Republic of Mining

The Fall Of King Coal – by Tim Murphy (Mother Jones Magazine – November/December 2015)

October 2, 2015

http://www.motherjones.com/

After 29 men died in his company’s mine, Don Blankenship is fighting to stay out of prison. But he’s already won the battle to convert coal country to his brand of conservative politics.

THE PEOPLE OF the Kentucky and West Virginia borderland, where Don Blankenship’s family has lived for generations, have always clustered, out of tradition and necessity, along river valleys and in low-lying hollows amid the nubby Appalachian peaks. The winding roads there, crumbling under the weight of overloaded Mack trucks, are lined with trailers like the one Blankenship grew up in, many with “Friend of Coal” placards in their windows.

But at the peak of his 18-year reign as the CEO of coal giant Massey Energy—as if in a symbolic nod to his rise from hardscrabble roots—Blankenship erected a four-story villa that evoked a fairy-tale castle on a Kentucky mountaintop. It was a short helicopter ride from his primary home, a gated estate on the other side of the Tug Fork River. From a white tower atop his Massey-owned mountain retreat, Blankenship could look out on the coal yards and misty hollows of West Virginia’s Mingo County like a king surveying his domain.

Blankenship earned his way to this summit by reducing many of the nearby mountaintops to heaps of gravel and harvesting the bituminous seams inside them to nearly triple his company’s revenue.

Chief Economist indicates the bottom of the mining bust – by Cole Latimer (Australian Mining – October 2, 2015)

October 2, 2015

http://www.australianmining.com.au/

A report from the Department of Industry Innovation and Science’s Office of the Chief Economist states the bottom of the mining bust is here.

The report outlined an overall drop of around 12 per cent in Australia’s resources export earnings year on year, noting the commodity price decline playing a large part in the overall export earnings decline.

However the Department is still positive on the industry, recognising the shift from a capital and investment heavy construction boom into a period of production.

“Australian producers were well-positioned to meet the projected growth in demand as production starts to increase following a long period of investment,” the report said.

“The Australian resources and energy sector is transitioning decisively into the production phase of the resources boom,” the Department’s Chief Economist Mark Cully added.

Canadian firm fights gold mine ban by leftist Greek government – by Angeliki Koutantou (Reuters Canada – October 2, 2015)

October 2, 2015

http://ca.reuters.com/

ATHENS (Reuters) – A Canadian company appealed to Greece’s top court on Friday to overturn a ban on its plans to develop a gold mine in a forested area of northern Greece, in a case widely seen as a test of the leftist government’s approach to foreign investment.

Vancouver-based Eldorado’s venture to extract gold and other ores on the verdant Halkidiki peninsula is seen as one of the top investments in a country racked by a debt crisis since the end of 2009. The company has put in more than $600 million since 2012 and plans to invest another $1 billion in its quest for gold, copper and zinc at two other sites.

But a day before resigning to call a general election, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government revoked Eldorado’s permit for the Halkidiki mine in mid-August, citing environmental grounds, in a move that showed Greece remains a risky bet for investors.

Eldorado then suspended all its activities at the mine and made most of its 1,300 workers temporarily redundant.

Iron Ore Seen Below $40 by Citi as Roy Hill `Whale’ Starts – by Jasmine Ng (Bloomberg News – September 28, 2015)

October 2, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

New supply from Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill iron ore mine will contribute to a slump below $40 a metric ton next year, according to Citigroup Inc., which said lower steel output in China would also hurt the commodity.

The project in Australia’s ore-rich Pilbara is poised to start shipments in October, and its expansion toward annual output of 55 million tons will probably have a large impact on prices, analysts including Ivan Szpakowski said in a report. Surging production will combine with steel-output cuts in China to push prices below $40 in the first half, Citigroup said.

Iron ore’s retreated 20 percent this year on rising low-cost output and faltering demand growth in China, and the addition of the new cargoes from Roy Hill to the global seaborne market may add to oversupply.

Roy Hill Holdings Pty Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Barry Fitzgerald told reporters in China last week the project is on target to achieve full capacity over 15 months. Citigroup described the new mine in the report on Monday as an “impending whale” that would ship almost all of its output to China.

Philippine Activists Call for End to Foreign Mining – by Jason Strother (Voice of America – October 01, 2015)

October 2, 2015

http://www.voanews.com/

MARINDUQUE, PHILIPPINES—The Philippines has suffered numerous disasters from its mining industry over the decades, creating a legacy of health problems that continue to the present day. Now there is a proposal to reopen one foreign-owned mine with a checkered history, and the backlash from activists who are trying to stop it.

When a typhoon or heavy rain hits Marinduque island, many residents along the Mogpog River are evacuated to higher ground.

That is because the Philippine government says an upstream dam that holds back toxic waste from an abandoned copper mine is deteriorating and could overflow or burst, just like it did in 1993.

When that happened, the river was silted over with heavy metals and other debris, or tailings, from the mine. Farmer George Hayno, 53, lives alongside a branch of the Mogpog, and he said the polluted river cost him his right foot.

He said he used to walk back and forth across the river. In 2012 he noticed a cut on his foot that would not heal. A doctor determined it was infected with arsenic and needed to be amputated.

The natives’ tools – by Lawrence Solomon (National Post – October 2, 2015)

October 2, 2015

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

In a predictable display of stakeholder democracy and sustainable development, native leaders, environmentalists, governments and industry all participated in a historic breakthrough this week – an agreement to build a pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Alberta through the Rockies and the British Columbia interior to the Pacific Ocean, from where tankers will deliver the oil to China and beyond. In this $15-billion pipeline play, the parties to the agreement committed to the creation of an energy corridor that would also transport natural gas to an LNG terminal on the coast.

All the stakeholders played their prescribed part in this megaproject. The natives and the corporate leaders spent years in hard-bargaining, eliminating roadblocks through patient negotiations that obtained buy-ins from the many native bands along the route. The government provided the financial concessions needed to secure the development and jobs it invariably touts. And the environmentalists played the role of fools.

This 1.1 million-barrel-a-day oil pipeline and LNG complex – proposed by native-run Eagle Spirit Energy – could morph into an even bigger industrial development. The company is also contemplating multi-billion investments in an upgrader or refinery, in a power transmission line and in marine terminal port development to leverage the opportunities in its energy corridor.

Newfoundland seeking oil companies for booming offshore industry – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – October 2, 2015)

October 2, 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.

The government of Newfoundland and Labrador says there is as much as 30 billion barrels of oil equivalent that is expected to be found in an unexplored area of its deep-water offshore, as the province looks for billion-dollar drilling commitments from international oil companies to expand its production.

In an telephone interview from St. John’s, Ed Martin, chief executive officer of provincially owned Nalcor Energy, said the province’s Flemish Pass area ranks as one of the top undeveloped areas in the world, particularly as companies such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC turn away from risky ventures in the Arctic.

The province’s premier, Paul Davis, released an assessment by French geophysical firm, Beicip-Franlab, that estimates that an 11-parcel block currently being auctioned in the Flemish Pass has the potential to contain 12 billion barrels of crude and 113 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Beicip-Franlab based that estimate on seismic and satellite data collected by Nalcor and private sector partners that conducted a four-year, $240-million exploration program.

Death Toll in Xinjiang Coal Mine Attack Climbs to 50 (Radio Free Asia – September 30, 2015)

October 2, 2015

http://www.rfa.org/english/

The death toll in a knife attack orchestrated by alleged “separatists” at a coal mine in northwestern China’s troubled Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has climbed to at least 50 people—including five police officers—with as many as 50 injured, according to local security officials who say nine suspects are on the run.

The attack occurred on Sept. 18, when a group of knife-wielding suspects set upon security guards at the gate of the Sogan Colliery in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture’s Bay (Baicheng) county, before targeting the mine owner’s residence and a dormitory for workers.

When police officers arrived at the mine in Terek township to control the situation, the attackers rammed their vehicles using trucks loaded down with coal, sources said.

Three sources, including a ruling Communist Party cadre from a local township government, told RFA’s Uyghur Service in recent days that at least 50 people were killed and as many as 50 injured in the attack—with most casualties suffered by the mine’s largely majority Han Chinese workers.

The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War? – by Graham Allison (The Atlantic – September 24, 2015)

October 2, 2015

http://www.theatlantic.com/

In 12 of 16 past cases in which a rising power has confronted a ruling power, the result has been bloodshed.

When Barack Obama meets this week with Xi Jinping during the Chinese president’s first state visit to America, one item probably won’t be on their agenda: the possibility that the United States and China could find themselves at war in the next decade. In policy circles, this appears as unlikely as it would be unwise.

And yet 100 years on, World War I offers a sobering reminder of man’s capacity for folly. When we say that war is “inconceivable,” is this a statement about what is possible in the world—or only about what our limited minds can conceive? In 1914, few could imagine slaughter on a scale that demanded a new category: world war.

When war ended four years later, Europe lay in ruins: the kaiser gone, the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved, the Russian tsar overthrown by the Bolsheviks, France bled for a generation, and England shorn of its youth and treasure. A millennium in which Europe had been the political center of the world came to a crashing halt.

The defining question about global order for this generation is whether China and the United States can escape Thucydides’s Trap.

Glencore’s Wild Ride Has Investors Asking: Can It Happen Again? – by Matthew Campbell, Dinesh Nair and Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – October 2, 2015)

October 2, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

From London to New York to Hong Kong, the frantic question kept coming: could this be another Lehman?

But nowhere did it cause more alarm than inside Glencore Plc — the Swiss commodities giant that had suddenly found itself at the epicenter of a global panic on Monday.

What began that morning in London, with a sudden plunge in Glencore’s share price, cascaded across oceans and time zones and left the company’s billionaire chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, scrambling to calm anxious shareholders, creditors and trading partners.

Days later, even as Glencore regained most of the $6 billion of shareholder wealth erased in a few hours, many investors wondered if Glasenberg can hold the markets at bay.

Few market players, including people close to Glencore, are able to pinpoint why a blue-chip member of the FTSE-100 Index — even one that had been under pressure from sliding commodities prices — lost almost a third of its value in a blink. And that, investors worry, suggests this could all happen again.

Holding keys to Ring of Fire development – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – October 2, 2015)

October 2, 2015

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Aboriginal communities and their role in the future of the Ring of Fire was the focus of a presentation to business leaders in Timmins Thursday.

Glen Nolan, a former chief of the Missanabie Cree First Nation and vice-president of aboriginal affairs for Noront Resources, was the guest speaker of a luncheon hosted by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce.

Noront is a significant player in the Ring of Fire. The company owns 65% of the mining claims within that James Bay lowland region.

With the First Nations in the area holding a great deal of power over the future of the project, Nolan said it is vital that companies like Noront go about handling their relationship with these communities properly.

“It’s not as simple as going into these territories and expecting the communities to open their doors. There has been many years of promises made by governments and by resource companies that have not been fulfilled,” said said Nolan to the chamber members.

AUDIO: New Democrats hone in on Ring of Fire election promises (CBC News Thunder Bay – September 29, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

What the New Democrats have to say about Ring of Fire development, and counterpoints from the other parties

The federal NDP says if it forms the next federal government it will commit $1 billion to infrastructure in the Ring of Fire. It’s one of the key promises in the NDP’s Northern Ontario platform, which was announced Monday.

Thunder Bay Rainy River NDP candidate John Rafferty said his party’s plan to match Ontario’s $1 billion commitment to the Ring of Fire sends an important message.

“There’s a commitment to make this happen and that optimism will help move this program forward.” The Conservative Candidate for Thunder Bay – Superior North, Richard Harvey, said his party will commit funding when Ontario has a plan in place to develop the project.

“Simply transferring money to the province to spend on — something — when they don’t have a plan doesn’t make sense,” Harvey said.

The riding’s Green Party candidate Bruce Hyer said he wants to wait until there’s a plan in place — one that benefits northern Ontario communities, as well as First Nations.

Uganda: Mineral Conference to Focus On Value Addition – by Justus Lyatuu (All Africa.com – September 30, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://allafrica.com/

Officials of mining firms, both local and international, will converge in Kampala for the fourth Mineral Wealth Conference on October 1 and 2, looking for opportunities in an industry that is sometimes touted to be bigger than the oil and gas sector.

Richard Kaijuka, the vice chairman of the Uganda Chamber of Mines and Petroleum (UCMP), the body organising the conference, said the annual MWC was fast becoming East Africa’s flagship mining convention as it played a significant role in highlighting the huge untapped potential of Uganda’s, and the region’s, fledgling mining industries.

“Uganda enjoys a wealth of minerals ranging from gold, copper, iron ore, vermiculite, tin, tantalite, tungsten, nickel, platinum and phosphate; however, fully exploiting these minerals remains a work in progress as extensive exploration has not been done. So under such conferences we need to engage different stakeholders and the private sector,” he said.

Uganda is also said to hold deposits of rare earth elements, whose value alone is said to be bigger than Uganda’s entire oil industry.

The blood diamond trade is tearing the Central African Republic apart – by Jake Flanagin (Quartz Africa – September 30, 2015)

October 1, 2015

http://qz.com/

The Central African Republic (CAR)—one of the poorest countries in the world—has been embroiled in intense religious conflict since Dec. 2012. Fighting between the predominantly Muslim rebels (known as the Séléka) and Christian/animist anti-balaka militia broke out when the former accused Christian president François Bozizé of violating peace agreements laid down in 2007 and 2011.

The Séléka supplanted Bozizé with their own president, Michel Djotodia, from Mar. 2013 to Jan. 2014; though he has since been replaced by two acting presidents—currently, former mayor of Bangui, Catherine Samba-Panza.

Conflict has continued into 2015, marred by reports of massacres committed by the anti-balakas against Muslims (which constitute roughly 15% of the national population).

In the midst of one of the bloodiest conflicts the region has seen in recent years, with the death toll of more than 5,000, according to Amnesty International, Western companies have quietly carried out business as usual. Such is the hypnotic draw of Central Africa’s diamond industry.

Prior to the Séléka’s gaining the presidency, diamonds represented about half of the CAR’s total exports, and 20% of its budget receipts.

Glencore Slides as Recovery Fades After Three-Day Roller Coaster – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – October 1,2015)

October 1, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc’s rebound ran out of puff after a two and a half day ascent that briefly recouped the $6 billion in market value it lost Monday.

The shares slid 3.1 percent to 88.72 pence by 2 p.m. in London after earlier gaining as much as 8.2 percent. Trading was halted for five minutes because of increased volatility.

Investors in the stock could probably do with the breather. Glencore has endured a roller-coaster week with unprecedented volatility for a company that went public in 2011 at 530 pence a share.

The mining and trading firm sank 29 percent on Monday to 68.62 pence on concern over its debt load and ability to withstand sinking commodity prices. It spent most of the rest of the week recovering those losses as investors spied a bargain.

Glencore sought to reassure investors on Tuesday, saying it had “absolutely no solvency issues” and its funding was secure. It also aimed to raise more than $1 billion selling future gold and silver output, according to two people familiar with the situation.