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Month: January 2009

The Northern Miner 1985 “Mining Person of the Year” Paul Penna – by M.R. Brown

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

The past year has been a dismal one for the Canadian mining industry. Metal prices have remained soft even for gold. Earnings generally are going to down. And so are dividends.

But not for Agnico-Eagle Mines, a company that is fast developing into one of this country’s top ranking gold producers. Its grade, output and earnings are away up and costs way down. And there are dramatic ore developments taking place on its Telbel property. Too, it has just raised its dividend payout.

Behind this success story is an ex-mine promoter turned a top mining executive – Paul Penna, our Mining Man of the Year.

It’s always difficult to single out particular individual from an industry as broad and diversified as mining, for different people have different criteria. But in this case we feel would have come up with the same choice either on the basis of the company’s performance or that or that of the man himself. Both make Cinderella stories.

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The Northern Miner 1996 “Mining Man of the Year” David Walsh and John Felderhof – by Vivian Danielson

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

The following year, it was discovered that the Bre-X core samples had been salted (falsified) and the company’s stratospheric share prices became worthless. Bre-X is infamously known as the most elaborate and biggest mining scandal of all time. To this day, no one has ever been held accountable.

David Walsh died in 1998 of an apparent stroke claiming his innocence until the end. John Felderhof was cleared of illegal insider trading in July, 2007.

The Busang gold deposit in Kalimantan, Indonesia, is known around the world as one of the most important gold discoveries of the century. A few years ago however, it was a small prospect being explored in a remote region by a little-known junior from Calgary, Alta., Bre-X minerals (BXM-T).

The Busang story came to the mining forefront earlier this year when the company’s Southeast zone discovery was described as having the potential of “30 million ounces plus, plus, plus”. This find, however, was not the result of overnight success. Rather, the discovery was the culmination of years of hard work and teamwork between two Canadian – David Walsh, an entrepreneur and financier, and John Felderhof, a geologist and mine-finder.

While Busang became the mining story of 1996, it is a tale that may not have materialized without the single-minded dedication of the Walsh-Felderhof partnership. On a shoe-string budget and with little encouragement or interest from majors, the men were exploring in Indonesia long before it was fashionable.

The industry was skeptical of the venture, at least in the early days, and the region’s geological puzzle was as difficult to put together as the funds for exploration.

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The Northern Miner 1981 “Mining Man of the Year” Peter Allen – by Laura Reid

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

Peter Allen, president and chief executive officer of the Little Long Lac group of companies, smiles self-consciously as the photographer maneuvers around his office, snapping picture after picture. Mr. Allen obliges the request for “just one more shot,” but when the session is finished, he breaks into a spontaneous grin of relief.

Except when facing a camera, Mr. Allen smiles easily – and with good reason. He is seemingly only a few steps away from  realizing his ambition to take Little Long Lac, whose fortunes have changed as frequently as the price of gold, into the mining major leagues. This year, with the gold price stalled at $US400 an oz., he has doubled his company’s operating income compared with 1980’s. This financial feat follows the start-up of two new gold mines in the past three years. And at a boyish 41, Peter Ackerman Allen is the youngest Man-of-the-Year ever selected by The Northern Miners.

He may also be the least-known recipient. Certainly the group of companies that he controls has been well-publicized in the past year, through its successful but initially controversial policy of selling gold forward., through subsidiary’s Willroy Mines’ $21.4-million lawsuit against New Cinch Uranium, through $12 million in dividend payments while other companies were cutting or dropping them altogether, and through the corporate reorganization completed in the fall.

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The Northern Miner 1995 “Mining Man of the Year” Albert Chislett and Christopher Verbiski – by Vivian Danielson

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

Much ado is made of the sophisticated technology that is available to help find mineral deposits. While these techniques are unquestionably valuable, they will never render obsolete “boot-and-hammer” prospecting of the type that led to the discovery of the Voisey’s Bay nickel-copper-cobalt discovery near Nain, Labrador.

The chain of events leading to the discovery began when two prospectors spotted a rust-colored outcrop covering the side of a hill near Voisey’s Bay while performing regional reconnaissance for Diamond Fields Resources (TSE).

After landing on the gossanous outcrop and breaking open fresh rock which revealed stringers of chalcopyrite, the prospectors realized they had found a prospect with real potential. They sat on the hill and started envisioning what the surrounding countryside was going to look like in 10 years, with a mine and a road.

That Voisey’s Bay went on to become the mining story of 1995, worldwide, comes as no surprise to the two prospectors who made the original discovery: Albert Chislett, 46, and Christopher Verbiski, 27. Both men live in St. John’s, Nfld., where their company, Archean Resources, is based. And both have extensive experience working on exploration projects in Labrador and Newfoundland.

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The Northern Miner 1998 “Mining Man of the Year” Hugo Dummett – by Vivian Danielson

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

BHP executive catalyst for Ekati mine

The unsung hero behind the opening of Canada’s first diamond mine is a modest gentleman who never hesitates to praise the accomplishments of his team and his partners. Yet Hugo Dummett, The Northern Miner’s Man of the Year for 1998, has the unusual distinction of being a catalyst for both the discovery and development of the Ekati diamond mine, which made Canadian mining history when it was officially opened on Oct. 14.

In the early days of the diamond discoveries at Lac de Gras in the Northwest Territories, Dummett was the face of BHP Diamonds, the unit of Australian mining giant Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP-N) that today holds a 51% operating interest in Ekati. His faith in the project, in the people working on it, and in the science behind it never wavered, even when skeptics called the project a pipe dream, the people obsessed, and the science fanciful.

Born in Springs, Transvaal, South Africa, Dummett obtained his bachelor of science in 1964 from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He worked as an exploration geologist for Anglo American and other large corporations before emigrating to Australia in 1970, where he joined a small exploration group and pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Queensland. In 1977, he came to the U.S. as a senior geologist for Superior Oil’s minerals division. He joined BHP in 1989 and rose through the ranks to his current post as president and group general manager, exploration.

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The Northern Miner’s 1994 “Mining Man of the Year” Louis Gignac – by Vivian Danielson

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

Back in 1986, before Louis Gignac accepted the opportunity to head up a public mining company holding the crown jewels of Quebec’s government-owned Soquem, he wanted assurances that the company would be truly private and not in any way an instrument of government policy.

After securing this hands-off pledge, Gignac set out to build a gold mining company that was entrepreneurial in nature and primed for the big leagues. At the onset, Gignac made it clear that his growth plans for Cambior (TSE) would not be restricted to the Quebec projects inherited from the Soquem privatization.

“We will go wherever the opportunity arises,” Gignac told The Northern Miner at the time of Cambior’s public offering. These proved to be prophetic words. Cambior’s roots are still firmly planted in Quebec, where a number of its mines are situated. But the operating experience gained in Quebec also gave the company the expertise and the confidence to compete on an international level. Today, much of the company’s gold production comes from outside North America, and its current development and advanced exploration projects reflect an aggressive diversification into base metals.

For his role in shaping Cambior into one of Canada’s foremost mining companies and for other industry achievements, The Northern Miner has named Louis Gignac, 44, its “Mining Man of the Year” for 1994.

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The Northern Miner’s – 1978 “Mining Man of the Year” John (Jack) Gallagher – by M.R. Brown

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

The most exciting exploration undertaking of 1978 in this country, unquestionably, has been the bold and costly Beaufort Sea project of Dome Petroleum. This has not only caught the imagination of North American investors, it is attracting worldwide interest. There are many who believe that this single play holds the greatest potential of any oil exploration theatre in the world.

It is for this reason that the Northern Miner has chosen that company’s driving force, John P. Gallagher, chairman and chief executive officer, as our MAN OF THE YEAR.

“Jack Gallagher is a tremendously imaginative man,” James B. Redpath, a long-time president of the parent Dome Mines, told this reporter, adding that while exploration-oriented, he was always “looked over his shoulder for cash income, at which he has also been very, very successful”.

Founded in 1950, ‘Dome Pete’ is now a name that comes up wherever oil men meet. The financial fraternity, too, considers it to have more ‘sex appeal’ than any company in the business today. It could well be the big newsmaker of 1979. the company’s early history is interesting, for it represents the first move by an Canadian mining company to get ito the oil exploration business, whereas today there is a flood of them.

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The Northern Miner’s – 1977 “Mining Man of the Year” Stephen B. Roman

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

This was the first Mining Man of the Year Award given by the Northern Miner.

It’s always difficult … and dangerous, to single out a Man of the Year, because different people have different criteria. One could easily include an executive who has done the best he could in a particularly depressed segment of an ailing industry. Still, one really has to admire a person who somehow had the foresight and/or good fortune to sidestep heavy involvement in depressed base metals and concentrate on the booming areas of uranium, coal, oil and gas.

Stephen Roman’s Denison Mines capped the year with the largest-ever uranium sale by any producer (N.M., Dec. 22, 1977) when it consummated a deal with Ontario Hydro for the supply of 126 million pounds of uranium oxide between the years 1980 and 2011. The value of the contract was not disclosed because of various adjustment formulae, but it’s estimated to be worth in excess of $5 billion.

This will involve more than doubling current capacity to some 15,000 tons per day by 1984 or 1985 with the re-opening of several properties in the Elliot Lake area. In addition, Denison has been busy exploring various extensive optioned properties in the currently hot Northern Saskatchewan uranium play.

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No news is … ? – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators. Never in over 30 years of writing for CMJ, have I seen a week so devoid of news in the mining industry. It has been said that no news is good …

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The Northern Miner’s 1986 “Mining Man of the Year” Patrick C. MacCulloch – by Nicholas Tintor

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

Walking through the Toronto offices of Selco, the minerals division o f BP Canada Inc., one gets a nagging suspicion that many eyes are following you. On closer examination, one’s suspicions are proved correct for most of the offices are walled in glass. The glass is a physical manifestation of a management philosophy based on open communication — and no secrets. A philosophy espoused by Patrick C. MacCulloch, vice-president of mining and minerals at BP and head of Selco.

It’s also no secret that under his leadership, Selco has quietly made capital project commitments during the last two years exceeding $250 million — project commitments which will propel Selco into the realm of a major precious and base metals producer during the next decade.

For this reason, the publisher and editorial staff of The Northern Miner have chosen Patrick C. MacCulloch as The Northern Miner’s Mining Man of the Year for 1986.

During the present period of depressed base metal prices, Selco emba rked in 1985 on a $125-million expansion program at its Selbaie copper-zinc mine 60 km northwest of Joutel, Que. It was an expansion which raised the collective eyebrows of the Canadian mining community. In fact, The Northern Miner Magazine questioned in May “At first you have to wonder if it isn’t all a big mistake. A base metals mine at today’s prices?”

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The Northern Miner’s 1988 “Mining Man of the Year” John Hansuld – by Peter Kennedy

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

In an industry where the brightest geologists often go unrewarded with even one major discovery, the development of a gold mine is considered an achievement not to be taken lightly. So when a junior resource company like Canamax Resources (TSE) succeeds in bringing four new gold mines into production within two years, observers could be forgiven for thinking that it has found a way to circumvent the usual obstacles which stand in the way of ambitious exploration companies.

John Hansuld would probably laugh at the suggestion that he has an “in” with Lady Luck. The 57-year-old Canamax President and Chief Executive Officer has spent too many years in the business to credit his overnight success to mere luck.

While he is undoubtedly the driving force behind Canamax, there are other reasons why The Northern Miner has named John Hansuld as Mining Man of the Year for 1988. He has made a significant contribution to the industry as an active director of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and the Mining Association of Canada. Hansuld was also instrumental in helping to establish the flow- through financing mechanism that carried the industry through some lean years.

In 1987, Hansuld said Canamax would open a mine a year for the next five years. So far, he’s been right on target despite a variety of setbacks which include taking an $8 million write down at the troubled Ketza River mine. Canamax’s 50% interest in Ketza River is being sold to Belmoral Mines for $5.5 million.

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The Northern Miner’s 1989 “Mining Man of the Year” James Gill (Louvicourt Gold Deposit) – by Peter Kennedy

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

As a rookie scuba diver and recent explorer of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, James Gill, 40, is already dreaming of looking for hidden treasures in shipwrecks deep beneath the Caribbean.

But even if the president of Aur Resources (TSE) fulfills that ambition, it is unlikely he will find anything to rival the gem of a massive sulphide deposit his company uncovered on a group of waterlogged mining claims east of Val d’Or, Que., earlier this year.

The Louvicourt Twp. discovery is already regarded as the largest of its kind since the Texas Gulf find near Timmins, Ont., in 1964 and its impact will probably be felt well into the 21st century. 0000,1000 It has made Gill a household name in mining circles and The Northern Miner’s choice as Mining Man of the Year.

The significance of the Louvicourt Twp. discovery on claims owned by Aur and Societe Miniere Louvem (TSE) was immediately indicated by the trading activity that followed its announcement and the decision by three of North America’s biggest resource companies to invest in the Val d’Or partners. Teck Corp. (TSE) and Cominco Ltd. (TSE) now have 21% of Aur. Noranda Inc. (TSE), with an option to take control, has a 14% stake in Louvem.

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The Northern Miner’s 1990 “Mining Man of the Year” Chet Idziszek and Murray Pezim (Eskay Creek) – by Vivian Danielson

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

A dozen different companies optioned and explored the Eskay Creek property north of Stewart, B.C., over the past half century before its real potential began to emerge in the fall of 1988. That’s when Murray Pezim, 70, Canada’s best known mining promoter, backed a recommendation by Chet Idziszek, 43, and his team of geologists to drill the Eskay Creek project brought to Pezim for financing by a little known junior called Calpine Resources.

Today Eskay Creek is recognized as being among the most significant of discoveries made in Canada since the Hemlo gold deposits were found in Ontario in the early 1980s. The two projects have some interesting parallels, not the least of which is the fact that Murray Pezim played a significant role in advancing each of these geologically unique and truly world-class discoveries.

The Eskay Creek discovery also focused attention on the under-explored and often underestimated mineral potential of northwestern British Columbia. And it underscored the important but often thankless role played by the Vancouver Stock Exchange in providing funds for juniors to carry out high-risk exploration.

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Size Does Not Matter to Sego in Partnering With Native Communities – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

There has been some discussion in this space over the past two weeks as to how it takes very deep pockets to keep the Aboriginal community happy when wanting to explore or develop on their lands. The assumption is that only the largest, richest companies can succeed, as De Beers Canada has done at its Victor diamond mine.

That’s not true at all, if the experience of J. Paul Stevenson is anything to go by.

“I have worked with First Nations for many years as CEO of junior companies,” he wrote. “What we don’t have in money we have in effort and communication. [I] never found lack of money an issue. In fact, I found a great deal of understanding from communities as to our issues around financing.”

Stevenson and I began a correspondence so that I might share his experiences with other CMJ readers. He is currently CEO of Vancouver-based Sego Resources. The junior has two early-stage copper-gold exploration projects in southern British Columbia.

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Year In Review – Sudbury’s Economy: Boom to Bust? – by Bill Bradley

Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Bill Bradley’s article. www.northernlife.ca

Greater Sudbury’s economy went from boom town status in 2008 to layoffs and growing fear in the community. Mining executives like Xstrata’s Mike Romaniuk, and Vale Inco’s Fred Stanford had been bullish on the future. “The world simply can’t get enough nickel,” said Stanford Feb. 6th at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

But by the early fall, a stock market crash started a series of layoffs in local mining companies and service and supply companies. Retired miner, Laurie Chartrand, 63, from Chelmsford, said he was down $25,000 from the stock market crash and knew some who had lost $200,000. He had a novel idea.

“We need the government to start a voucher system for those who have lost money like myself so we would have the ability to buy the cars that use our metals,” said Chartrand.

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