April 23, 2015 – Republic of Mining

Gold bars, tall tales and hangovers—scenes from the world’s largest mining convention – by Trevor Cole (Globe and Mail – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

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.

If gold had a fragrance, it would be the whiff of desperation. And come early March in Toronto, someone would bottle it, relabel it as “Hope” and attempt to sell it at a booth at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s annual convention.

For four days every March, Toronto is centre ice in the world of mining. Frankly, it is anyway—nearly half of the world’s equity transactions related to extracting goodies from the planet’s crust flow through Toronto’s exchanges—but it’s during these four days that the mining world comes to set up its booths, paste on a smile and make a lot of those deals happen. And then, at the end of each day, because the mining business is hard, the world retires to a hotel suite and drinks as much as humanly possible.

This is how it has been since 1942. That first year, when the price of an ounce of gold sat at $33.85 (U.S.), several hundred prospectors and mine developers decided to gather for a single day in Toronto’s King Edward Hotel, talk a great deal about their industry and then head to the bar.

Everybody enjoyed themselves immensely, so the next year they did it again. In 1944, attendance was too high for the King Eddy, so the convention moved to the Royal York Hotel.

Sprott makes $898m unsolicited bid for gold/silver trusts – by Scott Deveau (Bloomberg News – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

Video interview from Business Network News: http://www.bnn.ca/

http://www.mineweb.com/

Sprott Asset Management LP plans to make an unsolicited offer to buy Central GoldTrust and Silver Bullion Trust for almost $900 million, saying the precious metals companies are undervalued.

The share swap by Sprott, a Toronto-based money manager that focuses on gold and silver, represents an 8.3 percent premium to the trusts’ combined market value of $829 million, based on Wednesday’s closing price.

The Canadian trusts, which buy and hold gold and silver, have been under pressure from shareholder Polar Securities Inc., a Toronto-based hedge fund. Polar has been urging the trusts to change how unitholders can redeem their investment as a means of closing their trading gaps.

Neither Labor nor Liberal has handled WA’s mining boom well – by Larry Graham (Western Australia Today – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.watoday.com.au/

Western Australia has a serious problem it needs to deal with. When confronted with unprecedented growth in the mining industry, WA could take the easy political option of spending up big and business as usual, or the more difficult path of others in similar circumstances by putting the windfall revenue away for a rainy day.

When the Barnett Government belatedly opted for a sovereign fund, they chose the one of the worst possible models – and Labor opposed the entire concept. What this bellowed was that neither side of politics understood what was going on around them.

The end results of successive WA governments’ mismanagement of the unprecedented growth are more reminiscent of Nauru than of a progressive economy. It’s easy to jump into political hyper-talk mode and blame the GST and falling iron ore prices for our budgetary woes, however both these events are cyclical and predictable.

With regard to the GST distribution, the recent brouhaha has been a boon to the Premier and the media, but a quick peek at the WA Treasurer Christian Porter’s one and only budget will show that GST revenue has not yet fallen to the levels he predicted in May 2011.

NEWS RELEASE: FEDERAL BUDGET FAILS NAN FIRST NATIONS

April 23, 2015

http://www.nan.on.ca/

THUNDER BAY: (April 22, 2015) Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Harvey Yesno says the 2015 federal budget fails NAN First Nations by lacking significant investments to address the crippling lack of infrastructure, especially in remote communities, and a strong commitment for environmental protection enhanced consultation on resource development by Natural Resources Canada.

“It is shameful that the Minister is championing this budget as beneficial for northern Ontario when 15 NAN First Nations in his riding are currently on Health Canada drinking water advisories,” said Grand Chief Harvey Yesno. “As MP for Kenora, Greg Rickford represents the largest number of First Nation communities in Canada, but he is clearly not representing the interest of his constituents given the continued failure by his government to address even the most basic needs of these communities.”

NAN First Nations are under increasing pressure from industry for the development of the wealth of natural resources in their traditional territory, but many communities are plagued by Third World living conditions including lack of safe drinking water, health care, protection services (fire and police) and housing.

“We will not raise our children in poverty while the rest of Canada prospers from the exploitation of our territories.
Instead of promises of future FedNor funding for his riding, we are looking to Minister Rickford and this government to make clear commitments to meaningful engagement with NAN First Nations based and the spirit and intent of our Treaties,” said Yesno.

Iron Range slump appears set to last for a long time – by Lee Schafer (Minneapolis Star Tribune – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.startribune.com/

A U.S. Steel spokesman last week emphasized the “temporary” nature of the idling coming at the company’s Keetac and Minntac operations in northeastern Minnesota.

But in looking around at the global industry, it’s shaping up as another of those slumps that sure won’t feel temporary when it’s done. It’s a global industry, and the news is bad all over.

Down in the Indian state of Goa, for example, an export industry that three years ago employed more than 100,000 may never come back. The government put it on hold for environmental reasons, and when it permitted mining to start up again this year there was no more market. Barge captains there can’t even sell their rusting hulks for scrap.

Over in western Australia, a leading market analyst last month asked for one of the iron mining companies to do the decent thing and go out of business. His other hope was that producers finally get serious about forming some sort of cartel to get a production cap, boosting prices. Financial analysts don’t usually openly call for price-fixing and collusion.

The pain isn’t just confined to ore, of course, because it’s just an input for making steel. In a recent steel industry report put out by the big Canadian bank BMO, none of the trend lines were heading up.

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company – by Jo Becker and Mike McIntire (New York Times – April 25, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.

Iron ore price rockets – by Frik Els (Mining.com – April 22, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.mining.com/

The spot price of iron ore roared ahead on Wednesday despite all three of the biggest producers of the steelmaking material reporting record-setting output growth.

The 62% Fe import price including freight and insurance at the Chinese port of Tianjin added $2.10 or 4.1% to $52.90 a tonne on Wednesday, the highest since end-March according to data provided by The SteelIndex. The iron ore price has recovered 13% since hitting record lows at the beginning of April, but remains down 25% so far in 2015 after almost halving last year.

The jump in the Metal Bulletin’s benchmark 62%-index was even more spectacular tracking gains of 5.9% at the ports of Qingdao-Rizhao-Lianyungang in China to $54.04 a tonne on Wednesday, a four week high. MetalBulletin’s 65% Brazilian index soared $4.00 to a five-week high of $62 a tonne, nearly $7 higher than its record low.

The Big Three iron ore miners – Vale (NYSE:VALE), Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) and BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) – announced record production numbers on Tuesday and Wednesday, emphasizing the devastating effect a surge of new supply has had on the market just as demand from top consumer China is softening.

BHP isn’t putting the brakes on production growth – just making the most of its installed infrastructure to slash costs further.

Responsible Gold Also Means Supporting Livelihoods of Artisanal Miners – by Tyler Gillard and Roel Nieuwenkamp (Huffington Post – April 22, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theworldpost/

Last year, Congolese civil society leader Eric Kajemba helped broker a deal between the army, local authorities, three powerful Congolese families and a Canadian mining company to demilitarize the Mukungwe gold mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The mine supports 5,000 thousand so-called “artisanal” gold miners, who work in harsh conditions and have for years lived under constant threat of extortion and violence by armed groups, the military and criminal gangs.

Kajemba’s efforts, and the support from the mining company and the Congolese government, were made in part because of growing international pressure to ensure that minerals don’t finance or fuel violent conflict or human rights abuses when mined in conflict zones.

Yet this same push for “conflict-free” minerals has also created new challenges for mines in eastern Congo, like Mukungwe, to access formal gold markets, mainly because of unreasonably high expectations from the market that go beyond international standards.

In 2010, the US Congress adopted section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, obliging public companies to report on products containing certain minerals that may be benefiting armed groups in the DRC.

TransMountain pipeline ‘will go forward’ if approved, Kinder Morgan Inc CEO says – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – April 22, 2015)

April 23, 2015

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

HOUSTON – Saying he is “astounded” by opposition in British Columbia to his company’s proposed pipeline expansion, the head of U.S. energy infrastructure giant Kinder Morgan Inc. warned his company will forge ahead with construction starting in the summer of 2016, if the project receives Ottawa’s approval.

Richard Kinder, chairman and CEO of Houston-based Kinder Morgan, said Wednesday the increasingly vocal opposition is part of an organized movement to use pipeline permits across North America as a “choke point.”

“I believe that Canada, like the U.S., has the rule of law, and I think if you have a valid federal decision to go forward, the project will go forward,” he said at the IHS CERAWeek conference here. “I think we will get this permitted. We intend to get it build. And we hope to see it in service in the third quarter of 2018.”

The approach is in contrast to that of Calgary-based Enbridge Inc., which has been treading carefully despite receiving a federal permit to build its Northern Gateway pipeline last year. The company has yet to announce a start-up date as it works to reduce opposition for its own Alberta-to-West coast pipeline project.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL NEWS RELEASE: Digging for Transparency: How U.S. Companies are Only Scratching the Surface of Conflict Minerals Reporting (April 22, 2015)

April 23, 2015

http://www.amnestyusa.org/

Click here for report: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/digging_for_transparency_hi_res.pdf

Nearly 80 per cent of U.S. public companies analyzed by human rights groups are failing to adequately check and disclose whether their products contain conflict minerals from Central Africa, a new report by Amnesty International and Global Witness reveals.

The report, Digging for Transparency, analyzes 100 conflict minerals reports filed by companies including Apple, Boeing and Tiffany & Co under the 2010 Dodd Frank Act (Section 1502), known as the conflict minerals law. The findings point to alarming gaps in U.S. corporate transparency.

Under the law, more than one thousand U.S.-listed companies that believe they may source minerals from Central Africa submitted reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2014, the first year they were required to do so. The law is designed to reduce the risk that the purchase of minerals from Central Africa contributes to conflict or human rights abuses.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is an important source of minerals – including gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum – for global businesses.

‘Something wasn’t right’ — Sudbury inquest [mining deaths] – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 23, 2015)

April 23, 2015

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

Two of the last men to see Jordan Fram alive testified about their encounters with him on the third day of the coroner’s inquest into his death and that of his supervisor, Jason Chenier.

Fram, 26, and Chenier, 35, were killed about 9:45 p.m. on June 8, 2011, at the 3,000-foot level of Vale’s Stobie Mine, near the No. 7 ore pass. They were overcome by an uncontrolled run of 350 tons of muck.

There are two divisions at Stobie. Luke St. Amand was a supervisor at division A, which was sharing the no. 7 ore pass that day with division B, where Chenier and Fram were working.

St. Amant was working the day the men were killed and had met Chenier on surface. He testified Chenier didn’t say anything about water, although Chenier had sent two emails to superiors about hazards in the days before the tragedy.

He and Chenier didn’t talk about double barricades, said St. Amant, although Chenier had mentioned in his emails they had been erected to block unsafe areas, the inquest has heard.

Beneath (American Themed Mining Horror Movie – 2013)

April 23, 2015

http://www.about.com/entertainment/

Not to be confused with Larry Fessenden’s tepid killer fish flick of the same name from earlier this year, Beneath “mines” terror from under the ground, not under the water. But is it worth digging up?

The Plot

When environmental lawyer Samantha (Kelly Noonan) returns to her childhood home to celebrate her coal mining father George’s (Jeff Fahey) retirement, some gentle ribbing by his coworkers prods her into volunteering to work with him in the mine on his last day.

Some of the more superstitious of the miners think it’s bad luck to have a woman underground with them, but more rational heads prevail…at least, for the time being.

When drilling triggers an cave-in, however, panic starts to set in. George phones for help, but he’s told it will take 72 hours for aid to arrive.

Where the Green Ants Dream (Australian Mining Themed Movie – 1984)

April 23, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Where the Green Ants Dream (German: Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen) is a 1984 film by German film director Werner Herzog. It was Herzog’s first film in English although also dubbed into German. Based partly on the Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd case and making use of professional actors as well as Aboriginal activists who were involved in the case, it was a mix of facts and fiction. The ant mythology was claimed as Herzog’s own, however some natives did consider the green ant as the totem animal that created the world and humans.

Wandjuk Marika noted that the ant dreaming belief existed in a clan that lived near Oenpelli in the Northern Territory.[1] The film is set in the Australian desert and is about a land feud between a mining company (which he called Ayers to avoid any legal threats from Nabalco) and the native Aborigines. The Aborigines claim that an area the mining company wishes to work on is the place where green ants dream, and that disturbing them will destroy humanity. The film was entered in the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.[2]

Marika, recommended to Herzog by Phillip Adams, was a leader for the Rirratjingu people, an artist and musician who was involved in activism for Aboriginal rights.

Pride (British Themed Mining Movie – 2014)

April 23, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Pride is a 2014 British LGBT-related historical comedy-drama film written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Matthew Warchus. It was screened as part of the Directors’ Fortnight section of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival,[3][4] where it won the Queer Palm award.[5] Writer Stephen Beresford said a stage musical adaptation involving director Matthew Warchus was being planned.[6]

The film was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and for the BAFTA for Best British Film, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Imelda Staunton and for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

Plot[edit]

Based on a true story, the film depicts a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help families affected by the British miners’ strike in 1984, at the outset of what would become the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign.[7]