July 10, 2014 – Republic of Mining

Quebec gets first diamond mine as premier pushes north development plan relaunch – by Patrice Bergeron (Brandon Sun – July 10, 2014)

July 10, 2014

http://www.brandonsun.com/

The Canadian Press – EEYOU ISTCHEE JAMES BAY, Que. – Liberal Premier Philippe Couillard trumpeted Quebec’s reinvigorated northern development plan Thursday during a ground-breaking ceremony for province’s first diamond mine, a $1-billion project that he said shows Quebec is “open for business again.”

Developed by Stornoway Diamond Corp. (TSX:SWY), the operation was formally launched with a ceremony in a remote area 350 kilometres north of Chibougamau, nestled in the Otish Mountains in Cree territory.

Once mining gets underway, the mine is expected to make Quebec the sixth-largest producer of diamonds in the world.
The go-ahead comes as Stornoway secured $946 million in funding for its Renard mine earlier this week with Investissement Quebec and the Caisse de depot et placement, Quebec’s largest pension fund manager, both participating in the financing.

The province has a 29 per cent investment in the project, which Economic Development Minister Jacques Daoust says will translate into $1 billion in taxes and interest for the province.

“It’s a clear signal of the relaunch of the Plan Nord,” Couillard said Thursday, keeping with an election promise to return the focus to developing northern Quebec.

Copper Hunt Continues for First Quantum in Bet on Demand – by Firat Kayakiran (Bloomberg News – July 10, 2014)

July 10, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (FM), which agreed to buy an Argentinian copper project last month, is on the lookout for more deals as it sees a supply shortage of the metal by the end of the decade.

“Copper remains our favorite long-term commodity,” Clive Newall, president of the Vancouver-based company, said in an interview in London. “The supply constraints are really going to start to hit home later in this decade and the supply-demand balance is going to roll over at some point in the not-too-distant future.”

First Quantum completed its biggest deal last year, acquiring Inmet Mining Corp. to add Cobre Panama. The company plans to invest $6.43 billion in the project to produce 320,000 metric tons of copper a year in 2018 and become the world’s fifth-largest provider of the metal. Last month it agreed to buy Lumina Copper Corp. for $430 million to add the Taca Taca deposit in Argentina.

The value of copper-mining deals this year has risen almost fivefold from the same period a year earlier, amounting to $7.1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They were led by the $5.85 billion sale of the Las Bambas copper deposit by Glencore Plc to a group let by China Minmetals Corp. in April.

Newall sees the appetite for copper acquisitions rising amid a shortage driven by a lack of projects, the high cost of developing them, and declining grades.

Five hours’ flying time winds clock back to the beginning – by Paul Garvey (The Australian – July 10, 2014)

July 10, 2014

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

THE economic growth of China in the past decade has generated tens of billions of dollars in profits for Australia’s mining companies, but it was all about Japan in the heart of the company’s Pilbara iron ore operations yesterday.

Shinzo Abe made a flying two-hour visit to the West Angelas mine in the remote pocket of Western Australia, following through on an invitation made by Rio Tinto chief executive Sam Walsh in Tokyo last year.

The five-hour journey across the country from Canberra to the Pilbara left its mark on Mr Abe, giving him more time to talk with Tony Abbott.

“I was extremely impressed that I could take a five-hour flight and still be in Australia. I’m really amazed by how big this country is,” he said through an interpreter, addressing a gathering on the edge of the gaping West Angelas open-pit as huge trucks rumbled past hauling iron ore bound for Asia.

“The flight took twice as long as the summit meeting we had yesterday, but I actually believe that we had deeper discussions on the flight and we will really be able to deepen our relationship as well.”

[South African] Mines face profound shift in labour relations – by Carol Paton (Miningmx.com – July 10 2014)

July 10, 2014

http://www.miningmx.com/

[miningmx.com] – AFTER the labour turmoil of the past two-and-a-half years, what can mining employers and investors expect in the years ahead?

Since January 2012, when the first illegal mining strike at Impala Platinum (Implats) rocked the industry, so much has changed that the labour market dynamics are hardly recognisable.

Trade unions, employee expectations, and the established mode of conducting negotiations over wages have been suddenly and violently swept away, leaving uncertainty and confusion behind.

Although conditions have changed, too much has stayed the same. Tied up with the new revolt are embedded production and labour market models: a low-skill, labour intensive industry based on a 150-year-old tradition of migrant labour. It is the legacy institutions that the new labour revolt will ultimately displace, whether by intent or as an unintended consequence.

In mid-2014, that fight is far from over because South Africa’s mining industry will be under pressure to change in fundamental ways. This will include many things: from the way it values, rewards and communicates employees and how it takes care of their social needs of employees to the extent to which it is able to mechanise, get by with fewer employees who are more productive, more skilled, less migratory and better paid.

Ontarians have no excuse for being naive about nuclear – by John Barber (Toronto Star – July 10, 2014)

July 10, 2014

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.

Given what we now know about the cost of nuclear power, why is Ontario ready to throw good money after bad to refurbish the Darlington Nuclear plant?

I admit I was young and naive back in the late 1970s when I boarded a school bus at Queen’s Park and travelled along with a shaggy group of protesters 70 kilometres east to demonstrate against the construction of the $4-billion Darlington Nuclear Generating Station. Some brought blankets to help scale the barbed-wire fence — and did that — but most of us just milled around for a few hours before leaving on the same yellow buses that had brought us.

If only we had known then the true cost of Ontario’s 20th-century nuclear empire — how after paying $30 billion to finance Darlington and its kin over the next three and a half decades, Ontarians would still owe $4 billion for the job in 2014 — the protest might have been more effective. Given the foresight, no sane citizen would have bought that deal.

But hindsight is a good enough proxy today as the engineers at Ontario Power Generation rush to complete their plans to refurbish the aging, still-not-paid-for nuclear complex — with the estimated costs of that $13-billion project seeming to rise every few months like alarm bells that never stop ringing.

History is repeating itself, but it’s no farce. With the Darlington refurbishment, Ontario risks another half-century or more of crippling debt to produce inherently dangerous, over-expensive electricity with ongoing waste-disposal costs calculated in molecular half-lives. It was a big mistake the first time, but can only be folly the second time around.

Glencore kicks off $2bn takeover race for Syrah Resources – by Amanda Saunders (Sydney Morning Herald – July 10, 2014)

May 13, 2016July 10, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/

Swiss commodities giant Glencore is understood to have made an informal approach to Syrah Resources that could value the graphite and vanadium junior at as much as to $2 billion.

Melbourne-based Syrah’s prized asset is the mammoth Balama graphite and vanadium deposit in northern Mozambique.

After the Fairfax Media revealed Glencore’s interest on Thursday, the company’s shares surged as much as 25 per cent before it dived into a trading halt before noon. When shares were halted, Syrah’s shares were up 19 per cent at $5.09. The shares have more than doubled in value since touching a 52-week low of $2 on July 10 last year.

Syrah responded promptly to the report and a share price query from the market operator on Thursday afternoon, saying, “From time to time Syrah receives informal,confidential and non-binding enquiries from various parties regarding Syrah’s interest in entering takeover discussions”.

“None of these enquiries have progressed to formal discussions or resulted in any indicative offers being received by Syrah.”

Sources say Ivan Glasenberg’s Glencore, one of the largest producers of primary vanadium in the world, is keen to exert control over the wider vanadium market. Pouncing on Syrah and securing its Balama project would be an early strategic play to shut out fresh competition.

Don’t neglect mining in America – by Mark Perry (Detroit News – July 10, 2014)

July 10, 2014

http://www.detroitnews.com/

Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan and a resident scholar at The American Enterprise Institute.

America’s growing reliance on other countries for strategically important minerals is not much of an issue in this election year. It seems not to be on voters’ minds, but it really ought to be.

U.S. mining policy has become increasingly inept — thoughtless and heedless of consequences. The U.S. has one of the most complex mine-permitting systems in the world, marked by delays and redundancies. Obtaining a mining permit typically takes seven to 10 years, five times longer than in Canada or Australia. Companies seeking to open a new mine sometimes must deal with 10 or more federal and state agencies.

Worse, the Environmental Protection Agency claims it can revoke a mining permit already granted, raising regulatory uncertainty to an entirely new level. This isn’t smart or sustainable. How can mining companies invest in the United States if a project can be arbitrarily stopped at any time?

Amazingly, the federal government restricts — or has an outright ban — on new mining operations on more than half of all federally owned public lands. Why should Americans care about the supply of mineral resources?

Opinion: First Nations, mining for change – by Russell Hallbauer (Vancouver Sun – July 9, 2014)

July 10, 2014

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

Agreement would give new meaning to New Prosperity mine’s name

Russell Hallbauer is president and CEO of Taseko Mines

Many readers likely will have read that the British Columbia government has now signed 14 economic development agreements with First Nations across the province. These agreements commit the provincial government to share up to 37 per cent of the B.C. mineral tax from B.C. mining operations collected within First Nations’ traditional territories.

Over the past four years, $12 million has been shared with various First Nations. The most recent agreement was the one signed May 21 on the Huckleberry Mine, a few hundred km from Williams Lake.

A similar agreement is being developed between the government and those bands in proximity to our Gibraltar Mine.

These agreements, over the next 25 years of Gibraltar’s life, will allow First Nations communities to benefit directly over and above employment and other opportunities, in the financial success of the Gibraltar Mine.

Taseko personnel were some of the earliest advocates of revenue sharing when the process began with government and the Mining Association of British Columbia a number of years ago.

Development corp seeking investment for Timmins – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – July 10, 2014)

July 10, 2014

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.

If yours is a company that serves the mining industry — whether it manufactures equipment components or analyzes drill core — Timmins wants you.

Through a new regional mining supply and industrial mineral investment attraction project, the Timmins Economic Development Corp. (TEDC) is actively trying to recruit more companies to set up shop in the city.

Timmins and the Abitibi Greenstone Belt region is still one of premier mining areas in Canada, with new mineral deposits being discovered all the time, said Fred Gibbons, chair of the TEDC’s board of directors.

The TEDC already assists companies trying to bring their mine into production — helping to work through environmental assessments and other permitting — and now the organization wants to take that one step further by helping companies that offer supporting services to establish a permanent presence in the city.

“What we’re seeing is that the future looks very bright,” Gibbons said. “Although we have a 100-year history in serving the mining industry in Timmins, we know that there are some gaps with respect to the services that mines are going to require and a level of expertise.”

Ring of Fire alternate infrastructure development model – CBC Thunder Bay Superior Morning (July 9, 2014)

July 10, 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay A different way to develop the infrastructure to support the Ring of Fire. We’ll hear why one consultant is suggesting an authority model that’s patterned on how we run aiports and harbour ports. Nick Mulder is a government relations lobbyist. He’s presenting his plan at a Northern Policy Institute Speakers Breakfast Thurs July 10 …

Indonesia Ore Ban to Remain Should Widodo Win Poll – by Jake Lloyd-Smith and Yoga Rusmana (Bloomberg News – July 10, 2014)

July 10, 2014

http://www.businessweek.com/

Indonesia’s ban on ore exports will probably remain in place and speculation that the curb may be relaxed if Joko Widodo becomes the country’s next president is misplaced, said Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.

Nickel fell as much as 2 percent in London yesterday as unofficial counts showed Jakarta Governor Widodo won the most votes in the world’s third-biggest democracy, putting him ahead of Suharto-era general Prabowo Subianto. While the market perceives Widodo’s market-friendly policies as an indication that the ban will be lifted or at least watered down, that’s unlikely, analysts including Mark Pervan wrote in a note.

The ban in the biggest mined nickel producer, which was implemented in January to induce investment in processing plants, spurred forecasts for global shortages of the metal used in stainless steel. Nickel rallied in May to the highest level since 2012, and outperformed all other base metals this year. Widodo, who’s known as Jokowi, would probably relax the ore ban, Mike Dragosits, senior commodity strategist at TD Securities in Toronto, said yesterday as prices retreated.

That decision is unlikely “given the upside to revenue is substantial, and the fact that the policy has been in place for six months already and appears to be encouraging investment in processing facilities,” Pervan said.

ANNALS OF SURVIVAL: SIXTY-NINE DAYS – The ordeal of the Chilean miners – by HÉCTOR TOBAR (The New Yorker Magazine – July 7, 2014)

July 10, 2014

http://www.newyorker.com/

The San José Mine is situated inside a round, rocky, and lifeless mountain in the Atacama Desert, in Chile. Once every dozen years or so, a storm system sweeps across the desert, dropping a torrent of rain. When that happens, the dust turns to mud as thick as freshly poured concrete. Charles Darwin briefly passed through this corner of the Atacama in 1835. In his journal, he described the desert as “a barrier far worse than the most turbulent ocean.”

In the deeper desert, miners are the only conspicuous living presence; they ride in trucks and buses to the mountains, which contain gold, copper, and iron. The minerals draw workers to the Atacama from all over Chile. On the evening of August 3, 2010, Juan Carlos Aguilar began a bus journey of more than a thousand miles to reach the San José Mine, leaving from the temperate rain forests near Valdivia.

Raúl Bustos left for work the next morning, from the port city of Talcahuano, eight hundred miles south of the mine. He travelled along a flat landscape filled with greenhouses, tractors, and the cultivated fields of Chile’s agricultural heartland, passing through the town of Talca, where José Henríquez, a tall, devout Christian, boarded yet another bus. Mario Sepúlveda, a forty-year-old father of two, took a bus from the outskirts of Santiago, five hundred miles away.

When the men reached the port city of Coquimbo, nearly two hundred and fifty miles from the San José Mine, they joined the path that Darwin had followed. In Darwin’s time, the country was only twenty-five years old, and his small expedition rode overland with four horses and two mules, making notes about Chile’s geology and its flora and fauna.

Founder of Canada’s first diamond mine Fipke sells remaining Ekati stake – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – July 9, 2014)

July 10, 2014

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Multimillionaire Canadian diamond magnate Charles ‘Chuck’ Fipke has agreed to sell his remaining stake in Canada’s first diamond mine, the Ekati mine in the Northwest Territories, for $67-million to majority owner Dominion Diamond Corp.

Having discovered diamonds around Lac de Gras, in Canada’s Northwest Territories in the 1970s, Fipke focused his life’s work on finding the precious gems in Canada’s far north. A joint venture (JV) between Fipke’s Dia Met Minerals and BHP Utah in the 1980s and 1990s, climaxed in establishing the Ekati mine in 1998, with Fipke and prospecting partner Dr Stewart Blusson each holding a 10% interest in the mine.

Toronto-based Dominion, which last year bought out diversified miner BHP Billiton’s stake in Ekati for $553-million, said the sale would end Fipke’s financial involvement in the mine.

“Although the sale by Chuck Fipke of his interest in the Ekati project ends his financial involvement with Canada’s first diamond mine, his contribution to its discovery and success goes well beyond that. The history of Canadian mining is full of stories of accidents of fate leading to discoveries, but the discovery of diamonds in the Slave Geological Province is a story of years of dedicated technical work led by a focused technical expert with unwavering belief in the outcome,” Dominion chairperson and CEO Robert Gannicott said.

THE LUDLOW MASSACRE STILL MATTERS – by Ben Mauk (The New Yorker – April 19, 2014)

July 10, 2014

http://www.newyorker.com/

On April 20, 1914, members of the Colorado National Guard opened fire on a group of armed coal miners and set fire to a makeshift settlement in Ludlow, Colorado, where more than a thousand striking workers and their families were camped out. Today, the Ludlow massacre, which Caleb Crain wrote about in The New Yorker in 2009, remains one of the bloodiest episodes in the history of American industrial enterprise; at least sixty-six men, women, and children were killed in the attack and the days of rioting that followed, according to most historical accounts.

Although it is less well-remembered today than other dark episodes in American labor history, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that claimed a hundred and forty-six lives, the Ludlow massacre—which Wallace Stegner once called “one of the bleakest and blackest episodes of American labor history”—changed the nation’s attitude toward labor and capital for the next several decades. Its memory continues to reverberate in contemporary political discourse.

In the summer of 1913, United Mine Workers began to organize the eleven thousand coal miners employed by the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. Most of the workers were first-generation immigrants from Italy, Greece, and Serbia; many had been hired, a decade prior, to replace workers who had gone on strike. In August, the union extended invitations to company representatives to meet about their grievances—including low pay, long and unregulated hours, and management practices they felt were corrupt—but they were rebuffed.