Canada Mining – Page 275 – Republic of Mining

Voisey’s Bay nickel mine: Ice and lolly (The Economist – April 12, 2014 edition)

April 10, 2014

http://www.economist.com/

An icebreaker heads to the mines of northern Canada

BY ANY standards the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine is remote. Diamond prospectors found the deposit near the coast of Canada’s easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1993 (see map); the mine, which is operated by Vale of Brazil, opened in 2005. No roads connect it to the outside world. Although a giant hydroelectric plant is just 365km (230 miles) away, at Churchill Falls, the mine gets no power from it.

The 300 mine workers can be flown in and out. The nickel has to be shipped—no easy task when the bay is closed off by sea ice for six months a year. The only way to get ore out all year round is with a polar-class icebreaking bulk carrier, the Umiak I. It makes 12 trips a year.

The Umiak I is the world’s most powerful icebreaking cargo ship. It has a reinforced hull and a soupspoon-shaped bow that rides up over the ice, which can be as thick as ten metres in places. The ship is powered by a 30,000 horsepower engine, large enough to drive an oil tanker ten times its size. Satellite imagery helps identify where the ice is thickest.

The future of mining in Nunavut? It’s all about China – by Jim Bell (Nunatsiaq News – April 10, 2014)

April 10, 2014

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Scotiabank commodity guru says Chinese demand the biggest factor for what sells, what doesn’t

A influential Canadian bank economist says that if you want to predict which Nunavut mining projects are likely to make it and which ones aren’t, you have to study China.

“I pay far more attention to the Chinese economy than to that of the United States,” Patricia Mohr, Scotiabank’s commodity price specialist, said at the April 8 opening of the Nunavut Mining Symposium.

That’s because China now represents more than 40 per cent of global demand for commodities. That includes metals that lie embedded in the earth’s crust across northern Canada, such as zinc, copper, nickel and iron ore.

Many factors influence their prices — including economic growth, or the lack of it, in the United States, the European Union, Russia, Brazil and India, as well as the growth or decline of existing ore stockpiles. But the biggest factor of them all is the China’s relentless movement towards an industrialized and urbanized future for the 1.3 billion people who live within its borders, Mohr said.

Ottawa needs tighter controls on resource wealth, says Nobel prize winner – by Richard Blackwell (Globe and Mail – April 10, 2014)

April 10, 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.

The federal government needs to take a stronger role in ensuring the benefits of Canada’s resource-based economy flow to all its citizens, one of the world’s most respected economists said Thursday.

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winner and a professor at Columbia University, said Canada has done relatively well in making sure that resource wealth is used to benefit all its citizens, but Ottawa needs to do more if it wants to be in the top ranks or resource-intensive nations.

He was speaking in Toronto at a press conference launching a conference sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the Centre for international Governance Innovation.

Generally, economists talk of a “resource curse” where countries with an abundance of resources tend to perform poorly, Prof. Stiglitz said. That’s because the domestic currency tends to be high, impairing manufacturing and exports, and the resource sector can be subject to wide fluctuations in commodity prices.

Why privatizing First Nation resources is a really dumb idea – by James Munson (ipolitics.com – April 10, 2014)

April 10, 2014

http://www.ipolitics.ca/

In the clamour of capitalism that is the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto, at least one tiny mining company wasn’t willing to move with the pack.

Golden Predator Mining Corp., a junior with gold properties in the Yukon owned by Americas Bullion Royalty Corp., has had its life made complicated by aboriginal land right regimes in the territory, but it wasn’t willing to criticize those rights as a whole.

Janet Lee-Sheriff, vice-president of communications and First Nations relations for the firm, refused to describe a 2012 Yukon Court of Appeal decision as a hindrance to business, as many in her industry have over the past year. The decision, which expanded a company and mining department’s duty to consult an aboriginal community all the way up to the early staking process, wasn’t a bad thing if you knew how to engage a community, she said.

The Fraser Institute couldn’t disagree more. And it couldn’t be more presumptuous. The policy direction of the last 40 years – whereby negotiations, agreements and Supreme Court decisions have grown and expanded aboriginal rights over resources to ever-unprecedented levels – hasn’t been a good thing for miners, according to one of the authors of Divergent Mineral Rights Regimes, a report released by the institute last week.

Nunavut org set to benefit from lease, royalties agreements with Agnico Eagle (Nunatsiaq News – April 10, 2014)

April 10, 2014

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

NTI signs first-ever production lease deal for its sub-surface Inuit-owned lands

Nunavut Tunngavik has signed its first-ever mineral production lease, allowing Agnico Eagle Mines to extract gold from Inuit-owned land near the Meadowbank mine in exchange for annual fees and royalties paid to NTI.

The production lease will cover AEM’s 144-hectare Vault deposit, an open-pit operation about nine kilometres northeast of Meadowbank’s processing plant which is roughly 110 kms north of Baker Lake. “The production lease, which allows for commercial production, is the first that NTI has entered into with any company,” an NTI release said April 9

NTI president Cathy Towtongie said in the release that the agreement reflects a “clear commitment” set out in the organization’s December 1997 mining policy: “to support the development of mineral resources in Nunavut if there are significant long-term social and economic benefits for Inuit, and if it is consistent with protecting the eco-systemic integrity of Nunavut.”

According to an NTI mining policy brochure, a company must pay $100 per hectare for a production lease, at a minimum of $10,000. The lease has an initial term of 10 years that may be renewed for two additional five-year terms.

Agnico Eagle cautiously optimistic about second Nunavut gold mine – by David Murphy (Nunatsiaq News – April 10, 2014)

April 10, 2014

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

“Feasibility and permitting are really the critical part for us now”

Depending on gold prices, the approval of certain permits and the results of a feasibility study due later this year, the prospects for Agnico Eagle’s Meliadine gold mine project are looking good, a company manager said April 8.

“I believe very strongly that the project will move forward,” Nancy Guay, Meliadine’s general program manager, said during a project update session at the Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit April 8.

Last year, Agnico Eagle slashed $80 million from the project’s capital budget, leaving just $45 million to spend in 2014. Gold prices slumped in 2013 to about $1,300 an ounce and the company coped with one-time problems at its Kittila mine in Finland and at other projects.

The price of gold has improved a little this year. As of April 8, gold was listed at $1,428 per ounce on goldpriceoz.com. But at another April 8 presentation at the mining symposium, Scotiabank’s commodity specialist, Patricia Mohr, said she expects gold prices to settle in at around $1,350 per ounce by 2015.

Activist investor George Armoyan calls for ouster of Sherritt CEO – by Peter Koven (National Post – April 10, 2014)

April 10, 2014

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

TORONTO – Activist investor George Armoyan has called for the chief executive of Sherritt International Corp. to be fired, raising the animosity between the two sides ahead of a scheduled proxy showdown at next month’s annual meeting. In a circular filed Wednesday, Mr. Armoyan revealed he has been pushing Sherritt to replace CEO David Pathe with a “qualified executive who has operating experience.”

“The guy is not an operator; he’s not a leader. He was just put in there by default,” Mr. Armoyan, the CEO of Clarke Inc., said in an interview. He added that some Sherritt insiders, including former directors, have indicated to him that there is a vacuum of leadership at the company.

He said he has nothing against Mr. Pathe, but simply does not think he is CEO material. He noted that Mr. Pathe was an associate lawyer on Bay Street who joined Toronto-based Sherritt as assistant general counsel in 2007. He kept getting promoted, and six years later he was CEO. In Mr. Armoyan’s mind, he is not qualified to lead a mining company and Sherritt could recruit a much stronger candidate.

Sherritt did not comment on Mr. Armoyan’s plan to replace Mr. Pathe, but did state that the activist has not provided “any alternative to Sherritt’s current strategic plan or any credible ideas to increase shareholder value.” Both sides have said they are committed to cutting costs and reducing debt.

Goldcorp sweetens hostile Osisko bid to $3.6-billion – by Bertand Marotte and Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – April 10, 2014)

April 10, 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.

MONTREAL/TORONO — Goldcorp Inc. is raising its hostile bid for Osisko Mining Corp. to $7.65 per share or $3.6-billion in an attempt to knock out a friendly deal between Osisko and Yamana Gold Inc.

Vancouver-based Goldcorp said on Thursday its offer now stands at 0.17 of a Goldcorp common share plus an increase in the cash portion of its offer to $2.92 for each Osisko share, from 0.146 and $2.26 respectively.

Goldcorp’s previous unsolicited bid was valued at about $6.30 per share. The agreement between Montreal-based Osisko, Yamana and two of Canada’s biggest pension funds is valued at $7.57 a share. The key asset Goldcorp is after is Osisko’s Canadian Malartic gold mine in northwestern Quebec.

Osisko chief executive officer Sean Roosen said Goldcorp’s offer is an improvement but does not sufficiently value Malartic’s potential. “It’s more respectful but it certainly doesn’t offer the same potency and the upside to Canadian Malartic that the Yamana-Osisko bid does,” he said in an interview.

“The Next Big Thing” for Canada [Resource Development] – by the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney (Ottawa – April 8, 2014)

April 9, 2014

CANADA 2020 – http://canada2020.ca/

“Northern Ontario’s “Ring of Fire” is a classic example of our potential and our problem. It has been
described as “the most promising mining opportunity in Canada in a century”. And yet, despite its
unparalleled potential, the project has been hamstrung for years by uncertainties about aboriginal
concerns, by infrastructure limitations and environmental challenges. If properly developed,
significant deposits of copper, zinc, nickel, platinum, vanadium and gold could contribute more
than $25 billion in economic activity and almost $7 billion in government revenues. What is
desperately needed is a concrete action plan and an enhanced spirit of partnership to bring that
promise to life.” Right Honourable Brian Mulroney (Ottawa – April 8, 2014)

“The Next Big Thing for Canada”

Thank you, John, for your most generous remarks.

Let me also congratulate you and your Government for the forthright position you are taking on the lawless takeover of Crimea. The principles and values we cherish in Canada should be the constant rudder for actions we take on foreign policy. History teaches us eloquently what happens when violations of international law and national sovereignty are ignored in the interest of expediency.

As the first G7 country to recognize the newly independent Ukraine in 1991, Canada should be in the vanguard of those safe-guarding its fundamental freedoms and staunchly supporting those seeking to reinforce that independence. Your invitation tonight presents a great challenge : What is “the next big thing” for Canada?

How much longer before the public tires of extremist environmental theatrics? – by Peter Foster (National Post – April 9, 2014)

April 9, 2014

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

There are signs that some on the more sensitive members of the green left may already sense the ground shifting beneath them

The enemies of fossil fuels were out in the streets of Bucharest and other Rumanian cities this week protesting Chevron’s plans to move the country towards shale gas self-sufficiency. They bore banners sporting such balanced messages as “Chevron US, you can’t just drop in uninvited and leave death in your wake.” Agence France Presse reported one student declaring “We have seen the effects of fracking on the environment in the U.S. and we do not want the same to happen here.”

But what she meant was that she had “seen” the kind of agitprop peddled by the likes of the movie Gaslands. There has been virtually zero impact from fracking in North America, but it has been established as a “cause” for young rebels, thus the facts must not be allowed to intrude on the social media-fuelled Two Minutes Hate.

The question is how much longer the public is going to be sympathetic to such theatrical displays. The more obvious it becomes that radical environmentalism is effectively the ally of regimes such as Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela, the more tolerance for it is likely to decline.

As it becomes clearer that many of those who want to hold up fracking in Europe, or halt the Keystone XL pipeline, are as much enemies of democracy and prosperity as any strongman or caudillo, their inordinate power must wane.

Why this “greeny” supports pipelines – by Robert McLeman (National Post – April 8, 2014)

April 9, 2014

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

Robert McLeman is an associate professor of geography and environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.

As a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., I teach introductory environmental studies to hundreds of students each year. I impress upon them the need to use less fossil fuels, to reduce our ecological footprints, and to live with nature and not at its expense.

I train them how to think systematically about environmental problems, and to look for innovative solutions to them, like making urban spaces into oases for pollinators and using backyard rinks to teach people why we should care about global warming.

I practice what I preach: I ride my bike to work in the dead of winter, I buy locally grown foods, and the coffee in my cup is fair trade organic, of course. In short, I am what many of you would call a “greeny.” My politics are less overtly green, but still lean in that direction. (Don’t get me started on how I feel about Revenue Canada auditing the David Suzuki Foundation while our finance minister goads them on.)

It was important to give you the preceding glimpse of where I’m coming from, given the statement I am about to make: I support the building of pipelines.

Canada’s North: Infrastructure on mining wishlist – by Saul Chernos (Daily Commercial News – April 9, 2014)

April 9, 2014

http://dcnonl.com/

Speaking at the annual convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada in Toronto in March, business representatives from the Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories (N.W.T.) had a different take as they discussed infrastructure and other challenges they face — and some of their recent achievements.

“The north is often seen as this cold, isolated place but I can tell you it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to,” said Rio Tinto Canada president Virginia Flood. “It is cold, but if we can deal with the infrastructure and the energy side of it I think that will actually spur other people to come up north.”

Flood and fellow colleagues spun tales of the north that harkened back to Yukon’s Gold Rush of the late 1890s. While those frontier days are long gone, prospecting and mine development continue apace for riches as varied as gold, diamonds and iron.

As Flood and other speakers explained, the landscape has changed considerably. “The cost of energy and infrastructure is huge,” Flood said, explaining that Rio Tinto recently spent $33 million building wind turbines to help fuel operations at its Diavik diamond mine 200 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle in the N.W.T.

Doyle’s exit from Potash well-timed – for him – by Brian Milner (Globe and Mail – April 9, 2014)

April 9, 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.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan faces a future that is far more complicated than its illustrious recent past. The golden era of buoyant sales, tight supplies and soaring stock values are plainly in the rear-view mirror. And now after a tough year marked by plunging profits and steep cutbacks, the captain is leaving the ship just as it sails into even rougher waters.

Bill Doyle will depart June 30 after 27 years with the company, the last 15 as CEO. Mr. Doyle, who is approaching 64, is certainly entitled to rest on his laurels. But his timing raises concerns about the course that the company intends to chart. And the fact that the board has anointed an outsider, Jochen Tilk, as his successor doesn’t cast a favourable light on Mr. Doyle’s mentoring abilities.

One marker of a successful tenure in the corner office is the ability to foster a coterie of senior executives capable of stepping into the top job. But in Potash’s case, a three-year search brought them to the door of Mr. Tilk, a 30-year mining industry veteran whose main attraction was apparently his “focus on operational excellence and disciplined growth,” in the words of board chairman Dallas Howe. That sounds to me like someone preparing for more heavy cost-cutting of the kind that shuttered some production and lopped off about 18 per cent of the Potash work force in December.

Mulroney calls on Ottawa to appoint natural resource projects crusader – by Steven Chase and Kathryn Blaze Carlson (Globe and Mail – April 9, 2014)

April 9, 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 — Former prime minister Brian Mulroney is calling on Ottawa to show greater leadership in getting Canada’s natural resources to world markets, warning this country needs a federal persuader-in-chief to secure support for major projects or risk being outmanoeuvred by foreign rivals.

He said uncertainty over major resource projects is hurting Canada. “Put simply, we cannot market our resources globally if we don’t have the infrastructure, political and industrial, to deliver them to market,” he said.

Mr. Mulroney did not criticize Prime Minister Stephen Harper directly in a speech Tuesday evening to an Ottawa audience that included federal ministers such as John Baird, who introduced the former prime minister, and Peter MacKay, whose father served in Mr. Mulroney’s cabinet. But he argued forcefully that federal leadership should take a more hands-on role in urging major players to support the construction of necessary infrastructure, from pipelines to liquefied natural gas facilities.

He called on Ottawa to create a resource development office, similar to the Trade Negotiations Office he used to build support for both the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and then the North American free trade deal.

Brian Mulroney didn’t come to bury Stephen Harper. But he didn’t come to praise him either – by John Ivison (National Post – April 9, 2014)

April 9, 2014

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

Brian Mulroney didn’t come to Ottawa to bury Stephen Harper. But he didn’t come to praise him either. The former prime minister was in the capital to speak about the “next big thing” for Canada — making the most of its treasure trove of oil, gas and mineral resources.

To do so requires political leadership, Mr. Mulroney said, and he was pretty clear he doesn’t think Mr. Harper has been providing it.“Prime ministers are not chosen to seek popularity, they are chosen to provide leadership,” he told the audience at the Canada 2020 dinner. “Leadership is the process, not only of foreseeing the need for change but making the case for change. Leadership does not consist of imposing unpopular ideas on the public but of making unpopular ideas acceptable to the nation.”

Mr. Mulroney knows about popularity — or lack of it. “Popularity is bad for you. I try to avoid it like the plague and I’ve been reasonably successful,” he said, back in 1992 when his personal numbers dipped to the lowest ever recorded for a prime minister.

But he was expressing a frustration that is becoming a common refrain from visitors to the capital. Jim Prentice, the former Conservative environment minister, made a similar point recently about the need to get pipelines built, develop alternative markets to the United States and beat back state-level fuel standards designed to keep oilsands oil from the American market.