COMMENTARY: Mount Polley mine disaster’s first anniversary is no reason to celebrate – by Ana Simeon and Ugo Lapointe (The Stright.com – July 31, 2015)

http://www.straight.com/

Ana Simeon is with Sierra Club B.C. Ugo Lapointe is with MiningWatch Canada.

On August 4 last year, Quesnel Lake residents and communities along the Fraser River were eagerly anticipating one of the largest sockeye returns in recent history.

What they got instead was a nightmare: over 24 billion litres of mine waste burst through Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley dam into their watershed.

Mount Polley is the largest mining waste spill in Canada’s history. The consequences and overall costs of this disaster concern us all, including a steep cost on the industry’s reputation and public trust.

Yet a year later, the mine is running again under a restricted permit. While both the company and the B.C. government attempt to be reassuring, many questions remain unanswered.

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Rio wants exploration collaboration to discover next big seam – by Tess Ingram (Sydney Morning Post – August 3, 2015)

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

Well-known West Australian explorer Mark Bennett has queried whether a plan by Rio Tinto to reinvigorate exploration in Australia through partnerships with junior mining companies will work as intended.

Rio has used its first presentation at the Diggers and Dealers conference in eight years to call for collaboration in exploration in order to find the next major mineral discovery in Australia.

The country’s miners are relying on deposits discovered at shallow depths more than 30 years ago and are struggling to discover further large, tier-one deposits at depth.

The current cost and risk of deeper exploration has meant many miners have abandoned exploration efforts altogether, opting for more bankable exploration around existing deposits (known as brownfields exploration) or in other countries, where resources remain shallow.

Speaking on the first day of the annual conference in Kalgoorlie, Rio Tinto exploration director Australasia Ian Ledlie extended an invitation to junior companies to use the global major’s mineral analysis technology to help prove up discoveries.

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White House set to adopt sweeping curbs on carbon pollution – by Joby Warrick (Washington Post – August 1, 2015)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

The Obama administration will formally adopt an ambitious regulation for cutting greenhouse-gas pollution on Monday, requiring every state to reduce emissions from coal-burning power plants and putting the country on a course that could change the way millions of Americans get their electricity.

A retooled version of the administration’s Clean Power Plan, first proposed a year ago, will seek to accelerate the shift to renewable energy while setting tougher goals for slashing carbon emissions blamed for global warming, according to administration officials briefed on the details.

The new plan sets a goal of cutting carbon pollution from power plants by 32 percent by the year 2030, compared with 2005 levels — a 9 percent jump from the previous target of 30 percent — while rewarding states and utility companies that move quickly to expand their investment in solar and wind power.

Many states will face tougher requirements for lowering greenhouse-gas emissions under the revised plan.

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New EPA rule on greenhouse gases the latest blow to King Coal – by Steven Mufson (Washington Post – August 1, 2015)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

When coal was king, it fueled more than half of the nation’s electricity. It fired up American industry and powered an ever-growing variety of household appliances and electronics. And American presidential hopefuls paid homage to coal, courting mine owners and miners whose unionized ranks once numbered more than 400,000.

Barack Obama was no exception. As a state legislator in 2004 and again as a U.S. senator, he supported proposals for huge federal subsidies to turn coal into motor fuel and ease America’s reliance on oil imports. “With the right technological innovations, coal has the potential to be a cleaner-burning, domestic alternative to imported oil,” Obama said in June 2007.

All of that has changed. On Monday, the Obama administration takes on the coal industry with the final version of rules it has dubbed the Clean Power Plan, a complex scheme designed to reduce, on a state-by-state basis, the amount of greenhouse gases the nation’s electric power sector emits. The main target: coal.

Today, more people in the United States work jobs installing solar panels than work in the coal industry.

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The Observer view on global mining regulation (The Guardian – August 2, 2015)

http://www.theguardian.com/

The suffering of communities in Zambia’s copper mining region highlights the need to create a global regulatory regime

The appalling suffering of villagers living close to the mining town of Chingola, in Zambia’s copperbelt region, whose water supplies have been dangerously polluted by leaks of sulphuric acid and other toxic chemicals, is both avoidable and unacceptable. As we report today, the Chingola pollution and associated environmental damage has led to serious health problems for those affected, such as potential organ failure, cancers and permanent disabilities, as well as failed crops, loss of earnings and livelihoods.

This continuing toll on life and well-being is wholly avoidable, in part because the problems associated with Vedanta Resources’ giant mine at Chingola have been common knowledge for some years.

A scientist whistleblower familiar with company activities claimed operating and maintenance standards were consistently poor from 2005, when the Vedanta-owned subsidiary, KCM, bought the plant. “There have been heavy spillages and massive leakages. Acid has been leaking all over the place… No effort has been made to correct this scenario,” the whistleblower said.

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Gold’s M&A Wave to Roll on as Bullion Falls to Five-Year Low – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – August 2, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Gold’s tumble to the lowest since 2010 promises to prolong a mergers and acquisitions boom that’s seen transactions at a three-year high as weaker prices slash asset valuations.

Deals valued at $9.6 billion were proposed or completed in the six months to June 30, up 7 percent on the previous half, as producers including OceanaGold Corp. agreed acquisitions, according to data complied by Bloomberg. They totaled $22.3 billion last year, the highest since 2011, the data show.

“I’d expect that thematic to continue and the next wave of activity from an M&A point of view might be more mergers,” Reg Spencer, a Sydney-based analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group Inc., said by phone. “Unless the smaller guys get together and get bigger quickly, they’ll find they are less able to compete when assets do become available.”

Gold producers in Australia gathering Monday for a three-day annual conference in outback Kalgoorlie, a key center of output since the 1880s, proposed or completed deals worth $4.5 billion in the past 12 months, according to the data. The nation is the largest producer after China.

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For Fortescue’s Andrew Forrest, it’s mine, all mine – by Jonathan Barrett (Australian Financial Review – July 31, 2015)

http://www.afr.com/

Billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest has relied on a series of controversial strategies to climb to the top of the resources pile.

It is not your ordinary after-school job.

It is the year 2000, and Daniel Kerr is under pressure from his mum to get part-time work. The 15-year-old schoolboy wouldn’t mind a few extra dollars given he needs a new set of wheels; he does, after all, have a habit of wearing out skateboards.

Kerr looks in the local paper, the Kalgoorlie Miner, and on the public noticeboard before he finds the perfect job. “Money for jam,” he thinks to himself.

An employer is looking for someone to go down to the local mines department once a week and hand-copy information that is lodged by explorers and miners. The job description might raise eyebrows for those living in major cities, but Kerr lives in the heart of Western Australia’s Goldfields region, where almost every job has a red-earth mineral tinge to it.

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Birthplace of the A-bomb: Nuclear New Mexico: Past and future – by Tom Vaughn (Desert Exposure – August 2015)

http://www.desertexposure.com/

The atomic genie was let out of the bottle 70 years ago here in New Mexico. It can’t be put back in; nobody wants it to go away. Nuclear medicine, nuclear power, atomic clocks, nuclear propulsion in submarines and spacecraft … the technological advances made possible by atomic research are not to be given up. Yet the genie is still capable of destroying worlds, or at least wreaking havoc locally. The challenge today is to keep it corralled.

The earliest uses of uranium ores in New Mexico had nothing to do with radioactivity. Ground to a powder, the yellowish minerals were used by Native Americans to color designs on deerskin cradle-board coverings.

In the 1920s, low-grade uranium ores (autunite and torbernite) were recovered from old silver mines in the White Signal and Black Hawk mining districts west of Silver City for use in glazes and to color glass. Significant uranium deposits in these areas were identified during the uranium boom of the 1950s.

World War II gave birth to the Manhattan Project — a search for a super-weapon that could give its wielder a decisive victory. Building on earlier research into radioactivity and atomic physics, both Germany and the United States raced to produce an atomic bomb.

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Where the Dead Become Diamonds – by Roc Morin (The Atlantic – October 14, 2015)

http://www.theatlantic.com/

A Swiss company wants to change the way people mourn by transforming the remains of their loved ones into gems.

“When a man of 80 kilos is cremated, he becomes 2.5 kilos of ashes,” Rinaldo Willy explained. “With these ashes, we make a diamond of 0.2 grams, smaller than a button on your shirt. How heavy is the soul—if we have a soul?”

In its coupling of the tangible and intangible, it is a question that epitomizes Willy’s work. Every year, Algordanza, the company he founded in 2004, receives more than 800 urns filled with human ashes. For between $5,000 and $20,000, the contents of each parcel are transformed into a diamond.

It is also more than a diamond. “Maybe ‘soul’ is too strong of a word,” Willy continued, still struggling to define the essence of his product. “Our process is purely physical—but if the deceased had blue eyes, and the diamond turns out blue, you can be sure that the family will say, ‘Oh, it’s exactly the color of his eyes.’”

We were sitting on the cool leather couches of Algordanza’s simple reception room in the sleepy town of Chur, Switzerland.

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Marketers Use Metal to Talk Tough – by John W. Miller (Wall Street Journal – July 29, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

Industries debate elements, but gold standard always changing; tungsten battles titanium

Earlier this year, with the steel and aluminum industries duking it out in the auto industry, General Motors Co. marketed its Sierra truck as made of rolled steel like “the hulls of submarines.”

That raised the eyebrows of at least one metallurgist. “The reason those hulls are so strong is that they’re coated with titanium,” says John Tumazos, a longtime investor in metals companies.

The stone, iron and bronze ages have come and gone. Superman became known as the Man of Steel. Titanium Man was born in the 1960s. A platinum-selling album might inspire your heart of gold to make an ironclad promise. Some metallic words make you sound silver-tongued; others, tin-eared. Titanium trumps tungsten.

Metals and elements permeate language and culture, but the gold standard is constantly changing. These days, the use of metallic adjectives is more popular than ever, as makers of cars and airplanes tinker with alloys to reduce weight and enhance performance.

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Some Robert Friedland riffs: The “miner’s miner” talks commodities, jurisdictions, markets and majors – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – July 29, 2015)

http://resourceclips.com/

Getting back to commodities, he argues that Saudis killed the Alberta oilsands
and devastated U.S. shale “but no one can do that to copper.” Friedland
dismisses some copper miners as “little old ladies waiting to die,” saying
some grades fall so low that companies are “practically mining air.”
(Robert Freidland)

A “miner’s miner” was how Rick Rule introduced Robert Friedland. The founder and executive chairperson of Ivanhoe Mines TSX:IVN also serves as executive chair of the Sprott-Stansberry Natural Resource Symposium in Vancouver, where he delivered the opening day’s keynote speech on July 28. That was the original plan, anyway. Instead, a relaxed-looking Friedland eschewed a script to sit back and, in response to questions posed by Rule, discuss commodities, jurisdictional risk, markets and the problem with the majors.

Friedland’s favourite metals? They’re currently copper, platinum, palladium and zinc—stuff for which he sees bright futures and, not surprisingly, the stuff he’s currently pursuing. He also likes diamonds but considers himself “an agnostic on gold.”

“Copper is the metal if you believe in human advancement,” Friedland says. “Gold is the opposite.” Meanwhile this market has either hit bottom “or it’s the end of the world.” He says he’s never seen such a severe devaluation, with stocks “priced for Armageddon.”

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War of words between charity and coal lobbies – by Ben Hagemann (Australian Mining – July 30, 2015)

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

Charity group Oxfam Australia has taken aim at the coal industry in a new report which suggests renewable energy is quicker and cheaper for bringing energy to the developing world than coal-fired power.

The report ‘Powering up against poverty’ accused Peabody Energy, the Minerals Council of Australia, Adani, and other coal mining interests of aggressively promoting coal as a solution for energy poverty, while going no further than PR campaigns in their own interests.

Oxfam also said that statistics given by the Institute of Public Affairs, that an increase in the supply of Australian coal to India would bring electricity to 82 million people, were rejected by Indian NGO the Vasudha Foundation which said the arguments did not stand up “even the most basic scrutiny”.

Report author Dr Simon Bradshaw said there were many examples of how renewable energy was already helping impoverished people to gain access to energy, bringing job creation and community development.

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NEWS RELEASE: Barrick Announces Sale of 50 Percent of Zaldívar Mine, Formation of New Partnership with Antofagasta Plc

TORONTO, July 30, 2015 — Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:ABX)(TSX:ABX) (“Barrick” or the “company”) today announced that it has reached an agreement to sell a 50 percent interest in the Zaldívar copper mine in Chile to Antofagasta Plc (“Antofagasta”) for a total consideration of $1.005 billion in cash, forming a new partnership with one of the world’s leading copper companies.

“The sale of 50 percent of Zaldívar is consistent with our strategy to create long-term value for our shareholders. By selling a stake in this non-core asset, we strengthen our balance sheet while maintaining significant exposure to a strong cash-generating operation,” said Kelvin Dushnisky, Co-President of Barrick. “Following a highly competitive auction process, we are pleased to reach an agreement with the ideal partner for Zaldívar. Antofagasta has an outstanding track record of building and operating mines in Chile, and we see this as the first step in an ongoing, collaborative partnership. There are many potential opportunities to benefit from Antofagasta’s experience as Barrick evaluates development projects in the future.”

“We are enthusiastic about partnering with Barrick at Zaldívar. Together, we believe that we are well positioned to enhance the long-term value of the Zaldívar operation through our collective best practices,” said Diego Hernandez, CEO of Antofagasta. “We have consistently been impressed with the workforce at Zaldívar, and look forward to partnering with them. We also look forward to exploring other opportunities to collaborate with Barrick in the future.”

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Was the mining supercycle ever anything more than promotional hot air? – by Alastair Ford (Pro Active Investors – July 30, 2015)

http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/

When does a normal cycle become a supercycle? Answer: when an over-excited mining promoter says it does.

During the mining boom London and the other major capitals of mining finance, Toronto, Vancouver, Perth, Sydney and New York were awash with mining promoters bearing equity.

The name of their game: sell equity into the mining boom for cash, then watch as valuations rocketed up and everyone walked away a winner. And for a while everyone was winner – and the reason they were winning was because of something called the supercycle.

This wheeze, dreamt up long ago to describe periods of major economic expansion, such as the European Industrial Revolution, was now being applied to the astonishing growth that the Chinese economy was beginning to deliver after Deng Xiaoping loosed the bonds connecting communist ideology to economic activity.

Chinese capitalism was born, and with it a commodities boom that ran for the better part of decade.

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Material difficulties: Falling commodity prices and emerging-market equities are bad omens for the world economy (The Economist – August 1, 2015)

http://www.economist.com/

FIVE years ago, two views were fairly common. The future belonged not to the sluggish, ageing advanced economies but to the emerging markets. Furthermore, those economies had such demand for raw materials that a “commodity supercycle” was well under way and would last for years.

Commodity prices peaked in 2011, and have been heading remorselessly downwards ever since. Their decline of more than 40% so far is a huge bear market; had it happened in equities, the talk would be of calamity and collapse.

News coverage in the Western media tends to view the decline in commodity prices as a benign phenomenon, as indeed it is for countries that are net importers. But it is not good for commodity exporters, many of which are emerging markets.

That helps explain why emerging-market equities have had only one positive year since 2011, and have underperformed their rich-country counterparts by a significant margin in recent years (see chart). The latest sign of trouble came in China, where the Shanghai Composite fell by 8.5% on July 27th.

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