March 23, 2015 – Republic of Mining

Noront Resources buys Ring of Fire claims for $20 million (U.S.) – by Madhavi Acharya-Tom Yew (Toronto Star – March 23, 2015)

March 23, 2015

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.

Shares of Noront surged nearly 37 per cent on the deal, announced Monday. The stock gained 13 cents to close at 48.5 cents on the TSX Venture Exchange.

Toronto-based junior mining firm Noront Resources has agreed to pay $20 million (U.S.) to Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. to purchase the U.S. mining giant’s chromite properties in the Ring of Fire.

Shares of Noront surged nearly 37 per cent on news of the deal, announced Monday. The stock gained 13 cents to close at 48.5 cents on the TSX Venture Exchange.

“We are convinced that the Ring of Fire region is going to be the next major mining camp in Ontario. We’ve been looking at acquiring more land there and getting more deals done,” Noront president and chief executive officer Alan Coutts said in an interview.

“When Cliffs announced they were going to pull out of the area, we thought, ‘This is a natural fit for us.’ ” The miner said it will buy the shares of two Cliffs subsidiaries that own 103 claims, adding to its own holdings in the Ring of Fire area, about 500 km northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont.

Yellen Gives Gold Bulls Biggest Rally on Rates Since January – by Lydia Mulvany (Bloombeg News – March 22, 2015)

March 23, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

(Bloomberg) — Janet Yellen gave gold bulls a gift when she signaled policy makers aren’t rushing to raise interest rates. Gold had its biggest weekly gain in two months on the prospect that U.S. rates will stay lower for longer. The value of assets in exchange-traded funds backed by bullion rose by $736 million, also the most since January.

The dollar had the steepest weekly slide since 2011 after Federal Reserve Chair Yellen and her colleagues cut their forecast on U.S. rates March 18. That revived interest in gold, which generally offers returns only through price gains. Some money managers misjudged the move, cutting their net-long position in gold futures to the lowest level since 2013 the day before the Fed statement.

“The market sentiment is that the Fed is going to take it easy, and that’s why the dollar has stopped gaining and gold moved up,” Donald Selkin, who helps manage about $3 billion as chief market strategist at National Securities Corp. in New York, said by phone March 20. “All of the experts got bearish right at the bottom.”

Gold futures, which jumped 2.8 percent to $1,184.60 an ounce last week, traded 0.1 percent lower at $1,183 on Monday. The Bloomberg Commodity Index of 22 raw materials rose 2 percent last week, as the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 2.2 percent. The MSCI All-Country World Index climbed 3.2 percent.

China, Russia and the Tussle for Influence in Kazakhstan – by Arthur Guschin (The Diplomat – March 23, 2015)

March 23, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/

The two powers are pursuing competing interests in Central Asia.

Until recently, Central Asia played only a modest role in world politics, a reflection of its economic weakness, domestic problems, and distrust of integration. Russia’s presence in the region as the primary political mediator and economic partner was incontestable. In the last few years, though, China’s growing economic interest in Central Asia has come to be seen in Moscow as a threat to its influence. Russia is watching closely the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative, which would give Beijing the dominant role and could supplant the Eurasian Economic Union. With Kazakhstan the core state in any integration project in the region, it looks set to become the frontlines of the tussle between China and Russia for regional influence.

Russian Interests

Driving Russian policy in Kazakhstan are the activities of four major Russian energy companies: Gazprom, Lukoil, Transneft and Rosneft. These companies allow Moscow to keep Astana within the sphere of Russian interests and help prevent Beijing from dominating Kazakhstan’s economy. Their participation in local energy projects gives Russia access to oil and gas reserves, while binding the two countries in the energy, transport, space and agriculture sectors.

The basis of the partnership rests on agreements covering petroleum contracts and energy supplies transiting through Kazakhstani and Russian territory to European or Chinese markets. Currently, the leading Russian investor in Kazakhstan is Lukoil, which operates seven projects and has a stake in the cross-country pipeline Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). In 2013, 32.7 million tons of oil was pumped through the pipeline, 28.7 million tons of it exported from Kazakhstan.

Zijin Mining Group to Acquire 9.9% Stake in Ivanhoe Mines – by Ben Dummett (Wall Street Journal – March 23, 2015)

March 23, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/

Chinese company could increase copper reserves through access to Ivanhoe’s projects in Congo

Chinese metals producer Zijin Mining Group Co. said Monday it would acquire almost a 10% stake in Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. for about 105 million Canadian dollars ($82 million), as part of a potentially bigger investment to help the Canadian mining company develop projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.

State-owned Zijin is a large gold, copper and zinc producer in China with additional mining interests in Australia, Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The 9.9% stake in Ivanhoe Mines offers Zijin the opportunity to increase its copper reserves by giving the Chinese company access to Ivanhoe’s Kamoa and Kipushi projects in Congo’s southern province of Katanga. Ivanhoe is also majority owner of the Platreef platinum, palladium, nickel, copper and gold project in South Africa.

China’s voracious appetite for copper is behind moves to seek out additional reserves of the industrial metal to help feed the Asian giant’s economic growth. However, Congo’s political uncertainty makes investing in that country relatively risky, and in the past has deterred other mining companies from investing there.

“Ivanhoe and Zijin are in detailed, friendly discussions about the strategic co-development of our Kamoa copper discovery,” mining magnate Robert Friedland, Ivanhoe’s executive chairman, said in a statement.

Ontario slammed by Northern Prospectors Association – by Andrew Topf (Mining.com – March 20, 2015)

March 23, 2015

http://www.mining.com/

Dotted with lucrative gold mines like Red Lake, Hemlo, Musselwhite and Timmins, along with the nickel belt of Sudbury, Ontario with its storied mining history should be a prospector’s dream. In fact the province’s allure as a mining jurisdiction has never been duller, despite the promise of the Ring of Fire and a number of prospective gold properties.

Participants at a consultation forum earlier this week took the opportunity to blame the Ontario government for concentrating its efforts on the Ring of Fire – a chromite-rich development project in the James Bay lowlands of Northern Ontario – and neglecting other mining projects that would be easier to access than the remote Ring of Fire, which lacks key infrastructure for mining.

“There’s no tacit recognition by this provincial government that it believes in mining,” said Gino Chitaroni, president of the Northern Prospectors Association, in an article posted Friday in Northern Ontario Business. “All we hear about is the Ring of Fire. Let me explain something about the Ring of Fire, it’s not the only thing going on in this province. I’m sick to death of it.”

Chitaroni told industry players at the session, hosted by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, that “he could think of eight to 10 mining projects in eastern Ontario alone, that would be viable with some investment, and much easier to access than the remote Ring of Fire,” according to Northern Ontario Business.

UPDATE 1- Indonesia may ease bauxite export ban to help fund refineries – by Wilda Asmarini (Reuters Africa – March 23, 2015)

March 23, 2015

http://af.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, March 23 (Reuters) – Indonesia is looking at easing its mineral export ban for bauxite producers to help promote the building of domestic processing capacity, a mines ministry official said on Monday.

Early last year Indonesia put in place export restrictions aimed at forcing miners to develop smelting and processing facilities so that it can increase the value of the minerals it produces and create jobs.

“We need a breakthrough in the law to accelerate bauxite smelter development,” Said Didu, head of the national smelter development team at the energy and mineral resources ministry, told reporters. “To accelerate bauxite smelter development, they should pay a guarantee bond to develop smelters to the government.”

The government has already offered a similar deal to copper miners, allowing them to export concentrates again after paying an export tax and a bond as a sign of good faith that they intend to build smelting capacity.

If bauxite miners have at least 30 percent of their smelter or refinery construction completed, they can apply for a government licence to resume some exports in order to get funding for the rest of their facility, Didu said.

Montana mning proposes environmental safeguards – by Mark Thompson (Montana Standard – March 21, 2015)

March 23, 2015

http://mtstandard.com/

Mark Thompson is the Montana Mining Association president and manager of environmental affairs for Montana Resources in Butte.

On Friday, legislation was introduced in the state Senate that would ensure Montana’s environmental protections are amongst the most rigorous in the world. Senate Bill 409 carried by Sen. Chas Vincent, R-Libby, is the advent of a new era of mining in Montana, where industry proposes standards progressive in concept, comprehensive in scope and definitive in responsible management of tailings storage facilities.

Following a tailings area breach in British Columbia, the Montana Mining Association took a long, hard look at what the Treasure State had on the books to prevent a similar disaster from occurring in Montana.

Mine tailings are the uneconomic remains that result from the milling process, and are conventionally stored in large impoundments similar to the one which breached in British Columbia last year. No such occurrence with a large impoundment has ever happened in Montana’s more than 100 years of mining, yet the Montana Mining Association had the foresight to facilitate a bill which would add a laundry list of new requirements in law and would implement measures to ensure that Montana’s impoundments remain safe.

Through an exhaustive investigative process, the association pooled together resources and information from the industry’s foremost experts in mining and engineering and has proposed a process with significant engineering and review requirements ahead of any new mine tailings storage facilities or expansions.

Sudbury Accent: The prodigal ling returns to Ramsey – by Bruce Heidman (Sudbury Star – March 21, 2015)

March 23, 2015

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

They aren’t even close to pretty and their song is not nearly as sweet, but the return of ling to Sudbury’s Ramsey Lake after a 100-year absence is serving as a veritable canary in a coal mine.

Local fish biologists were stunned when it came to their attention that ling, an environmentally sensitive cold-water fish also commonly known as burbot, have returned to Ramsey, where the last recorded catch came in 1912. The discovery is significant because it shows the lake has bounced back even better than scientists thought from decades of environmental degradation, mostly due to sewage, mining and acid rain.

Local biologist John Gunn, one of a handful of scientists who have done extensive research on Ramsey Lake, Sudbury’s crown jewel, for the better part of 30 years, didn’t believe the news when he first heard it.

“We were shocked,” he said. “We didn’t think for all the work and time we have spent around that lake that something like that would slip by us. They are not a species people move around and they are a very clean water fish that has been lost in Killarney and Temagami, and the ling disappeared before the lake trout, so when we saw a pollution-sensitive species disappear and then start swimming around in front of the (Living With Lakes Centre) building, we were surprised.

Poles Steel for Battle, Fearing Russia Will March on Them Next – by Rick Lyman (New York Times – March 14, 2015)

March 23, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

KALISZ, Poland — For evidence of how much President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has jangled nerves and provoked anxiety across Eastern Europe, look no farther than the drill held the other day by the Shooters Association.

The paramilitary group, like more than 100 others in Poland, has experienced a sharp spike in membership since Mr. Putin’s forces began meddling in neighboring Ukraine last year.

Thirty students took an oath to defend Poland at all costs, joining nearly 200 other regional members of the association — young men and women, boys and girls — marching in formation around the perimeter of the dusty high school courtyard here. They crossed Polish Army Boulevard and marched into the center of town, sprawling in four long lines along the edge of St. Joseph’s Square.

Gen. Boguslaw Pacek, an adviser to the Polish defense minister and the government’s chief liaison with these paramilitary groups, marched with them. He has been making the rounds in recent months of such gatherings: student chapters like this one, as well as groups of veterans, even battle re-enactors.

One of those who took the oath in Kalisz was Bartosz Walesiak, 16, who said he had been interested in the military since playing with toy soldiers as a little boy, but had been motivated to join the Shooters Association after Russia moved into Crimea.

Ontario’s Ring Of Fire, Formerly ‘The Next Oilsands,’ Sold For Peanuts – by Sunny Freeman (Huffington Post – March 23, 2015)

March 23, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/business/

A junior miner will soon be the biggest player in Ontario’s fledgling Ring of Fire mining development, after agreeing to pay US$20 million for the properties of Cliffs Natural Resources, a U.S. mining giant who has abandoned hope of developing the area.

Toronto-based Noront Resources is getting quite the deal for about 103 mining claims — including Cliffs’ flagship $3.3 billion Black Thor chromite deposit — in the region estimated to be worth $50 billion during the height of the commodity boom. Cliffs paid $240 million for the assets in 2009.

The market has since shifted and a lack of concrete movement in talks between First Nations, government and developers has turned many miners off of the 5,000 square kilometre area said to be rich with chromite, copper, zinc, platinum and other valuable metals.

The Ring of Fire was once touted as Canada’s next oilsands, but interest in the area has fallen off and the prospects for development in the remote region, located on First Nations land, have dimmed.

Cliffs decided to suspend its projects in the area in late 2013, citing numerous delays and difficulties that prevented the project from moving ahead.

NEWS RELEASE: Noront Resources to Acquire Cliffs Chromite Properties in the Ring of Fire

March 24, 2015March 23, 2015

TORONTO, ON–(Marketwired – March 23, 2015) – Noront Resources Ltd. (“Noront”) (TSX VENTURE: NOT) has entered into an agreement to acquire, among other things, the shares of Cliffs Chromite Ontario Inc. (“CCOI”) and Cliffs Chromite Far North Inc. (“CCFNI”), both indirect wholly owned subsidiaries of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) (“Cliffs”), which hold mining claims in the Ring of Fire mining district, for an acquisition price of US$20 million (the “Transaction”).

The Transaction includes the acquisition of approximately 103 claims currently owned by CCOI and CCFNI, including: a 100% interest in the Black Thor chromite deposit; a 100% interest in the Black Label chromite deposit; and, a 70% interest in the Big Daddy chromite deposit. It also gives Noront 85% ownership of the McFauld’s Lake copper zinc resource.

Upon closing, Noront will hold a total of approximately 360 mining claims and roughly 65% (80,000 hectares) of the emerging mining camp known as the Ring of Fire, located 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. These additional assets, alongside Noront’s existing Eagle’s Nest nickel-copper-platinum group element deposit and its Blackbird chromite deposit will allow Noront to further its vision of becoming the leading resource company in the area.

“This purchase consolidates the world-class discoveries made in the Ring of Fire,” said Noront President and CEO Alan Coutts. “It also underscores Noront’s long-standing belief and commitment to the region.

Rickford gives chamber an F for Ring of Fire grade – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – March 21, 2015)

March 23, 2015

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

If FedNor Minister Greg Rickford were rating the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s performance, he would give it a failing grade.

The Conservative MP for Kenora said he rejects a chamber of commerce report in which the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper was given an F for not making development of the Ring of Fire a national priority.

“I don’t accept it,” Rickford told reporters Friday at a news conference to announce funding for the Advanced Medical Research Institute of Canada.

“The federal government has been working with communities. They (the OCC) didn’t talk about the new runways we put in there, surfaces for communities to land and do exploration activities, investment in small business centres, the support for the environmental assessment process that was hiring first nations people and making important contributions from the first nations communities to that.”

Rickford also cited the high completion rate of students in a training program the federal government funded with Confederation College in Thunder Bay and Matawa first nations as another indication of his government’s support for the area.

Minister rejects Ring of Fire report – by Jonathan Migneault (Northern Ontario Business – March 20, 2015)

March 23, 2015

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.

Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources said he rejects an Ontario Chamber of Commerce report that gave the federal government a failing grade in its involvement in the Ring of Fire development.

“I don’t accept it,” said Minister Greg Rickford during a visit to Sudbury. “The federal government has been working with communities.”

In its report card on progress, or lack thereof, near the remote Ring of Fire mineral deposits, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce said, “The federal government has yet to demonstrate that the Ring of Fire is an economic development priority.”

The report went on to say the federal government should commit to matching the $1 billion the provincial government set aside to build infrastructure to access the Ring of Fire chromite deposits in the remote James Bay lowlands.

“They didn’t talk about the new runways we put in to land and do exploration activities,” Rickford said. “Nor did I see mention of the great relationship we have with the province on a couple of key initiatives, one of which we announced at PDAC (the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Conference), and that was to focus squarely on specific infrastructure projects that could open up regional development.”

Time for Ring of Fire is now – by Allan O’Dette (Timmins Daily Press – March 20, 2015)

March 23, 2015

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Allan O’Dette is the President & CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

Earlier this week, federal Treasury Board President Tony Clement left many in the business community scratching their heads when he said that the Ring of Fire will not be developed “before economic conditions improve.”

Until then, he said, it is not realistic to expect his government to step in and “boost” the Ring of Fire. Minister Clement’s comments are perplexing. To which economic conditions is he referring?

The downturn in the global commodity cycle has had little impact on the economics of the Ring of Fire, which hinges on the forecast price of nickel and demand for stainless steel. The outlook for these indicators is positive: nickel prices are projected to increase by up to 40% over the next four years and demand for stainless steel remains strong, driven upward by robust consumer demand in developing countries for stainless steel appliances.

It would appear that Minister Clement’s comments are informed by a false narrative that has caught on in the discourse about the Ring of Fire: that the downturn in iron ore prices is impacting the economics of the Ring of Fire.