Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 299

‘A sitting duck’: Guyana Goldfields’ founder frets miner has become takeover target, launches proxy battle – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – January 11, 2019)

January 11, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

In a sign of the increased shareholder activism creeping into the mining sector, the ousted founder of Toronto-headquartered Guyana Goldfields Inc. has launched a campaign to replace the company’s current board of directors.

On Thursday, Patrick Sheridan, Guyana Goldfield’s founder, who is leading the campaign to replace the board, announced his legal counsel sent a letter to the Toronto Stock Exchange this week, requesting it monitor any transaction made by the company in coming months.

The campaign follows a successful effort by U.S. billionaire John Paulson in 2018 to replace the board at Detour Gold Corp., and an ongoing effort announced in December by a shareholder in Hudbay Minerals Inc. to replace a majority of that company’s board.

Barrick Gold’s new CEO dismisses debate over whether company will remain Canadian as ‘hysteria’ – by Danielle Bochove (Financial Post/Bloomberg – January 10, 2019)

January 11, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

Barrick Gold Corp.’s new chief executive is surprised by the “hysteria” over whether the world’s largest gold miner will remain a Canadian company.

Barely a week after his Channel Islands-based Randgold Resources Ltd. merged with Barrick, Mark Bristow says he’s determined to keep the global miner headquartered in Toronto — or at least as committed as he is to any head office.

“Mining industries have to catch up with the reality of the times,” Bristow said in a phone interview from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he maintains a home. “We can’t sit in this massive corporate office — this old tradition — trying to run an organization that’s global by remote control.”

Vancouver miners merge to lead exploration in Mexico – by Staff (Mining.com – January 8, 2019)

January 10, 2019

http://www.mining.com/

Defiance Silver Corp (TSX-V: DEF) and ValOro Resources (TSX-V: VRO) have created a combined company that keeps the name Defiance Silver Corp., following a friendly merger under the Business Corporations Act of the Canadian province of British Columbia.

In a media statement, the Vancouver-based miners describe Defiance Silver Corp as “a leading diversified explorer with an advanced portfolio of Mexican silver and gold projects.”

The new firm is trading under the symbol DEF, has approximately 120.07 million common shares outstanding, of which shareholders of Defiance own 86.07% and the former shareholders of ValOro own approximately 13.92%.

Klondike Kate: Shaaw Tláa, part of the prospectors group who kicked off the Yukon gold rush, is finally recognized for essential role in Canada’s mining history – by Jordan Faries (CIM Magazine – January 10, 2019)

January 10, 2019

http://magazine.cim.org/en/

Shaaw Tláa – also known as Kate Carmack – was an often overlooked but essential part of the prospecting group that kicked off the historic Klondike Gold Rush. Carmack was the rumoured discoverer of the first nugget of Yukon gold and became, for a time, the wealthiest Indigenous woman in America, but was nearly forgotten by the industry she had a central role in launching.

Carmack was nominated to the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame (CMHF) in October, almost two decades after the four male members of her prospecting party that made the discovery were recognized.

The induction, which places her on equal footing with the other four and acknowledges her as “instrumental” to the expedition’s success, comes as researchers aim to correct a trend of underrepresentation of the contributions of Indigenous women to Canada’s mining history.

Kirkland Lake council reminds province of its campaign pledge to share resource revenue – by Eric White (CBC News Sudbury – January 10, 2019)

January 10, 2019

https://www.cbc.ca/

PCs pledged between $20 and $30 million in resource revenue for northern communities

Resource revenue sharing was a hot topic for provincial leaders swinging through the north during the Ontario election last spring. The NDP pledged to give all $41 million in annual provincial mining tax revenue to First Nations.

The Progressive Conservatives promised to give First Nations, cities and towns in the north a cut of the provincial revenue from all resource industries, worth between $20 and $30 million every year.

“They’re going to get a fair percentage of the revenues and we’re going to look out for the people of the north,” now Premier Doug Ford said in an interview with CBC during the 2018 election campaign.

Politics and plans that got most everything wrong led to LNG protests – by Terry Glavin (National Post – January 10, 2019)

January 10, 2019

https://nationalpost.com/

Blame those obstreperous Wet’suwet’en people all you like, but it was governments avoiding tough questions that caused this mess

There may be no right way to do fossil-fuel megaprojects at all anymore if we’re going to have a hope in hell of meeting our 2015 Paris climate accord commitments, but as far as the massive LNG Canada Kitimat plant and pipeline project goes — with the showdown this week on a remote British Columbia back road that immediately escalated into protests and marches and sit-ins across the country — the politics, promises and planning seem to have gotten just about everything wrong.

You could start with the way Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cheered LNG Canada’s announcement last October that the green light LNG got from B.C.’s NDP government meant full steam ahead for its long-planned $40-billion project, which is to include a new pipeline from Dawson Creek in the Peace River country to a liquefaction plant and export facility at Kitimat on the B.C. coast.

“Today’s announcement by LNG Canada represents the single largest private-sector investment project in Canadian history,” Trudeau said. “It is a vote of confidence in a country that recognizes the need to develop our energy in a way that takes the environment into account, and that works in meaningful partnership with Indigenous people.”

Five base metal projects underway in the Yukon – by Brian Sylvester (Northern Miner – January 9, 2019)

January 10, 2019

Northern Miner

Mining chatter in the Yukon these days is all about the yellow metal. It’s been that way for at least 10 years, according to geologist Mike Burke, who spent more than 20 years working for the Yukon Geological Survey before moving to the private sector.

“People were having a hard time in 2008, and then along came Kinross and bought Underworld Resources. That started an area play,” Burke recalls. Now headlines echo the shift toward the Yukon’s second gold rush. Victoria Gold (TSXV: VIT) is hurriedly building Eagle, the biggest gold mine in the history of the territory.

Goldcorp (TSX: G; NYSE: GG), fresh on the heels of a recent agreement with the Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation, is seeking to wrap up permitting this year at the 5 million oz. Coffee gold project, which should reach commercial production by 2021, in the White Gold district.

B.C. pipeline protesters say they’ll obey injunction to end blockade – by Justine Hunter, Brent Jang and Alastair Spriggs (Globe and Mail – January 10, 2019)

January 10, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Protesters blocking access to the site of a proposed natural gas pipeline in the British Columbia Interior say they will comply with a court injunction by Thursday afternoon and give access to construction workers, days after the RCMP arrested 14 people.

“For now, there is a peaceful resolution,” Jeff Brown, one of the five hereditary clan chiefs within the Wet’suwet’en Nation, said in an interview on Wednesday night. “The injunction said to grant access, so if we grant access, that should be good enough,” said Mr. Brown, who also goes by Madeek.

He cautioned that the timing of complying with the injunction will hinge on a meeting between the RCMP and Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders on Thursday morning. Mr. Brown made the comments after hereditary leaders of the Wet’suwet’en announced the concession at a news conference near the site of the blockade.

Chile’s Collahuasi plans resource sharing with Canada’s Teck Resources – by Fabian Cambero (Reuters Canada – January 9, 2019)

January 10, 2019

https://ca.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Chile’s Collahuasi copper mine is talking to Canada’s Teck Resources Ltd (TECKb.TO) about resource-sharing as the two companies embark on ambitious expansion projects, its Chief Executive Jorge Gomez said on Wednesday.

Collahuasi – owned by Glencore (GLEN.L) and Anglo American (AAL.L) – is seeking “synergies” with companies with operations close to its own mine in the Tarapaca area on the border with Bolivia, Gomez said, principal among them Teck.

These include sharing pipe and power lines and maritime facilities, as well as potentially sharing desalinated water in an area where water shortages are increasingly becoming an issue, he added.

Court ruling to grant First Nations a much bigger cut of resources royalties in Ontario – by Sean Fine (Globe and Mail – January 5, 2019)

January 9, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Forty thousand members of 23 First Nations communities in Northern Ontario have been receiving $4 a person each year from the Crown for ceding rights over a resource-rich territory about the size of France under 1850 treaties.

The Indigenous groups filed a court challenge against the Crown, saying the $4 annuity did not reflect the spirit of the treaties. And now a judge – after an exhaustive examination of the history of the treaties – has ruled that the signatories intended that the annuities should grow to allow the First Nations to share the growth in revenues governments receive from resource companies in the territory.

Wiikwemkoong Chief Duke Peltier, who was involved in the case, said the ruling shows that the courts are pushing government to “place our people back to the way we once were, that is as true partners in the development of this country, living together in harmony.” He described the $4 annuity as barely enough to buy a coffee in Toronto.

Chamber of mines voices industry concerns to Yellowknife city council – by Michael Hugall (CBC News Canada North – January 8, 2019)

January 9, 2019

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

‘Without investment the mining industry will die,’ says chamber of mines president

The City of Yellowknife was given a grim update on the state of the territory’s mining industry during a Governance and Priorities Committee meeting on Monday afternoon. Tom Hoefer, executive director of the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines, says the future looks bleak.

“The minerals industry in the North is not healthy at this time and that will have effects on the city,” said Hoefer. “This is the time when the industry is maturing… they [the city] can actually help sustain the industry.”

Specifically, that help would come in the form of lobbying the territorial government for lower power costs. Companies that once established mines in the Northwest Territories are pulling out of the area, said Hoefer. He cited high power costs and unsettled land claims as the main reasons for this.

Making the case for investing in Barrick Gold – by David Berman (Globe and Mail – January 9, 2019)

January 9, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Now that Barrick Gold Corp. has completed its merger with Randgold Resources Ltd., investors will need to see evidence that the combined company can navigate a thorny issue: Does Barrick’s shift toward African-based mines raise the geopolitical risks for a company that used to be defined by its stable locales?

The deal between Barrick and Randgold, announced last September and finalized on Jan. 1, comes amid a much-needed jolt for the gold sector.

Gold producers had fallen out of favour in recent years, as the price of gold declined 32 per cent since 2011 amid paltry new discoveries and rising production costs. And with interest rates on the rise in the United States over the past two years, gold’s attractiveness as a haven next to yield-bearing fixed income investments, including ultrasafe U.S. Treasury bonds, had been sidelined.

Imperial Metals suspends operations at Mount Polley mine because of declining copper prices (Canadian Press – January 7, 2019)

January 8, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Imperial Metals Corp. says it is suspending operations at its Mount Polley mine in south-central British Columbia due to declining copper prices.

The gold and copper mine was the site of a 2014 tailings dam collapse that was one of the largest environmental disasters in the province’s history. Imperial Metals said in a news release Monday that the suspension plan includes milling of low grade stockpiles which is expected to extend operations to the end of May 2019.

There will be no impact to the mine’s ongoing environmental monitoring and remediation program, it said. “Full operations will resume once the economics of mining at Mount Polley improve,” it said.The company did not immediately respond to a request for more details, including how many jobs would be affected by the suspension of operations at the mine northeast of Williams Lake, B.C.

Deep in a Panama Rainforest, First Quantum Bondholders Spy Prize – by Paula Sambo and Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – January 8, 2019)

January 8, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/

First Quantum Minerals Ltd. is poised to fire up a giant copper project in Panama, thousands of miles from its beleaguered mines in Zambia. For bondholders, that’s a welcome distance.

The Canadian copper company is ramping up production at the Cobre Panama plant this year, even as a mining tax hike forces it to shed jobs and cut production at its Zambian facilities. With Panama slated to become a more prominent place of operations, bondholders should benefit as Panama’s stronger credit rating feeds into the debt’s prices, First Quantum President Clive Newall said in an interview.

Where First Quantum does significant business matters to bondholders who closely follow risks associated with lending to companies operating in that particular country. Panama has an investment-grade rating, while Zambia is ranked more deeply into junk.

Celebrating a century of mining at Yukon – by Anne Turner (nee Lewis) and Lindsay Wilson (Northern Miner – January 8, 2019)

January 8, 2019

Northern Miner

http://www.yukonminingalliance.ca/

http://www.yukonwim.ca/index.html

Anne Turner (nee Lewis) is the executive director of the Yukon Mining Alliance (YMA). Lindsay Wilson is communications manager at YMA.

It was finding gold at Rabbit Creek and along the riverbeds of the Klondike that forever changed one of the world’s final frontiers — the Yukon Territory — and cemented the region’s roots as an inspiring Canadian mining district.

Yukon’s rich mining history continues to provide exciting discoveries, varied commodities and significant opportunities for northerners and investors alike. As we kick off 2019, we reflect on our history and the last year that has proved — through achievements, advancements and accolades — that Yukon is a mining district to follow and to celebrate.

In 1896, a hundred-thousand stampeders journeyed north, following the news of “Gold, gold, gold!” and “The Klondike gold rush begins” in papers from Seattle to San Francisco. Kate and George Carmack, Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie and Robert Henderson discovered placer gold at Rabbit Creek (later renamed Bonanza Creek) on Aug. 26.