Media Release: Federal and Provincial Greens Plan Cooperation on Nuclear Waste, Ring of Fire, Electricity Costs

Cooperation between Canada and Ontario that emphasizes northern issues is the pledge that Green MP Bruce Hyer and GPO leader Mike Schreiner made today.

(10/05/2015) Thunder Bay, ON – Hyer and Schreiner are working together on a cross jurisdictional plan to responsibly develop the Ring of Fire, protect Lake Superior from radioactive nuclear waste, and lower electricity prices in northwestern Ontario.

“Thunder Bay needs an independent voice that will speak for northerners,” says Schreiner. “Bruce Hyer has demonstrated repeatedly that he can work with other parties and the province to get things done for Thunder Bay Superior North.”

Hyer will work with all levels of government, including First Nations, to develop a comprehensive land use plan for north of 50; support value-added local processing with affordable renewable electricity from Manitoba for all northern communities; ensure that all aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities benefit from mining developments; and support federal funding for road corridors and rail access to the Ring of Fire.

“Lower electricity prices, federal infrastructure support, environmental protections, and shared benefits to all communities are essential to making the Ring of Fire work for northerners,” says Hyer. “I’m committed to using the Green Party’s leverage in a minority Parliament to influence federal policies.”

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Commodities crisis spurs calls for African reform – by Maggie Fick and John Aglionby (Financial Times – October 5, 2015)

http://www.ft.com/

London – African nations need to respond to the commodity price crash by overhauling the continent’s regulatory burden and bolstering its energy infrastructure, prominent executives and officials have told a Financial Times summit.

Participants at the London conference were virtually unanimous that reforms delayed when oil and metal prices were rising can be put off no further now that demand from China has slowed and the commodities supercycle is on a downturn.

“It is a call to both regulators and business to ensure they maintain foreign direct investment and encourage local entrepreneurs,” said Wale Tinubu, chief executive of Nigerian oil and gas company Oando, arguing that it was now urgent to diversify countries’ economies across the resource-rich continent.

A chief focus of his and other participants’ attentions was the energy sector, where pricing regulations have often deterred investment. Efforts to industrialise countries’ economies have often been hobbled by inadequate energy supply. Spain produces more electricity than all of sub-Saharan Africa.

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Glencore surges as speculation swirls around takeover, Viterra sale – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – October 5, 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.

ROME — Glencore rallied strongly on Monday as CEO Ivan Glasenberg of the world’s biggest commodities trader pleaded for the closure of copper mines in a glutted market, and analysts suggested the company’s shares were oversold last week, when they plunged 30 per cent in one day.

In midafternoon trading in London, the shares were up 18 per cent. In overnight Hong Kong trading, Glencore surged more than 70 per cent on speculation that it is open to takeover offers and is close to selling its Canadian agriculture business.

But analysts dismissed the Hong Kong trading as essentially meaningless since Glencore shares have very little liquidity in that market and are prone to wild swings. Monday’s rise in both markets was so sharp and fast that the Swiss company was forced to put out a statement denying that any deal was imminent. It said “the board confirms that is not aware for any reason for these price and volume movements.”

Speaking on a panel in London at the Financial Times Africa Summit, Mr. Glasenberg made no comment on the extreme volatility in recent weeks in Glencore’s share price.

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RPT-COLUMN-A role reversal for the ugly sisters, lead and zinc – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – October 2, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

Oct 2 (Reuters) – The commodities “supercycle”, it is now generally accepted, is over.

Slowdown in China, the lynchpin of the whole concept, is turning out to be a lot harder than anyone expected with industrial metal prices sliding across the board. But for some of them the “supercycle” was arguably over many years ago.

Consider the example of lead and zinc, often called sister metals because they tend to be found in the same deposits and are as often as not mined in tandem.

Zinc’s “supercycle” price peak of $4,580 per tonne, basis three-month metal on the London Metal Exchange (LME), came in November 2006 while lead’s peak of $3,890 followed a year later in October 2007.

Neither made it back to those lofty heights in the Chinese infrastructure-fuelled boom that followed the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009. And since then the two sisters have done little more than trudge sideways in well-worn ranges until joining in this year’s broader sell-off.

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Defendant testifies in environmental crimes trial over platinum mine – by Lisa Demer (Alaska Dispatch News – October 2, 2015)

http://www.adn.com/

A mine operator on trial over pollution at a Southwestern Alaska platinum mine told a federal jury Friday in Anchorage he knew of muddy wastewater that turned the Salmon River dirty brown. But though he was the on-site boss and designed the mine operation, James Slade testified he never alerted regulators of the problems because, he said, that wasn’t within his authority.

Instead, even when the turbidity of the discharges was hundreds of times greater than allowed under Platinum Creek Mine’s general permit in 2011, Slade emailed company executives the mine would “continue to produce 24/7 until the wheels fall off.” That acknowledgement by Slade provided a punch at the end of cross examination by assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Feldis.

Slade, a mining consultant from Calgary, Alberta who became chief operating officer for XS Platinum Inc., is accused of six felony charges including conspiracy, various violations of the federal Clean Water Act, and submission of a false report. His testimony in U.S. District Court took up most of Friday, the 10th day of a trial during which prosecutors have called more than 25 witnesses and presented hundreds of exhibits. Slade, who began working for the mine owners in 2010 and stayed through 2011, was the sole defense witness.

He said he was thrilled when he was recruited to work on resurrecting the old platinum mine in one of Alaska’s historic mining areas.

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RPT-UPDATE 2-Potash Corp withdraws $8.9 bln takeover bid for German peer K+S – by Greg Roumeliotis and Arno Schuetze (Reuters U.S. – October 5, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK/FRANKFURT, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Potash Corp of Saskatchewan said on Monday it had withdrawn its 7.9 billion euro ($8.9 bln) offer for German potash producer K+S , citing a decline in global commodity and equity markets and a lack of engagement by K+S management.

K+S shares dropped 24 percent after Potash announced its decision in a statement, wiping almost 1.5 billion euros off the company’s market value.

An acquisition of K+S would have given Potash Corp an opportunity to realize savings from selling potash within North America from its own Western Canada mines and from K+S’s Legacy mine, which is under construction in the region.

However, senior K+S executives dismissed the Canadian company’s 41-euro-per-share cash bid — which represented a 59 percent premium to the volume-weighted average of K+S’s share price during the prior 12 months — as too low and refused to negotiate.

Since Potash Corp made its offer to K+S privately at the end of May, shares of K+S peers have dropped by around 40 percent amid concerns over weakening demand from China, the world’s largest consumer of potash.

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Kinross’s clash with contractors over West African gold mines – by Geoffrey York and Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – October 5, 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.

JOHANNESBURG and ROME — Kinross Gold Corp., facing an investigation in the United States over alleged corruption at its West African mines, has portrayed itself as the victim of “noise” by contractors who fail to win bids at its massive gold mine in the Sahara Desert in Mauritania.

In an interview last month, before the U.S. investigation was disclosed, Kinross executives in West Africa insisted their contracting procedures are transparent and fair. They denied local claims that the company faced pressure by the Mauritanian government to hire politically connected contractors, but they acknowledged the losing bidders have sometimes alleged wrongdoing in the contracting process.

“They go to some politicians and then you hear noise about it,” said Mike Sylvestre, regional vice-president for Kinross operations in West Africa. “There does seem to be a lot of noise.”

Kinross said on Friday it had received subpoenas from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Justice Department, seeking information about alleged “improper payments made to government officials and certain internal control deficiencies” at its gold operations in Mauritania and Ghana.

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For many miners, there’s no avoiding the gold ‘production cliff’ now – by Peter Koven (National Post – October 3, 2015)

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

When Steve Parsons and his colleagues published their first report on the gold “production cliff” in early 2013, they thought the thesis was obvious, even though almost no one was talking about it.

“It’s not a matter of if or even when the production cliff will happen,” the National Bank analyst said in an interview this week. “It’s really a matter of how companies respond.”

Gold miners hardly ever spoke up on this issue over the last several years. It may be that they didn’t agree with the conclusion, or perhaps they just didn’t want to think too hard about the implications. But there’s no avoiding it now.

Parsons’ thesis, in short, is that global gold production is set to fall in a big way. He calls it the “production cliff” while Goldcorp Inc. and others call it “peak gold,” but it amounts to the same thing.

The cliff appears to be imminent. According to numerous professional estimates, gold output will top out in 2015 or 2016 and then go into decline for several years at least.

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Canada reaches sweeping Trans-Pacific trade deal – by Barrie McKenna (Globe and Mail – October 5, 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.

Ottawa — Canada is joining a massive Pacific Rim free trade zone, but has sacrificed some long-held protections for the country’s dairy, poultry and auto industries to gain entry.

Negotiators for the 12 members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership struck a tentative deal in Atlanta early Monday morning that will eliminate most tariffs in a region spanning roughly 40 per cent of the global economy.

But that will come at a hefty price for some sectors, and for taxpayers.

Ottawa said Monday it will spend $4.3-billion over 15 years to compensate dairy, chicken and egg farmers, who are ceding what Canadian officials called “limited access” to their now highly protected markets under the TPP deal. The subsidies will “keep producers whole,” according to a government press release.

The deal, originally slated to be announced Friday, was delayed numerous times over the weekend as countries haggled over last-minute details on autos, patent protection for drugs and agricultural products.

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Nickel crisis rocks French islands in Pacific – by Claudine Wery (AFP/Yahoo.com – October 4, 2015)

https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/

Plunging nickel prices and the market woes of world mining giants have shaken the French territory of New Caledonia, a tropical archipelago in the Pacific that is hostage to the metal’s fortunes.

Though best known for its stunning lagoon, pristine beaches and diverse wildlife, New Caledonia’s economy actually relies heavily on nickel, discovered here in the 19th century.

The price of nickel — essential to the manufacture of stainless steel — has plunged 35 percent so far this year to a six-and-a-half year low of less than $10,000 (9,000 euros) a tonne.

A slowdown in economic growth in China, the world’s biggest consumer of nickel, and stockpiles of the metal amounting to more than 450,000 tonnes, have depressed the market.

“We were already in a deteriorating situation when the crisis hit because every sector was in a slowdown. I think we are not far from zero economic growth,” Catherine Wehbe, director of the employers’ federation Medef in New Caledonia, told AFP.

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Wealth of iron ore in Guinea’s Simandou buried by corruption, politics – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – October 3, 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.

LONDON — Aerial photographs of the 110-kilometre Simandou mountain range in southern Guinea depict a surreal landscape. Wherever the forest and grasslands are scraped away, the exposed earth is rust red or burnt orange, as if a child had splattered ketchup on a sheet of green paper. The vivid colours are the product of the unusually rich iron oxides in Simandou’s iron ore lode.

Simandou has been called the El Dorado of iron ore; it’s thought to be the biggest untapped resource of its kind on the planet and is worth a fortune. The problem is, too many companies want a piece of it and the intrigue and alleged corruption that have surrounded its exploitation seem lifted from a John le Carré espionage novel.

The battle for Simandou’s iron ore has gripped the mining world for more than a decade. It has pitted two of the world’s biggest miners – Rio Tinto Group and Vale SA – against each other and ensnared an unlikely resources player in the form or Beny Steinmetz, the buccaneering Israeli billionaire who built an empire out of diamonds and recruited Vale as his Simandou partner.

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Opinion: Mining meeting of the minds at the Vatican – by Michael McPhie (Vancouver Sun – September 28, 2015)

http://www.vancouversun.com/

On September 18 and 19 this year I was fortunate enough to be part of a small group of senior mining industry executives and Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) representatives who travelled to the Vatican to meet with senior members of the Catholic Church in what was known as a Day of Reflection.

This followed a similar meeting in September 2013 that I also attended and is in keeping with Pope Francis’s deliberate and, I would argue, constructive efforts to engage with leaders of industry and civil society on the important issues of our time.

The gathering was convened by the Pontifical Council on Peace and Justice and led by his eminence Cardinal Peter Turkson. The meetings provided an opportunity for a wide ranging conversation about the role of mining globally as being fundamental to many sectors of human life and society but also recognition that it is an industry with many challenges given the pressing environmental, social and economic issues of our time.

There was honest and direct input presented from communities that had been impacted negatively by mining as well as a discussion of where mineral development had gone well and what the key factors were in contributing to these more positive outcomes.

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Great Mines: Finland’s Kemi Chrome – by John Chadwick and Hugh Boden (International Mining – October 2015)

http://im-mining.com/

In September 2014 Kemi mine celebrated exactly 50 years since Outokumpu made the decision to begin chrome mining operations there in Kemi, Finland. Today it is one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly mines in the world. The deposit had been found five years earlier. Mining began in 1967, with large-scale mining operations and ferrochrome production beginning in 1968.

The chrome mine and ferrochrome works were the first steps in Outokumpu’s transition from state mining company to one of the world’s foremost stainless steel producers. Today the annual mill capacity is 2.7 Mt/y of ore (up from 1.3 Mt/y in 2010), producing lumpy ore and fine concentrate (all for internal use). The mine employs some 400 people including contractors, and the nearby ferrochrome works and stainless steel mill in Tornio employ some 1,900 (plus contractors).

CEO Mika Seitovirta: “Kemi is an essential part of the integrated production chain in the Tornio site. Chromium is what makes steel stainless, and our own chrome mine guarantees us competitive sourcing of chromium for the future. The Kemi chrome mine is a unique competitive advantage for us globally.” Outokumpu sees the competitive advantages of its ferrochrome operation as:

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For a ghost town, Jerome remains quite lively – by Margo Bartlett Pesek (Las Vegas Review-Journal – October 3, 2015)

http://www.reviewjournal.com/

Jerome, Arizona’s liveliest ghost town, has turned the bust of its mining wealth into a boom of tourism income. Instead of extracting the copper, gold and silver of old, Jerome now exploits its colorful past, picturesque downtown, splendid setting and thriving arts community to entice visitors.

Located on a mountainside in central Arizona, Jerome straddles scenic Highway 89A and overlooks the beautiful Verde Valley with the striking red cliffs of Sedona in the distance.

The former copper boomtown of Jerome is 285 miles from Las Vegas. Follow U.S. Highway 93 to Kingman, Ariz., then head east on Interstate 40. At Ash Fork, turn south on Highway 89 and drive 45 miles toward Prescott. Watch for the turnoff for 89A as you approach Prescott. Turn there and head east about 26 miles to reach Jerome. The dramatic route will take you over Mingus Mountain and steeply down toward the Verde Valley. This is not a safe route for large RVs or vehicles hauling long trailers. Oversize rigs should approach using other routes from Prescott or Flagstaff.

The curvy highway takes hairpin turns through the old town, its bridges cantilevered over the slopes.

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Indebtedness is hurting Glencore – what must Ivan Glasenberg do to ensure it survives? – by Andrew Critchlow (The Telegraph – October 3, 2015)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

The collapse in commodity prices has delivered a devastating blow to the mining company

After a week that saw its shares plummet spectacularly and then recover following a slew of warnings from bank analysts about its high levels of debt and the collapse in commodities prices, it is little wonder than some in the market have likened the problems besieging Glencore as similar to those that beset Lehman Brothers ahead of its collapse in 2008.

If the London-listed commodities trader and miner is to avoid the same fate as the infamous Wall Street bank, it will require the unwavering support of its largest shareholder, Qatar Holdings.

The Qatari sovereign wealth fund is this weekend understood to be feeling “raw” about the billions of dollars in paper losses it is carrying on Glencore, which listed its shares in May 2011 at 530p each.

The shares – which closed on Friday night at 95p – were trading at one point last week as low as 71.10p amid a frenzy of speculation that the commodities giant was in danger of defaulting on debt covenants and that its equity value could be worthless should the prices of key commodities continue to fall.

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