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Ontario Mining

Lake Shore rocks the boat on Temex, Oban – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – July 17, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

New offer upsets junior multi-merger.

It seems some Temex shareholders were near prescient in spurning Oban Mining. As noted in these pages, back in early June Oban Mining – a vehicle backed by some heavy hitters on the Canadian mining scene – made waves with a rather rare kind of offer: a merger with four other junior exploration companies with cash and/or exploration assets.

The deal involved arrangements with Eagle Hill Exploration, Temex Resources, Ryan Gold and Corona Gold. The former two have smallish, but high-grade gold resources, while the latter two mostly have cash.

In this, there was strong support in favour of the Oban proposition by Eagle Hill, Ryan Gold and Corona shareholders with lock-up share agreements covering 57%, 29% and 45% of their respective share counts.

But Temex was another case. As one analyst noted on a conference call around the time of the deal’s announcement last month, only 1% of Temex shareholders agreed to lockup in the Oban deal. Pitiful, really. Indeed, one disgruntled shareholder noted on that same call that the premium Temex would get in the deal (via shares in Oban) was less than the other juniors were getting.

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Filmmaker goes home to document Red Lake mining life – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 30, 2015)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

Abudding Toronto filmmaker has paid an artistic and captivating tribute to his hometown of Red Lake with the release of his first feature-length documentary.

Cliff Caines’ 78-minute film, “A Rock and a Hard Place,” is a nostalgic and critical portrait of a resource-dependent town built upon some of the world’s richest gold deposits.

Under the umbrella of his production company, Headframe Films, the documentary received an honourable mention at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver this past May.

The catalyst for the project was in 2010 when he got wind of rumours that Goldcorp was evaluating the possibility of digging up entire subdivisions of Balmertown, a small community within Red Lake where he grew up, to convert the land into a huge open pit.

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Ring of Fire: Bring on the mining Marshall Plan (Part 2 of 2) – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – July 13, 2015)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part story.

Roads, the best way to find new deposits

One of the first priorities is road transportation. Last March at the PDAC mining convention, the federal and provincial governments jointly announced roughly $800,000 in funding for four of the five isolated First Nations – Webequie, Nibinamik, Neskantaga and Eabametoong – to begin consultations on an east-west road that will connect their communities and the Ring of Fire camp to the provincial highway system. A small baby step of progress.

However, Marten Falls is currently not part of this initiative. While this community is the smallest populated of the Matawa Tribal Council, it probably has the most clout as its traditional territory encompasses the Ring of Fire. Although Webequie is considerably closer to the mining camp, it didn’t receive full-reserve status until 2001. Hence it is critical that Martin Falls be strongly encouraged to join the consortium discussing the road connection.

Manitoba is currently undertaking a visionary initiative to build all-season roads on the east side of Lake Winnipeg (which has similar Canadian Shield geography as in Northwestern Ontario) to connect isolated First Nations communities. The primary reason for the establishment of the East Side Transportation Initiative is to lower travel costs for essential supplies to 13 Aboriginal communities. In addition, winter roads are becoming less dependable due to climate change.

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Accent: Bring on the mining Marshall Plan (Part 1 of 2) – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – July 11, 2015)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Editor’s Note: This is first installment of a two-part story. The second will appear in the Monday edition of The Star.

There has been much commentary about healing and rapprochement with Canada’s First Nations due to the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on the horrific abuse Aboriginal children experienced at residential schools during the last century.

However, if Ontario, which has the largest population of First Nations people in the country, truly wants to make amends for the sins of the past, then we need to look at “economic and social reconciliation” as our primary vehicle for restitution.

Until every First Nation community in the province has the same level of infrastructure and social services as non-Aboriginal towns and cities, most of the remorseful speeches by guilty white politicians are nothing more than hot air.

Without a doubt, some of the most destitute and impoverished First Nations communities are located in Ontario’s mineral-rich but isolated northwest, near the Ring of Fire – the most significant Canadian mineral discovery in almost a century – and in the regions to the west.

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We’ll manage mining, thanks – Editorial (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – July 8, 2015)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

Southern Ontario environmental groups should lobby more extensively in their own backyard before briefly flying over and criticizing development in ours.

Last week, Toronto-based Wildlands League said that mining exploration in the Ring of Fire has already caused damage to the Far North’s ecosystem. It released aerial photos showing exploration activity — rudimentary mining camps and a runway.

Wildlands claims that the photos challenge the idea of mining exploration having little impact on the area. What would Wildlands have exploration companies do — drop their employees into the bush by helicopter to sleep on the ground and conduct staking operations without cutting a single tree? The “impact” is a minor intrusion on a massive area of the Far North.

Meanwhile, one has only to look at the constant expansion of urbanization north of Toronto to see what new housing and strip malls can do for the environment — destroy it. The steady advance of development has gobbled up thousands of acres of once productive farmland and wildlife habitat.

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Salt mine keeps Goderich alive, ‘youthful’ (CBC News Canada – July 7, 2015)

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

Harsh winters boost demand for mineral spread on roads, sidewalks

Deep under Lake Huron, five kilometres from shore, miners work in a cloud of fine particles, the beams from their headlamps piercing the darkness. The rooms and tunnels they have dug out are huge, the ceilings 20 metres from the floor.

Trucks load and scurry about, tipping their loads of freshly mined salt into crushers connected to long, fast-moving conveyor belts.

Some 500 people work in this mine in Goderich, Ont., exploiting a massive and almost pure deposit that is the small town’s ace in the hole.

“There is salt underground in this seam for 100 years of mining, ” said Gerry Rogers, the Compass Minerals executive in charge of the operation. “It will last a long time.”

The company says the salt mine in Goderich, a town about 100 kilometres northwest of London, is the largest in the world. And business is good.

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[Hard-Line] Underground connection – by Katelyn Spidle (CIM Magazine – June/July 2015)

https://www.cim.org/en.aspx

Communication is key in underground mines, and wireless local area networks (WLAN) are connecting miners and their tools to the Internet to allow them to share and retrieve data efficiently, without interference.

In 1999 Hard-Line – a Sudbury-based heavy equipment remote control supplier – tested wireless technology in Falconbridge’s Craig mine. Hard-Line was using Aironet technology, now part of Cisco Systems, to develop new communications solutions for the mining industry.

Its key focus was to discover how wireless technology, relatively new at the time, could improve the safety and security of workers. In the end, the project also revealed wireless technology to be cost-effective, efficient and reliable.

“In the early 2000s we approached one of the larger companies and we showed them this technology; it blew their minds,” said Hard-Line president Walter Siggelkow. “It was everything they had asked for in a communications system.”

Hard-Line has since converted its original network system, the Mine Area Net, to act as the backbone of the company’s Teleop Tele-Remote Control Systems.

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

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Wallbridge Mining reports promising find near Capreol – by Staff (Sudbury Star – July 3, 2015)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Wallbridge Mining Company says it has uncovered what it is calling massive sulfide nickel-copper and platinum group metals mineralization on one of its Sudbury properties.

“The Parkin properties have high quality near-surface exploration targets and also have significant potential at depth evident from the presence of a surface resource and a past producing mine, as well as significant mineralization intersections at depth in the Milnet 1500 Zone,” Marz Kord, president and CEO of Wallbridge, said in a release.

“We are working to attract new partner financing to advance the Parkin properties and in the meantime we add value by further exploration on the properties.” The Parkin properties are located north of Capreol.

Wallbridg said the properties (Parkin, Milnet, CBA Parkin, and Parkin East) cover a 9.4-km strike length of the Parkin Offset dyke, which hosts nickel, copper, and platinum group metals mineralization, including:

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NEWS RELEASE: ALAMOS AND AURICO METALS ANNOUNCE COMPLETION OF MERGER

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – July 2, 2015) – Alamos Gold Inc. (“Alamos”) (TSX:AGI)(NYSE:AGI) and AuRico Metals Inc. (“AuRico Metals”) (TSX:AMI) are pleased to announce the completion of the previously announced arrangement (“Arrangement”) involving Alamos Gold Inc. (a predecessor to Alamos) (“Former Alamos”) (TSX:AGI)(NYSE:AGI) and AuRico Gold Inc. (a predecessor to Alamos) (“Former AuRico”) (TSX:AUQ)(NYSE:AUQ).

Pursuant to the Arrangement, Former Alamos and Former AuRico amalgamated to form Alamos, and certain assets of Former AuRico, including the Kemess project, certain royalties and cash, were transferred to AuRico Metals. Approximately 95.1% of the common shares of AuRico Metals (“AuRico Metals Shares”) were distributed to Former Alamos and Former AuRico shareholders. Following completion of the Arrangement, Alamos holds an equity interest of approximately 4.9% in AuRico Metals.

Under the terms of the Arrangement, each Former Alamos share held was ultimately exchanged for 1 Class A common share of Alamos (“Class A Shares”), US$0.0001 in cash, and 0.4397 AuRico Metals Shares, and each Former AuRico share held was ultimately exchanged for 0.5046 Class A Shares and 0.2219 AuRico Metals Shares. Upon closing, Alamos has approximately 255,505,000 Class A Shares outstanding with Former Alamos and Former AuRico shareholders each owning approximately 50% and AuRico Metals has approximately 118,120,000 shares outstanding with Former Alamos and Former AuRico shareholders each owning approximately 50% of the shares not held by Alamos.

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Exploration not benign, NGO says of Ring of Fire – by Jonathan Migneault – (Sudbury Northern Life  – June 30, 2015)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Wildlands League asks for environmental review process for exploration

An environmental organization based in Toronto says it worries about the environmental restoration in the Ring of Fire after exploration work concludes.

Representatives with Wildlands League, a chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, flew over parts of the Ring of Fire development in northwestern Ontario in March 2015 and took aerial photos of exploration camps in the region.

One image showed more than 25 drill pads – cleared circular areas that host two or three drill holes each – along a one-kilometre stretch of land. In the photo, the drill pads were connected by an horizontal trail cut through the woods, and a series of vertical lines.

“Exploration is a necessary part of the mining cycle, but it’s not benign,” said Anna Baggio, Wildlands League’s director of conservation planning.

Baggio said there is no environmental review process for mining exploration, and has advocated for a regional environmental assessment in the Ring of Fire, that would provide a blueprint for future exploration activities.

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Ring of Fire flyover photos raise concern – by Jeff Labine (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – June 30, 2015)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

A Toronto-based environmental group is claiming mining exploration in the Ring of Fire has already caused damaged to the Far North’s ecosystem.

The Wildlands League, which is a not-for-profit charity, released a series of aerial photos on Monday showing some of the exploration in the Ring of Fire area. The photos were taken last March when the group was heading to a First Nations community for a visit. One of the photos was of Esker Camp, which is about 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, as well as some of the camps that were once held by Cliffs Natural Resources and a runway.

The group claims that the photos challenge the idea of early mining exploration having little impact to the area.

Anna Baggio, the director of conservation planning with Wildlands League, said they have shown the pictures to First Nations advisors and government officials including the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and all have been surprised by what they have seen.

“People haven’t really grasped what’s been going on in the Ring of Fire, even with early explorations,” she said.

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Miners create community with food – by Maureen Arges Nadin (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – June 29, 2015)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

‘Food is one of the only comforts that people have when they are away from home,” says Allan Bedard, manager of Windigo Ventures and Catering.

And he is someone who knows, as his company supplies, plans and prepares nutritious and tasty food to feed and comfort FIFO (fly in fly out) workers at mining camps like Goldcorp’s camp at Musselwhite.

FIFO lifestyle is an occupational reality for many workers in the mining industry who are flown in on a rotational basis from various parts of Northwestern Ontario and other parts of Canada.

And attracting and retaining workers who are facing being away from their families for two weeks at a time can be a challenge. Many FIFO workers will say that when they are away, their co-workers and the people who provide support services at the mine, become their second family. And families generally eat together. This is a dynamic that Bedard understands well.

“It fosters a sense of community when we live with people and share food,” he says.

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NEWS RELEASE: KWG Acquires 100% of Chromium Intellectual Property

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – June 29, 2015) – KWG Resources Inc. (CSE:KWG)(FRANKFURT:KWG6) (“KWG”) has now acquired one hundred percent of the ownership rights in two United States provisional patent applications relating to the production of chromium iron alloys directly from chromite ore, and the production of low carbon chromium iron alloys directly from chromite concentrates (the “Chromium IP”) announced on April 21, 2014.

The vendor assigned its remaining fifty-percent interest in the Chromium IP in exchange for 25 million units of KWG (each, a “Unit”), with each Unit comprising one common share of KWG and one common share purchase warrant of KWG exercisable at a price of $0.10 for 5 years from closing. The Chromium IP includes the right to use these provisional patent applications as the basis for filing additional patent applications in the United States, Canada and elsewhere worldwide.

“With the support recently demonstrated by Minister Rickford and the scientists of Natural Resources Canada it became clear that owning all of this intellectual property now would put us into a better situation for further investment into testing and commercialization,” said KWG President Frank Smeenk. “It was very encouraging to learn that our national government was so well-informed on the economic potential of the Ring of Fire chromite resources and the reduction technology that we are developing, in workshops held in Ottawa last week.”

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AUDIO: Mining exploration causing permanent damage in Ring of Fire, Wildlands League says – by Jody Porter (CBC News Thunder Bay – June 29, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay

Environmental group takes photos to show landscape is ‘disturbed and disrupted’

Photos released Monday by the Wildlands League are proof that mining activity is causing permanent damage in a fragile ecosystem in northern Ontario, according to the environmental group.

The pictures of a snowy boreal forest patterned with grid lines and pockmarked by drill rig indentations were taken during a March flight across the mineral-rich area, known as the Ring of Fire, in the James Bay lowlands.

The images challenge the idea that early mining exploration is benign, said Wildlands League director of conservation planning, Anna Baggio.

“I don’t think people fully grasp how much activity has happened just at the exploration stage and what is being done to the land here,” Baggio said. “If all the claims were to be developed at a similar level of intensity, it would modify the entire landscape.”

Nearly two dozen companies hold claims, spending more than $278 million on exploration in an area that has yielded “significant discoveries” of chromite, nickel and copper-zinc, according to the province’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.

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