Archive | Canada Mining

Nevsun stock climbs 14% on Lundin’s $1.4B offer, but CEO eyes ‘strategic’ alternatives – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – July 18, 2018)

July 18, 2018 in Africa Mining, Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Copper, Europe Mining, Gold and Silver

https://business.financialpost.com/

Vancouver-based Nevsun Resources Ltd. on Tuesday urged shareholders to ignore a potential $4.75 cash per share hostile takeover offer from Toronto-based Lundin Mining Corp., and the chief executive has already signalled how his company may respond when an actual offer materializes.

In a press release, Nevsun chief executive Peter Kukielski said “several strategic parties” have expressed interest in participating as it seeks to build its copper-gold mine in Serbia, known as Timok, raising the prospect that his company could sell a stake in the asset, or strike a joint partnership with another company, which would complicate Lundin’s takeover offer.

The proposed deal came back into the news after Lundin Mining on Monday announced it intends to bid approximately $1.4 billion for Nevsun, at $4.75 per share, and plans to release a formal offer by the end of the month. In May, Lundin sought to purchase only Timok, and enlisted Euro Sun Mining Inc. to purchase Nevsun’s other main asset, a zinc-copper mine in Eritrea known as Bisha. Continue Reading →

Lundin makes another move to buy Nevsun – by Mariaan Webb (MiningWeekly.com – July 17, 2018)

July 17, 2018 in Africa Mining, Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Copper, Europe Mining, Gold and Silver

http://www.miningweekly.com/

Keen to bring the Timok copper project, in Serbia, into its fold, Canadian firm Lundin Mining has announced that it will take a C$1.4-billion offer directly to Nevsun Resources shareholders, after unsuccessful attempts to engage with the company over the past five months.

Lundin, which earlier this year tried to buy Nevsun in a deal with Canadian junior Euro Sun, is now going at it alone, with a C$4.75 a share cash consideration, which it points out is a 82% premium to the target company’s closing price of C$2.61 a share when it first expressed interest in acquiring Timok.

The offer is also a premium to Nevsun’s closing price of C$4.21 a share on Monday. The prize for Lundin will be the Timok project, which has a probable reserve of 27-million tonnes at an average grade of 3.3% copper and 2.1 g/t gold, containing 0.89-million tonnes of copper and 1.8-million ounces of gold. Continue Reading →

Trade war jitters have halted the commodity rally and could disrupt miners’ plans for big projects – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – July 14, 2018)

July 17, 2018 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Copper, Zinc, Lead and Tin

https://business.financialpost.com/

Speaking at a conference in early June, Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd.’s chief executive Don Lindsay raved that his company invested “in the right commodities at the right time,” with a nod to one of its biggest bets — copper.

Lindsay predicted copper soon would hit US$3.50 per pound, at which point his company’s long-planned Quebrada Blanca 2 project — a 300,000-ton per year copper mine to be constructed in northern Chile’s high desert — would add $1 billion dollars per year in cash flow.

“That price is not far off,” he said at the June conference in Chicago, organized by Deutsche Bank, at a time when copper had experienced nearly a year of gains. Continue Reading →

Barrick trims copper guidance, gold forecast intact – by Mariaan Webb(MiningWeekly.com – July 12, 2018)

July 12, 2018 in Barrick Gold Corporation, Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles

http://www.miningweekly.com/

Toronto, Canada-headquartered Barrick Gold has maintained its gold production guidance for 2018 at between 4.5-million and 5-million ounces, but has slashed 40-million pounds off its copper production guidance, owing to operational challenges at its biggest copper mine – Lumwana, in Zambia.

The miner trimmed its copper production guidance from between 385-million and 450-million pounds, to a range of 345-million to 410-million pounds, at higher-than-initially-thought costs. The all-in sustaining cost (AISC) will increase to between $2.55/lb to 2.85/lb, from an initial guidance of $2.30/lb to $2.60/lb.

The revisions to the copper production and cost guidance primarily reflect operational challenges at Lumwana in the first half of the year, Barrick explained in its preliminary second quarter results announcement, released after the Canadian markets closed on Wednesday. Continue Reading →

Murray Klippenstein – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post Magazine – April 2018)

July 11, 2018 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles

https://business.financialpost.com/

Founding principal of Klippensteins, Barristers & Solicitors

For 25 years, Murray Klippenstein has hopped on a bike most mornings and pedalled through all kinds of weather to arrive at his law office in a nondescript building on a downtown Toronto side street.

No one paid much attention to him when he defended a homeowner’s right to let her front yard grow wild, but plenty of people do now after he won a key ruling allowing him to proceed with litigation that accuses one of Canada’s oldest mining companies, Hudbay Minerals Inc., of direct negligence.

The clients include 12 women and one man in Guatemala who suffered a series of brutalities — from gang rape to murder to a shooting that left one permanently paralyzed — while protesting a nickel mine a decade ago in their home country. Continue Reading →

Barrick forges closer ties with Chinese partner in bid to revive South American mine – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – July 9, 2018)

July 9, 2018 in Asia Mining, Barrick Gold Corporation, Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Gold and Silver

https://business.financialpost.com/

Barrick’s deal with Shandong shows how Chinese companies have in recent years stepped up their involvement with Canadian mining companies

Barrick Gold Corp. may be the largest gold miner in the world, but that hasn’t stopped it from asking a state-owned Chinese conglomerate to help in its decades-long quest to dig up a vast gold deposit near the border between Argentina and Chile.

On Monday, the Toronto-based company announced China’s Shandong Gold Group Co. Ltd. will study whether it makes sense to build an open pit, heap leach mine squarely inside Argentina — after Chilean authorities last year ordered the closure of mining activities on its side of the border.

The announcement, which came while Barrick’s senior management team visited China, shows the company’s growing reliance on Shandong as a partner. In April 2017, Shandong paid $960 million and formed a 50/50 joint venture in Barrick’s Veladero gold mine in Argentina, and the two agreed to explore future opportunities together. Continue Reading →

World-heritage park worries threaten to bog down Teck’s oil-sands plans – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – July 9, 2018)

July 9, 2018 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Mining Conflict and Opposition, Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd. is facing opposition to its proposed Frontier oil sands mining operation owing to the project’s potential impacts on a UNESCO world-heritage park where wildlife habitat is deteriorating because of development.

Teck is seeking an environmental permit for a 260,000-barrels-a-day operation along with tailings ponds and water withdrawals in a project that would be the most northerly oil sands mine, just 30 kilometres from the southern border of the sprawling Wood Buffalo National Park.

A joint federal-provincial review panel has scheduled hearings for September, but First Nations and environmental groups are urging it to delay the review until Ottawa can produce a reclamation plan for the park. Continue Reading →

Ian Telfer talks: Transcending low grades in school, he hit high grades in mining and philanthropy – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – July 4, 2018)

July 6, 2018 in Canada Mining, Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications, Gold and Silver, Goldcorp Inc.

http://resourceclips.com/

Here’s a guy who got rejected not by “virtually every university in Canada, it was every university in Canada”—and for an MBA program at that. Now chairperson of Goldcorp TSX:G, Ian Telfer credits one school’s 11th-hour offer with giving him a second shot at his career, putting an undistinguished background behind him to become a serial success story.

His reflections provided inspiration to a sold-out Vancouver audience of 850 people hoping to pick up some of the magic that made him a mining legend.

The June 28 event saw him interviewed on stage by Peter Legge, a standup comic-turned-publisher and author of several motivational books. Consequently, conversation focused less on mining deals than on qualities that might complement success in any industry. Hosting the event was BCBusiness, a magazine created by Cambridge House International founder Joe Martin and sold to Legge by local zillionaire Jim Pattison. Continue Reading →

Nautilus Minerals tanks on shipbuilding contract cancellation – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – July 4, 2018)

July 5, 2018 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Deep Sea Mining, Junior Exploration Sector

http://www.mining.com/

Shares in Canada’s Nautilus Minerals (TSX:NUS), one of the world’s first seafloor miners, were hit hard on Wednesday after the owner of the shipyard where the company’s support vessel is being made said it had cancelled the contract with the supplier chosen by Nautilus to build its ships.

The Toronto-based company, which is in the last stages of developing its Solwara 1 gold, copper and silver project, off the coast of Papua Guinea, said Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding’s decision was in response to shipbuilder MAC Goliath Pte’s failure to pay the third instalment of the contract price — $18 million before interest.

The company’s stock fell almost 19% in Toronto on the news, hitting 15 Canadian cents at 12:21 PM local time, but between the average range it’s traded so far this year. In the last seven years, however, Nautilus’ shares have sunk around 90% and is now valued at just over Cdn $111 million. Continue Reading →

First Quantum Gets Time to Solve $7.9 Billion Zambia Tax Row – by Taonga Clifford Mitimingi and Gordon Bell (Bloomberg News – July 5, 2018)

July 5, 2018 in Africa Mining, Canada Mining, Copper, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Zambia agreed to give First Quantum Minerals Ltd. more time to complete its analysis of what the company might owe the southern African nation after it was slapped with a $7.9 billion tax bill, according to the finance minister.

The Vancouver-based company is challenging the assessment from Zambia’s revenue agency, which claims First Quantum incorrectly declared imports for one of its two mines in Africa’s second-biggest copper producer. The government has audited major mining companies operating in the country, which include Vedanta Resources Plc and Glencore Plc.

“They are doing their own analysis and they have asked for a bit more time,” Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe, 56, said in an interview in her office in Lusaka, the capital, on Thursday. “We have given them a month so that they can complete the analysis.” Continue Reading →

The Royal Canadian Mint breaks the numismatic mould to cast creative coins – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – June 27, 2018)

July 4, 2018 in Canada Mining, Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications

http://resourceclips.com/

Money’s appeal couldn’t be more obvious, yet coins specifically bring to mind values intrinsic, speculative or esthetic. By no means neglecting the first two, the Royal Canadian Mint has been emphasizing the third, and in ways increasingly innovative. Issuing over 200 such products each year, its “coins” have become more and more exotic. That shows in two recent releases, which can be said to source their materials from the end of the Earth and beyond.

“As a commercial Crown corporation, we don’t rely on any taxpayer funding to finance our operations,” explains communications officer Alex Reeves. “So we need to finance ourselves and that has led us to a number of competitive fields, collector coins being one, bullion being a big part of it as well, and foreign circulating coins also.”

Although this year’s Q1 results suggest more modest gains, the Mint reported a 2017 consolidated profit of $36.1 million, up from $24.5 million the previous year and buoyed partly by Canada 150 collectibles. Ottawa raked in $93.2 million in dividends last year. Continue Reading →

The Pebble mine is going nowhere. Time for Northern Dynasty to admit it.- by Mary Ann K. Johnson, Brian Kraft and Norm Van Vactor (Anchorage Daily News – June 27, 2018)

June 28, 2018 in Alaska Mining, Canada Mining, International Media Resource Articles, Mining Conflict and Opposition

https://www.adn.com/

Mary Ann K. Johnson is a lifelong subsistence user in Bristol Bay, and a board member for the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. Brian Kraft is a pilot and owner of two Bristol Bay sport-fishing lodges. Norm Van Vactor is a Dillingham resident and the CEO of Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation.

Alaskans have much in common with our neighbors in British Columbia. Our histories are tied closely to the use and development of renewable natural resources, which form the backbone of our economies, cultures and lifestyles. We understand the importance of wise stewardship of this natural wealth.

Our home in Bristol Bay is the source of nearly half the world’s wild sockeye salmon: a wild, sustainable food supply for families all over the world. It is the economic driver of our region, and a cultural linchpin. Our lives and businesses center around the monumental pulse of the 30 million-60 million wild salmon that return here, year after year. It’s like no place else on earth. Continue Reading →

New mines accelerated at Barrick’s South Arturo – by Mariaan Webb (MiningWeekly.com – June 27, 2018)

June 28, 2018 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Gold and Silver, Nevada Mining

http://www.miningweekly.com/

Development work and construction of the Phase 1 openpit and the El Nino underground mine at Barrick Gold’s South Arturo operation, in Nevada, have been accelerated, setting the stage for some production from both operations later in 2018, partner Premier Gold Mines said on Wednesday.

The Phase 1 project will be the first openpit mine operated by Barrick using autonomous mining equipment, which Premier said would create an opportunity for reduced mining costs and improved safety.

The joint venture (JV), in which Barrick holds 60% and is the operator, has budgeted $90-million for the entire project, with development capital in 2018 amounting to $17-million. Continue Reading →

Supreme Court decision on Vancouver mining company could have international human rights impact, expert says – by Perrin Grauer  (StarMetro Vancouver – June 25, 2018)

June 28, 2018 in Africa Mining, Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Mining Child and Slave Labour – Historical and Current

https://www.thestar.com/

VANCOUVER — An upcoming decision from Canada’s top court on whether allegations of human rights abuses filed against a Vancouver mining company will go to trial in Canada could set a groundbreaking precedent, according to a human rights watchdog.

Four plaintiffs, all Eritrean refugees, allege the mining company — called Nevsun Resources Ltd. — is complicit in violations of international law norms against forced labour, slavery and torture stemming from the construction of an Eritrean mine. Sixty per cent of the venture is owned by Nevsun through subsidiaries, while the remainder is owned by Eritrean state companies.

Nevsun has wholly denied all allegations of human rights abuses at the Bisha gold mine, and argued Eritrean courts would be the appropriate place — known in legal terms as a “forum conveniens” — for the case to be heard. Continue Reading →

We built this city with coal mining (Lethbridge Herald – June 26, 2018)

June 26, 2018 in Canada Mining, Canadian Mining History, Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications, Coal

https://lethbridgeherald.com/

It is accurate to say that without coal, Lethbridge might not be here today. The Blackfoot and other First Nations knew about the coal. A Blackfoot name for the place that would become Lethbridge was sik-ooh-ko-toki or place of the black rocks.

The First Nations had little use for the coal as it could not be burned safely in a teepee, and other fuel sources were readily available. Nicholas Sheran heard about the coal of southern Alberta. Recognizing the need for such a purposeful resource, in 1874 Sheran developed the first commercial coal mine in Alberta.

The location of this mine was on the west bank of the Oldman River, just off the north side of Whoop-Up Drive. Sheran managed a mine there until his death (by drowning) in 1882. Continue Reading →