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Lucky Sudbury, Far North Act and Mining Industry Terrible Image Speech – by Stan Sudol (November 8, 2011)

Stan Sudol gave the keynote address at the Ontario Prospectors Association’s 2011 Ontario Exploration & Geoscience Symposium – Sudbury, Ontario – November 8, 2011

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant and mining columnist. www.republicofmining.com stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

Check Against Delivery

Sudbury: The luckiest city in Canada

It’s always great to get back to my hometown.

Way back in 1977, I worked for Inco at their Clarabell Mill complex for a year before going to college. And in 1980, I was a summer student replacement worker at their Frood-Stobie mine.

So I will always be a “Sudbury boy” regardless of where I live.

Without a doubt, Sudbury is this country’s epicenter of mining.

In fact, the Sudbury Basin is the richest mineral district in North America and among the top three hardrock mining regions in the world.

Only South Africa’s Witwatersrand gold region, and their legendary Bushveld platinum complex, can match the concentration and expertise of underground mining here.

We are the luckiest city Canada.

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Film looks at mining dispute – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – November 8, 2011)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Robert Monderie and Richard Desjardins claim they are digging up the truth about the mining industry in their new documentary, Trou Story.

They’re also attracting the wrath of the mining industry and governments, who say Trou Story isn’t quite telling the truth.

“They say that what we are talking about is old stuff, that reality has changed a lot and that industry has been performing a lot better socially and environmentally, and the technology is less dangerous,” Desjardins, who directed the documentary with Monderie, said in a phone inter view Monday.

“We agree with that. But they assume that everything has changed, and we don’t think so. The … basic law is still the same. Regions don’t have more royalties. Mines are bigger, so that means that the waste is bigger, too. That waste will be there for centuries, and the cost to (clean that up) is not included in the price of the royalties.”

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Controversial Prosperity mine proposal gets second chance – by Canadian Press (Globe and Mail – November 7, 2011)

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— The Canadian Press – A controversial proposal for a massive copper and gold mine in British Columbia will get another chance to become reality after Canada’s Environmental Assessment Agency agreed to a second review of the mine.

Taseko Mine’s original proposal failed the federal government’s first environment review, but the company has launched what it’s calling its New Prosperity proposal.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent instructed the agency to set up a process that will review the environmental concerns raised in the past assessment and consider the mining company’s changes.

With higher, longer-term prices for copper and gold, Taseko said it would spend an extra $300-million on the project to address the main concerns of the last environmental rejection, including the preservation of Fish Lake.

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NEWS RELEASE: Diavik [diamond mine] begins wind farm construction

03 November 2011

After several years of studying renewable energy resources, Diavik Diamond Mines Inc., operator of the Diavik Diamond Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories, is pleased to announce the start of construction of a wind farm at our mine site.

With investment from our joint venture partners, Rio Tinto and Harry Winston Diamond Corporation, approved earlier this year, and much planning completed, we have now advanced the Diavik wind farm to initial construction. Four 2.3 megawatt turbines will be constructed providing a capacity of 9.2 megawatts.

Diavik currently, relies on diesel fuel for all our energy needs. The wind farm will reduce our diesel use by approximately four million litres, about ten per cent of our total diesel consumption. Greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by approximately 12,000 tonnes, or six per cent of total emissions. By diversifying our energy mix at our mine we will offset some of the risks associated with reliance on diesel.

“The benefits of the initiative are numerous and will be realized for many years to come. 

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New Prosperity plan is environmentally sound – by Russell Hallbauer, President and CEO, Taseko Mines (Northern Miner – November 04, 2011)

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

I read the editorial submission of Chief Marilyn Baptiste, of the Xeni Gwet’in band of the Tsilhqot’in National Government (TNG), on The Northern Miner’s website on Nov. 2.  It purported to list eight reasons why Taseko Mines’s resubmitted application to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) for the New Prosperity gold-copper project in B.C. will fail.

Ms. Baptiste’s latest comments are consistent with her wholesale rejection of any constructive dialogue around New Prosperity, which nevertheless holds tremendous value regionally, provincially and nationally.

The sentiments expressed in Ms. Baptiste’s editorial do not represent the views of the vast majority of people in Williams Lake and Cariboo communities.

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Eight reasons why Taseko’s New Prosperity will fail – by Chief Marilyn Baptiste (Northern Miner – November 2, 2011)

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

Marilyn Baptiste is the elected chief of the Xeni Gwet’in band of the Tsilhqot’in First Nation, whose territory largely lies to the west of the Fraser River and Williams Lake, B.C., where Taseko Mines’ New Prosperity copper-gold project is located. See www.xeni.ca for more.

Investors hoping to cash in on Taseko Mines’ second bid to develop the Prosperity copper-gold mine (“New Prosperity”) should think back a year. At that time, despite assurances from the company and its president that the original Prosperity mine proposal would be accepted, it was soundly rejected by the federal government and the company’s share price plunged.

With New Prosperity, once again there is a proposal before the federal government’s Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) and the company’s president is saying he is confident it will be approved. And once again the federal government will have no choice but to reject it.

Here are eight reasons why the New Prosperity bid will fail:

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[Kinross Gold] Good times in the gulag – by Paul Christopher Webster (Globe and Mail – Report on Business Magazine – April, 2011)

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.

Vladimir Putin, Tye Burt and Kinross’s Gold Rush in Siberia

Looking like a luxury liner that took a wrong turn somewhere in the Pacific, the living quarters at the Kupol mine stand in surreal contrast to the surrounding moonscape of snow, ice and searing wind. Built largely in Alberta and trucked here to northeastern Russia from a port on the Arctic Ocean, the facility, which is operated by Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corp., boasts a huge gym, exercise rooms, high-speed Internet, extensive entertainment facilities and two spacious restaurants serving nearly 30 tonnes a month of remarkably palatable food.

Workers, who are flown in for four- to six-week stints from the city of Magadan, 1,200 kilometres to the south, peg their shift schedules to Sunday shashlik dinners. “I’ve never seen anything like this anywhere,” says Anatoly Orlinsky, a veteran of Russian resource development who runs Kupol’s power plant. “If this is the future for mining in my country,” he says with conviction, “it gives me hope.”

Here on Russia’s remote northeastern frontier, Kinross has secured its own private El Dorado just as gold prices head for the stratosphere. After 15 years of battling investor doubts about Russia, startling logistical improbabilities and sinister patches of resistance in a region first developed by prisoners of the Soviet gulags, Kinross has captured a prized part of Canada’s Cold War peace dividend.

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Trou Story: Digging up dirt [anti-mining] – by Jeff Heinrich (Montreal Gazette – November 3, 2011)

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

MONTREAL – The title – Trou Story, or in English, The Hole Story – is typical Richard Desjardins: a play on words, vaguely scatological, loaded with droll sarcasm. It’s the title of his latest film, made with longtime colleague Robert Monderie: a trenchant documentary about the devastation wrought by a century of mining in the Canadian Shield of northeastern Ontario and Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the filmmakers’ home turf.

The duo have been making social-commentary docs about their far-flung region since the late 1970s. In 1999, they took a whack at the forestry industry with L’erreur boréale (Forest Alert), which won a Jutra and led to the Coulombe commission inquiry into forestry management. Another Jutra followed in 2009 for Le peuple invisible (The Invisible Nation), about the plight of the Algonquin people.

Now, Desjardins and Monderie are back with Trou Story – and already, their doc is controversial.

Produced by the National Film Board and narrated by Desjardins, the film begins with a 30-minute exposé of the history of mining in the Shield and toll it’s taken on human life: Canadian soldiers killed by bullets made from Sudbury nickel that was sold to the Germans in the First World War; unsanitary conditions that led to a typhoid epidemic in the silver-mining town of Cobalt; arsenic from abandoned Abitibi gold mines that continues to seep into the water supply.

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[Kinross Gold] The gold standard for safety – by Mary Teresa Bitti (National Post – November 4, 2011)

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

 Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corp. is a $17-billion market cap company with 8,000 employees in 10 countries on four continents. Its annual gold production is about 2.7 million ounces and it has more than 100 million ounces of aggregate gold and resources. It is one of the largest gold producers in the world and is working on a series of new gold mines that will also make Kinross the fastest-growing gold company in the world.

Kinross president and CEO Tye Burt says the company’s corporate culture is the adhesive that has allowed it to operate and grow safely and successfully, and that crosses cultures and geographies to link employees together and keep them focused on the same goal.

“Our culture starts from our four core values: putting people first, outstanding corporate citizenship, high performance and rigorous financial discipline,” Mr. Burt says. “These values define our top priorities. We try to live those values every day and reward our folks accordingly.

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Asian group bids $1-billion for Grande Cache Coal – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – November 1, 2011)

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.

A team of Asian buyers is paying $1-billion for Calgary’s Grande Cache Coal Corp, betting on steady long-term demand for coal used in steel making despite a recent pullback in production amid growing global economic gloom.

China’s Winsway Coking Coal Holdings Ltd. and Japan’s Marubeni Corp. said Monday they will pay $10 a share in cash for the metallurgical coal producer, a 70-per-cent premium to the miner’s Friday closing price of $5.87 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The bid comes just weeks after Grande Cache shares hit a 52-week low of $3.22, around the same time coal prices plummeted nearly 30 per cent to $240 (U.S.) per tonne on uncertainty over slower growth in China, the world’s largest steel maker.

Grande Cache’s stock has been trading below its industry rivals in part because of its higher-cost operations in west-central Alberta. Still, analysts say the bid values the company more in line with its peers.

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A tale of two BC mining fiascos – by Rafe Mair (Rossland Telegraph – November 01, 2011)

http://rosslandtelegraph.com/

Rafe Mair was a B.C. MLA 1975 to 1981, Minister of Environment from late 1978 through 1979. Since 1981 he has been a radio talk show host, and is recognized as one of B.C.’s pre-eminent journalists.

There are two mining stories out of last week in Lotusland. For openers, let’s deal with “Prosperity” lake which, before the corporate flacks got involved, was called Fish Lake.

The short story is that this is a mine prospect held by Taseko Mines. While the Provincial government approved it, it was turned down by the feds who then gave the company time to put in a new proposal, which they did. With the speed of light the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency received the new application last February and hasn’t yet decided anything.

This delay brought a fire and brimstone editorial from the Fraser Institute’s house paper, the Vancouver Sun, which threw unsourced “facts” at us, including a promise of 71,000 jobs with 5,400 new residents for the nearby town of Williams Lake.

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Mining watchdog agency called ‘bogus PR job’ – CBC Special Report by Wendy Mesley

This is a “must watch” special news cast. It makes the image of the mining sector look bad affecting both juniors and majors inside and outside Canada. – Stan Sudol

For an eleven minute special news report by CBC report Wendy Mesley, go to the CBC website: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/10/31/mining-watchdog-agency.html

A mining watchdog agency that was supposed to hold Canadian companies accountable for their actions overseas has done little to protect communities abroad, critics say.

In October 2009, the federal government appointed a corporate social responsibility counsellor to probe complaints about Canadian companies committing abuses in developing countries.

The Toronto-based office, however, has only received two complaints in the past two years — one of which was recently dropped because the mining corporation chose not to undergo the voluntary investigation.

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Republic Of Mining named to ‘Top 10 Mining Blogs’ list by Australian guide – by John Barker (Thompson Citizen – November 1, 2011)

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

Mining IQ, a Sydney, Australia-based mining guide and international learning and communications portal, which is a division of International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC), has named Republic Of Mining (http://republicofmining.com) to its list of “Top 10 Mining Blogs,” one of only two Canadian sites to be included.

In 1973, the publishers of Industry Week magazine co-founded a company called Penton Learning Systems, which managed a consortium of more than 100 colleges and universities and assisted in the design and development of over 30,000 short courses and seminars in the fields of quality management, project management, finance and accounting, marketing management, strategic planning and implementation. IQPC was founded in 1989 and is still owned by Penton Learning Systems of Little Falls, New Jersey.

Republic of Mining is published by Stan Sudol, a Toronto-based journalist, communications consultant, mining strategist and speechwriter. Sudol picks up Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News mining stories, editorials and photos, with our permission, from time to time, usually about Vale’s Manitoba Operations.

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The West grabbing a growing share of Canada’s investment capital – by Gordon Hamilton (Vancouver Sun – October 29, 2011)

The Vancouver Sun, a broadsheet daily paper first published in 1912, has the largest circulation in the province of British Columbia.

Strong commodities markets, especially mining, pulling growing volume of M&A activity to western provinces

The Western provinces are taking a bigger share of Canadian business investment as a result of the global commodities boom, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report on mergers and acquisitions shows.

Ontario and Quebec continue to be the top investment destination, according to the report Deals Quarterly Special Feature, but the two Central Canada provinces are losing market share to the West. The report looks at merger and acquisition activity province-by-province over the last 10 years.

“There is certainly a shift, a trend,” Kristian Knibutat, PwC Canadian deals leader, said in a teleconference on the report Friday. He said the geographic shift comes as no surprise, given the “super cycle” that commodities have been experiencing over the decade.

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Bill Doyle: A passion for feeding a growing world – by Jacquie McNish (Globe and Mail – October 29, 2011)

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.

SASKATOON— Almost a year to the day after Ottawa called a halt to the bruising 100-day Potash War, its victorious general has little interest in reliving old stories from the battlefield.

“It was an experience,” Bill Doyle allows when asked about BHP Billiton’s foiled bid to acquire Canada’s potash champion, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, where he has been chief executive officer since 1999.

But what about the nationalist outcry against the deal? The duel with BHP’s Marius Kloppers, whose hostile takeover attempt thrust Potash Corp. into a global spotlight? The stinging criticisms of Mr. Doyle’s decision to make his home in Chicago? Ottawa’s dramatic, 11th-hour rejection of the takeover bid?

“A distraction,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand during our lunch at Truffles, a small bistro in downtown Saskatoon that specializes in local produce.

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