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MPs arrested over Canadian mine protest – by Olga Dzyubenko (Globe and Mail – October 5, 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.

BISHKEK — Reuters – Kyrgyzstani police on Thursday arrested three members of parliament who had led a crowd that tried to storm government headquarters in a protest over a Canadian-owned gold mine, Centerra Gold.

Wednesday’s clashes between police and supporters of the opposition Ata Zhurt party in the former Soviet republic were the most violent in the capital, Bishkek, since the April, 2010, revolt that ousted then-president Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

The protesters want the mine, crucial to Kyrgyzstan’s fragile economy, to be nationalized. The three parliamentarians – Kamchibek Tashiyev, Sadyr Zhaparov and Talant Mamytov – are being held on suspicion of trying to seize power. Prosecutors have 48 hours to decide whether to charge them.

On Thursday, about 1,000 supporters rallied in the main square of the southern city of Jalalabad, their power base, to demand their release. There was no violence. “Parliament, the President, the government should resign because they are not resolving the Kumtor issue,” one demonstrator shouted through a megaphone.

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China joins nations seeking treasure in warming Arctic – by Elisabeth Rosenthal (New York Times/NBC News – September 19, 2012)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 http://www.nbcnews.com/

Bid to join Arctic Council is so ‘it won’t be shut out from decisions on minerals and shipping,’ expert says

NUUK, Greenland — With Arctic ice melting at record pace, the world’s superpowers are increasingly jockeying for political influence and economic position in outposts like this one, previously regarded as barren wastelands.

At stake are the Arctic’s abundant supplies of oil, gas and minerals that are, thanks to climate change, becoming newly accessible along with increasingly navigable polar shipping shortcuts. This year, China has become a far more aggressive player in this frigid field, experts say, provoking alarm among Western powers.

While the United States, Russia and several nations of the European Union have Arctic territory, China has none, and as a result, has been deploying its wealth and diplomatic clout to secure toeholds in the region.

“The Arctic has risen rapidly on China’s foreign policy agenda in the past two years,” said Linda Jakobson, East Asia program director at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia. So, she said, the Chinese are exploring “how they could get involved.”

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China denies it is “gobbling up” India’s iron ore – by Shivom Seth (September 24, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

An exhaustive report into illegal mining in the Indian state of Goa has also accused China of using up all of India’s iron ore reserves.

MUMBAI (MINEWEB) – The China Iron and Steel Association has rejected assertions that it is to blame for “gobbling up India’s iron ore reserves” while, at the same time strategically choosing not to mine its own deposits of the metal.

The charges were laid at the feet of the Asian giant by a report into illegal iron ore mining in Goa by the Justice M.B. Shah Committee. The report, which pegged Goa’s mining scam at nearly $6.5 billion, also noted that “China had strategically stopped short of tapping its deposits of 200 billion tonnes”…and suggested that the “Central government should consider banning exports of Indian ore.”

It added, “Planning and conservation of iron ore for at least 50 years is required for Goa so that future generations may not be required to import entire steel from China and likewise countries.”

The report added that while India was exporting ore to China, China was exporting steel back to India and had stopped tapping its domestic deposits. “It would not be out of context to state here that China…prefers to import from countries like India and others.

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B2Gold to buy Philippine miner for $1.1-billion – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – September 20, 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.

A small Vancouver miner has struck the first major gold deal in months, marking what may be the start of a new wave of buying in the sector as bullion prices rise within reach of record highs from a year ago.

B2Gold Corp., which prides itself on mining for gold where others do not, said on Wednesday that it reached a $1.1-billion all-stock deal to acquire CGA Mining Ltd., owner of the largest operating gold project in the Philippines.

It is offering 0.74 B2Gold shares for each share of CGA, a 26 per cent premium to CGA’s closing price as of Sept. 17. Gold prices are near $1,800 (U.S.) an ounce, just off record levels near $1,900 an ounce a year ago.

“I think in a more buoyant market like we have now, there is a greater chance of things getting done,” said Jens Mayer, co-head of investment banking at Canaccord Genuity Corp., which advised B2Gold on the deal. “People are getting accustomed to the new world in terms of valuations.”

The B2Gold/CGA deal is one of the largest involving a Canadian company in recent months, adding some shine to what has been a lacklustre year for deal making in the sector.

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NEWS RELEASE: Australia’s mining sector in the balance

Baker & McKenzie launches global report examining the challenges and  opportunities facing the world’s key mining destinations

Australia, 17 September 2012 – Baker & McKenzie, the world’s largest law firm, has launched a report highlighting significant concerns about the future of Australia’s mining sector.

The Firm surveyed more than 300 senior industry leaders across six key mining jurisdictions – Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Indonesia and South Africa – and the research suggests that investors in Australia are more pessimistic about the future of mining investment in this country than those investing in the other jurisdictions surveyed.

Of the executives commenting on Australia, 75% said that investing in the mining sector has become more complicated and costly due to factors such as increasing regulatory and environmental obligations, complex and uncertain project development requirements and the rising costs of mine development and operation.

The level of Commonwealth and State Government involvement in the Australian mining industry is also causing concern to investors, with 61% of respondents believing that the Government is too involved in the industry and 72% believing that sovereign risk is on the increase. 

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Summit boosts Vladivostok’s profile – by Jonathan Manthorpe (Vancouver Sun – September 17, 2012)

The Vancouver Sun, a broadsheet daily paper first published in 1912, has the largest circulation in the province of British Columbia.

Russia spent $22 billion to build gateway port for Europe-bound Asian goods
 
When Vladivostok was asked to host the summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum Russian leader Vladimir Putin saw an opportunity to reverse the steady decline of a region that covers a third of the country’s territory.
 
In the years leading up to the weeklong APEC summit earlier this month Moscow and other levels of government spent about $22 billion to establish the port city of Vladivostok as the gateway for Asia to the resource-rich eight provinces of Pacific Russia.
 
The plans are also to make Vladivostok the hub of a transportation network that will allow the overland export of Asia’s manufactured goods to Europe and the Middle East, cutting at least 20 days off the time taken to ship by sea.
 
At the same time, Vladivostok and the surrounding province are in the early stages of crafting their own manufacturing industries, primarily automotive and home appliance factories at this point. The investments in Vladivostok sparked by the APEC summit are impressive.

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Mining investment to grow ever more complex, costly, industry leaders fear – Baker & McKenzie – by Dorothy Kosich (September 17, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

“Mining jurisdictions must consider their competitiveness to mining investment or risk that investment being deployed elsewhere, said David Ryan of Baker & McKenzie, Australia.

RENO (MINEWEB) –  A survey of 300 mining industry leaders released Monday by the Baker & McKenzie, Australia, Global Mining Group found the common theme across all jurisdictions surveyed is that “investing in mining is becoming more difficult and less certain.”
 
Key themes from the study include the complexity of the legal and regulatory environment, political stability, increase in resource nationalism, and the need for access to infrastructure and skilled labor.
 
One theme that all jurisdictions seemed to have is common is that a majority of respondents said they believe that mining sector investment will continue to be more complicated in the future.

Baker & McKenzie surveyed more than 300 senior mining industry leaders across six key mining jurisdictions-Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia and South Africa-for the report Mining investment-local challenges, global implications.

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Friedland seeks funding for Congo project – by Christopher Donville (Bloomberg/Toronto Star – September 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.

VANCOUVER—Robert Friedland, the billionaire who spent the past decade building a $6 billion (U.S.) copper mine in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, is asking investors to fund projects in an even riskier locale—the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ivanplats Ltd., a Friedland-controlled mining company, plans to raise about $300 million (Canadian) in an initial public offering in Toronto, according to a person with knowledge of the IPO who declined to be identified because the amount hasn’t been published. Vancouver-based Ivanplats seeks funding for its Kamoa copper project in Congo and to repay debt owed to Israeli investor Dan Gertler, who sold the company a zinc mine in the African country last year, according to a prospectus filed with regulators Sept. 10.

Friedland, 62, five months ago lost control of the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia after disputes with the government and joint venture partner Rio Tinto Group. He’s now proposing a mining development in Congo, whose government seized copper assets from Canada’s First Quantum Minerals Ltd. in 2010, and in South Africa, where the mining industry is convulsed by labor unrest.

“I would call the DRC the ultimate high-risk, high-reward mining destination—it’s one that’s on the radar of all serious mining companies because of its huge wealth and mineral resources,” James Smither, head of the mining practice at Maplecroft, a Bath, England-based risk-analysis company, said by telephone.

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Philippines’ black market is China’s golden connection – by Rosemarie Francisco (Reuters.com – August 23, 2012)

http://in.reuters.com/

MOUNT DIWATA, PHILIPPINES – (Reuters) – Erich Mulato walked out of a dingy workshop in this mountain village and into a gold shop next door, clutching a handful of shiny warm nuggets newly refined from the ore he had brought in.

The 53-year-old father of six had come off a 24-hour shift at one of the hundreds of small-scale mines in this region of southern Philippines. He sold the 5.49 grams of gold in his hand – his share of the day’s output – for 8,260 pesos. That’s more than 16 times what a manual laborer earns daily in Manila.

“Here, we can easily make money,” Mulato said, blowing smoke from a cigarette as he waited for his money at the gold shop. “Whatever we want to buy, we can buy … Making a living is better here.” Better for Mulato, but not for the Philippine government.

In all likelihood, Mulato’s gold will find its way through middlemen and into the luggage of a tourist or the black market in Manila – not to its only legal destination, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas or the central bank. Up to 90 percent of small-scale Philippine gold production is being smuggled out of the Southeast Asian country, according to estimates from officials and traders, much of it to China.

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Potential for a Mining Boom Splits Factions in Afghanistan – by Graham Bowley (New York Times – September 9, 2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/

KALU VALLEY, Afghanistan — If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals — that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil.

But the wealth has inspired darker dreams as well. Officials and industry experts say the potential resource boom seems increasingly imperiled by corruption, violence and intrigue, and has put the Afghan government’s vulnerabilities on display.

It all comes at what is already a critically uncertain time here, with the impending departure of NATO troops in 2014 and old regional and ethnic rivalries resurfacing, raising concerns that the mineral wealth could become the fuel for civil conflict.

Powerful regional warlords and militant leaders are jockeying to widen their turf to include areas with mineral wealth, and the Taliban have begun to make murderous incursions into territory where development is planned. In the capital, Kabul, factional maneuvering is in full swing, including disputes over lucrative side contracts awarded to relatives of President Hamid Karzai.

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NEWS RELEASE: Mining Association of Canada Remains Bullish on Metal Outlook

British Columbia in strategic position to benefit from mining’s largest customer, China
 
VANCOUVER, B.C, Sept. 7, 2012 /CNW/ – Canada’s mining industry is on the right path to continued prosperity despite current market volatility, says the Mining Association of Canada (MAC).
 
In a speech to members of the Vancouver Board of Trade, MAC President and CEO Pierre Gratton said regulatory reform, investment in infrastructure and promotion of strong trade relations with countries such as China, the world’s biggest consumer of metals, will keep Canada globally competitive.
 
Despite a slowdown in Chinese growth to 7.6 per cent in the second quarter, from decades of 10 per cent average annual growth, Gratton noted that most prices remain at relatively high levels, despite a fall off in recent months, and emphasized that the long-term fundamentals that have supported rising commodity prices over the past decade remain.
 
“The mining super cycle is not over, it is taking a pause. This is the nature of the mining business, which is cyclical,” said Gratton.  “The industry is generally better prepared for the current slowdown compared to last time, which was much more dramatic.”

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In China, Silvercorp critic caught in campaign by police – by Mark MacKinnon and Andy Hoffman (Globe and Mail – September 8, 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 and VANCOUVER — On the afternoon of Dec. 28, Huang Kun was about to board a flight to Hong Kong when his Canadian passport was flagged by officials at Beijing’s International Airport, and he was taken into custody by Chinese police.

It was the beginning of a prolonged and often frightening ordeal for Mr. Huang that has landed the 35-year-old from British Columbia in a Chinese jail – sharing a one-bed cell with 20 other men. He is expected to soon face charges of criminally defaming a Vancouver-based mining company called Silvercorp Metals Inc.

Mr. Huang knew when he went to the airport that day that police in the city of Luoyang, where Silvercorp’s flagship mining operations are located, had arrested and interrogated two associates of his. The men had helped him prepare a scathing research report that, when its allegations were published, sent Silvercorp’s share price tumbling 20 per cent in one day on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

What he didn’t know was that in the wake of a series of scandals involving Chinese companies listed on North American stock exchanges, authorities in China had decided to push back hard against those attacking the credibility of Chinese firms.

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The Doer [Robert Friedland – Mining Entrepreneur] – by Peter Koven (National Post – 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).

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The Deadly Tin Inside Your Smartphone – by Cam Simpson (Bloomberg Businessweek – August 23, 2012)

http://www.businessweek.com/

On May 29, in the bottom of a tin-mining pit on Bangka Island in Indonesia, a wall about 16 feet high collapsed, sending a wave of earth crashing down on a 40-year-old father of two. His name was Rosnan. The dirt crushed his legs, sent something sharp slicing through his right thigh, and buried him from the waist down. His partner, panicked but unhurt, scrambled out of the pit screaming for help. About 20 other miners rushed in to dig Rosnan out with their bare hands.

“He kept repeating, ‘Please, please help me,’ ” recalls Rosnan’s son, Dian Chandra, 20, who rode in the back of a car with his father to a nearby hospital. Rosnan lost too much blood. “I couldn’t find a pulse,” says Dr. Mario, the emergency room physician on duty. Dr. Mario declared Rosnan dead at about 3 p.m. (Like many Indonesians, including Dr. Mario, Rosnan had one name.)

Back at the mine, someone stuck a withered sapling into the soft bottom of the pit near the spot where Rosnan fell—a far too frequent sight in the mines of Bangka, where Rosnan was the first of six to die on the job during a single week this spring. The other victims didn’t make it to the hospital. All, including a 15-year-old boy, were buried alive.

Three days after Rosnan’s death, and following Friday prayers at the local mosque, his family and friends gathered to mourn him at his brother’s cinder-block home. They sat on the bare floor, sharing a meal of rice, noodles, and fish stew. Rosnan’s 57-year-old brother, Rani, recalls that Rosnan had few options outside the pit. “We have to live,” he says. “We need money.”

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Indian village fears being swallowed by underground coal fires – by Mark Magnier (Los Angeles Times/Toronto Star – August 18, 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.

JHARIA, India — For nearly a century now, fires have burned beneath the ground where Mohammad Riyaz Ansari stands. At night, ghostly blue flares shoot from glowing rocks, like a terrible hell on Earth.

The 55-year-old mechanic and his neighbours here, deep in eastern India’s coal country, live above underground coal fires that are eating away at their land, India’s precious natural resources and, say some, government credibility.

As the ground subsides, thousands of houses, including Ansari’s, have sagged, collapsed or fallen into chasms over the years, including 250 destroyed over two hours in 1995.

In this eerie landscape — the plumes of flame igniting periodically as combustible gas escapes from the subterranean fires — locals speak of neighbours swallowed in their sleep. In 2006, for instance, 14-year-old Mira Kumari vanished while cooking when her house fell 15 metres underground. Her body was never recovered.

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