Twitter

Canadian/International Media Resource Articles

PRECIOUS-Gold heads for biggest quarterly loss on record – by Jan Harvey (Reuters U.S. – June 26, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) – Gold fell to its lowest in almost three years on Wednesday, putting it on course for a record quarterly loss, as U.S. economic data increased fears the Federal Reserve will soon end ultra-loose monetary policy.

Prices could slide further – some investors saying below $1,000 per ounce – while there is little potential for data, market trends or economic developments in the United States or Europe to reverse an accelerating investor move out of gold.

Spot gold tumbled to its lowest since August 2010 at $1,223.54 an ounce and was down 3.8 percent at $1,227.86 an ounce at 1032 GMT. U.S. gold futures for August delivery were down $47.60 at $1,227.90, having hit a low of $1,223.20.

Strong gains in U.S. orders for durable goods, the largest annual rise in house prices in seven years and rising consumer confidence fuelled speculation the Fed would rein in its $85 billion monthly bond-buying programme, which had helped push gold prices to record highs in recent years.

“We bought gold for two reasons – because we were worried about the inflationary impact of policy and because we thought the financial system was going to fall apart,” Sean Corrigan, chief investment strategist at Diapason Commodities Management, said.

Read more

Vancouver mining firm Barkerville admits big error in British Columbia field’s gold estimate – by Peter Koven (Vancouver Sun – June 25, 2013)

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

Frank Callaghan admits it: telling investors his company held 10.6 million ounces of contained gold last year was a big mistake. “I’ve learned that lesson. Not a nice way to learn it by the way, but I did,” the chief executive of Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. said.

Almost a year ago, Barkerville, a small junior mining company, stunned the mining community by stating its Cow Mountain project in British Columbia had an indicated resource of 10.6 million ounces of gold, and could hold up to 90 million ounces. Barkerville shares soared even though numerous experts thought the numbers were too good to be true.

One of the biggest skeptics was the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC). The regulator promptly cease traded the stock and voiced many concerns about how the data was compiled.

That put pressure on both Barkerville and Peter George, the independent geologist who calculated the resource. To address the BCSC’s concerns, Barkerville hired two consulting firms (Snowden Mining Industry Consultants and Apex Geoscience) to work with Mr. George on an updated resource estimate.

It took a long time, but they have finally finished their work. The new numbers are significantly lower, but in Mr. Callaghan’s view they prove Mr. George was on the right track.

Read more

Canaccord likens the late 90s downturn to ongoing junior dump – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – June 25, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Canaccord turns back the clock to look at dark times past for the junior sector, finding similarities between today’s market decline and the 1990s.

HALIFAX, NS (MINEWEB) – Canaccord Genuity casts its gaze back on junior sector downturns past to find context in the current, now two-year long rout in junior equities in its most recent Junior Mining Weekly report. As has been noted in these pages, that means skipping over the quick 2008-2009 financial crisis, when juniors rose about as quickly as they fell, to the crumbling junior market in the late 1990s.

“The drop in the TSX Venture harkens back to the 1995-2000 period where it fell (70-75%) from peak to trough over a plus 40-month time frame,” Canaccord noted, referring to the TSX Venture’s precursor, the Vancouver Stock Exchange. Canaccord notes the Venture has so far dropped about 65 percent in 29 months since it started going south, in serious, in 2011. This is more drawn out that the 2008-2009 crash and in profile reminds Canaccord of the late nineties downturn.

Adding some context here Cannacord draws on a veritable list of fear factors that some may rather have forgotten: “This period enveloped the Asian financial crisis (1997), which included Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, the U.S. dot-com technology bubble (1997-2000), the LongTerm Capital Management hedge fund bailout (1998), Russian debt default (1997-1998) and the Brazilian financial crisis (1994-1999), not to mention the Bre-X Minerals scandal (1996-1997) that tainted investors’ confidence in the junior mining sector.”

Read more

Obama buys more wiggle room on Keystone decision – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – June 26, 2013)

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

In announcing his plan to restrain climate change Tuesday, United States President Barack Obama effectively named his price for approving the Keystone XL pipeline: no net increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

The surprise reference to the Canadian project was made in a speech at Washington’s Georgetown University, where he announced long-expected mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by operators of power plants, the biggest single source in the U.S., while continuing to promote green energy.

“This does not mean we are going to suddenly stop producing fossil fuels,” Mr. Obama added. “But our energy strategy must be about more than just producing more oil. And by the way, it’s certainly got to be more than just building one pipeline.

“I know there has been, for example, a lot of controversy around the proposal to build the pipeline, the Keystone pipeline, that would carry oil from Canadian tar sands down to refineries in the Gulf and the State Department is going through the final stages of evaluating the proposal. That’s how it’s always been done.

“But I do want to be clear. Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.

Read more

Oh, Canada: How America’s friendly northern neighbour became a rogue, reckless petrostate – by Andrew Nikiforuk (Foreign Policy Magazine – July/August 2013)

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

Andrew Nikiforuk is contributing editor to the Tyee, a Canadian online newspaper, and author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.

For decades, the world has thought of Canada as America’s friendly northern neighbor — a responsible, earnest, if somewhat boring, land of hockey fans and single-payer health care. On the big issues, it has long played the global Boy Scout, reliably providing moral leadership on everything from ozone protection to land-mine eradication to gay rights. The late novelist Douglas Adams once quipped that if the United States often behaved like a belligerent teenage boy, Canada was an intelligent woman in her mid-30s. Basically, Canada has been the United States — not as it is, but as it should be.

But a dark secret lurks in the northern forests. Over the last decade, Canada has not so quietly become an international mining center and a rogue petrostate. It’s no longer America’s better half, but a dystopian vision of the continent’s energy-soaked future.

That’s right: The good neighbor has banked its economy on the cursed elixir of political dysfunction — oil. Flush with visions of becoming a global energy superpower, Canada’s government has taken up with pipeline evangelists, petroleum bullies, and climate change skeptics. Turns out the Boy Scout’s not just hooked on junk crude — he’s become a pusher. And that’s not even the worst of it.

Read more

Cossacks Ramp Up Pressure on [nickel] Mining Firm After Riot – (RIA Novosti – June 25, 2013)

http://en.ria.ru/

MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) – A representative of a Cossack organization said that a mining company whose allegedly environmentally disastrous operations incited hundreds of locals to riot in central Russia has a month to stop the project or face the consequences, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported Tuesday.

“We reserve the right to campaign against nickel exploration by any legal means,” Valery Davydov was cited as saying.
“And let them keep in mind that if they so much as insert a shovel into the ground, the entire region will explode,” he said, adding that the decision was endorsed by eight Cossack organizations.

The Cossacks, an ethno-social group in Eastern Europe known for their social conservatism and pre-revolutionary military exploits, were repressed under the Soviets for their loyalty to the tsar. Today the group is showing a revival, regaining prominence in Russian public life and sometimes performing vigilante police duties.

The 13-month-long standoff over a prospective nickel mine in the Voronezh Region exploded last weekend, when a crowd of several hundred stormed the premises of a geological exploration party and torched cars, construction trailers and drilling rigs.

Read more

Miner calls for end to Australian class war – by John McCarthy (Brisbaine Courier-Mail – June 25, 2013)

http://www.couriermail.com.au/business

ANGLOAMERICAN has called for the end of class warfare and for more vision from governments to revive Australia’s global business and repair its reputation

New chief executive Mark Cutifani said Australia’s reputation had been badly damaged by the debate over mining tax and the Government’s initiation of class warfare. That debate was sparked by attacks on the mining industry by people such as Gina Rinehart and his comments will add fire to the internal power struggle in the Labor Government.

Mr Cutifani said people in Europe and Asia were concerned about Australians brawling with each other, rather than debating the issues. “That is something they say they haven’t seen for 20 or 30 years,” Mr Cutifani said.

He would tell a Minerals Council of Australia forum in Canberra tomorrow that governments had not spent the revenue from the mining industry wisely. “There is a lack of vision, but it’s even worse than that,” he said. “It worries me that we have been fighting each other, rather than working together.

“The class warfare thing has done incredible damage,” Mr Cutifani said. “I am amazed by how many people who are observing us remark on how we are fighting each other, rather than just our normal robust debate.”

Read more

Barrick plans board changes after ‘huge wake-up call’ from investors – by Jacquie McNish (Globe and Mail – June 25, 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.

Barrick Gold Corp. plans to overhaul its board of directors in the wake of a backlash from powerful shareholders. Two of Barrick’s independent directors, Donald Carty and Robert Franklin, recently met or telephoned officials from eight major Canadian pension funds that spearheaded a revolt by shareholders complaining about lavish compensation practices.

More than 85 per cent of Barrick’s shareholders signalled in a non-binding vote in April that they opposed a $17-million (U.S.) paycheque for the company’s new vice-chairman John Thornton and multimillion-dollar payments to company founder Peter Munk and director Brian Mulroney.

According to people familiar with the meetings, Mr. Carty, a Dallas-based director with Virgin America and Porter Airlines Inc. described the vote as “a huge wake-up call” about the need for better governance at Barrick.

The directors told the pension funds the board has launched a search for independent directors with an emphasis on executives with mining operating experience. It is expected that some of Barrick’s current directors will be replaced but the number of departures is unclear.

Read more

Scientific curiosity fuels growth – by Carol Goar (Toronto Star – June 20, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Peter Howitt, a transplanted Canadian at an Ivy League American university, proposes a sensible science policy for Ottawa.

Heartsick scientists have lobbied, pleaded and rallied Canadians, but the prime minister’s resolve is unshakable. The National Research Council (NRC), with its proud history of scientific breakthroughs — from canola to the electric wheelchair — must become a business-directed agency focusing on commercial innovation.

But basic science can still thrive Canada, says Peter Howitt, an expert on technological change, economic growth and national productivity. In fact, the professor emeritus at Brown University — a transplanted Canadian — regards Stephen Harper’s move as a step forward, one that could lead to a badly needed reorganization of the way Ottawa fosters and disseminates leading-edge research.

Howitt has just written a paper for the C.D. Howe Institute, From Curiosity to Wealth Creation, showing how Canada can use Harper’s decision as a jumping-off point to modernize its underperforming, resource-dominated, economy.

His plan may be too bold for the Harper government and Canada’s tight-fisted corporate leaders. But it is economically sensible and scientifically sound. It proposes a four-step transformation.

Read more

Barrick Gold slashes 100 corporate jobs, mostly in Toronto – by Dana Flavelle (Toronto Star – June 25, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Company cuts 30 per cent of head office jobs as gold prices sinks.

As the price of gold continues to lose its lustre, some of the biggest miners in the world are feeling the strain. Barrick Gold Inc. is cutting about 100 jobs, mostly at its Toronto headquarters, the company confirmed Monday.

Meanwhile, Newcrest Mining Ltd., in Australia, wrote down the value of its mines by as much as $5.5 billion (U.S.), the biggest one-time charge in gold mining history. Global miners spent $195 billion buying new assets in the past decade as gold prices soared. But the precious metal has been sinking on talk of the end of low interest rates.

Goldman Sachs Inc. has cut its year-end price forecast for gold to $1,300 (U.S.) an ounce from $1,435. The spot price of gold slipped $12 to trade at $1,287 in New York Monday.

Gold is down 33 per cent from its peak of $1,921 in September 2011, with much of the losses coming since January. That’s been bad new for gold miners.

Read more

The state of mining in South America – an overview – by Keith Campbell (MiningWeekly.com – June 21, 2013)

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

South America: home of the greatest, most alluring, most deadly of mining legends – the myth of El Dorado, the golden one. Over the past 500 years, the con-tinent’s mineral riches, real and imagined, have stimulated amazing feats of courage, daring and endurance, conquest, looting, terrible atrocities and appalling oppression.

From the Victorian era on, mining also resulted in what are still breath-taking engineering feats, such as railways through the mighty Andes mountains, complete with chasm-spanning bridges and impressive tunnels. Mining has helped promote at least some economic and infrastructural development in a number of countries, although this has tended to be uneven.

The continent of South America is the fourth largest continent but is composed of just 12 countries (plus the French territory of Guiana on the mainland and the UK self- governing dependency of the Falklands Islands in the South Atlantic). These countries are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.

As a result, the continent possesses some of the geographically largest countries in the world, including the fifth biggest (Brazil), the eighth (Argentina), the 20th (Peru) and the 26th (Colombia) – South Africa ranks 25th. Bolivia, which looks quite small on a map of South America, is actually the 28th-largest country in the world.

Read more

Newfoundland: Out of gas – by Tom Adams (National Post – June 25, 2013)

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

Tom Adams is a Toronto-based energy blogger and consultant.

To understand the scale of the province’s lost gas opportunity, look to Angola at the forefront of LNG market

As North America’s newly abundant natural gas-driven energy renaissance builds, one of the last regions out of gas is Newfoundland & Labrador. Although the province is blessed with abundant proven off-shore gas resources on the Grand Banks and good potential for on-shore gas from ongoing oil exploration, none of that gas will get delivered to Islanders any time soon.

The earliest the province is likely to see any off-shore gas reaching some market is at best 12 years from now according to a preliminary proposal floated by Husky Oil, an off-shore operator. Husky says it is thinking of starting studies on gas development in 2016 at the earliest. One way to understand the scale of the province’s lost opportunity is to compare Newfoundland & Labrador with another jurisdiction economically dependent on its off-shore petroleum resources — the impoverished but now rapidly advancing sub-saharan nation of Angola.

Last week, Angola, working with Chevron Corp. and others, shipped its first load of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to market. LNG development has provided the impetus to build a large infrastructure to pipe its raw gas ashore.

Read more

South Africans worried Nelson Mandela’s health more dire than officials saying – by Matthew Fisher (National Post – June 25, 2013)

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

PRETORIA — With virtually no fresh information about the precarious state of Nelson Mandela’s health for four days, South Africans Tuesday feared his condition could be even worse than officially acknowledged.

“There are just so many rumours and nobody will tell us anything,” said Kgopotso Nkoe, a law student at Pretoria University. “We know nothing and it is frustrating. We want to know because we love him as a man who chose peace over revenge and because he did so much for our people.”

Ms. Nkoe and her friend, Faith Sithole, had come to the Mediclinic Heart Hospital to learn more than what the country had been told in three terse bulletins since Saturday, when Mr. Mandela was rushed to hospital in the wee hours.

As of late Tuesday, all that had been officially announced was South Africa’s revered first black president, the man who vanquished apartheid, was in intensive care in “serious, but stable condition.”

Despite the dearth of official news or perhaps because of it, the frail 94-year-old statesman’s anxious countrymen had been speculating — often wildly — about his health since he was hospitalized for the fourth time in seven months for urgent treatment for a recurring lung infection.

Read more

Questions linger as Northern Gateway hearings come to close – Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – June 25, 2013)

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

TERRACE, B.C. – There were many times in the past when the people on the banks of the Skeena River wanted to be a part of something bigger.

They were swept up in gold rushes, logging rushes and settlement rushes. The town of Terrace was formed in the early 1900s, the result of a campaign for a station along the Grand Trunk railway by settlers eager to be connected to the rest of country. During World War I, the area’s Sitka spruce was used to build airplanes. During the Second World War, Terrace housed a major army base to guard the Northern Pacific Coast against a Japanese invasion.

Opportunity is knocking again today. It’s coming from Alberta, which is seeking permission to build the Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline from Edmonton to nearby Kitimat to boost Canada’s oil trade with Asia. But opposition has been mounting since it was first proposed a decade ago.

Much effort and money has been spent to change views. Epic public hearings by the National Energy Board (NEB) and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) that weighed all aspects and all views wound down here on Monday, bringing to an end an 18-month trek on the proposed right of way.

Read more

Kathleen Wynne backing away from McGuinty’s Ontario Green Energy Act – (National Post – June 24, 2013)

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

It’s always instructive to see how a government frames an announcement that is backtracking on one of its own initiatives. Conveniently for the Ontario Liberals, they are amassing considerable experience in this regard.

So, when the government on Thursday dropped the news that it was restructuring its 2010 wind-power deal with Samsung, it presented it in terms of extended job commitments and savings to electricity ratepayers. Samsung was guaranteeing jobs until 2016, instead of 2015, and the government was now only committing to buy $6-billion of Samsung’s renewable power at well above market rates, down from $9.7-billion in the original contract. Hooray for savings!

Those extended job commitments, though, are a result of Samsung’s having missed targets in the original contract; it now has more time to meet them. And that reduction in spending? It comes as Samsung, which won the original contract absent a competition, agrees to drop its own investment in the province from $7-billion to $5-billion, with projects expected to generate 1,369 megawatts of energy, down steeply from 2,500 megawatts in the first deal.

Ontario will be paying less, and receiving less. This is probably not the result of a particularly hard-fought negotiation. What’s more notable are the things that the announcement from Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli did not mention, for example the 16,000 jobs that the original contract was said to create when it was announced in 2010.

Read more