Twitter
Boston-Bay-Mines-Announcement

Day: June 15, 2015

Ont. premier defends slow progress in Ring of Fire – by Alison Jones (Canadian Press/CTV News – June 15, 2015)

http://www.ctvnews.ca/

THUNDER BAY, Ont. — Kathleen Wynne says there may be no “shovels in the ground” yet in the Ring of Fire, but the Ontario premier is defending the slow progress in developing the chromite-rich region by saying it takes time to get it right.

The province has earmarked $1 billion for infrastructure in the northern Ontario mining area that holds one of the world’s richest deposits of chromite — used to make stainless steel — as well as nickel, copper and platinum, valued at anywhere from $30 billion to $60 billion.

“That billion dollars is real and it’s going to go to building infrastructure,” she said Monday. Wynne acknowledged that she said a year ago she won’t consider her government to have been successful unless progress has been made in the Ring of Fire, but she said some progress has already been made.

“Are the shovels in the ground yet?” she said. “No, but there’s training happening among First Nations. There’s work that’s been done in terms of agreement among the First Nations on how we would do resource revenue sharing. That hasn’t all been finalized but we’re a lot farther along than we were a year ago.”

Read more

Fired Miner’s 50% Pay Cut Just Start of Australian Wage Pain – by Michael Heath (June 14, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

For 20 years Australians doubled down on debt, confident that rising wages would inflate away the burden and grow their wealth. Now their luck seems to be running out.

Geologist Marzena Grochot has been forced to go back to her former career as a dental technician after losing her mining job that paid twice as much. Her plan to sell the family’s two-storey, four-bedroom house in Perth is also foundering in a weak market as the impact of collapsing mining investment spills out across the economy.

“It’s affecting everyone — people stop going out and spending money,” the 37-year-old said. “Even working in the dental industry, everything is slowing down because parents can’t afford any more braces for their kids and are postponing treatments.”

Australian wages fell in the first quarter for the first time on record as the wall of Chinese money scooping up the nation’s commodities receded. The implications are profound: stagnant pay limits household spending that accounts for about 55 percent of the economy; it impedes government efforts to repair the budget; and will force the central bank to maintain low interest rates for an extended period or cut even further.

Read more

China Creates $16-Billion Silk Road Gold Fund – by Tim Maverick (Wall Street Daily – June 14, 2015)

http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/

Little by little, it’s becoming clear how far-reaching China’s Silk Road economic initiative really is.

Proposed in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, the Belt and Road Initiative involves massive infrastructure spending, growing trade along the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Case in point is the promised massive $46-billion spending spree in neighboring Pakistan. Now, new information reveals that part of the initiative revolves around gold.

On May 23, the Xinhua news agency reported that China planned to launch a $16.1-billion (100 billion yuan) gold fund involving the Silk Road.

The fund, led by the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), “will facilitate gold purchases for the central banks of member states to increase their holdings of the precious metal,” reported Xinhua.

The member states include about 60 countries that lie on the Silk Road, including the world’s two biggest consumers of gold – China and India. Together, these 60 countries currently account for more than half of the world’s gold production and 80% of the total global gold consumption.

Read more

Coal India now sixth-largest mining company in world: PwC (Financial Express – June 15, 2015)

http://www.financialexpress.com/

Coal India (CIL) has become the sixth-largest mining company in the world in terms of market capital, says a recent PwC report.

Country’s top dry-fuel miner Coal India (CIL) has become the sixth-largest mining company in the world in terms of market capital, says a recent PwC report.

Earlier, the company was at the eighth spot among top 40 global mining firms, according to the report.
Another state-run company, NMDC, the country’s top iron ore miner which also figures in the list, has improved its position by coming to the 21st slot from 24th earlier.

The report “Mine 2015″, which analyses the financial performance of the top 40 mining companies by market capitalisation, says though there have been improvements in most financial statement metrics across the top 40 companies, market values continued to decline.

“The top 40 miners lost $156 billion, or about 16 per cent of their combined market value, in 2014,” the report said, adding that the good news is that it is only half of last year’s slide.

Read more

Platinum Prices Hit Six-Year Low – by ESE ERHERIENE and IRA IOSEBASHVILI (Wall Street Journal – June 15, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

Gold prices gain on breakdown in Greek talks

Platinum prices fell to a six-year low on Monday on concerns over growing supplies of the precious metal.

Platinum for July delivery, the most actively traded contract, closed down 0.8% at $1,088.60 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest settlement since March 18, 2009.

Investors are worried about platinum stockpiles, which are growing as miners in South Africa ramp up output following a five-month strike in 2014. South Africa is the world’s largest producer of the metal, and Barclays estimated platinum production from the country is on track to hit a five-year high in 2016.

At the same time, tougher government regulations in Europe are expected to shrink the share of diesel-powered vehicles and threaten demand for platinum, which is used as an emission filter in diesel cars.

Read more

Teck Resources dinner bittersweet, with mine closing at end of June – by CBC News Newfoundland & Labrador (June 13, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador

A mining company that’s about to shut down its copper and zinc mine near Millertown held an unusual celebration this week.

Teck Resources is closing its Duck Pond mine at the end of June, so the company invited workers and dignitaries to mark the occasion Thursday night with a sit-down dinner in Grand Falls-Windsor.

For some, Duck Pond, which opened in 2007 and has been the island’s largest underground mine, is more than just a workplace.

“Very sad. We’ve made some really good friends there,” said Sharon Coffin of Lewisporte, who started at the mine eight years ago on the security gate. She now works as an underground equipment operator. She told CBC that the closure is a big loss for the workers, but she’s remaining stoic about it.

“We spend about six months out of the year together, we’re family almost, and we look after each other,” said Coffin. “I’m still going to pursue the mining career and hoping not to have to move. But if we have to move for that — so be it.” The mine has employed more than 300 people, many of whom are from the central Newfoundland area.

Read more

NEWS RELEASE: Goldcorp Receives Top Sustainability Ranking in Canada

VANCOUVER, June 5, 2015 /CNW/ – GOLDCORP INC. (TSX: G, NYSE: GG) has been named one of Canada’s 50 Most Socially Responsible Corporations by Sustainalytics, an independent provider of environmental, social and governance (ESG) research to institutional investors and financial institutions around the world. The annual list recognizes companies with an outstanding commitment to social and environmental responsibility.

“Operating in a transparent and socially responsible manner is a commitment that is absolutely fundamental to the way we do business,” said Chuck Jeannes, Goldcorp’s President and CEO. “We’re proud of the strides we’ve made incorporating best practices into everything from land reclamation to ensuring we hire local workers and source from local suppliers where possible. We believe that every community we work with should prosper. This acknowledgment from Sustainalytics validates the work we’re doing.”

Goldcorp has invested significantly in the development of policies and programs that lead the industry in areas such as workplace safety, diversity, community development, education and support for non-profits. Among the key initiatives and accomplishments:

The Six Pillar Strategy puts people, safety and sustainability at the core of Goldcorp operations;

Goldcorp’s Sustainability Excellence Management System is a framework and set of standards that incorporate best-in-class environmental, safety, social and human rights practices;

Read more

New Mexico Supreme Court asked to review ‘copper rule’ – by Associated Press (Washington Times – June 14, 2015)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) – New Mexico’s attorney general and environmentalists want the state’s highest court to review an appellate court’s upholding of regulations that govern groundwater pollution by copper mines.

Attorney General Hector Balderas and several watchdog groups have filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to weigh in on a previous ruling maintaining the “copper rule.” The regulations, which were approved in September 2013, allow mining companies to exceed water-quality standards at mining sites. This includes new engineering requirements for handling leftover rock, leach piles, tanks and pipelines.

The Supreme Court could decide any day whether to hear the case or dismiss the petition. If the panel reviews the case, a final decision could take years.

Clean-water advocates say the regulations give copper-producing companies too much leeway to pollute groundwater.

“The copper rule flies in the face of the Water Quality Act,” said Douglas Meiklejohn, a New Mexico Environmental Law Center attorney representing the advocacy groups.

Read more

RPT-COLUMN-Zinc’s infinitely stretchable deficit deadline – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – June 12, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – All mining activities at the giant Century zinc mine in Australia will have ceased by the end of this month.

News that will be greeted with relief by believers in the zinc deficit story, who have had to watch Century’s operator MMG push back the fateful closure date many times in the past.

Century has become totemic of zinc’s bull narrative of looming shortfall as some of the world’s biggest mines come to the end of their natural lives without obvious like-for-like replacements.

The resulting raw materials crunch, the bull argument runs, will force prices up to a level needed to incentivise new supply.

It’s a tantalising prospect for a market that has seen only fleeting rallies based on the unreliable signals coming from stock movements on the London Metal Exchange (LME).

Right now the price for three-month delivery on the LME is trading just above $2,100 per tonne, bang in the middle of the broad $1,800-2,400 range in which zinc has been trapped for the last three years.

Read more

CHARTS: China’s steel, iron, coal industry growth collapsing – by Frik Els (Mining.com – June 12, 2015)

http://www.mining.com/

A new report shows China’s move away from industrialization and construction to consumption and services is happening much quicker than previously thought

China’s economic growth is expected to slow to 7% in 2015 and may even slip below that – the slowest pace since 1990.

While slower overall growth has long been expected, the transformation of China from an investment-led to a consumption driven economy appears to be happening much quicker that previously thought.

After the years of breakneck infrastructure investment, urbanization and industrialization that created the supercycle in commodity demand, Beijing is now shifting focus of policy to the services-orientated sectors of the economy.

A chart from oil giant BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2014 report shows how the energy intensive sectors of the Chinese economy “virtually collapsed”.

This strategy of curbing the once red-hot property sector and placing restrictions on heavy industry also ties in with the government’s fight against pollution after years of devastating environmental damage.

Read more

From Loathed to Loved: Iron Rallies as Quality Ore Is Gobbled Up – by Phoebe Sedgman (Bloomberg News – June 11, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Iron ore’s gone from loathed to loved. The commodity capped a third weekly gain that lifted prices to the highest in almost five months on lower port stockpiles in China and speculation local production is contracting.

Ore of benchmark-grade 62 percent content delivered to Qingdao climbed 1.1 percent this week for the longest weekly run since April, according to Metal Bulletin Ltd. The commodity retreated 0.7 percent to $65.13 a dry metric ton on Friday after reaching $65.61 on June 11, the highest since Jan. 23.

Iron ore’s roller-coaster ride this year saw prices sink to a decade-low in early April on rising low-cost supply from the top producers and concern demand in China may falter as growth slowed. Tumbling stockpiles in the biggest buyer, as imports missed expectations, helped to spur back-to-back gains in April and May, and prices extended the rally into June. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is among banks predicting the factors that hurt prices in the first quarter will soon reassert themselves.

“There’s been a significant destocking gone on and that would be why we’ve seen the iron ore price rising, seasonal factors and the fact that they are destocking,” said David Lennox, a resource analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney. “There’s a lack of inventory in China.”

Read more

Ghana: Gold Refiners Should Act On Child Labor – by Juliane Kippenberg (All Africa.com – June 12, 2015)

http://allafrica.com/

Today is the World Day Against Child Labor. But just a few days ago, I spoke to a group of boys working in artisanal, unlicensed gold mines in Ghana’s Ashanti region. One of them explained how he and his friends use mercury to process the ore, and how they regularly skip school to go mining.

Mining is one of the most hazardous types of child labor, yet Ghana and many other countries have large numbers of children working in the sector. Children breathe in dust that may cause them to cough blood, work in pits that sometimes collapse, and are exposed to toxic mercury fumes without knowing the health risks. The International Labour Organization estimates that about one million children work in artisanal mining.

International gold refiners hold significant power in the supply chain, as fewer than 20 companies refine most of the world’s gold. They should take the lead in introducing and promoting a strong standard to eradicate child labor from their supply chains. Unfortunately, the industry generally has fallen far short of that goal.

In an investigation published earlier this week, Human Rights Watch found that several international refiners that source from Ghana – such as Switzerland’s Metalor Switzerland, Dubai’s Kaloti, and India’s Kundan – have not implemented sufficient measures to ensure that gold mined by children doesn’t enter their supply chains.

Read more

Provinces the key to resource-revenue sharing with First Nations – by Tom Flanagan (Globe and Mail – June 15, 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.

Tom Flanagan is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary and chair of the Aboriginal Futures program for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Resource-revenue sharing has emerged as the next Big Idea for First Nations. Like most Big Ideas, it seems simple, but in reality is full of legal difficulties and unintended economic consequences.

Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), said immediately upon being elected to that position, “If our lands and resources are to be developed, it will be done only with our fair share of the royalties, with our ownership of the resources and jobs for our people.” By “our” he meant all the natural resources of Canada, everywhere, not just on reserves or First Nation settlement lands.

This view contradicts the treaties signed in Ontario and the Prairie provinces, which provided for the surrender of all titles to land and natural resources. But according to the AFN, the treaties do not mean what they say. The AFN says aboriginal leaders actually surrendered land only “to the depth of a plow,” for the purposes of agriculture, so today’s First Nations still own all subsurface rights to minerals and oil and gas.

Read more

Campaigns to divest from fossil-fuel holdings gain steam – by Tavia Grant (Globe and Mail – June 15, 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.

From Canadian campuses universities and churches to American foundations and Norway’s parliament, a debate is raging over whether to divest out of fossil-fuel investments.

Thirty campuses in Canada have divestment campaigns to move out of fossil-fuel holdings. No university has announced plans to divest, and some, such as the University of Calgary, have ruled that option out. But change is afoot: Concordia University is creating a $5-million fossil-free fund, while faculty and students at the University of British Columbia and University of Victoria have voted in favour of divesting.

Several churches have divested. And one Toronto-based foundation this year took its investments out of oil sands and coal and is putting them into renewable energy – including one initiative that converts zoo manure into biogas.

Global efforts are gaining momentum. Last year, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund pulled out of fossil-fuel investments, and so did the World Council of Churches. Last month, Oxford University pledged to avoid investments in coal and oil sands firms. This month, Norway’s parliament voted to shed coal-related investments from its $890-billion sovereign-wealth fund, which is the world’s largest.

Read more

Can the Ring of Fire keep its promises to First Nations? – by John Michael McGrath (TVO Inside The Agenda Blog – June 11, 2015)

http://theagenda.tvo.org/

Neskantaga First Nation has been under a boil water advisory for the past 20 years. Like most reserves in Ontario’s northwest, electricity comes from noisy and polluting diesel generators. The community is connected to the rest of the world only part of the year by a winter road that stops being useful the moment the ice starts to thin in spring. When the winter’s shipment of diesel fuel runs out, it has to be flown in on floatplanes at enormous expense.

In short, Neskantaga and other First Nation reserves in Ontario’s vast northwest have to live in conditions that nearly everyone in Ontario would find unacceptable. The nearby Ring of Fire mineral deposit, potentially worth $50 billion, is supposed to help change that.

“Unless we really open up the north and provide access to remote First Nation communities, we’ve really missed the boat,” says Ontario’s Minister of Northern Development and Mines Mike Gravelle.

A lot of debate around the Ring of Fire revolves around what kind of transportation links to build to get the rich minerals found there to global markets. However, more basic forms of infrastructure are also planned, such as reliable electricity.

Read more