The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

SUDBURY—Stompin’ Tom Connors should come back and write a song about a Sudbury Saturday afternoon. This time it won’t be about booze and bingo, it’ll be about the Beef ‘n Bird tavern where they play cards for pork.

The tavern’s air is so thick with slow-roasted pork lavishly spiced with dill, garlic, salt and cracked black pepper that you can’t smell all the pitchers of Molson and Labatt.

Hockey hero Jerry Toppazzini has five televisions tuned to the NHL game, but everyone’s watching a roasted pork shoulder ooze its juices over a wooden cutting board on a table on the dance floor.

Four identical bronzed beauties, busting out from butcher’s twine nooses, stay warm in the kitchen. The only way to get a mouthful of crackling-encased porketta — roasted eight hours this morning at Tarini Brothers Meat Market and delivered hot — is to win one. Read the rest of this entry »

http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/

To outsiders, Polish copper producer KGHM Polska Miedz SA’s $2.83 billion offer for Canada’s Quadra FNX Mining may look like just another cross-continental deal, a bet copper prices will go higher. Maybe similar to Chinese Jinchuan Group’s $1.1 billion takeover of Johannesburg-listed Metorex, driven by a desire to gain access to higher quality assets to replenish depleting reserves.

But until now, government-controlled KGHM, which has a lock on all the copper and silver deposits in Poland, sat on the sidelines of the acquisition game, even as the government’s stake in it protected it from unsolicited takeovers.

KGHM couldn’t wait forever with its “bold move”, said a Warsaw-based investment banker who didn’t advice on the Quadra deal but hopes to work for the company in the future and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The alternative to this acquisition was stagnation, paying out a juicy dividend year after year, and then shutting down the company when copper deposits run out in about 30 years, analysts said. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted on Mining Watch website on behalf of Wahgoshig First Nation

November 23, 2011 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wahgoshig First Nation is going to court on December 1, 2011 to seek an urgent injunction to immediately stop drilling operations in a sacred area of Wahgoshig’s traditional territory. The area is immediately adjacent to the Wahgoshig reserve and is known to contain burial grounds as well as other archaeological sites. It is also an area frequented by Wahgoshig community members for hunting, trapping, fishing, medicine gathering, and ceremonial activities.

Solid Gold Resources Corp. is a mining exploration company based near Toronto, Ontario. Wahgoshig community members discovered Solid Gold operating in its territory in the spring of this year. Since that time Wahgoshig has continuously voiced its concerns to Solid Gold about the potential impacts to its traditional territory and rights. Wahgoshig has repeatedly requested that Solid Gold stop drilling and meet to discuss how to ensure the protection of these lands and its culture. These requests have been largely ignored. Read the rest of this entry »

Deloitte unveils top 10 trends for 2012

To view the report, please visit http://www.deloitte.com/ca/mining-trends

Toronto, November 28, 2011 — Escalating social, economic, and political factors are forcing mining companies in Canada and around the world to incorporate more complex scenarios into their strategic planning, according to a new report from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL). Released today, the report – Tracking the trends 2012 – provides an analysis of the top 10 trends expected to impact the mining sector at an accelerated rate in the year ahead.

“Gone are the days when conversations about commodity prices were confined to industry analysts,” said Glenn Ives, Americas Mining Leader, Deloitte Canada . “As nations around the world industrialize and strive to improve their standards of living, mining has come to take a more central role on the world stage. And for mining companies, this greater visibility comes with greater responsibility.”

“The mining sector is facing a perfect storm of converging global forces,” said Jürgen Beier, Deputy Mining Leader, Deloitte Canada. “Confronted with unrelenting cost inflation, unprecedented commodity price volatility, ever-tightening regulation and mounting labour shortages, mining executives must be willing to seek unconventional solutions.” Read the rest of this entry »

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

Resources Boom Fuels Demand for Underground Labor, Spurs Skyrocketing Pay; a $1,200 Chihuahua.

MANDURAH, Australia — One of the fastest-growing costs in the global mining industry are workers like James Dinnison: the 25-year-old high-school dropout from Western Australia makes $200,000 a year running drills in underground mines to extract gold and other minerals.

The heavily tattooed Mr. Dinnison, who started in the mines seven years ago earning $100,000, owns a sky-blue 2009 Chevy Ute, which cost $55,000 before a $16,000 engine enhancement, and a $44,000 custom motorcycle. The price tag on his chihuahua, Dexter, which yaps at his feet: $1,200.

A precious commodity himself, Mr. Dinnison belongs to a class of nouveau riche rising in remote and mineral-rich parts of the world, such as Western Australia state, where mining companies are investing heavily to develop and expand iron-ore mines. Demand for those willing to work 12-hour days in sometimes dangerous conditions, while living for weeks in dusty small towns, is huge. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Quadra FNX Mining Ltd. announced Thursday it will wind down its Podolsky Mine operations in Sudbury by the end of 2012 and pay more attention to its flagship operations, including its Morrison deposit near Levack.

The Vancouver-based miner also said it would close its Carlota mine in Arizona. President and CEO Paul Blythe said the company has decided to focus on its more promising projects.

“We believe that the best way to achieve this is by optimizing the opportunities at our two flagship operations, Robinson (in Arizona) and Morrison (in Sudbury), which together contribute over 85% of our operating income, while continuing to deliver on our significant growth pipeline,” Blythe said in a statement. Read the rest of this entry »

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Mining in Ontario continues to face current and future human resource challenges due to industry growth and pending retirements from the existing workforce.  Attracting and retaining employees for the right jobs in the right locations is a key strategy to be successful. 

The Mining Industry Human Resource Council (MiHR) indicates Ontario’s mining industry will need between 5,578 and 17,000-plus new employees leading up to 2018.  That range is based on different scenarios for global demand of metal and minerals.  Ontario Mining Association President Chris Hodgson is a Director on the MiHR Board.

A recently released best employer study rates employee engagement as a key indicator for success in attracting in retaining workers.  Aon Hewitt’s Best Employers in Canada study, which looked at 261 employers with a total of 112,000 employees, said the average engagement score for the top 50 companies was 78% while the average engagement score of the other companies was 58%. Read the rest of this entry »

Derek H. Burney, Senior Strategic Advisor, Norton Rose OR LLP was Ambassador of Canada to the United States from 1989 to 1993. 

A few months after the United States and Canada announced the launch of Free Trade negotiations in 1986, the U.S. Administration imposed, without warning, a 35% duty on cedar shakes and shingles imported from Canada.  The U.S. lumber lobby simultaneously filed a countervailing duty petition seeking a billion dollars in penalties on annual sales of $4 billion of softwood lumber, perpetuating what has since become the longest running trade dispute between the two North American “partners”.  At the time, Prime Minister Mulroney decried the U.S. actions saying bluntly that “actions like this make it extremely difficult for anyone, including Canadians, to be friends with Americans.”

Recent actions by the U.S. against Canada evoke a similar sentiment: the reinstatement of “Buy America” in the President’s Job legislation and calls by the U.S. Maritime Commissioner for a special tax on cargo shipments from Canada to offset the geographic proximity to Asia of some Canadian ports.  On top of these protectionist propositions, there is also the uproar over a Canadian pipeline intended to bring oil to Texas refineries.  Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Oct. 17 will be the public’s first crack to comment on Cliffs Natural Resources’ massive integrated chromite project slated for the James Bay region. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) will start taking written submissions only on the multi-billion dollar regional mining, transportation and processing development.

The agency announced Oct. 7 that a federal environmental assessment of the Cliffs project in the ‘Ring of Fire’ has formally started with a comprehensive study.

While it’s clear that Black Thor will be the first chromite deposit to be mined starting in 2015, and the Nakina-Aroland area will be the site for a transload facility, the final location of a much-coveted ferrochrome production facility remains up in the air.

But CEAA spokeswoman Celine Legault said the federal regulator will be working from the project description submitted by Cliffs, which identifies the Sudbury in its “base case” as the site for electric arc furnaces. Read the rest of this entry »

Date: 13 September 2011

Intierra Resource Intelligence notes that by mine output, India is the fourth largest producer of zinc, and the sixth largest producer of lead. However, the actual impact of Indian commerce on global mining is felt far more widely.

Recent Indian mining investment has been broad-based, sizeable and reflects a willingness to invest in early stage and pre-feasibility projects. Intierra’s CEO Peter Rossdeutscher, notes this trend and provides a typical example: “Tata Steel has been very active building a mining company to help feed its steel business. In the last four years it has bought into projects in Canada (Taconite Magnetite Project) and Mozambique (Benga Colliery), where it now partners with Rio Tinto. Tata is also looking for more projects in Australia and North America.”

Other notable Indian companies targeting investment are Adani Enterprises and Jindal Power and Steel. Adani has invested over US$2 billion purchasing Linc Energy’s Bowen Basin tenements and also buying the Abbott Point Coal Terminal. Jindal operates the El Mutun iron ore mine in Bolivia and is also active in Madagascar. Read the rest of this entry »

SUDBURY, August 21, 2011 – Vale is notifying Greater Sudbury residents who may have felt a rumble last evening that a seismic event occurred in the area of Creighton Mine at approximately 9:40 pm.

The seismic event occurred approximately 500 feet from the inner workings of the mine around the 7,200 foot level. In consultation with the Geological Society of Canada in Ottawa, the magnitude of the seismic event was 3.3 Mn followed by three aftershocks measuring 2.1 Mn, 1.5 Mn, and 1.0 Mn respectively.

All employees were immediately accounted for and there were no injuries. There was no damage to the mine or to equipment as a result of the event.

-30-

For more information, contact:
 
Angie Robson   
Manager
Corporate Affairs

angie.robson@vale.com
T. 705-682-5202

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

The rescue of 33 miners from Chile’s San José mine after 69 days trapped underground was a triumph shared with the whole world. But the transition back to normality is proving difficult for both the men and their families

‘They are not heroes. We are not heroes. We are all victims,” murmurs Lilly Ramírez, the uncompromising partner of Mario Gómez. At 63, he was the oldest of “the 33″ Chilean miners who were trapped half a mile under the Chilean desert on 5 August 2010, and whose rescue became a global event for a TV audience of an estimated 1 billion people.

Ever since they emerged 69 days later on the night of 12/13 October, I have been working on two BBC documentaries: about what happened while the men were down the mine – and what has happened to them and their families since. Now, as the first anniversary approaches, it is the tenacity and the suffering of the women – the wives and partners – that emerges. They and their men were certainly victims but I am not sure Lilly is right: there are certainly heroines – from Lilly herself to the many other women who have struggled ever since to keep their families together. For their men emerged famous, but changed.

For Lilly, the beginning of the story that August night comes straight from the nightmares of miners’ families the world over. She was preparing dinner as usual for Mario, one of their four daughters, Romina, and their one-year-old granddaughter Camila when there was the proverbial “knock on the door”. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note this article was originally published in Mining Markets in September 2009. Much has changed in the Ring of Fire since then and this article is posted here for archival reasons. – Stan Sudol 

Noront Resources (NOT-V) president and CEO Wes Hanson says the global ferrochrome market is somewhere around 17 million tonnes, while his predecessor and Noront director, Joe Hamilton, believes it’s closer to 12 million.

German firm Heinz Pariser Research is forecasting an average ferrochrome price of US$0.79 per lb. and US$1,600 per tonne until 2017. Raw chromite fetches US$200 per tonne.

With global demand of 14.5 million tonnes (the average of the earlier estimates), the global ferrochrome market is worth about US$23.2 billion. A 5% share of that market would be worth US$1.16 billion annually.

Some rough estimates put the chromite tonnage in the Ring of Fire well into the billions but it takes 2.5 tonnes of chromite to make 1 tonne of ferrochrome. And if you saturate the market with too much production early on, prices will sink and the financial models used to finance development would be rendered useless. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.businessweek.com/

America is losing one of its most basic industries

Just south of Tucson, a two-lane highway rolls through the desert to Mexico. Along one 26-mile stretch, it skirts five open-pit copper mines amid the saguaro cactus, mesquite, and ironwood. This is U.S. 89, known as el camino de la muerte – “road of death” – for the toll it has taken on drivers zooming north of Nogales. But the macabre name might just as easily refer to the mines that line this lonely road. Once the workplaces of thousands, they are now either closed or up for sale – a stark reminder of the sad state not only of U.S. copper companies, but of most of the rest of the North American metals mining industry.

The recovery of the 1983-84 largely bypassed producers of copper, iron ore, nickel, lead, zinc, and molybdenum. Now, after a prolonged period of painful losses, these companies are reeling from what are clearly chronic problems: shrinking markets, huge debt, and depressed prices. Three or four major metals producers may even be forced out of the business over he next few years. In a very real sense the industry is dying.

The pangs of mining are the latest example of what may be an industrial megatrend: the inexorable shift of the production and processing of all basic materials from the industrial countries to the Third World. Like steelmaking, metals mining is vulnerable to some fundamental forces. It is an industrial activity in which, these days, the developing nations have an almost unbeatable pair of economic advantages: cheap labour plus very low cost reserves. Read the rest of this entry »