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Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications

Romano plans to pen private member’s bill designed to better educate Ontarians – by Elaine Della-Mattia (Sault Star – October 20, 2017)

http://www.saultstar.com/

Sault MPP Ross Romano said he got a hard life lesson during his two-week trip to First Nation communities in Ontario’s far north.

So much so, he said, that he’s already drafting a private member’s bill that he hopes will enlighten Ontarians and provide future generations with a better understanding of how some First Nation communities live. That education also needs to include a better understanding of treaties and how they work and teach youth, at a younger age, to better appreciate relationships with Indigenous people.

“The prejudices and discrimination that exist are very obvious and something that I really learned a lot about by spending time in these communities,” Romano told The Sault Star. “I was told I may be the only politician that has ever spent a night in these communities.”

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One millionth ounce of gold poured at Tahoe’s Bell Creek – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – October 19, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

In a ritual that has been performed thousands of times before in Timmins, a brand new gold bar was poured Thursday morning. The shiny ingot, weighing around 55 pounds, was valued at roughly $1.2 million.

For a handful of people in Timmins it might be a common thing, but for Tahoe Canada it signifies that the company made the right moves eight years ago when Lake Shore Gold, now Tahoe Resources, was being created.

The gold bar that was poured at the company’s Bell Creek refinery was the one-millionth ounce of gold that has been produced since the company initiated its Timmins mining complex back in 2009.

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Updated: Vale lays off 21 in Sudbury – by staff (Sudbury Star – October 19, 2017)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale continues to cut its Sudbury workforce. United Steelworkers Local president Rick Bertrand confirmed the Brazilian mining giant had laid off 21 people at its Sudbury operations on Thursday morning. The company made an official announcement around noon.

“This past year has been one of transformation in our Ontario operations,” Angie Robson, manager of corporate affairs for Vale’s Ontario operations, said in an emailed statement. “The ramp down of Stobie Mine and the Clarabelle Mill Crushing Plant, the transition to a single furnace and the closure of the copper circuit in our Smelter means that Ontario operations will produce lower volumes than we have in recent years. While we are smaller today, these decisions have set us up to be much more agile and competitive in the years ahead.

“As a result, today, formal layoff notices were given to 21 production and maintenance employees in accordance with our Collective Agreement with USW Local 6500.”

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The Truth About the Cobalt Crisis: It’s Not a Crisis, Yet – by Jason Deign (Green Tech Media – October 8, 2017)

https://www.greentechmedia.com/

Volkswagen’s failure to secure long-term cobalt supplies has highlighted concerns over one of the most precarious elements in the lithium-ion battery supply chain.

There is sufficient cobalt worldwide to meet foreseeable demand for the mineral, according to Caspar Rawles, an analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. The real question “is whether we can access it quickly enough,” he said.

Volkswagen last month sought to secure a €50 billion ($59 billion) contract to supply enough cobalt for 150 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion battery storage by 2025, which Rawles said could amount to roughly 30,000 tons of the metal a year.

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Western Nunavut to pressure new government on Grays Bay – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – October 18, 2017)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

CAMBRIDGE BAY—The Kitikmeot Inuit Association wants to make sure the Grays Bay Road and Port project remains a top government priority, because the Oct. 30 territorial election could see western Nunavut left out of the territory’s leadership circle.

That’s because two of the Grays Bay project’s biggest champions, Peter Taptuna and Keith Peterson, are not seeking re-election.

The upcoming election could result in “a cabinet that may have quite different priorities than the ones which we have enjoyed under [outgoing] Premier Peter Taptuna,” KIA President Stanley Anablak said Oct. 16 in his president’s report to the annual general meeting of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association in Cambridge Bay.

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Nunavut Inuit call for public hearing on iron mine expansion – by Beth Brown (Nunatsiaq News – October 13, 2017)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

The Qikiqtani Inuit Association and the Hamlet of Pond Inlet have called on the Nunavut Planning Commission to hold a single in-person public hearing in the North Baffin community before the commission considers a land use plan amendment that would allow a new railway and winter shipping route to service the Mary River mine.

The call comes by way of public submissions made to the NPC after Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. submitted a proposed amendment to the land use plan, Aug. 31, for the second phase of its iron ore project.

The amendment asks to construct a 110-km railway along the route of the existing tote road between the mine and the Milne Inlet port and to allow winter icebreaking in Milne Inlet and Eclipse Sound so freight can be shipped in December, January and February.

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Advice from the cutting edge: Expert panel on innovation highlight of CEMI 10th annual general meeting – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – October 16, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The reasons for mining innovation are many, so it made sense to hear from many voices who have made a living from offering it as a service.

The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) held its 10th annual general meeting at Dynamic Earth Sept. 27 to a packed house eager to hear what the consortium had planned for the coming months. Along with board business and updates on new projects and products, the highlight was the panel discussion at the end featuring four people who have made a living offering cutting edge products and services to the industry at home and across the world.

Christine Haas, president of Renix; Chris Novak, president and CEO of Centric Mining Systems; Walter Siggelkow, founder and president of Hard-Line Solutions; and Michael Gribbons, vice-president of sales and marketing at Maestro Digital Mine comprised the panel, offering their insight to questions from moderator Dick DeStefano, executive director of Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA), as well as from the audience.

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Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli ‘excited’ Northern passenger rail has been proposed – by Gord Young (North Bay Nugget – October 13, 2017)

http://www.nugget.ca/

he return of passenger rail service to Northern Ontario is among the many policy proposals Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives will be voting on early next month. “I’m very excited about this proposal,” says Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli, noting the return of a viable passenger rail service is a “key piece” for the North.

He stresses, however, that a “viable plan” is required, noting the Ontario Northland Railway’s former Northlander passenger train is gone. “The Northlander was stripped by the Liberal government,” says Fedeli, suggesting the cars are no longer available and that a new train service be built from the ground up using Northern rail experts.

The provincial Tories have oft been criticized for advocating on issues related to the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) because of a proposal by the Mike Harris government to cancel the Northlander and a subsequent proposal to privatize other divisions of the Crown agency.

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[Jannatec Technologies] Technology for deep underground – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – October 13, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

As early as next spring, Jannatec Technologies could debut the first components of its wearable technology, which will help cool underground miners, monitor their vital signs and enhance their overall health and safety.

A contributor to the Ultra-Deep Mining Network, the Sudbury-based company has been working for three years on the technology that will allow miners to work in mines that descend to 2.5 kilometres or more.

As mines get deeper, temperatures are hotter, miners are more isolated, and it takes longer to ascend to surface. Companies like Jannatec are developing technology to combat the heat, isolation and other challenges miners may encounter.

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Sudbury part of mining ‘supercluster’ proposal – by Staff (Sudbury Star – October 12, 2017)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

A group that includes Sudbury’s Centre of Excellence in Mining Innovation has made the shortlist of groups that could receive funding under the Ottawa’s $950-million “supercluster” program.

The federal government has whittled down its list of finalists from more than 50 proposals to nine, according to a list supplied to the Financial Post by the ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. The supercluster program is part of a sizeable spending push by the Trudeau Liberals to spur Canadian innovation.

Ottawa opened up its bidding process last May, and received proposals from more than 1,000 private companies, business associations and research institutions.

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High-speed Internet, low-grade water – Editorial (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – October 12, 2017)

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/

TOP-OF-THE-LINE Internet service, taken for granted in many other parts of Canada, is coming to the Far North of Ontario. Not all of Northern Ontario is so lucky. The federal and Ontario governments will spend $67 million to install 880 kilometres of fibre-optic cable to five remote First Nation communities surrounding the Ring of Fire mineral zone.

Once mining exploration leads to the major developments to produce chromite and a host of other minerals, reliable high-speed Internet will be seen as the essential service that it is. Nearby First Nations will enjoy enormous improvements in their own ability to grow and develop and participate in the economic boom – once they find a way to negotiate ways into it. The province has forced the issue with plans for an all-season road. Three First Nations are on board; the rest remain undecided.

Ironically, parts of the North’s biggest city, Thunder Bay, and a large swath of the region surrounding it, do not enjoy the same level of Internet reliability. There are customers of TBaytel, the city-owned telecommunications company, that still do not have access to consistent high-speed Internet connections.

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Threatened B.C. mining heritage site gets a new lease on life – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – October 10, 2017)

http://resourceclips.com/

A structure vital to Vancouver Island mining history might not be doomed for destruction after all. The Morden mine headframe and tipple date to 1913 but remain the last significant signs of the Nanaimo region’s coal industry, where British Columbia’s first successful mining began in 1852.

Located on a provincial park in an NDP-voting region, the site had been neglected by B.C.’s previous Liberal government. But on October 6 the new NDP government announced a $25,000 conservation grant.

While encouraging to the volunteer Friends of Morden Mine Society, the money falls far short of the $2.7 million that a previous engineering study estimated necessary for the structure’s preservation. That amount included $500,000 for emergency repairs.

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Finalists gather in the race for graphite production – by Christopher Ecclestone (InvestorIntel.com – October 11, 2017)

https://investorintel.com/

The “Big Beasts” of the Canadian mining scene are neither as evident nor as prominent as they used to be. Some have reconfigured their activities for the new reality of markets since 2011. One of the “Big Beasts” that temporarily disappeared from the scene and has now resurfaced is Sheldon Inwentash.

He is famed for his management of Pinetree Capital which, at its peak, commanded a market cap of over $1 billion and held a rather daunting 400 plus names in its portfolio. Pinetree Capital can be said to be the proto-mining hedge fund in the Canadian space and it revolutionized the resource investment model.

Pinetree veterans are spread across Toronto, churning out deals, raising hundreds of millions of dollars, and managing funds and mining companies themselves. In its heyday Pinetree was famous for having seeded companies such as Queenston Mining (acquired by Osisko Mining Corp. for $550mn), Aurelian Resources (acquired by Kinross for $1.2bn), and Gold Eagle Mines (acquired by Goldcorp for $1.5bn).

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Research opens door to potential northern transport corridor – by Jonathon Naylor (Flin Flon Reminder – October 11, 2017)

http://www.thereminder.ca/

Click here for report: http://bit.ly/2wnKFyR

Flin Flon could figure prominently into an ambitious proposal to open the floodgates to northern Canadian development in the coming decades.The Northern Corridor is envisioned as a coast-to-coast transportation route featuring some 7,000 km of highway, railway and other infrastructure across the northern portion of the country.

The corridor is only an idea at this stage, but a preliminary map shows the passageway would pass right by Flin Flon – potentially spurring significant growth.“There’s certainly a potential that it could become one of the hub cities on [the route],” said Kent Fellows, a professor with the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and a researcher of the proposal.

“One of the next phases of our research is to look where population centres are already, where resources are located and try to figure out, what are the main areas that we can hit? So Flin Flon is definitely on the radar from that perspective.” It’s difficult for Fellows or anyone else to speculate about what impact the corridor could have on Flin Flon and other communities along the route.

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Remote loader invented by former Flonners garners interest – by Christopher L.Istace (Flin Flon Reminder – October 10, 2017)

http://www.thereminder.ca/

A former Flin Flon couple is literally breaking new ground with an invention that is keeping safe miners who are cleaning and loading blast holes in a mine’s rock face. Nine years after establishing their Sudbury, ON-based consulting firm, Rod and Clara Steele received a call from a manager at the nearby Vale Canada’s Coleman nickel mine.

An employee at that site had been killed by a 14-tonne slip of rock that had fallen on him at the mine face, more than 4,200 feet underground. The manager had promised the dead man’s daughter he would do whatever he could to ensure a similar accident would not happen again.

Before then, TesMan was consulting with mines in the design and development of technologies to improve underground mining practices. The company’s team of mining, mechanical and electrical engineers had devised software and equipment to improve industrial safety and productivity.

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