July 6, 2015 – Republic of Mining

BNN Reporter Andrew Bell Interviews Royal Nickel CEO Mark Selby About the Quebec Dumont Nickel Project (July 6, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.bnn.ca/ Toronto-based Business News Network (BNN) is a Canadian cable television specialty channel. BNN airs business and financial programming and analysis. BNN reporter Andrew Bell hosts the Commodities program. From aluminum to zinc and everything in between, BNN highlights the hot world of commodities and the companies that produce them, including interviews with mineral and …

BOOK: Once Upon A Mine – Story of Pre-Confederation Mines on the Island of Newfoundland – by Wendy Martin (1999)

July 6, 2015

Chapter One – Dawn of Mining Days

Mark Twain once maintained that ‘a mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top’, an unflattering view which supports the common belief that mines are prospective derelicts owned by derelict prospectors. The Newfoundland mining industry has, even so, survived for over 100 years and currently holds a lucrative position in the Newfoundland economy.

The mining history of Newfoundland extends further in time and space than is generally recognised. Nearly every major bay around the Island contains at least one abandoned mine that still lives within the memories of adjacent communities; and although the first recorded mining attempt happened only two centuries ago, a knowledge ofNewfoundland minerals has existed for twice that time span.

Sixteenth-century English explorers made the earliest documented references to Newfoundland minerals. When Sir Martin Frobisherexamined the shores of what is assumed to have been Newfoundland’s Trinity Bay in 1576, he found a shiny heavy stone(1) – probably pyrite, a mineral now known locally as ‘Catalina stone’after the Trinity Bay town of Catalina. Anthony Parkhurst returned to England in 1578 with pieces of copper and iron ore from the St.John’s and Bell Island areas.

On the strength of the Frobisher and Parkhurst discoveries, Sir Humphrey Gilbert took a Saxon ore refiner named Daniel of Buda with him to Newfoundland in 1583. Daniel, an energetic individual, retrieved an array of copper, iron, lead and silver ores from the Avalon Peninsula.

Overcoming fear of heights to stop new coal mining province – by Ric Davies (Brisbane Times – Juley 6, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/

Perth geologist Ric Davies participated in a Greenpeace-organised event called “Acts of Courage”.

I’m scared of heights – tall buildings, cliff tops and lifts. Glass lifts really get my blood pumping. Even the thought of it makes me nervous. But I’m fine with aeroplanes and helicopters, which kind of sounds a bit contradictory.

On Saturday, I faced my fears and made my way 50 metres up to the top of the main mast on the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior to show my support for a responsible resources industry.

Did I mention I’m also a geologist and I work in, and support, the resources industry? We all use natural resources extensively in our daily lives, from the moment we wake up in fact. The fact that toothpaste contains mineral sands really spins me

The products of the resources industry are everywhere – cars, phones, computers, houses, hospitals, transport, power, even money. All of these come from the ground, from mineral resources and human ingenuity. There’s a saying that “what’s yours is mined’ which, when you think about it, is very true.

Northern [Ontario] mayors lobby for infrastructure funds – by Gord Young (North Bay Nugget – July 6, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.nugget.ca/

The mayor’s of Northern Ontario’s largest cities want a portion of the province’s planned infrastructure investment outside of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area to be used to help pay for projects in their communities.

Mayor Al McDonald said the Northern Ontario Large Urban Mayors group – consisting of North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay – have agreed to lobby the province during upcoming infrastructure consultations for a share of the provincial funding.

The province is holding consultations across Ontario this summer to help determine how to allocate $11.5 billion of a $15-billion investment outside the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas as part of a long-term infrastructure plan.

And McDonald said the mayors’ group will ask that a portion of the funding be earmarked for municipal infrastructure needs, specifically large critical projects and those that will help boost economic development.

COLUMN-China risk story just getting started, while Greece nearly over – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – July 6, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, July 6 (Reuters) – What’s the bigger risk? Greece leaving the euro zone in a messy debt default or China continuing to pump money into its faltering stockmarket while trying to boost the rest of the economy through cheap debt?

While Greece is probably ahead in the news headline count, especially in the developed world, the main impact from the weekend rejection by Greek voters of the terms of a new bailout is likely to be short-term market volatility.

This can be seen in crude oil, with West Texas Intermediate futures dropping as much as 4.4 percent and Brent futures falling as much as 1.6 percent early on Monday. The euro currency and stocks outside of China also stumbled as the Greek vote against austerity brought the Mediterranean nation closer to a debt default and leaving the single currency.

But the declines were relatively modest and probably reflected the reality that Greece is just 0.25 percent of the global economy, and accounts for a tiny 0.5 percent of the euro zone’s total exports.

Iamgold’s troublesome mine – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – July 6, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

The downward revision of production guidance at Westwood will dampen the share price.

Unstable ground conditions are proving to be a major hindrance for Iamgold at the Westwood gold mine, in the Doyon-Bousquet – LaRonde mining camp in Quebec.

Seismic issues – mostly mining-related – at underground mines in the region are nothing new and can require extensive monitoring and management.

But, after a couple sizeable rock bursts, Iamgold is now having to peddle back on projections and reconsider how much gold it can produce at the mine.

Back in January four Iamgold workers were stuck, briefly, underground after a rock fall blocked access. Then, in a similar incident in May, nine workers were again blocked by a rock fall.

A forest of inconvenient truths on iron ore – by Matthew Stevens (Australian Financial Review – July 6, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.afr.com/

Andrew Forrest may not like the idea much but there is a good chance that Australian iron ore will generate more national income over the next decade than it did through the 10 years of boom times that came so suddenly to a halt last November.

A report prepared for the Minerals Council of Australia (or Rio Tinto) by Port Jackson Partners predicts that the Pilbara’s powerful iron ore troika along with a subset of much smaller producers will sell $615 billion of iron ore between now and 2025.

That is 40 per cent more than the $430 billion of revenue that those same producers generated through 2005-14, the decade that was punctuated by peak iron ore pricing.

“Australia now has a 50 per cent share of the seaborne market, a share built on vastly expanded production volumes, which now exceed 650 million tonnes per year. This compares with 170 million tonnes in 2000. This will enable the industry to add more value to the Australian economy over the next decade than over the previous 10 years,” PJP predicts.

[U.K. potash mine] Sirius reaps the benefits of charming the locals – by Kate Burgess (Financial Times – July 5, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.ft.com/home/us

Miner won planning permission to extract 13m tonnes a year of potash from the North York Moors

The comic potential in mineral fertiliser was exploited to the full by satirist Sacha Baron Cohen when his creation, Borat the Kazhak, boasted “other countries have inferior potassium” in a spoof national anthem. But his claim is one that Britons might legitimately dispute now as Aim-quoted Sirius Minerals prepares to mine a Yorkshire deposit of potassium-rich salts described as the richest in the world.

Last week, Sirius Minerals won planning permission to extract 13m tonnes a year of white pellets of so-called polyhalite from under the North York Moors national park. The planning victory was no mean feat. Last month, just across the Pennines, Lancashire locals saw off a bid by shale gas explorer Cuadrilla to begin fracking in the area, because they were worried about the effects on local homes and health.

In contrast, Yorkshire’s local residents cheered Chris Fraser, Sirius’ forceful founder and chief executive, as he left the council meeting at Sneaton Castle in Whitby, pictured. The talk in the Venerable Bede hall was all about Sirius creating a thousand jobs and pumping millions into the local economy for the next century.

It was the culmination of a canny three-year campaign by Mr Fraser to woo the region’s farmers and landowners.

A decline in Alberta’s fortunes means a decline in Quebec’s – by Gwyn Morgan (Globe and Mail – July 6, 2015)

July 6, 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.

TransCanada Corp.’s 4,600-kilometre Energy East pipeline would carry Alberta crude oil to refineries in Quebec and New Brunswick that are dependent on Middle East imports.

Last November, the Quebec government declared that, for the pipeline to cross the province, it must generate economic benefits. Then on June 23, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard told reporters that he didn’t see much economic value for his province in being a “transit place” for the pipeline.

New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant was quick to respond: “The province of Quebec is … estimated to receive … about 4,000 jobs … an increase of about $3-billion in the GDP and, on top of that, about $700-million in extra tax revenue.”

Given the size of those economic benefits and that they are roughly twice those that would accrue to Premier Gallant’s own province, Mr. Couillard’s statement is indeed baffling. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of the anti-oil bias he illustrated later in the interview: “I prefer a world without fossil fuel, only electric, you know.”

RUSSIAN HEARTLAND: Cossacks on the run to protect nature – by Marc Bennetts (Politico – July 5, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.politico.eu/

In Russia’s fertile Black Earth region, eco-activists struggle to protect their communities from a state-backed nickel-mining project.

NOVOHOPYORSK, Russia — It’s almost midnight when I arrive in the town of Novokhopyorsk, located deep in the bucolic heart of central Russia’s Black Earth region, so-called for its famously fertile soil. The curtains in a nearby home twitch as I step out of the car — late-night visitors are a rare sight in the rural community.

Surrounded by lush countryside and rolling fields, Novokhopyorsk, population 6,380, has become the unlikely setting of what is arguably modern Russia’s most stubborn protest movement.

The Kremlin may have quashed the mainly middle-class political demonstrations that rocked Moscow in 2011 and 2012, but environmental issues are stirring dissent in Russia’s heartland, creating new problems for the authorities as the war in Ukraine rumbles on and economic instability rises.

German minister backs K+S’s Potash bid rejection (Reuters U.S. – July 4, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

FRANKFURT – A German regional minister gave his backing to potash miner K+S’s rejection of an $8.8 billion-euro takeover bid by Canada’s Potash Corp of Saskatchewan, saying K+S should remain a German company.

Tarek Al-Wazir, minister of economy in K+S’s home state of Hesse, said on Saturday he would support K+S’s efforts to make sure regional jobs and value creation were not lost.

K+S has rejected a proposed bid by Potash of 41 euros per share, saying it was too low and warning its suitor could be planning to dismantle or shrink the salt and fertiliser company.

Al-Wazir said in a statement emailed by K+S: “We will continue to make efforts to ensure that K+S has a successful future in our state and we stand by K+S’s side.”

He added that limiting the environmental damage caused by mining would also be much harder to negotiate with a Canadian company. “For that reason, too, we have an interest in K+S’s remaining a north Hessian company,” he said.

Ottawa’s change of heart on asbestos welcome but late – Editorial (Globe and Mail – July 4, 2015)

July 6, 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.

When Ottawa has a major new policy it wants to announce, it often makes a “Major Policy Announcement (photo op to follow).” Not so when it comes to asbestos, though.

This week, The Globe learned that the government had quietly changed its web page on the health risks of asbestos. The difference between the old web page and the new one is categoric. The old began, “Asbestos was a popular material used widely in construction and many other industries. If asbestos fibres are enclosed or tightly bound in a product, for example, asbestos siding or asbestos floor tiles, there are no significant health risks.”

The new one begins: “Learn about asbestos and how exposure can be dangerous to your health. Also find out how to properly handle a potential asbestos problem. Asbestos, if inhaled, can cause cancer and other diseases.”

This is a historic shift in Ottawa’s attitude toward asbestos. It brings the federal government in line with many of the provinces, where workplace safety officials have long been aware that asbestos is by far the number-one killer of Canadian workers.

China’s steel dragon has lost its appetite for American coal – by John Dizard (Financial Times – July 3, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.ft.com/home/us

It may be too late to save the coal industry from looming financial disaster, says John Dizard

As the headlines earlier this week told you, the US coal industry scored a win at the Supreme Court. With a 5-4 majority it ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency had to consider compliance costs when it issues emissions rules for power plants. The court sent the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (Mats) back to the agency to justify its net economic benefits.

Whatever short-term cheer this brought to the coal-mining companies, it has come too late to save most of the industry from looming financial disaster. Coal company shares and bonds bounced up for a day and then fell back into depression.

Most US coal capacity, more than 500m tons of annual production, is owned by companies in financial distress. The unsecured bonds of Arch Coal, behind which are more than 130m tons of capacity, are selling for 14 to 17 cents on the dollar. Peabody Coal (about 200m tons of capacity) has a bond maturing in 2018 that is priced at 48 cents on the dollar.

Even after the oil and gas price plunge, many oil and gas exploration and production companies with big reserves and negative cash flows have been able to raise new equity and refinance debt. The coal trade, on the other hand, is attracting little investor interest.

[Canada] Industry: Feds wrong to apply anti-corruption rules to FNs – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – July 03, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.northernlife.ca/

A new transparency act for the mining industry may go too far when it comes to First Nations, says the Mining Association of Canada.

The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, which received royal assent in December 2014, requires mining companies to publicly disclose payments greater than $100,000 they make to foreign and domestic governments.

“It’s an anti-corruption measure,” said Pierre Gratton, the president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC). “By having companies disclose what they pay, then citizens of those countries can ask questions about what their governments might be doing with that money.”

But when the Mining Association of Canada teamed up with non-governmental organizations to propose the legislation for the federal government, it didn’t intend for the rules to apply to First Nations as well.

“We actually discussed with the NGOs that very issue right at the beginning,” Gratton said. “And we all agreed that was too complex and would require extensive consultation we don’t have the capacity to do.”