Canadian Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act comes into force – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – June 1, 2015)

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canada’s new rules governing extractive sector transparency came into effect on Monday, forcing all extractive companies subject to the Act to report payments including taxes, royalties, fees, and production entitlements of $100 000 or more to all levels of government in Canada and abroad.

Canada’s Natural Resources Minister and Minister for the Federal Development Initiative for Northern Ontario Greg Rickford on Monday said that the ‘Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act’ (ESTMA) was a multilateral mandatory reporting initiative that would help to ensure that Canada’s resource industries continued to prosper and to provide the broad economic benefits that were fundamental to Canada’s success.

The ESTMA followed through on the federal government’s commitment with its G7 counterparts to improve transparency and accountability of payments made by the extractive industry to all levels of government.

The eurozone had already developed similar legislation, which the UK had adopted late last year, with transparency directives to follow soon. The directives required oil, gas, mining and logging companies to publicly disclose the payments they made to governments to extract natural resources.

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Wealth Fund Ban Betrays Norway’s Awkward Fossil Fuel Goals – by Saleha Mohsin and Mikael Holter (Bloomberg News – May 31, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Western Europe’s biggest oil producer has decided coal is too dirty to invest in.

Norway’s $890 billion sovereign wealth fund, built on more than four decades of extracting crude from the North Sea, was ordered by lawmakers on Wednesday to limit holdings of companies that produce or burn coal. That could trigger at least $4.5 billion in divestments of stocks such as RWE AG and Duke Energy Corp.

“There’s this incredible logic that coal is the climate problem, and Norway is helping solve the world climate problem by producing gas that can replace coal in Europe and reduce emissions,” Rasmus Hansson, a lawmaker for the Green Party, said in a phone interview.

“That logic has unbelievably been accepted by the Norwegian majority as credible — which it isn’t.”

The cognitive dissonance is on display in Stavanger, Norway’s oil capital. The local Scandic hotel, which charges around $200 a night, tells guests it runs on wind and hydropower. The view is of the North Sea, where Norway — a country that boasts the highest per capita income in Europe after Luxembourg — spends billions extracting its oil.

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China Inc circling Australian iron ore – by Tess Ingram (Sydney Morning Herald – June 1, 2015)

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

The sustained lull in iron ore prices has put iron ore miners under considerable pressure, with Chinese investors circling distressed Australian companies.

Chinese investors are circling distressed Australian iron ore miners, according to local dealmakers fielding growing interest in the commodity’s struggling mid-tier ranks.

The sustained lull in iron ore prices has put iron ore miners under considerable pressure, causing market values to plummet and a handful of Australian producers to suspend operations.

The price of iron ore has slumped close to 50 per cent in the past 12 months to hover at around $US63 a tonne, after slumping as low as $US47 a tonne in April.

Against this backdrop, an increasing number of Chinese entities had expressed interest in providing debt or equity to iron ore miners, acquiring an asset or attempting a takeover, Minter Ellison West Australian managing partner Adam Handley said.

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Finding Minnesota: The ‘Grand Canyon Of The North’ – by Mike Binkley (CBS Minnesota – May 31, 2015)

 

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/

HIBBING, Minn. (WCCO) – This year, thousands will take a side trip to a giant hole in the ground in northern Minnesota that locals like to call “the Grand Canyon of the North.”

It’s not a natural wonder. It’s a panoramic collection of cliffs, ridges and valleys that have all been carved up by humans. The Hull Rust Mahoning Mine on the edge of Hibbing is the second largest open pit iron ore mine in the world.

Beauty was not the main objective when miners first arrived there in the 1890s, but after 120 years of blasting, digging and hauling, beauty is what many visitors see. Anne Varda, whose family includes three generations of miners, is now president of the adjacent tourist center.

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Nothing dull about zinc if supply falls – by Trevor Sykes (Australian Financial Review – June 1, 2015)

http://www.afr.com/

Zinc was the hot tip at the Resources Investment Symposium held in Broken Hill last week.

Probably a natural call given that Broken Hill is home to the greatest silver-lead-zinc mine the world has ever known.

In its 130-year life Broken Hill has produced total of 50 million tonnes of lead and zinc combined plus 100 million ounces of silver. It has been mined almost continuously over that time and still has a long life ahead at deeper levels and in exploiting remnant ore.

In his opening address at the symposium, Emeritus Professor Ian Plimer of the University of Melbourne noted that the market for mining shares had been slow and sluggish for the past four years.

He said: “This market will turn around when there is a fundamental commodity shortage and I think that commodity will be zinc. I think we will go into shortage in the first quarter of next year.” It was a big call, because as far as investors are concerned, zinc is the least sexy of all the major metals.

At various times, investors have been excited about diamonds, gold, copper, oil and nickel, but some minerals just don’t seem capable of arousing them. Mineral sands are a good example. Australia is rich in them, but the market is never much better than lukewarm.

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Nevada mining innovates and endures – by Dana R. Bennett (Elko Daily Free Press – June 1, 2015)

http://elkodaily.com/

Dana R. Bennett is the Nevada Mining Association President.

Nevada mining is dynamic—an evolving industry that changes over time. From our 21st century perspective, after many years of solid gold production numbers, it can be hard to imagine a time when gold was not the preeminent mineral in Nevada. There was a time – a long period of time – when gold mining was essentially dying in this state.

In 1942, the U.S. War Production Board ordered the closure of non-essential gold mines in order to concentrate the production of minerals needed for the war effort. Some Nevada mines closed completely, but some, such as the Getchell Mine in Humboldt County, were able to remain open by focusing on the production of industrial minerals.

After World War II ended and gold mines were allowed to open, Nevada’s gold industry was slow to recover. Production continued to decline. Nearly 20 years after the federal government order, Nevada’s gold production dropped to the second-lowest point in all of Nevada history.

Instead, Nevada’s mining industry focused on industrial minerals, producing iron, lead, manganese, tungsten and zinc in the early 1950s. Lander County produced world-renowned turquoise. By 1957, however, even the industrial mineral industry began to slide.

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[Canada Aboriginal Issues] McLachlin said what many have long known – by Ken Coates (Globe and Mail – June 1, 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.

Ken S. Coates is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Regional Innovation at the University of Saskatchewan and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s senior policy fellow for aboriginal and northern Canadian issues.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin changed the national vocabulary on Thursday. Her simple comment that Canada had attempted “cultural genocide” on indigenous peoples, an explanation central to aboriginal understanding of Canadian history and well-known to students of Canada’s past, is a demonstration of this country’s slow-changing political maturity on the indigenous file.

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood, with indigenous leaders joining him on the floor of the House of Commons, and uttered a similarly meaningful statement about residential schools. He said, on behalf of all Canadians, that he was “sorry.” Why it took so long is a mystery known only to the legal advisers who guided the government’s hand, for aboriginal people and historians long knew of the perhaps unintended but nonetheless destructive impact of residential schools. But it was a start.

It was a simple and honest word, with substantial political implications.

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[Canada Aboriginal Issues] Truth and reconciliation: This is just the beginning – by Perry Bellegarde (Globe and Mail – June 1, 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.

Perry Bellegarde is National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

The closing events of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are under way this week in Ottawa. The Commission has played an important role in shining a light on the Indian residential schools, the darkest chapter in our shared history. The issue facing all of us now is our shared future. What is required for real reconciliation between First Nations and Canada?

I believe reconciliation is about closing the gap – the gap in understanding between First Nations and Canadians and the gap in the quality of life between us. Closing the gap in understanding starts with confronting the purpose of the residential schools, which was nothing less than the eradication of First Nations identity from Canada. The intent was to kill our cultures and our languages. Once you lose those, you lose everything – your pride, self-image and self-worth.

First Nations identities are central to Canada’s identity. We must support and promote indigenous languages and cultures in the school system and in Canadian society as a proud part of our heritage.

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The Cornish Mines – by Graham Jaehnig (The Daily Mining Gazette – May 30, 2015)

http://www.mininggazette.com/

From the very beginning of the mineral rush in 1843, miners from other countries worked Copper Country lodes. John Hays, in working the area around Copper Harbor, worked teams of German coal miners he had retained from Pennsylvania. Colonel Charles Gratiot, working for the Lake Superior Copper Company, had brought with him a crew of some fourteen Cornish miners from the lead district of Wisconsin.

Cornwall is a small peninsula on the southwest portion of England that juts into the Atlantic Ocean, and enjoys a remarkable mining history. Mining in Cornwall had begun as early as the Bronze Age (2100-1500 BCE) and by the beginning of the 17th century CE, the Cornish had earned the reputation as experts and world leaders in mining and mineral dressing.

At the time when Cornish mines were becoming too deep to be profitably mined, large copper deposits were discovered in England’s North Wales. To compete with these new, shallow mines, Cornish engineers made great advancements in mining technology, such as pumping engines and mineral processing.

By the mid-1840s, as the Cornish copper industry was in major decline, the mineral lands of Lake Superior were just beginning to make world news for their finds of huge masses of pure copper.

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Timmins student recognized for cinematography work by Ontario Mining Association – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – June 1, 2015)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

He hasn’t even graduated high school yet, but Francis Huot has already two awards for filmmaking awards under his belt.

Last week, the École Secondaire Theriault student was in Toronto accepting a So You Think You Know Mining Award from the Ontario Mining Association for a short film he made. There were several different categories at the awards, but Huot was recognized for having the best cinematography out of all the videos submitted.

The video Huot is simple but impactful. The visuals of the two-minute-long video are a black-and-white montage of mining machinery and shafts inside GorldCorp’s Dome Mine in Timmins.

“We got permission to go down into the mine and take some shots,” explained Huot. “It was very cool. It’s not every day you get an opportunity to take shots like that.”

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Selling Off Apache Holy Land – by Lydia Millet (New York Times Opinion Pages – May 29, 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/

Tucson – ABOUT an hour east of Phoenix, near a mining town called Superior, men, women and children of the San Carlos Apache tribe have been camped out at a place called Oak Flat for more than three months, protesting the latest assault on their culture.

Three hundred people, mostly Apache, marched 44 miles from tribal headquarters to begin this occupation on Feb. 9. The campground lies at the core of an ancient Apache holy place, where coming-of-age ceremonies, especially for girls, have been performed for many generations, along with traditional acorn gathering.

It belongs to the public, under the multiple-use mandate of the Forest Service, and has had special protections since 1955, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower decreed the area closed to mining — which, like cattle grazing, is otherwise common in national forests — because of its cultural and natural value. President Richard M. Nixon’s Interior Department in 1971 renewed this ban.

Despite these protections, in December 2014, Congress promised to hand the title for Oak Flat over to a private, Australian-British mining concern. A fine-print rider trading away the Indian holy land was added at the last minute to the must-pass military spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act.

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Northern Superior Resources vs. Ontario postponed to October (CBC News Sudbury – May 29, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury

Outcome of lawsuit between junior miner and province to determine duty to consult with First Nations

A Sudbury junior miner said the province is balking at producing promised documents in a $110 million lawsuit.

Northern Superior Resources is suing the Ontario government for failing to consult with First Nations on mining claims A trial date set for Monday has been pushed to October.

The president and CEO of Northern Superior Resources, Tom Morris, said the delay is a result of the government’s failure to disclose certain documents by the deadline.

The litigation, Morris said, is based on the company’s loss of several gold claims in the northwest near the Manitoba border in 2011 after a series of disputes with the Sachigo Lake First Nation.

“We’re looking for a settlement,” he said. “We’re looking to get our investment back so we can redeploy our monies elsewhere. I do have a fiduciary duty to recover those monies for our shareholders.”

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Platinum sector faces its Kodak moment in fuel cell technology – by Clara Denina and Silvia Antonioli (Reuters U.S. – May 29, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, May 29 (Reuters) – Platinum miners betting on fuel cell vehicles to help boost demand for the precious metal and lift moribund prices are in danger of having their hopes dashed, at least in the medium term: electric and hybrid cars are taking a bigger share of the market.

The world’s three largest platinum producers Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), Impala Platinum and Lonmin are all investing in projects related to fuel cell technologies, which generate electricity that can power vehicles by combining hydrogen and oxygen over a platinum catalyst.

But analysts doubt fuel cell vehicles will rival the growth of their electric counterparts, mostly because battery recharging stations are less costly and already more widespread than hydrogen refuelling stations.

“As out of the two new technologies only fuel cells use platinum, I guess the miners think they have no choice,” Macquarie analyst Matthew Turner said. “But people are buying electric cars…and that’s not the case for fuel cells.”

Amplats, which has invested about $35 million in the last five years in companies developing new uses for platinum, mostly through fuel cell technology, is mindful of the stakes.

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Sudbury letter: Liberals fail the North: PC leader – by Patrick Brown (Sudbury Star – May 28, 2015)

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

Patrick Brown is the Ontario PC leader.

Re: New PC leader urged to speak up for Ring of Fire, May 24:

During my leadership campaign, I vowed to make Northern Ontario a priority. On Friday, one of my first trips as the new leader of the Ontario PC Party was meeting with the Northern community and visiting Ontario’s Ring of Fire.

Over the past 12 years, the Liberal government has ignored the value and potential of Northern Ontario. Just like her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, who said “we are not going succeed in Ontario by pulling stuff out of the ground”, Premier Kathleen Wynne has also shown her disregard of Northern Ontario by ensuring no progress has been made in developing the Ring of Fire.

This Liberal government is failing to unlock the full economic potential of the Ring of Fire and instead continues to blame the federal government, which is simply asking for a plan and is not about to write a blank cheque.

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[War Plan Red-U.S. Invades Canada] Sudbury’s nickel important to Americans’ military might – by Stan Sudol (Northern Life – February 5, 2006)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Please note that this article, was originally published in 2006.

If the Yanks went to war with the Brits in the 1920s, American troops would have tried to invade Sudbury from northern Michigan

Canada and the United States have been economic and military allies for most of the 20th century, notwithstanding the bad chemistry between our leaders from time to time. Hopefully Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be able to soon repair the damage in relations caused by the Paul Martin Liberals.

However, throughout much of American history, many influential politicians were firmly committed to the expansionist ideology of Manifest Destiny. This is the belief that the United States has an “inherent, natural and inevitable right” to annex all of North America.

So it should not be a huge surprise to learn that the United States military had prepared a Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan to invade Canada in the late 1920s, and updated it in 1935. The document called War Plan Red was declassified in 1974. However, the story resurfaced a short time ago in a Washington Post (Dec.30, 2005) article by journalist Peter Carlson headlined Raiding the Icebox; Behind Its Warm Front, the United States Made Cold Calculations to Subdue Canada.

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