August 19, 2015 – Republic of Mining

Rehabilitation efforts bring new life to Hemlo – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – August 18, 2015)

August 19, 2015

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Reclamation work being done by Barrick Gold at its Hemlo property near Marathon has changed the landscape of the former mining operation. Where once there stood a headframe, access roads and outbuildings, there is now only a grassy plain, accented by native trees and inhabited by a variety of wildlife.

This is what nature after mining looks like in 2015.

“It kind of caught us off guard, because the (David Bell) mine is still beside an operating mine,” said Shane Hayes, Barrick’s mine closure co-ordinator at Hemlo. “The area has been rehabilitated so quickly, I’d be lying if I said we weren’t surprised at how quickly nature re-established itself.”

Three mines started up at the Hemlo site in the 1980s. The still-operational Williams Mine produced 206,000 ounces of gold in 2014, while David Bell closed that same year. A third mine, Golden Giant, closed in 2010. The bulk of the rehabilitation work to date has focused on David Bell.

Eldorado Gold shares slump on Greek mining halt (CBC News Business – August 19, 2015)

August 19, 2015

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

Relations between Vancouver-based Eldorado and the leftist Greek government have been testy

Shares of Eldorado Gold slid in Wednesday trading following reports that the Greek government is temporarily halting production at the company’s operations in northern Greece.

Reuters quoted Greek Energy Minister Panos Skourletis as saying Eldorado had “violated some terms.” He provided no elaboration.

“We are recalling the technical studies, which will result in the halting of operations at Skouries and part of operations in Olympiada,” Skourletis said, referring to two of the company’s mine sites.

According to the Associated Press, documents released by the ministry say the violations concern a project to build a copper and gold processing plant, including not carrying out certain tests on the flash smelting process proposed for use. According to the decision, the suspension will be lifted if the company resubmits the necessary documentation and meets the requirements within a year.

COLUMN-Coal’s pain from yuan devaluation may be less than feared – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – August 18, 2015)

August 19, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 19 (Reuters) – In theory the devaluation of the Chinese yuan should be negative for the country’s coal imports and Asian prices, but so far it’s not quite panning out that way.

There’s nothing wrong with the logic behind the view that purchases of foreign coal by the world’s largest importer may decline, given the relative advantage domestic coal has just received from the weakening of the yuan.

The Chinese currency fell about 3 percent in domestic trade last week after it was pushed lower by the People’s Bank of China, a move widely interpreted as aiming to boost the competitiveness of the struggling export sector.

It wouldn’t have been a surprise if the price of the international coal that heads to China declined in dollar terms, or that the price of domestic coal rose in yuan to reflect the new currency rates.

But Chinese domestic prices remained largely steady, with no change in the benchmark price of thermal coal at Qinhuangdao SH-QHA-TRMCOAL, which held at 410 yuan ($64) a tonne last week.

Wabush pensioners angry about prospect of reduced incomes – by Terry Roberts (CBC News Newfoundland – August 18, 2015)

August 19, 2015

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

Former mine workers fearful of a hit if Cliffs Natural Resources winds up Canadian operations

Retired workers at the now closed Wabush Mines in Labrador West say they are facing a cut in their pension incomes as their former employer, U.S-based Cliffs Natural Resources, goes through the bankruptcy protection process for its Canadian operations.

More than 100 former workers filed into the Catholic church in Wabush Monday for an information session with pension experts from the provincial government, which oversees the Pensions Benefits Act.

The closed-door meeting lasted nearly three hours into Monday evening, and was described as a tense, emotional affairs as retirees sought answers about the fate of their pensions.

Ron Barron, who worked 27 years at the mine prior to its closure in 2014, said there’s a growing level of frustration, and people want answers.

Friedland: Mining companies ‘priced for Armageddon’ – by Lesley Stokes (Northern Miner – August 18, 2015)

August 19, 2015

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

VANCOUVER — The vanguard executive chairman of Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN; US-OTC: IVPAF), Robert Friedland, took to the stage at the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium in Vancouver in late July, and delivered a relaxed speech discussing why he believes copper is set to rebound in two to three years.

“The further you push the price down, the higher it’ll bounce,” he said, predicting that higher environmental standards in China may strengthen the demand for copper, in tow with other “green” metals such as zinc, platinum and palladium.

He said that China will “try very hard” to double its growth to 6% or 7% through sustainable development, but he’s dubious whether the current world supply will match the metal needed to clean China’s air and fertilize its soils.

He describes many of the great copper mines as “little old ladies, kept on life support and waiting to die,” whereas others are so low grade “they’re practically mining air” and kept alive by favourable currency exchange rates.

When copper bites – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – August 19, 2015)

August 19, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

When does push become shove as prices of the commodity continue to fall.

HALIFAX – The spot price of copper continues to fall, dropping below $2.30/lb Tuesday and approaching levels that clearly puts pressure on smaller, higher cost and debt-laden producers. But the ongoing rout also raises red flags for larger producers who will feel the pinch on profits, if not mining operations, if the price falls much further.

To be sure, as the copper price stands, the majors and intermediates do not face an existential threat to their balance sheets, or to most operations, as many still produce with basic cash costs a fair bit lower than $2/lb. Glencore, an important copper producer, reported 2014 cash costs at $1.46/lb.

Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, one of the more leveraged major copper producers, last reported cash costs of $1.85/lb, for example. And like other miners with operations outside the U.S., they benefit from the strengthening of the dollar, weakening ex-U.S. currencies and, as the case may be, cheaper energy prices.

But there is no escaping the fact dramatically falling prices tarnish copper as a profit center.

Glencore Slumps to Record Low as Profit Drops 56% on Metals Rout – by Jesse Riseborough and Javier Blas (Bloomberg News – August 19, 2015)

August 19, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc slumped to a record in London after reporting a 56 percent drop in first-half profit on the China-led rout in commodity prices.

Glencore, the worst performer on the U.K.’s benchmark stock index this year, slid as much as 9.4 percent. The company cut its full-year earnings forecast for its trading division. It also outlined further spending reductions as billionaire Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg pares debt in an effort to maintain dividends while preserving an investment-grade credit rating.

“We’ve got a worsening situation right now,” John Meyer, a mining analyst at SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “Glencore I think should’ve performed a little bit better through the first half. This is going to disappoint many. The metals trading didn’t do so well. China really slowed down, it totally hit a wall.”

The world’s biggest natural resources companies have seen copper and oil prices fall to six-year lows as China’s economy expands at the slowest pace in a quarter of a century. Glasenberg said in an interview that nobody can read the Chinese economy right now.

Century Iron Mines sells eggs as Australia moves from mining to dining – by Andy Hoffman (Australian Financial Review – August 19, 2015)

August 19, 2015

http://www.afr.com/

The iron-ore business is so lousy that one Canadian mining company is shelving its biggest project and starting a new venture: selling Australian eggs to China.

The abrupt shift at Century Iron Mines was prompted by a global iron-ore surplus that sent prices plunging 68 per cent in four years. Chief executive officer Sandy Chim does not expect a recovery until 2018, so he’s taken a cue from Australian mining billionaires Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest, who are expanding into food production as demand rises across Asia.

“Australia is going from mining to dining,” Chim said by phone from Toronto, where the company created a unit called Century Food. The plan is to distribute eggs produced by Sunny Queen, a chicken-farmer cooperative in Queensland, to consumers in Hong Kong and Macau.

With the backing of Wuhan Iron & Steel and China Minmetals, the government-owned companies that own 30 per cent of Century Iron Mines, Chim is investing $C2 million ($2.04 million) in the egg venture. He’s drawing on capital originally intended for Century’s flagship Joyce Lake mine project straddling the Canadian provinces of Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

IAMGOLD silent as signs point to mining camp closing – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – August 19, 2015)

August 19, 2015

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

GOGAMA – It appears IAMGOLD is shutting down its exploration camp in Gogama.

The Daily Press received unofficial word on Tuesday that the Côté Gold Project will be completely shut down by the end of the week. According to the source, some exploration at the site will be continuing for the time being, but after this Friday the mining camp will be closed, and a skeleton staff will continue to dismantle it next week.

The Daily Press subsequently contacted IAMGOLD to get confirmation.

When asked if the information was true, Cheryl Naveau, the company’s head of aboriginal and community relations for the Côté project, said she could not comment, but that IAMGOLD was planning a teleconference early next week.

The Côté Gold Project was initially proposed in 2012, and for the past few years has been conducting prospecting for a potential open pit mine with an expected ore production period of 15 years. No actual mining has taken place yet.

Canada’s Mines Could Harm Alaska’s Salmon — and Its Economy – by Sarah Berman (Vice News – August 18, 2015)

August 19, 2015

https://news.vice.com/

By volume it was one of the biggest mining waste spills ever recorded, and it happened just over a year ago in central British Columbia.

The earthen walls of a massive tailings pond collapsed at Imperial Metals’s Mount Polley copper and gold mine, dumping 25 million cubic meters of sludge and wastewater containing arsenic, mercury, and selenium into salmon-bearing waterways. An 12.8 million cubic meter deposit of mining waste remains at the bottom of Quesnel Lake, where about one million sockeye salmon spawn each year. The long-term biological impacts on those salmon are still unknown.

On the one year anniversary of that environmental disaster — more than 1,000 kilometers northwest of the spill site — Alaskans marched in the streets of a small fishing town to protest a recently-opened copper and gold mine from the same BC company. Fishing, wilderness, and indigenous rights advocates on both sides of the border say Imperial Metals’s Red Chris mine is too similar to Mount Polley and far too close to valuable Stikine River salmon stocks.

“It was really alarming,” Paula Dobbyn, communications director of Trout Unlimited in Alaska, said of the Mount Polley spill. “It didn’t flow into a transboundary river, but for us it showed how lax BC mining law and regulation is.”

[Canadian Election] Confronting the Aboriginal question – by Irvin Studin (National Post – August 19, 2015)

August 19, 2015

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

The second, growing risk, concerns Canada’s ability to exploit natural resources
and to deliver on major infrastructure projects of national consequence. Growing
lack of clarity on the Crown’s duty to consult and fiduciary requirements,
regular threats of litigation and extremely long turnaround times will make
governments and industry alike increasingly diffident in betting on Canadian
resources and undertaking large-scale national building projects. (Irvin Studin)

Irvin Studin is editor-in-chief and publisher of Global Brief magazine, and president of the Institute for 21st Century Questions.

Apart from the recent Liberal announcement in Saskatoon on First Nations education, the Aboriginal question has not yet really entered the lexicon of the federal election. It should very soon, as it’s by far the most complex and consequential one for Canada today and for the foreseeable future.

What is the Aboriginal question that our leaders must address? On the one hand, it is about how to lift Canada’s indigenous people from the posture of being the losing parties — strategically speaking — in Canadian history to one of being co-equals in Canadian governance this century. On the other hand, it is about ensuring that the Canadian state remains coherent and governable, even as this transition to Aboriginal co-equality takes place.

Toronto-Waterloo corridor could be Canada’s own Silicon Valley – by Iain Klugman and Kevin Lynch (Globe and Mail – August 19, 2015)

August 19, 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.

But it takes more than geography and statistics to build an innovation ecosystem
capable of driving national productivity and growth. It requires an incredibly
intensive interplay among world-class university research, targeted government
support for technology development, industry R&D, venture capital and astute
early adopters of the newly created technology. (Iain Klugman and Kevin Lynch)

Iain Klugman is CEO of Communitech. Kevin Lynch is vice-chair of Bank of Montreal.

Each September, thousands of new students stream into Ontario’s universities, carrying their clothes, books and increasingly global ambitions. The question for Ontario and Canada is: Where will those ambitions ultimately take them?

If they are technically brilliant, entrepreneurial and highly motivated, as many of our graduates are, Silicon Valley will beckon – and it has only a little to do with the California weather.

With a population of just more than three million, the single corridor between San Francisco and San Jose has the greatest concentration of high-tech jobs in the United States; is the headquarters for technology companies with billions in sales and trillions in market capitalization;