Republic of Mining

No end in sight to oil sands shutdowns – by Shawn McCarthy and Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – May 9, 2016)

May 9, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

OTTAWA and CALGARY — Alberta’s oil sands have been spared a direct hit from the devastating wildfire that forced the shutdown of more than one million barrels a day of production, but it remains unclear when companies can restart operations.

After visiting Fort McMurray on Monday, Premier Rachel Notley will meet the next day with oil company executives to gauge the impact on the province’s biggest industry and discuss plans for getting it back on line.

“Each of these operations and these companies are very sophisticated in terms of the work and capacity to keep themselves safe and ensure their work starts up again in a safe way,” Ms. Notley said on Sunday during a news conference in Edmonton. “But we’ll see if there is anything the province can offer to ensure the safe resumption of economic activity in the area.”

USW stalwart in Sudbury retires after 50 years – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – May 9, 2016)

May 9, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

In more than 50 years with United Steelworkers Local 6500, Angela Paquin worked for 11 of the 12 presidents of the city’s most powerful trade union, privy to the most confidential inner workings of the organization. But no matter who her boss was, it was always the members to whom Paquin felt the most loyalty.

Paquin went to work in the general administration office of United Steelworkers Local 6500 in 1965, just three years after the union was formed. Local 6500 had almost 20,000 members then. She was 18 and had just graduated from College Notre Dame.

Paquin had cut her teeth on mining and unionism. Her father, Roger Paquin, worked at Inco’s Coniston and Copper Cliff smelters, and was a founding member of USW Local 6500.

The Nazi Underground: Is treasure [gold] buried beneath the mountains of Poland? – by Jake Halpern (The New Yorker – May 9, 2016)

May 7, 2016

http://www.newyorker.com/

Lower Silesia, in southwestern Poland, is a land of treasure hunters. Until the end of the Second World War, the region—covered by mountains and deep pine forests with towering, arrowlike trees—was part of Germany. In the early months of 1945, the German Army retreated, along with much of the civilian population. The advancing Red Army killed many of the Germans who remained. Nearly all those who survived were later evicted and forced to move west. By the end of 1947, almost two million Germans had been cleared out.

In order to fill the emptied landscape, the newly formed Polish government relocated hundreds of thousands of Poles from the east. The settlers arrived in vacant towns, walked into empty houses, and went to sleep in strangers’ beds. There was furniture in the houses, but usually the valuables were missing.

The porcelain dishes, the silk dresses, the fur coats, the sewing machines, and the jewelry were gone, often hidden in the ground: buried in jars, chests, and even coffins. It was a hasty solution—a desperate effort to cache valuables as people were running for their lives.

Slipping uneasily into retirement, Munk reflects on his Barrick legacy – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – May 6, 2016)

May 6, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

ROME — As Peter Munk slips uneasily into retirement, he doesn’t really not want to be known for Porto Montenegro, the superyacht marina that he and his billionaire friends built on the Adriatic Sea. He wants to be known for Barrick Gold, the Toronto mining company that he cursed only two years ago but now praises as an industrial Lazarus.

On Friday, Mr. Munk, who is 88 and plotting his retreat to Lyford Cay, a gated community for the wealthy in the Bahamas, announced the sale of Porto Montenegro to the Investment Corp. of Dubai, the Persian Gulf country’s sovereign wealth fund, for an undisclosed amount.

Financially speaking, the sale is no big deal; at best, it earned a small profit for the Munk-led investment group that turned a rotted, former Yugoslavian naval base into one of the Mediterranean’s most glamorous yacht parking lots. Its greater significance is that it marks the end of an era for Mr. Munk. He insists he will never fully retire, and that he’s still got a few deals left in him, but he is unlikely to take on a project as big again.

Fort McMurray fires shut down even more oilsands facilities, knock one million – by Claudia Cattaneo and Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – May 6, 2016)

May 6, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

CALGARY — The shut down of energy facilities accelerated Thursday, taking off line about one million barrels — close to 40 per cent — of Alberta’s daily oilsands production, as a wildfire that started near Fort McMurray spread south to new producing areas. Meanwhile, oil companies poured their resources into the firefighting effort — from sheltering evacuees to helping with medical emergencies.

Overnight Wednesday, the raging fire forced the evacuation of smaller communities south of Fort McMurray, where many evacuees fleeing the flames this week had taken shelter. They joined residents of Fort McMurray, who were ordered to leave their homes earlier in the week.

“Based on press releases and our discussions with producers, the fires have impacted oilsands production by an estimated 0.9 to 1 million b/d — disproportionately weighted towards synthetic crude oil,” Greg Pardy, co-head of global energy research at RBC Dominion Securities Inc., said in a report.

How Lithium Defied the Global Commodities Rout – by Biman Mukherji (Wall Street Journal – May 5, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/

It has earned the nickname “white petroleum,” and thanks to its use in electric vehicles and smartphones, it is one of the few raw materials climbing in price in an otherwise broad commodities slump. In the Chinese market, lithium prices have more than tripled since the beginning of 2015, as hard-to-mine supplies fall short of demand.

The price of the feedstock—lithium carbonate equivalent—has shot up to as high as $20,000 a ton from $6,000 a ton at the beginning of 2015, said Anthony Tse, managing director of Galaxy Resources Ltd., a lithium-focused resources company, with assets spanning Australia, China, Canada and Argentina.

Lithium is the key material used in lithium-ion batteries needed to run everything from electric vehicles to iPads. Unlike other commodities, it doesn’t have a spot market and isn’t traded on any exchange. Prices are negotiated individually through contracts between buyers and sellers.

In praise of small miners: A boom in artisanal mining offers lessons in development (The Economist – May 7, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.economist.com/

ON THE outskirts of the western Ivorian town of Angovia, Joseph Bado hunches over a pile of gold-laced stone, pulverising it with a hammer. Mr Bado, who is in his mid-30s, was born in a farming village in central Ivory Coast.

Frustrated by his meagre earnings in the cocoa fields, he left in 2003 to become a miner. His travels took him to neighbouring Ghana and Mali before he returned to Ivory Coast in 2013, drawn by its own nascent gold boom. “You can work for years in cocoa and not get anything. You won’t even have food,” says Mr Bado.

Informal mining settlements like Angovia’s, a series of hills dotted with tattered tarpaulin-covered shelters and pockmarked by deep pits, have been unexpectedly popping up in recent years across the west African country. For many years Ivory Coast’s economic fortunes were tied to agriculture. After independence in 1960 it became the world’s largest producer of cocoa. Few gave much thought to what treasures might lie deeper in its ochre-red soil.

Rio Tinto says it will cap Australian iron ore production at 360mt – by Peter Ker (Sydney Morning Herald – May 5, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.smh.com.au/

Rio Tinto chairman Jan du Plessis has vowed not to expand the company’s iron ore division beyond 360 million tonnes per year, and defended plans to build a contentious copper mine in the US.

Speaking at Rio’s Australian meeting of shareholders in Brisbane, Mr du Plessis reassured the meeting that Rio would not oversupply the market that is its biggest money-spinner.

Rio has built rail and port capacity to export 360 million tonnes, and will export between 330 million and 340 million tonnes in 2016.

“We are not yet fully utilising that capacity…we certainly over the next few years plan to fill the capacity,” said Mr du Plessis. ‘”We have no plans at the moment at all to extend our infrastructure capacity beyond the 360 million tonnes.”

Donald Trump Says He’ll Bring Back Jobs For Coal Miners But He’s Just Blowing Smoke – by Joe Romm (Think Progress.org – May 4, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://thinkprogress.org/

Donald Trump markets himself as a business-savvy billionaire who will get American jobs back from countries like China. In the case of the coal industry, however, he appears to be just a very clueless politician making pro-pollution promises he can’t keep.

“I’m a free-market guy, but not when you’re getting killed,” he said recently at a rally in Carmel, Indiana. “Look at steel, it’s being wiped out. Your coal industry is wiped out, and China is taking our coal.” Huh? “China is taking our coal”? If China were taking much of our coal (in the form of U.S. exports) that would be great for coal jobs.

If Trump meant Chinese coal exports are taking away our coal market (i.e. potential U.S. sales overseas), then he is truly clueless about the coal business. China flipped from net coal exporter to net importer back in 2009 (!) and quickly became the world’s biggest importer.

Alaska raises concerns with B.C.’s mining oversight after audit – by Justine Hunter (Globe and Mail – May 5, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VICTORIA — Six months after signing a pact to co-operate on mine development across the B.C.-Alaska border, the Alaskan government is questioning British Columbia’s ability to protect the environment due to weak enforcement of its mining industry.

Alaska Lieutenant-Governor Byron Mallott says his government will demand assurances that British Columbia is taking action in the wake of a new report from the province’s Auditor-General that calls for the creation of an independent agency to take over regulation of the mining industry because of lax enforcement and compliance.

“The Office of the Auditor-General’s report is troubling and a wake-up call to the B.C. government that important changes must occur,” Mr. Mallott, who has led the state government’s negotiations with British Columbia on the issue of mining, said in a statement.

Grace under pressure: Nevada Turquoise Ridge miners recognized for rescue operation after rock failure traps colleagues (Barrick Beyond Borders – May 4, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://barrickbeyondborders.com/

Leo Sanchez has worked at the Turquoise Ridge mine for 11 years, but he won’t soon forget the night of February 3, 2016. The shift started like any other. Sanchez, North Zone Supervisor at the Nevada-based underground mine, was reviewing survey maps with John Conklin, South Zone Supervisor. At 10:30 p.m., Sanchez’s radio sounded. It was Jonathon Long.

“I need you guys down here,” Sanchez recalls Long saying in a calm but urgent voice.

It was highly unusual to request both supervisors so Sanchez knew immediately something wasn’t right. When he arrived in Zone 4, the area in the north zone where Long was working with colleagues Gerald Hinz and David Reed, he understood why. A rock failure had occurred. The three miners were unhurt but partially cut off by more than 30 tons of downed rock. The ventilation system was damaged but still functional.

Sanchez and Conklin quickly but calmly assessed the situation to determine how best to safely extract the men.

Rio Tinto CEO a non-believer in commodities rebound – by James Regan and Sonali Paul (Reuters U.S. – May 5, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE – Mining giant Rio Tinto is not counting on an upturn in commodities markets anytime soon despite recent gains in prices of iron ore, its main source of revenue, as much of the world’s economies continue to underperform.

Chief Executive Sam Walsh said factors such as the looming U.S. election, a softer outlook in China and immigration woes facing Europe were suppressing a recovery in commodities. His view, however, is a departure from others calling for an end soon to the commodities rout that has sent just about every major mining company into the red.

“I believe in that environment, calling the bottom is a brave move,” Chief Executive Sam Walsh told reporters. Walsh, who will be replaced by Jean-Sebastien Jacques as CEO in early July, also doused speculation that Rio Tinto was coiled to pounce on assets put on the block by rivals suffering more from the downturn.

McEwen picks up more ground in Mexico – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – May 3, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.northernminer.com/

McEwen Mining (TSX: MUX; NYSE: MUX) is acquiring claims in Mexico about 10 km from the company’s El Gallo mine in Sinaloa state that it believes have the possibility of extending the life of the gold-silver mining operation, and chairman and chief owner Rob McEwen isn’t ruling out more purchases in the months ahead.

In an interview with The Northern Miner, McEwen said management is still looking for opportunities to build the company’s resources, which could include an acquisition, and also said he would consider a merger of equals if the right opportunity presented itself.

The claims McEwen Mining is purchasing this week in Mexico from Almadex Minerals (TSXV: AMZ; US-OTC: AXDDF) make up the El Encuentro project, and cover an area of hydrothermal alteration and gold-silver mineralization where significant surface sample results were produced from trenching in 1996.

Inside Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel mess – by Trevor Sykes (Australian Financial Review – May 5, 2016)

May 5, 2016

http://www.afr.com/

Since Queensland Nickel went into liquidation on April 21 everyone has been worrying about the workers who’ve been retrenched from the Yabulu nickel refinery at Townsville.

Well, from a reading of the report by FTI Consulting on Queensland Nickel, the workers were lucky to keep their jobs as long as they did. Because if Yabulu were owned by Pierpont, he would have closed it 18 months ago.

FTI reckoned Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd (let’s call it QN) has been insolvent since November 27, 2015 when it was unable to pay a debt of $11.9 million to the Aurizon transport group. Aurizon issued QN with a notice of default on that day.