Canada Mining – Page 213 – Republic of Mining

Former Kinross Gold CEO working on potential bid for Anglo assets – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – July 14, 2015)

July 14, 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.

Kinross Gold Corp.’s former chief executive Tye Burt is interested in Anglo American PLC’s three copper mines in Chile, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Burt is working with another former Kinross executive, Hugh Agro, to create another mining company after being ousted as Kinross’s CEO for a deal gone awry.

Mr. Burt and Mr. Agro, the former M&A executive at Kinross, are now seeking financing for a potential bid on the Anglo assets, the sources said.

Mr. Burt is one of many people who were given the opportunity to examine Anglo’s Mantoverde, Mantos Blancos and El Soldado mines.

Others include former Xstrata PLC CEO Mick Davis, who now runs a private mining entity called X2 Resources LLP, sources said.

Primero’s precious problem – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – July 14, 2015)

July 14, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Primero reports being unable to sell silver or gold from Mexico.

HALIFAX – Primero Mining can’t sell its Mexican silver and gold abroad.

The miner, which owns the San Dimas mine in Mexico and the Black Fox mine in Canada, said Thursday that its import and export licenses in Mexico had been revoked following a mess-up over a change of address. Primero said its Mexican subsidiary changed corporate addresses in Mexico from Mexico City to Durango and that precipitated the revocation of its import and export license.

The revocation happened back in May.

Since at least then Primero silver and gold has piled up. It said $6.5 million in revenue from the sale of 880,000 ounces silver had been delayed and that it could not deliver some 630,000 ounces silver as part of a silver streaming agreement with Silver Wheaton.

“Senior customs officials have confirmed that the company’s registry status is being reviewed, but the company has not been given a definitive date for reinstatement of the licenses,” Primerso stated.

In northern development, put northerners’ unique realities first – by Adam Fiser ad Brent Dowdall (Globe and Mail – July 13, 2015)

July 13, 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.

Adam Fiser and Brent Dowdall are senior research associate and senior manager for research and business development, respectively, at the Conference Board of Canada.

Many of Canada’s pressing socio-economic, political and environmental challenges are most intense in the North. Blessed with resource endowments, the North has much potential for economic growth, but resource development doesn’t automatically lead to sustainable development. How we prepare and plan for this growth will determine whether northerners benefit.

Initiating and sustaining a broad-based response to that challenge has been a mission of the Conference Board of Canada since 2009. A recently published compendium report of the Centre for the North affirms that the obstacles are complex, but not insurmountable.

Meeting the challenge requires an acceptance of the North’s unique realities. Not only are northern and southern Canada vastly different, but provincial and territorial northern regions themselves vary in geography and climate, demographics and culture, economic resources and business potential, governance structures and public services.

The weekend read: This is how the bottom looks – by Brent Cook (Mineweb.com – July 10, 2015)

July 13, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Brent Cook’s take on how scary it looks out there, and why it might eventually and slowly get better.

The Rant. But then metal prices began to decline, economies slow, and profits slip away. What went wrong this time Dad? Will mining boom again? Don’t hold your breath kid. It’s bleak out there and we have a 10-year super commodity bull to work off this time.

I think what ultimately killed the recent boom was the slow realization by investors that most mining companies really couldn’t make money. Those savvy investors got the commodity boom and gold price right, and bought into the thesis that mining company profits would soar with the rising metal prices. The share prices did soar, for a while, but…

Instead of profits they got production costs rising in tandem with metal prices; capex blowouts; companies issuing equity and taking on debt whenever they could to cover the multitude of thoughtless acquisitions (supported by dubious, but 43-101 sanctioned, technical reports and financial projections) all piled on top of an eat-what-you-kill banking/brokerage community fronted by inexperienced or compromised analysts faced with the tall task of feeding the global frenzy of very short-term hedge fund gamblers with no skin in the game, trading stocks based on microsecond blips up until the shine wore off and, well, here we are today — busted again.

Confusion reigns on aboriginal rights when court rulings meet reality – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – July 11, 2015)

July 13, 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.

VANCOUVER — A year and a bit later, people with good intentions and big brains in British Columbia are still trying to figure out the impact of the latest Supreme Court aboriginal-rights decision.

Learned law articles have been penned. Certain aboriginal spokesmen have told the provincial government, as a consequence of the decision, to recognize aboriginal title everywhere and get on with it. Resource companies and other private-sector enterprises don’t quite know what to make of the Tsilhqot’in decision.

Tsilhqot’in essentially recognized aboriginal title over a swath of territory for a previously nomadic aboriginal group. In this territory, with a few restrictions, the group now has de jure sovereignty, a precedent that, if extended over time, would leave B.C. pockmarked with little self-governing, largely sovereign aboriginal territories over which the Crown’s writ would barely run.

What’s clear about the Tsilhqot’in decision – and the long trail of previous aboriginal-rights cases – is that it makes for steady and remunerative work for lawyers. Essentially, the courts, and especially the Supreme Court of Canada, are making laws in this field.

Teck Resources delays Frontier oil sands project by five years – by Jeff Lewis (Globe and Mail – July 10, 2015)

July 10, 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.

CALGARY — Teck Resources Ltd. is delaying the planned startup of a multibillion-dollar oil sands mine by at least five years, becoming the latest company to push back development as shaky energy markets threaten profits in the high-cost sector.

Vancouver-based Teck told regulators that production from its proposed Frontier oil sands mine about 110 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta., won’t start until 2026, instead of 2021 as originally planned. The company now says it will build the 260,000-barrel-a-day mine in two phases instead of four, with construction starting in 2019, according to an update filed with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

The moves are fresh evidence of a broader pullback under way in northern Alberta, as oil prices show no sign of recovering to triple-digit territory – a threshold analysts say is needed to justify new mining developments such as Frontier.

Teck, which has not committed to building the mega-mine, has pegged the cost of Frontier at roughly $20.6-billion, making it one of the most expensive oil sands projects contemplated to date.

Franco-Nevada Sees Mine Deals Affected by Canada Tax Move – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – July 8, 2015)

July 9, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Franco-Nevada Corp., a Canadian company that invests in mining, said a government review of how a competitor will be taxed on foreign earnings could in future lower the profitability of some financing projects.

“It just changes the level of where these deals would get bid,” Franco-Nevada Chief Executive Officer David Harquail said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

He was referring to so-called streaming arrangements in which companies such as Franco-Nevada help fund a mining company in exchange for a percentage of future revenue from the operation in the form of discounted metals.

Streaming company Silver Wheaton Corp. said Tuesday the Canada Revenue Agency wants to reassess as much as C$715 million ($562 million) in earnings from its foreign subsidiaries. This could result in more than $200 million in back taxes and penalties for the years 2005-2010, Andrew Kaip, a Toronto-based analyst at Bank of Montreal, said in a note Tuesday.

Harquail said he believes Silver Wheaton will have to factor the tax risk into future streaming bids.

Conference Board cuts 2 N.W.T. mining projects from economic forecast – by Guy Quenneville (CBC News North – July 8, 2015)

July 8, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news

Two other advanced-stage projects look uncertain, says think tank

The Conference Board of Canada has dropped two N.W.T. mining projects from its latest Northern economic outlook and says two other projects probably won’t be included in its next forecast unless the conditions for raising money improve.

Tyhee N.W.T. Corp.’s Yellowknife gold project and Fortune Minerals’ NICO base metals project didn’t make the cut in the think tank’s latest forecast of future GDP growth in the territory, which will be released next week, says Marie-Christine Bernard, a forecaster with the conference board.

Avalon Rare Metals’ Nechalacho rare earth development project and North American Tungsten’s Mactung tungsten project likely won’t be included in the conference board’s next forecast either, added Bernard.

“When a project is just too far from obtaining financing, we take a second look [to see] if we postpone the project or pull it from the outlook altogether,” she said.

Silver Wheaton Corp shares slump 12% on possible tax reassessment, payments of more than $200M – by Peter Koven (National Post – July 8, 2015)

July 8, 2015

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

The Canada Revenue Agency is seeking more than US$200 million in back taxes and penalties from Silver Wheaton Corp. in a probe that raises concerns about the company’s entire business model.

Shares of the Vancouver-based firm dropped 12 per cent on Tuesday after the CRA’s proposal became public, wiping out more than $1 billion of shareholder value. Investors were alarmed by the possibility the CRA’s back tax demands could grow much bigger in the months ahead, and that Silver Wheaton could have to pay higher taxes on all its future income.

Silver Wheaton, for its part, fiercely denied that it has ever avoided taxes. “We remain confident in our business structure, which we believe is consistent with that typically used by Canadian companies,” chief executive Randy Smallwood said on a conference call.

The CRA’s probe involves the complex issue of transfer pricing and deals conducted through Silver Wheaton’s foreign subsidiaries.

‘Scratch & Lose’ cards aim to bring attention to mining industry woes – by Susan Bradley (CBC News Nova Scotia – July 8, 2015)

July 8, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia

Mining association lobbying for fuel tax rebate, better tax break

Nova Scotia’s mining industry is seeking recognition as being an important employer in the province. As a result, the Mining Association of Nova Scotia has issued “Scratch & Lose” cards to illustrate how jobs are being lost here because of government policies.

“The mining and quarrying industry, all over the province, has lost 800 jobs since 2008,” association executive director Sean Kirby said. He said mining and quarrying employs 5,500 people and generates $420 million in economic activity, a big chunk of it in rural areas.

The association sent out the cards, modelled on lottery scratch-and-win cards, to bring home the message Nova Scotia’s global reputation in the mining sector is suffering.

“We feel we need to get that fixed so we can help the industry grow and create more jobs,” Kirby said.

Gold-Mine Developer TMAC Declines in Toronto Debut – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

TMAC Resources Inc., the first mining company to have an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in more than two years, fell 6.5 percent in early trading.

The shares, which were sold in the IPO at C$6 ($4.70) apiece, traded at C$5.61 at 10.26 a.m. Toronto time, joining a wider selloff of gold and gold-mining equities.

TMAC raised C$135 million in the offering to help develop its Hope Bay gold mine in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. The company will also use C$65 million of available cash plus a debt facility of as much as C$153 million to fund construction of the mine, located 160 kilometers (99 miles) north of the Arctic circle, Chairman Terry MacGibbon said.

The offering follows a difficult period for gold mining, with two straight annual gold-price declines prompting some of the largest companies in the industry to reduce costs and sell less-profitable mines. The previous mining IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange was completed by Oban Mining Corp., a Canadian gold explorer, in October 2012.

Jim Gowans: Modest mastermind – by Peter Braul (CIM Magazine – June/July 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://magazine.cim.org/en/2015/June-July.aspx

Not one to toot his own horn, Jim Gowans says what sets him apart from others in the mining business is simple – he has a lot of experience. If you believe his logic, lasting 40 years in the industry is all you have to do to reach the top of the biggest gold mining company in the world. But Gowans’ success is proof that it is what you do with your time that counts: he has managed to build six major mines over his career so far. Now co-president of Barrick Gold, he has moved back to Canada after years in Botswana managing Debswana, the world’s largest diamond producer, and is still eagerly looking ahead at the next big project.

CIM: Is there a Barrick operation you are particularly excited about?

Gowans: There are a couple of them, and for different reasons. Pueblo Viejo, in the Dominican Republic, is a new operation: I was involved in Placer Dome when we were actually looking to do the acquisition of that mine. It’s the only operation that produces over a million ounces a year. It’s got a long life and there is lots of potential there. It’s very complex metallurgy and I’m a metallurgist, so the flow sheet is very interesting to me.

Selwyn-Chihong Mining eyes upgrade to N.W.T. road to Yukon mine – by Guy Quenneville (CBC News North – July 7, 2015)

July 7, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north

‘It’s our only viable access route into the mine site,’ says Doug Reeve

A Chinese-owned company that’s developing a Yukon lead-zinc mining project wants to spend between $35 million and $45 million upgrading a crucial N.W.T. access road to the mine.

Selwyn-Chihong Mining, a Canadian subsidiary of Yunnan Chihong Zinc and Germanium Co., is applying to the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board for permits that would allow the company to convert a narrow and windy access road cutting through multiple areas of the N.W.T. into a two-lane service road capable of handling regular and heavy truckloads during the mine’s construction and operation.

“It’s our only viable access route into the mine site,” said Doug Reeve, Selwyn-Chihong’s manager of permitting. “If we don’t have that permitted, it will be very difficult, of course, to develop a mine site.”

The 79-kilometre gravel road was originally built in the late 1970s to access mineral deposits but fell into disrepair until Selwyn-Chihong spent around $13.5 million in 2014 to install bridges and convert the road into a single-lane all-season road.

Ottawa’s change of heart on asbestos welcome but late – Editorial (Globe and Mail – July 4, 2015)

July 6, 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.

When Ottawa has a major new policy it wants to announce, it often makes a “Major Policy Announcement (photo op to follow).” Not so when it comes to asbestos, though.

This week, The Globe learned that the government had quietly changed its web page on the health risks of asbestos. The difference between the old web page and the new one is categoric. The old began, “Asbestos was a popular material used widely in construction and many other industries. If asbestos fibres are enclosed or tightly bound in a product, for example, asbestos siding or asbestos floor tiles, there are no significant health risks.”

The new one begins: “Learn about asbestos and how exposure can be dangerous to your health. Also find out how to properly handle a potential asbestos problem. Asbestos, if inhaled, can cause cancer and other diseases.”

This is a historic shift in Ottawa’s attitude toward asbestos. It brings the federal government in line with many of the provinces, where workplace safety officials have long been aware that asbestos is by far the number-one killer of Canadian workers.

[Canada] Industry: Feds wrong to apply anti-corruption rules to FNs – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – July 03, 2015)

July 6, 2015

http://www.northernlife.ca/

A new transparency act for the mining industry may go too far when it comes to First Nations, says the Mining Association of Canada.

The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, which received royal assent in December 2014, requires mining companies to publicly disclose payments greater than $100,000 they make to foreign and domestic governments.

“It’s an anti-corruption measure,” said Pierre Gratton, the president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC). “By having companies disclose what they pay, then citizens of those countries can ask questions about what their governments might be doing with that money.”

But when the Mining Association of Canada teamed up with non-governmental organizations to propose the legislation for the federal government, it didn’t intend for the rules to apply to First Nations as well.

“We actually discussed with the NGOs that very issue right at the beginning,” Gratton said. “And we all agreed that was too complex and would require extensive consultation we don’t have the capacity to do.”