After 20 years of negotiations, Canada and China are closer to ratification of a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement that may benefit mining and mining services in both nations.
RENO - The Canada Mining Innovation Council applauded Wednesday’s announcement by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that Canada and China completed negotiations on a historic Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA).
Negotiations for this agreement took 18 years and major players in mining, manufacturing, and the financial sectors were consulted to get to this stage. Harper and Chinese Premier Wen Jaibao Wednesday signed a declaration of intent which must be legally reviewed and ratified by both governments.
If ratified, Canadian mining companies would enjoy more protection and promotion of their Chinese investments through legally-binding rights and obligation. Wen also called for studies into the feasibility of a free-trade agreement between China and Canada.
Jiang Shan, minister counselor from China’s Ministry of Commerce, told China Daily, “Chinese enterprises could make forays into or add investment in the categories of coal, iron ore and potash manure.” Read the rest of this entry »
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.
“Like it or not, Canada’s stupendous natural resources are
our future. They are the envy of the world, and will ensure
our prosperity for many years to come….The question is not
whether we should develop these resources, but how wisely and
how well.” (Margaret Wente – Globe and Mail)
When Caterpillar closed a plant in Southern Ontario last week and threw 450 people out of work, some commentators treated it like a national catastrophe. Caterpillar, which is notorious for its hardball labour tactics, plans to relocate the jobs in Indiana, where people are willing to work for half of what the unionized workers in Ontario got.
I felt awful for the workers. Who wouldn’t? But Ontario has to compete with the entire world. And even if those jobs don’t move away, many are being swept away by new technology. The mighty engine of Confederation has turned into its rust belt. But nobody in the rest of Canada is feeling particularly sorry for us. We squandered the fat years on a vast expansion of our government and threw away our money on foolish green energy schemes. Now we face a gloomy decade of tax increases, deteriorating health care and deep cuts to everything. Did I mention that the average detached house in Toronto costs $606,000? Read the rest of this entry »
Metals Economic Group’s 22nd Corporate Exploration Strategies Study
U.S. dollar currency is used throughout this press release.
Vancouver, British Columbia, January 24, 2012 – According to Metals Economics Group’s (MEG) Corporate Exploration Strategies (CES), Canada has been the world’s top country for exploration for the last ten years, since overtaking Australia in 2002. Canada’s allocation for 2011 represents 18% of worldwide spending. (Metals Economics Group’s study covers expenditures for precious and base metals, diamonds, uranium, and some industrial minerals.)
“Three provinces—Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia accounted for more than 60% of the $3.1 billion in planned Canadian nonferrous exploration spending in 2011”, states Jason Goulden, MEG’s Vice President, Research. “Of the 781 companies that planned to explore in Canada in 2011, almost 91% were based in Canada, together contributing about 82% of the planned Canadian nonferrous exploration total.”
Goulden adds, “Worldwide, Canadian-based companies accounted for more than half of the 2,400+ active explorers—each with a budget of at least $100,000—covered by the 2011 edition of CES, and together accounted for 40% of the $17.25 billion budgeted by all companies for nonferrous exploration in 2011.” Read the rest of this entry »
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.
VANCOUVER— The merger of Glencore International PLC and Xstrata PLC has the potential to spark a new wave of deals in the mining industry, particularly among copper producers, some analysts say.
The two companies are expected to announce an $88-billion (U.S.) deal Tuesday that will unite one of the world’s biggest traders of commodities with one of the largest miners of base metals. The new company will be a massive player in resources such as zinc, thermal coal, nickel and copper.
And even though their union has been anticipated for months, even years, the reality of a merged Xstrata-Glencore might be enough to jar others to action.
“There’s a big difference between almost pregnant and pregnant,” said Michael Locker of consulting firm Locker Associates in New York. Read the rest of this entry »
The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.
Canadians are about to discover that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has caught China fever. The Prime Minister arrives Tuesday in Beijing to shout that Canada is open for business.
Australia caught China fever some years ago and because of it the Land Down Under has been creating a staggering amount of wealth out of one of the greatest resource booms of all time.
To little fanfare elsewhere, Australia’s trade to China has tripled over the past five years to more than $60-billion a year.
When imports are included, trade between the countries is $80-billion a year, compared with a relatively piddling $30-billion a year of trade between Canada and China. Read the rest of this entry »
Environmentalists celebrate increased safeguarding of extra 100,000 square kilometres of land
MONTREAL – Calling it perhaps the largest environmental conservation project on the planet, Quebec premier Jean Charest unveiled how the government plans to safeguard 50 per cent of the province’s northern territory – a region the size of France – from industrial development Sunday.
Chief among the measures was the announcement that 20 per cent of the region will be declared protected areas by 2020, nearly twice the amount of land Quebec first pledged would be granted full protection.
Another 30 per cent of the land will be closed to mining and hydroelectric projects, although other development projects deemed to have less impact on the ecology, like ecotourism, for instance, will be permitted. The nature of those development projects have yet to be defined.
The announcement was met with cautious approval by conservation groups, some of who have characterized the government’s Plan Nord vision to invest $80 billion in energy development, forestry, mining and tourism over 25 years as a marketing plan to sell off natural resources to foreign countries. Read the rest of this entry »
The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.
Recession-ravaged London, Ont., needn’t lose its status as one of the world’s leading locomotive manufacturing centres.
Yes, that is the plan revealed Friday by U.S.-based Caterpillar Inc., owner of London’s 90-year-old Electro-Motive Diesel Inc. (EMD). Caterpillar has abruptly shut down the firm just 18 months after buying it. Cat is poised to ship EMD’s specialized equipment and technology — intellectual property developed in London over several generations — to low-wage jurisdictions outside Canada. Naturally, Caterpillar presents this outrage as a fait accompli.
Already there are calls for a government inquiry to determine how such industrial rape can be prevented in future. A good idea. But we also should and can quash Cat’s plans for EMD.
When it paid a bargain $820 million for EMD in 2010, Caterpillar appeared to be getting a mere factory. What it actually got its hands on is one of the global industry’s few major locomotive manufacturers. (EMD’s sole major North American rival is General Electric Co.) EMD is richly endowed with made-in-Canada technology and boasts the largest customer base in the world. Read the rest of this entry »
The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Getting to know their neighbours in areas in which their company operates is the regular course of business for Polish mining company KGHM, say three of its executives.
The company prides itself on its relationship with employees at its three mines and two smelters in southwest Poland, and the communities they are in. KGHM has made what it is essentially a $3.5-billion offer to acquire Quadra FNX, which has holdings in Sudbury, the United States and South America.
Shareholders will vote on that offer this month. The company is calling it a “friendly acquisition” in which it will pay shareholders up to $3 billion — or $15 a share — and take on the company’s $500-million debt.
KGHM general director Jarek Romanovski, business development officer Chr is Kubacki and director Artur Wienowski visited Sudbury this week to meet with Quadra FNX managers and employees, and leaders in the community. Read the rest of this entry »
Joyce Barkhouse, the Nova Scotia-based children’s author who wrote Pit Pony, has died. She was 98. Nate Crawford, executive director of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, said Barkhouse died on Thursday in Bridgewater, N.S., following a heart attack.
Pit Pony, the story of a boy and his horse working in the coal mines of Cape Breton, was her most popular book, drawing letters from people living in mining communities and from horse lovers across Canada. It was published in 1990.
The book was a notable one named by the Canadian Library Association, received the first Ann Connor Brimer Award in 1991 for “outstanding contribution to children’s literature in Atlantic Canada” and had international distribution. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Rob McEwen, the near-billionaire nationalist, philanthropist, libertarian, gold-loving, regulation-hating metals magnate, is as steamed as the plate of tagliatelle pasta sitting in front of him.
“It’s the parentalness of government that pisses me off. Get out! We have to take risks on our own,” he says.
The 61-year-old is reacting to the roadblocks encountered in his new mining venture, the latest chapter in a colourful and wildly successful career highlighted by converting a struggling gold mine in Northern Ontario into a global colossus called Goldcorp. The mining tycoon is merging two junior companies to form what he hopes will be his next – perhaps last – big winner. But the regulatory and governance process has taken three months longer than expected, costing $6-million in legal and advisory fees.
“This is an unnecessary tax on shareholders,” he fumes, his usually soft voice rising above the lunchtime clatter at Canoe, a darling of Bay Street expense accounts sitting 54 floors above downtown Toronto. “Wouldn’t we be better served to, say, cut a cheque to our shareholders as a dividend?” Read the rest of this entry »
OTTAWA, Feb. 2, 2012 /CNW/ – Mining in Canada is back and growing according to the latest report by Mining Association of Canada (MAC). MAC’s annual Facts & Figures 2011 finds that mining in Canada has not only recovered from the 2008 economic crisis, but is now entering a period of significant and sustained growth.
Canada’s mining sector contributed $36 billion to the national GDP in 2010, and employed 308,000 workers in mineral extraction, smelting, fabrication and manufacturing. An additional 3,215 companies supplied engineering, geotechnical, environmental, financial and other services to mining operations.
In 2010, the value of Canadian mineral production rose by 31% and mineral exploration increased by 35%. The industry exported $84.5 billion worth of metals, non-metals and coal in 2010, which accounts for 21.2% of Canada’s total exports. Read the rest of this entry »
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—The pending marriage of Xstrata PLC and Glencore International PLC would create a mining powerhouse with both the muscle and the appetite to quickly gobble up smaller rivals.
Xstrata, which owns Canada’s Falconbridge Ltd., is in talks with part-owner Glencore aimed at an all-stock merger that would reshape the industry by uniting what is already a formidable miner with the world’s biggest commodities trader.
Xstrata said Thursday it was approached by Glencore, which already holds 34 per cent of the Anglo-Swiss miner. If a deal is struck, a giant with a market value of about $88-billion (U.S.) would be created overnight.
Both companies are run by forceful chief executive officers, both are deal-making machines on their own, and together would be a formidable takeover force that analysts believe could target companies whose market value is at least $10-billion. In its own right, it would be huge in zinc, thermal coal, nickel and copper. Read the rest of this entry »
TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Jan. 24, 2012) – McEwen Mining Inc. (“McEwen Mining”) is pleased to announce that the previously announced business combination (the “Combination”), pursuant to which US Gold Corporation acquired Minera Andes Inc. and was renamed McEwen Mining, has been successfully completed and closed today. The Combination was carried out by way of a plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (Alberta), which was approved by the shareholders of both US Gold and Minera Andes on January 19, 2012 and the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta on January 20, 2012.
Shares of McEwen Mining will commence trading on the NYSE and the TSX, subject to final exchange approvals, under the symbol “MUX” on Friday January 27, 2012. Holders of Minera Andes shares will receive 0.45 of an exchangeable share of McEwen Mining – Minera Andes Acquisition Corp. for each one (1) Minera Andes share held. These exchangeable shares of McEwen Mining – Minera Andes Acquisition Corp., will also start trading on the TSX on January 27, 2012 under the symbol “MAQ”. The exchangeable shares of McEwen Mining – Minera Andes Acquisition Corp. are convertible on a one-for-one basis at any time into shares of McEwen Mining. McEwen Mining will have an aggregate of 267,084,203 shares of common stock outstanding and issuable upon the exchange of exchangeable shares. Read the rest of this entry »
Elizabeth Payne is a member of the Citizen’s editorial board.
Few Canadians have likely heard of the Canada Investment Fund for Africa. But, since 2005, it has been busy investing Canadian foreign aid dollars – $100 million of them, in fact – on companies doing business in Africa.
The objective of the fund, which was eventually worth more than $200 million in public and private money, was “to spur economic growth by providing risk capital for commercially successful private-sector businesses.”
A number of those 16 businesses, including Orezone, a gold mining company operating in Burkina Faso and Banro Mining, a Canadian gold mining company which operates in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are Canadian. The fund also invested in Candax, a Toronto-based oil and gas company working in Tunisia, as well as a number of African companies, including the Commercial Bank of Rwanda, Mr. Big’s Fast Foods, and others. Read the rest of this entry »
MONTREAL - A coalition of human-rights groups say they will make a last-ditch plea to the Supreme Court of Canada in an effort to sue a Canadian mining company on behalf of the victims of a massacre in Congo.
The Canadian Association Against Impunity, a coalition of human-rights groups and non-governmental organizations acting on behalf of Congolese citizens, says it’s imperative that those people have access to justice in Canada. Quebec’s Court of Appeal last week overturned a lower-court ruling from April 2011 that had paved the way for a civil suit to be heard in Canada.
In their claim, the groups had argued that Anvil Mining Limited (TSX:AVM) provided logistical support to the Congolese military as it moved to crush a rebel uprising in 2004. Read the rest of this entry »
