2012 – Page 62 – Republic of Mining

The Doer [Robert Friedland – Mining Entrepreneur] – by Peter Koven (National Post – September 4, 2012)

September 4, 2012

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

On paper, Robert Friedland’s influence on the Canadian mining world seems to be waning. The legendary promoter showed a rare sign of weakness this year, losing control of Ivanhoe Mines and its massive Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia to British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, and Friedland has seemingly disappeared from public view. So why can’t people stop talking about him?

Because love him or hate him, there’s no disputing Friedland’s imprint on the industry. From mastering the art of mining stock promotion in the 1980s and 1990s, to correctly calling the China boom and forging business ties with Asia in the 1990s and early 2000s, Friedland has always been the trailblazer everyone else tries to follow. In the few months the self-made billionaire has spent out of the limelight, investors have speculated wildly about when and where he will pop up next. Such speculation has never been easy where Friedland is concerned.

After a stint as a hippie in the 1970s, during which he befriended Steve Jobs, Friedland embraced the junior mining world and set up shop in Vancouver. He has rarely strayed from the headlines in the years since. He developed a big gold mine in Colorado, which was later shut down after an environmental accident (earning Friedland the “Toxic Bob” nickname that still sticks).

China, Canada: When is reciprocity not reciprocity? – Globe and Mail Editorial (September 4, 2012)

September 4, 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 federal government’s foreign-takeover policy is moving into uncharted territory. The application by CNOOC Ltd. for approval of its proposed acquisition of Nexen Inc. has just been filed, but it had already emerged as a matter of international diplomacy. In these circumstances, the government’s retreat from clarification of its foreign-investment policy, and of the meaning of “net benefit,” should be reconsidered.

Clarity was promised after the rejection of the controversial application of BHP Billiton in its attempted takeover of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. Evidently, the government then found it hard to articulate foreign-investment principles and reverted to a case-by-case approach. Recent statements by Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, and Christian Paradis, the Minister of Industry, raise an inference that in some instances Canada may want to set some of these applications in a much broader context.

The Chinese government has a controlling interest in CNOOC, but the company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange; it has its fair share of Canadian shareholders. The Canadian government is eschewing talk of a direct linkage of the CNOOC application to broader access to the Chinese economy, but is nonetheless canvassing the concepts of leverage and reciprocity.

CNOOC’s bid for Nexen a sign of China’s future – by Matthew McClearn (Canadian Business Magazine – September 03, 2012)

September 4, 2012

Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-publishing business magazine in Canada.

If you applied Murphy’s Law to the oilsands, the result would look a lot like Long Lake. The oilsands project was predicated on a novel Israeli-developed gasification process intended to reduce the project’s natural gas consumption. Now that natural gas has become dirt cheap, the benefits of this technically challenging approach hardly seem worth the effort. Long Lake’s startup in 2008 was delayed nearly six months, and it has lagged well behind schedule ever since.

The anticipated flood of 72,000 barrels per day turned out to be more of a trickle. (During this year’s first quarter, it reached 34,500 barrels per day.) The cost overruns were horrendous even by Fort McMurray standards. Long Lake is, in short, the Florida swampland of Alberta’s oilsands region. All of which prompts the question: Who’d want to buy it?

On July 23, the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) revealed its offer to purchase all shares of Long Lake’s majority owner, Nexen. It’s prepared to pay dearly: at 61% above the share price, the premium is roughly double the average in Canadian acquisitions. That’s likely sufficient to dissuade others from bidding. (CNOOC is nothing if not determined: it already owns Nexen’s former partner at Long Lake, Opti Canada, having bought that insolvent company last year for $2.1 billion.) Fortunately for CNOOC, Long Lake is actually something of a sideshow: most of Nexen’s assets lie outside Canada—in the U.K., Yemen and the U.S.

Remote Canadian diamond mines rely for supply on world’s longest ice road- by Levon Sevunts (Alaska Dispatch – September 2, 2012)

September 4, 2012

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/

A late March blizzard has finished blowing over much of Canada’s Northwest Territories and Ron Near’s job just got more interesting. A retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, Near is in charge of the world’s longest ice road that connects Yellowknife, the territorial capital, to three diamond mines: Ekati, Diavik and Snap Lake.

The Tibbit to Contwoyto Winter Road – named after the first and the last lakes on the ice road – is a joint venture between BHP Billiton, which owns the Ekati Mine, the Diavik Diamond Mines Inc., which manages the Diavik mine, and DeBeers, which owns the Snap Lake Mine.

The ice road is the only overland resupply route for the mines. They depend on it to truck in a year’s worth of supplies and equipment: everything from diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate for mine explosives to earth moving machines.

And with the ice road open only eight to 10 weeks every year, resupplying the mines is a monumental logistical undertaking executed with military precision.

South Africa’s gold and platinum miners – between a rock and a hard place – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – September 4, 2012)

September 4, 2012

www.mineweb.com

Wage demands and labour unrest fuelled by inter-union rivalries and maverick politicians like Julius Malema are putting South Africa’s gold and platinum mines in jeopardy.

LONDON (Mineweb) – It can’t be a comfortable place to be – running a South African centred gold or platinum mining company at the present time. Serious labour disputes, which can boil over into violent confrontations, when one has workforces the size of those on most of the significant mining operations, has to be very worrying for top management, particularly when a high profile, charismatic, supposedly sidelined politician like Julius Malema – who has long called for mine nationalisation – starts getting involved. Indeed, the Malema factor may prove to be the most disturbing development of all unless the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party can somehow bring him to heel.

On this subject reports surfaced in the South African press yesterday of an arrest warrant being issued for Malema on corruption charges and of an investigation for tax evasion. Perhaps a recipe for making a martyr out of a maverick whatever the truth of the allegations!

Supposedly the violence which afflicted the Marikana platinum mine with its more than 20,000 employees, and which led to the deaths of over 40 people, was drummed up through inter-union rivalries with a new union the AMCU, trying to muscle in on the established NUM which it saw as part of the ANC establishment and claimed was not fully representing the miners’ aspirations.

[Sudbury] Families of mine victims want inquiry – by Sebastien Perth (Sudbury Star – September 4, 2012)

September 4, 2012

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

While hundreds came out for the inaugural Family Fun Fest at Bell Park to celebrate Labour Day, three families were there to honour their loved ones’ memories. Family members of Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram where at the park gathering signatures to convince the government of Ontario to hold an inquiry into the mining industry.

Family members say it’s time to have another look into the industry since it has been more than 30 years since the last inquiry, with many deaths due to mining accidents.

Ethan Dufoe, father of Lyle Dufoe, who died in a Timmins mining accident in 2007, says there’s been too many deaths since the last review of the Mining Act.

“The act hasn’t been reviewed in 30 years, when they had Ham Commission review it (1974). There’s been 92 deaths in Ontario since then. One of them my son,” Dufoe said.

‘Supercycle’ fears hit mining groups – by Helen Thomas (Financial Times/CNN – August 28, 2012)

September 3, 2012

http://edition.cnn.com/

(Financial Times) — Anglo American set the sombre tone. Falling prices and rising costs enfeebled the mining group’s businesses in the first half of the year, halving earnings.

First among its diversified cadre to report, the miner last month pruned its spending plans on high-profile growth projects. It is now — as earnings season approaches its conclusion — a familiar tale. The mining industry faces a number of negative factors that are squeezing earnings, curtailing cash flows and forcing management teams to make tougher choices.

The backdrop to the lacklustre results is the concern over whether the so-called “supercycle” is drawing to a close after years of surging Chinese demand combining with supply constraints from decades of under-investment to send prices higher for commodities such as copper, coal and iron ore.

BHP shelves Olympic Dam expansion The debate is crucial to mining companies and their investors. Over the long term, the performance of mining equities is largely correlated with commodity price fluctuations. Increases in costs, especially wages and payments to governments, tend to lag behind booming profits as prices rise, putting severe pressure on the sector’s profitability.

China’s inventories pile up as demand flat-lines – by Carolynne Wheeler (Globe and Mail – September 3, 2012)

September 3, 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.

BEIJING — You know it’s going to be a bad year for China’s exporters when all manner of goods – including the kitchen sinks – are gathering dust in storerooms.

“Of course [the slowdown] is affecting us,” Du Huayao, the manager at Foshan Nanhai Bigao Sanitary Ware Co. Ltd., which makes bathroom and kitchen fixtures, said in a telephone interview from his factory in Guangdong province.

“Sales this year from the foreign market have dropped from one-third to two-thirds.” Compounding Mr. Du’s woes is China’s slowing property market, which has pulled down his domestic sales as well. The company has already laid off 20 of its original 50 workers and has slowed production. “We don’t even have inventory built up now. Last year we did, but this year, the business was so bad that we dared not produce too much.”

As the country’s economic growth slows and its exports to North America and Europe drop off, inventories of everything from iron ore and copper to cars, liquor and designer goods are growing. Chinese exports grew just 1 per cent in July.

South Africa withdraws murder charges against miners – for now – by Susan Njanji (Globe and Mail – September 2, 2012)

September 3, 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.

PRETORIA – Agence France-Presse – South Africa said Sunday that controversial murder charges against 270 miners over the deaths of fellow workers shot by police, the worst such clash since the apartheid era, will be provisionally dropped.

Following a public furor, acting national director of prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba, said that after having sought an explanation from the department’s lead prosecutors, she had taken the decision to review the charge.

“The murder charge against the current 270 suspects, which was provisional anyway, will be formally withdrawn provisionally in court on their next court appearance,” Ms. Jiba told reporters.

A final decision on the charges will be taken after a series of investigations into the shootings, hich left 34 dead and 78 wounded, are complete. They include a judicial commission of inquiry appointed by President Jacob Zuma, which has until January to present its findings. Thursday’s decision to charge the miners over the August 16 killings during a wildcat strike at the Lonmin PLC platinum mine had triggered outrage.

Agency to advise on Northern policy – by Star Staff – (Sudbury Star – September 1, 2012)

September 3, 2012

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

Northerners got what they asked for in an institute to provide advice and ideas to the government of Ontario about how to improve the lives of people who live in Northern Ontario, says Rick Bartolucci.

Bartolucci announced Friday the launch of the Northern Policy Institute, an independent, not-for-profit organization to monitor how recommendations in the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario are implemented and to advise government on policies tailored to the special needs of the North.

The Northern Policy Institute’s two advisers — Laurentian University president Dominic Giroux and Brian Stevenson, president of Thunder Bay’s Lakehead University — will set out to appoint 10 members to serve as directors of the new think tank by October.

Bartolucci, who is also minister of Northern Development and Mines, said several organizations — including the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities and the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association — called for the institute to be independent of government.

The fundamental attraction of gold and gold stocks – Don Coxe – by Peter Byrne (Mineweb.com – September 1, 2012)

September 2, 2012

www.mineweb.com

Don Coxe* explains how demographic shifts are affecting the price of gold and delves into the logic of investing in gold as a long-term strategy. Interview with The Gold Report.

TORONTO – The Gold Report: What fundamentally attracts you to gold?

Don Coxe: There are many serious reasons why I like gold, but one very important reason has to do with the shift in the share of world gross domestic product away from the highly industrialized nations toward emerging economies in Asia. For thousands of years, people in China and in India have respected gold. The Western countries, on the other hand, were captivated some decades ago by economists who claimed that gold had become irrelevant as money. But the Chinese and Indian people hoard gold as a store of value and trade it as a treasured commodity.

TGR: Are the pricing mechanisms for gold shifting toward control by the East?

DC: Consider an art auction. If a bidder who 10 years ago only bought one painting suddenly buys 50 paintings, that bidder will greatly influence subsequent bids for the art. In China and India there are suddenly many more wealthy people than they’ve had for millennia.

[Sudbury’s Laurentian University mining education] LU reaches for the top – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – September 1, 2012)

September 2, 2012

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

Perhaps the seed was planted one night in a five-star dream — an omen for the next five years detailing grandeur of the academic kind. Dominic Giroux, the president and vice-chancellor of Laurentian University, announced in June the board of directors had approved the budget for the school’s five-year strategic plan (2012-17). Developing the plan was a labour of love, which required 12 months and hundreds of stakeholder consultations. Giroux was wary of developing a one-size-fits-all plan, with the committee opted instead for a signature document that is undoubtedly Laurentian.

“Often universities develop very long and extensive strategic plans that convey their commitments to excellence in teaching, research and community engagement, but it’s hard to distinguish their true strategic directions from other universities,” he says. “One of the reasons we’re proud of our strategic plan is that if you remove the words ‘Laurentian University,’ anyone who reads it will recognize Laurentian.”

The plan is ambitious and broad. In just 20 pages it addresses student satisfaction, academic excellence, community engagement and national recognition, a point of which Giroux is especially proud. It plays on the school’s established strengths and takes advantage of its geographic location.

[Ontario] Nuclear waste seeks a home – by John Spears (Toronto Star – September 1, 2012)

September 1, 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.

Picture this: you’ve lived in the same house for more than half a century, and never taken out the garbage. Instead, you’ve sorted it carefully into the easy stuff like scrap paper, and the not-so-easy stuff, like the pot of left-over clam chowder you made in 1994.

Then you sealed it all in boxes, labeled them, and locked the stuff in the basement, promising some day to find a better place for it.
Now, picture Canada’s nuclear industry.

Since the 1960s, nuclear power plants have generated more than two million bundles of highly radioactive used fuel. And they’re all still stored on the sites of the plants that produced them. But the pace of finding a site to store Canada’s most potent radioactive waste permanently is about to pick up.

Twenty Canadian communities have said they’ll consider volunteering to host the storage site. That list is about to close. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, whose job it is to find and build the site, will stop taking new names on Sept. 30.

Neskantaga will ‘continue to fight’ Ring of Fire despite court ruling – Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – August 31, 2012)

September 1, 2012

Northern Ontario’s First Nations Voice: http://wawataynews.ca/

Neskantaga Chief Peter Moonias says his community will continue to fight to slow down the Ring of Fire, just days after Ontario’s Mining Commissioner ruled against the First Nation on it’s case targeting a north-south road to the development.

Moonias also told Wawatay News that he remains committed to laying down his life to block a bridge being built over the Attawapiskat River.

“We will continue to fight, (with) whatever means we can,” Moonias said. “And I will stand by what I said before. I am not backing down on it, regardless of what Cliffs will do in there. I’m not backing down a bit. My people are prepared to do that. We are serious when we say something.”

The Ontario Mining Commissioner, Linda Kamerman, dismissed Neskantaga court case in a decision released Aug. 24. Neskantaga had gone to the mining court attempting to be named a landholder in a dispute over mining claims between Cliffs Natural Resources and Canada Chrome Corporation (CCC).