Editorial: Canada’s mining industry still a powerhouse – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – November 1, 2016)

http://www.northernminer.com/

To get a pulse on the health of Canada’s mining industry, it’s useful to browse through the newly released Mining Sector Performance Report 2006–2015, which is prepared by the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Mineral Industry for submission to the Energy and Mines Ministers’ Conference held in Winnipeg in August 2016.

The report is only prepared once every three years, with the assistance of a variety of external stakeholders, and it is presented to Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial mines ministers. The report provides an overview of global mining trends, and assesses the mining sector’s economic, social and environmental performance within Canada.

Above all, the report emphasizes that Canada remains one of the world’s leading mining nations — producing more than60 minerals and metals — and ranks as a global leader in commodities such as potash, uranium, gold, primary aluminum, nickel and diamonds. There are now more than 200 principal producing mines and 50 smelters, refineries and steel mills in Canada.

The report authors expect the global economic recovery — and by extension, the demand for mineral commodities — to “strengthen towards the end of 2017 and beyond, as the result of a gradual normalization of conditions in a number of the stressed economies, the rebalancing of China’s economy and a pickup in commodity export activity.”

Government big-picture data can often be slow in coming out, so this report gives a first glimpse at many of the macro-economic numbers for mining in Canada in 2015.

For the rest of this editoria, click here: http://www.northernminer.com/news/editorial-canadas-mining-industry-still-powerhouse/1003780379/