B.C. turning corner on prolonged resource bear market – by Nelson Bennett (Business Vancouver – January 30, 2018)

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The numbers are in, and mining and mineral exploration in Canada are in recovery following a prolonged commodities bear market.

Canada-wide, 101 new mine projects are either under construction or in development, which, if all built, would represent a capital investment of $80 billion, according to Kim Rudd, parliamentary secretary to the minister of Natural Resources Canada.

Mining in B.C. produced an additional $3.9 billion in 2017 compared with 2016, and an additional $46 million was spent on exploration, Gordon Clarke, director of mineral development for the B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, said at last week’s annual Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) Roundup conference.

According to Clarke, mining in B.C. generated $9.8 billion in 2017. Metallurgical coal accounted for 61%, copper 23%, gold 7% and other industrial metals and minerals 5%. B.C. is Canada’s largest producer of copper and met coal and its only producer of molybdenum.

There are currently seven open-pit metallurgical coal mines in operation in B.C., and eight producing metal mines, the newest being the Pretium Resources Inc. (TSX:PVG) Brucejack gold mine, which went into production in July 2017.

For the rest of this article: https://biv.com/article/2018/01/bc-turning-corner-prolonged-resource-bear-market