October 4, 2013 – Republic of Mining

Australia’s Gold Miners Gang Up to Thwart Royalty Hike – by Stephen Bell (Wall Street Journal – October 4, 2013)

October 4, 2013

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

Western Australia’s Government Is Under Increasing Pressure to Lift Revenue

PERTH, Australia—Gold producers in Australia’s most resource-rich state have banded together to resist any increase in royalties on sales of the precious metal, fearing a further blow to an industry already battered by falling prices and rising costs.

The Western Australian government is reviewing royalty payments on a range of minerals produced in the state as it seeks to boost revenue in the face of weaker commodity prices, and to tackle ballooning debt that has knocked down its credit rating.

Gold miners have been concerned ever since the premier of the state, Colin Barnett, told the state legislature last week that the current royalty on sales of the metal—currently 2.5%—was “a little light” compared with those for other minerals.

Western Australia’s Gold Royalties Response Group, which successfully lobbied against a previously mooted royalty increase three years ago, Friday said it had reformed.

Opinion: Why mining matters, now – by Philip Hochstein (Vancouver Sun – October 3, 2013)

October 4, 2013

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

Philip Hochstein is President of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association.

Saying no to the New Prosperity mine means saying no to $11 billion worth of GDP over 20 years

When you live and work in Metro Vancouver or Greater Victoria, it’s easy to ignore the impact of mining, but the British Columbia mining story is exceptional. There is no industry in B.C. right now that has the potential to contribute more to our economy and improve the way of life here than mining, because few industries can create wealth out of raw resources as mining does. And yes, I mean improve life and create wealth in the big cities too.

At environmental assessment hearings this past summer, I spoke in favour of the proposed New Prosperity mine, which is 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake. Why would a Burnaby-based construction association care and why should you care about just another mine? The reason is because a new mine is not just another mine.

Manitoba Reed Mine approval a ‘step back,’ says Wilderness Committee – by Ian Graham (Thompson Citizen – October 4, 2013)

October 4, 2013

The Thompson Citizen, which was established in June 1960, covers the City of Thompson and Nickel Belt Region of Northern Manitoba. The city has a population of about 13,500 residents while the regional population is more than 40,000. IAN@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET

The province’s approval of Hudbay’s Reed Mine copper project in Grass River Provincial Park, which was granted on Sept. 24, is not going over well with the Wilderness Committee, which opposed the mine because of its proximity to the habitat of woodland caribou, a provincially and federally protected species.

“It is hard news to take,” said Eric Reder, the Wilderness Committee’s Manitoba campaign director in a Sept 25 press release. “Canada stopped mining national parks in 1930. Eight decades later and Manitoba still can’t join the party?”

The Reed Mine, which is 70 per cent owned by Hudbay, is projected to produce 1,300 tonnes of copper per day and is located about 80 kilometres west-southwest of Snow Lake on the southern side of Highway 39. The mine is expected to be in production for approximately five years, during which time 2.16 million tones of copper ore will be extracted and then trucked to and processed in Flin Flon, according to a project overview prepared by AECOM on behalf of Hudbay. At full production, the mine will provide 88 jobs, the company says.

Rick Mills: Greenland Is the Final Frontier for Lower-Cost Mining – Interviewed by Kevin Michael Grace (The Metals Report – October 1, 2013)

October 4, 2013

http://www.streetwisereports.com/

Industrial minerals like copper and nickel are essential to global economic expansion. But everywhere you look, grades are getting lower, and costs are getting much, much higher. Is there a way out? Rick Mills says mining companies need to look to Greenland. In this interview with The Metals Report, the owner and host ofAhead of the Herd.com lauds the world’s largest island for its vast resources, its one-stop regulatory system and its year-round access to ocean transportation.

The Metals Report: You never really believed that there was anything resembling an economic recovery in the United States, correct?

Rick Mills: I don’t believe you can have an economic recovery with the type of jobs that have been created in the last few years. Wages have stagnated. The velocity of money, how many times it turns over in the economy, how many times it’s spent, is at a record low,

TMR: So the decision by the Federal Reserve to hold off on tapering quantitative easing didn’t surprise you?

RM: I’ve gone on record saying there would be no tapering this time around, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming—it certainly is. But it will likely be very gradual, and the Fed will start only when they feel the economic data support such a move. I firmly believe, however, that the Fed’s zero interest rate policy is here to stay, and this is very important for gold investors.

Fickle nickel takes its toll on market darling Mirabela – by Sarah-Jane Tasker (The Australian – October 4, 2013)

October 4, 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business

MIRABELA Nickel once rode the commodities boom, hitting a share price peak of more than $7 in early 2008, but a perfect storm of low prices, debt, decreasing cash balances and a cancelled contract has seen the company join the ranks of the penny dreadfuls. Some 80 per cent has been wiped off the value of its share price in the last month alone — from an already low base.

This is a company that was valued by the market at about $800 million in 2008. Now? $14m. The price of a decent shack on Sydney’s waterfront.

Perth-based Mirabela this week became the latest high-profile casualty of a commodity that has been struggling more than most others.

Perth-based private equity firm Resource Capital Fund is Mirabela’s largest shareholder and is the hardest hit by the share price fall. The resources-focused fund stepped in to support the company last May, tipping in $20m at a share price of 40c, which at the time was at a 17.6 per cent premium to the junior’s share price. It also underwrote a $100m raising. The miner said at the time that the funds would strengthen its balance sheet.

NEWS RELEASE: Norilsk Nickel Unveils New Strategy Focused on Tier I Assets and Higher Returns

October 4, 2013

October 04, 2013 09:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time

MOSCOW–(BUSINESS WIRE)--MMC Norilsk Nickel (hereinafter, Norilsk Nickel or the Company), the largest global nickel and palladium producer, today announced further details of its new strategy at MMC Norilsk Nickel’s “Unveiling New Strategy” event held in London.

Highlights

Capture full potential of MMC Norilsk Nickel’s unique resource base in Russia
Focus on Tier 1 assets to deliver sustainably high return on capital
Focus on capital discipline and introduction of return on investments as key metric for the organization
Increased focus of existing portfolio on copper and PGMs
Prioritize Polar Division Upstream assets, with a plan to:
-Maximize high-margin production utilizing existing infrastructure
-Develop the greenfield Skalisty mine, with a potential 2.4Mtpa ore capacity
-Upgrade of the Talnakh infrastructure into a world class concentrator

Read more

Can a ghost town be resurrected? – by Andy Radia (Yahoo Canada News – October 4, 2013)

October 4, 2013

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/

A U.S. businessman wants to turn Kitsault, B.C., into a natural gas hub

Across the county, there are a very few success stories of revitalizing ghost towns or depressed mining communities.
There are some: Elliot Lake. Ont., for example, transformed itself from a uranium mining community into a retirement village. Kimberly, B.C., once home to a major copper mine, is now a tourist destination with golf courses and ski hills. And, Kitimat, B.C., has once again become a boomtown by selling hydro instead of processing aluminum.

Now Virginia-based businessman Krishnan Suthanthiran wants to emulate those successes in his coastal town of Kitsault, B.C..
Kitsault – located 800 km northwest of Vancouver – is not unlike many other ghost towns in Canada.

Its story began in 1980: Amax Canada claimed the 350 acres of land to extract molybdenum, a metal used to harden steel. The mining company spent $50 million to build homes, roads, a school, a hospital, a shopping mall and even a rec centre for its 1,200 miners and their families. Unfortunately, by 1982, the price of molybdenum plummeted, the mine closed down and everybody packed up and left.

Unlike most other ghost towns, however, Kitsault’s story might just have another chapter.

Myanmar’s resources star dims after mine reform delay – by Melanie Burton (Reuters India – October 4, 2013)

October 4, 2013

http://in.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE, Oct 4 (Reuters) – A year ago Myanmar was the hot new destination for resources investors looking to make a fast buck in a country opening up to the outside world, but a new mining law is still not passed, the hot-money crowd has filed out and reality has set in. Yet while funding options may have slimmed, opportunity is still knocking, industry participants at a conference in Singapore said this week.

“A year ago everyone was going to Myanmar. You couldn’t get on a flight there because every flight was booked,” said Edward Rochette, chief executive of Canadian explorer East Asia Minerals Corporation, which has applied for an exploration permit in the country.

“Investors were thinking: ‘It’s wide open, it’s the Wild West, we’ll just sign and be done’. Unfortunately, it’s going to take time,” he added.

Explorers have banged up against processing times for prospecting permits stretching out several years while commodity prices have fizzled and debt and equity funding markets have dried up. The country has to fight harder to attract capital.

FEATURE-Goodbye London, hello Gaborone: De Beers sales head to Africa – by Clara Ferreira-Marques (Reuters U.S. – October 3, 2013)

November 3, 2015October 4, 2013

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – Oct 3 (Reuters) – In a spartan office in the London headquarters of De Beers, Elliot Tannenbaum holds a cloudless stone the size and shape of a domino to the light: a rough diamond worth millions, even before it is cut and polished.

A veteran diamantaire, Tannenbaum’s family firm is one of some 80 buyers handpicked by the diamond giant to buy rough gems from its mines, under an arcane system of pre-determined allocations and regular sales meetings known as “sights”.

“I have been coming here some ten times a year for 35 years, I have missed only two or three sights. It is part of our routine,” says Tannenbaum, whose Leo Schachter group, founded in New York and now headquartered in Israel, is a major manufacturer of polished diamonds.

But this week’s sight is De Beers’ last in London. From now on, the action will be in Gaborone, dusty capital of Botswana.

The office allocated to Tannenbaum’s firm, his dedicated De Beers contacts and the black-and-yellow attache case stacked with clear plastic bags of diamonds will move south along with the whole of the company’s sales operation – 85 out of 300 London-based De Beers employees.

Two of Canada’s more isolated mines continue to impress: Raglan and Eleonore – by Russell Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – October 2013)

October 4, 2013

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

Nunavik and Quebec’s Raglan Mine and Éléonore, operated by Glencore and Goldcorp respectively, are two of the larger and more successful mining operations in the country, but their locations are about as unfamiliar to most people as the northern landscapes where they are located.

In other words, most people don’t have a clue where they are on the map, let alone what the surroundings are like that far north. Both mines are indeed, remote and somewhat isolated, but when it comes to mineral deposits, Raglan Mine and Éléonore are at the forefront and envy of the mining community across the country.

In fact, the world is also keeping watch as Glencore and Goldcorp continue to move towards making their Canadian operations two of the more productive mines on the globe.

Starting at the farthest point north at the Raglan Mine, which is located in Nunavik approximately 1800 km northwest of Montreal or, about the same as Cuba is to the south, is near Deception Bay on the Hudson Straight and is linked by all-weather roads to an airstrip at Donaldson.

A girl’s very best friend: $55 million necklace on sale in Singapore – by John O’Callaghan (Reuters India – October 4, 2013)

October 4, 2013

http://in.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE – (Reuters) – For someone with $55 million to spare on an egg-sized diamond, the world’s most expensive necklace is on sale this month at a jewellery show in Singapore, reflecting Asia’s growing appetite for precious gems and expensive baubles.

Known as L’Incomparable, the necklace created by luxury jeweller Mouawad features a yellow, internally flawless diamond of more than 407 carats suspended from a rose gold setting that is studded with 90 white diamonds weighing nearly 230 carats.

“Serious interest” has been expressed by a couple of potential buyers from Asia, said Jean Nasr, managing director of Mouawad in Singapore, declining to identify their nationalities.

“People who will get something like this are looking at it from a different perspective because this is definitely an investment piece,” he told Reuters.

The necklace, whose centrepiece diamond was found by chance in a pile of mining rubble by a young girl in the Democratic Republic of Congo about 30 years ago, will be the flashiest item on offer at the Singapore JewelFest on October 11-20.

Tight oil revolution may not be enough to secure energy security without Canadian crude – by Yadullah Hussain (National Post – October 4, 2013)

October 4, 2013

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

The United States may overtake Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas this year, according to the Wall Street Journal. But it’s unclear whether the U.S. can maintain this unbridled growth, especially on the oil side, or even reach its elusive goal of energy security without help from the oil sands.

The International Energy Agency, which advises Western oil-consuming countries on energy policy, has also gushed about “supply shock” from U.S. shale, or tight oil, that will ripple across global markets, but believes the U.S. will be a formidable force only if backed by crude from Canada. U.S. oil production will reach about 10 million barrels per day by 2015, just behind Russia’s estimated 10.5-million bpd, according to the IEA. However, include projected imports of 4.3-million bpd from Canada, and the scales tilt decisively in favour of the Americans.

It’s true that the mighty Eagle Ford and Bakken shale plays have led America’s oil and gas resurgence, but other shale deposits have not enjoyed similar successes to date. Even developed plays may not always be lucrative, as Royal Dutch Shell Plc. recently discovered. The Hague-based company announced this week it is placing its Eagle Ford shale assets on the market.

Metaphorical climate monsters – by Peter Foster (National Post – October 4, 2013)

October 4, 2013

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

As the battle continues over the credibility of the latest summary of climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, True Believers appear to be basing their talking points on a 1953 science fiction movie, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. In the film, a carnivorous dinosaur is released from the Arctic depths by an ice melt induced by a nuclear bomb test. It heads (where else?) for New York City to wreak havoc, taking out a few East Coast fishermen on the way.

One of the IPCC’s explanations for the past fifteen-plus years of stable global average temperatures, contrary to virtually all official models, is that the heat is hiding deep in the ocean, like a monster waiting to gobble humanity at some future date. Then there’s the nuclear bomb angle, which has recently been applied both to human impact on climate, and its poster child, the Alberta oil sands.

Early in September, Canadian superstar Neil Young compared Fort McMurray to the devastation of Hiroshima. Then, more recently John Cook — the latest individual to promote the claim that there is a 97% consensus among scientists about the man-made nature of catastrophic global warming — made Mr. Young look positively balanced. “The result of the increased greenhouse effect,” according to Mr. Cook, “is that since 1998, our planet has been building up heat at a rate equivalent to four Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations every second.”

BHP BILLITON NEWS RELEASE: BUILDING ON AUSTRALIA’S COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE

October 4, 2013

3 October 2013

BHP Billiton today further outlined its productivity agenda to capitalise on the next phase of the Asian growth cycle.

Speaking at the Australian National Conference on Resources and Energy, BHP Billiton President, HSEC, Marketing and Technology, Mike Henry, said the commodities that would feed future China growth would require Australia’s resources industry to continue to improve its competitiveness.

“We see moderation in the rate of GDP growth in China, and a reduction in manufacturing and investment share over time, but it is really important to note that there is still an incredibly large opportunity to be captured from a commodity demand perspective.

“Commodity demand growth will remain robust as the fundamentals of wealth creation, demographics and urbanisation continue to drive demand for resources. However the shifting dynamics of economic growth will challenge Australia’s traditional understanding of core ‘commodities’.