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Opinion: Environment exposes political hypocrisy – by Harry Sterling (Vancouver Sun – September 8, 2015)

http://www.vancouversun.com/

Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, was the Department of External Affairs’ representative to the International Joint Commission from 1981-83, representing the interests and views of the Canadian government on trans-boundary issues.

It seems politicians everywhere have a tendency to become somewhat schizophrenic when confronting sensitive issues that many of their constituents may strongly support or vehemently oppose.

One such increasingly contentious subject is the environment and exploitation of its resources, an issue politicians in both Canada and the United States increasingly find dividing members of their respective societies.

Such divisions can be especially sharp and heated when involving proposed economic development of untapped resources, especially if it involves offshore oil drilling or mining in pristine regions.

Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian lawmakers, notably in provinces such as British Columbia, have recently found themselves increasingly confronting divisions over specific economic projects in their jurisdictions that are raising concerns regarding cross-border developments some believe could endanger their local or national interests.

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All Eyes on Anglo American After Glencore Cedes to Investors – by Jesse Riseborough and Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – September 8, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc’s billionaire chief executive caved this week to shareholder demands that the commodity-trader bolster its balance sheet. Now attention is turning to whether rival Anglo American Plc will follow.

The two companies have been among the hardest hit by China’s cooling demand for commodities on concern they’ll be unable to withstand raw-material prices at a 16-year low and pay off a combined $43.5 billion in debt. Measures might include cutting its dividend, which is yielding a record 9 percent, higher than the level in 2009, when the company last scrapped the payout.

The collapse in commodity prices is undermining Anglo’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Cutifani’s efforts to turn around the fortunes of a business that mines platinum and diamonds in Africa and iron ore in Brazil.

Glencore shares rallied the most in almost three years on Monday after the company outlined a $10 billion debt-reduction plan, including selling $2.5 billion in shares and suspending its dividend.

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Tesla interest could spark new Nevada gold rush for lithium – by Andy Colthorpe (Storage-PV Tech.com – September 07, 2015)

http://storage.pv-tech.org/

A gold exploration and mining company has agreed to purchase a potential site for excavating lithium in Nevada, citing the “great deal of attention” brought onto the state by Tesla’s decision to locate its mammoth manufacturing facility there.

The EV-maker’s decision to go into stationary storage, officially confirmed at the end of April, followed a period in which Tesla was supplying its partner SolarCity with battery-based energy storage in a number of pilot projects for houses and for the installer’s DemandLogic commercial solution.

The confirmation brought high-profile attention onto the energy storage industry, sparking mainstream media interest. By that point, it was already well known that Tesla was building a “Gigafactory” in Nevada and the announcement of the launch of Powerwall, for houses, and PowerPack for the commercial and utility-scale markets merely confirmed the company’s ambitions beyond EVs. The Gigafactory’s planned “500,000 battery packs by 2020” of production would be soaked up by stationary storage too.

In the final week of August this year, Tesla signed a conditional long-term lithium hydroxide supply deal with Canadian company Bacanora and British company Rare Earth Minerals.

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Our view: Abandoned mines or future disasters? (Santa Fe New Mexican – September 8, 2015)

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/

Outrage over the spill at the Gold King Mine in Colorado — where 3 million gallons of polluted water gushed out — should be put to good use. That water, flowing into the Animas River, and eventually downstream to New Mexico waters, provided a stark reminder of the dangerous legacy of abandoned mines.

Now, rather than rage against an accident, the nation needs to deal with the hundreds of other accidents that are waiting to happen. As Justin Horwarth reported in Sunday’s New Mexican, there are some 500,000 abandoned mines across the country. How many of those are in New Mexico? We just don’t know either the number of mines or what kind of environmental risk they pose. That’s not acceptable.

To date, the Bureau of Land Management has identified some 13,000 abandoned mines in New Mexico, but has not analyzed most of them. Close to 90 percent of the mines that BLM has identified have not been remediated.

After the Gold King Mine spill, Gov. Susana Martinez has said she would put some $750,000 into addressing fallout from that spill. Some of that, say state authorities, could be put to use at other abandoned mine sites.

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NEWS RELEASE: Ivanhoe Mines, Laurentian University and the University of Limpopo forge educational partnership to provide skills for South Africa’s miners of tomorrow

Representatives of the South African and Canadian governments, Ivanhoe Mines, Ivanplats, Laurentian University (LU) and the University of Limpopo (UL) celebrate the new partnership in mining education at the latter's Turfloop Campus in Polokwane today. (L to R) Vinesh Devchander (Department of Mineral Resources), Dr. Patricia Makhesha (Managing Director, Ivanplats), Dr. Bruce Jago (LU), Michael Langa (MSc candidate), Prof. John Dunlevey (UL), Prof. Mahlo Mokgalong (Vice-Chancellor, UL), Prof. Aifheli Gelebe (UL), Thabiso Makohliso (MSc candidate), Louise Holt (Canadian High Commission) and Jeremy Michaels (Ivanhoe Mines).
Representatives of the South African and Canadian governments, Ivanhoe Mines, Ivanplats, Laurentian University (LU) and the University of Limpopo (UL) celebrate the new partnership in mining education at the latter’s Turfloop Campus in Polokwane today. (L to R) Vinesh Devchander (Department of Mineral Resources), Dr. Patricia Makhesha (Managing Director, Ivanplats), Dr. Bruce Jago (LU), Michael Langa (MSc candidate), Prof. John Dunlevey (UL), Prof. Mahlo Mokgalong (Vice-Chancellor, UL), Prof. Aifheli Gelebe (UL), Thabiso Makohliso (MSc candidate), Louise Holt (Canadian High Commission) and Jeremy Michaels (Ivanhoe Mines).

www.ivanhoemines.com

POLOKWANE, SOUTH AFRICA – September 9, 2015 – Ivanhoe Mines Limited (TSX: IVN), the University of Limpopo in South Africa and Laurentian University in Canada signed an agreement today officially launching an educational collaboration between the two universities. The collaboration, initiated and sponsored by Ivanhoe’s South African subsidiary, Ivanplats, was celebrated at a signing ceremony on the University of Limpopo campus attended by officials from Laurentian University, the University of Limpopo, Ivanhoe and the South African and Canadian governments.

A principal goal of the five-year partnership, which is renewable for a further five years, is to develop and equip the University of Limpopo’s geology department to become a centre of excellence in geosciences. This will be achieved through measures that include:

• improved training and curriculum choices in economic geology and mineral exploration at the University of Limpopo;
• increased teaching and research capacities at the graduate student level;
• equipping laboratories;
• purchasing an outdoor vehicle and trailer for field excursions; and
• collaborating with Laurentian University to improve the University of Limpopo’s learning programmes.

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Coal Companies Are Hurting. But the Coal Industry Is Not Dying. – by Daniel Gross (Slate.com – September 8, 2015)

http://www.slate.com/

Climate hawks must realize that bankruptcies aren’t the way to a lower-carbon future.

Climate hawks have been gleeful over the trend of big U.S. coal companies filing for bankruptcy. Patriot Coal filed for Chapter 11 in May, Walter Energy sought protection in July, and Alpha Natural Resources succumbed in August. And it makes sense: A financially unviable coal industry could be a big step in the movement toward a lower-carbon future.

A report this month by Taylor Kuykendall and Hira Fawad at SNL Energy found that roughly “10.4% of all the coal produced in the U.S.” in the second quarter of 2015 came from companies that have filed for bankruptcy protection. “In Central Appalachia, 37.5% of the coal mined in the quarter came from mines that were owned or operated by companies that have filed for bankruptcy since 2012,” they write.

But coal haters shouldn’t be too gleeful at this spate of bankruptcies. While some mines are being idled, they’re not being shuttered en masse. The financial failure of many coal companies, by itself, won’t necessarily bring about a low-carbon future—and for particularly Americans reasons.

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Glencore, Battered Mining Giant, Retreats – by Scott Patterson and Alex MacDonald (Wall Street Journal – September 7, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

CEO Ivan Glasenberg scraps dividend, sells assets as commodities caught in price slump

LONDON—Collapsing commodity prices have forced one of the mining world’s most aggressive chief executives into retreat, pushing Glencore PLC’s Ivan Glasenberg on Monday to scrap the company’s dividend, issue more stock and sell assets.

The moves are the most dramatic yet among companies caught in the deepening, fast-ricocheting effects of the world-wide slump in prices for everything from copper to crude oil.

With a massive trading operation built years ago by founder and controversial financier Marc Rich, Glencore was supposed to be less vulnerable to swings in the energy market. Instead, the company has been hit especially hard.

In an interview, Mr. Glasenberg said the moves announced Monday weren’t necessary from his point of view but were made to soothe investor fears of a worst-case scenario in which commodity prices keep falling as demand from China slows further.

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Companies Struggle to Comply With Rules on Conflict Minerals – by Lynley Browning (New York Times – September 8, 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/

A pink My Little Pony balloon does not usually evoke images of rifle-toting warlords in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Still, Party City Holdings, the decorations and costumes retailer, recently disclosed a possible link to securities regulators, helping to put it near the bottom of a list ranking companies on their compliance with laws against using minerals mined in war-torn regions across Africa.

Party City is just one of 1,262 companies that filed the required disclosures on their use of so-called conflict minerals. Ninety percent of those companies, including Microsoft, Apple, General Electric and Ford Motor, said they also might be using tainted supplies. Yet Party City landed near the bottom of a list compiled by Tulane University researchers that ranked the companies’ compliance records in this area, while giants like Microsoft achieved perfect scores.

“Anybody with a relative interest in ethical sourcing would be interested in this list,” said Matthew Whitteker, the marketing director for Assent Compliance, a software and services firm in Ottawa that commissioned the Tulane study. “For any company that manages this well, both Wall Street and Main Street will look at their brand favorably.”

The Tulane study is just one example of a growing business opportunity for consultants, auditors, lawyers and software firms looking to cash in on a complex provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that requires companies to disclose their use of conflict minerals “necessary to the functionality or production” of products they make or contract out for manufacturing.

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Public fears put uranium mining on same path as shale gas in Quebec – by Ross Marowits (Canadian Press/CTV News – September 8, 2015)

http://www.ctvnews.ca/

MONTREAL — Fears about radioactive contamination may close the door to uranium mining in Quebec just as public angst shelved shale gas extraction in the province in 2011. “Like shale gas, it touches a sensitive chord in Quebec,” says Ugo Lapointe of MiningWatch Canada, which opposes mining of the metal that fuels nuclear power plants.

Hundreds of municipalities have joined First Nations to oppose uranium mining, worried that it could threaten their health, harm natural environments and ruin traditional hunting and fishing.

Quebec’s environmental regulation agency (BAPE) has concluded there is no “social acceptability” for uranium mining to proceed at this time. After a year of study, a three-person panel said that it would be premature to authorize development of Quebec’s uranium industry.

While uranium mining has made substantial progress, especially in containing waste, there are still many uncertainties and “significant gaps in scientific knowledge of the impacts of uranium mining on the environment and public health,” it said in a lengthy report.

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Hubris led to destruction of investors’ money by mining groups – by Kunal Bose (Business Standard – September 7, 2015)

http://www.business-standard.com/

The onset of boom led the world’s leading mining groups to be on a capital expenditure binge to dig out new mines

Inspired by one single factor of voracious Chinese appetite ranging from oil to all minerals used in making metals, the now-ended commodity boom began in 2003. The onset of boom led the world’s leading mining groups to be on a capital expenditure binge to dig out new mines.

But the slowdown of the world’s second largest economy, as Beijing turns focus from investment to consumer-led growth, gives the feeling that earlier, long years of high mineral prices supported by growing demand led miners to drink Chinese potion to reach iridescent highs.

Their thought then was Chinese demand would continue to grow at high rates far into the future to justify colossal investments in mines’ capacity building. Chinese growth has now downshifted to a level not seen in a quarter century and that is proving to be a hard awakening for miners from their hallucinatory past.

Not very long ago, mining chief executives thought their investment in dredging more and more iron ore from the earth stood no chance of going wrong, since China was expected to be a one billion tonne (bt) steel producer by 2030.

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PRESS RELEASE: Northern Superior Initiates Final Preparations for Trial Against the Ontario Government: October 5th, 2015

SUDBURY, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – Sept. 8, 2015) – Northern Superior Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:SUP) (“Northern Superior” or the “Company”) is now in the final phase of preparation for the trial of its lawsuit against the Ontario Government, scheduled to start October 5th, 2015. Following a busy summer of preparing and processing legal documents and organizing witnesses, several key steps have either been completed, or are in the process of being completed, in preparation for the trial.

Of particular importance was establishing Northern Superior’s quantum of economic damages resulting from the alleged acts and omissions of the Government of Ontario (“Ontario”) which Northern Superior claims caused it to lose access to further explore and develop the Company’s Thorne Lake, Rapson Bay and Meston Lake properties, located in northwestern Ontario.

Northern Superior retained NERA, an international economic consulting company specializing in damage assessment and business related valuations, to assist in determining a fair and defensible value for the damages suffered by Northern Superior (see Northern Superior press release, May 11th, 2015). This report was submitted on time, as have all of Northern Superior’s documents to the Ontario Government, on July 21st, 2015.

Subsequently, Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. (” RPA”), the Ontario Government’s expert witness on this matter, had an opportunity to respond to the NERA report. The Court set a date of August 28th for this purpose.

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Australia’s proposed India uranium deal given cautious green light despite ‘risks’ – by Shalailah Medhora (The Guardian – September 8, 2015)

http://www.theguardian.com/

To counteract potential risks of the deal, Australia’s treaties committee recommends nuclear-armed India agree to a number of safeguards

The government-dominated treaties committee has given a cautious green light to a proposed uranium deal with India, but only if the nuclear-armed nation agrees to a number of safeguards.

India is not a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) nor the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT), yet the emerging world leader is in dire need of energy.

As such, the committee report notes that: “It would be fair to say that, in this debate, there are no small risks or benefits. Every issue the committee has dealt with in this inquiry bears significant potential benefits and risks.

“The question for the committee is, then, given the benefits for Australia and India from the proposed agreement, can the risks be tolerated and ameliorated,” the report asked.

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Franco-Nevada Mulls Credit as `Hokey’ Streaming Goes Mainstream – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – September 8, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/

For Franco-Nevada Corp., the best time to take on debt is at the bottom of a market. The day may be approaching for the Canadian royalty and streaming company as the commodity rout boosts demand for alternative funding.

“There are so many opportunities out there, we might have to dip into our credit lines,” Chief Executive Officer David Harquail said in an interview last week from his Toronto offices. “The ideal is you lever yourself up at the very bottom of the bear market and hopefully, if you’ve called it right, then you really benefit as the market turns around.”

Streaming companies like Franco-Nevada, Silver Wheaton Corp. and Royal Gold Inc. give miners upfront payments in exchange for the right to buy metals at a discount in the future. Franco-Nevada also does royalty agreements, tying portions of production to land titles.

Plunging metal prices, with copper down 24 percent and gold 11 percent in the past year, combined with surging credit costs and volatile stock markets, have made streaming attractive even for majors such as Barrick Gold Corp. and Freeport-McMoRan Inc., giving the business more credibility.

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Mining automation: The be all and end all? – by Cole Latimer (Australian Mining – September 8, 2015)

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/

The fully automated mine has long since passed the days of concept and evolved into a reality.  If the industry is to survive and grow, on this planet and elsewhere, total automation of many of the processes is the way forward.

According to professor of mining engineering at the University of British Columbia, John Meech, autonomous vehicle operations can help increase productivity by between 15 to 20 per cent, and truck uptimes by up to a fifth, with Rio Tinto automated fleets recording a 12 per cent production increase compared to manned vehicles.

Rio Tinto, BHP, Roy Hill, and Fortescue are making massive strides forward in implementing autonomous haulage systems in the Pilbara, forging a new place for the technology, combining them with manned operations; particularly in terms of Rio’s Mine of the Future program and BHP’s automated operations centre, both located in Perth.

Hitachi is also trialling its autonomous vehicle systems at the Meandu coal mine in Queensland.

Total automation has also taken another angle with Vale, in Brazil, looking to go completely truckless by using mobile conveyor belts.

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How First Nations resurgence could help or hinder pipeline projects (Business Vancouver – september 8, 2015)

https://www.biv.com/

There’s something significant going on in the aboriginal world, which needs to be viewed with a historical frame of reference. From demonstrations of indigenous identity …

The Canadian oilpatch was dumbstruck by incoming Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s pre-election announcement that her government would withdraw support for Enbridge’s (TSX:ENB) Northern Gateway pipeline.

“It’s not worth it,” Notley said, suggesting that she considered First Nations opposition intractable and noting the “intense” environmental sensitivities in British Columbia.

Shortly after the NDP’s orange crush started giving Calgary energy executives the blues, B.C.’s Lax Kw’alaams Band unanimously rejected the $1.1 billion offer from Petronas-led Pacific NorthWest LNG to site its liquefaction terminal on Lelu Island near Prince Rupert.

As Canada’s oil and gas export industry starts shifting from the shrinking U.S. market to the expanding Asian markets, getting aboriginal buy-in for the requisite infrastructure has proved extremely difficult.

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