July 7, 2015 – Republic of Mining

Salt mine keeps Goderich alive, ‘youthful’ (CBC News Canada – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

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

Harsh winters boost demand for mineral spread on roads, sidewalks

Deep under Lake Huron, five kilometres from shore, miners work in a cloud of fine particles, the beams from their headlamps piercing the darkness. The rooms and tunnels they have dug out are huge, the ceilings 20 metres from the floor.

Trucks load and scurry about, tipping their loads of freshly mined salt into crushers connected to long, fast-moving conveyor belts.

Some 500 people work in this mine in Goderich, Ont., exploiting a massive and almost pure deposit that is the small town’s ace in the hole.

“There is salt underground in this seam for 100 years of mining, ” said Gerry Rogers, the Compass Minerals executive in charge of the operation. “It will last a long time.”

The company says the salt mine in Goderich, a town about 100 kilometres northwest of London, is the largest in the world. And business is good.

After coal, can better health save West Virginia? – by Valerie Volcovici (Reuters U.S. – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

WILLIAMSON, WV – With coal trains chugging past in the distance, Jack Perry watches as his wife, Margie, plants row upon row of Hungarian pepper seedlings in the community garden that residents of this West Virginia coal town call the “Garden of Eatin’.”

“The peppers they sell at the stores don’t taste anything like this,” says Perry, a retired coal worker. His grandfather brought over the original batch of seeds in the early 1900s when he arrived from Hungary to work in southern West Virginia’s mines.

The coal industry that sustained those generations is on life support in Williamson and surrounding Mingo County, battered by exhausted mines and competition from natural gas. Williamson’s faded sign welcoming drivers to “the heart of the billion dollar coal field” now competes with billboards for weight loss and pain clinics, and the main street is lined with empty storefronts and pawn shops.

Unlike their neighbors in Kentucky, where there have been state-sponsored economic transition efforts, West Virginians have been largely left on their own to respond to coal’s decline. The state’s politicians have focused on fighting federal emissions regulations in Congress and in court, blaming the Obama administration for imposing what they say are crippling costs on the industry.

How German cities are turning former coal mines into parks [photos] – by Marielle Segarra (Newsworks.org – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://www.newsworks.org/

I’m spending a few weeks in Germany as part of a German/American journalist exchange program through the RIAS Berlin Kommission and the Radio Television Digital News Foundation. During the trip, I’m sending back lessons on urban planning and revitalization from German cities. Today’s topic: how cities in the Ruhr region are embracing their heritage by repurposing industrial sites.

When I think of quintessentially European cities, I imagine cobblestone streets, historic brick buildings, magnificent cathedrals, sidewalk cafes, and chocolatiers on every corner. I think of cities with history stretching back hundreds, and even thousands of years. Paris. Or Brussels. Or Rome, or Prague, or Vienna, or Hamburg…

But of course, Europe has all kinds of different cities, each with their own unique aesthetic and history.

Last week, I visited several cities in Germany that don’t fit the mold. What’s most prominent about them isn’t ancient history, but rather, their more recent, industrial heritage.

The Ruhr region of Germany is a sprawling metropolitan area, with 5.2 million people and 53 cities with boundaries that blur together. For decades, the region was dotted with thousands of coal mines, steel mills, and other industry.

Gold-Mine Developer TMAC Declines in Toronto Debut – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

TMAC Resources Inc., the first mining company to have an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in more than two years, fell 6.5 percent in early trading.

The shares, which were sold in the IPO at C$6 ($4.70) apiece, traded at C$5.61 at 10.26 a.m. Toronto time, joining a wider selloff of gold and gold-mining equities.

TMAC raised C$135 million in the offering to help develop its Hope Bay gold mine in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. The company will also use C$65 million of available cash plus a debt facility of as much as C$153 million to fund construction of the mine, located 160 kilometers (99 miles) north of the Arctic circle, Chairman Terry MacGibbon said.

The offering follows a difficult period for gold mining, with two straight annual gold-price declines prompting some of the largest companies in the industry to reduce costs and sell less-profitable mines. The previous mining IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange was completed by Oban Mining Corp., a Canadian gold explorer, in October 2012.

Native Americans protest proposed Arizona copper mine – by David Schwartz (Reuters U.S. – July 6, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

PHOENIX – Members of a Native American tribe in Arizona took to the roadways on Monday to protest against a proposal for a massive copper mine at a small town east of Phoenix, vowing to protect sacred lands.

A small group from the San Carlos Apache tribe began a scheduled cross-country caravan to Washington, D.C., to try to persuade the U.S. Congress to save an area known as the Oak Flat campground near Superior, Arizona.

The several dozen protesters hope to garner wide public support and get lawmakers to repeal a land exchange signed last year that paves the way for a $6 billion project by Resolution Copper Mining, a company jointly owned by Britain’s Rio Tinto and Australia’s BHP Billiton Ltd.

“This is sacred land to us and what they are doing is a betrayal,” tribal elder Sandra Rambler said in a telephone interview from the caravan. “It’s like someone ripping the guts out of you right when you’re standing there. We will not sit still and allow this to happen.”

India overtakes US as 3rd largest steel producer, says Narendra Singh Tomar (Business Today India – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/

India has overtaken the US to become the world’s third-largest steel producer and is working towards achieving 300 million tonnes (MT) target in the next 10 years, said Union Steel and Mines Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Tuesday.

“So far, India was the fourth-largest steel producer in the world only after China, Japan and the US. However, during the first five months of this calendar year, India has achieved the 3rd position in the global steel production,” Tomar said.

Addressing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee, attached to his Ministries, in Bengaluru, Karnataka, the Minister said Indian steel industry is growing at a reasonably good pace and last year the growth in crude steel production in India was more than 8 per cent.

“However, per capita steel consumption is quite low, 60 kg as against the world average of 216 kg. The low consumption no doubt indicates huge growth potential for Indian steel industry. India has fixed a target of 300 MT production capacity by 2025 and the steel ministry is working out action plan and strategies to achieve this target,” he said as per an official statement issued in New Delhi.

[Hard-Line] Underground connection – by Katelyn Spidle (CIM Magazine – June/July 2015)

July 7, 2015

https://www.cim.org/en.aspx

Communication is key in underground mines, and wireless local area networks (WLAN) are connecting miners and their tools to the Internet to allow them to share and retrieve data efficiently, without interference.

In 1999 Hard-Line – a Sudbury-based heavy equipment remote control supplier – tested wireless technology in Falconbridge’s Craig mine. Hard-Line was using Aironet technology, now part of Cisco Systems, to develop new communications solutions for the mining industry.

Its key focus was to discover how wireless technology, relatively new at the time, could improve the safety and security of workers. In the end, the project also revealed wireless technology to be cost-effective, efficient and reliable.

“In the early 2000s we approached one of the larger companies and we showed them this technology; it blew their minds,” said Hard-Line president Walter Siggelkow. “It was everything they had asked for in a communications system.”

Hard-Line has since converted its original network system, the Mine Area Net, to act as the backbone of the company’s Teleop Tele-Remote Control Systems.

Jim Gowans: Modest mastermind – by Peter Braul (CIM Magazine – June/July 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://magazine.cim.org/en/2015/June-July.aspx

Not one to toot his own horn, Jim Gowans says what sets him apart from others in the mining business is simple – he has a lot of experience. If you believe his logic, lasting 40 years in the industry is all you have to do to reach the top of the biggest gold mining company in the world. But Gowans’ success is proof that it is what you do with your time that counts: he has managed to build six major mines over his career so far. Now co-president of Barrick Gold, he has moved back to Canada after years in Botswana managing Debswana, the world’s largest diamond producer, and is still eagerly looking ahead at the next big project.

CIM: Is there a Barrick operation you are particularly excited about?

Gowans: There are a couple of them, and for different reasons. Pueblo Viejo, in the Dominican Republic, is a new operation: I was involved in Placer Dome when we were actually looking to do the acquisition of that mine. It’s the only operation that produces over a million ounces a year. It’s got a long life and there is lots of potential there. It’s very complex metallurgy and I’m a metallurgist, so the flow sheet is very interesting to me.

Selwyn-Chihong Mining eyes upgrade to N.W.T. road to Yukon mine – by Guy Quenneville (CBC News North – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

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

‘It’s our only viable access route into the mine site,’ says Doug Reeve

A Chinese-owned company that’s developing a Yukon lead-zinc mining project wants to spend between $35 million and $45 million upgrading a crucial N.W.T. access road to the mine.

Selwyn-Chihong Mining, a Canadian subsidiary of Yunnan Chihong Zinc and Germanium Co., is applying to the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board for permits that would allow the company to convert a narrow and windy access road cutting through multiple areas of the N.W.T. into a two-lane service road capable of handling regular and heavy truckloads during the mine’s construction and operation.

“It’s our only viable access route into the mine site,” said Doug Reeve, Selwyn-Chihong’s manager of permitting. “If we don’t have that permitted, it will be very difficult, of course, to develop a mine site.”

The 79-kilometre gravel road was originally built in the late 1970s to access mineral deposits but fell into disrepair until Selwyn-Chihong spent around $13.5 million in 2014 to install bridges and convert the road into a single-lane all-season road.

Ontario’s credit rating downgraded over heavy debt load, budgeting – by Jane Taber (Globe and Mail – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 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.

TORONTO — Standard & Poor’s is downgrading Ontario’s long-term credit rating, saying the province may be tackling its deficit but a multibillion-dollar 10-year plan for infrastructure spending will exacerbate its debt load

The downgrade, from double-A-negative to A-plus, comes because of a combination of “very high debt burden” and “very weak budgetary performance,” the major credit-rating agency says.

Since being re-elected last year, Ontario has been moving to cut the province’s deficit – projected to fall to $8.5-billion this year – by squeezing health care and education spending. But S&P is focusing, among other things, on the government’s intention to spend $130-billion over the next 10 years on transit and other infrastructure.

In addition to raising a red flag on the province’s long-term infrastructure plans, the rating agency chastised Queen’s Park for not being stricter on reining in its spending.

Iron Ore’s Bear Market May Deepen as Clarksons Forecasts $40 – by Jasmine NgDavid Stringer(Bloomberg News – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Iron ore will probably extend declines after falling back into a bear market on Monday as low-cost supplies from Australia and Brazil are set to expand further this half while demand stumbles in China.

Prices may drop toward $40 a metric ton, according to Clarksons Platou Securities Inc. A deepening slowdown in China’s steel industry and higher iron ore exports from the largest miners are weighing on prices, said Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Iron ore’s return to a bear market highlights that the same factors of surging supply and stalling demand growth, which dragged prices to a decade-low early April, remain at the forefront. Recent losses followed figures showing inventories in China rebounded, while exports in June from Australia’s Port Hedland were at a record. The Minerals Council of Australia on Tuesday defended local miners’ policy of adding output, saying cuts would be a failed strategy that would aid competitors.

“Momentum is clearly negative and that is going to be hard to reverse in the immediate short term,” Paul Gait, an analyst at Bernstein in London, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The revealed preference of the miners is for volume over value, for tons ahead of price.”

NEWS RELEASE: Denison and Fission Announce Transaction to Create Leading Diversified Uranium Company

July 7, 2015

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – July 6, 2015) – Denison Mines Corp. (TSX:DML)(NYSE MKT:DNN) (“Denison”) and Fission Uranium Corp. (TSX:FCU)(OTCQX:FCUUF)(FRANKFURT:2FU) (“Fission”) are pleased to announce the execution of a Binding Letter Agreement (the “Binding Agreement”) to combine their respective businesses (the “Transaction”). The Transaction creates a leading Canadian focused diversified uranium company – combining high quality assets and the management teams of two highly respected companies. Headlining the asset portfolio of the combined company will be two world class uranium exploration and development projects: Fission’s 100% owned Patterson Lake South Project, and Denison’s 60% owned Wheeler River Project, both located in the prolific Athabasca Basin, in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada.

Subject to the terms set out in the Binding Agreement, Fission common shareholders will receive 1.26 common shares of Denison for each common share of Fission held plus $0.0001 per share in cash. Upon completion of the Transaction, the combined company, to be named “Denison Energy Corp.”, will be approximately 50% owned by each of Denison’s and Fission’s existing shareholders on a fully-diluted in-the-money basis.

The market capitalization of Denison and Fission on a combined basis is anticipated to be approximately CAD$900 million. Based on the 30 day volume weighted average price of Denison’s shares on the TSX of CAD$0.99 as at July 3, 2015, the offer implies a price per Fission common share of CAD$1.25 and represents a premium of approximately 18% to the 30 day volume weighted average price of Fission’s shares on the TSX of CAD$1.06 as at July 3, 2015.

Oil prices fall nearly 8%, dashing hopes for recovery – by Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 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.

Calgary — Hope for a mid-year recovery in the oil patch has been dashed.

A confluence of bearish factors – from the Greek economic crisis to the delicate state of nuclear talks with Iran to worries about slowing Chinese demand – helped knock oil prices down nearly 8 per cent on Monday, burying a slow rebound that began in March and looked to be in jeopardy last week.

Now, signs point to deeper cuts in capital spending and potentially more layoffs in the sector following a brutal first half of 2015, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries made good on a pledge to relinquish its role as the world’s protector of oil prices. Instead, the cartel seized on protecting market share.

Many Canadian oil producers that hedged commodity prices at lucrative levels last year are bracing for those forward sales to expire in the coming months, pointing to severe drops in corporate cash flow in some cases, Judith Dwarkin, chief energy economist at ITG Investment Research, said.

London resource stocks going nowhere fast – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Investec in London paints a mostly gloomy picture for resource stocks for the next 2 years.

Analysts at the London arm of the international specialist banking and asset management group Investec, continue to paint a gloomy outlook for resource stocks in the short to medium term. However they do suggest that the year-end may provide something of a clearer outlook and the possible indication that the sector may have bottomed out by then.

Even so they don’t see a meaningful recovery in commodity prices until 2017 and while this is not to say that some resource stocks may not outperform the market, the likelihood is that most will remain depressed, and there could well be casualties among the weaker ones.

Investec points to what it describes as tepid signals from China, weaker than expected U.S. growth and the problems surrounding a possible (perhaps probable) Greek exit from the EU as being the major factors accounting for commodity price weakness.

Looking at China in particular, although there is some stimulus being applied to the Chinese economy, a change in focus away from infrastructure building towards consumer driven growth, as the government aims for a self-sustaining economy, has been implemented.