KGHM, Metis Nation strike Victoria Mine agreement – by Staff (Sudbury Star – September 4, 2015)

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

The Metis Nation of Ontario and KGHM International Ltd. announced Thursday a deal covering development of the Victoria Mine project in Sudbury.

The memorandum of understanding will guide their working relationship as the mine is being prepared for a 2017 opening.

“This agreement is very important to the Metis people because it guarantees that Metis rights will be protected and the Metis way of life in the Sudbury area is being respected,” Metis Nation of Ontario chair France Picotte said in a release.

“We are pleased to continue working with KGHM. Agreements like this one are another benefit that we see coming from the MNO-Ontario Framework Agreement, which was first signed in 2008 and renewed this past year.”

In 2012, KGHM announced plans to spend $750-million to redevelop Victoria Mine near Worthington. One of Sudbury’s oldest and most prolific mines, Victoria would employ more than 200 full-time workers by the time it goes back into full production in 2017. It would produce copper and nickel.

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Rio Tinto Expects Solid Demand for Iron Ore – by Rhiannon Hoyle (Wall Street Journal – September 3, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

Mining company stays confident in China’s steel market, despite country’s slowdown

SYDNEY— Rio Tinto PLC told investors it expects world-wide demand for iron ore to keep growing despite China’s economic slowdown, as the company projected a rising appetite for steel in coming years.

On Thursday, Rio Tinto forecast 2.5% average annual growth in global steel demand for the next 15 years. Emerging markets are expected to take on an expanded role, with the mining company predicting that non-Chinese steel demand will rise 65% by 2030.

While Chinese steel output has waned recently, Rio Tinto said it remained confident in the country’s steel market. It stuck with an earlier projection that Chinese crude steel production will reach about one billion metric tons by the end of next decade. China produces roughly half the world’s steel, and its annual production is currently at roughly 800 million tons.

A global glut of steel and concerns over China’s economic prospects, have hurt prices for iron ore, the biggest ingredient in steelmaking.

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‘Window of opportunity’ for new LNG projects is gone because of supply glut, consultancy says – by Yadullah Hussain (National Post – September 4, 2015)

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

The window to build liquefied natural gas projects in Canada and elsewhere has closed amid a global supply glut, says global energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

“There is a clear reluctance by companies to stand down, but the reality is that the window of opportunity closed over six months ago for everyone, not just for Canada,” Noel Tomnay, vice-president global gas and LNG research for Wood Mackenzie said in an interview.

Qatar and Australia led the first two waves of LNG development with the U.S. spearheading the third wave, even as Canadian and East African proposals were stalled.

“Canada’s biggest competitor is not the U.S. — it is probably Mozambique,” Tomnay said, noting that these two regions would probably the play the role of niche, “strategic resources” for investors in the next wave of development that will cater to demand after 2022.

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No union coal mines remain in Kentucky – by Dylan Lovan (Associated Press/Salt Lake City Tribune – September 3, 2015)

http://www.sltrib.com/

Harlan, Ky. – Kentucky coal miners bled and died to unionize.

Their workplaces became war zones, and gun battles once punctuated union protests. In past decades, organizers have been beaten, stabbed and shot while seeking better pay and safer conditions deep underground.

But more recently the United Mine Workers in Kentucky have been in retreat, dwindling like the black seams of coal in the Appalachian mountains. And now the last union mine in Kentucky has been shut down.

“A lot of people right now who don’t know what the [union] stands for is getting good wages and benefits because of the sacrifice that we made,” said Kenny Johnson, a retired union miner who was arrested during the Brookside strike in Harlan County in the 1970s. “Because when we went on those long strikes, it wasn’t because we wanted to be out of work.”

Hard-fought gains are taken for granted by younger workers who earn high wages now, leading the coal industry to argue that the union ultimately rendered itself obsolete.

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[Zimbabwe Diamonds] The tragic saga of Marange (Zimbabwe Independent – September 4, 2015)

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/

In 2000, a small geological survey team from De Beers Ltd, the largest diamond mining company in the world and a global top 500 enterprise, moved into a camp on the banks of the Save river. They secured an Exclusive Prospecting Order (EPO) over a large area and began to probe for raw diamonds. They found ample evidence of diamonds and sent loads of soil to Johannesburg, South Africa, for analysis but after six years decided that the qualities of the stones on site were not good enough to warrant commercial exploitation.

Eddie Cross

In London another company, African Consolidated Resources (ACR), formed by a group of Zimbabweans, watched the developments very carefully. When De Beers failed to renew their EPO over the area, they moved very quickly to take up the EPO and registered claims over 3 800 hectares of land that they identified as having the most potential.

Under the guidance of an experienced Australian geologist, the company cut deep trenches across the site and in a matter of weeks discovered gem quality stones. Although less than 20% of all the stones recovered were in this category, they felt that it was commercially viable because of the low cost of extraction.

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Vale release 6,000 trout in Onaping River – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – September 03, 2015)

 

http://www.northernlife.ca/

There were 6,000 more rainbow trout in the Onaping River on Thursday thanks to Vale’s efforts to enhance the river’s biodiversity.

The mining company’s environment team raised the fish in large tanks at its surface greenhouse in Copper Cliff and released them in a shallow part of the river in Dowling.

“Where we can, we try to protect biodiversity and enhance it where we have the opportunity,” said Glen Watson, superintendent of reclamation decommissioning for Vale’s Ontario operations.

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COLUMN – Seaborne coal market may shrink, total demand won’t – by Clyde Russell (Reuters India – September 3, 2015)

http://in.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, AUSTRALIA – It’s tempting to mould events to suit your view of how the world should be, and there seems to be plenty of that in the coal debate.

There is certainly enough evidence to suggest seaborne coal volumes are trending lower, but it’s probably a mistake to use the sector as a proxy for the total market.

Environmentalists are keen to see coal as a sunset fuel that should be phased out as soon as possible given its role as a major contributor to climate change.

They have been heartened by recent news of the closure of a small coal mine in Australia and the decision by the city council of Australia’s Newcastle, home to the world’s biggest coal export harbour, to divest from the fuel.

Falling imports by China and India, the two largest buyers of the dirty fuel, have also been cited as further evidence that coal is on the way out.

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Legacy of Hard Rock Mining in the West — Death of a River, a Community’s Response – by Michele Swenson (Huffington Post – September 2, 2015)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Michele Swenson is an author and activist.

A century and a half of hard-rock mining with no accountability, without consideration for environmental consequences or downstream neighbors has taken a heavy toll in the West. Metallic, acidic wastewater from mines have a long-term effect on agriculture, ranching, aquatic life, human and wild life, and aquifers.

A 3 million gallon dump of mustard-colored toxic waste from Gold King Mine into the Animas River on August 5 raised the most recent alarm, even as the EPA estimates that the overall discharges from local abandoned mines amount to one Gold King mine disaster every two days. Colorado officials estimate that drainage from 230 abandoned mines in the state result in the failure of 1,645 miles of 105,000 miles (1.6%) of rivers and streams to meet Clean Water Act standards.

Cited as the worst environmental disaster in Colorado history, the Summitville open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mine sits at an altitude of 11,500 feet in the San Juan Mountains, southeast of the Gold King Mine and 40 miles west of the city of Alamosa, just east of the continental divide. The devastating fallout of this form of mining led one resident to lament that the San Juan Valley had become “the poster child for how not to do mining.”

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NEWS RELEASE: VALE STOCKS ONAPING RIVER WITH LOCAL GREENHOUSE-RAISED FISH

Glen Watson, Superintendent, Reclamation & Decommissioning for Vale’s Ontario Operations, releases Rainbow Trout into the Onaping River in Dowling. The fish were raised at Vale’s greenhouse in Copper Cliff.
Glen Watson, Superintendent, Reclamation & Decommissioning for Vale’s Ontario Operations, releases Rainbow Trout into the Onaping River in Dowling. The fish were raised at Vale’s greenhouse in Copper Cliff.

SUDBURY, September 3, 2015 – Vale’s environment team released approximately 6,000 rainbow trout into the Onaping River today. The fish were raised in large tanks at the company’s surface greenhouse in Copper Cliff.

“These rainbow trout will be a great boost to the Onaping River’s fish population,” said Glen Watson, Superintendent, Reclamation & Decommissioning for Vale’s Ontario Operations. “This is our fifth fish release into the Onaping River since we began the fish stocking program three years ago and we’re already seeing great results.”

Stocking formerly stressed rivers and lakes is part of Vale’s local biodiversity enhancement strategy, which includes a variety of local environmental initiatives from fish stocking to beekeeping to planting milkweed to attract and preserve monarch butterflies.

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First Mining Finance sees more acquisition opportunities after three-way deal – by Peter Koven (National Post – September 3, 2015)

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

Canadian mining heavyweight Keith Neumeyer is taking advantage of awful market conditions to snap up promising assets left and right.

First Mining Finance Corp., Neumeyer’s “mineral bank,” unveiled a three-way deal this week in which it will buy Gold Canyon Resources Inc. and PC Gold Inc. for a total of about $66 million in stock. This comes less than two months after First Mining acquired Coastal Gold Corp., its first acquisition.

Vancouver-based First Mining only went public in April, but the company sees this as the ideal time to buy junior mining assets on the cheap. Juniors are suffering through their worst bear market since the Bre-X crisis because of sinking commodity prices and a near-total lack of financing options.

“We don’t want the market to turn around soon, because we really want to load up on assets,” Pat Donnelly, First Mining’s president, said in an interview. “And so the longer this bear market continues, the better for us.”

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PwC warns against overtaxation in Africa’s resources sector – by Esmarie Swanepoel (Mining Weekly.com – September 3, 2015)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Advisory firm PwC has warned African nations against overtaxing investments in the resources sector.

Launching a new report on the second day of the Africa Downunder conference, PwC African practice leader and resource sector partner Ben Gargett said taxation and fiscal settings had been a contentious issue across the globe for a number of years, with emerging markets at the forefront of the debate.

“There are only so many profits and so much cash flow generated by a mining project. If the costs are too high, the project is uneconomic. The same applies to government taxes. If they are too great for the project, there is insufficient [room] left for the miner to generate a commercial return, Gargett said.

He pointed out that it was the miner who was bearing the full capital and operating risk of a mining project and added that the miner’s capital was mobile and decisions were made in the allocation of this capital on a regular basis.

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Nalco executives to visit Iran for talks on $2 billion smelter plan – by Swansy Afonso (Live Mint.com – September 3, 2015)

http://www.livemint.com/

The company will discuss forming a joint venture with the IMIDRO, said T.K. Chand

Mumbai: India’s National Aluminium Co. Ltd (Nalco) executives plan to visit Iran this month for initial talks to build a $2 billion smelter in the Middle Eastern country, the first pick on its three-nation short list.

The company will discuss forming a joint venture with the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization, or IMIDRO, T.K. Chand, chairman and managing director of National Aluminium, or Nalco, said in an interview at his office in Bhubaneswar.

“Our consultant has shortlisted Iran, Oman and Indonesia for the smelter,” Chand said. “We have started discussions in order of preference starting with Iran. We will take a view on all countries and shortlist one taking into account the availability of gas and energy for making cost competitive power.”

Strong trade relations and a rupee trade system between India and Iran, as well easing global sanctions, make the Middle Eastern country a preferred choice, Chand said. Nalco is bullish about Indian demand, with per capita consumption forecast to grow to about 5 kilograms to 6 kilograms in the next five years from about 1.8 kilograms now, he said.

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Anglo American in talks to sell troubled platinum mines – by Andrew England and James Wilson (Financial Times – September 3, 2015)

http://www.ft.com/

Johannesburg and Abidjan – Anglo American is in advanced talks to sell some of its South African platinum mines, as the UK group deepens its efforts to get rid of underperforming parts of its sprawling global operations.

The group said on Thursday that Amplats, its South African subsidiary, was in discussions with Sibanye Gold, a South African gold miner, over a sale of Anglo’s troubled Rustenburg platinum operations north west of Johannesburg.

Selling a slew of poor-quality assets has been a key priority for Anglo’s chief executive Mark Cutifani as he battles to improve the group’s financial performance while miners grapple with a prolonged collapse in commodity prices. Shares in mining companies have slumped amid global concern over the economic slowdown in China, the industry’s dominant customer.

Anglo’s South African exposure, and in particular its prominence in the platinum sector, has been one of the biggest concerns for investors. The Rustenburg operations are particularly problematic as they are lossmaking and have been at the heart of labour unrest in South Africa’s platinum industry.

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Billionaire’s 20-Year-Old Son May Lead $5 Billion Polyus Bid – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – September 1, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Suleiman Kerimov’s son, a university student in Moscow, may lead a $5.4 billion bid to take Russia’s largest gold producer Polyus Gold International Ltd. private.

Wandle Holdings Ltd. and its Sacturino Ltd. unit, controlled by the billionaire’s son Said Kerimov, are considering an offer to buy the shares of the gold miner they don’t already own for $2.97 each, Sacturino said in a statement late Wednesday. The family already owns about 40 percent of the company, so a fully subscribed offer would value the deal at $5.4 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Polyus shares rose as much as 6.9 percent and were up 3.7 percent at 196.50 pence ($3) as of 12:24 p.m. in London. The stock has climbed 8.3 percent this year, the third-best performer on the 10-company Bloomberg Europe 500 Metals and Mining Index, which dropped 26 percent over the same period.

Kerimov senior, 49, Russia’s 18th richest man with an estimated fortune of $4.9 billion, is a member of the Federation Council, the nation’s upper chamber of the parliament.

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The Blood Red Rubies of Burma (DOCUMENTARY) – June 2015

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuuRPqRkd4bUZxDSActiiog/feed

The Mogok Valley in Upper Myanmar (Burma) was for centuries the world’s main source for rubies. That region has produced some of the finest rubies ever mined, but in recent years very few good rubies have been found there. The very best color in Myanmar rubies is sometimes described as “pigeon’s blood.”

In central Myanmar, the area of Mong Hsu began producing rubies during the 1990s and rapidly became the world’s main ruby mining area. The most recently found ruby deposit in Myanmar is in Namya (Namyazeik) located in the northern state of Kachin.

Ruby Country – as the Burmese call their country, which is famous for the jewels as red as blood. In the old days the rubies were in maharajas ownership. They were sold to the Europeans. Today, trade with the red rubies is fully at the hands of the military government field in the. They are currently the new owners of the mines. The golden triangle is the largest and most dangerous ruby country in the world.

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