2012 – Page 138 – Republic of Mining

Foreign policy is mining policy – by Elizabeth Payne (Ottawa Citizen – March 8, 2012)

March 9, 2012

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

Elizabeth Payne is a member of the Ottawa Citizen’s editorial board.

Six months after International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda announced CIDA would fund three controversial development partnerships between NGOs and Canadian mining companies, the federal government is laying the groundwork for more foreign aid to be delivered with the help of the mining industry. It’s a trend in international development that is raising new concerns.

“As I listen to this conversation … I sometimes think I’m at a business development meeting,” NDP MP Jinny Jogindera Sims said during recent Foreign Affairs and International Development committee hearings into the role of the private sector in achieving Canada’s international development interests.

“The purpose of … international development … aid is to reduce poverty. Yet a lot of the focus I’ve heard today has been on putting infrastructures in place or institutions in place that will help the mining companies.” Sims said she has concerns “about our aid being so closely tied to one particular industry.”

Costs a game changer for seabed gold and copper mining? – by Harpreet Bhal (Mineweb.com – March 9, 2012)

March 9, 2012

www.mineweb.com

Industry analysts reckon seabed mining could transform the mining industry, its attractiveness riding on high ore grades and dwindling metal supplies elsewhere, but see operating costs as a major hurdle.

LONDON (Reuters) – Touted as the mining world’s next frontier, its attractiveness riding on high ore grades and dwindling metal supplies elsewhere, seabed mining will have to prove it can keep costs low to win over mainstream investors.

While the diamond industry has been mining off the Namibian shoreline for years, Toronto-listed Nautilus Minerals is expected to be the first commercial operation to extract metals such as copper and gold from the seabed.

Some analysts say the move could transform the mining industry in the way off-shore drilling gave access to new deposits in the oil and gas sector in the 1970s. But keeping operating costs low will be crucial to seabed mining’s success, they warn.

Molycorp, a Rare Earth Mining Firm, Is to Merge With a Processor, Neo Material – by Keith Bradsher (New York Times – March 8, 2012)

March 9, 2012

This article is from the: www.nytimes.com

HONG KONG — One of the West’s two main rare earth metal mining companies announced on Friday that it was buying one of the world’s two main rare earth processing companies for $1.3 billion, the latest in a series of deals that are rapidly consolidating the industry.

Molycorp, which operates the big American mine now being reopened and expanded in Mountain Pass, Calif., is buying Neo Material Technologies of Toronto, which makes specialty chemicals from rare earths at factories in China and Thailand.

Rare earth metals are vital for making a wide range of high-tech products, including smartphones, smart bombs, large wind turbines and electric cars. Rare earths are also needed for oil refining and the production of high-quality glass for cameras and other applications.

Molycorp is paying 71 percent of the cost of the deal in cash and the remaining 29 percent in shares. Molycorp valued its offer at 11.3 Canadian dollars for each share of Neo Material. That is a 42 percent premium to Neo Material’s closing price of 7.97 Canadian dollars on Thursday.

In Russia, opportunity still beckons – and so do the pitfalls – by Barrie McKenna and Nicolas Johnson (Globe and Mail – March 9, 2012)

March 9, 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 AND TORONTO— Vladimir Putin has a point when he says Canada is missing out on vast trade and investment opportunities in Russia. But it’s a far more complex picture than Russia’s newly returned President suggests.

The country’s de facto ruler since 2000 – president until 2008, Prime Minister since then, and soon to return as President after an election victory over the weekend – told The Globe and Mail in an interview in Moscow last week that he is concerned about how little trade there is between Canada and Russia, given the two countries’ similarities. Each country has vast stores of oil and gas, large agriculture sectors, and large mineral reserves, such as potash.

Two-way trade totalled just $2.8-billion last year – roughly half of what Canada did with Brazil and a quarter of trade with relatively tiny Hungary. Investment is also light: Canadian direct investment in Russia totalled less than $600-million in 2010, up 12 per cent from 2009.

Keep pipeline for Canada, says Wildrose leader – by Peter O’Neil (National Post – March 8, 2012)

March 9, 2012

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

OTTAWA — Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith, sounding an alarm about the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to the B.C. coast, argued Thursday that an oil sands pipeline should instead go to Atlantic Canada.

Ms. Smith, expected to give Alberta Premier Alison Redford a serious challenge in the upcoming spring election, advanced the idea publicly for the first time at a speech in Ottawa.

She offered what she described as a solution to the problems faced by land-locked Alberta given the Obama administration’s rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico, and the aggressive environmentalist-aboriginal campaign against the Enbridge Inc.’s $5.5-billion Gateway project to Kitimat, B.C.

“As we look to move our oil sands to market in the face of resistance to the south and west coast, an all-Canadian solution is looking increasingly attractive,” Ms. Smith said in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada that was attended by several Alberta Tory MPs and former political staffers who worked under Reform party founder Preston Manning.

Land withdrawal does not quell First Nation dispute – by Northern Ontario Business staff (Northern Ontario Business – March 6, 2012)

March 8, 2012

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Removing Crown land from mineral exploration does nothing to resolve a territorial dispute between a junior mining company and a remote First Nation community in northwestern Ontario, said the band chief.

Donny Morris fails to see how the provincial withdrawal of 23,181 square kilometres of land in the vicinity of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (K.I.) addresses their demand for a halt on gold exploration by God’s Lake Resources.

“This where we keep harping on the government, this is where consultation comes in, so where exactly are these lands that are withdrawn?” While the Ontario government heralded it as a step to addressing the impasse, Morris called it “a smokescreen” that sends out the wrong message.

The disputed area where the exploration firm is working is 83 kilometres north of the village of 1,300. One of the company’s claims are on the Morris family trap line, which is also considered a sacred birthplace and gravesite.

At global mining conference, [PDAC] Joe Oliver is a rock star – by By Carl Meyer (Embassy Magazine – March 7, 2012)

March 8, 2012

This column was first published by Embassy, Canada’s foreign policy newsweekly. http://embassymag.ca/

Human rights advocates still pan mining industry, government efforts

Scattered among the kiosks at a large Canadian government promotional booth lies a stack of official-looking pamphlets titled ‘Corporate social responsibility: A business strategy that reflects Canadian values.’

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is visiting that booth, run by his own department. It’s the afternoon of March 5, the first official day of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s gargantuan mining conference, the largest event of its kind in the world.

Here in the belly of the sprawling Metro Toronto Convention Centre, he is being treated like a rock star: a pack of reporters and photographers follow his every move, while three of his handlers scurry behind him, trying to stay out of the snapshots and fretting about their minister taking a wrong turn.

Mr. Oliver is standing near the pamphlets, but his attention is being held by a booth crew explaining sections of a long scale model of Canada’s Green Mining Initiative encased in glass, complete with miniature toy dump trucks.

Mining’s last frontier? — Nunavut’s cold, remote and potentially very, very rich – by Greg Klein (National Post – March 8, 2012)

March 8, 2012

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

Canadian explorers and miners operate in over 100 countries, but one of their last frontiers might be within our borders. Nunavut certainly holds potential but, at least for the present, it takes the financial resources of an Agnico Eagle (TSX:AEM) to bring subterranean resources to surface.

Even then the territory can prove a costly disappointment, as the company’s Meadowbank Gold Mine write-down shows. Last month came news of an even bigger disappointment, Newmont’s (TSX:NMC) $1.61-billion write-down of its Hope Bay Gold Project. Curiously, the failure was offset to some extent by an announcement made just yesterday. A privately held upstart, HTX Minerals, has formed a strategic alliance with an Inuit organization to explore the region encompassing Hope Bay.

Newmont’s February 23 write-down dramatically portrays the risks of working in the Arctic. Located in western Nunavut, 150 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, Hope Bay suffers long winters of 24/7 darkness and minus-30 temperatures, environmentally sensitive tundra and, of course, isolation. As for infrastructure, you bring it or build it. Newmont refers to Hope Bay as “one of the few remaining undeveloped Greenstone districts in the world.” Despite the $1.61-billion investment, that description will hold for some time.

Canadian firms guide Afghan efforts to unlock mining ‘treasure trove’ -by Nicolas Johnson (Globe and Mail – March 7, 2012)

March 8, 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.

TORONTO — As Afghanistan seeks to attract investors and rebuild its economy after decades of war, its government is looking to Canada to help bring its mining sector to life.

The Eurasian country is counting on its vast deposits of iron ore, copper, gold, lithium and other minerals to lure capital and technology from around the world and form the cornerstone of its economic expansion. The government forecasts mining will represent 25 per cent of gross domestic product by 2016 and 45 per cent to 50 per cent by 2024.

Afghanistan’s mineral reserves could eventually be worth as much as $1-trillion, according to estimates by the Pentagon and U.S. geologists, though the amount remains far from proven.

A crucial test for Afghanistan is Friday’s deadline for companies to express their interest in bidding for licences to explore and develop four key gold and copper mining properties.

Indonesia limits foreign ownership of mines – by Reza Thaher and Neil Chatterjee (Globe and Mail – March 7, 2012)

March 8, 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.

JAKARTA— Reuters –Indonesia will take more of the profits from its vast mineral resources by limiting foreign ownership of mines in a move likely to scare off new investment in the world’s top exporter of thermal coal and tin.

Under new rules announced on the mining ministry’s website, Southeast Asia’s largest economy will require foreign companies to sell down stakes in mines and increase domestic ownership to at least 51 per cent by the 10th year of production.

The move is part of a global trend of increased resource nationalization that is pushing up the costs of mining for international companies and giving governments in emerging market countries more cash and clout.

Indonesia may have a fresh stamp of approval from ratings agencies as an investment grade nation, but the unexpected regulation underlines continuing policy uncertainties that have long been a major risk for investors hoping to tap some of the world’s richest deposits of coal, gold and copper.

Graphite open-pit mine to reopen near Huntsville – by Richard J. Brennan (Toronto Star – March 8, 2012)

March 8, 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.

China’s decision to cut its graphite exports has breathed new life into a mine northeast of Huntsville, near the border of Algonquin Park, that was closed almost 18 years ago.

It is an economically depressed area where the up to 80 jobs created at the small open-pit mine operation will be a welcome addition.

“If everything comes together we will be open in September of this year,” Tom Myatt, president and chief financial officer of Ontario Graphite Ltd., told the Star, adding there are only two other graphite mines in North America, one in Quebec and the other in B.C.

“We saw that the increase in the pricing and the increase in the demand for the product justified us going back in there and reopening it,” he said. The one irritant for Ontario Graphite Inc. has been lack of broadband service in the area, making Internet communications difficult.

Bartolucci’s is to keep mine production in Ontario – by Mike Whitehouse (Sudbury Star – March 7, 2012)

March 8, 2012

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. mike.whitehouse@sunmedia.ca

The expectations First Nations groups have about the fabulous wealth the Ring of Fire represents are welcome, Ontario’s minister of Northern Development and Mines says. But the government’s focus, first and foremost, is keeping ferrochrome production in Ontario, Rick Bartolucci said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Chief Eli Moonias, of Marten Falls First Nation, and Chief Sonny Gagnon, of Aroland First Nation, outlined to the Ontario government their position on mining development in their territory. High among their expectations is that Ring of Fire minerals extracted within First Nation territories are processed and refined in those territories.

The Ring of Fire mineral deposit is located within First Nations homelands in Northern Ontario. There are more than 35,000 staked mining claims in the area, the majority in the Ring of Fire area, which holds chromite and precious minerals.

Vale announces operations transition plan [for Thompson, Manitoba] – by Matt Durnan (Thompson Citizen – March 7, 2012)

March 8, 2012

The Thompson Citizen, which was established in June 1960, covers the City of Thompson and Nickel Belt Region of Northern Manitoba. The city has a population of about 13,500 residents while the regional population is more than 40,000. editor@thompsoncitizen.net

Vale Manitoba Operations general manager Lovro Paulic spoke at the Thompson Chamber of Commerce on Feb. 29 to announce the company’s plans for 2012 and moving forward towards 2015.

The mining company will shut down it’s smelter and refinery operations in 2015 and, as a result are working on a transition plan to minimize layoffs as well as operate with fewer assets.

“Our goal this year is to produce 108 million pounds of nickel,” said Paulic, one of three general managers here. “We’ve already begun the process of converting to a single furnace operation. The plan was to produce 108 million pounds (of nickel) using two furnaces and five converters, but we’re going to attempt to do it using one furnace and two converters.”

Export tax will destroy chrome ore mining [in South Africa] – Metmar – by Martin Creamer (Mining Weekly.com – March 7, 2012)

March 8, 2012

Mining Weekly is South Africa’s premier source of weekly news on mining developments in Africa’s most important industry. Mining Weekly provides in-depth coverage of mining projects and the personalities reshaping the mining industry.

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The proposed $100/t tax on the export of raw chrome ore would destroy the South African chrome ore mining business and allow competitors from other producing countries to benefit, JSE-listed Metmar CEO David Ellwood said on Wednesday.

Ellwood was responding to Merafe CEO Stuart Elliot’s revelation of the proposed imposition of a $100/t export tax as a means of giving the industry “some breathing space” in the short term.

Elliot complained that South Africa’s ferrochrome production was being displaced by Chinese ferrochrome production. “It’s unbeneficiated ore that is leaving the country and growing the Chinese ferrochrome industry at South Africa’s expense,” Elliot said.

Ellwood claimed that the proposed tax represented a 100% tax on the chrome ore production cost and a 300% tax to upper group two (UG2) operations, many of which were community based.

KI ‘wins’ in mining’s loss – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial (March 7, 2012)

March 8, 2012

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

THERE is frustration bordering on resentment in today’s letter from geologist John Scott concerning the Ontario government’s withdrawal of 23,000 square kilometres of northern land from mining. Curiously, there is not a concurrent level of joy in the response of Donny Morris, chief of the area’s Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, who has been leading prolonged opposition to mining exploration anywhere near KI except on its terms, which remain elusive. Instead, Morris claims he was caught off-guard by Sunday’s announcement by Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci, though his office says it tried several times to make contact. Morris challenged the minister to visit the reserve to discuss the boundaries of the land.

By Morris’ own count, his band and the province have been discussing the future of this land mass since 2001. There is a time for talking and a time for doing and it appears that Bartolucci has called Morris’ bluff. Unable to settle with KI on how to proceed, and facing mounting pressure from the mining industry for certainty on where it can look for minerals, Bartolucci withdrew this giant chunk of land “to give clarity to the province’s mining exploration industry and avoid future disagreements over the land in question.”