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British Columbia Mining

Christy Clark’s unenviable path to B.C. pipeline prosperity – by Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – October 24, 2013)

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.

CALGARY — The last time a Canadian Premier complained loudly about getting shortchanged in energy developments, he dug in his heels and made what turned out to be very lucrative deals for his province.

That was Newfoundland’s Danny Williams, who in the past decade demanded better terms from the world’s largest oil majors as they planned the Hebron project on the Grand Banks.

The pugnacious former leader won the right to buy a 4.9-per-cent stake in the multibillion-dollar development, and established a policy for equity positions in future projects. He also imposed a new royalty regime that allowed the province to benefit from rising oil prices.

Now, on the other side of the country, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark faces the prospect of questionable returns for her province from massive energy developments, with a few unique twists.

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Pretium shares sink as geologists declare ‘no valid gold’ at B.C. project – by Peter Koven (National Post – October 23, 2013)

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

The controversy around Pretium Resources Inc. is escalating after the miner revealed that a highly-respected team of geologists declared its entire resource to be invalid.

The judgment came from Strathcona Mineral Services Ltd., the Toronto firm that famously declared Bre-X to be a scam. Pretium shares plunged 28% to $3.45 on Tuesday as investors absorbed the news.

There is plenty of gold in Pretium’s “Valley of the Kings” discovery in British Columbia, but disagreement persists over how it should be measured. Strathcona, which was hired by Pretium to oversee a bulk sample program for the deposit, resigned two weeks ago because it disagreed with the company’s chosen methodology and found fault with its resource.

Strathcona President Graham Farquharson criticized Pretium management on Tuesday, saying his firm informed Pretium about its concerns several times and they were not immediately disclosed.

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30%-50% of junior miners not expected to survive – BCSC report – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – October 21, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/

“Retail and institutional markets have virtually disappeared for the financing of junior mining companies,” a senior mining executive recently told a B.C. Securities Commission survey.

RENO (MINEWEB) – A report recently released by the British Columbia Securities Commission found some senior mining executives feel the market is at its lowest and should slowly start to recover in one to two years. However, other executives felt the market has yet to hit its lowest point and don’t expect conditions to significantly improve for another three to five years.

Of the in-depth interviews conducted with 15 mining executives, the participants agreed that there “will be an eventual exodus of mining companies and exploration endeavors,” said the report, BC Junior Mining at the Crossroads: Executive Management’s Perspective, which was authored by KPMG and commissioned by the B.C. Securities Commission.

“Between 30% and 50% of junior are not expected to survive,” said one participant in the interviews. “30% is fine, and perhaps required, but 50% is not.”

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Fewer junior miners in BC could help spur sector – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – October 17, 2013)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Having fewer junior firms in British Columbia’s mining sector could help to breathe new life into an ailing industry segment, a group of 15 senior executives told a study commissioned by the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC).

The report compiled by professional services firm KPMG and entitled ‘BC Junior Mining at a Crossroads: Executive Management’s Perspective’, found that senior mining companies should also clean up their balance sheets to increase investors’ confidence in the mining sector, after which a recovery of junior mining companies would follow.

From the start of the year to August, about 85, or 5%, of the 1 673 mining companies listed on Canada’s TSX and TSX-V failed, compared with about 6% in the oil and gas industry. These did not include companies taken off the exchanges owing to merger and acquisition activity, going-private transactions or those companies that have graduated to bigger exchanges.

Author of the Mercenary Geologist website Mickey Fulp recently told Mining Weekly Online it would take a lot of time to “wash out the bad” companies and many were, by now, merely hanging on, creating danger for the unsuspecting investor.

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NEWS RELEASE: Super Pit Push: B.C.’s Copper Mountain Mine Lifts Neighbouring Property

Oct 11, 2013 (ACCESSWIRE via COMTEX) — SOURCE: VantageWire.com — The copper scene in British Columbia took on a major change when the Copper Mountain Mine started production in June of 2011. Five billion pounds of copper reserves and over 20 years of mine life left will do that.

Today, the project owned by Copper Mountain Mining [TSX: CUM] and Mitsubishi Materials Corporation is producing at 36,000 tpd at a cut-off grade of 0.12% copper. To get to this point, Copper Mountain has drilled more than 1000 holes. As part of the deal, partner Mitsubishi (that owns 25%) now buys all of the concentrate that comes from the operation.

The Copper Mountain Mine and the work that went into it have proven that BC’s grades are capable of international levels of production. The province can handle more output, and the Princeton region that is host to the operation has plenty left to offer. Given the prospects in development in the areas near the mine, a bird’s eye view of the projects on the horizon highlight the potential the province truly has.

Directly adjacent to Copper Mountain’s “super pit” is junior Anglo-Canadian Mining Corp. [TSX.V: URA]. With it’s fully owned and highly prospective Princeton copper-gold property, Anglo-Canadian is in the land of the giants in striking distance from a future takeover bid. The 2200-hectare property is in good standing for Anglo-Canadian until 2023.

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Aglukkaq will have final say on controversial Fish Lake mine in B.C. Interior – by Gloria Galloway (Globe and Mail – October 11, 2013)

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 — In one of her first tests as Environment Minister, Leona Aglukkaq will give thumbs up or down to a proposed mine in British Columbia that is a new version of a plan tossed out as ecologically disastrous by a former Conservative minister.

Chiefs from Tsilhqot’in First Nations say they have no doubt that a federal environmental assessment panel, which is weeks away from delivering a verdict on the New Prosperity mine at Fish Lake in the B.C. Interior, will reject it out of hand.

They say the plan for the billion-dollar gold-and-copper pit that Taseko Mines Ltd. wants to dig near the lake the Tsilhqot’in call Teztan Biny – a small body of water they consider culturally and spiritually sacred – is just as bad as the earlier version thrown out in 2010 by former environment minister Jim Prentice.

Representatives from environmental groups who sat in on the panel’s hearings this summer say they are cautiously optimistic it is preparing to say no to the mine. Scientists from Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Fisheries and Oceans, as well officials from B.C.’s provincial ministries, expressed significant concerns about the project.

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Pretium shares plunge 30.5% as independent consultant resigns – by Peter Koven (National Post – October 10, 2013)

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

TORONTO – The shareholders of Pretium Resources Inc. were rattled on Wednesday after one of Canada’s most respected teams of geologists severed ties with the emerging mining company and its heavily-hyped gold project in British Columbia. Pretium announced that Strathcona Mineral Services Ltd. resigned from its role as “Qualified Person” on a sampling program for the Brucejack project. The move cast a cloud over the project, and Pretium shares plunged 30.5%.

Strathcona was brought in as an independent consultant to oversee and report on Pretium’s bulk sample project. The independent verification is required under Canadian mining disclosure rules, and Toronto-based Strathcona is known for its conservative and disciplined approach.

Strathcona did not respond to requests for comment. But Pretium chief executive Robert Quartermain downplayed the resignation and maintained the Brucejack project is on track. “We’re in a situation where we have a disagreement between two Qualified Persons with regards to reconciling the bulk sample with the resource estimate we have,” he said in an interview.

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Teck waiting for next coal wave to revive Quintette – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – October 8, 2013)

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.

VANCOUVER — Teck Resources Ltd. is sitting on a mountain of untapped coal at its Quintette property in northeastern British Columbia, hoping for market conditions to improve and give the project a new beginning.

Quintette supplied metallurgical (or coking) coal to Japanese steel mills from 1982 until it closed in 2000. Today the coal market is all about China, but prices have plummeted in the wake of the country’s slowing growth and ample industry supply.

In June of this year, the B.C. government issued a mining permit to clear the way for Teck to operate an open-pit mine at Quintette, which is forecast to produce three million tonnes a year of metallurgical coal, a key ingredient in the production of steel. But with coal prices down more than 50 per cent over the past couple of years, Teck announced in July that it decided to delay capital spending of $300-million in 2013 and $350-million in the first half of 2014 that had been earmarked for Quintette.

Having watched the corporation nearly collapse during the 2008-09 recession, Teck executives are being cautious in their approach to Quintette.

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Opinion: Why mining matters, now – by Philip Hochstein (Vancouver Sun – October 3, 2013)

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Philip Hochstein is President of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association.

Saying no to the New Prosperity mine means saying no to $11 billion worth of GDP over 20 years

When you live and work in Metro Vancouver or Greater Victoria, it’s easy to ignore the impact of mining, but the British Columbia mining story is exceptional. There is no industry in B.C. right now that has the potential to contribute more to our economy and improve the way of life here than mining, because few industries can create wealth out of raw resources as mining does. And yes, I mean improve life and create wealth in the big cities too.

At environmental assessment hearings this past summer, I spoke in favour of the proposed New Prosperity mine, which is 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake. Why would a Burnaby-based construction association care and why should you care about just another mine? The reason is because a new mine is not just another mine.

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Can a ghost town be resurrected? – by Andy Radia (Yahoo Canada News – October 4, 2013)

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/

A U.S. businessman wants to turn Kitsault, B.C., into a natural gas hub

Across the county, there are a very few success stories of revitalizing ghost towns or depressed mining communities.
There are some: Elliot Lake. Ont., for example, transformed itself from a uranium mining community into a retirement village. Kimberly, B.C., once home to a major copper mine, is now a tourist destination with golf courses and ski hills. And, Kitimat, B.C., has once again become a boomtown by selling hydro instead of processing aluminum.

Now Virginia-based businessman Krishnan Suthanthiran wants to emulate those successes in his coastal town of Kitsault, B.C..
Kitsault – located 800 km northwest of Vancouver – is not unlike many other ghost towns in Canada.

Its story began in 1980: Amax Canada claimed the 350 acres of land to extract molybdenum, a metal used to harden steel. The mining company spent $50 million to build homes, roads, a school, a hospital, a shopping mall and even a rec centre for its 1,200 miners and their families. Unfortunately, by 1982, the price of molybdenum plummeted, the mine closed down and everybody packed up and left.

Unlike most other ghost towns, however, Kitsault’s story might just have another chapter.

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NEWS RELEASE: Unresolved Aboriginal land claims and government land-use policies deterring mining investment in BC

 OCTOBER 3, 2013

Click here for full report: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/BC-mining-policy-performance.pdf

VANCOUVER, BC—Uncertainty about disputed land claims and government land-use policies make British Columbia too risky for many mining investors, concludes a new study published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

The study, British Columbia’s Mining Policy Performance, found that uncertainty in land and resource ownership was a prime deterrent of mining investment and that in some instances mining companies are dealing with several aboriginal groups with overlapping and differing claims in a single area.

“Miners must have confidence in the stability, predictability, and transparency of the policy environment in which they operate,” said Kenneth P. Green, senior director of the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Natural Resources.

“If BC’s government wants to attract mining investment to the province, it should push ahead to settle land and resource ownership disputes in a timely manner.”

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B.C. Mining Protest: Company Pulling Out From Mt. Klappen – by The Canadian Press (Huffington Post – September 24, 2013)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/british-columbia/

VANCOUVER – A Canadian mining company is moving to diffuse a growing dispute with First Nations over a proposed open pit coal mine in northern B.C., by pulling out of the mine site for several months.

However, Fortune Minerals (TSX:FT) said it is not leaving Mount Klappan for good, and that the company remains committed to the mine in an area considered sacred by First Nations.

“While all of Fortune’s activities at the project site are focused on gathering necessary information that will be used in a B.C. environmental assessment process, … the company has faced disruptive and damaging protests,” the firm said in a statement.

On Sunday, about 40 members of the Tahltan First Nation, including elders, moved into the Fortune’s camp site at Mount Klappan and asked the workers to leave.

Tahltan members had earlier issued what they called an “eviction notice, requiring the company to halt its exploration activities and leave the area,” said a news release issued by the Tahltan Central Council on Tuesday.

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Coal mining protest in B.C. set to erupt – by Margo Harper (Globe and Mail – September 21, 2013)

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.

An increasingly tense standoff between a B.C. First Nation and a London, Ont.-based coal company in a remote mountain valley known as Sacred Headwaters is set to erupt as protesters flaunt their month-long presence on a drilling site and taunt the RCMP to arrest them.

For the Tahltan First Nation, which has worked both with and against industry, the stakes are high: It is determined to halt the development of an open-pit coal mine in a spot it views as the land of origin, the birthplace of all waters.

“We dare Fortune to get us arrested. We have cameras here. We will make sure the world knows what’s going on,” said Rhoda Quock, spokeswoman for the protest group Kablona Keepers, in a statement.

Fortune Minerals Ltd., which has invested $100-million to develop what it says may be the world’s biggest undeveloped deposit of high-quality, clean-burning coal, has no intention of giving up on the Arctos Anthracite project.

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NEWS RELEASE: Anglo American delivers the largest financial commitment ever made by a mining company to protect northern caribou in British Columbia

(L to R) Brent Waldron, Chief Financial Officer of Anglo American’s Metallurgical Coal business; the Honourable Steve Thomson, Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations with the Government of British Columbia, and Mike Bernier, M.L.A. Peace River South for the Province of British Columbia.

VANCOUVER, Sept. 18, 2013 /CNW/ – Today the Chief Financial Officer of Anglo American’s Metallurgical Coal business, Mr Brent Waldron, presented the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations for the Government of British Columbia, the Honourable Steve Thomson with a $2.566 million cheque for the Government of British Columbia’s Peace Northern Caribou Plan in Vancouver, B.C.

This is the largest funding contribution made by a mining company for caribou mitigation measures under the Peace Northern Caribou Plan and Mr Waldron said he was proud to personally present the donation on behalf of Anglo American.

“This contribution comes as part of Anglo American’s Trend-Roman project, an open cut expansion for the Peace River operation near Tumbler Ridge in north-east British Columbia and represents the company’s commitment to maintaining the highest standards of environmental protection,” Mr Waldron said.

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Coal industry predicts bright future – by Derrick Penner (Vancouver Sun – September 13, 2013)

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Exports from Western Canada likely to double over next decade, conference hears

Coal, unloved by environmentalists and battered by a global market glut that has ravaged corporate profits, is still likely to see its production and exports double from Western Canada over the next decade.

“Western Canada produces mainly metallurgical coal for the steel industry and it’s got a lot of things going for it,” said Gerard McCloskey, moderator for the Coal Association of Canada’s annual conference that is in Vancouver this week.

McCloskey, a U.K.-based industry consultant, said Western Canada remains attractive because of its good quality and untapped reserves, and he said while markets are oversupplied now, there is still considerable room for growth, particularly in the Pacific.

“I would think there will be, in my own forecast, a doubling of exports from Western Canada over the next 10 years,” McCloskey said. The coal association conference gathered more than 300 industry participants from all levels of the mining sector and its supply chain, from equipment dealers to consultants and transportation specialists.

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