2012 – Page 40 – Republic of Mining

[Thompson, Manitoba] USW Local 6166 points to contracting out as a ‘contributing factor to our low productivity’ – by John Barker (Thompson Citizen – October 19, 2012)

October 20, 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’s Manitoba Operations is “one of the highest cost producers” in Canada and the United Kingdom, USW Local 6166 acknowledged Oct. 19, a day after the company said it was considering mothballing Birchtree Mine again next August. In a news release issued by the local, President Murray Nychyporuk pointed to contracting out as a “contributing factor to our low productivity” at Manitoba Operations.

While it’s not easy to say definitively how many contractors are working in Birchtree Mine because a number of contractors often work in multiple locations throughout Manitoba Operations and flow between worksites, Ryan Land, manager of corporate affairs for Vale’s Manitoba Operations, said late Friday afternoon there are about 40 contractors working at Birchtree Mine and a “little more than half are miners.”

Issues of cost and productivity are not new to the nickel miner. Productivity at Manitoba Operations from all mines for the number of pounds of nickel and copper produced in an eight-hour shift dropped from 320 pounds in 2001 and 315 pounds in 2000 to 198 pounds in October 2008, the company said on Nov. 28, 2008.

NEWS RELEASE: Employees Unveil Plan to Revitalize Ontario Northland, Connect Ring of Fire

October 19, 2012

Proposal includes new rail line to massive mineral deposits in James Bay Lowlands

NORTH BAY, ONTARIO (October 19, 2012) – The General Chairperson’s Association (GCA), representing unionized employees at Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC), today announced a plan to revitalize the company while creating significant new job and economic opportunities in Ontario’s North.

“This is a new deal for Northern Ontario,” declared GCA representative Brian Stevens. “Not only will we save transportation services and hundreds of existing jobs in the North, but our plan will also create thousands more jobs by providing access to the Ring of Fire.”

The proposal calls for transferring ownership of the railroad and other assets of the provincially-held ONTC to a new ports authority to be operated under the Canada Marine Act. The first step in this process was recently completed with the creation of The James Bay & Lowlands Ports Trustee Corporation.

ONTC operations will be strengthened to ensure that they are economically sustainable. The new Ring of Fire rail line will be designed and built to ship thousands of tons per day of chromite, nickel and other minerals and finished products to markets around the world. ONTC employees, with a long tradition of providing rail services in Ontario’s North, will provide their energy and leverage their position as a significant creditor toward this New Deal.

NEWS RELEASE: Trading in KWG Resources Shares Halted For Third-Party Announcement

October 19, 2012

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Oct. 19, 2012) – KWG Resources Inc. (“KWG” or “the Company”) (TSX VENTURE:KWG) advises that trading in its shares was halted for an announcement this morning by the General Chairperson’s Association (GCA), representing unionized employees at Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC).

The GCA has announced a revitalization plan for ONTC that includes the proposed construction of a rail link to the Ring of Fire mineral deposits in the James Bay Lowlands, where KWG has extensive claims.

The new railway will form part of the Ring of Fire mining infrastructure and will be located within mining claims held by Canada Chrome Corporation, a wholly owned sub of KWG Resources. The GCA’s proposal calls for the railroad and other assets of the provincially-held ONTC, along with the new Ring of Fire railway, to be transferred to a new ports authority to be operated under the Canada Marine Act.

Canada Chrome has made a significant investment to study and secure mining claims.

KWG intends to continue discussions with the GCA and other stakeholders to advance this initiative, with the goal of creating the transportation links necessary for mining to proceed in the Ring of Fire, and thereby deliver new economic and job opportunities in Northern Ontario.

ArcelorMittal eyes Canadian iron ore stake sale: sources – by Euan Rocha (Montreal Gazette/Reuters – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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

Deal could potentially avoid Investment Canada hurdle

TORONTO – ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, is exploring the sale of a minority stake in its Canadian iron ore business, sources familiar with the situation said.

The company has retained RBC Capital Markets and Goldman Sachs to assist in the process, which has been going on for a few months, said one of the sources, adding that a deal is likely to be announced before the end of the year.

ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT) is one of Canada’s top exporters of iron ore to steel markets around the world and its operations account for about 40 per cent of Canada’s iron ore output. It operates two large open-pit mines in the province of Quebec, where it also owns the Port-Cartier industrial complex that includes a pellet plant, storage areas and port facilities for shipping.

ArcelorMittal Mines Canada, which traces its origins back to the Quebec Cartier Mining Co., produces 15 million tonnes of iron ore concentrate and more than 9 million tonnes of iron oxide pellets annually.

Dead pipeline walking – by Tex Enemark (National Post – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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

Tex Enemark, former president of the Mining Association of B.C. and a former B.C. deputy minister, is a Vancouver-based public-policy consultant who does political risk assessments and strategic planning.

Northern Gateway dead as Enbridge had no grasp of B.C. reality

I told a friend of mine — a retired pipeline executive — that I was writing a column on why the Enbridge pipeline project failed. He responded, “A column? You could write a book!”

Enbridge ought to have studied the history of large B.C. projects that failed when faced with the combined influences of native unhappiness and British Columbia’s environmental protest industry. The Alcan expansion project of the 1980s was killed by the Mulroney government after more than $2-billion had been spent over about eight years.

The huge Windy Craggy copper-cobalt mine in northwest B.C. was sidelined into limbo by the Social Credit government in 1989, then neutralized by park designation by the NDP in 1993. Northgate’s Kemess North copper-gold mine was turned down by the provincial Liberals in 2007. These project cancellations were not associated with any one political party.

Time to stand ‘on our own feet,’ Vale CEO says – by Mark Gentili (Sudbury Northern Life – October 18, 2012)

October 19, 2012

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Prices, market prompt belt-tightening at company

Although it is confident base metal prices will rebound in the medium- to long term, Vale Canada’s CEO has issued a statement to its Base Metals employees worldwide that it is taking steps to keep the company profitable in the short term.

Peter Poppinga’s letter sets what Cory McPhee, the company’s vice-president of corporate affairs, describes as a “broad direction” for Vale’s base metals division. This direction focuses on ensuring the continued safety of workers, prioritizing value over volume and pursuing a directive Poppinga terms “standing on our own two feet.”

“Basically, we want all of our divisions to be self-sustaining,” McPhee explained to Northern Life Oct. 18. The letter issued this week precedes more discussions, both face-to-face and by letter, with the company’s base metal employees to keep them in the loop of Vale’s plans.

The first step was announced today when the company revealed it will be suspending operations at its Frood site of the Stobie Mine as of the end of the year. Although 85 jobs will be affected by the decision, no layoffs are in the works, said Angie Robson, manager of corporate affairs for Vale’s Ontario operations, in a statement today.

In eastern Ohio, coal fuels discontent with Obama – by Patrick Martin (Globe and Mail – October 18, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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.

CADIZ, OHIO — The people of this eastern Ohio region believe they are at war – with the Obama administration. Which is odd, considering that about 75 per cent of the men and women in the area routinely vote Democrat, and they supported Barack Obama in 2008 in large numbers.

The war is over coal and the administration’s policies to curtail its use in heating and power generation. Those are fighting words to this blue-collar district whose men have mined coal for more than a century and all of whose citizens have a stake in the mining and related industries.

The issue is so worrisome that many of those life-long Democrats are casting their ballots this election against Mr. Obama – one of the factors that is putting into doubt a repeat of the President’s decisive 2008 victory in this key swing state.

“It made me change my vote,” said Democrat Hooty McKee, a 50-something miner at the Hopedale Mine, 10 kilometres north of Cadiz. Not surprisingly, some of the 170 workers at the mine are distributing lawns signs for people to display: “Stop the War on Coal – FIRE OBAMA,” they all read.

NEWS RELEASE: THUNDER BAY WINS STRATEGIC PROJECT OF THE YEAR AND JOB CREATION PROJECT OF THE YEAR AWARDS

October 19, 2012

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 – The Ring of Fire and NWO Mineral Deposits wins the Strategic Project of the Year and the Job Creation Project of the Year Awards at the 4th Annual North American Strategic Infrastructure Leadership Forum in Denver, Colorado on October 16, 2012.

The Forum is being held on October 15 to 17, 2012, with over 500 executives from the public and private sector in attendance. The Forum is a 2 ½ day conference, focused on infrastructure development in North America, designed to create business opportunities and promote projects across the region, as well as showcase the cities, states and provinces with the most innovative infrastructure plans. This annual event draws international investors, engineers and developers.

The Strategic Project of the Year award is the most prestigious prize awarded. The award is for projects which will generate a giant stride in a country or region’s productivity and/or competitiveness.

The Job/Opportunity Creation Project of the Year is for projects that will create the greatest number of jobs and/or businesses over the lifetime of the project. This award tabulates direct, indirect and induces job creation, over the 20 to 30 year life of the project.

Winners were announced yesterday afternoon at the Forum. Top projects are chosen by a jury of forum sponsors, with a wide representation across geographies and sectors.

[Sudbury mine] Closure part of global trend: Analyst – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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

Nickel analyst Stefan Ioannu of Haywood Securities in Toronto is not surprised by Vale’s decision Thursday to close the 100- year-old Frood Mine in Sudbury.

” You have deposits and greater depths right now,” he said. “The deeper you go, the more expensive it is to get to stuff. Maybe ( Vale) can squeeze a little more out if it sells at $10 (a pound), a little less at $7.”

Ioannu said the Frood decision is one of many being made across the globe right now by the mining industry. “One of the big things we have been seeing coming out of the majors is a focus,” he said. “They will be shutting some of their big projects and focusing on regular operations to cut costs. It’s an interesting shift.

“It’s very difficult for the big companies to justify developing things with the (nickel) price now.” Ioannu said while he sees nickel prices rising to US$10 a pound, they could bottom out at $6. The reason they will rebound, said the mining analyst, is that high-grade nickel pig iron deposits in Indonesia — which could be turned on and off quickly and flood the nickel markets — are mostly gone and only low grade ones remain.

[Sudbury Vale] Operations suspended – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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

The first shoe has dropped at Vale’s Greater Sudbury operations as part of the company’s new “self-sustaining” push. Vale announced Thursday it is suspending operations at the Frood section of Stobie Mine by the end of the year. The 85 employees affected will be transferred to other operations.

“No employees will be laid off as a result of this decision,” said Vale spokeswoman Angie Robson. “While this move will affect approximately 85 employees, those employees working at Frood will be deployed to other areas of the operation, and all commitments under our collective agreements will be honoured.”

Robson said the move was a hard business decision that had to be made in difficult times. “Current market volatility, declining metal prices and falling demand for our products requires decisive action to ensure our business in Sudbury remains sustainable and robust throughout this challenging economic cycle,” she said. “Frood has a rich history and has been integral to our success for more than a century.

“However, after more than 100 years of operations, Frood is a remnant area that has low value ore and declining grades. In (times of ) lower metal prices, we are actually mining at a loss. At the same time, the area requires high capital investments in order to sustain production, so while the grades are going down, our mining costs there are increasing.

Vale wields Sword of Damocles over [Thompson, Manitoba] Birchtree Mine – by John Barker (Thompson Citizen – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

‘Birchtree Mine is being considered for care and maintenance, effective August 2013’

Birchtree Mine, which opened in 1968, is being “considered for care and maintenance” in 10 months time next August, Vale said Oct. 18. The mine was previously on care and maintenance from 1977 to 1989.

“Unless we are able to affect another outcome, operations will be suspended at Birchtree Mine as of August 2013. This will mean that by the end of 2012 there will be no further development of the mine and it will be gradually ramped down until August when it will be placed on standby. The mine may re-open depending on future nickel prices, market dynamics and the viability of doing so. Previously, Birchtree Mine was on standby for nearly 12 years before re-opening in 1989 and the current life of mine plan anticipated closure at some point in the next 10 years.”

The bad news was delivered in a follow-up letter to Manitoba Operations employees in Thompson to an earlier one issued Sept. 7 by Lovro Paulic, general manager of smelting and refining, Don Wood, general manager of production services and Mark Scott, general manager of mining and milling. The three most senior managers in Manitoba Operations also issued the Oct. 18 letter jointly.

[Sudbury] LU president back for second term – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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

Despite opposition from professors, Laurentian University president Dominic Giroux received unanimous support from the school’s board of governors for a second term that will extend to June 30, 2019.

The board endorsed the unanimous recommendation of the Presidential Review Committee to renew his term as the school’s president and vice-chancellor.

“The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive about the university’s accomplishments and progress since Dominic Giroux joined us,” Floyd Laughren, chair of Laurentian’s board of governors, said in a release. “Our board is extremely pleased with president Giroux’s performance and we are excited by the compelling vision that has been presented for the years ahead. We are fully confident that president Giroux is the leader to make the vision a reality.”

But not everyone at the university was pleased with the decision to give Giroux a second five-year term as president. A vote from the university’s faculty, before the Presidential Review Committee’s recommendation, did not go in his favour. Giroux took that in stride, however.

NEWS RELEASE: [NED] GOODMAN FAMILY INVESTS IN $20M ENDOWMENT FUND FOR LAURENTIAN UNIVERSITY’S SCHOOL OF MINES

May 7, 2013October 18, 2012

(L to R) Michael Atkins, Laurentian Board Vice-Chair; Anita Goodman; Ned Goodman, CEO of Dundee Corporation; Terry MacGibbon, Chair of Laurentian Next 50 Campaign; Laura Katz, 2nd Year Masters of Science Student, Earth Sciences Department; Dominic Giroux, President of Laurentian University

Please note, although Laurentian President Dominic Giroux starts the video speaking French the remainder is in English.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUDBURY, ON (OCTOBER 15, 2012) – Ned Goodman, CEO of Dundee Corporation, and The Goodman Family Foundation – JODAMADA, announced today a historic gift to Laurentian University’s new School of Mines. In recognition of the Goodman family’s generosity, Laurentian University President Dominic Giroux announced that the university will name the school in the Goodman family’s honour.

Ned Goodman’s business and investment experience spans more than 40 years as a geologist, securities analyst, portfolio manager and senior executive, and he has an established reputation as one of Canada’s most successful investment counselors. He was the driving force of the Dundee group of financial companies, which grew under his family’s leadership from a $300-million base to a $50-billion mutual fund entity. Mr. Goodman’s work in the mining sector helped bring investment and jobs to many remote northern Canadian communities. By providing financing to many junior companies and helping to build successful, growing companies, he helped thousands of other Canadians prosper. He described his family’s gift as a vote of confidence in the future of mining.

Oil sands dialogues of the deaf – by Peter Foster (National Post – October 16, 2012)

October 18, 2012

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

Does Rick George aim to keep his enemies close, or to be eaten last?

Rick George, the former head of Suncor, is one of the most talented and successful businessmen in Canadian history. On the basis of a single brilliant insight, he transformed the economics of the Alberta oil sands, setting Canada on the path to energy superpower status. He repatriated and reprivatized Suncor. He absorbed Petro-Canada in the biggest merger in the country’s history.

And yet Mr. George was also slow to see, and perhaps naive in dealing with, the environmental whirlwind that would be unleashed by his success, as appears evident in his newly published autobiography, Sun Rise: Suncor, the Oil Sands and the Future of Energy, written with John Lawrence Reynolds.

Mr. George’s tale of business success is often inspiring, if somewhat guarded, but that part of the book contrasts markedly with the account of his well-intended but often muddled and contradictory approach to dealing with the environmental movement’s massive international campaign of misinformation about the oil sands.

Quebec Premier floats idea of tax credits to attract Plan Nord mining investment – by Sophie Cousineau (Globe and Mail – October 18, 2012)

October 18, 2012

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.

Paris — During Quebec’s electoral campaign, Pauline Marois criticized the Plan Nord, intimately associated with her Liberal predecessor Jean Charest, for its generosity towards private companies. But now that the Parti Québécois Premier is courting French investors in Paris, helping out mining companies no longer looks like such a bad idea.

The PQ government is thinking of introducing new tax credits to attract mining projects to the Plan Nord territory, which encompasses all of Quebec north of the 49th parallel. “This is an avenue we could choose,” Ms. Marois said during the news conference that ended her three-day mission in France.

But there is a catch. To be eligible for these tax credits, companies would have to transform the metals and minerals extracted locally. “It is an exchange of friendly services,” said Ms. Marois, who wishes to put the PQ’s imprint on the Liberal program.

“But we are pressing on with the North’s development,” she said. The new tax credits would be similar to the ones that Quebec used to create a multimedia and video game hub in Montreal, Ms. Marois explained. They translated into a fixed amount of money per employee hired on an annual basis.