http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Mining Association of Canada (MAC) on Friday said the new federal Budget for 2013 is a mixed bag when it came to its impacts on the Canadian mining industry.

MAC said it was encouraged by the significant new measures announced to address skills shortages, including the establishment of a Canada Job Grant, support for more paid internships, the reduction of barriers in apprenticeship accreditation, the reallocation of funds to promote education in high-demand fields, and funding for Yukon College’s Centre for Northern Innovation in Mining.

The association added the Canadian mining sector appreciated government’s enhanced Aboriginal training-to-employment programmes and a boost in scholarships and bursaries, which is proportionally the largest private sector employer of Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

MAC also welcomed the government’s proposal to provide $37-million over the next two years to support research partnerships with industry through the granting councils.

“As an industry that will require an estimated 145 000 new workers over the next ten years, we are pleased that skills and labour training emerged as a key theme of the federal budget. Read the rest of this entry »

March 22, 2013 09:02 ET

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – March 22, 2013) - The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada applauds the Harper government’s budget announcement of a renewed commitment to the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (METC), as well as key investments in skills training and aboriginal communities.

“The mineral exploration industry is a key driver for our economic recovery and provides critical economic stimulus to some of Canada’s most remote communities,” said Ross Gallinger, PDAC executive director. “The Government of Canada’s support for industry is recognized and appreciated.”

Exploration and mining remain a strategically important sector to the Canadian economy. The industry generates revenue and stimulates growth across the length and breadth of the country, from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland, from Southern Ontario’s salt mines to the metal and diamond mines of the Far North. The sector has a substantial economic impact on our nation’s north and on Aboriginal communities.

“We are pleased that the federal government has demonstrated their support for our sector by renewing the METC. This program has a proven track record of keeping jobs and investment in Canada and will continue to encourage investment in Canadian exploration projects,” said Gallinger. “This is a positive step on behalf of the government to ensure that Canadian companies have access to the financial instruments necessary to remain competitive, particularly given the capital-raising challenges many exploration companies are currently facing.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. Editor John Cumming MSc (Geol) is one of the country’s most well respected mining journalists.jcumming@northernminer.com

The first week of March was dominated by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s mega-convention in Toronto, with 30,147 investors, analysts, mining executives, geologists, government officials, students and international delegations converging in downtown Toronto, just slightly off last year’s record numbers.

The floor was again overwhelming, with more than 10 interesting things going on at any given time for four days straight, and so many people circulating that you could no longer count on just bumping into someone you wanted to meet.

Not bad at all, considering the sharp downturn for junior miners over the past year. Still, the mood was much more sombre than during the giddiest peaks of 2006 and 2011, and a few juniors couldn’t scratch enough money together to buy an airplane ticket and occupy their hard-to-come-by booths.

Lack of funding for juniors was the number-one topic for speakers and delegates. Number two was the dismal share price performances of so many juniors over the last years, as the term “penny stock” has once again become an accurate description of many companies’ shares, rather than a quaint phrase from another era. Read the rest of this entry »

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Barely two hours after sundown on Tuesday, security at Toronto’s swanky new Shangri-La Hotel rushed to the lobby to control the size of a fast-growing crowd. Upstairs, the party was bustling under the chandeliers in the third-floor ballroom, and masses of people were flocking from across the downtown core, creating a capacity problem.

The attraction: PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “crystal cocktail party,” put on for the annual mining conference run by the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada. While Dee Dee and the Dirty Martinis performed live cover songs, swarms of men and a sprinkling of women – a 5-to-1 ratio, at least – treated themselves to oysters, sushi and free drinks. By 8 p.m., they were on the dance floor, doing their very best to find the beat.

The crowd was full of people from different countries, especially the mining hotbeds of Australia, Britain, China and Peru. Despite the chill felt across the global mining sector, they drank and danced like they didn’t care – at least not for the four days they were in town.

It was a spectacle led by the people who lead a troubled industry. Plagued by billions in recent writeoffs from ill-conceived acquisitions and an uncertain outlook for metals prices, mining stocks are in the dumps. Yet it’s hard to subdue PDAC, as the conference is universally called. Read the rest of this entry »

Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) International Convention 2013

March 4, 2013
Toronto, Ontario

Joe Oliver is the Canadian Minister of Natural Resources

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Introduction

Thank you very much Mr. Nolan. [Glenn Nolan, President of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada] I want to congratulate the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada for putting together yet another outstanding conference and trade show.

It’s a pleasure to be here to welcome all of you, especially those coming from other countries from around the world, to the largest event of its kind in the world.

Strength and Stability

From the change in your pocket to the airplane that brought you here today, the evidence of the necessity for minerals and metals is all around. Mining, in fact, has been driving Canada’s economic development for years. In 2011, the sector contributed $63 billion in nominal GDP or 3.9 percent to the total Canadian economy — that’s almost $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

Read the rest of this entry »

 Toronto, March 6, 2013 – The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) is pleased to announce that for a second year in a row over 30,000 people attended the PDAC 2013 International Convention, Trade Show & Investors Exchange. With 30,147 investors, analysts, mining executives, geologists, government officials, students and international delegations, the PDAC Convention remains the world’s premier event for the mineral industry.

“We are so proud of the tremendous success of the PDAC 2013 Convention,” said PDAC Executive Director, Ross Gallinger. “The level of excitement and interest in the mineral exploration and development industry continues to be strong, and the PDAC Convention has once again provided an outstanding program that attracts government, industry, financial institutions and Aboriginal communities to attend.”

Now in its 81st year, the PDAC 2013 Convention is more diverse than ever before. A number of events including the CSR Event Series, Aboriginal Program and Investors Exchange garnered overwhelming support from the general public, reflecting the dynamic nature of our industry. More elected officials attended the convention than in previous years. The role natural resource development plays in the economic sustainability for Aboriginal communities across Canada is evident by the increased interest from the Aboriginal People present. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.mineweb.com/

This year’s PDAC is seeing plenty of visitors, but a dearth of capital which will lead to serious shortages ahead, and ultimately far higher metal and stock prices.

TORONTO (MINEWEB) - I’ve been attending PDAC meetings since the late 1970s and have seen it through a number of major downturns and subsequent recoveries, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a downbeat convention as it is proving to be this year.

What sets it apart is an underlying feeling that this time the downturn may have longer to run.

Even in 2009, following what may have been an even bigger market crash in Q4 2008, there were already signs that the industry might be pulling out of its fall; this time around that optimism is not at all apparent – and this is within a community which is by its very nature a generally optimistic one. If you’re a prospector or a geologist or a miner you have to be an optimist by definition.

It is interesting viewing the local press in this respect. There were indeed comments leading up to the opening of the event that the situation among the TSX-V juniors in particular was so dire that there were almost certainly going to be a big number of no-shows with the companies not going to be able to afford to send personnel, and put them up at the kind of inflated Toronto hotel prices currently prevailing because of the general influx of visitors for one of the bigger events in the Toronto convention calendar. Read the rest of this entry »

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

TORONTO — Everyone agrees that junior mining companies are in a severe crisis. The question is: what should they do about it?

It is a theme that has dominated the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference this year. Working capital is whittling away for hundreds and hundreds of Canadian companies, and they have shown little-to-no ability to replenish it. A culling of the TSX Venture Exchange appears imminent, and few people think that is even a bad idea.

But amid the gloom, there are plenty of experts who believe that capable juniors can get back on their feet and emerge from this bear market in a healthier position.

Speaking at a luncheon presentation, hedge fund magnate Eric Sprott said that too many juniors are taking all the cash flow from their producing mines and putting it into the next one.

“Your market cap will go down,” he said. He argued that the ones who can convert their cash flow to dividends will change their fortunes dramatically. And that will allow them to acquire other companies.

Analyst John Kaiser said that the junior market needs to disconnect from the current situation and simply focus on the future. At this point, investors are using any negative sentiment about the mining sector as an excuse to hammer juniors. Read the rest of this entry »

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

For many junior miners, the question is no longer about whether they can raise money at the PDAC conference this year. The question is how they will even get there.

Using a search engine tool on mining analyst John Kaiser’s website, it appears that a mind-boggling 94 companies with negative working capital are listed exhibitors at the conference.

“I think a lot of them aren’t going to show up,” Mr. Kaiser said. “I don’t know how they can afford to fly to Toronto and pay for the hotels.”

That sums up just how awful the market conditions are for junior mining companies today. Despite relatively healthy commodity prices, they are suffering through a surreal bear market in which risk capital has flowed out of the sector and is simply not available to most of them anymore. They routinely have market values below the cash on their balance sheet, and the idea of spending cash is scary when it is so tough to find any more. Their share prices have been slashed, and are routinely down 90% or more in the past 12 or 18 months.

“You have a horrendous washout in the market where institutional money has departed, and retail money has no interest in it,” said Mr. Kaiser. He figures there are nearly 700 companies on the TSX Venture Exchange with less than $200,000 in their treasuries. All the Venture mining companies combined have raised only $110-million this year, according to Financial Post data. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.mineweb.com/

It can be argued the Chinese need to pay more attention to early stage exploration – otherwise they leave the field open to others committed to the long game in minerals and metals.

TORONTO (MINEWEB) - It must be said. The Chinese are MIA at the PDAC – absent in playing an important role in funding and driving Canadian mineral explorers and exploration. In my PDAC miles so far this year, it strikes me that by now the Chinese should be an undercurrent in Canadian exploration and investment.

They are instead the anomaly.

Their role here – in the still undisputed centre of global mineral exploration – should be a natural extension of their interests and needs. The Chinese have a dominant position as metal consumers. They are exhausting high quality domestic resources. They are, intelligently so, closing their smaller, dirtier and more dangerous mines. And, of course, they have an abundance of cash and perhaps more importantly a stated desire to secure supply. That cannot, as the case has largely been so far, mean a role focused just on mineral development. Longterm supply demands, more than anything else, calls for careful attention to early stage exploration.

Yet so few early stage exploration companies boast an important Chinese investor. It’s clear, coming from the floor at the PDAC, the Chinese are not plying the crowd of PDAC in droves looking for investments or that they have already done so and invested. Read the rest of this entry »

(L to R) Honourable Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario; Michael Gravelle, Minister of Northern Development and Mines (Photo by Stan Sudol – republicofmining.com

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Good Afternoon. Thanks Michael for that kind introduction. I’d like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit.

I want to welcome to Toronto all of our friends from Northern Ontario and beyond. I’m excited to be here and to get a chance to talk to you about your work, and how it will inform the work that I’m going to do, along with our new government.

As I was on my way here today, I was thinking about how inspirational you are to a politician like me. As prospectors, a key part of your efforts come down to the belief – the deep seeded knowledge – that if you keep working and working, if you stay focused on your goal, eventually there will be a big pay-off.

In mining, just like in government, hope springs eternal! And trust me, I need that kind of motivation right now! But really, the work that you do holds many lessons for what I am working toward on behalf of this province. You are the embodiment of hard work, dedication and resolve.

It is not an industry for the weak of heart. But your association also bridges the expanse between Ontario’s history and its future.

Resource development – that unstoppable quest for value in our natural landscape – that is a proud part of who we are.
As a province, but also as a nation. This is the work on which Ontario has been built.

Mining is the reason that Toronto is the financial services centre of Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Despite the doom and gloom, the mining industry is good at rising above it all, confident that good times always follow bad ones, so even when times are tough they try to give a little back.

Pronounced by its citizens – the 30,000 or so global mining industry players that attend each year – as the Peedac (PDAC), the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada annual conference is more than just a marathon of presentations by miners, analysts and industry service providers.

Attracting industry players from 125 countries around the world, the PDAC is the world’s largest mining convention, and also the first big event in the calendar year, providing a unique opportunity for CEOs, engineers and financiers to rub shoulders with allies and rivals.

Amidst the schmoozing along Bay Street hot spots are the events that mix socializing and networking with charities to support the communities where companies mine, in Canada and abroad.

One such event is Bullion Belts, a boxing match at the Ritz Carlton hotel in downtown Toronto that pitches professional boxers against one another while investors and mining executives watch on. The proceeds from sponsors like Iamgold, an Africa-focused miner, go to the Right To Play charity, which aims to take children in poor countries off of street corners and put them on playing fields. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Prospectors and mine developers, the lifeblood of the wider $1.5 trillion industry, are running low on cash as funding dries up, increasing the chances they’ll need to consider sales and mergers to survive.

So-called juniors have enough cash to last 5.7 months, according to the median multiple among 1,273 companies with a market value of no more than $500 million, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s 25 percent less than a year earlier, according to the data.

The situation facing the juniors will be a hot topic for the 30,000 geologists, promoters and investors expected to attend the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada convention, the world’s biggest mining gathering, which started yesterday in Toronto.

Smaller companies probably will seek to merge, or they may “just cease to exist,” said Dan Barnholden, a Toronto-based investment banker at Cormark Securities Inc. “We’ve been counseling guys to manage their treasury very carefully because there really isn’t a lot of money out there,” Barnholden said last week in a telephone interview. “It’s sort of desperate times here now.”

Stock sales, one of the few options available to smaller companies to cover costs and advance projects, fell in 2012 for a third straight year, according to Bloomberg data. Canadian mining companies raised $726.8 million in equity and equity- linked financings this year, 45 percent less than the year- earlier period. Read the rest of this entry »

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Plagued by the worst outlook in recent memory, global miners are thinking about one thing more than any other as they gather for the industry’s largest annual gathering: survival.

The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention this week in Toronto is the largest international gathering of its kind. As the first of the calendar year, it is closely watched for signs of what’s to come for the next 12 months, especially for the junior mining sector, the lifeblood of majors that rely on it to discover assets for them to develop.

“Only the strong will survive,” said Ioannis Tsitos, chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Eagle Mountain Gold Corp., which owns a small gold property in Guyana. “What’s happening now is part of natural selection.”

Metals producers have become accustomed in recent months to tough times, starting with ever-embattled share prices. Multibillion-dollar writedowns on assets touted just a few years ago in bold bets on growing global metals demand, add to the bleak outlook. Equally large cost overruns and massive asset divestitures by industry leaders show that the industry is in clear retrenchment.

The message was loud and clear at the the conference on Sunday, where prospectors Clayton and Sara Larche stood at the top of an escalator flogging mining claims the old-fashioned way. Read the rest of this entry »

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

TORONTO — Amid an extremely difficult period for the global mining industry, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference remains a source of cautious optimism for shell-shocked companies and investors.

The industry’s largest event, expected to draw more than 30,000 people, kicked off Sunday in Toronto. And while none of the speakers pretended that these are pleasant times for mining companies, they tried to remind everyone that some positive fundamentals are still in place.

“There’s still a long way to go in China’s urbanization story,” said Duncan Hobbs, a London-based analyst with Macquarie Group. He added that roughly 300 million Chinese people are expected to move to cities in the decades ahead, implying strong long-term demand for commodities.

But it doesn’t help mining companies right now. They are suffering from numerous wounds, some of which are self-inflicted. Senior companies have been forced to write down assets by tens of billions of dollars over the last year after they paid too much to acquire them. Cost inflation continues to be a huge industry concern, while metal prices are struggling amid an uncertain global economy.

The PDAC conference is mostly populated by junior companies, and they are doing much worse than the seniors. Raising capital has become almost impossible for smaller juniors, as investors have little-to-no interest in financing early-stage exploration. Read the rest of this entry »