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First Nations leader Phil Fontaine: An angry radical embraces compromise – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – May 17, 2014)

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 — At 30 years old, Phil Fontaine was an angry man.

A survivor of sexual abuse at a residential school, separated from his parents at a young age, forbidden from speaking his native language, the Anishinaabe from Manitoba was elected at the age of 29 as chief for the Sagkeeng First Nation, situated east of Lake Winnipeg. By his own account, he was impatient and belligerent, especially in his dealings with government bureaucrats.

The former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations mellowed over the years. He became convinced he could do more for aboriginal people through compromise and pragmatic action than angry radicalism. But he remains passionate about the need for Canada to address the appalling poverty among First Nations people. He sees resource development as one way to end that poverty.

Now 69, Mr. Fontaine works with some of this country’s largest companies – the Royal Bank of Canada and TransCanada Corp. – to advance their interests among aboriginal Canadians and to advise them on how to support First Nations communities and businesses.

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First Nations have a say in resource development, not a veto -by Brian Lee Crowley (Globe and Mail – May 16, 2014)

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.

Duty to consult and accommodate. Remember those five words. Properly applied, they could help usher in a new era of co-operation between First Nations and natural resource development. Ignored or disregarded by governments, or used to raise unrealistic expectations of unlimited aboriginal power, they could herald a period of discord, mistrust and lost opportunity – including for indigenous people.

The words themselves are drawn from a Supreme Court decision on a British Columbia government decision to transfer some tree licences to a forestry company. The Haida First Nation sought an injunction to stop the transfer, because it believed it violated their aboriginal rights. The B.C. government claimed it had the traditional legal and constitutional authority to manage the province’s natural resources as it deemed appropriate.

When the issue reached the Supreme Court, neither party got what it wanted. Instead of confirming government power, or transferring some or all of that power to aboriginal peoples, the court created the duty on governments to consult and accommodate aboriginal interests when government decisions encroach on potential or established aboriginal or treaty rights.

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Eric Sprott: Gold shortage coming, data shows (Mining.com – May 15, 2014)

http://www.mining.com/

Eric Sprott, Founder and Chairman of Sprott Asset Management, said recently that he expects a “significant re-rating of the gold price” due to high physical demand from China and India, coupled with a gold supply shortfall. The effect, which he calls the “Chinese Gold Vortex,” is rapidly taking physical gold from West to East. When the West runs out of gold, the price should go much higher, he believes. I recently spoke with him on the phone about his near-term views.

Hello Eric, what do you see happening today in the metals markets?

Eric Sprott: I am very excited about developments in the gold and silver markets today. I have been speculating since late 2012 that Western central banks could be running out of gold. I put the sell-off in gold and silver in 2013 to the fact that the Western banks needed a way to generate physical gold supplies. As the metals prices went down, there was a lot of liquidation of gold which increased the supply by an estimated 900 tonnes last year.

Let’s look at the figures. The annual supply of gold is around 4,300 tonnes. 3,000 tonnes come from mining and the other 1,300 tonnes or so from recycled material2. In 2013, an additional 900 tonnes came onto the market from ETFs that were being liquidated – a supply increase of around 21%.

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Are the clouds parting for junior miners? – by Alisha Hiyate (Mining Markets Magazine – May 16, 2014)

http://www.miningmarkets.ca/

Slow, volatile recovery under way; exploration interest remains limited

Junior miner Novo Resources (CSE: NVO) checks all the boxes: It’s led by a well-known, connected and respected geologist; it has several prospective gold projects (one of which has an inferred resource) in the low-risk jurisdiction of Australia; it has a tight share structure and supportive shareholders (including Newmont Mining [NYSE: NEM], which bought a 35.7% stake in the junior last year); and it has managed to deliver both positive news and an increasing share price over the past three tumultuous years.

But the next time Novo needs its next infusion of cash, company president and CEO Quinton Hennigh won’t be looking to the equity market. “I’m looking at alternative means,” he said in late April. “I can’t speak too much about it at the moment, but we have two opportunities that could actually bring money into the treasury without having to raise equity.”

The company won’t need to raise cash until 2015 — it has $10 million in cash and only plans to spend $4.5-5 million this year. But three years into the current mining downturn, it’s telling that Hennigh, who last led Novo to the market for an equity financing in December 2012 and who released an initial inferred resource of 8.9 million tonnes grading 1.47 grams gold per tonne at the Beatons Creek project last year, is seeking to avoid the equity market.

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Ivanhoe studying break-up as large mining projects face funding crunch – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 15, 2014)

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

Less than two years after he took Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. public, Robert Friedland is already looking at ways to break it up.

Vancouver-based Ivanhoe revealed on Thursday it is studying a number of “potentially significant corporate and project-level options.” Those include splitting the company’s projects into separate publicly-traded entities, asset sales, joint ventures, and alternative stock exchange listings.

All options need to be looked at, because Mr. Friedland’s company is short of cash and has three very large projects to develop.

While Ivanhoe (formerly Ivanplats) exited the first quarter with US$170.2-million of cash and short-term deposits, it has committed US$146.7-million for the Platreef project in South Africa. That leaves very little capital for Kamoa and Kipushi, Ivanhoe’s two vast deposits in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Ivanhoe wants to begin developing a mine-access decline at Kamoa this year, and also conduct an underground drilling program at Kipushi. But it warned it does not have enough money to do this work unless it can raise more by the end of June.

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Nickel price to reach huge highs, says mining exec – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – May 16, 2014)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. 

The price of nickel could reach highs previously seen in 2007, said Mark Selby, president and CEO of Royal Nickel, at a Canadian Institute of Mining event in Sudbury, May 15. Selby expects nickel prices to $15 to $20 per pound by mid-2015.

The reason is Indonesia’s decision to cease nickel exports indefinitely. The Asian country contains 25 per cent of the world’s nickel supply.

“To give you an idea of just how much that is, in the oil business that would be the equivalent of waking up Monday morning and finding out that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and all of the other Gulf states decided not to produce oil anymore,” Selby said.

The country has stopped exporting the metal to build the ore processing infrastructure needed to create more value from its nickel. In 2009, when the Indonesian Parliament first discussed ceasing copper and nickel exports, nickel left the country with only 10 to 15 per cent of its end value.

“There’s a massive amount of value to be captured by building these plants in the country,” Selby said. In January 2014, just before Indonesia halted nickel exports, the metal sold for around $6 a pound. In mid-May, nickel prices were as high as $9.50 a pound.

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Public-private partnership needed to develop Ring of Fire: Hudak – by Maria Babbage (Canadian Press/CTV News – May 15, 2014)

http://www.ctvnews.ca/

LONDON, Ont. — A Progressive Conservative government would develop the mineral-rich Ring of Fire in northern Ontario through a public-private partnership scheme if elected on June 12, Tory Leader Tim Hudak said Wednesday.

He’d bring the federal government to the table along with mining companies, but didn’t say if he’d ask Ottawa for money to build a much-needed transportation route to the remote area.

Premier Kathleen Wynne has slammed Prime Minister Stephen Harper, saying he’s not coming to the table with a billion dollars to build the route. She’s also tried to paint Hudak as a weak leader who won’t stand up to his federal cousins to get it built.

Federal cash isn’t the real problem, Hudak said. The governing Liberals have “dithered and delayed” instead of coming up with a plan to develop the massive chromite deposit.

“They’ve neglected the north,” he said from an electronics store in London, Ont. “They’ve let that incredible investment fade away.” The Tories estimate the project could create 4,400 jobs over eight years in the hard-hit region.

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Historic silver price ‘fix’ coming to an end after 117 years – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 15, 2014)

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

The silver market is poised to undergo a major shake-up, as the ancient method of setting a benchmark price is coming to an end.

Since 1897, the London “silver fix” has been negotiated each trading day at noon through an auction between bullion dealers. Remarkably, the process has endured despite all the evolutions in trading since then. Similar daily fixings continue to be set for gold, platinum, and palladium.

The silver fix is now dying because the banks that set the price don’t want to do it anymore, and no one else is rushing forward to take their place.

Last month, Deutsche Bank said it planned to give up its seats on the silver and gold fixes as it scaled back its commodity business. That left only two banks to determine the silver fix: Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC. Now all of the parties have decided to withdraw, meaning the last fixing will take place on Aug. 14. All three banks will stay on until then.

The decision to end the silver fixing comes as regulators put more scrutiny on the fixing process amid concerns that it could be manipulated. That follows a scandal in 2012 over the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor).

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Duluth sees nickel upside at Twin Metals (Northern Miner – May 14, 2014)

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

VANCOUVER — It’s been a long road for junior Duluth Metals (TSX: DM, US-OTC: DULMF) on the northern edge of Minnesota’s prolific Iron Range, but it looks like the development potential of the company’s Twin Metals joint venture with major Antofagasta (LON: ANTO, US-OTC: ANFGY) is set to come into focus in the next few months.

The companies are set to release a prefeasibility study (PFS) based on a large-scale copper-nickel-platinum-palladium-gold resource in July — the first updated study since a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in 2008 — which will outline a 50,000-tonnes-per-day underground mine.

Duluth has also undergone a management change as it moves towards a potential development scenario, with former-COO Kelly Osborne — who worked as a senior vice-president of underground operations for Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE: FCX) — stepping in as the company’s president and CEO on May 12.

Outgoing president Vern Baker took some time to sit down with The Northern Miner to discuss his four-year tenure with the company, and shed some light on the current state of the Twin Metals project. Baker will continue to serve on the Twin Metals technical committee moving forward.

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Vale could keep smelter and refinery open until 2019 – John Barker (Thompson Citizen – May 14, 2014)

The Thompson Citizen, which was established in June 1960, covers the City of Thompson and Nickel Belt Region of Northern Manitoba. The city has a population of about 13,500 residents while the regional population is more than 40,000.  editor@thompsoncitizen.net

‘Vale will continue to invest in Thompson without a strategic partner,’ spokesman says

Vale Canada Limited’s Manitoba Operations has a green light from federal environmental officials on keeping its Thompson smelter and refinery open until the end of 2015.

Pending new federal sulphur dioxide (SO2) emission standards, pursuant to The Canada-Wide Acid Rain Strategy for Post-2000, set to come into effect in 2015, could have required a reduction in airborne emissions of approximately 88 per cent from current levels at the Thompson operation.

The Canada-Wide Acid Rain Strategy for Post-2000 was agreed to in 1998 by federal, provincial and territorial ministers of energy and environment to fulfill an earlier commitment in their 1994 “Statement of Intent on Long-Term Acid Rain Management in Canada,” which in turn built on the 1985 Eastern Canada Acid Rain Program.

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Mining: Geologist takes mineral hunt to his hometown – by James Kwantes (Vancouver Sun – May 13, 2014)

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

Rob McLeod returns to Stewart to explore for gold at Red Mountain, site of his first job after graduation

When exploration geologist Rob McLeod graduated from the University of B.C. in 1993, his first job was drilling for gold at an underground project at Red Mountain near his hometown of Stewart.

It was a “dream job” for McLeod, who grew up fishing, hiking and exploring abandoned mine shafts in the area. During the winter drill program, he would pack ski equipment on the Snowcat they used to travel up the mountain and ski down at the end of the day.

The skiing was good, and so were the drill hits. “I’ve had my eyes on it ever since,” McLeod said of the property at the southern edge of B.C.’s “golden triangle,” a mineral-rich area beside the Alaska panhandle that hosts high-grade gold and stores of copper and silver.

McLeod now has his hands on Red Mountain as well, after an option agreement with current owner Seabridge Gold. The deal gives McLeod’s Revolution Resources 100-per-cent ownership of the project in exchange for a total of $3.5 million in cash and the expenditure of $7.5 million in exploration and development expenses over the next three years.

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Canadian mining doing serious environmental harm, the IACHR is told – by David Hill (The Guardian – May 14, 2014)

http://www.theguardian.com/uk

Operations in nine Latin American countries continue with explicit Canadian state support, says report

The growing role of Canadian mining companies across Latin America has been put under the spotlight at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington following the presentation of a damning report.

Mining operations by Canadian firms across nine Latin American countries are causing “serious environmental impacts” by destroying glaciers, contaminating water and rivers, and cutting down forest, according to the report, as well as forcibly displacing people, dividing and impoverishing communities, making false promises about economic benefits, endangering people’s health, and fraudulently acquiring property. Some who protest such projects have been killed or seriously wounded, it states, and others persecuted, threatened or accused of being terrorists.

“Criminal charges such as “sabotage”, “terrorism”, “rebellion”, “conspiracy” and “incitement to commit crime” have been made against social leaders and human rights defenders who oppose and resist the development of industry,” it states.

The report, titled The Impact of Canadian Mining in Latin America and Canada’s responsibility, states that Canadian firms are exploiting weak legal systems in Latin American countries and Canada itself, as well as failing to respect indigenous peoples’ rights, international human rights and social responsibility principles, and supposedly “protected” areas.

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El Nino a looming wild card for commodities – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – May 14, 2014)

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.

Commodity traders are placing their bets on El Nino. The periodic weather phenomenon leads to torrential rain in South America and droughts in Asia and Africa, and may provide a needed boost for commodities after last year’s slump in prices.

Weather forecasters around the world are predicting that a shift in climate patterns could occur this summer, with some warning of the strongest El Nino in more than a decade.

“One should prepare portfolios to actively trade that event,” Société Générale SA said in a research note released on Tuesday. “We see support for base metals, especially nickel and zinc, as well as more volatility for sugar, cotton, coffee and cocoa.”

The severe weather event, which happens when temperatures warm in the Pacific Ocean, could cause flooding in copper and zinc mines in South America.

It could also cause droughts in resource-rich regions, threatening sugar crops in Thailand and India and drying up waterways needed to transport ore in Indonesia, the bank said.

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Gold miners tarnished by tumbling reserves – by David Parkinson (Globe and Mail – May 14, 2014)

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.

For the world’s major gold mining companies, bullion’s sharp price decline has put them in an unfamiliar and not altogether comfortable condition: They’re shrinking. The question now is whether the downsizing is destined to continue – or if a bit of price stability will lure them back into their comfort zone of rebuilding reserves through acquisition.

A new report from independent research firm SNL Financial notes that the combined gold reserves of the five biggest global gold producers (Barrick Gold Corp., Newmont Mining Corp., Goldcorp Inc., AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp.) fell by 11 per cent in 2013. Their reserve total has retreated to 2006 levels, wiping out six years’ worth of growth.

The culprit was the gold price. As it tumbled from $1,800 (U.S.) an ounce in late 2012 to $1,200 in late 2013, the miners were forced to slash the price assumptions they used in their reserve calculations – and remove higher-cost ore from reserve estimates as producing it was no longer economic.

The result has not only been substantial and costly writedowns to reserves, but also a shrinking reserve base that is far from business as usual at the big miners.

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Fully automated mines ‘a distinct possibility’ – by Shawn Conner (Vancouver Sun – May 13, 2014)

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

Safety concerns drive mining industry to embrace mechanized performance of repetitive tasks

Increasingly, the mining industry is turning to robotics. In some parts of the world, drones and driverless trucks are being used for mining operations. In B.C., most of the robotics so far are used in drilling. “Underground, we are further ahead than across Canada in terms of either using robotic or semi-autonomous-type pieces of equipment, particularly with drills,” said John Thompson.

A part-time professor at Cornell University, Thompson is the founder of PetraScience Consultants Inc. and is a Chair at the Canada Mining Innovation Council. Many of the machines used for drilling at the New Afton copper-gold mine west of Kamloops are automated or partly robotic.

“Our jumbo drills are semirobotic,” said Sean Masse, mine manager for New Afton, which has both open pit and underground operations. The big Sandvik drills are 12.5 metres long, two metres high and three metres tall. The 21.8-tonne drills bore the holes for the explosives that blast ore free.

“Our surveyors will draw up a design for how the drilling should go, and then we put that card into the jumbo’s computer, and the jumbo will automatically take the drill-bit to where the hole is supposed to be on that pattern. The only thing the operator does is make sure it’s not going to drill into where there’s a remnant of the last (explosive) round.”

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