October 1, 2015 – Republic of Mining

AUDIO: New Democrats hone in on Ring of Fire election promises (CBC News Thunder Bay – September 29, 2015)

October 1, 2015

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

What the New Democrats have to say about Ring of Fire development, and counterpoints from the other parties

The federal NDP says if it forms the next federal government it will commit $1 billion to infrastructure in the Ring of Fire. It’s one of the key promises in the NDP’s Northern Ontario platform, which was announced Monday.

Thunder Bay Rainy River NDP candidate John Rafferty said his party’s plan to match Ontario’s $1 billion commitment to the Ring of Fire sends an important message.

“There’s a commitment to make this happen and that optimism will help move this program forward.” The Conservative Candidate for Thunder Bay – Superior North, Richard Harvey, said his party will commit funding when Ontario has a plan in place to develop the project.

“Simply transferring money to the province to spend on — something — when they don’t have a plan doesn’t make sense,” Harvey said.

The riding’s Green Party candidate Bruce Hyer said he wants to wait until there’s a plan in place — one that benefits northern Ontario communities, as well as First Nations.

Uganda: Mineral Conference to Focus On Value Addition – by Justus Lyatuu (All Africa.com – September 30, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://allafrica.com/

Officials of mining firms, both local and international, will converge in Kampala for the fourth Mineral Wealth Conference on October 1 and 2, looking for opportunities in an industry that is sometimes touted to be bigger than the oil and gas sector.

Richard Kaijuka, the vice chairman of the Uganda Chamber of Mines and Petroleum (UCMP), the body organising the conference, said the annual MWC was fast becoming East Africa’s flagship mining convention as it played a significant role in highlighting the huge untapped potential of Uganda’s, and the region’s, fledgling mining industries.

“Uganda enjoys a wealth of minerals ranging from gold, copper, iron ore, vermiculite, tin, tantalite, tungsten, nickel, platinum and phosphate; however, fully exploiting these minerals remains a work in progress as extensive exploration has not been done. So under such conferences we need to engage different stakeholders and the private sector,” he said.

Uganda is also said to hold deposits of rare earth elements, whose value alone is said to be bigger than Uganda’s entire oil industry.

The blood diamond trade is tearing the Central African Republic apart – by Jake Flanagin (Quartz Africa – September 30, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://qz.com/

The Central African Republic (CAR)—one of the poorest countries in the world—has been embroiled in intense religious conflict since Dec. 2012. Fighting between the predominantly Muslim rebels (known as the Séléka) and Christian/animist anti-balaka militia broke out when the former accused Christian president François Bozizé of violating peace agreements laid down in 2007 and 2011.

The Séléka supplanted Bozizé with their own president, Michel Djotodia, from Mar. 2013 to Jan. 2014; though he has since been replaced by two acting presidents—currently, former mayor of Bangui, Catherine Samba-Panza.

Conflict has continued into 2015, marred by reports of massacres committed by the anti-balakas against Muslims (which constitute roughly 15% of the national population).

In the midst of one of the bloodiest conflicts the region has seen in recent years, with the death toll of more than 5,000, according to Amnesty International, Western companies have quietly carried out business as usual. Such is the hypnotic draw of Central Africa’s diamond industry.

Prior to the Séléka’s gaining the presidency, diamonds represented about half of the CAR’s total exports, and 20% of its budget receipts.

Glencore Slides as Recovery Fades After Three-Day Roller Coaster – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – October 1,2015)

October 1, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc’s rebound ran out of puff after a two and a half day ascent that briefly recouped the $6 billion in market value it lost Monday.

The shares slid 3.1 percent to 88.72 pence by 2 p.m. in London after earlier gaining as much as 8.2 percent. Trading was halted for five minutes because of increased volatility.

Investors in the stock could probably do with the breather. Glencore has endured a roller-coaster week with unprecedented volatility for a company that went public in 2011 at 530 pence a share.

The mining and trading firm sank 29 percent on Monday to 68.62 pence on concern over its debt load and ability to withstand sinking commodity prices. It spent most of the rest of the week recovering those losses as investors spied a bargain.

Glencore sought to reassure investors on Tuesday, saying it had “absolutely no solvency issues” and its funding was secure. It also aimed to raise more than $1 billion selling future gold and silver output, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Glencore tells investors debt is being cut, trading robust – by DMITRY ZHDANNIKOV, SARAH MCFARLANE AND OLIVIA KUMWENDA-MTAMBO (Reuters U.S. – October 1, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – Glencore has told investors it is on track to cut debt and has shown new data about its secretive trading unit in a fresh attempt to dispel market worries over its finances which have knocked 70 percent off its share price this year.

Its stock gained as much as 6 percent on Thursday after credit analysts from Barclays said a meeting they had organized with members of Glencore’s management on Wednesday, including the co-head of corporate finance Carlos Perezagua and the head of strategy Paul Smith, managed to address many concerns of investors and bondholders.

But it then tumbled back into negative territory, extending the week’s losses after suffering a 30 percent plunge on Monday. At 1238 GMT it traded down 3.76 percent on the day.

“It was an encouraging meeting (on Wednesday) as we believe it helped to clear up many misconceptions and confusion we believe is currently in the market around commodity trading,” credit analysts from Barclays said in a note on Thursday.

Gold sinks to worst quarterly performance in a year, but signs of optimism emerge – by Peter Koven (National Post – October 1, 2015)

October 1, 2015

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

The third quarter was another ugly one in the gold market. But at least it offered investors a little bit of encouragement.

Gold dropped 4.8 per cent overall in Q3, closing at US$1,115 an ounce on Wednesday after bottoming out at US$1,080 in July. It was the metal’s worst quarterly performance in a year. But Q3 was really a tale of two halves in the gold market: before and after China devalued its currency on Aug. 11.

Before that date, sentiment on gold was at its weakest point in years. With a strong U.S. dollar, low inflation and expectations of monetary tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve, investors had little motivation to own gold or other precious metals.

But after Aug. 11, it was one of the only commodities to draw any excitement whatsoever.

China’s devaluation caused panic, as investors feared that its economy was in far worse shape than previously assumed. That triggered a broad equity market sell-off around the globe. Commodities also fell sharply, as demand for them is linked so closely to China’s economic growth.

Election 2015: Liberals, Greens and NDP Q&A on mining in Canada – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – September 30, 2015)

October 1, 2015

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

With Canadians looking ahead to a federal election on Oct. 19, The Northern Miner submitted mining-related questions to the leaders of the four major political parties running across Canada. The following are the answers from the Liberal Party of Canada leader Justin Trudeau, Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May, New Democratic Party of Canada leader Tom Mulcair, and their respective parties (The Conservative Party of Canada did not respond):

The Northern Miner: In recent years the federal government has moved to streamline environmental permitting for miners by trying to avoid duplication of provincial efforts. Do you support this approach? Does the federal government have a unique role to play in avoiding catastrophic tailings dam failures such as the one we saw at Mount Polley in B.C. in 2014?

Justin Trudeau/Liberal Party: The Harper government has eroded the credibility of Canada’s environmental reviews by narrowing their application, limiting public participation and slashing the capacity of the federal government to protect the environment. They have ended over 50 years of environmental oversight in Canada by repealing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act so that the federal government can sidestep environmental reviews of potentially harmful projects.

Wynne’s losing performance: How Ontario’s growth-killing policies are sinking the economy – by Philip Cross (National Post – October 1, 2015)

October 1, 2015

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

Ontarians are clearly having buyer’s remorse after re-electing its Liberal government last year, with two-thirds now believing that Ontario is headed in the wrong direction. An exasperated Kathleen Wynne recently asked “What is it that especially disqualifies me for the job I’m doing?” as Premier of Ontario. Well, since she asked, let’s list the problems the Liberal government has created.

Start with persistent slow economic growth. Since 2002, real GDP growth in Ontario has been consistently below the national average, with a total shortfall of over 10 percentage points. Two-thirds of this gap occurred outside of recession years. Meanwhile, Ontario’s unemployment rate rose above the national average in 2007 for the first time on record and has stayed there.

Ontario has lost its traditional above-average income status in Canada. In the decades after World War II, real disposable income per capita in Ontario was 20 per cent above the national average; in the 1990s under the Harris government, it was still 10 per cent above average. In 2012 and 2013, incomes in Ontario fell below the national average for the first time ever.

Ontario now qualifies for equalization payments, confirming its shift from “have” to “have-not” status within Confederation.

Coal threatens Poland’s image as European role-model – by Marcin Goettig (Reuters U.S. – October 1, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

WARSAW, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Coal mining has taken centre stage in the campaign for this month’s parliamentary election in Poland, an outsize political role that threatens the country’s hard-won economic growth and reputation in Europe.

Once a pillar of the communist-era economy, coal mines escaped the “shock therapy” that helped turn Poland into one of the European Union’s most resilient economies and a role-model for the rest of the bloc in investors’ eyes.

Successive governments have shrunk the sector, but kept it in state hands, conscious of public support for the miners, whose predecessors lost lives opposing martial law in 1981 and helped overthrow communism.

The mines have lost more than $850 million since the start of 2014 as coal prices slipped to decade lows, and efforts to prop them up have brought Poland into conflict with the European Union on both competition and environmental grounds.

The bloc wants to cut carbon dioxide emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050, and the highly polluting Polish hard coal sector will come under further scrutiny with the approach of talks on a global climate deal in late November.

First Nations spar over pipelines – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – October 1, 2015)

October 1, 2015

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

A new dynamic is emerging in oil pipeline politics – First Nations clashing with First Nations.

On Wednesday, the same day the aboriginal-led Eagle Spirit pipeline proposal announced it secured support – after three years of trying — of every First Nation chief along its route in British Columbia, other First Nations chiefs were meeting in Vancouver to discuss forming a national alliance to fight oil sands pipelines.

Chiefs from Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec appeared before the annual assembly of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and won unanimous backing for a resolution “to develop shared positions and coordinated strategies for addressing climate change and other environmental and cultural impacts of tar sands development.”

The visiting chiefs said they were inspired by their Western Canadian counterparts’ battles against Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway and now want to “extend that wall of opposition out East to stop the TransCanada (Corp.) Energy East tar sands pipeline,” Grand Chief Serge Simon of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake, a Quebec band, said in a statement.

Vale Gain Spells Iron Pain With Giant Mine Ahead of Schedule – by Danielle Bochove and Juan Pablo Spinetto (Bloomberg News – October 1, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s top iron-ore producer has some bad news for the oversupplied market: its biggest project is running ahead of schedule.

S11D, part of the Carajas mining complex in northern Brazil, is on track to beat a targeted December 2016 start date, Vale SA Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said in an interview Wednesday.

The project — the industry’s largest and, according to Vale, the most profitable — will add 90 million metric tons of annual capacity to global supply, although Vale intends to control the speed at which it hits the market, Siani, 45, said in Toronto, where he is holding meetings with investors and analysts.

“We will manage the ramp up in order to preserve the premium for this high grade ore,” he said.
While S11D coming on stream sooner than planned would be a boon for Vale’s debt-reduction ambitions, it looms as another strain on an iron-ore market buffeted by a series of expansions by Vale and its main rivals in Australia at a time of slowing Chinese growth.

Silver-coin shortage shows bright side of precious metal collapse – by Marcy Nicholson, A. Ananthalakshmi and Jan Harvey (Reuters U.S. – September 30, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK/LONDON/SINGAPORE, Sept 30 (Reuters) – The global silver-coin market is in the grips of an unprecedented supply squeeze, forcing some mints to ration sales and step up overtime while sending U.S. buyers racing abroad to fulfill a sudden surge in demand.

The U.S. Mint began setting weekly sales quotas for its flagship American Eagle silver coins in July because it can’t meet demand, and the Canadian mint followed suit after record monthly sales in July. In Australia, the Perth Mint sold a record of more than 2.5 million ounces of silver this month, nearly four times more than in August, and has begun rationing supply of a new line of coins this month, a mint official said.

“Silver demand is absolutely through the roof,” said Neil Vance, wholesale manager at the Perth Mint. “There seems to be a bit of frenzy as people think there is a shortage of silver. But in fact it is a (crunch in) manufacturing capacity.”

While demand has risen in response to the slump in spot prices to $14.33 an ounce in late July and its subsequent drop to fresh six-year lows below $14 an ounce in August, mint officials also said they were caught out by the sudden interest in coins.

Arizona still tops in copper, up 28% in 50 years – by Tom Tracey (Verde Independent – September 29, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://verdenews.com/

CLARKDALE — Copper: So important was it to the history of Arizona that it remains front and center on the state flag as a copper-colored star.

Over the years, Arizona has consistently produced more copper than all the other states combined. In fact, 28 percent more copper is being produced now than 50 years ago.

You don’t have to look far for copper. It’s found in airplanes, automobiles, coins, computers construction materials, cookware, radios, telephones, TVs and video games, according to the Arizona Farm Bureau.

“Here at the museum, we have a panel that shows where copper is used,” said Drake Meinke, founder of the Copper Art Museum in Clarkdale.

“For art purposes, about 3 percent of the world’s supply is fabricated into something. The other 97 percent is used for electrical, transportation and construction uses,” said Meinke.

NEWS RELEASE: SNC-Lavalin exercises its option to sell its interest in Madagascar’s Ambatovy Nickel Project

October 1, 2015

MONTREAL, Sept. 30, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ – SNC-Lavalin (TSX: SNC) announced today that it has exercised its option to divest its five percent ownership interest and the balance of its loans in the Ambatovy Nickel Joint Venture Project, a laterite nickel mine operation and a hydrometallurgical processing plant in Madagascar, to Sumitomo Corporation, an existing partner, for a cash consideration of approximately CDN$600 million.

The Company was initially awarded an EPCM contract for the Ambatovy nickel and cobalt operation in 2007. The mine―the largest capital project in Madagascar’s history―has a capacity to annually produce 60,000 tonnes of refined nickel, 5,600 tonnes of refined cobalt and 210,000 tonnes of ammonium sulphate fertilizer for a minimum of 29 years. On September 21, 2015, the Ambatovy project achieved financial completion. Accordingly, SNC-Lavalin has chosen to exercise its put option and has received its proceeds.

“We are pleased to have been involved in building the Ambatovy operation with our joint venture partners these past seven years and helping this unique mining project achieve crucial key milestones over this time,” said Robert G. Card, President and Chief Executive Officer, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. “With nickel being the country’s largest export, Ambatovy will continue to contribute to the country’s future growth and generate long-term economic and social benefits for the people of Madagascar.”

Installment #4 – “My Old Man:” The Uranium King – The Final Chapter (for now) in the colorful history of Charlie Steen – by Mark Steen (Canyon Country Zephyr – August/September 2002)

March 31, 2017October 1, 2015

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/

In order to follow the history of the exploration and development of the Big Indian mining district it is necessary to understand a few things about the geology of the uranium ore deposits that were found after Charlie Steen discovered the Mi Vida mine. The most important thing to remember is that none of the ore deposits discovered during the next four years were exposed on the surface.

Although the ore bearing host rocks in the Moss Back member of the Chinle formation did outcrop in a few places along the face of the escarpment overlooking the Big Indian Wash, all of the uranium that was found after 1952 was discovered by exploration drilling. My father’s discovery proved that someone could walk over $100 million worth of uranium ore without knowing what lay beneath their feet unless they were willing to risk money on wildcat drilling in the search for totally hidden ore deposits.

Although the Big Indian mining district was developed from the single drill hole Charlie Steen had drilled through 14 feet of high-grade uranium ore on July 6, 1952, none of the other mines in the district were brought into production on the basis of one drill hole. After the Mi Vida mine proved the existence of uranium ore in the Chinle formation, drilling became the chief guide to finding more ore in the district.

Any drill hole that encountered good mineralization of minable thickness required additional drilling to block out the ore body.