2012 – Page 136 – Republic of Mining

Metals M&A deals set to increase this year – by Nicolas Johnson (Globe and Mail – March 13, 2012)

March 13, 2012

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.

Corporate takeovers in the metals industry are set to increase this year as companies scramble to fight rising costs and ensure access to key materials from iron ore to rare-earth minerals.

The value of mergers and acquisitions in the sector is on course to rise 23 per cent this year to about $83-billion (U.S.), according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

The number of transactions is running near a record high, averaging more than two deals per business day in 2011.

Tie-ups are also increasingly crossing continents and industries, as highlighted by an agreement last year between Brazil’s Vale SA, the world’s largest iron-ore producer, and Norway’s Norsk Hydro ASA, a major aluminum company.

Nervous about nuclear, post-tsunami Japan looks to Canada for energy – by Campbell Clark (Globe and Mail – March 12, 2012)

March 13, 2012

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.

OTTAWA— Japan has rebuilt the highways, but villages and towns swept away by an earthquake and tsunami a year ago are harder to re-establish. And the wider effects will continue to be felt across the country for years.

Among them is a Canadian link. The nuclear-plant meltdown caused by the disaster has Japan rethinking nuclear energy, and that makes the country more keenly interested in Western Canadian pipelines that might one day bring natural gas to be shipped overseas to Asia.

The disaster killed 19,000, devastated towns in eastern Japan, and caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that kept the island nation on tenterhooks – and have made its people wary of relying on nuclear energy in the future.

Japan’s ambassador to Canada, Kaoru Ishikawa, said the highways have been rebuilt, and major companies have been able to repair and restart factories in the affected zones of eastern Japan. The government has offered tax incentives for companies to invest and financial assistance to individuals, but there is still a struggle to rebuild lives in many communities.

Vale supports awareness of mining careers with Aboriginal organization

March 12, 2012

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Ontario Mining Association member Vale has donated more than $500,000 to support enhancing Aboriginal awareness of career opportunities in the mining industry. Vale’s support of Indspire (formerly known as the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation) helped this educational organization produce the teaching resource “Careers in Mining,” which is aimed at Aboriginal youth.

“Careers in Mining” highlights five career profiles – miner, millwright, environmental engineer, geologist and mine engineer. It is the newest component of Indspire’s “Career Opportunities for Youth” series. Other parts of this series include “Careers in Television Broadcasting,” “Careers in Radio Broadcasting,” “Health Careers in the Classroom,” “Circle of Justice” and “The Canadian Railway Industry.”

The resources of “Careers in Mining” include career profiles, education requirements, activities, necessary work and life skills and a first rate video on mining jobs focused on Aboriginal high school students. Co-Executive Producer of the lively and entertaining 18-plus minute video is Jennifer Podemski.

Critical Raw Materials Revisited – by Richard (Rick) Mills (Aheadoftheherd.com – March, 2012)

March 12, 2012

http://www.aheadoftheherd.com/

A critical or strategic material is a commodity whose lack of availability during a national emergency would seriously affect the economic, industrial, and defensive capability of a country.

The French Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières rates high tech metals as critical, or not, based on three criteria:

Possibility (or not) of substitution
Irreplaceable functionality
Potential supply risks

Demand is increasing for critical metals due to:

Economic growth of developing countries
Emergence of new technologies and products

Access to raw materials at competitive prices has become essential to the functioning of all industrialized economies. As we move forward developing and developed countries will, with their:

McGuinty has made Ontario the land of mediocrity – by Randy Hillier (Calgary Herald – March 11, 2012)

March 12, 2012

http://www.calgaryherald.com/index.html

Randy Hillier is the Progressive Conservative MPP for Lanark-Frontenac- Lennox and Addington.

As I was reading between the lines of the Drummond report, a penny dropped out from the political spin: Premier Dalton McGuinty’s message is that Ontario can no longer compete with the likes of Alberta or Newfoundland because we don’t have their natural resources.

And he is right in this regard; McGuinty has locked our resources away and they remain untouched. The premier has stated that Alberta’s resource wealth has been a burden on the Ontario economy. McGuinty ignores that Alberta’s resource sector would be the exact same as Ontario’s if they were faced with the same regulatory regime.

McGuinty has been too preoccupied crafting regulations that now exceed over a half million. Rather than accepting the word of their beloved environmental advisers, McGuinty and his Liberal government should spend more time discovering Ontario for themselves. If they did, they might actually realize Ontario’s true and vast natural resource wealth.

Hot topics at Ring of Fire – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – March 12, 2012)

March 12, 2012

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

After getting back from his one-day trade mission to the Ring of Fire, Vic Fedeli remains optimistic about the area’s potential.

“I brought mining companies from North Bay in (on Friday),” the Nipissing MPP said. “(The companies saw) the challenges of exploration, and ultimately production, there, but they also saw the opportunity. That was the sole purpose of the trip, to really give North Bay companies a good upper hand in seeing the facility, seeing the sites and being able to come back and be in a position to offer assistance to a company in the Ring of Fire.”

Senior executives from First North Enterprises, Redpath, J.L. Richards, Stantec, GAP and Foraco accompanied Fedeli on the trade mission. This was Fedeli’s second visit to the Ring of Fire area — his first was last August. This time around, he said, it was easier to get to Esker Camp in the James Bay Lowlands, where they stayed and where Noront Resources Ltd. centres its exploration.

“When we went up in the summer, it was a lot more complicated because you had to fly to the town of Webequie and then take a float plane from there into Esker.

Alberta, Ottawa, oil lobby formed secret committee – by Marin Lukas (Toronto Star – March 12, 2012)

March 12, 2012

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

The federal and Alberta governments struck up a secret, high-level committee in early 2010 to coordinate the promotion of the oilsands with Canada’s most powerful industry lobby group, a document obtained through an access to information request reveals.

The committee brought together the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) with deputy ministers from Natural Resources, Environment Canada, Alberta Energy and Alberta Environment to synchronize their lobbying offensive in the face of mounting protest and looming international regulations targeting the Alberta crude.

Environmental organizations criticized the existence of a committee they said they were hearing about for the first time.

“I’m old-fashioned enough to believe that there should be a separation between oil and state, but with these types of secret committees it’s hard to see any daylight between them,” said Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace.

Barry Third Interview with Ontario Premier McGuinty about Ring of Fire – (Thunder Bay Television/Tbnewswatch.com/ – March 1, 2012)

March 11, 2012

Barry Third is the news anchor and news director at Thunder Bay television. Tbnewswatch.com is your interactive source for all Thunder Bay news, sports. The site covers the Thunder Bay area as well as Northwestern Ontario and the world. Here is Barry Third’s one-on-one interview with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty: http://www.tbnewswatch.com/Video/Default.aspx?art_id=23999

Labrador mining boom creates housing crisis – by Sue Bailey (Halifax Chronicle-Herald – March 4, 2012)

March 11, 2012

This article came from the Halifax Chronicle-Herald: http://thechronicleherald.ca/

The Canadian Press

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — If there’s a downside to Labrador’s mining boom, Carrie Cabot and her family are living it. “We’re very stuck,” she said from Wabush, N.L.

Cabot, her husband Damico and their two daughters, aged one and three, are being forced out of their apartment to make way for Labrador mine workers. As expanding iron ore companies pay big money to buy up houses and apartment buildings in small communities closest to the mines, the Cabots are among those struggling to find affordable homes.

Rents have soared in Labrador West since the latest mining boom started four years ago, fuelled by demand for iron ore overseas. Provincial legislation does not restrict yearly increases.

Competition for scarce housing is so intense, it’s not unusual for homeowners in Labrador City and Wabush to live in their summer cabins or basements while contractors pay $5,000 a month or more to rent their places.

Masterminds – Fool’s Gold [Bre-X Mining Fraud] (Mining Documentary – 2009)

April 5, 2015March 11, 2012

This information below is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Bre-X was a group of companies in Canada. A major part of the group, Bre-X Minerals Ltd. based in Calgary, was involved in a major gold mining scandal when it was reported to be sitting on an enormous gold deposit at Busang, Indonesia (on Borneo). Bre-X bought the Busang site in March 1993 and in October 1995 announced significant amounts of gold had been discovered, sending its stock price soaring. Originally a penny stock, its stock price reached a peak at CAD $286.50 (split adjusted) in May 1996 on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE), with a total capitalization of over CAD $6 billion.[when?] Bre-X Minerals collapsed in 1997 after the gold samples were found to be a fraud.

Mining: This time it’s different? [Philippine Mining] – by Boo Chanco (The Philippine Star – March 12, 2012)

March 11, 2012

This column came from the Philippine Star: www.philstar.com

DEMAND AND SUPPLY

The recent well attended public debate over the future of mining in the Philippines was, like the impeachment hearing, quite entertaining. One other similarity: despite the massive dose of information unleashed, it is almost certain no one was convinced to change his opinion on the issue.

That’s understandable not only because the debate had become emotional. More importantly, both sides have lost confidence on the capability of government to enforce the rules on mining and government is at the center of the debate.

The environmentalists are very skeptical about “responsible mining” because of past and present experiences. They remember Marcopper, exhibit A of government failure to regulate and private sector irresponsibility, and that’s enough to close their minds on “responsible mining”.

That’s also my main problem. As a business journalist, I want to believe that “responsible mining” is possible. But every time I think about it, Marcopper always haunts me to the point of doubting.

Global miners to stay in Indonesia despite change in game rules – by Euan Rocha and Sonali Paul (Vancouver Sun – March 9, 2012)

March 11, 2012

The Vancouver Sun, a broadsheet daily paper first published in 1912, has the largest circulation in the province of British Columbia.

Reuters – TORONTO/MELBOURNE – Indonesia’s decision to shut the door on foreign control of its mines has gone down badly with global miners but none are yet threatening to quit the country: the truth is, they no longer have any easy investment destinations to turn to.

After a decade of rapidly growing resource nationalism, from stable emerging markets like Indonesia and South Africa to developed nations such as Australia and Canada, doors everywhere are harder, more expensive or just plain dangerous to open.

Indonesia’s sudden announcement this week of a new rule capping foreign mine ownership at 49 percent follows a series of international tax grabs and expropriations that have pinched returns in some of mining’s most profitable markets.

It has left mining companies few options other than to venture into ever more politically risky territory, including restive parts of Africa. Countries previously seen as too risky, such as Burkina Faso, Congo and Mauritania, are now firmly on their radar.

Indonesia stands its ground on foreign mine ownership – by Reza Thaher and Matthew Bigg (Mineweb.com – March 9, 2012)

March 11, 2012

www.mineweb.com

The government offered a clearer view on Friday, saying the new regulation requiring foreign ownership in mines to no more than 49% applies to existing as well as new contracts.

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s government offered a clearer view on Friday of a new regulation that limits foreign ownership in mines to no more than 49 percent, saying the rule applies to existing as well as new contracts.

The comments by senior officials in the Ministry of Energy and Minerals could unnerve foreign companies owning mines in Indonesia, including Australian miners who have played down the impact of the rule signed last month by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Mining makes up 11.9 percent of the economy in Indonesia, the world’s top exporter of thermal coal and tin, and foreign investment in mining in the sector topped $2.2 billion in 2010. Under the rules, Southeast Asia’s top economy will require foreign companies to sell down stakes in mines and increase domestic ownership to at least 51 percent by the 10th year of a mine’s production.

The Nuclear Revival: Mark Lackey – by Brian Sylvester (The Energy Report – March 8, 2012)

March 11, 2012

This interview came from: http://www.theenergyreport.com/

Emerging from the shadow of Fukushima, the nuclear sector is on the cusp of a comeback, according to Mark Lackey, chief investment strategist with Toronto-based Pope & Company. Nuclear plants have been reopened, and as many as 200 new plants worldwide are scheduled to come online. At the same time, uranium supply shortages loom on the horizon, making for bullish fundamentals for uranium miners. Lackey’s faith in the coal sectors also burns brightly. He reveals his favorites in both sectors in this exclusive Energy Report interview.

Energy Report: The Fukushima disaster, protests in Australia over lifting a ban on uranium exploration, and a fire aboard a Russian nuclear submarine in December indicate negative sentiment toward nuclear power. Why would investors risk exposure to a commodity that is so price sensitive to events like these?

Mark Lackey: The fundamentals of the uranium sector still look good. Worldwide, 1.3 billion (B) people lack electricity. In China, load growth for electricity is 10% annually; in India, 8%. That growth is unlikely to diminish any time soon. Nuclear power has to be considered as an option to meet demand.

Fear of fracking: How public concerns put an energy renaissance at risk – by Carrie Tait and Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – March 10, 2012)

March 11, 2012

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.

BOWDEN, ALTA., AND OTTAWA— Chad Winters keeps his hand on his radio, politely giving orders to co-workers toiling at an oil property in a stretch of Alberta farmland.

“One tonne of 40/70,” Mr. Winters requests over the radio. “Three thirty-three, then hold till I tell you otherwise.”

Mr. Winters speaks a language few understand. He runs the show in the field when Trican Well Service Ltd. (TCW-T17.350.150.87%)is called in to perform a controversial technique used to gather oil and natural gas from impermeable rocks.

On this day, Trican is working for NAL Energy Corp. (NAE-T7.810.182.36%)near Bowden, about 100 kilometres north of Calgary. Trican is there to pump water, chemical and natural additives, and nitrogen down a well at frighteningly high pressure, with hopes of forcing fissures in the rocks thousands of metres below the surface. Sand will follow, propping open the cracks, allowing trapped oil to escape. The process is called hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.