June 24, 2015 – Republic of Mining

NEWS RELEASE: Integra Gold Corp. Launches $1,000,000 Crowd-Sourcing Gold Rush Challenge with the Objective of Finding Val-d’Or’s Next Big Gold Discovery (June 23, 2015)

June 24, 2015

Integra GOLD RUSH Challenge — crowdsourcing for the mining industry

Company hopes $1 million prize purse will attract “digital prospectors” to analyze unprecedented amount of data and direct it towards its next big gold find

VANCOUVER, BC: Integra Gold Corp. (TSX-V: ICG, OTCQX: ICGQF) (“Integra” or the “Company”) is giving the term “data mining” a whole new meaning with the launch of its Integra Gold Rush Challenge, a form of crowdsourcing it hopes will lead it to the next big gold discovery at its Sigma-Lamaque gold property in Val-d’Or, Québec.

The Data

In October 2014, Integra completed the acquisition of the Sigma/Lamaque Mine and Mill complex immediately adjacent to its Lamaque South project and in doing so became the owner of 6 terabytes of historical mining and exploration data in a digital format. The Company has spent the last 6 months compiling this information which, once completed, will be released to the public in one consolidated database. The data dates back to 1933 and includes over 30,000 historic drill holes, more than 50,000 gold assays, hundreds of kilometres of mined underground workings, other mining statistics and photos. Integra is in the process of verifying and digitizing additional information, which it expects to release to contestants in September via a special website.

Gold Versus Water In The Western Drought [Nevada] – by Chris Sieroty (Nevada Public Radio – June 23, 2015)

June 24, 2015

https://knpr.org/

With Nevada going through a prolonged drought, water use is a hot topic in urban areas.

The issue of drought is also being heavily debated in rural parts of Nevada because of the impact of current and future pit lakes left by mining operations.

The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada recently released a hydrology study of the impacts of mining on the Humboldt River.

The study finds the largest gold mining companies use an enormous amount of water and are pumping record amounts. Will Nevada soon have to decide if water is more precious than gold?

Nevada Mining Association president Dana Bennett, Ph.D., had the following to say in response to an interview request from KNPR’s State of Nevada:

“Nevada’s mining industry has been sensitive to Nevada’s limited water resources since long before this drought began. Water is a precious resource and the drought is something all Nevada industries should take seriously.

Adani halts engineering work on Aus coal mine project: report (The Hindu – June 24, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.thehindu.com/

Adani Group has halted engineering work related to Australia’s largest proposed mine, raising speculation that it could abandon the contentious $16.5 billion project altogether

India’s mining giant Adani Group has halted engineering work related to Australia’s largest proposed mine, raising speculation that it could abandon the contentious $16.5 billion project altogether.

Adani last week advised four major engineering contractors to stop work on projects around the Carmichael mine in Queensland including a joint venture rail line and the expansion of Abbot Point port, Guardian Australia reported citing industry sources.

The report quoted sources as saying that the move to suspend preparatory work by WorleyParsons and Aecon, Aurecon and SMEC at this stage of a project was unheard of and made no sense as a savings measure even amid delays.

“It’s Adani’s practice not to comment on specific commercial arrangements,” a spokeswoman for Adani was quoted as saying by the daily.

Gold output from Peru illegal miners surges after crackdown eases – by Mitra Taj (Reuters U.S. – June 23, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

LIMA – Gold output from unregulated mining in a rainforest region of Peru is rising sharply, official data shows, a trend the country’s top official fighting wildcat miners said was due to a shortage of police to enforce a government-led clampdown.

Peruvian President Ollanta Humala launched the crackdown in late 2013 to tackle a decade-long boom in illegal mining that has destroyed swathes of Peru’s Amazon forest and laced its rivers with mercury.

Police last year conducted more than a dozen big stings in Madre de Dios to shutdown illegal mines, blowing up machinery at makeshift riverside camps, seizing equipment and shuttering brothels. This year there have been no operations there, official figures show.

Antonio Fernandez, the new anti-illegal mining czar, said he lacked manpower because police were sent to contain protests against Southern Copper Corp’s $1.4 billion Tia Maria project.

“Our priority in the second half of the year is Madre de Dios,” Fernandez said. Fernandez said he needs at least 1,000 officers to launch a sting in the Amazonian Madree de Dios region, where wildcat mines typically account for about 10 percent of Peru’s total gold production.

Red Chris proves B.C. still yields ‘good deposits’ – by Matthew Robinson (Vancouver Sun – June 23, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Imperial Metals estimates it will spend the next 30 years extracting gold, copper from site

VANCOUVER — Nearly six decades have passed since copper and gold deposits were found near Iskut, a Tahltan village in northwestern B.C.

Last week, after years of exploration, planning and negotiation, Imperial Metals received a full operating permit from the province to extract those deposits at its controversial Red Chris mine.

It was a big announcement for the Vancouver company, which has faced considerable opposition to the mine from environmental watchdogs, members of the local First Nation and Alaskans.

Red Chris is Imperial Metals’ largest mine and one the company sees as producing for years to come, said Steve Robertson, the company’s vice-president of corporate affairs.

“This is a huge milestone for us,” Robertson said. “(Imperial Metals) has been around since the ’50s and we’ve been slowly establishing our foothold in the mining business in the province of B.C. and the Red Chris project will really put us on a new plateau.”

Green shoots emerge in withered gold mining sector – by Nicole Mordant (Reuters U.S. – June 23, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

VANCOUVER – The global gold mining industry is showing signs of life as merger activity picks up and industry veterans set up new companies and hunt for projects, taking advantage of weak prices to lay the groundwork for a rebound.

Almost four years after the price of gold began tumbling, cash-starved and debt-ridden miners are selling, merging or closing shop, pushing the value of completed gold mining mergers and acquisitions in the first five months of this year to $3 billion, twice what it was in the same period in 2014, according to Thomson Reuters GFMS, a metals research consultancy.

At the same time, with stock markets near record highs, some fund managers are examining the sector. In the first quarter, Paris-based asset manager Carmignac Gestion bought 11.65 million shares of Goldcorp (G.TO), the highest valued gold mining company, making it the Vancouver-based miner’s eighth biggest shareholder, Thomson Reuters data show. Carmignac declined to be interviewed for this article.

“The perception that mining equities show good value is starting to spread,” said Hedley Widdup, a fund manager at Melbourne-based Lion Selection Group, which invests in small mining companies and explorers.

Phosphate Producers Set to Become New ‘Blue Chips,’ VTB Says – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – June 24, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Phosphate fertilizer makers are set to gain as a supply surplus in the $35 billion market narrows, reducing the premium investors pay for potash producers, according to VTB Capital.

“The phosphate fertilizer producers are set to become the blue chips of the agrochemicals market, the role which potash miners once held,” said Elena Sakhnova, an analyst at VTB Capital in Moscow.

While the two groups of fertilizers don’t directly compete as farmers require both, Sakhnova said the pendulum is swinging in favor of phosphates, with demand set to increase 3 percent this year. The $20 billion potash market hasn’t recovered from the 2013 demise of the trading venture between PAO Uralkali, the biggest producer, and its Belarusian partner, which depressed crop nutrient prices and shares.

The gap in the enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ratio between potash producers and phosphate-focused fertilizer makers, which indicates the size of the premium investors are ready to pay for the shares, has narrowed to the lowest since at least 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

UPDATE 2-S.Africa ferrochrome industry sees big job losses if power prices hiked – by Peroshni Govender (Reuters Africa – June 23, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://af.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, June 23 (Reuters) – South Africa’s ferrochrome industry will be thrown into crisis if cash-strapped power utility Eskom is allowed to hike prices, with mines forced to close and as many as 200,000 jobs at risk, an industry group said on Tuesday.

Eskom, struggling to maintain power supplies and laden with debt, has asked the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to approve a 9.58 percent price increase.

While down from an original request of 12.7 percent, ferrochrome producers say that, on top of increases earlier this year, it would deal a hammer blow to the industry.

“The increase in electricity prices will further increase production costs and lead to the closure of most smelters in South Africa,” Jacobus Zaayman, a representative from the Ferro-Alloy Producers Association of South Africa, told a public hearing held by the regulator to consider tariff hikes.

Zaayman said as many as 200,000 jobs could go. It was not clear how many workers the industry employs.

On the Iron Range, a push for a new kind of iron – by Dan Kraker (Minnesota Public Radio News – June 24, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.mprnews.org/

Duluth – For more than a century, iron ore mined from Minnesota’s Iron Range and formed into taconite pellets has fed enormous blast furnaces at steel mills around the Great Lakes in old rust belt cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Hamilton, Ontario.

After the iron ore is combined with coal and limestone in 12-story-high stacks, the mixture is heated to more than 2,600 degrees to create the molten iron needed for steel. That steel has helped manufacture everything from toy wagons to pickup trucks.

But in the few months since steel companies on the Iron Range laid off about 1,000 mineworkers — one out of every five workers in a region where mining makes up about a third of the economy — two trends in the steel industry have Iron Range watchers feeling uneasy.

Even as officials contend with the current downturn, many worry about a longer-term question with even larger economic consequences. At issue is whether Minnesota is producing the right kind of iron ore product for a changing steel industry.

First, the blast furnaces that Minnesota taconite pellets feed are disappearing, said Brian Hiti, a senior policy adviser on mining for the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board.

Vale Looks to Sell Up to 30% of Metals Unit in Possible IPO – by Juan Pablo Spinetto (Bloomberg News – June 24, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Vale SA, the world’s largest nickel producer, is considering selling about 25 percent to 30 percent of its base metals business in an initial public offering.

Work on the transaction continues, although the Rio de Janeiro-based miner will only proceed if nickel and copper prices reach “appropriate” levels, Investor Relations Director Rogerio Nogueira said in Sao Paulo Wednesday.

“We have the vision of doing this IPO to create value,” he said. “It was never thought as a way of getting cash.”

Vale, whose iron-ore business has been buffeted by a 50 percent price collapse since late 2013, may hold the base metals offering in two tranches as it seeks to unlock value at a time of rising profit and output after years of operational setbacks. Vale hired Canadian law firm Stikeman Elliott LLP for the possible IPO, people with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month.

While Nogueira declined to give a valuation for the base metals business during his presentation, Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said in a Bloomberg Television interview in December that it may be worth $30 billion to $35 billion.

First Nations better off to negotiate than litigate on resource projects, says report – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – June 24, 2015)

June 24, 2015

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

A string of legal victories has emboldened Canada’s First Nations to command unprecedented say over resource projects, the latest example being last month’s Lax Kw’alaams refusal of a $1.14-billion benefits package rather than giving consent to the Pacific NorthWest LNG project in northern British Columbia.

But constitutional scholar Dwight Newman argues the legal winning streak may be coming to an end.

Indeed, in a new research report for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute — entitled Is the Sky the Limit? — Newman argues last year’s Tsilhqot’in Supreme Court of Canada decision that granted title to the B.C. community based on evidence of its use of land may mark the legal peak for aboriginal claims.

“Anyone has the right to press the full extent of their legal rights, (but) Canada may have reached a point where aboriginal groups might be setting back their own position by litigating,” writes Newman, a professor of Law and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law at the University of Saskatchewan. “We have already seen cases of what might be described as overreach by First Nations, pushing for rights beyond those they can plausibly attain within the legal system.”

[India] CM Help Sought to Tide over Chrome Ore Crisis (New Indian Express – June 24, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.newindianexpress.com/

BHUBANESWAR: Pushed to the verge of closure on account of severe chrome ore crisis due to non-extension of mining leases, the ferrochrome industry in Odisha is crying for urgent attention.

With mining output from three major producers – Tata Steel, Misrilal Mines and BC Mohanty and Sons – dropping to a trickle, the industry has rushed an SoS to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik seeking his intervention to resolve the issue.

The apex industry body, Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), has stated that non-extension of chrome ore mining leases in accordance with the new Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 2015 (MMDR) has not only threatened the plants but is also causing huge revenue loss for the Government.

The newly amended MMDR Act has allowed extension of lease period of captive mines till 2030 and non-captive mines till 2020. Under the rules, chrome ore mining leases of the three miners are deemed to have been extended up to 2020 as a majority of the mineral is used for non-captive purpose.

Liberals failing to deliver on Ring of Fire, opposition says – by Richard J. Brennan (Toronto Star – June 24, 2015)

June 24, 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.

The real Ring of Fire wealth sits untouched at Queen’s Park.

Experts say there are untold riches in the Ring of Fire but the real pot of gold sits untouched at Queen’s Park.

Not a dime of the $1 billion the provincial government has set aside to develop the mineral-rich area in northwestern Ontario has been spent. And it may not for a few years yet.

Last summer, Premier Kathleen Wynne made Ring of Fire development a central part of her election platform. However, the money is not officially booked until 2018-19, which is after the next provincial election.

“There is nothing preventing this provincial government to start building those roads to those communities and electrifying them . . . the government is in the driver’s seat here,” NDP MPP Michael Mantha (Algoma-Manitoulin) said.

Noront Resources ‘daunted’ but excited by Ring of Fire approval – by Jody Porter (CBC News Thunder Bay – June 23, 2015)

June 24, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay

Provincial government makes 17 amendments to Noront’s nickel mining proposal

Noront Resources will need to enhance its consultation with First Nations and study more potential transportation routes after the provincial government made 17 amendments to the company’s plan for an environmental assessment for its nickel project in the Ring of Fire.

The Minister of Environment and Climate Change approved Noront’s terms of reference last week for the environmental assessment of its planned underground mine north of Pickle Lake, Ont.

The amendments include a requirement for Noront to study four potential transportation routes for moving its ore. The company was looking at two. There are also many amendments prescribing the level of consultation and engagement with First Nations.

“It’s a bit daunting, but at the same time we’ve got our future in our own hands, we know what is expected of us and so that clarity is a great thing to have,” said Noront president Alan Coutts.