North America’s Forgotten Frontier: Canadian Arctic – by Diane Francis (The Huffington Post – September 18, 2013)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/business/

YELLOWKNIFE, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES — This charming lakeside town bustles as thousands of Japanese tourists come annually to view the spectacular Aurora Borealis lights and as workers in mining, construction and energy arrive to cash in on its boom.

I was invited to speak at the Prospects North 2013 conference sponsored by the NWT Chamber of Commerce and I also visited the Diavik Diamond mine, the biggest of three gigantic mines nearly 400 miles north of Yellowknife. These mines, and another to open soon, are why the Northwest Territories has become the third biggest diamond producer in the world.

The conference was organized by executive director Mike Bradshaw and well-attended by policy, political and business leaders. My message was simply that the territories needed a new metaphor. They are not isolated and helpless political jurisdictions. They must think of themselves as the world’s biggest mining and resource play.

The three — NWT, Yukon and Nunavut — are bigger than Australia and have only seven operating mines now. Another 20 mines are in advanced stages of pre-development approvals and hundreds more undiscovered ore bodies exist in the frozen north. Such mature projects and exploration must be their top priority — as the world’s biggest mining play — and will usher in an unprecedented amount of prosperity and the building of essential infrastructure.

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Lundin Sees Growth in Rio’s Michigan Cast-Off: Corporate Canada – by Gerrit De Vynck (Bloomberg News – September 18, 2013)

http://www.businessweek.com/

Lundin Mining Corp., the best performer among Canadian base-metal companies, is betting that a cast-off from the world’s second-biggest miner will help double output.

Lundin agreed to buy the Eagle nickel and copper mine from Rio Tinto Group for $315 million in June and plans to bring it into production by the end of next year, Chief Executive Officer Paul Conibear said. Eagle is the company’s first new mine after emerging from two aborted takeovers in 2011. Conibear said he wants to boost companywide annual output to about 500,000 metric tons within five years.

“We’re back to basics to re-grow our company,” he said Sept. 13 in a telephone interview. “We’re looking at trying to increase our cash flow through producing facilities.”

Lundin plans to expand while mining companies including Rio and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s largest, sell assets and reduce spending amid lower prices. Copper has slumped 11 percent this year, nickel dropped 19 percent and zinc is down 11 percent on the London Metal Exchange after growth slowed in China, the world’s largest consumer of metals.

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Juniors cull approaches as alternative gold narrative takes effect – by Simon Rees (MiningWeekly.com – September 17, 2013)

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Head of Kaiser Research Online, John Kaiser, delivered his keynote speech at the Toronto Resource Investment Conference on September 13, telling delegates the gold narrative is changing and that hundreds of juniors were about to be culled.

Kaiser started by considering the resource supercycle’s effect on the metals markets over the past ten years, noting the current retrenchment as China and other Asian economies witnessed a fall back in growth.

The economic performance of the US and Europe would become the driving force for the next few years, he said. “But we’re not going to see demand ratchet up because these economies aren’t going to grow at huge rates. There’s also lot of new supply for metal coming on stream over the next few years.”

Kaiser predicted it will take four or five years before demand starts outstripping supply at a noteworthy rate. “This means we’ll have to live with sideways metal prices that won’t go up in a big way except under extreme circumstances.”

Kaiser had analysed merger and acquisition (M&A) activity through the TSX-V over the previous decade. “There was $129-billion-worth of takeover bids that involved juniors,” he said.

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Ottawa to step up support for mining – by Steven Chase (Globe and Mail – September 18, 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 — The Canadian government is readying a campaign to promote this country’s mining sector abroad, an effort that will draw on Ottawa’s power and global network of diplomatic missions to help companies expand their exploration and extraction activity around the world.

It’s the latest step in the Harper Conservatives’ efforts to redirect foreign affairs, international development and trade spending so it’s more targeted to core economic interests. In recent years, Ottawa has jointly funded development projects in Africa and South America with large mining corporations.

International Trade Minister Ed Fast will launch cross-country consultations Wednesday to get feedback as he draws up an agenda on what support it should offer to Canadian mining firms. The effort is billed as helping the extractive sector, which also includes oil and gas companies, but is almost wholly focused on mining.

The timing is no coincidence. The Harper government, which is warming up its campaign machine for an expected 2015 election, is looking for ways to contrast itself with opposition party leaders Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair.

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Oliver targets U.S. coal dependence as oil sands controversy builds – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – September 18, 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 — Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has moved from defence to offence, deflecting environmental criticism of Canada’s oil sands by turning the spotlight on the U.S.’s emission-intensive coal-fired power sector.

In a Tuesday speech to a high-profile energy conference in New York City, Mr. Oliver sought to minimize the environmental impact of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and said burning coal to generate electricity represents the world’s biggest climate threat.

The Conservative government faces intense criticism over the Keystone project from U.S. environmentalists, including actor Robert Redford, who released a video this week in which he claimed the pipeline would spur production of the “world’s dirtiest oil” in Alberta.

At the same time, U.S. President Barack Obama is due to release this week long-anticipated draft regulations for the U.S. power sector that critics are decrying as a “war on coal.” The administration is bracing for a political fight in traditionally Democratic coal states such as Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. The U.S. relies on coal for 41 per cent of its electricity, although that share has been decreasing with the advent of cheap shale gas.

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Goldcorp chairman Ian Telfer eyes OSC settlement – by Barbara Shecter (National Post – September 18, 2013)

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

One of Canada’s best-known mining executives, Goldcorp Inc. chairman Ian Telfer, is seeking to settle allegations brought against him by the Ontario Securities Commission. Mr. Telfer was not accused of insider tipping or trading. Instead, the OSC alleged that he acted “contrary to the public interest” by helping an old friend, the executive assistant to the chairman of GMP Securities LP, disguise her scheme.

The case against Eda Marie Agueci and eight others is scheduled to begin at the OSC’s headquarters in Toronto on Sept. 30. Ms. Agueci is described by the OSC in a statement of allegations last year as the “central figure” in the scheme.

None of the allegations have been proven. In a brief statement Tuesday, Canada’s biggest capital markets regulator said it has set aside time on Friday morning “to consider whether it is in the public interest to approve a settlement agreement entered into by Staff of the Commission and Ian Telfer.”

In the statement of allegations last year, the OSC alleged that Mr. Telfer advised Ms. Agueci to communicate using her BlackBerry’s PIN-based messaging service to keep her activities secret from GMP.

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Cutting Risks to Move Forward: Agnico Eagle leads Nunavut into modern mining era – by Bill Braden (Canadian Mining Journal – September 2013)

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

February 24, 2010, was a big day for Agnico Eagle Mines Limited’s Meadowbank project, as Board chairman Jim Nasso, flanked by Inuit business and community leaders, watched the first pour of molten gold and silver doré from the roaring refractory furnace at the $700 million project.

Nasso passed that still-warm ingot among his guests, and later among the hundreds of excited workers who posed to have a photo with it. President and CEO Sean Boyd toasted their work at a gala mine site dinner with glasses of gold-flecked champagne and news that gold bullion that very day had touched a new record of $1,260 an ounce on world markets.

Before the Meadowbank mine was launched in 2010, the vast Kivalliq region of Nunavut hadn’t seen an operating mine for 25 years. But it has been the engine of a new economy, creating hundreds of jobs and fostered millions of dollars in business ventures for a cluster of small Inuit communities with very few other career opportunities.

For its veteran parent company, the mine’s $1 million-a-day output is the biggest in its portfolio of five mines in Canada, Mexico and Finland, making Agnico Eagle Canada’s fifth largest gold producer at $US1.8 billion in revenue last year.

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Ned Goodman and the ‘Botox Economy’ – (Northern Miner – September 13, 2013)

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

Ned Goodman, president and CEO of Dundee Corp., spoke about the perils of quantitative easing at the Toronto Resource Investment Conference on Sept. 12. He made the following remarks, as recorded by The Northern Miner:

Ned Goodman: I have a lot to say and I will give you my biases, no problem there. I believe I’m a sensible man and as a sensible man I’ve been told by my mother, actually, that even though you don’t know the hour or the place of your demise, but you do know, that without a doubt, it’s going to come.

So as a sensible investor, I’m ready for the day that the United States Empire crumbles and that’s a hint as to where I’m going … I know that nothing lasts forever and the environment that we’re in could change, but we do not know anything other than nothing lasts forever and right now it looks like whatever is happening is speeding up, not slowing down. But I expect and hope to be here to watch it happen.

The slide that is on there [on the auditorium screen] is nothing more than to show you, that the fixed income market since 1962, which is when I started my career, has had some unbelievable long runs, we’re not talking of short-term things, we’re talking about long-term things.

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Gabriel threatens Romania with billion-dollar lawsuit – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – September 12, 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.

ROME — Canada’s Gabriel Resources Ltd. is issuing a stern ultimatum to the Romanian government: Approve the Rosia Montana gold mine or face a lawsuit for billions of dollars.

The strategy marks a stunning reversal for the Toronto Stock Exchange-listed company, which until recently had expected the government would approve a draft law that would allow the $1-billion (U.S.) mining development in Romania’s Transylvania to go ahead.

Then, on Monday, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said parliament would likely reject the draft law, a move that would kill Europe’s largest gold project. Gabriel shares went into freefall. The same day, Gabriel said it would “assess all possible actions open to it, including the formal notification of its intentions to commence litigation for multiple breaches of international investment treaties.”

On Wednesday, Gabriel chief executive officer Jonathan Henry vowed that the legal action would go ahead if the government does kill the mining project, and attached a big number to it.

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Protests, cyanide concerns may halt Canadian-Romania gold mine project – by Nick Logan (Global News – September 10, 2013)

http://globalnews.ca/

VANCOUVER – Anti-mining protesters appear to have won their battle against the Romanian government and a Canadian firm planning to build Europe’s largest open-cast gold mine.

At least for now.

After more than a week of rallies in the capital city of Bucharest and the country’s second-largest city of Cluj Napoca, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said Monday the project likely won’t get approval.

A majority of Romanian parliament members weren’t in favour of the mine proposal for the northwest mountain community of Rosia Montana, and Ponta asked parliamentarians to vote quickly on draft legislation that would have moved the proposal forward.

“There’s no point in wasting time, I want to make sure that the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies vote on the rejection and then this project is closed,” Ponta said, according to Bloomberg News on Monday. “I don’t want the government to be responsible for contracts undertaken by previous cabinets.”

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Canada should refine own resources – by John R. Hunt (North Bay Nugget – September 10, 2013)

http://www.nugget.ca/

A battle between environmentalists and the mining industry is shaping up at Temiscaming, Que. A junior mining company, Matamec Explorations, intends to develop a rare earth deposit at Kipawa where the nearby lake supplies drinking water for many people in the area.

Some are concerned that the project will destroy an ancient forest containing some 200-year-old oak trees. Most forests will regenerate themselves but the mining company plans to extract 4,200 tons a day in an open pit operation that will leave a large and inhospitable hole.

In today’s society everyone is worried about pollution but it is fair to point out that the mining industry has come a long way since mine wastes or tailings were dumped into Cobalt Lake in 1904. The Copperfield’s mine was operated on an island in Lake Temagami and the Sherman mine at Temagami created millions of tons of waste without causing pollution.

Matamec Explorations is a so-called junior mining company which usually means it is not part of any large corporation. The juniors are often run by aggressive risk-takers and historically have found far more mineral deposits than have the big corporations.

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Large Mining Companies Seek Tie-Ups With Smaller Players – by Rhiannon Hoyle and Francesca Freeman (Wall Street Journal – September 10, 2013)

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

Global Commodities Slowdown Spurs Partnerships to Unlock Value of Property Acquired During Boom

SYDNEY—As the global mining slowdown intensifies, resource companies are unlocking vast landholdings built up during years of high commodity prices, outsourcing exploration to smaller rivals.

For years, major mining companies such as Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. FMG.AU +1.35% and Anglo American AAL.LN +2.35% PLC chose to go it alone when hunting for new mineral deposits, bolstered by record profits amid Asia’s booming demand for resources. Now, a subdued outlook for commodity prices is forcing the miners to seek junior partners who can help shoulder exploration costs.

“You need to be opportunistic,” said Stewart Bailey, a senior vice president at South Africa’s AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., ANG.JO -3.01% which will cut its exploration budget to as little as $150 million next year from $461 million last year. “In the current gold market, there’s less exploration money to go around in general, so people will be looking for smarter ways to do things.”

Tie-ups with smaller companies may ease concerns that the world is heading toward a supply shortage of metals such as copper and iron ore as major resource companies pull back on investments in new projects amid slowing demand from China.

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Energizer expects better economics from feasibility at Madagascar project – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – September 9, 2013)

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Madagascar-focused Energizer Resources on Monday said a series of milestones at its flagship Molo graphite project, and recently updated mineral resources had led it to expect improved economics from a feasibility study currently under way.

The company’s shares jumped more than 16% in early trade on the TSX on Monday to C$0.185 a share, before falling back to C$0.165 apiece around noon.

The company in February published the results of a preliminary economic study (PEA) for the project, which had found it to hold an after-tax net present value (NPV), using a 10% discount rate, of $341.8-million, and an after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 41%.

The project was expected to cost $162.04-million to construct and would produce about 84 000 t/y of 98% to 98.6% pure flake graphite, which could sell at an average market price of about $1 564/t. The project was expected to have a three-year payback period.

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Northern Promise: Arctic road to prosperity paved with obstacles – by Jeff Lewis (National Post – September 10, 2013)

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

INUVIK, N.W.T. — Seismic lines etched into the permafrost from decades-old exploration are still visible in the 137 kilometres separating the Town of Inuvik and the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Coast.

About 50 kilometres north of Inuvik, the remnants of industrial prospecting mark the location of the Parsons Lake gas field, discovered in the 1970s and one of three proposed to anchor the moribund Mackenzie Valley pipeline. Today, they are an uneasy reminder of the ecologically fragile terrain northern infrastructure must traverse.

“When you put marks in the tundra, it never really goes away,” says Mike Parkes, 32, a helicopter pilot, pointing the throttle on his AS-350-B2 machine north along the Arctic peninsula.

It is a lesson that informs an ambitious road-building project under way on the edge of the Beaufort Sea. Work is set to begin this winter building a highway between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, in a throwback to former Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s much-vaunted — but ultimately unrealized — 1950s “road to resources” campaign to connect the Western Arctic and Canada’s southern provinces.

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Shawn Ryan’s new Yukon vision – by Gwen Preston (Northern Miner – September 4, 2013)

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

DAWSON CITY, YUKON — Shawn Ryan could have retired. Ryan and his wife, Cathy Wood, are the Yukon prospecting team whose dedicated soil sampling led Underworld Resources to the million-ounce-plus White Gold deposit in 2009, a discovery that sparked a new Yukon gold rush. They also get credit for Kaminak Gold’s (TSXV: KAM; US-OTC: KMKGF) Coffee project, already at 3.2 million oz. and growing, and have at least another dozen soil anomalies on option to explorers across the White Gold district.

After years of scraping by on government grants and prospecting contracts, Ryan and Wood made it to the big leagues when Kinross Gold (TSX: K; NYSE: KGC) acquired Underworld for $138 million. With that payday, plus a steady stream of option payments, the team could easily have stepped back from the grind and enjoyed their just rewards.

Instead, Ryan and Wood spent the last 18 months figuring out how to make exploring for gold in the Yukon less expensive and more reliable. “I could see the crash coming and I could see there was so much money being wasted up here,” Ryan says in an interview in Dawson City. “So we took a step back and thought, ‘If we’re going to keep this momentum alive, we need to add something new — we need to figure out some simple new tools that will increase drilling confidence without costing millions.”

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