April 15, 2015 – Republic of Mining

Cameco signs major uranium supply deal with India (Business Network News – April 15, 2015)

April 15, 2015

http://www.bnn.ca/

BNN.ca staff

Canada’s largest uranium producer has signed a sales agreement with India. Cameco will provide the Department of Atomic Energy of India with 7.1 million pounds of uranium concentrate under a long-term contract through 2020.

“This contract opens the door to a dynamic and expanding uranium market,” Cameco president and CEO Tom Gitzel said in a statement. “Much of the long-term growth we see coming in our industry will happen in India and this emerging market is key to our strategy.”

The agreement, worth $350-million to Cameco, was announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Canada Wednesday. Cameco shares (CCO.TO 5.69%) surged almost five percent Wednesday to $19.80 on the TSX after the news was announced.

Prospector president calls for reform of Mining Act – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – April 15, 2015)

April 15, 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. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

Gino Chitaroni wonders if prospectors are becoming a vanishing breed in Northern Ontario. He blames over-reaching government policy, onerous regulations and unsolved issues with First Nations for gutting the grassroots heart of the mining sector.

The president of the Northern Prospectors Association said their monthly meetings have devolved into “bitch sessions” with grievances over changes to the Ontario Mining Act and something must be done to turn the tide in industry’s favour.

The introduction two years ago of so-called Plans and Permits haven’t been well-received by the exploration community and he finds there is an exodus of prospectors who are pulling up stakes and leaving Ontario for other jurisdictions.

“It’s gotten to the point where our whole way of life of exploration is completely threatened.” Changes to the Mining Act and the introduction of new legislation like the Far North Act, he said, were done with little consultation with Northerners and industry, and is proof of the disconnect between this region and the south.

“It’s a continual assault against trying to do business in Northern Ontario.”

Canadian-Japanese partners eye promising copper project in western Nunavut – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – April 15, 2015)

April 15, 2015

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

“We think we have a great start at building something terrific”

There’s something a little different about a new copper-silver project near Kugluktuk. This doesn’t come as a surprise because Matthew Hornor, president and CEO of a company called Kaizen Discovery, confided “our dream was to do things different” during an April 14 presentation to the Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit.

“Kaizen,” by the way, means continuous improvement in Japanese, a language that Hornor, who has a long-time relationship with Japan, speaks fluently.

Kaizen Discovery’s Coppermine project is one of two Nunavut mining projects with Japanese partners — the other being Areva Resources Canada’s Kiggavik uranium project whose minority partners include Japan-Canada Uranium Co. Ltd. and Daewoo International Corp.

Kaizen’s Coppermine copper-silver project, acquired last November, is also a newcomer to the western Nunavut mining scene. Hornor said he’s reluctant to make promises until the company is sure the resources are there to support a large copper-silver mine project.

But this fledgling project has a few things that make it stand out among the slow-starting, stalled or failed mining projects in Nunavut’s Kitikmeot region.

Northwestern Ontario Prospectors Comments on Renewing Ontario’s Mineral Development Strategy

April 15, 2015

The following letter outlines the Northwestern Ontario Prospector Association’s (NWOPA) recommendations for Ontario’s new Mineral Development Strategy. NWOPA believes that the new Mineral Development Strategy should focus on three main points:

1) Solving the problem of uncertainty of land tenure
2) Assisting prospectors and junior exploration Companies
3) Acquisition and dissemination of new, high quality geoscience datasets

Recommendations follow the discussion of each point below.

1) Uncertainty of Land Tenure

The new Mining Act has taken a once thriving industry and crippled it with new rules and regulations at a time when global markets are suffering. The new rules and regulations are enough of a deterrent to exploration; however, what has truly driven investors away from the province of Ontario and demoted Ontario to rank 23rd in Mining Attractiveness, according to the 2015 Fraser Institute’s Annual Survey of Mining Companies, is uncertainty of land tenure. Ontario’s Mining Attractiveness ranking has been decreasing in recent years, down from 14th place in year 2014 and 9th place in 2013.

City backs deep mining project in Sudbury – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – April 15, 2015)

April 15, 2015

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

Sudbury’s Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation is getting a big boost. City council voted unanimously on Tuesday to invest $200,000 per year for the next five years in CEMI, for its commercialization attainment project (CAP).

By 2019, a total of $1 million will have been invested through the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation, the city’s economic development wing.

“The $1 million is part of the contribution of a number of projects that are contributing to the commercialization of various projects that’ll help the mining industry in Sudbury,” Mayor Brian Bigger said after Tuesday’s meeting.

The commercialization initiative, part of a $47-million ultra-deep mining program — projects breaking ground at least 2.5 km below the surface — aims to research and innovate solutions, and to open markets for Sudbury-based small- and medium-sized businesses.

According to a city press release, ultra-deep mining innovation “will lead the way in helping ultra-deep mines operate more effectively and safely, generate more value, improve the human environment and enhance mine productivity.”

Fram pleased with mining review recommendations – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 15, 2015)

April 15, 2015

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

The mother of one of two men whose deaths four years ago in a Vale mine sparked a review to improve mine safety is pleased with 18 recommendations and says they will make working underground less hazardous.

Wendy Fram’s son, Jordan, 26, and coworker Jason Chenier, 35, were killed June 8, 2011, by a run of muck at the 3,000-foot level of Vale’s Stobie Mine. One of the issues identified in investigations as leading to the men’s deaths was excess water in the century-old mine.

That issue was squarely addressed in the final report of the Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review, presented in Sudbury this morning by Labour Minister Kevin Flynn and Ontario chief prevention officer George Gritziotis.

Gritziotis chaired the review, whose advisory committee was comprised of individuals from industry and labour. Fram served as a special advisor to the committee on the review that was established in December 2013.

Key recommendations in the report are to enhance ground control protection by identifying key elements to managing those hazards and require employers to maintain a record of significant seismic events.

NEWS RELEASE: VALE ENDORSES MINING HEALTH, SAFETY & PREVENTION REVIEW FINAL REPORT

April 15, 2015

SUDBURY, April 15, 2015 – Vale today released the following statement regarding the Mining Health, Safety & Prevention Review Final Report that was released to the public this morning.

“Vale would like to express its full support for the Final Report of the Mining Health, Safety & Prevention Review, and the process that was initiated by the provincial government last year. We applaud Minister Kevin Flynn and Chief Prevention Officer, George Gritziotis, for their open and collaborative approach to this process.

The opportunity to participate fully through the activities of the working groups, particularly in the areas of health and safety hazards and the ability of the occupational health and safety system to meet the needs of the mining sector — was as an opportunity we welcomed and took very seriously. We believe that the recommendations that have been put forward in the report will assist Vale and all companies within Ontario’s mining sector in becoming safer places to work.

We look forward to continuing to work with government, our labour partners and industry to implement the recommendations and to continue to work towards our common goal of achieving zero harm in our mines and plants.

Antofagasta sounds warning on Chile copper industry – by Henry Sanderson (Financial Times – April 14, 2015)

April 15, 2015

http://www.ft.com/intl/companies/mining

Santiago – Chile’s copper industry risks losing its competitiveness, as productivity declines to levels last seen in the early 1990s due to ageing mines and higher labour costs, miner Antofagasta has warned.

Chile, the world’s biggest copper producer, has invested roughly the same amount in its mining industry since 2004 as it did in the previous decade, yet there has barely been any growth in production, Diego Hernandez, chief executive of UK-listed Antofagasta, said in an interview at an industry gathering in the country’s capital.

Between 1990 and 2004 production grew 9.2 per cent annually while productivity almost doubled, he said. “Fifteen years ago Chile still had a competitive advantage in terms of labour as a component of our cash costs,” Mr Hernandez said, noting that labour at the time was cheaper than developed countries such as Australia, Canada and the US but less productive.

“Today we have similar salaries but we kept the same productivity we had before. Now we have a competitive disadvantage,” he said.

The fate of the copper industry is key for Chile, whose economy last year grew by the slowest pace in five years as demand weakened from its biggest customer, China. Chile alone produces about a third of the world’s copper, and in addition to Antofagasta, companies including BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Japan’s Sumitomo Corp all have operations in the country.

Got copper? New pentagon report spotlights key role of critical metals – by Daniel McGroarty (The Hill – April 12, 2015)

April 15, 2015

http://thehill.com/

A new national security report has just been released: The 2015 National Defense Stockpile Requirements Report documents projected shortfalls in various metals, minerals and materials required for the U.S. defense industrial base and, in this day of dual-use technologies, the “essential civilian economy.”

In all, the new report details shortfalls that, in classified crises scenarios, would affect 30 metals and minerals – about 1/3 of the naturally occurring elements in the Periodic Table. Many of the metals and minerals used in U.S. defense applications aren’t exactly household names. There’s bismuth, used in defense thermo-electrics to capture ‘waste heat” and channel it back into weapons systems power sources. Weapons builders need iridium – used in aircraft engines, satellites and rocket propulsion– as an alternative to America’s present reliance on Russian supply.

In the case of tellurium, used in thermal imaging and navigation systems, present tellurium production, already sharply limited, will soon drop to zero, increasing U.S. dependency on China, Russia and Japan. Rhenium and molybdenum are essential to high-performance alloys used in jet turbines and other defense systems – as is more cobalt, used in jet engine super-alloys and samarium-cobalt permanent magnets. As the Pentagon study notes: