2012 – Page 42 – Republic of Mining

B.C.’s low-wage migrant coal mining jobs send us back to the future – by Thomas Walkom (Toronto Star – October 13, 2012)

October 14, 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.

Early on in the 20th century, the silver and gold mines of Northern Ontario imported thousands of foreign workers. The mine owners said they were filling a labour shortage. But their real reason was to keep wages down.

So when native-born, anglophone miners went on strike in Cobalt or the Porcupine region, the owners shipped in French-Canadians. And when they went on strike, Finns were brought in and, after them, Ukrainians and Poles and Italians and Englishmen from Cornwall.

In every case, the point of the exercise was to bring in workers who were less likely to make common cause with those already there and who, therefore, would be willing to work for less.

It was an ugly time in our history and it gave rise to very ugly labour disputes. So it is depressing in the extreme to see employers, aided and abetted by the federal government, engage in the same discredited tactics.

The latest and most bizarre example comes from British Columbia where, as the Vancouver Sun has reported, four brand new coal mines in the province’s northeast are bringing in just under 2,000 temporary Chinese migrants to do most of the work.

Rio Tinto wants to reopen union deal in Quebec – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – October 13, 2012)

October 14, 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.

Rio Tinto Alcan is in talks with workers about reopening a nine-year collective agreement at its aging Arvida smelter in Quebec, as the company battles stubbornly low aluminum prices hit by a global commodities slowdown.

Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan, the aluminum division of parent Rio Tinto PLC, said it met on Thursday with representatives of the 1,500-strong Canadian Auto Workers union at Arvida and related facilities, for preliminary talks about how to cut costs at the smelter.

The meeting, expected to be the first of several over coming weeks, came just days after London-based Rio Tinto, the world’s third-biggest diversified miner, said it would delay new project approvals in the near term because the business outlook has become less certain than it was even a few months ago.

“There are a number of headwinds that we are dealing with, but certainly with the metal where it is, today it is just under $2,000 on the [London Metal Exchange], it’s a pretty challenging environment,” said company spokesman Bryan Tucker.

Quebec ‘Non’ looms over west-to-east pipeline gambit – by Gordon Laxer (Toronto Star – October 14, 2012)

October 14, 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.

Gordon Laxer is founding director and former head of Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta.

October always brings shorter days, falling leaves and the bite of frost. This year, frost in Alberta is also coming from politics, as B.C. Premier Christy Clark digs in her heels over the proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline to take bitumen from the oilsands to China.

In landlocked Alberta, oilsands operators are desperate to get their bitumen to the coast, any coast, to find the sweet spot of much higher international prices. Blocked by U.S. President Barack Obama from getting to the Texas Gulf coast by a temporary hold on the Keystone XL pipeline, corporate hopes quickly shifted to oil pipelines to the B.C. coast.

As B.C. opposition to oil pipelines rises, eyes turn east. Going east to bring sands oil west across the Pacific may seem like a slow boat to China. But Derek Burney and Eddie Goldenberg trumpet its advantages. The bitumen could flow over existing rights of way and have fewer regulatory hurdles.

Charting the future of crude oil – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – October 13, 2012)

October 14, 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 world’s oil map is being redrawn in ways that will pose major challenges to Canadian crude producers, energy consumers and governments.

North America is now the fastest-growing source of crude outside of OPEC, but virtually all the demand growth is in Asia. The refining industry in the developed world is aged and inefficient, and forced to compete with new mega-refineries in China, India and the Middle East. And consumers are buffeted by shifting market forces that will result in tremendous volatility in gasoline prices.

That’s the picture painted Friday by the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based agency that advises rich countries on energy markets.

And it goes a long way toward explaining the upheaval on the Canadian oil scene: the battles over proliferating pipeline projects; the trade-promotion trips by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ministers to China and India; and the huge interest by Asian state-owned companies in acquiring assets in the oil sands. It also sheds some light on the seemingly inexplicable changes in retail gasoline prices.

Timmins citizens grill Goldcorp over plans for Hollinger open pit mine – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – October 12, 2012)

October 13, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Uncertainty and mistrust were two of the overriding issues that seemed to dominate a public meeting held Thursday night in Timmins to discuss the plan by Goldcorp to turn the old Hollinger Mine property into a massive open pit operation.

The meeting was almost confrontational with at least one citizen pledging to become an outspoken “pain in the ass” to protest Goldcorp’s mining plan.

The meeting was hosted by the Hollinger Project Community Advisory Committee (HPCAC) as an 11th hour attempt to gather more public input on the project that Goldcorp is hoping to have up and running before Christmas.

Although the meeting at the McIntyre Ballroom lasted nearly three hours, there were less than 100 residents at the meeting. Those that did attend managed to pepper the Goldcorp and City of Timmins employees with a barrage of questions. One Goldcorp employee agreed the meeting was intense, but suggested it was “only a vocal minority.”

The uncertainty at the meeting appeared to come from the fact that many residents asked pointed questions about how the project might affect them, but Goldcorp staffers were unable to provide specific or absolute answers because there are many issues and studies not yet completed.

Gold: The new asset class for the confused – by Diane Francis (National Post – October 13, 2012)

October 13, 2012

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

Pierre Lassonde, one of the world’s foremost experts on gold, says the only way is up for the shiny stuff.

He should know as he has made his fortune in the gold game. This week he spoke at a mining seminar in Toronto organized by mining consultant Terry Ortsland, chair of the Mineral Resource Analyst Group.

As a director of a gold company, I am fascinated with the shiny stuff. It’s a barometer of fear and a replacement for paper currencies. Its price moves up or down on bad news and good news and drives the value of gold stocks, but only to a certain extent. And in a tumultuous world of financial, stock market and sovereign meltdowns, gold has been a rising star. Investors have branched out from real estate, equities, bonds and art into gold. I call it the new asset class for the confused.

Lassonde is still a believer, but deconstructed shifts in its market. “There’s been a decoupling of equities from gold prices,” he said. The supply-demand situation is clearly pointing to ever-increasing prices but not necessarily for gold producers.

Lassonde ran Newmont Mining Corp for five years (“it nearly killed me”) and is currently chair of Franco-Nevada, a company he co-founded with Seymour Schulich in 1982.

Rick George Book Excerpt: Hannah’s hyperbole and Cameron’s hypocrisy – (National Post – October 13, 2012)

October 13, 2012

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

In his new book, Rick George, chief executive of energy giant Suncor Energy Inc. for 21 years, takes aim at some of the oil sands higher profile critics who he says often fudge the facts and don’t practice what they preach.

The following is an exclusive excerpt from his book Sun Rise, which goes on sale Saturday

Actor Daryl Hannah managed to get herself arrested in front of the White House in the summer of 2011 for protesting against construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. assume that many people who neither knew nor cared about either the pipeline or the oil sands were drawn to the story of her arrest based on recognition of her name. If that was the case and they read beyond the headlines to absorb some of her reasons for protesting, they were unknowingly being fed a litany of exaggerated claims and questionable “facts.” Here are the statements she delivered to U.S. media sources, followed by accurate responses that no one in the United States, to my knowledge, employed to repudiate her claims:

“It’s well documented that the tar sands itself is one of the world’s largest ecological atrocities and disasters.”

If she meant the existence of a trillion barrels or so of bitumen within a wilderness setting, she may have had a point — but an empty one. The sands have been there for a few million years, after all. I suspect, however, that she was referring to the development of the oil sands by Suncor and other firms as a means of providing North Americans with petroleum-based energy.

Converting part of TransCanada’s Mainline could fuel domestic use – by Claudia Cattaneo National Post – October 13, 2012)

October 13, 2012

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

Canada has been so stuck on the idea that energy development depends on boosting exports to the United States and Asia that the obvious other option, increasing domestic use, has been getting less attention than it deserves.

That option will be thrust to the top of the national agenda if TransCanada Corp. moves ahead with plans to convert parts of its underutilized Canadian Mainline system from gas to oil transportation, which could be ready for takeoff by the end of the year.

The conversion would send a river of Western Canadian oil — up to one million barrels a day — to Central and Eastern Canada, pushing out 700,000 barrels a day of crude imports from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Libya and Nigeria. It would build on smaller, similar plans by competitor Enbridge Inc.

The Mainline conversion would be so large in scope and bring so many benefits — lower gasoline prices and lower heating bills in the East, more profitable refineries, a secure market for Canadian oil, more jobs and more government revenue — it would truly distribute Canada’s oil wealth.

Why hasn’t it been done sooner? It used to be cheaper to import oil than to move it across the country. But with world prices now exceeding Canadian prices by as much as a third, controversies dogging new projects and the $6-billion Mainline at risk of becoming a stranded asset, recycling existing pipe is making a lot of market sense.

[Ontario] Come together to break apart – by James Bow (Kitchener Post – October 11, 2012)

October 13, 2012

http://www.kitchenerpost.ca/

The cancellation of the Ontario Northland train between Toronto and Cochrane has raised whispers in the northern Ontario media about separatism.

It is no secret that northerners are frustrated with Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government. The McGuinty Liberals hold only four seats north of Muskoka. Northerners also haven’t forgotten the treatment they received under Mike Harris, which is why the Progressive Conservatives have only two seats in the north.

But on my ride on the last Northlander to and from Toronto, I heard great cynicism among northerners about politicians of all stripes.

Between this decision, the closure of overnight camping in 10 northern provincial parks, and a host of slights by governments Liberal and PC, northerners seem to be losing confidence that any government in Queen’s Park is capable of responding to northern concerns.

In this environment, it’s not surprising to hear the Northern Ontario Heritage Party starting to beat the drum of northern secession.

They are looking to run candidates in the next election and hope to form a Bloc Northern Ontario in Queen’s Park. If that doesn’t work, they might look to making northern Ontario its own province. If they did this, they wouldn’t be alone.

Fond farewell to an icon, friend [Hemlo co-founder John Larche] – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – October 12, 2012)

October 13, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – In the days after his death, he is being described by many as a hero and a legend, as a man of generosity and humility. But up until his final days, John Larche only ever saw himself as a simple prospector.

On Friday, Larche was laid to rest at the Timmins Memorial cemetery after a funeral mass at Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix. “My father’s biggest dream in life was not mining related,” said Larche’s son Paul. “His biggest dream was to raise his family with values that would carry them well through life so that they could realize happiness and the full potential of their aspirations, whatever they may be.

“Values you know my father for; honesty, integrity, humility, and a moral compass that pointed as true North as his prospectors compass.” Larche died peacefully on Thanksgiving Monday, Oct. 8 at the age of 84. Pre-deceased by his first wife, Violet, Larche is survived by his wife Dolores, his five children, Paul, David, Nicole, John and Lise, as well as his 16 grandchildren.

He was known largely for founding the famous Hemlo Gold Mine in the early 1980s near Marathon, Ont. with fellow prospector and business-partner Don McKinnon, who died just two months ago.

In 1983, Larche was named co-recipient of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s Prospector of the Year Award. From 1984-1988, he presided over the Prospectors Association of Canada and became the country’s top spokesperson in exploration.

Northern lifestyle threatened by tiny budget cut – by Wayne Snider (Timmins Daily Press – October 12, 2012)

October 13, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – There has been some suggestions Queen’s Park is purposely punishing Northeastern Ontario with its proposed overnight camping ban in six of the region’s provincial parks.

While there is much circumstantial evidence to draw such a conclusion, I believe this is giving southern politicians too much credit. After all, how much do they really know about Northern Ontario, particularly the lifestyles of Northerners?

Sure, our region’s provincial parks are all in ridings currently run by New Democrat MPPs, while the Liberals rule Ontario.

Yes, Rene Brunelle Provincial Park is in the backyard of Kapuskasing Mayor Alan Spacek, who ran under the Progressive Conservative banner in Timmins-James Bay during the last Ontario election.

Then there is the fact that Spacek, Timmins Mayor Tom Laughren (close to Ivanhoe Lake) and Cochrane Mayor Peter Politis (Greenwater) have all been very outspoken against Liberal legislation impacting their residents — the Endangered Species Act, the Far North Act and dumping the Northlander passenger train service, to name a few.

The way the nation lives: Canada bets its buck on commodities – by James Munson (iPolitics – October 2012)

October 12, 2012October 12, 2012

Open publication – Free publishing – More commodities

iPolitics is independent, non-partisan and committed to providing timely, relevant, insightful content to those whose professional or personal interests require that they stay on top of political developments in Ottawa and the provinces.

RepublicOfMining graciously thanks iPolitics deputy editor Ian Shelton and writer James Munson for allowing this very insightful and timely content to be posted on this Blog – Stan Sudol

Commodity Supercycles

Speaking on the phone from Haifa, Israel last month, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver didn’t hide his government’s bout of commodities fever.

“As I’ve mentioned before, Canada is undertaking many major mega projects,” said Oliver, who was in Israel to secure energy partnerships with the Jewish state. “Over the next 10 years, we could see 500 projects with half a trillion dollars at stake.”

“No other country in the world is undertaking energy and mining projects at this scale or at this pace, creating a truly once in a generation opportunity for investors,” he said.

He was echoing his boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who used the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Columbia in April to expound at resource development’s “vast power to change the way a nation lives.”

“Our natural resource sector is of vital importance in ensuring solid job creation and economic growth in Canada,” he said a month after putting forth a budget that deregulated much of Ottawa’s oversight over resource projects, a move that will heighten energy and mining’s already important stature in the Canadian economic pantheon.

Vale’s major challenges go beyond iron ore – by Jeb Blount (Mineweb.com – October 12, 2012)

October 12, 2012

www.mineweb.com

Costs are soaring, new mines are running behind schedule and growth in China, Vale’s largest market, is slowing.

RIO DE JANEIRO (REUTERS) – Roger Agnelli, who was forced out as chief executive of Brazil’s Vale in May 2011, may have been lucky to leave the world’s second-largest mining company when he did.

Since Murilo Ferreira replaced him as CEO, a series of setbacks have raised questions about Vale’s ability to increase sales and profit and maintain its place as the world’s top producer of iron ore, the main ingredient in steel.

Costs are soaring, new mines are behind schedule and growth in China, Vale’s largest market, is slowing. The price of iron ore, responsible for nearly three-quarters of the Rio de Janeiro-based company’s sales, recently sank to three-year lows.

Making matters worse, Brazilian laws and government interference threaten to hobble Vale, the country’s biggest exporter. Vale shipped $42 billion of raw materials in 2011, 16 percent of exports from the world’s sixth-largest economy.

“What the government is doing to Vale won’t kill the proverbial golden goose, but it could make the goose sick,” said Mauricio Canedo, an economist specializing in industrial policy and commodities at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), a Rio de Janeiro economic research institute. “Vale’s future looks less promising now than it has for some time.”

After Fukushima: Canada’s nuclear ambitions – by Yadullah Hussain (National Post – October 12, 2012)

October 12, 2012

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

Canada has emerged as one of the few bright spots in the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report, which cast a looming, Fukushima-shaped shadow on the wider industry.

The country’s nuclear-energy sector raised capacity by 35 megawatts last year and increased its contribution to total electricity to 15.3% from 14.8% in 2010, says the IAEA report, published late last month.

These improvements may seem incremental but they come at a time of great hardship for the global industry. An earthquake, followed by a tsunami, in 2011 left the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan — and the global industry — in a perilous state.

Nuclear power plants have always wrestled with a public relations problem, but the twin Japanese blows shook the industry. Japan, the second-largest producer of nuclear energy in the world and seen as a model for many energy-poor states, retired 12 nuclear power plants in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

“The Fukushima Daiichi accident resulted in a slowing of the expansion of nuclear power but did not reverse it,” says the IAEA in its latest report. Still, the agency’s post-accident projections of global nuclear power capacity in 2030 were 7–8% lower than its previous estimates.