2012 – Page 167 – Republic of Mining

Not much insight from [Sudbury] community leaders – by Karen Pappin (Sudbury Star Letter to the Editor – January 12, 2012)

January 12, 2012

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

Re: “Community leaders share hopes for 2012” — Dec. 31.

Reading the story, I anticipated some insight or vision. The mayor sees environmental knowledge as an economic generator because she has spoken to many international mining interests from around the world.

Former mayor Jim Gordon continues to wail about youth out-migration. It is no longer a worthwhile conversation after some 25 years and still no solution after many studies.

The first study, which I facilitated about 20 years ago for the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, stated that youths leave for many reasons, not just jobs. They will return for a job when it kicks into their 30- something heads, as they become parents themselves and begin to think that perhaps it would be nice to raise their kids in an environment similar to what they grew up in.

Critical Metal Shortages – a look at global graphite, manganese and vanadium supply – by Brian Sylvester (Mineweb.com – January 11, 2012)

January 12, 2012

http://www.mineweb.com/

The U.S. is now dependent on foreign sources for critical metals like graphite, vanadium and manganese. The Critical Metals Report interviews Michael and Chris Berry.

PETALUMA, CA (The Critical Metals Report) – The Critical Metals Report: In a presentation at the China Investment Conference in December, you said that over the last 20 years the U.S. government has mismanaged its supplies of critical metals to the point where it depends almost exclusively on foreign sources. How did this happen?

Michael Berry: It’s just now starting to dawn on Washington that we don’t have a stockpile. We had a stockpile through World War I and World War II (WWII) that was necessary to our national security. The U.S. was the biggest producer of rare earth elements (REEs) in the 1970s and 1980s. But then we allowed China to undercut our prices and we shut down the Mountain Pass mine, which was one of the largest if not the largest producer of rare earths in the world.

We lost not only production and access to REEs, which are critical for weapons systems, automobiles, alternative energy and a number of other applications, but we lost the processing chain that actually integrates and creates the metal, creates the alloy and magnets, and integrates it into material. China now controls these markets. There are four or five pieces of legislation pending in Washington, but it will take a decade or more to replace and rebuild these crucial supply chains.

Chris Berry: When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the idea of a unipolar world came into vogue and I think the United States took its eye off the ball by selling off stockpiles of numerous metals.

[Solid Gold Resources vs. Wahgoshig F.N.] Court, government threw junior miner “under the bus,” company claims – by Northern Ontario Business staff (January 11, 2012)

January 11, 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.

A Thornhill, Ont. junior miner has come out swinging against an Ontario Superior Court decision that temporarily halted exploration in northeastern Ontario.

Solid Gold Resources fired back at Justice Carol Brown’s Jan. 3 ruling to side with the Wahgoshig First Nation in granting an injunction to temporarily halt exploration at the company’s Legacy gold project.

Solid Gold was ordered to stop its activity for 120 days while the company and the Ontario government pay for a third party mediator to begin a consultation process. The First Nation claimed it was not consulted on exploration activity and that the area in question holds significant cultural and archaeological values.

The company declined an interview request, but in a statement company president Darryl Stretch called the court’s ruling “plainly wrong on many levels.”

Éléonore could be the next Val d’Or [Quebec mining] – by Kevin Dougherty (Montreal Gazette – January 11, 2012)

January 11, 2012

http://www.montrealgazette.com/

The prospecting mission led by Premier Jean Charest and Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume to promote Charest’s Plan Nord struck gold Tuesday in the wilderness of northern Quebec, visiting the site of the Goldcorp Inc.’s Éléonore gold mine.

Labeaume, who led a delegation of about 25 Quebec City-area business people and who made his personal fortune in the mining business, said Éléonore is “opening up a new mining region in Canada.”

“It is major, major, major,” he said. Guy Belleau, director of the $2.2-billion mining project, set to begin production of 600,000 ounces of gold yearly in 2017, went further.

“The Plan Nord is Éléonore,” he said in a presentation to the business delegation, political leaders and representatives of the Cree First Nations who count on landing about half the 700 construction jobs and 400 mining jobs Éléonore will generate.

Pipeline rhetoric is a radical attack on due process – Globe and Mail Editorial (January 11, 2012)

January 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.

The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline is a good idea, to judge from the information available thus far. But the regulatory process should go ahead and hear all concerns in an evenhanded way, as that process was designed to do. The federal government’s warnings about foreign influences and “environmental and other radical groups” are exaggerated.

Canada needs to trade with diverse markets, and China will have a huge appetite for oil for a long time to come. The pipeline, transporting petroleum from the Alberta oil sands to Kitimat, B.C., where it can be loaded on to ocean tankers, would serve the Asian market. Better access to international markets (not only through Gateway) could add $131-billion to this country’s gross domestic product between 2016 and 2030, and $27-billion in tax revenues, a paper published by the University of Calgary’s School of Policy studies argues.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was circumspect when he spoke with this newspaper’s editorial board in late October.

Our ecological treasure is the issue with Northern Gateway – by Gerald Butts (Globe and Mail – January 11, 2012)

January 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.

Gerald Butts is president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada.

The hearings to decide the future of the Great Bear Sea and Rainforest got off to quite a start this week. Big oil, foreign intrigue, a grassroots uprising, duelling polls, angry ministers – this one has all the makings of a blockbuster. But the fervour obscures the heart of the matter: whether and under what conditions we should permit supertankers and a bitumen pipeline in one of the last intact temperate coastal rain forests on Earth.

I suspect most Canadians would be surprised that the proposed route of the Northern Gateway pipeline bisects this ecological treasure. Pipeline proponents would rather frame this issue around developing an Asian market for oil sands bitumen – and the allegedly nefarious U.S.-based interests who would prevent us from doing so – than have a science-based debate about the real risks associated with getting it there by this route.

‘Foreign money’ is a hypocritical diversion – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – January 11, 2012)

January 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.

It has been rich, even comic, to listen to the Harper government blasting away at “foreign money,” “radical groups” and Hollywood movie stars for interfering in the environmental review of the Northern Gateway pipeline that’s just starting.

Of course, such people and their money have entered the fray in Canada. It isn’t the first time (think of U.S. interventions against cutting old-growth forests in B.C.) and it won’t be the last. We live in a global world, and we share a continent with the U.S. (and Mexico) where one country’s decisions can affect the continent and planet.

Think back to last year, and the ones before that. TransCanada Pipelines sought U.S. approval for the Keystone XL pipeline to ship oil from Alberta’s tar sands to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Regulatory hearings were required. Ultimately, the State Department (read: President Barack Obama’s administration) had to decide.

As review begins for Gateway pipeline, a warning from wary first nations – Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – January 11, 2012)

January 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.

KITAMAAT VILLAGE, B.C.— Not far from the dark waters that could one day carry supertankers of oil-sands crude to the Pacific Ocean, the pitched battle over the Northern Gateway pipeline took a very public stage as opponents called on God and salmon to fight a project they see as dangerous.

Over the next two years, the federal review panel assessing the $6.6-billion proposed Enbridge Inc. pipeline will travel to dozens of communities, on the route and off it, and hear from the thousands who have asked to speak.

On Tuesday, the first day of public hearings, the three-person panel arrived in Kitamaat Village, a Haisla community on the shores of Douglas Channel. Although Ottawa has invoked the spectre of foreign-funded radicals plotting to derail the project, the real fight was here, in coastal communities where the Exxon Valdez spill still resonates and many first nations communities fear the consequences of a pipeline on their traditional territory and local waters.

Playing games with [Ontario] electricity prices – by David Robinson (Northern Ontario Business – January, 2012)

January 10, 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.

Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development at Laurentian University. drobinson@laurentian.ca

Timmins lost 670 Xstrata jobs because Quebec has lower electricity prices than Ontario. Cliffs is making noises about refining in Manitoba because Manitoba offers cheaper electricity rates. Industries in Manitoba and Quebec pay under three cents per kilowatt hour, plus distribution costs, while in Ontario they pay a spot market rate that can be double that. Should we lower the price of electricity for industry in the North?

The price of electricity is actually a very political topic. Quebec and Manitoba offer low prices to attract businesses. Much of that business comes from Ontario. We call this a ‘beggar-thy-neighbor policy’ because it makes one province richer by making another province poorer.

[Timmins Goldcorp] Mine ramping up – by Chris Ribau (Timmins Daily Press – January 10, 2012)

January 10, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper

Blasting for open pit begins this summer

Corporate approval is all that stands in the way.

Representatives from Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines announced on Monday that it will commence development of the Hollinger Open Pit Mine Project following corporate approval to fund the project.

Construction is planned for the next 12 to 18 months at a cost of $75 million. Blasting is expected to start sometime this summer. The reasoning behind the 12 to 18 month timeframe is because the berm is the longest part of the construction. Construction of the haul road will start immediately.

The initial focus will be on equipment procurement, installation of the dewatering system, site clearing and stripping and the development of a five-kilometre haulage road between the Hollinger site and the Dome Mill.

No pipeline under any condition: Haisla – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – January 10, 2012)

January 10, 2012

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

KITAMAAT VILLAGE, B.C. — Ellis Ross, the elected chief of the Haisla Nation, hasn’t come lightly to his view of Enbridge Inc.’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

The thoughtful leader of the 700-member community on the shore of Douglas Channel has immersed himself in the study of energy markets, risk of spills, and how the energy sector tends to behave when accidents occur. He has also personally been involved in spill response, in jobs in government and in the private sector.

His conclusion?

The pipeline will not be allowed under any condition by the Haisla, the aboriginal group most affected by the $5.5-billion project. It’s not about anti-fossil fuels ideology, environmentalism or dirty oil, said Mr. Ross, who is no green ally and would look at home in any corporate boardroom.

Radicals threaten resource development – by the Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources – (National Post – January 10, 2012)

January 10, 2012

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

An open letter from the Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, on Canada’s commitment to diversify our energy markets and the need to further streamline the regulatory process in order to advance Canada’s national economic interest.

Canada is on the edge of a historic choice: to diversify our energy markets away from our traditional trading partner in the United States or to continue with the status quo.

Virtually all our energy exports go to the United States. As a country, we must seek new markets for our products and services and the booming Asia-Pacific economies have shown great interest in our oil, gas, metals and minerals. For our government, the choice is clear: we need to diversify our markets in order to create jobs and economic growth for Canadians across this country. We must expand our trade with the fast-growing Asian economies. We know that increasing trade will help ensure the financial security of Canadians and their families.

A war on green ‘radicals’ – by Terence Corcoran (National Post – January 10, 2012)

January 10, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. Terence Corcoran is the editor and columnist for the Financial Post section of the National Post.

Never before has a Canadian politician challenged the hitherto saintly protectors of the environment in such direct language

Through most of 2011, Canadian energy officials in politics and industry watched with bewildered helplessness and some shock as Washington allowed environmentalists to seize control of TransCanada’s $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline issue. They stood by aghast as President Barack Obama, a captive of U.S. green activists and Hollywood movie stars, caved in to political pressure and postponed a decision to approve the project, a potential economic bonanza that promised to deliver thousands of jobs to Americans and billions of barrels of Canadian oil sands production to Texas.

No such green hijacking is going to take place in Canada, at least not without an official fight. On the eve of hearings, which begin Tuesday in Kitimat, B.C., into the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline — to carry the same oil sands production from Alberta to the West Coast and on to China — the Harper government clearly aims to do what Barack Obama cannot or will not do in America, namely stand up to the growth-killing professional green movement.

For the Harper government, the Gateway must be open – by Shawn McCarthy and Steven Chase (Globe and Mail – January 10, 2012)

January 10, 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— The Harper government has launched an all-out campaign against opponents of the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline as it seeks to blunt a global campaign by environmentalists to halt booming oil sands development.

With regulatory hearings set to begin in Kitimat, B.C., Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver singled out a Canadian charity, Tides Canada Inc., for channelling U.S. donor money to pipeline opponents, while the Prime Minister’s Office took aim at the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

In an interview Monday, Mr. Oliver deliver a blunt message – that the independent panel reviewing the Gateway pipeline should not allow foreign-backed opponents to hijack the hearings and kill the project through tactical delays.

Taming regulatory red tape key to [mining] investments in North – by Jennifer Brown (Canadian Lawyer – January 09, 2012)

January 9, 2012

http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/

If Canada wants to keep the investment community interested in the country’s natural resource sector it should find ways to better manage the red tape posed by regulatory regimes in this country.

As part of its Top 10 Business Issues with Legal Implications for 2012, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP cites the need to keep foreign investors interested in Canada’s Far North and specifically the need to address aboriginal consultation requirements and environmental regulations as potential hurdles.

In particular, Adam Chamberlain, the national leader and a partner in the climate change group at BLG, cited the special regulatory environment in Nunavut as an area with its own unique challenges. “You’re dealing with a regulatory framework that is substantially different than anywhere else in the country,” says Chamberlain.

He notes that Nunavut is the only territory that exists because of a modern land claim agreement.