Reaction to Ontario Auditors General’s slamming report on mining ministry – Morning North’s Markus Schwabe Interviews Mining Columnist Stan Sudol (CBC News Sudbury – December 03, 2015)

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

Has the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines done enough to encourage mining exploration and development? Ontario’s Auditor General doesn’t think so. Stan Sudol is a mining columnist and owner/editor of a mining aggregator website called www.repubicofmining.com . He joined for some analysis and didn’t mince words.

Click here for the interview:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/programs/morningnorth/reaction-to-ontario-auditors-general-s-slamming-report-on-mining-ministry-1.3348908

Stan Sudol Mea Culpa – Regarding the Morning North Interview: “It has come to my attention that the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) did indeed talk to CEMI. They may have also talked to other Sudbury –based researchers.

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Gina Rinehart to Flood Iron-Ore Market With Fresh Supply – Rhiannon Hoyle (Wall Street Journal – December 3, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

SYDNEY—As iron ore collapses to a decade low, in remote northwest Australia one of the world’s richest women is preparing for the first cargo of the commodity from her massive new mine to set sail.

Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill iron-ore mine, which has been years in the making, will pour millions more tons of the steelmaking commodity into the global market at a time when concerns about oversupply have driven prices to US$40 a metric ton for the first time since 2005.

On Thursday, the value of the commodity tumbled 0.7% to US$40.30 a metric ton, according to The Steel Index. That benchmark is down 19% since the start of November, and off nearly 80% since its peak in early 2011.

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PRECIOUS-Gold slumps to 2010 lows after Yellen, market awaits ECB – by Clara Denina (Reuters U.S. – December 3, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Dec 3 Gold hit a near-six-year low on Thursday, as the dollar soared after Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen hinted at a U.S. rate hike later this month and investors nervously awaited the European Central Bank’s policy decision later in the day.

The ECB is expected to ease policy further and deliver a cocktail of measures that could include a deposit rate cut and changes to its asset-buying programme.

“(Although) the chances are pretty high the ECB could disappoint today, the market overall is positioned towards more U.S. dollar strength, related to both the ECB and also to the Federal Reserve,” Julius Baer analyst Carsten Menke said.

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The iron ore price is in free-fall – by Frik Els (Mining.com – December 2, 2015)

http://www.mining.com/

Iron ore fell to a record low on a spot price basis on Wednesday with the Northern China 62% Fe import price including freight and insurance (CFR) dropping 2.4% to $40.60 a tonne.

After a strong recovery from its July low, the steelmaking raw material has been on a relentless decline since mid-October. Losses so so far this year come to 43% following. Today’s price compare to $190 a tonne hit February 2011 and an average of $135 a tonne in 2013 and $97 last year.

For an iron ore price below $40 you have to go back to 2007 when annual contract pricing between the Big 3 producers – Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton – and Chinese and Japanese steelmakers were still the industry norm.

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Ontario Liberals’ power regime a fiasco – by Terence Corcoran (National Post – December 3, 2015)

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

At least now it must be seen as official: Ontario’s electricity regime is a gargantuan fiasco, a dysfunctional, overpriced, mismanaged system that for most of the last decade has been abandoned to the provincial Liberals’ gross incompetence and deliberate abuse of governance.

In strong language and clear analysis leading to straight-shooting conclusions, Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk has delivered one of the most devastating audit reports on government bungling and malpractice in Canadian history.

Ontario consumers and small business owners already know the hard fact: the cost of electricity has almost doubled under the McGuinty/Wynne regimes, from 5.32 cents per kilowatt hour to 10.10 cents, with many more increases to come.

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Ontario’s Liberals have completely broken the electricity system – Editorial (Globe and Mail – December 3, 2015)

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.

In politics, as we wrote Wednesday, people get upset about the little things. Remember Bev Oda’s $16 glass of orange juice?

In the context of a 12-figure federal budget, or ministerial trips justifiably running into the tens of thousands of dollars, some overpriced OJ hardly mattered.

And yet it galled. Small misdeeds are relatable. A big, complicated and massively costly government screw-up, in contrast, sometimes leaves people cold.

Let’s see if this warms you up. On Wednesday, Ontario’s Auditor-General announced that, between 2006 and 2014, thanks to incompetence and mismanagement on the part of the province’s Liberal government, Ontarians overpaid for electricity to the tune of $37-billion.

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Province dinged on the ‘Ring of Fire’ – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – December 3, 2015)

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

Ontario auditor-general Bonnie Lysyk’s value-for-money annual report, as it pertains to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, outlines a pattern of inaction by the Liberal government to do anything to develop the Ring of Fire.

The province has shirked its responsibility to consult with first nations near the Ring of Fire, leaving that up to private companies, says Lysyk in the report.

It created a Ring of Fire secretariat in 2010 that has 19 employees and has spent $13.2 million in the last five years while missing deadlines established by the ministry and lacking performance measures to assess its effectiveness.

Not a penny of the $1 billion promised by the province to develop Ring of Fire infrastructure has been spent, said the auditor-general.

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Auditor general slams province on Ring of Fire mining – or lack of it – Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – December 2, 2015)

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Ontario’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines has come under harsh, across-the-board, criticism by the provincial auditor general for its ineffectiveness and inaction in making any progress in the Ring of Fire and in promoting Ontario’s mineral resources.

The auditor general’s annual review of the government’s mines and minerals program found a ministry that has fallen short in encouraging mineral development, ensuring regulatory compliance, and supporting sustainable and responsible exploration.

Ontario’s mining industry comprises almost a quarter of Canada’s total mineral production, worth almost $11 billion in 2014.

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Ontario Auditor General Releases 2015 Annual Report: The Section on Northern Development and Mines and the Ring of Fire (December 2, 2015)

http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/

For the entire chapter on the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, click here: http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/reports_en/en15/3.11en15.pdf

1.6 Ring of Fire

The Ring of Fire is a mineral-rich area located in Northern Ontario in the James Bay lowlands, about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. This is a remote area with no infrastructure linking the region to existing roads, rail or electricity.

The area is approximately 5,000 square kilometres, with most mineral discoveries to date located within a 20-kilometre-long strip. See Appendix 2 for the geographical location of the Ring of Fire.

Early exploration in the region in 2001 identified significant deposits of nickel, copper, zinc and platinum. However, it was the discovery of North America’s first commercial quantities of chromite in 2008 that attracted more intense interest to the area. Chromite is a mineral used to make ferrochrome, an alloy that is essential in making stainless steel, which is in high demand worldwide.

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The Mining Supercycle And Its Demise – by Christopher Ecclestone (InvestorIntel.com – December 2, 2015)

http://investorintel.com/

The “death throes” of the once vaunted Commodities Supercycle have been dragging on now since 2011 and are starting to look like the much derided “death scene” in the original Brideshead Revisited in which Sir Laurence Olivier took seemingly forever to depart the mortal coil.

Like the Supercycle, that scene had an inevitability about it and eventually the viewers were anxious for it all to be over.

Those amongst us who believed the Supercycle was immortal have now been brought down to earth because all good things must end… but maybe it’s a truism that all bad things must end too… so in the wake of the Supercycle’s demise (and there are a few hardies out there who sustain it will rise from its grave) we now should accept matters and look beyond.

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Lack of Ring of Fire progress comes under fire from Ontario Auditor General – by Jamie Smith (tbnewswatch.com – December 2, 2015)

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

The Ministry of Northern Development and Mines has been ineffective in getting the Ring of Fire developed and shows no plans to do so the province’s Auditor General says.

In her annual report, presented Wednesday, Bonnie Lysyk said the province lacks timelines or plans for the estimated $60 billion development, the Ring of Fire secretariat has missed deadlines and had no performance measures in place.

The secretariat has 19 full-time staff and has incurred $13.2 million in operating costs so far since it opened in 2010. It’s spent another $15.8 million for capacity building for First Nations.

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Mining exploration incentives hinted at by Northern Development minister (CBC News Sudbury – December 2, 2015)

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

Mines minister Michael Gravelle promises details by the end of the year

Ontario’s minister of Northern Development and Mines is hinting at exploration incentives to be unveiled in the next few weeks.

Michael Gravelle made the comment while responding to a mining report from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce that called on the government to do more to encourage mining development in the province.

“I can say, I think, without getting myself in too much trouble, that our strategy will certainly be speaking to a number of the issues related to the need to drive exploration in the province of Ontario.”

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Oban Mining Corporation: The New Osisko Bigger and Better?


Film Produced by Ivor Barr, Director and Executive Producer of IDNR-TV Natural Resources Television

http://www.obanmining.com/

Oban Mining CEO & Director John F. Burzynski was one of the three partners who successfully developed the Osisko Mine in Quebec’s Malartic-Cadillac region, part of the lengendary Abitibi-Greenstone belt which is shared between Northeastern Ontario and Northwestern Quebec. It is considered on of the top gold discoveries of the past decade.

The other two partners in the Osisko Mine are Sean Roosen and Robert Wares – both of whom are on Oban Mining’s Board of Directors. The three are well known in Canada’s mining sector, winning the prestigious 2007 PDAC Bill Dennis Prospector of the Year Award:

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How Much Metal Does China Need? – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – December 1, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

China’s metal producers are finally starting to cauterize the wounds inflicted by the commodity bust.

Copper producers will trim output by 350,000 metric tons next year, equivalent to about 4.4 percent of the country’s 2014 levels. Nickel smelters will slash production by 20 percent, and zinc furnaces will remove the equivalent of 4 percent of global output.

Will this be enough to reverse the slide in metal prices? It depends a lot on what sort of country China is becoming. For all the differences between major economies, their consumption of raw materials can be oddly uniform.

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Miners: More Pain Before Gain – by Anthony Fensom (The Diplomat – December 2, 2015)

http://thediplomat.com/

Asia’s resource sector has felt the pain of falling prices in 2015, forcing job cuts from Indonesia to Australia and destroying billions of dollars of market value. Fortunately for miners, the longer-term outlook appears brighter, although more pain is expected in 2016.

A recent report by BIS Shrapnel predicts Australia’s miners will shed another 20,000 jobs over the next three years, on top of the 40,000 jobs lost since the peak in investment during the mining boom as miners adjust to the post-boom hangover.

Meanwhile in Indonesia, the coal slump has reportedly caused “the majority of coal mining companies in Indonesia to stop operating,” with up to 80 percent estimated to have ceased production as of August 2015.

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