Quebec’s Plan Nord project snubs uranium mining in the province – by Bertrand Marotte (Globe and Mail – July 27, 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.

MONTREAL — Quebec is moving steadfastly ahead on its Plan Nord project to open up the vast resource-rich northern reaches of the province. But there is one activity notably absent from the to-do list in the 20-year mining-forestry-energy action plan: uranium mining.

Despite progress made in recent years polishing Quebec’s image as an unwelcoming place for investment in mining ventures, uranium exploration and development continue to be blocked by the government over environmental, health and social concerns.

Quebec uranium mining company Strateco Resources Inc. – once promoted as a high-profile player in a previous, more ambitious incarnation of the Plan Nord – is caught in the middle of a seemingly endless conflict over the right to mine the yellow mineral.

The latest blow to Strateco’s nearly decade-long effort to launch the province’s first uranium mine – in Northern Quebec – is a recommendation from the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) agency that it would be premature at this time to authorize development of a uranium industry.

Read more

Commodities in free fall: miners bracing for $192bn in asset pain – by Barry FitzGerald (The Australian – July 27, 2015)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Persistent weakness in already clapped out commodity prices is triggering a new round of asset value writedowns on top of the $US140 billion ($192bn) notched up by the global mining industry since 2011.

The new round is not expected to match the $US58bn impairment hit the global industry took in 2013 when it became clear that the decade-long China-led boom in prices and demand was over.

But fears that renewed commodity price weakness as 2015 has unfolded is structural, and will persist for the foreseeable ­future, has again put asset values under the pump.

Aluminium, coal, nickel and iron ore have retreated sharply from 2014’s already battered levels, prompting a new hard-nosed assessment of whether long-term commodity price assumptions across the industry are still valid.

Aluminium has been hit particularly hard. It is down 30 per cent on its 2014 December half average of $US2378 a tonne at $US1642.

Read more

After Quick 8.5% Crash, Confusion Reigns in China’s Stock Market – by Kyoungwha Kim and Kana Nishizawa (Bloomberg News – July 27, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

It’s days like Monday that reassure Tony Hann he was right to avoid stocks in mainland China.

The severity of an 8.5 percent drop in the Shanghai Composite Index is bad enough, but what irks him the most is not knowing why it tumbled so much. In a market where unprecedented intervention has made government money one of the biggest drivers of share prices, authorities aren’t transparent enough for investors to make informed decisions, said Hann, the head of emerging markets at Blackfriars Asset Management Ltd.

Monday’s plunge was all the more surprising because it followed a government rescue package that had helped drive a 16 percent rally since July 8. That support appeared to vanish without warning, leaving analysts guessing whether authorities shifted their policy stance or just got overwhelmed by a flood of sell orders. Whatever the answer, foreign money managers didn’t stick around to find out: they sold holdings of Shanghai shares for the 13th time in 16 days.

Investors “are concerned and lost,” said Alex Wong, a Hong Kong-based asset-management director at Ample Capital Ltd., which oversees about $155 million. “China’s market is distorted, so you can’t sell short very confidently and you can’t buy up very confidently either.”

Read more

Gold mines are bleeding cash, but wave of closures unlikely – by Peter Koven (National Post – July 25, 2015)

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

The gold mining industry is in crisis. Prices are sinking. Mines are bleeding cash. Management teams are frantically trying to decide what to do.

One option, of course, is to simply shutter money-losing mines. Not only would this stop the bleeding, but it would also be very helpful to the overall gold market. Investors would love to see a vast wave of mine suspensions that could reduce supply and prop up prices.

Except, according to experts, there is almost no chance it will happen anytime soon.

This past week was a brutal one for gold, which sank 4.1 per cent to US$1,086 an ounce as the U.S. dollar continued to rally. Gold hasn’t been this low since early 2010, and it’s down more than 40 per cent from the high of US$1,900 that was reached four years ago.

At the current price, hundreds of mines that used to generate massive cash flow now operate on razor-thin margins. And many others are deep in the red.

Read more

Gold Slump Not Over as Speculators Go Net-Short for First Time – by Joe Deaux (Bloomberg News – July 27, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/

The slump in gold that took prices to a five-year low may have further to run after hedge funds swung into a net-short position for the first time.

The shift in New York futures and options came as speculators increased their bearish wagers to the highest since the U.S. government data begins in 2006. Long holdings declined for a fourth week.

Gold fell to the lowest since 2010 last week, and futures in New York are poised for the biggest monthly loss in two years. Prices are plunging amid mounting speculation that U.S. interest rates will climb this year, curbing the appeal of bullion because it doesn’t pay interest like competing assets. At the same time, China bought less of the metal than analysts were expecting, and the dollar is strengthening.

“You’re starting to see some real fear in the gold market for the first time,” said Eric Crittenden, the chief investment officer at Phoenix-based Longboard Asset Management LLC, who manages $304 million. The fund has been short since 2013 and increased those positions in March. “I’m not going to be the least bit surprised if this turns into something very significant and we get a lot lower prices.”

Read more

Essar receives $60 M from governments – by Elaine Della-Mattia (Sault Star – July 27, 2015)

http://www.saultstar.com/

It’s being billed as the largest joint funding announcement Northern Ontario has seen in decades and could be the first of its kind since the Second World War.

And its being hailed by Essar Steel Algoma executives as an investment that will take the steelmaker into the next century, increase its output and competitiveness in the global markets, and create jobs.

In more than one year of planning and negotiations, the federal and provincial governments have joined together to provide Essar Steel Algoma with $60 million for its $240 million modernization plan.

The money includes a $30 million interest-free loan from the federal government’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund and a $30 million grant from the province’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. The company has 10 years to repay the loan.

The money will be used namely for three projects defined in the Plant Optimization and Expansion project, said Kaylan Ghosh, CEO of Essar Steel Algoma.

Read more

Nunavik nickel firm wants to nearly double Raglan’s lifespan (Nunatsiaq News – July 27, 2015)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Glencore proposing to dig four new underground mines at Raglan

The operators of Nunavik’s Raglan nickel mine hope to expand its lifespan well beyond 2019, with the addition of five new underground mines across the region’s nickel belt.

Glencore, the corporation that operates Raglan and its four current underground mines, has submitted the project to the Kativik Environmental Quality Commission, which reviews the social and environmental impact of development in the region.

With current operations scheduled to wind down by 2019, Glencore completed a scoping study last year, the company said, which confirmed viable nickel deposits on the eastern half of the Raglan property. The first phase of the expansion would include two underground mines, called Mine 14 and Donaldson, which would operate from 2019 to 2032.

The exploitation of three new underground mines, Mine 8, Boundary and Boundary West, could extend production from 2023 to 2039, Glencore said in a preliminary information document submitted to the KEQC in 2014.

Read more

Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest: A bundle of contradictions – by Stephen Long (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – July 27, 2015)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/

Andrew Forrest is a bundle of contradictions. He is a man who professes his love for Aboriginal people, but plays tough when they stand in the way of his mines.

He is a free-marketeer who went close to arguing for an industry cartel, and a generous philanthropist, who has shackled his charities to his commercial interests. This year, Mr Forrest has been calling for a Parliamentary Inquiry into the iron ore market.

Twiggy is standing up for the battlers and the national interest against “multinationals” BHP and Rio Tinto, he says, who have deliberately driven down the iron ore price.

He has accused them of talking down the price and of pumping out too much volume. Leave aside the inconvenient fact that no company is more responsible for the expansion of iron ore exports in recent years than his.

There is much to admire about the man they call Twiggy (a moniker, owing to his surname Forrest, he has been stuck with since childhood).

Read more

Mozambique ruby mine boosts global supply – by Jessica Diamond (Financial Times – September 5, 2014)

 

http://www.ft.com/

Coloured gemstones dominate today’s global fine jewellery market, sparkling in the windows of Bond Street, Place Vendôme and beyond. Rubies, particularly the deep red colour known as pigeon blood, are among the most prized stones, but supplies had become scarce until recent months.

This was largely because of a US ban on imports from Myanmar, one of the world’s most important ruby mining countries. But human rights abuses under the country’s military dictatorship had led to sanctions.

Yet demand remained high, especially in India and China, where red is regarded as a symbol of wealth.

The ethical conundrum continued until 2012, when Gemfields, a mining company specialising in ethically sourced coloured gemstones, acquired a 75 per cent interest in the Montepuez ruby deposit in Mozambique.

Read more

The dangerous world of Pakistan’s gem trade – by Adnan R. Khan (MACLEAN’S Magazine – May 24, 2014)


http://www.macleans.ca/

Inside the world’s oldest gem market in Pakistan, home to terrorist financiers and drug smugglers

“Twenty-thousand dollars.” That’s how much Jalil says the blood-red ruby he is holding is worth. “It’s not my best,” says the 47-year-old gem trader. “My best pieces I only show to people holding a bag of cash.” A hush descends over the small group of men huddled around a lamp in Jalil’s shop.

The ruby, three near-flawless carats, glimmers with a surreal clarity. Other gemstones lie scattered on crisp white sheets of paper—sapphires from Kashmir, emeralds from Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley, citrine and aquamarine—making the dark, windowless office feel like a cave of treasures.

Read more

Secret Rocks: The $10 billion jewels industry is shrouded in beauty—and mystery. Is change about to come? – by Shibani Mahtani and Patrick Barta (Wall Street Journal – May 17, 2013)

http://www.wsj.com/

TO HEAR RICHARD HUGHES tell it, the journey was like something straight out of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” One of the world’s leading modern-day gem hunters, he was hell-bent on reaching the fabled jade mines of upper Myanmar—a jungle redoubt so remote and closely guarded that few living Westerners have ever laid eyes on it.

Before he could get close, he had to spend months ahead of his trip convincing Myanmar’s secretive military, which controlled access to the country’s mines, to let him in. Then he had to navigate some of the most punishing, malaria-ridden terrain east of the Congo, capped by a grueling climb along a dirt road his handlers said would only take seven hours to ascend.

The trail quickly turned into a river of sludge under Myanmar’s brutal monsoons, trapping vehicles in mud to their doors until teams of elephants showed up to haul them out.

Read more