rose 6.7 percent to a record 79,416. Net-bullish wagers across 18 U.S.-traded commodities slid 2.1 percent, as investors became more bearish on coffee and wheat.

Gold’s 60-day historical volatility touched the highest since December 2011 last week and a gauge of price swings for the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest bullion-backed exchange-traded fund, surged 73 percent this year. Bullion see-sawed as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke testified before Congress on May 22. Two days later, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he’s done enough to spur growth.

“Gold has so many drivers that it leads to a lot of getting pushed around by one thing or another,” said Dan Denbow, a fund manager at the $1 billion USAA Precious Metals & Minerals Fund in San Antonio. “It makes it impossible to determine a direction.”

May Returns

Futures dropped 5.4 percent in May, poised for a second monthly decline. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index of 24 commodities fell 0.1 percent and the MSCI All-Country World of equities also declined 0.1 percent. A Bank of America Corp. Index shows Treasuries lost 1.3 percent.

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Why everyone wants a piece of the Arctic – by by Luiza Ch. Savage (MacLean’s Magazine – May 27, 2013)

http://www2.macleans.ca/

In temperature and politics, the Arctic has never been hotter. As other nations try to get in on the action, Canada is gearing up for a fight.

Ólafur Grímsson, the jovial, globe-trotting president of Iceland, likes to tell the story of his first state visit to Russia 11 years ago, when he asked to meet with Vladimir Putin to talk about the Arctic. The snow-haired Icelander was told that such esoteric matters would be best discussed with local authorities in Kamchatka and Murmansk, thousands of miles from the Kremlin. These days, says Grímsson with a chuckle, Putin himself gives speeches at Arctic conferences—and sends emissaries to Iceland to personally invite Grímsson to attend.

In temperature and in geopolitics, the Arctic has never been hotter. The ice cap is melting rapidly; new shipping lanes are opening up, as are previously inaccessible reserves of oil, gas and minerals. It is estimated that one-fifth of the world’s petroleum reserves lie in the Arctic. Whether these riches will be developed and transported, under what conditions and by whom, are high-stakes questions that are growing in urgency for governments and industry around the world.

Some projections say a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean could occur by mid-century. “For the first time in human history we will witness the creation of a new ocean,” Grímsson told a conference in Washington last month. And the rest of the world wants in. Last summer, a Chinese-owned icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, sailed from Shanghai to Iceland. The purpose of that expedition was ostensibly to research how the melting of the sea ice creates extreme weather patterns in China. But China is also building cargo ships to sail across a polar route this decade using the ice-free summer months, cutting the distance to Europe and America.

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20K trees to be planted at old Sudbury mine site – by CBC Radio Sudbury (May 23, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/

It will be decades — if not a century — before the program is complete, city environmental planner says

The City of Greater Sudbury is ready for another season of tree planting — and this year it is getting a significant boost. It announced Tuesday that 20,000 trees donated by CN Rail and a non-profit group called Tree Canada will be planted.

During the announcement the city gave helicopter tours of a former Inco smelter site in Coniston that was devastated by mining. This is where the new trees will find their home.

‘Tremendous amount of work left’

A representative with Tree Canada said she can see how much the city has changed. “I just feel like the world’s going to be OK when I come up this way,” said Debra Beattie, who also grew up in Sudbury.

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Future mines will be technology driven, [South African] Minister tells union – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – May 27, 2013)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Technological innovations would drive the mines of the future, which would need to be run by young people with the appropriate skills, Minerals Minister Susan Shabangu told South Africa’s biggest mining union at the weekend.

Urging the central executive committee of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to rise to the new challenge, Shabangu denigrated the current migrant labour system of recruitment as unsustainable, against the changed background of large numbers of unemployed young people now living on the doorsteps of many mines.

“The mines of the future will have to be modelled differently to those that have characterised this industry for the past 136 years. These mines will inevitably have to accommodate young people who will need to operate them, armed with the appropriate skills, technological knowledge and training.

“There’s no doubt that the mining industry of the future will be driven by technological innovations and research and development, and I’m sure NUM will rise to this challenge,” Shabangu said.

The headwinds from a fragile world economy had conspired to make the mining sector a difficult economic terrain, not just for workers and business, but also for government as regulator and policy maker.

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Language credentials turned upside-down in HD Mining case – Globe and Mail Editorial (May 27, 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.

The Federal Court of Canada’s judgment last week in the HD Mining case was something of a pyrrhic victory for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program as it now stands. The topsy-turvy upshot is that suitable Canadian miners could not be found for a coal mine near Tumbler Ridge, B.C., in large measure because the predominant language at the mine is Mandarin, which the Chinese government recognizes as China’s national language.

Justice Russel Zinn of the Federal Court upheld a labour market opinion issued by William MacLean, an officer of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, in which he had found that the hiring of 201 Chinese workers at the coal mine would have “a neutral or positive effect on the labour market in Canada.” That opinion enabled HD Mining International Ltd., a Chinese-controlled company, to hire the foreign workers. The Construction and Specialized Workers’ Union and the International Union of Operating Engineers challenged that opinion in court.

Given the list of factors that it was Mr. MacLean’s duty to consider, his conclusion was right. But because the language of that particular workplace is Mandarin, most English-speaking miners in northeastern British Columbia would not be able to communicate with their fellow employees in HD Mining’s Murray River project.

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Mine find drenched in prehistory – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – May 27, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Timmins residents got the chance to see what discovery here has scientists worldwide all abuzz. It is billion-year-old water found 2.4 kilometres underground within the Kidd Mine that has caused such a stir.

A sample of it was exhibited in a jar at Timmins Square Saturday as part of Glencore-Xstrata Kidd Operations’ display for Mining Week.

In 2011, while drilling at the most extreme levels of the Kidd Mine, geologists discovered what is estimated to be billion-year-old water, which attracted attention from national media, scientists and NASA.

“We are looking at a sample of water that was collected at the 8,000 level,” said Pete Calloway, chief geologist for Kidd Mine. “The general thought right now is that this is extremely old water. We aren’t sure how old quite yet, we are leaving it up to the professors at the University of Toronto to make that determination.”

Calloway can draw his own conclusions about the nature of the water, but he’ll let the brains at the university draw the official conclusions. “What we believe is that this water has been trapped within the fractures of the mine and it could be as old as the mine, (mineral formation) which is 2.7 billion years old,” said Calloway. “As we do our work underground and drill the ore body to find out things like grade, tonnage and so on, so that we can plan the mine around the drill holes, we were coming into micro fractures and different faults throughout the mine which in turn liberated the water into the drill hole.”

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RPT-Disruptions tighten copper supply, surplus narrows – by Melanie Burton and Eric Onstad (Reuters U.s. – May 26, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE/LONDON, May 24 (Reuters) – A series of copper mine shutdowns and supply logjams has prompted some analysts to scale down forecasts for a market surplus, but it would take more disruptions to swing the market into a deficit.

“People are making adjustments, we certainly are. At the beginning of the year we were pencilling in a 300,000 tonne surplus. That’s probably going to be pegged back by half or so,” analyst Robin Bhar at Societe Generale in London said.

“Demand is down as well, so one offsets the other. I don’t think we’ll have a deficit market again but certainly a more balanced market.”

The forecast surplus has weighed on benchmark copper prices , which have shed 13 percent since touching a peak in February of $8,346 a tonne for the year so far.

The global market for refined copper was expected to have a 98,500 tonne surplus this year and 305,000 tonnes in 2014, based on the average forecast of 18 analysts polled by Reuters in April. The 2013 estimate was already scaled back from a 127,000 tonne surplus forecast in January.

Those April forecasts came shortly after a rockslide at Rio Tinto’s Bingham Canyon copper mine, which the company said would reduce production by about 100,000 tonnes.

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Saskatchewan mining companies contribute to their communities – by Carol Rogers And Barb Flynn (Regina Leader-Post – May 25, 2013)

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

For L-P Specialty Products

Saskatchewan’s mining corporations are drilling into more than just the earth. Many are becoming involved in and giving back to their communities. They are doing this in a variety of ways including by introducing educational programs, providing employment opportunities, ensuring employee safety both on and after leaving the job, and addressing child hunger as a way of promoting a healthy education and lifestyle. Here is a look at some of the ways that companies are investing in local communities.

AREVA

AREVA Resources Canada is entering an exciting phase of growth in 2013. Not only is AREVA restarting the mill at McClean Lake this summer, they are also upgrading and expanding it so they can process all the ore from the nearby Cigar Lake mine.

The key to their success? Hiring a significant number of employees to ensure they are ready for this growth and development. In 2012, AREVA launched a major recruitment campaign focused on gaining employees from northern Saskatchewan.

Because it is a competitive market with many projects underway in the province, AREVA understands that they need an innovative approach to attract and retain talent.

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Sudbury Laurentian’s Ned Goodman School of Mines – by Dominic Giroux, President, Laurentian University (May 15, 2013)

Bruce Jago, Excutive Director of Laurentian’s Ned Goodman School of Mines; Ned Goodman, President and CEO of Dundee Corporation; Dominic Giroux, Laurentian University President

Dominic Giroux, Laurentian University President

http://www.laurentian.ca/content/goodman-school-of-mines

This speech was given by Dominic Giroux, during the Goodman School of Mines Cocktail Reception at the King Edward Hotel, Toronto, Ontario on May 15, 2013

Good evening – bienvenue – aanii, boozhoo. Thank you all for being here, to share in this special occasion. And thank you to our gracious host, Ned Goodman.

I will keep my remarks relatively short. My role tonight is to give you a snapshot of Laurentian University. And that’s exactly why I say “relatively short”, because when I start talking about Laurentian University or what I like to call the “academic resort of Ontario” – 750 acres surrounded by 5 lakes, a golf course, and a supervised beach – I can truly go on for hours.

We are one of the fastest growing universities in Canada: we’ve grown from six to ten thousand students in the past decade, while increasing our average entry grade.

We’re very proud of our small class sizes. What makes the student’s experience unique at Laurentian is this proximity, this interaction, with faculty. 17% of our students are enrolled in French language programs and 10% of our students are aboriginal students—an important and growing proportion of our student population).

We’re proud of the fact that our research intensity has been growing annually. We’re among the top 3 in Canada in terms of total sponsored research, largely due to our award-winning research centers and our exceptional faculty.

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Minister responsible for Energy and Resources – by Tony Playter (Regina Leader-Post – May 25, 2013)

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

For L-P Specialty

Q & A with Tim McMillan

According to the Saskatchewan Mining Association website, Saskatchewan has more than 25 operating mines that produce minerals such as potash, uranium, coal and gold as well as mineral resources including diamonds, copper and zinc.

To ensure continued success in the mining sector and the province’s overall economic growth, the Ministry of the Economy has taken several steps to encourage investment and development in Saskatchewan. Tim McMillan, Minister responsible for Energy and Resources, discussed the future of mining in Saskatchewan.

Q: Since 2007, how has the provincial government encouraged investment in Saskatchewan’s mining sector?

I believe it is important to tell the Saskatchewan story in an accurate and positive light. For too long, Saskatchewan politicians talked about what we couldn’t do, what we didn’t have and how we would never grow or prosper like some of our neighbours.

The change in paradigm has been a very important part of our success. We have been very open and made some key structural changes that have created a stable royalty system that will drive long-term investments and benefits for our province.

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Canadian mine giant Barrick fined a record $16.4M in Chile – by Canadian Press/CBC News (May 25, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/

Native population complains of cancerous growths and aching stomachs

The Diaguita Indians live in the foothills of the Andes, just downstream from the world’s highest gold mine, where for as long as anyone can remember they’ve drunk straight from the glacier-fed river that irrigates their orchards and vineyards with its clear water.

Then thousands of mine workers and their huge machines moved in, building a road alongside the river that reaches all the way up to Pascua-Lama, a gold mine being built along both sides of the Chile-Argentine border at a lung-busting 5,000 metres above sea level.

The crews moved mountaintops in preparation for 25 years of gold and silver production, breaking rocks and allowing mineral acids that include arsenic, aluminum and sulfates to flow into the headwaters feeding Atacama desert communities down below.

River levels dropped, the water is murky in places and the Indians now complain of cancerous growths and aching stomachs. There’s no way to prove or disprove it, but villagers are convinced Barrick Gold Corp. is to blame for their health problems.

“We don’t know how much contamination the fruit and vegetables we eat may have,” complained Diaguita leader Yovana Paredes Paez. “They’re drying up the river, our farms aren’t the same. The animals are dying of hunger. Now there’s no cheese or meat. It’s changed completely.”

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Saskatchewan Mining Association predicts mining sector growth – by Robyn Tocker (Regina Leader-Post – May 25, 2013)

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

For L-P Specialty Products

Saskatchewan’s mining industry employs over 30,500 people who work in over 20 different mining operations across Saskatchewan. The province supplies a variety of minerals in Canada and internationally. It is best known for being the world’s leading producer of potash, producing roughly one third of the world’s supply. “Saskatchewan is also the world’s second-leading producer of uranium, supplying roughly 17 per cent,” said Pam Schwann, the executive director of the Saskatchewan Mining Association (SMA).

Saskatchewan’s mining industry also produces minerals such as lignite coal, which supplies over 50 per cent of the province’s baseload power. Gold, salt, sodium sulphate, bentonite and other clays are also mined.

“One of the key advantages Saskatchewan has over other jurisdictions [in producing these minerals] is its geologic framework,” Schwann said. Both the potash-bearing Prairie Evaporite Formation and the uranium-bearing Athabasca Basin host world class deposits in terms of tonnage and grade.

Saskatchewan also has an advantage because of a positive policy environment. Schwann explained the annual Fraser Institute Survey identified that Saskatchewan ranked 13th out of 96 global jurisdictions in terms of offering overall policy attractiveness for investment. Saskatchewan’s postsecondary institutes, including the Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission, also lend a hand.

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ONTC: Options for Ontera – by Maria Calabrese (North Bay Nugget – May 25, 2013)

http://www.nugget.ca/

NORTH BAY – The telecommunications arm of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission is back on the table for options other than divestment.

Local politicians are hoping that won’t matter as they anticipate an announcement from the province that could bode well for the future of the Crown agency put up for sale by the province 14 months ago.

“I believe this issue will be resolved very quickly this summer,” said Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli. “The Liberals will want this resolved before the auditor general comes out with his report. Once his report comes out, they’ll have to end the fire sale.”

Fedeli called in the auditor general to look into ONTC divestment which he said would cost $530 million in pension, benefits, workers’ compensation, severance and other liabilities based on ONTC financial statements, contradicting the government’s projected savings of $265 million.

Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle penned letters as recently as April 29 indicating the divestment process was still underway, and softened the government stance after those numbers were made public by suggesting there are options to divestment, Fedeli said.

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Entrepreneurial thinking drives airport’s success – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – May 2013)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

Mining signals opportunity to Scott McFadden. The opening of Ontario’s Far North to resource extraction and development is something the president and CEO of Thunder Bay International Airports Authority is keenly keeping his eye on.

While the remote mineral exploration camps in the Ring of Fire are serviced by dirt and ice air strips, as progress moves forward, McFadden said building a significant airfield in the James Bay lowlands to eventually service working mines is a must.

“A properly built and maintained airfield is going to be vital to the development of the Ring of Fire.” McFadden points to Goldcorp’s Musselwhite Mine, 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, which regularly runs charters out of the airport, as a prime example of how the industry has evolved to attract and retain a transient workforce that prefers the long commute to work.

Instead of creating a remote mining town with all its infrastructure, McFadden said companies prefer work camps to allow miners to arrive and leave on a rotational basis.

“Years ago you established a mine and a town around it. These days people’s expectations are different. They want to stay home and I see an airport as probably the best way to develop a mine in a remote area.”

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Layoffs at Lake Shore Gold [in Timmins] – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – May 25, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Despite laying off approximately 35 employees on Friday, Lake Shore Gold Corp. remains confident in its main commodity.

“We have a lot of confidence in the future of gold and we expect the price to go back up,” said Mark Utting, Lake Shore Gold’s vice-president, investor relations. “You just have to manage your business to be successful in the current price environment.”

The company employed “about 560” workers prior to Friday’s cuts. With localized operations in the region including the Timmins West Mine, the Bell Creek Mine, the Fenn-Gib Project and a rapidly expanding mill site, a large majority of the company’s employees are Timmins residents.

“You never want to do this, and it’s not something you do lightly,” said Utting. “But if you look at our company, we’re very proud of the fact that we’ve grown from 10 employees in 2007 to over 500 employees, even after these reductions today.

“The gold price is down over $250 an ounce so far this year, and we’re a rapidly growing company that’s currently in the heaviest part of its capital spending period. We’re investing a lot of capital in Timmins and as a company like that, we have to be responsive to changes in market conditions.

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