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.

MONTREAL — With an aluminum market weighed down by surpluses, Alcoa Inc. and Rio Tinto Alcan are postponing billions in upgrade and expansion plans to their smelters in Quebec.

While some 750 Rio Tinto Alcan employees will get to keep their jobs longer, 500 Alcoa workers will be pushed into early retirement.

Alcoa is deferring by three years the $1.2-billion modernization of its Baie-Comeau smelter. But the aluminum producer is still going ahead with plans to shut down two of the plant’s old potlines. The dismantling of those Soderberg potlines, which will take place over the next two years, will eliminate 500 positions, or about a third of the smelter’s 1,400-employee work force.

This is the second time the American producer has reviewed its plans for the upgrade of the Baie-Comeau smelter, which was built in 1957. The Pittsburgh-based company first unveiled plans to modernize the smelter in 2008, but gave the final go-ahead on Nov. 7, 2011, after securing a 25-year electricity procurement deal with the Quebec government.

For its part, Rio Tinto Alcan is also pushing back, by three years to 2019, completion of the $2.1-billion investment plan it unveiled in 2006. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.mininggazette.com/

L’ANSE – Rio Tinto representatives provided an update on the Eagle Mine, collected live electronic survey results through a community scorecard and fielded an array of questions and comments during a mining forum Wednesday night at the L’Anse American Legion Post 144.

Mine update

Matt Johnson, manager of external relations at Rio Tinto Eagle, gave a brief historical recap of the mine, starting with explorations dating back to the 1950s, the discovery of the ore body in 2002, the permit application and finalization in 2008 and 2010, respectively, and the start of underground drilling in 2011.

“We do have a goal of being in production in 2014,” he said. “A few months ago we announced a moderated schedule, so we pushed our schedule back. (Work on the Humboldt Mill) has been postponed for the time being.”

Production was originally slated to start in early 2014; now it’ll likely be toward the end of that year, but that’s not the only reason the life of the mine will extend farther. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY, May 9 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto could be two weeks away from gaining Mongolian approval to ship copper from its Oyu Tolgoi mine, helping offset a slide in revenue from its U.S. copper business as it faces pressure to slash costs and sell non-core assets.

A landslide at the firm’s Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah in April, which could result in over $700 million in lost sales revenue based on Reuters calculations, was unlikely to force a rethink on assets sales, Chief Executive Sam Walsh told shareholders at the annual meeting in Sydney on Thursday.

There has been speculation that moves by Rio Tinto to sell its Northparkes copper mine in Australia could be delayed until full production resumed at Bingham Canyon.

“We are not expecting that that (the landslide) will have a difference” on divestment decisions, said Walsh, adding the firm would also not be draw into a “fire sale” of businesses.

Rio Tinto hired Macquarie Bank to sell its majority stake in Northparkes, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. . Rio Tinto and Macquarie declined comment. Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. own 20 percent of the mine. Read the rest of this entry »

http://in.reuters.com/

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE, May 7 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto, the world’s No.2 iron ore miner, is set to press on with plans to boost production at its Australian mines by a quarter by 2015, shrugging off pressure to slow spending and conserve cash as the commodity boom cools.

In spite of forecasts of a looming global supply glut, shareholders expect Chief Executive Sam Walsh to tell the firm’s annual general meeting in Sydney on Thursday that it’s full speed ahead with a 70 million tonnes-per-year increase that will take output to 360 million tonnes annually by 2015.

The plan means that a major additional chunk of iron ore production will enter the world market in the next few years and will add to concerns about increased supply that could weigh on a recovery in prices.

“They should continue to expand what is a high margin, high returning project, one of the best returning mining projects in the world, because growth now will mean yield in the future,” said Ben Lyons, who helps manage A$400 million ($409.42 million)at ATI Asset Management, which holds Rio shares.

Rio Tinto’s board is not expected to make a final decision on the expansion plans, estimated to cost up to $5 billion, until later this year. Read the rest of this entry »

http://in.reuters.com/

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE, May 7 (Reuters) - Rio Tinto, the world’s No.2 iron ore miner, is set to press on with plans to boost production at its Australian mines by a quarter by 2015, shrugging off pressure to slow spending and conserve cash as the commodity boom cools.

In spite of forecasts of a looming global supply glut, shareholders expect Chief Executive Sam Walsh to tell the firm’s annual general meeting in Sydney on Thursday that it’s full speed ahead with a 70 million tonnes-per-year increase that will take output to 360 million tonnes annually by 2015.

The plan means that a major additional chunk of iron ore production will enter the world market in the next few years and will add to concerns about increased supply that could weigh on a recovery in prices.

“They should continue to expand what is a high margin, high returning project, one of the best returning mining projects in the world, because growth now will mean yield in the future,” said Ben Lyons, who helps manage A$400 million ($409.42 million)at ATI Asset Management, which holds Rio shares.

Rio Tinto’s board is not expected to make a final decision on the expansion plans, estimated to cost up to $5 billion, until later this year. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.globalpost.com/

Faithful activists converged on London to continue lobbying on behalf of those hurt by industrial mines.

LONDON — When he was studying to be a priest, Richard Solly mulled founding a group called Clergy Against Gold Exploitation — CAGE.

While presiding over weddings, his idea went, clergy would profess shock during the exchange of rings and ask, “Is that gold? Do you know how many people suffered for that?”

CAGE was just a joke. But religious activists like Solly, part of a coalition including Protestants and Catholics, have become central to the international mining watchdog and opposition movement which has developed over the past three decades. The movement has become increasingly focused on multinational mining companies headquartered in London and traded on the London Stock Exchange, some accused of damaging ecosystems, displacing residents and disrupting local economies around the world.

On April 17, just before the annual general shareholder meetings of mining giants Rio Tinto and Anglo American, Solly and a group of people impacted by the companies’ mines around the world visited the Church of England.

They asked church officials to pressure the companies to improve their labor and environmental practices, or risk divestment by the church’s fund. In 2010, the church pulled its investments from the London-based global mining company Vedanta Resources based on its record in India. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.chron.com/

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The landslide that washed over the terraced steps of a mining pit nearly a mile deep left only the tip of one giant electric-powered shovel poking out of the dirt. The rubble buried three of them, along with 14 enormous haul trucks.

Even more of Kennecott Utah Copper’s equipment lay buried under uneven piles of rubble as high as 300 feet at the bottom of the pit west of Salt Lake City.

It will take months for the major U.S. copper mine to recover from the devastating landslide, even though it had been anticipated by the company. It ran farther out than expected, burying equipment that had been staged there for a dig-out.

Yet company officials tried to sound optimistic Thursday as they opened Bingham Canyon mine to view for the first time since the April 10 slide. “There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a future in mining here,” Kennecott Utah Copper chief Kelly Sanders said. “We’ll meet this challenge.”

Sanders said the company might be able to resume limited ore digging within days, but a full recovery could take a year. Kennecott, which will work from a stockpile, will run out of copper in months and has cut its production goal for 2013 by half. The company has asked 2,100 workers to take vacation or unpaid leave, but few are doing so yet. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/

RIO Tinto has admitted it was a big mistake to purchase aluminium maker Alcan six years ago and as a result the company is now more likely to favour some commodities over others.

Addressing his first annual general meeting, chief executive Sam Walsh said Rio was focused on raising funds by selling assets in 2013.

“We are targeting significant cash proceeds from divestments and are reviewing a number of potential non-core assets for divestment, in addition to those we’ve already announced, such as Pacific Aluminium and Diamonds,” Mr Walsh told shareholders in London.

Rio in February announced its first ever full-year net loss of almost $US3 billion ($2.9 billion). Since then the world’s second-largest iron ore producer has been slashing jobs to cut costs. Mr Walsh said Rio had also bolstered investment committee controls and procedures.

“This will ensure … that we invest only in projects that deliver returns well above our cost of capital,” the chief executive said. He said 2012′s capital expenditure of $US17.4 billion “will be our peak year of investment”.

Rio acquired Alcan in mid-2007. Chairman Jan du Plessis said in hindsight the transaction was “badly timed at the top of the market”. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.crikey.com.au/

It’s not often that Stephen Mayne and Gina Rinehart agree. But they’ve found common ground in urging mining giant Rio Tinto, which has recently slashed its Melbourne workforce, to relocate its headquarters from London to Australia.

Should capital cities get into the business of trying to persuade multi-nationals to shift their headquarters to Australia?

That’s what City of Melbourne is doing tomorrow night as we debate a 10-page motion outlining the case for Rio Tinto to shift its 700-strong London head office to one of the major Australian capital cities.

The Australian Financial Review ran with the story on Saturday but we’re still yet to hear a peep out of the Herald Sun or The Age, even though the motion reveals Rio Tinto has almost completed slashed staff numbers at its Collins Street office in Melbourne from 300 to as little as 25.

The AFR was right to point out Rio Tinto retains 200 staff at an R&D facility at Latrobe University, but they were wrong in quoting an unnamed resources analyst saying the headquarters move was “highly unlikely given 80% of Rio Tinto”s investor base were also located in the UK”. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Iron ore is heading toward its first surplus in at least a decade as output expands and Chinese steel mills, the biggest buyers, boost production at the slowest pace in five years.

Seaborne supply will advance 9.1 percent and demand 8.3 percent in 2013, led by exporters from Perth-based Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. (FMG) to Vale SA (VALE5), Morgan Stanley forecasts. A surplus will emerge in 2014 and keep widening until at least 2018, the bank predicts. Prices will slump as much as 34 percent to $90 a ton by the end of December, according to the median of seven analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Exports of the biggest seaborne cargo after oil are surging the most since 2010 after prices jumped as much as sevenfold in the past nine years. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expects China’s imports to climb 4 percent in 2013, the least in three years. Its steel output will expand 2.6 percent as the nation’s economy grows at the second-slowest pace in the past decade, according to estimates from Morgan Stanley and economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

“We’ve got a steady lift of supply, mainly out of Australia,” said Tom Price, the Sydney-based analyst at UBS AG who has covered the market for about a decade. “We’ve observed for a couple of years now moderation in demand growth in China. A combination of those two is why we’re bearish.” Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Mongolia, Rio Tinto both have reasons to settle in time to meet June deadline

A cost overrun of a couple of billion bucks at Oyu Tolgoi (Turquoise Hill), Mongolia’s new mega-mine, is no doubt significant even to a big company such as Rio Tinto with sales last year topping $50 billion.

But to a “little” country like Mongolia – which may have a land mass about twice the size of B.C., but has barely more than half the number of people and a much smaller fraction of our wealth – it’s a staggeringly large sum. It accounts for fully a fifth of last year’s GDP – in relative Canadian terms, the equivalent of about $350 billion.

Which goes a long way to explain the tension between the company, a two-thirds partner in Vancouver-based Turquoise Hill Resources, which owns the just-opened world’s largest copper mine in remote Mongolia, and the country, which has a 34-per-cent stake.

Mongolia’s parliament signed on in 2009 to borrow a third of the money to fund a $4.2-billion project, says parliamentary president Zandaakhuu Enkh-bold, who was in Vancouver last week at the end of a cross-Canada visit.

“If at that time they had told us the cost will be $6.2 billion, then we would have thought twice,” he said in an interview with The Vancouver Sun. 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.

Yes, Canada lost a lot of head offices in the foreign takeover binge, but we sure sold out at the right time

The $165-billion merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000 was so disastrous that it was celebrated as the biggest, stupidest deal ever, one that will be studied for decades by MBA students with a taste for financial gore (all currency in U.S. dollars). The copycat calamities in other industries, if on somewhat smaller scales, will make for fun reading too.

In banking, one of the biggest debacles came in 2007, when the carve-up of Dutch bank ABN Amro helped wreck the Royal Bank of Scotland (it had to be nationalized by the British government after the 2008 financial crisis). The mess is now bringing down Italy’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which bought the Italian arm of Amro at an outlandish price. In mining, Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest mining companies, bought Montreal’s Alcan at the peak of the market in 2007 (a bad year, that one) for an eye-watering $38 billion. Since then, Rio has written down Alcan’s value by about $30 billion. For his sins, Rio CEO Tom (Honey, I Shrunk the Equity) Albanese was fired this past January.

Albanese was not alone in the bonehead department. Many foreign takeovers of Canadian companies made between 2006 and 2008 – the bubble years – have come to grief, with writedowns galore. Indo-European steel giant ArcelorMittal vastly overpaid for Hamilton’s Dofasco. Read the rest of this entry »

http://in.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, March 27 (Reuters) – Mongolia is starting to take steps aimed at arresting a slide in investment in its crucial mining sector, looking to curb uncertainty over regulations that has been blamed for stalling copper and coal projects. Even so, miners remain cautious.

Regulatory concerns peaked last month when Rio Tinto threatened to delay the start-up of the $6.2 billion Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, until it resolves a dispute with the government over their investment agreement.

The mine is due to start selling copper in June and could make up a third of Mongolia’s economy by 2020, producing 425,000 tonnes of copper and 460,000 ounces of gold a year.

“At the higher echelons…there’s at least the recognition that something’s wrong and needs to be fixed,” said Elisabeth Ellis, Ulan Bator-based partner at law firm Minter Ellison, which advises mining and mining services firms.

Foreign direct investment dropped 17 percent to $3.9 billion in 2012, according to the Bank of Mongolia’s balance of payments, coinciding with a string of moves by the government that deterred investments in copper and coal. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.reuters.com/

PERTH, March 19 (Reuters) - Australia’s big iron ore miners have cautioned that China can no longer be counted on for unchecked opportunity, warning of volatile markets and softer prices as growth in China’s steel production slows.

The big miners are sticking to aggressive expansion plans to feed Chinese demand for iron ore, even after the market was rattled for much of last year by doubts over future demand from China.

Rio Tinto , BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group, the world’s second, third and fourth biggest iron ore miners behind Brazil’s Vale, plan to add a combined 235 million tonnes of new mine capacity by 2015, nearly equal to Rio’s total output in 2012.

“We’re seeing steel demand growth slowing inevitably. That is going to put downward pressure on iron ore prices,” Greg Lilleyman, Rio’s head of Pilbara iron ore operations, told a conference here on Tuesday.

“We’re going to see downward pressure in the second half and perhaps beyond, but we still see pretty strong prices,” he added. BHP’s Tony Ottaviano, vice president of planning, said iron ore prices would “remain volatile” as more supply hits the market at a time of moderating Chinese demand. Read the rest of this entry »

http://uk.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Two of the world’s biggest uranium miners, Rio Tinto PLC and Areva SA , are pressing Canada to change a Cold War era policy that curbs foreign ownership of uranium mines.

The campaign, backed by the Australian government, two Canadian provinces and Western Australia-based uranium producer Paladin Energy Ltd, could unlock some of the world’s highest-grade ore for development just as demand for the radioactive element looks to surge.

Unlike Australia, which has no restrictions on uranium-mine ownership, Canada restricts foreign companies from owning more than 49 percent of any uranium mine. There are no ownership restrictions on foreign participation in exploration.

“It’s such an absurd situation,” John Borshoff, managing director of Paladin, said in an interview. It’s “something that is an anachronism from the Cold War”.

Borshoff said the Australian government, Rio Tinto and Paladin are joining forces to lobby Ottawa, while the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador are also pressing for change. Read the rest of this entry »