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Mining Supply and Services Sector

Vale General Manager Alex Henderson Speech at Rail-Veyor Test Site – Copper Cliff, Ontario (September 16, 2011)

Speaking Notes For Alex Henderson: General Manager of Mines and Mill Technology for Vale’s North Atlantic Region
Copper Cliff Mine 114 Orebody Demonstration Plant Funding Announcement
Rail-Veyor Test Site

Thank-you Jon. Imagine a mine with no shaft or head frame, no loading pockets, no underground crushers, no conveyor, and no diesel haulage trucks . . .

It’s a huge departure from the way we currently mine but new technology is making this sort of innovative thinking possible. We will be testing some of these new technologies and mining methods at the 114 Orebody Demonstration Plant in Copper Cliff.

Our findings at this plant have the potential to change not only how we mine in Sudbury, but across all of Vale’s operations around the world.

But to understand where we’re headed, it makes sense to set a little context and spend a few moments reflecting on the mining processes of the past . . .

Prior to 1970, mining in the Sudbury Basin was largely manual and characterized by high grades, low volumes and poor safety records.

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[Caterpillar’s] $14.5-Billion vote of confidence in mining – Russell Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – September, 2011)

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

What Caterpillar did not only made headlines around the
globe, but it also sent a message to the entire world
and its leaders that the company believes in mining and
that it is committed to the industry for its own future
too. (Russell Noble – CMJ/September, 2011)

Fourteen-and-a-half billion dollars! That’s a lot of money and I don’t care how rich you are, those figures are attention grabbers in any circle. Even the richest of rich raise their eyebrows when the words “fourteen-and-a-half billion dollars” are mentioned because there’s always some serious business, and usually interesting opportunities, associated with that kind of money.

In mining, particularly when that amount of money is mentioned in conversation, juniors from coast to coast envisage more drill rigs or even a mine on their property someday while active miners probably start thinking deeper and wider about the properties they already own and operate.

And like the prospectors and developers I just mentioned, there are also others associated with mining (and big money) that think investing in the industry is a good thing too. And that’s exactly what Caterpillar Inc did when it recently announced that it bought Bucyrus International, Inc. for $8.8 billion and is planning to spend another $5.7 billion on research and development (and “yellow” paint) to make the products they just bought even better.

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[Ontario] Northerners need jobs too – Stan Sudol (National Post – September 9, 2004)

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

This column was originally published in 2004. How things change and how they stay the same or get worse!  Ontario’s debt that year was $142-billion but will reach $283-billion in 2012 and $303-billon in 2013. In addition, the Far North Act – Bill 19 – which was passed last year, bans economic development in 225,000 square kilometers of the far north, roughly 21 per cent of Ontario’s landmass.

For some geographic perspective, that is approximately the same size as the United Kingdom minus Northern Ireland with a population of 60 million people. The enormously rich “Ring of Fire” mining camp was largely unknown. – (Stan Sudol-August30, 2011)

How many more Sudbury Basins exist in that vast northern
territory above the French and Mattawa Rivers that encompass
85% of the province’s geography? There are billions of
dollars worth of untapped mineral deposits waiting to be
developed. (Stan Sudol-September 9, 2004)

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant and mining columnist. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

National Post – September 9, 2004

In July, Alberta Premier Ralph Kline proudly announced that his province’s massive debt has been slain However he could not have accomplished that historic feat without the development of northern Alberta’s booming oil sands economy and ensuing resource royalties. Unfortunately, Ontario, struggling with a $142-billion debt and a $100-billion infrastructure deficit, is largely ignoring the mineral rich potential of its north.

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Sudbury ready to cash in [on mining investments] – by Carol Mulligan

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

“If we do the right things, mining can literally help
dig Ontario out of its debt.” (Chris Hodgson, President
and CEO Ontario Mining Association)

Sudbury is well-positioned to benefit from that mining
boom because it has the largest integrated mining complex
in the world and one of the largest nickel-copper
sulphide bodies. (Pierre Gratton, President and CEO,
Mining Association of Canada)

Sudbury stands to benefit from investments in mining operations to the tune of about $5.2 billion in the next five years. That’s a healthy percentage of the $136.4 billion in capital expected to be invested in mining projects throughout Canada from 2012 to 2017.

All of those billions will go into mining projects already in existence, says the president and chief executive officer of the Mining Association of Canada.

That doesn’t include private and public money that may be invested in projects to develop, mine, smelt and transport chromite from the Ring of Fire in northwestern Ontario.

Pierre Gratton was one of two guests who spoke to the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce on Thursday about how the city can benefit from the current up cycle in the metals industry.

China will continue to be a mineral price driver as its econo my continues to grow at double-digit rates. That demand is long-term, with expectations its growth will still be in the 6% to 9% range from 2020-2025.

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OMA President points out a greater potential for mining in Ontario

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Ontario Mining Association President Chris Hodgson presented a positive vision for the future of mining in Ontario at a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce President’s Series Luncheon event today.  Sharing the podium with Mr. Hodgson was Pierre Gratton, President of the Mining Association of Canada.

A sell-out crowd of about 200 attended the gathering, which was held at Bryston’s On The Park in Copper Cliff.  Mr. Hodgson’s remarks were based on the OMA document “Action Plan for Ontario: Taking Advantage of a Critical Window of Opportunity,” which is available on the OMA website www.oma.on.ca. 

This vision sees mining helping all Ontarians achieve greater prosperity and a greener economy with more concerted government support and a deliberate strategy.  Increasingly rapid globalization and urbanization have analysts around the world anticipating unprecedented commodity demand in the next two decades.  For a jurisdiction like Ontario with an enviable geological endowment, this is a call to action.

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NEWS RELEASE: [Sudbury-based] NORCAT Recognized for Outstanding Achievement by NASA

August 25, 2011 – The Northern Centre for Advanced Technology Inc. (NORCAT), has been awarded the NASA Group Achievement Award for outstanding efforts in support of the 2010 International Lunar Surface Operations InSitu resource Utilization Field Test (ILSO-ISRU). Specifically this distinction is awarded in recognition of the quality of results and level of impact on NASA programs, effective management of cost and schedule, customer satisfaction, capacity for future contribution and the development of innovative approaches in responding to unforeseen crises.

In addition to technical contributions such as the drill and sample acquisition system for the NASA RESOLVE lunar water prospector testing and fuel cell system design for the lunar water utilization experiment, NORCAT’s role during this ILSO-ISRU field exercise was as overall field mission lead and coordinator.

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Building human capacity: the Vale solution – by Dick DeStefano (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal- September, 2011)

Dick DeStefano is the Executive Director of Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA). destefan@isys.ca This column was originally published in the September, 2011 issue of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal.

 
Building human capacity: the Vale solution – by Dick DeStefano (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal- September, 2011)

The global mining industry will face a serious problem in the near future acquiring and developing the human potential required to maintain economic viability. We need to find solutions very quickly to solve the problem.

According to the Mining Industry Human Resource Council’s (MiHR) 2010 Canadian Mining Industry Employment and Hiring Forecast report, under the baseline scenario the Canadian mining industry will need to hire approximately 100,000 new workers by the end of 2020. This is the number of workers required to fill newly created positions and to meet replacement demand as workers retire or leave the mining industry.

Australia shows a similar trend, with skilled jobs in the mining industry doubling within the next 10 years to 215,000. In 2005, the U.S. Society of Mining Engineers reported that 58 per cent of industry workers were over the age of 50.

Northern College and other educational institutions in northeastern Ontario are making attempts through their academic programs to solve the problem.

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Staying the course [Vale’s Sudbury investments] – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – August 10, 2011)

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. hcarmichael@thesudburystar.com

“There is no doubt we have one of the best mining supply and service sectors here today. … Having one of this level in our backyard gives us a significant advantage, especially when
circumstances require us to be nimble. … We will have a new copper strategy to respond
to increasing global demand in foreign countries. … Sudbury will play a pivotal role, including the Victor and Capre properties …” (Steve Wood – Vale Vice-president Mining and Milling North Atlantic Operations, August 9, 2011)

The turmoil in the markets in recent days and the debt crisis in the United States won’t derail Vale’s plans for its Greater Sudbury operations, a senior company official said Tuesday. “We are staying the course,” Steve Wood told members of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply & Service Association at the group’s monthly meeting Tuesday. “We have our vision to be the biggest and the best (global mining company) and these projects have built up well situationally, as well.

“We don’t see any changes.” Wood is Vale’s vice-president of mining and milling for its North Atlantic operations. A Greater Sudbury native, Wood provided a 20-minute update of the global mining company’s plans for its Greater Sudbury operations.

In a scrum with reporters following his presentation, Wood reiterated that the bad economic news won’t affect the company’s Greater Sudbury operations or planned projects.

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ACCENT: Inside-out city [economic challeges of Sudbury geography] – by Mike Whitehouse (Sudbury Star – July 30, 2011)

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. mwhitehouse@thesudburystar.com 

The mining supply and service industry evolved on its own … In Sudbury, this sector
employs 13,800 people and generates $3.94 billion in economic activity…. Under the
radar, this rag-tag group of largely family-run fabricators, welders, communications
experts, technologists, engineers and suppliers spread across the city have taken
on a life of their own. These businesses share common causes and face common
challenges. They have developed their own networks, working relationships and de
facto strategies designed to meet these challenges. And, at least in the beginning,
they did so without encouragement or help from anyone.
(Mike Whitehouse – July 30, 2011 – Sudbury Star)

Look at a Google satellite map of northeastern Ontario, down onto a landscape without labels. The most visible feature is a wide, grey scar to the south cut into the Canadian Shield. Free of political boundaries, this is how the world knows Sudbury.

Zoom in a little closer and Greater Sudbury appears as a gormless sea of blobs, shapes and lines, islands adrift in the deep green Boreal forest. Look down on most Ontario cities and you’ll see patterns emerge. Confined urban matrixes with patches of remna nt forest and wetlands inside. From above, these cities define themselves. They have beginnings and ends.

Greater Sudbury is the opposite. It is nothing more than patches of development cut out of the endless Boreal forest, arbitrarily confined to borders that climb like a staircase to the northeast. It’s like taking any other city and turning it inside-out, and wondering why it doesn’t look right.

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Greater Sudbury Development Corporation – Canadian Business Journal (April, 2011)

Canadian Business Journal

The Greater Sudbury region is an important part of Northern Ontario. This picturesque area is abundant in resources–and revenue. The Greater Sudbury Development Corporation is an organization in place to help those important local businesses grow and prosper, as well as attract, assist, and retain other potential investors. Sudbury is known as a mining town, and is tipped to benefit even further from the up-and-coming global mining boom. As the mining sector flourishes, Sudbury is steadily diversifying its economy and building on its previous success. This issue, The Canadian Business Journal explores the successful developments that have occurred over the last few years in this Northern Ontario paradise.

Greater Sudbury is the largest city in Northern Ontario, and the region is a hub for industry, commerce, health services, transportation, retail, government services and education. With a valuable market of about 450,000 people within a 250 kilometre radius, Greater Sudbury boasts the highest retail sales per capita of census metropolitan areas in Ontario. It is also the most culturally diverse city in Northern Ontario, with bilingualism sitting impressively around 40 per cent.

Mining: the backbone of Sudbury

Mining, of course, is the major industry in Sudbury and numerous major mining companies have successful sites in Sudbury and have been incremental in the economic growth of the city. There are 18,000 people employed by the companies involved in the sector, across many areas including mine development and operations, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and environmental rehabilitation.

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Mining activity near Sudbury, Ontario keeps construction firms busy – by Saul Chernos

Daily Commercial News and Construction Record

Talk about construction and many people automatically think downtown and high-rise. But in fact it’s the polar opposite hundreds of kilometres north of Ontario’s industrial heartland, where some of the biggest projects go in the opposite direction, plunging close to three kilometres towards the Earth’s inner core.

It’s this environment that’s home to northern Ontario’s red-hot multi-billion-dollar mining and mining-construction sectors.

While revenues in Ontario from mining operations were pegged at roughly $10 billion last year, sales of related supplies and services rang in at $5.3 billion and could reach $6 billion this year, says Dick DeStefano, executive director of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA).

“The mining supply and service industry is being pushed fairly dramatically by a number of new explorations and expansions in northern Ontario,” DeStefano says.

Sales figures include actual supplies and services that don’t fit neatly into a construction umbrella, but the rise in activity is keeping construction-related firms busy building everything from roads and housing, to headframes and tunnels.

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Innovation in hard rock mining alive and well in Northern Ontario – Dick DeStefano (May 2011 – Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal)

Dick DeStefano is the Executive Director of Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA). destefan@isys.ca This column was originally published in the June, 2011 issue of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal.

In the past weeks and months, it has become evident that the mining sector is on a continuous upswing.  There is a general consensus that we are only at the midpoint of a super cycle in commodities and much needed mining products and services.

I was impressed during the recent Canadian federal election campaign to read and hear a much-awaited acknowledgement about the importance of Northern Ontario’s mining cluster from Michael Ignatieff, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Ignatieff said “One of the great things about Northern Ontario — you see it everywhere – is that this is a part of the world that has absolutely world-class expertise in mining technology, mining research and mining science. And we mustn’t lose that.”

It has been a bit of a struggle over the past few years to inform and motivate government agencies and others that there is a major cluster of innovative mining supply and service companies situated in Northern Ontario. This cluster consists of world leaders in producing goods and services that are innovative and adaptable to the increased demands for efficiencies required by mines to reduce costs and operating expenses.

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Push area’s [Sudbury’s] expertise, official suggests [for Ring of Fire business] – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – May 18, 2011)

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. This article was published on May 18, 2011. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

Cities like Greater Sudbury looking to benefit from the Ring of Fire should market their soft skills such as their knowledge base and skilled workforce, and not just “hard infrastructure” to companies developing the massive deposit.

Communities throughout Northern Ontario are looking to capitalize on development of the 5,120-square-kilometre deposit of chromite, nickel, copper, zinc, gold and kimberlite located about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

The co-ordinator of the Ring of Fire Secretariat, Christine Kaszycki, spoke to members of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday about progress in developing the resource and how businesses might get involved.

Kaszycki, who heads the secretariat established by the Ministry of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry last year, presented a high-level overview of the status of the Ring of Fire development.

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NEWS RELEASE: Canadian Mining Technology May Extend Future Space Missions [Sudbury NORCAT]

About NORCAT

The Northern Centre for Advanced Technology Inc. (NORCAT) is a not-for-profit, non-share incorporated company based in Sudbury, Ontario Canada. NORCAT has been developing space mining equipment since 1999, with the primary focus on a drilling unit for subsurface exploration. http://www.norcat.org.

SUDBURY, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – May 4, 2011) – The Northern Centre for Advanced Technology Inc. (NORCAT), under Canadian Space Agency contract, is developing innovative drilling technology which will shape the future of Canada’s contribution to future space missions. This project supports Canada’s role in the Global Exploration Strategy as a key component of the utilization of planetary resources for mission support.

The requirement for mining activity on the moon or near earth objects in support of robotic and human activity is paramount. In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is the process of using existing resources to produce valuable elements in space, such as oxygen and water. NORCAT’s expertise in microgravity mining leads the way in pioneering future space exploration missions.

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[Northern] Ontario [Mining] Suppliers Explore New Horizons – by Russell A. Carter, Managing Editor – Engineering and Mining Journal

Engineering and Mining Journal is a monthly publication that highlights information about new mining equipment, technology, and techniques. This article was published February 10, 2011.

Offering mining equipment and services ranging from basic ‘big iron’ to high tech, companies in the Sudbury/North Bay/Timmins area are taking a hard look at export-market opportunities

Canada’s Northern Ontario, a region larger than France and Germany combined—representing about 90% of the land area of the entire province, but containing only a small fraction of its people—is geographically distant from most population centers but is solidly emplaced in the nexus of world-class mining districts that form the backbone of the global minerals industry.

The region’s Sudbury Basin is host to one of the world’s largest deposits of nickel and copper, and offers such favorable prospects for additional mineral wealth that it has attracted billions of investment dollars from both Canadian and international mining giants such as Brazil’s Vale (Vale Ltd., formerly Inco) and Switzerland’s Xstrata plc (Xstrata Nickel, formerly Falconbridge).

The dollars continue to flow in. The Ontario Mining Association reports that Vale plans to invest $3.4 billion in its Sudbury area operations, including $200 million to upgrade the Clarabelle mill, $360 million to bring the Totten mine into production and up to $2 billion on an Atmospheric Emissions Reduction (AER) project to cut sulphur dioxide emissions by 80%. Quadra FNX intends to spend $200 million on Sudbury area expansions and North American Palladium, north of Thunder Bay, is sinking $270 million into an expansion of the Lac des Iles mine.

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