Gold and Silver – Page 131 – Republic of Mining

INTERVIEW: Agnico’s Sean Boyd says Meliadine on track to produce in Q2 2019 – by Trish Saywell (Canadian Mining Journal – July 19, 2018)

July 20, 2018

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Agnico Eagle Mines hosted a site visit in late June to its advanced-stage Meliadine gold project in Nunavut, which is expected to start production in the second quarter of 2019 — about three months sooner than initially planned.

Meliadine is Agnico’s largest gold deposit in terms of resources (3.1 million measured and indicated ounces and 2.7 million inferred ounces) and is expected to produce about 170,000 oz. gold in 2019 and about 385,000 oz. gold in 2020.

The high-grade project, 25 km from Rankin Inlet near the western shore of Hudson Bay, is part of a strategic operating platform that the gold miner is building in Nunavut, where its Meadowbank mine, 300 km west of Hudson Bay, is expected to produce 220,000 oz. gold this year, and where it is also developing Amaruq, a satellite deposit 50 km northwest of Meadowbank.

Canadian divers help find Russian ship that sank 113 years ago – and it could be full of gold – by Tyler Dawson (National Post – July 19, 2018)

July 19, 2018

https://nationalpost.com/

Reports say there were some 5,500 boxes, containing gold coins and bars, aboard Dmitrii Donskoi that would now be worth $170 billion

It took a couple days of scouring the ocean floor, but a team of Canadian explorers with a Vancouver-based undersea technology firm has helped discover a long lost Russian navy ship, sunk 113 years ago, and, according to the rumours, with billions of dollars of gold aboard.

On Tuesday, the Shinil Group in South Korea announced that over the weekend it had found the Dmitrii Donskoi, a czarist-era Russian cruiser that was scuttled following the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, a major naval battle during the Russio-Japanese War.

Phil Nuytten, the founder and president of Nuytco Research Ltd., said his team has plenty of experience diving to wrecks, from the Lusitania — sunk by a German U-Boat off the coast of Ireland in the First World War

Detour Gold warns of ‘fire sale’ in clash with Paulson, as analysts speculate on possible buyers (maybe Barrick) – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – July 19, 2018)

July 19, 2018

https://business.financialpost.com/

Paulson & Co., the U.S. hedge fund that won worldwide recognition for its correct bets on the U.S. housing market prior to the global financial crisis, isn’t backing down in its fight against the management of Toronto-based Detour Gold Corp.

On Thursday, Paulson & Co. announced it plans to call a special shareholder meeting by no later than July 28, when it will ask the rest of the company’s shareholders to oust “a majority” of the company’s board of directors.

The announcement followed a contentious exchange between the two companies a day earlier, in which Detour denied receiving any purchase offers, prompting Paulson & Co. to release an email it said the company’s interim chief executive Michael Kenyon sent that appeared to show otherwise. Paulson & Co. said a lawyer representing Detour on Wednesday threatened litigation against the hedge fund.

Rejection of controversial project ‘a pretty hard blow,’ says Yukon miner (CBC News North – July 19, 2018)

July 19, 2018

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

Second application to mine claims near Judas Creek rejected for Yukon miner

Nicolai Goeppel said he’s ready to throw in the towel after his second attempt to operate a placer mine south of Whitehorse was rejected by the Yukon government. “I really don’t know if it’s worth putting any more money and time into it,” Goeppel said.

Goeppel’s initial application for a placer mine in the Judas Creek area was rejected by the government in 2016, largely because of a potential negative impact on the Carcross caribou herd.

His second application reduced the number of claims to be mined from 45 to 15, the period of mining was reduced from 10 years to five years, and the timing of the operations was adjusted to minimize impact on the caribou.

Paulson & Co says Detour Gold received buyout interest from ‘major mining company’ – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – July 18, 2018)

July 18, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Paulson & Co. says Detour Gold Corp. has been approached by a “major mining company” interested in buying it.

New York-based Paulson, which owns about 5.5 per cent of Detour, is also pressing ahead with its efforts to push for a rehaul of Detour Gold’s board of directors, with the ultimate objective of putting the struggling junior up for sale.

In a press release on Wednesday, Paulson said that Detour’s chief executive officer, Michael Kenyon wrote to the firm and informed it that the junior miner had been approached by a potential acquirer, but that Detour would only sign a confidentiality agreement, if both the company and Paulson, agreed not to push for a rehaul of the board of directors. Paulson said it has no connection with the company in question.

Indonesia mine nationalization shakes top copper producer – by Jun Suzuki (Nikkei Asian Review – July 18, 2018)

July 18, 2018

https://asia.nikkei.com/

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s nationalization of a major copper and gold mine formerly run by U.S. metals company Freeport-McMoRan is a win for Indonesian President Joko Widodo who has been calling for the reclamation of strategic resources. But the lack of agreement over future investments puts one of the world’s biggest sources of the red metal on shaky grounds.

According to the basic agreement reached on Thursday, Freeport and Anglo-Australian peer Rio Tinto will sell their shares in the local joint venture that runs the Grasberg mine to state-owned resources company Indonesia Asahan Aluminum, or Inalum.

Inalum will pay a combined $3.85 billion to the two companies to acquire all of Rio Tinto’s interest and lift its overall stake to 51%. Freeport will hold onto the remaining 49% stake in the operator of the mine in eastern Indonesia’s Papua province. A final deal is expected this year.

Nevsun stock climbs 14% on Lundin’s $1.4B offer, but CEO eyes ‘strategic’ alternatives – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – July 18, 2018)

July 18, 2018

https://business.financialpost.com/

Vancouver-based Nevsun Resources Ltd. on Tuesday urged shareholders to ignore a potential $4.75 cash per share hostile takeover offer from Toronto-based Lundin Mining Corp., and the chief executive has already signalled how his company may respond when an actual offer materializes.

In a press release, Nevsun chief executive Peter Kukielski said “several strategic parties” have expressed interest in participating as it seeks to build its copper-gold mine in Serbia, known as Timok, raising the prospect that his company could sell a stake in the asset, or strike a joint partnership with another company, which would complicate Lundin’s takeover offer.

The proposed deal came back into the news after Lundin Mining on Monday announced it intends to bid approximately $1.4 billion for Nevsun, at $4.75 per share, and plans to release a formal offer by the end of the month. In May, Lundin sought to purchase only Timok, and enlisted Euro Sun Mining Inc. to purchase Nevsun’s other main asset, a zinc-copper mine in Eritrea known as Bisha.

[Alexandria Minerals Proxy Fight] How a penny stock miner came to face a multimillion-dollar problem – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – July 18, 2018)

July 18, 2018

https://www.thestar.com/

It’s tough to get anyone to pay attention when you’re running a four-cent stock. But then the name Sprott Inc. shows up. And Institutional Shareholder Services. And Glass Lewis. And Joe Groia, the lawyer. And Navigator, the crisis management firm. And a wagonload of mud slinging. And a full-on proxy fight with a voting deadline of this week.

All of which leads the reasonable person to ask: what the heck is going on here? The company in question: Alexandria Minerals Inc., a penny miner with dreams of gold. The agitator: geologist and ousted CEO Eric Owens, who founded the company more than a decade ago.

Owens found himself turfed from the firm in February four days after he publicly announced his intention to call a shareholder meeting to remove three board members, in what the chairman of the board calls a “costly and distracting proxy fight.”

Lundin makes another move to buy Nevsun – by Mariaan Webb (MiningWeekly.com – July 17, 2018)

July 17, 2018

http://www.miningweekly.com/

Keen to bring the Timok copper project, in Serbia, into its fold, Canadian firm Lundin Mining has announced that it will take a C$1.4-billion offer directly to Nevsun Resources shareholders, after unsuccessful attempts to engage with the company over the past five months.

Lundin, which earlier this year tried to buy Nevsun in a deal with Canadian junior Euro Sun, is now going at it alone, with a C$4.75 a share cash consideration, which it points out is a 82% premium to the target company’s closing price of C$2.61 a share when it first expressed interest in acquiring Timok.

The offer is also a premium to Nevsun’s closing price of C$4.21 a share on Monday. The prize for Lundin will be the Timok project, which has a probable reserve of 27-million tonnes at an average grade of 3.3% copper and 2.1 g/t gold, containing 0.89-million tonnes of copper and 1.8-million ounces of gold.

The odds are stacked against gold juniors like never before: Abitibi Royalties CEO – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – July 14, 2018)

July 16, 2018

http://www.mining.com/

Huge hurdles are stacked against gold juniors in the quest to become a mine, says Abitibi Royalties’ CEO Ian Ball.

Ball, who spoke to MINING.com in March at PDAC in Toronto, was former President of McEwen Mining before moving onto Abitibi Royalties four years ago. During Ball’s tenure as CEO, the company’s stock has increased 3.1 times in value going from $3.27 per share to $10.44.

Ball sees a lot of headwinds in the industry. He does not see a significant gold price moves to the upside. Average gold grade is declining, which requires larger plants and more capital to move ore. Regulations are becoming more stringent. Productivity improvements are still lagging.

The Nugget Effect. What is it, and how to recognize it. – by Andrew Watson (Geology For Investors – July 2018)

July 16, 2018

https://www.geologyforinvestors.com/

Andrew Watson is the principal of Anterrra Consulting, which provides strategic advice, project generation, investor relations services and digital data management services to clients in Mining, Junior Exploration and Oil and Gas.

One of the first things to recognize in the mining industry, is that all that glitters may not be gold. I’m not talking about the time the CEO of a junior exploration company picked up drill core freshly drilled from the corebox and called a zone of pyrite the best core he’d ever seen (it was if you like shiny things).

No, this is nature playing tricks on us. The core will assay 44 kilos of gold per tonne in 1 metre and 0.1 g/t per tonne the next. What’s even more frustrating, from the authors own personal experience, is when core is first assayed by one technique and then re-assayed by another and the gold disappears.

World’s Gold Melting Away, Mining Experts Warn – by Zoe Papadakis (NewsMax.com – July 13, 2018)

July 13, 2018

https://www.newsmax.com/

The world’s gold is melting away, mining experts have warned, and soon all our supplies could be depleted. Many have forecast that within a year we could hit “peak gold,” the maximum rate of global gold extraction, with discoveries in gold declining thereafter, The Daily Mail noted.

This has been a longstanding concern that has surfaced in the past, however it seems as if D-day is fast approaching.

Chuck Jeannes, chief executive of one of the world’s largest gold mining companies, Goldcorp, previously told The Wall Street Journal that a falloff in gold supply could support the gold price, however, it would make mining harder. This, he said, would ultimately lead to further consolidation in the industry.

Indonesia to pay $3.85 billion for majority stake in Freeport’s Grasberg copper mine – by Wilda Asmarini and Bernadette Christina Munthe (Reuters U.S. – July 11, 2018)

July 12, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia on Thursday struck an agreement with Freeport-McMoRan Inc and Rio Tinto to buy a controlling stake in the world’s second-biggest copper mine via a series of transactions valued at $3.85 billion.

The heads of agreement establishes a structure for Indonesia, through its state-owned mining holding company PT Inalum, to gain control of the Grasberg mine located in the country’s eastern province of Papua. The deal should cap years of wrangling over the rights for the site as Jakarta seeks to gain greater control over its mineral wealth.

Last August, the two sides agreed to let Freeport (FCX.N) keep operating the mine possibly until 2041 while ceding control over its local unit, PT Freeport Indonesia.

Detour Gold CEO clashes with discordant shareholder Paulson & Co. – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – July 11, 2018)

July 11, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The interim chief executive officer of Detour Gold Corp. is firing back at dissident shareholder Paulson & Co. and insisting that remaining as a standalone, and not selling the company, is in the best interests of shareholders.

“[A sale] may benefit Mr. Paulson, but the shareholders I talked to aren’t interested,“ Michael Kenyon said in an interview. “We have lots of shareholders. The ones I talk to are interested in the life of mine execution. They see the value in developing a 16-million-ounce resource.”

Mr. Kenyon said he’s spoken to most of the company’s top shareholders and the “vast majority” are supportive of the plan to forge ahead with a costly expansion of its flagship mine in Northern Ontario.

Barrick forges closer ties with Chinese partner in bid to revive South American mine – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – July 9, 2018)

July 9, 2018

https://business.financialpost.com/

Barrick’s deal with Shandong shows how Chinese companies have in recent years stepped up their involvement with Canadian mining companies

Barrick Gold Corp. may be the largest gold miner in the world, but that hasn’t stopped it from asking a state-owned Chinese conglomerate to help in its decades-long quest to dig up a vast gold deposit near the border between Argentina and Chile.

On Monday, the Toronto-based company announced China’s Shandong Gold Group Co. Ltd. will study whether it makes sense to build an open pit, heap leach mine squarely inside Argentina — after Chilean authorities last year ordered the closure of mining activities on its side of the border.

The announcement, which came while Barrick’s senior management team visited China, shows the company’s growing reliance on Shandong as a partner. In April 2017, Shandong paid $960 million and formed a 50/50 joint venture in Barrick’s Veladero gold mine in Argentina, and the two agreed to explore future opportunities together.