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Day: July 29, 2013

Mugabe wants mining indigenisation without compensation – by Tawanda Karombo (South Africa Business Day – July 29, 2013)

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

HARARE — Indications that Zimbabwe’s contentious indigenisation policy will be changed to rule out compensation for expropriated stakes in mining companies have been buttressed by President Robert Mugabe during a campaign rally in the capital ahead of the country’s elections on Wednesday.

The empowerment policy, first promulgated in 2007 and forcibly implemented in the past two years, seeks to transfer majority control in foreign mining groups to black Zimbabwean groups.

However, where foreign mining companies would have received compensation for the 51% shares ceded to black Zimbabwean groups, they will now receive no monetary compensation, Mr Mugabe has said.

Impala Platinum, Anglo American Platinum and Aquarius Platinum are the major mining houses in the industry in Zimbabwe, which is home to the world’s second-largest platinum reserves. The country also has vast deposits of other minerals such as gold, nickel, diamonds and coal, which are being exploited by foreign companies that include New Dawn Mining, Mzi Khumalo’s Metallon Gold and Caledonia Mining Corporation.

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Women in Mining: Judy Baker – Challenges in junior exploration faced by both genders – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – August 2013)

(L to R) Judy Bake, CEO Superior Copper Resources; Delio Tortosa, Geologist; Morgan Quinn, Geologist.

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.

http://www.superiorcopper.ca/

For Judy Baker, challenges in the junior exploration side of the mining industry aren’t necessarily linked to gender. It’s a formidable field that poses challenges for anyone who takes the work on. “The junior exploration and mining business is a tougher segment of the industry, because basically you’re taking the highest risk capital available to explore for mineral wealth, and the risk factor’s so high, it’s tough for anyone to be in, let alone women,” she said.

Baker, CEO at Superior Copper Resources, which is exploring at the former Coppercorp copper mine near Sault Ste. Marie, first developed an interest in the field while still in high school. Attending night courses in geology at Brock University, the theory of plate tectonics put forward by John Tuzo Wilson—the idea that the earth’s crust is comprised of a series of shifting plates—captured her interest and guided her into mining.

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NEWS RELEASE: OMA member profile: Harte Gold — building a ‘heart of gold’

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.

While the price of gold has slid recently, this doesn’t mean that precious metals explorers and developers have been operating in a holding pattern waiting for a price rebound. Companies have been making adjustments, striving to control costs, advancing projects and building reserves. They know vagaries of gold price movements can be volatile both in going up and tumbling down.

The second quarter of 2013 saw a 13% decrease in average gold prices to US$1,414 per ounce. This marks the largest quarterly decline in gold prices since 1980. During that period, Harte Gold continued to advance its Sugar Zone property, located near White River 60 kilometres east of the Hemlo gold belt, towards becoming a producing mine.

The company was able to announce recently significant progress made on its Sugar Zone property during the second quarter of 2013. “The goal of Harte Gold’s optimization efforts is to generate project efficiencies, accelerate project timelines and low both up-front and overall project costs,” said Stephen G. Roman, President and Chief Operating Officer of Harte Gold. “The Sugar Zone deposit is a high grade gold deposit with significant potential along strike and at depth.”

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What If We Never Run Out of Oil? – by Charles C. Mann (The Atlantic Magazine – May 2013)

http://www.theatlantic.com/

New technology and a little-known energy source suggest that fossil fuels may not be finite. This would be a miracle—and a nightmare.

As the great research ship Chikyu left Shimizu in January to mine the explosive ice beneath the Philippine Sea, chances are good that not one of the scientists aboard realized they might be closing the door on Winston Churchill’s world. Their lack of knowledge is unsurprising; beyond the ranks of petroleum-industry historians, Churchill’s outsize role in the history of energy is insufficiently appreciated.

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. With characteristic vigor and verve, he set about modernizing the Royal Navy, jewel of the empire. The revamped fleet, he proclaimed, should be fueled with oil, rather than coal—a decision that continues to reverberate in the present. Burning a pound of fuel oil produces about twice as much energy as burning a pound of coal. Because of this greater energy density, oil could push ships faster and farther than coal could.

Churchill’s proposal led to emphatic dispute. The United Kingdom had lots of coal but next to no oil. At the time, the United States produced almost two-thirds of the world’s petroleum; Russia produced another fifth. Both were allies of Great Britain. Nonetheless, Whitehall was uneasy about the prospect of the Navy’s falling under the thumb of foreign entities, even if friendly.

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My excellent plan for the Ring of Fire – by David Robinson (Northern Ontario Business – August 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.

David Robinson is an economist at Laurentian University. drobinson@laurentian.ca

Ontario’s northwest is one of the last great frontiers. It is a country-sized chunk of land still outside of the transportation network that links productive communities to the global economy. Ice roads, small planes and bureaucrats are all that tie the region to Canada.

But northwestern Ontario’s place in the global economy is changing. The trigger was finding enough ore near McFauld’s
Lake to justify building a road or rail link. With bulk transportation, 100 other potential mines become economic.

This comes when China plans to build urban homes for 250 million people by 2025 and will want Northern metals and wood.
And when economic recovery in the USA will help push resource prices back up. And when warming climate will make ice roads
impossible and another port on Hudson’s Bay inevitable.

A good plan starts by looking at best practices from around the world. The Finns, for example, would probably be planning an independent Aboriginal-dominated regional government for the northwest.

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UPDATE: Rio Tinto Seeks $820 Million From Mine Sale – by Robb M. Stewart (Wall Street Journal – July 29, 2013)

 http://online.wsj.com/home-page

MELBOURNE–Rio Tinto PLC (RIO) agreed to sell its majority stake in an Australian copper-and-gold mine to China Molybdenum Co. (3993.HK) for US$820 million, the U.K. company’s latest step to reduce debt amid shaky demand for commodities.

The world’s second-biggest mining company by sales said it had reached a binding agreement to sell its 80% stake in the Northparkes mine to the Chinese company, which produces molybdenum and tungsten, ingredients used in steelmaking. Sumitomo Corp. (8053.TO) units that hold the remaining 20% of the mine have the right to match the offer, and the deal is subject to Australian regulatory approval. A spokeswoman for Japan’s Sumitomo declined to comment on the company’s intentions.

Rio Tinto acquired Northparkes in 2000 after a hard-fought battle with Anglo American PLC (AAL.LN) to acquire the mine’s operator, North Ltd., for 3.5 billion Australian dollars (US$3.2 billion).

China Molybdenum, which is in a trading halt, hasn’t said why it is seeking to buy Northparkes, from which copper concentrate is mainly sold to Japan, China and India. Two shareholders that together own 69% of the Chinese company have given binding support to the deal, Rio said Monday.

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Old diary used as leverage in court challenge [for ‘fair share’ from mines] – by Staff (Timmins Daily Press – July 29, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

MOOSE FACTORY – Mushkegowuk First Nations are hosting a three-day conference this week to discuss the future of Treaty No. 9. This comes on the heels of a court challenge that has been launched by Mushkegowuk council earlier this month.

The dispute is over Aboriginal land rights and traplines in the Cochrane area where there has been increased mining activity. Mushkegowuk is using as legal leverage a 108-year-old diary that belonged to Daniel MacMartin, the Ontario treaty commissioner who negotiated Treaty No. 9 in 1905.

Much fanfare was made by Mushkegowuk when the diary was discovered a couple of years ago. It was felt MacMartin’s diary reaffirms the view that Aboriginal leaders were duped into signing a written treaty which they did not fully understand.

“When my grandfather signed the treaty in Fort Albany in 1905, the terms as discussed and orally agreed to, were very clear,” said Grand Chief Stan Louttit. “It was a sacred oral agreement about living together and sharing the land.

“The Omushkego (people of Mushkegowuk) never surrendered the land or the natural resources but were told their rights would be protected.”

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Ring of Fire budget cut by $10M – by Carl Clutchey (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – July 29, 2013)

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

Six weeks after it hit the pause button on its environmental assessment for its Ring of Fire project, Cliffs Natural Resources announced that its development budget for the proposed chromite mine has been trimmed by US $10 million.

The Cleveland-based company this spring earmarked $60 million for the work to take place this year, including a feasibility study. A financial report on the company’s second quarter performance released on Thursday shows the figure has been reduced to $50 million.

Regional Cliffs spokeswoman Jennifer Mihalcin confirmed Friday that the reduction is a reflection of the earlier decision to temporarily put the brakes on work on its environmental assessment for the Ring of Fire project. An additional $25 million set aside for overall exploration remains the same.

In June, Cliffs said it was frustrated by a lack of consensus among provincial, company and First Nations interests regarding how the environmental assessment should proceed. Cliffs has been trying to nail down the assessment’s terms of reference for two years. The mine’s proposed in-production year is 2017.

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‘Trains or pipelines,’ Doer warns U.S. over Keystone – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – July 29, 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.

OTTAWA — Canada is telling the U.S administration it will see a sharp increase in cross-border crude-oil shipments by rail if President Barack Obama fails to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

In a telephone interview from Washington, Canadian Ambassador Gary Doer said oil companies are increasingly turning to trains – and even trucks – as the construction of pipelines has failed to keep up with the boom in North American crude production, and that trend will grow if the President turns down Keystone XL.

“His choice is to have it come down by a pipeline that he approves, or without his approval, it comes down on trains. That’s just the raw common sense of this thing, and we’ve been saying it for two years and we’ve been proven correct,” Mr. Doer said Sunday. “At the end of the day, it’s trains or pipelines.”

The ambassador made his comments to The Globe and Mail after Mr. Obama questioned the much-touted economic benefits of the $7.6-billion project in an interview published in the U.S. on the weekend. The President also suggested Canada could do more to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to help win approval.

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Journey to the end of the MM&A Railway line – by Les Perreaux (Globe and Mail – July 27, 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.

There is a sign marking the start of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway line south of Montreal, but it’s hardly needed: Simply look for the piles of discarded track and cracked and rotting ties amid the ragweed, out past the point where the Canadian Pacific Railway ends in a well-groomed rail bed.

“I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to call the city to get them to clean up their tracks,” says Amélie Gervais, the owner of Bistro La Trinquette in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. Her quaint restaurant, with its vast courtyard patio, overlooks the Chambly Canal at the start of the MM&A line.

Railroads still count distances in miles, and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu stands at what was once Mile 20 of the mighty Canadian Pacific Railway’s “short line” extension from Montreal to the Atlantic Ocean, which helped knit Canada from Pacific to Atlantic for 105 years.

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Revenge is a bad business plan, Newfoundland – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – July 27, 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.

John Crosbie never met a hyperbole he couldn’t top. But the former Tory cabinet minister, whose colourful metaphors kept the House of Commons entertained during his stints in the governments of Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney, was barely exaggerating when he recently called the 1969 Churchill Falls hydro contract between Quebec and Newfoundland “one of the greatest public policy disasters entered into by any province or government in the history of Canada.”

More than four decades later, the deal signed by the legendary (and first) Newfoundland premier Joey Smallwood remains the source of such bitterness on the Rock that it’s a miracle Ottawa hasn’t had to send troops to patrol the still-disputed Quebec-Labrador border. Hydro-Québec has the right to purchase all but a fraction of the 5,400 megawatts from the massive Churchill Falls project in Labrador for next to nothing until 2041.

In 1969, the deal didn’t seem so lopsided. Nuclear power was all the rage and many analysts predicted that Quebec, which had no need for power it could only transport by building hundreds of kilometres of never-attempted transmission lines, would end up losing its shirt.

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Good money in mining – by Hanim Adnan and Choong En Han (Malaysia Star – July 27, 2013)

http://www.thestar.com.my/

MINING in Malaysia is not the big business it used to be. Tin mining tycoons are now corporate folklore, no thanks to the collapse of the global tin market in 1985.

The industry was then overshadowed by industrialisation and the oil palm industry. Its glorious past is manifested by the oil and gas industry which is the multi-billion ringgit industry it deserves to be due to planning and the work undertaken by Petroliam Nasional Bhd.

Apart from oil and gas, minerals are being mined by small-time miners in a rather ambiguous manner in most mineral-rich states. But that is about to change. The sector is now focusing on large-scale mining of major minerals such as gold, iron ore and coal. It’s no longer the domain of tin.

Last year, iron ore topped other major minerals in terms of production with 10.7 million tonnes mined valued at RM2.02bil. That is followed by gold with 4.6 million gm (RM700.8mil), coal at 2.95 million tonnes (RM442.2mil) and tin-in-concentrate at 3.66 million tonnes (RM236.5mil) respectively.

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Biggest diamond ever found and processed in Canada unearthed near Attawapiskat – by Alex Ballingall (Toronto Star – July 26, 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.

The 35-carat sparkler will, after polishing, go on a world tour to promote Ontario diamonds.

It came from the earth, a crystallized clump of carbon blasted from the rocky soil of northern Ontario by a multinational mining company. Now that it’s in the hands of a leading Canadian diamond maker, the gem from the open pit mine near Attawapiskat is causing a stir. At 35 carats, it’s the biggest diamond ever pulled from Canadian soil that will also be cut and polished in the country.

“That’s what makes this unique,” said Tom Ormsby, director of external and corporate affairs for De Beers Canada, which operates the Victor Diamond Mine in northern Ontario, 90 km west of James Bay. “It will be valued once it’s done being cut and polished,” said Ormsby, who declined to say how much Vancouver-based diamond cutter Crossworks Manufacturing paid to process the precious gem.

The Canadian company, which has a contract to buy as much as 10 per cent of the annual diamond production from the De Beers’ Victor mine, started working on the diamond this week, said Ormsby.

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Rio Tinto-Lundin mark Eagle Mine purchase – by John Pepin (The Mining Journal – July 26, 2013)

http://www.miningjournal.net/

Ceremony at Humboldt Mill finalizes transfer

HUMBOLDT – With the sounds of heavy construction equipment rumbling and beeping in the background, about 200 invited guests attended a ceremony in Humboldt Township Thursday commemorating Rio Tinto’s “handing over” the Eagle Mine and Humboldt Mill to new Toronto-based owner Lundin Mining Corp.

The ceremony was held under a tent at the mill, in a parking lot outside the local administrative offices for the Eagle Mine project. The crowd included employees and local officials and residents who have supported the Eagle Mine project.

Past Eagle Mine President Adam Burley – who is leaving Marquette County for a new Rio Tinto post in Salt Lake City – presented Lundin officials with a piece of polished ore from the mine, symbolizing the ownership transfer.

“The main message I want to get across is one of thanks and appreciation for the (Eagle) team support and the community support over these years and I also want to get across a message of pride,” Burley said. “Rio Tinto is proud of what we’ve achieved at Eagle. We do think we’ve raised the benchmark on industry standards and urge the community to share in that pride because they are the ones that have shaped the direction to a very large extent.”

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Is return of metal mining threat to regional economy? – by Stephen Anderson (Houghton Mining Gazette – July 26, 2013)

http://www.miningjournal.net/

HOUGHTON – A recent study, which is part of a larger local education campaign, has concluded that a return to metal ore mining and processing would damage the western Upper Peninsula’s economy.

Dr. Thomas Power of the University of Montana Economics Department, through his organization Power Consulting, Inc., recently completed his 109-page report, “The Economic Impacts of Renewed Copper Mining in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan.” Power was contracted in September to do the report by Friends of the Land of Keweenaw.

The study recommends that future economic development in Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties continue to focus on “economic gardening” – a term coined by the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance describing a focus on nurturing existing businesses and supporting new start-ups – and the protection and enhancement of a “quality of life” amenity-based economy that has emerged over the last 40 years.

The report, which can be found in its entirety at folkminingeducation.info, summarized the following findings in its executive summary: There are significant costs associated with mining activities that tend to offset the positive impacts of the high pay associated with mining jobs.

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