Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 416

Coal, ore plunge hits St. Lawrence Seaway volumes – by Eric Atkins (Globe and Mail – January 17, 2017)

January 17, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The amount of cargo sailing on the St. Lawrence Seaway has sunk to the lowest levels in seven years amid a plunge in demand for coal and iron ore, two of waterway’s main commodities.

Total freight volumes for 2016 fell by 3 per cent to 35 million tonnes, led by 10-per-cent drops in coal and 14-per-cent declines in iron ore, according to the year-end figures released by the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. on Monday morning.

The slowdown comes even as grain shipments continued their climb, and the 3,700-kilometre route enjoyed its longest shipping season since 2008, due to a mild spring that allowed ships to begin sailing on March 21.

Trudeau’s Liberals just got struck by the first shot in Canada’s carbon-tax rebellion – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – January 17, 2017)

January 17, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

During a now-notorious town hall in Peterborough, Ont., Prime Minister Trudeau last week came face to face with an issue that could become his electoral undoing — not just in Ontario, but across all of Canada.

The moment came when the Peterborough audience erupted in cheers and applause for a 54-year-old woman, Kathy Katula, who pleaded for the prime minister’s support in her battle against soaring Ontario electricity bills and the burden of living in what she described as energy poverty.

“I’m asking you, Mr. Trudeau, how do you justify to a mother of four children, three grandchildren, with physical disabilities, and working up to 15 hours a day, how is it justified for you to ask me to pay a carbon tax when I only have $65 left in my paycheque every two weeks to feed my family.”

Will the nickel boom make a new man of Manitoba? – by Robert Collins (MACLEAN’S Magazine – April 13, 1957)

January 17, 2017

http://www.macleans.ca/

It’s been a have-not province for years. Now its “worthless” north is bustling with an epic strike and staking rush. Some enthusiasts insist it’s the biggest thing since the CPR went through

Until a couple of decades ago every Canadian schoolboy was aware that the prosperity of our three prairie provinces — Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba — depended on agriculture. Given a bumper wheat crop, the prairies were rich.

Hit by drought or rust, they were poor. Then Alberta broke the mold with a series of oil strikes, and in the bonanza that followed became a fat and flamboyant Canadian Texas. Times changed in Saskatchewan too with the advent of the atomic age and the discovery of major uranium deposits.

Manitoba was left in the lurch, with a horse-and-buggy economy hitched to agriculture in the south and a desolate pile of rock in the north that yielded a modest treasure without changing the basic pattern of the province’s economy.

‘Urban mining’: UBC engineers say e-waste more lucrative than ore pulled from the ground – by Randy Shore (Vancouver Province – January 16, 2017)

January 16, 2017

http://www.theprovince.com/

Electronic waste is proving to be a far richer source of valuable metals than any ore pulled from the ground, according to mining engineers at the University of British Columbia.

PhD student Amit Kumar and professor Maria Holuszko have succeeded in “mining” copper and silver from LED lights, and they are certain that rare earth metals such as europium, cerium and lutetium can also be recovered.

Light Emitting Diodes are gaining popularity as a highly efficient alternative to incandescent and fluorescent lights and represent an increasing proportion of e-waste and a potential source of metal pollution, said Holuszko.

#DisruptMining competition dangles another karat in front of staid gold mining industry – by Rick Spence (Financial Post – January 16, 2017)

January 16, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

Back in the day, big businesses and small businesses rarely interacted. What could a small business have or know that could possibly interest multi-national know-it-alls?

Money, distribution and influence were the assets that mattered then. But today the key currency is innovation. Smaller existing companies know they must either become masters of technology and shifting markets, or they’ll become a statistic. So now we see more of them grasping for innovation expertise by partnering with startups, sponsoring incubators, and even holding hackathons. They need innovation partners with one foot in the future.

Case in point: #DisruptMining, an innovation competition designed to bring solutions to the hard-pressed mining industry. The desire for change comes from Vancouver-based Goldcorp, the world’s fourth-largest gold producer. But the catalyst is Integra Gold, a junior explorer in Vancouver.

Crown attempts to stay MiningWatch’s charges against Mount Polley – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – January 15, 2017)

January 16, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

Public Service of Canada prosecutor Alexander Clarkson announced that the Crown wants to enter a stay of proceedings in relation to MiningWatch Canada’s private prosecution against the Mount Polley Mining Corporation and the Government of British Columbia over the 2014 Mount Polley Mine tailings breach near the city of Williams Lake.

In other words, the federal government is seeking a withdrawal of the criminal charges before the NGO has the chance to present the evidence it claims to have over the spill’s damages to downstream waters and fish habitat, which would constitute a violation of the Fisheries Act .

Talking to the Williams Lake Tribune, Clarkson explained the rationale behind the Crown’s request: “The first reason is because there’s no reasonable prospect of conviction against these two parties with the materials presented to us by the complainant Mr. [Ugo] Lapointe.

The story of nickel is industrial romance writ by man in metal – by Charles Vincent (MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE – December 15, 1936)

January 16, 2017

http://www.macleans.ca/

THE CONSTRUCTION gang foreman looked down the cut where his crew was tackling the tough rock with heavy picks, getting ready to blast. The track layers were right on his heels, pushing the new Canadian Pacific Railway westward to bridge the continent. The foreman’s eye fell on one man.

“Hey, you !” he roared, “what’re ye standin’ there gapin’ at? Get busy with that pick.”

“Well, take a look at this slab of rock, boss; it’s kind of queer.” And so in 1883 nickel was uncovered at Sudbury.

It was a product that nobody wanted. When the first smelting yielded a metal which was curiously pale instead of copper red, and when analysis showed that this fault was due to the presence of nickel, men cursed it as a plague which they neither knew how to get rid of nor how to use in such large quantities. It was the copper content of the Sudbury ore on which they had set their hopes.

A tale of two western coal mining towns – by Bill Graveland (Waterloo Record – January 12, 2017)

January 13, 2017

http://www.therecord.com/

The Canadian Press – HANNA, Alta. — The hand-painted sign on a bumpy road on the east side of Hanna speaks volumes. “Hanna supports coal, cows, gas and oil,” it says bluntly. The sign includes a circle with a line through it over the words “carbon tax.”

The town of 2,700, 230 kilometres northeast of Calgary, like many rural Alberta communities, has largely lived off agriculture. But a large vein of thermal coal east of town led to the construction of the coal-fired Sheerness generating plant in the early 1980s and has provided welcome jobs and business in the region ever since.

People worry that economic boost is threatened by a new carbon levy and the provincial government’s plan to shut down coal-fired power plant by 2030 and move exclusively to natural gas, wind, solar and hydro energy instead.

Federal funding for new Tlicho all-season road a boost for Fortune’s Nico project – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – January 13, 2017)

January 13, 2017

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Federal funding for up to 25% of the construction costs for a new 97 km all-season road connecting Highway 3 to the community of Whati, in the Northwest Territories, augers well for project developer Fortune Minerals’ endeavours to secure financing for its nearby Nico cobalt/gold/bismuth/copper project.

“With cobalt and gold prices firming, and greater certainty of an all-season road, Fortune is well-positioned to secure the financing needed to begin construction of the Nico mine,” Fortune VP of finance and CFO David Massola commented Thursday.

The Tlicho all-season road (TASR) will be funded in part through the federal administered P3 Canada Fund. Procurement of the TASR – through a government of the Northwest Territories public–private partnership – will start with the release of the ‘request for qualifications’ in February, and will be followed by a ‘request for proposal’ and bids from private industry to provide combined finance and construction.

New CEO at IOC in Labrador City as company shuffles management – by Jacob Barker (CBC News Newfoundland and Labrador – January 09, 2017)

January 13, 2017

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

‘Organizational changes are an ongoing part of the business,’ a company spokesperson said

There’s been a shuffle in management at the Iron Ore Company of Canada in Labrador City. That’s according to internal documents CBC has obtained laying out “organizational changes.”

The announcement is attributed to new IOC president and CEO Clayton Walker who said he was with the company for 60 days when it was sent out on January 6th. The company’s chief operating officer, Thierry Martel, also signed off on the document.

“We are going to learn from the past and build upon our success,” the document reads. “The first step will be changing the organizational structural to allow us to better engage with our employees and manage our assets.”

Arizona shares tumble on speculation – by Salma Tarikh (Northern Miner – January 1, 2017)

January 12, 2017

http://www.northernminer.com/

Arizona Mining (TSX: AZ) shares slightly recovered on promising assays from the Taylor zinc-lead sulphide deposit at its Hermosa property, following a sharp decline after a mining publication raised concerns about the marketability of Taylor’s zinc concentrates, before sliding again.

Located 10 km from the town of Patagonia and 80 km southeast of Tucson, Ariz., the high-grade zinc deposit contains 28.3 million indicated tonnes grading 10.9% zinc equivalent and 75 million inferred tonnes at 11.1% zinc equivalent, using a 4% zinc equivalent cut-off grade. Exploration success at Taylor this year coupled with higher zinc prices have skyrocketed the company’s shares.

On Dec. 7, the stock touched a 52-week high of $3.49, up 947% from its 2015 close of 32.5¢. A day earlier the company had closed a $36-million bought deal with underwriters led by Scotia Capital, National Bank Financial, RBC Capital Markets, TD Securities and Raymond James. It sold 11.8 million shares at $3.05 apiece.

Jane Fonda comes to Alberta to inform them that oil is bad and they should get other jobs – by Tristin Hopper (National Post – January 12, 2017)

January 12, 2017

http://news.nationalpost.com/

Fort McMurrayites might have assumed the celebrity visits would stop after the city was swept first by recession, and then by wildfire. Or when the provincial government introduced a carbon tax and started phasing out coal.

And surely, with Donald Trump in the White House, even the oiliest corner of Canada would shift to the activist back burner. But no; here comes Jane Fonda.

“We don’t need new pipelines,” she told a Wednesday press conference at the University of Alberta where she also dismissed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “good-looking Liberal” who couldn’t be trusted.

[Manitoba Mining History] Flin Flon – by Jack Paterson (MACLEAN’S – OCTOBER 1, 1938)

January 16, 2017January 12, 2017

http://www.macleans.ca/

Ten years ago Flin Flon was a struggling mining camp in the wilderness; today it is Manitoba’s third city

OVER Flin Flon at 4,000. Visibility excellent. Landing now. Advise Winnipeg. Okay Lac Du Bonnet.”

A quick rattle of sign-off letters and the pilot carelessly tossed sponge-rubber earphones above the cowling. At Lac du Bonnet, 450 miles distant, a young operator of Wings, Limited, would relay the message from loudspeaker to private telephone line. In brief seconds head office would have it. Simple routine.

My mind flashed to an article I had done for Maclean’s short years back, wherein was prophesied general two-way radio for wilderness airplanes. At that time voice distance and sixty-five pounds unit weight had been the sticker. Now here was voice distance handled by a compact set of only thirty pounds, live and simple as a telephone.

Progress. Yes, but 4,000 feet below us, a jumble of wooden boxes, scattered over rocky hills plumed by smoke from a great smelter, was another herald of progress that commanded attention. Ten years! My spine tingled at thought of changes I would see.

Don’t count mining shares out yet – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – January 11, 2017)

January 11, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Mining shares aren’t the dirt-cheap bargains they were a year ago, but still have room to rise in 2017. A pick up in global growth coupled with less in the way of new production should support metal prices this year, observers say.

While nobody sees stock-price gains to match last year – when Barrick Gold Corp. doubled, Glencore PLC tripled and Teck Resources Ltd. quintupled – the sector still seems reasonably priced and could benefit from factors ranging from Trumponomics to momentum trading.

“We think 2017 should be a positive year for miners,” Jatinder Goel and other Citigroup analysts wrote in a report this week. “We believe most commodities are moving up the recovery curve,” concurred David Gagliano and his team at Bank of Montreal.

[Flin Flon, Manitoba History] By Tractor Train – by Emmett E. Kelleher ((MACLEAN’S Magazine – March 1, 1930)

January 16, 2017January 11, 2017

http://www.macleans.ca/

The story of a rail-less railroad which moved 23,000 tons of freight into the heart of a wilderness “on time”

IT WAS past midnight—the weather several degrees below zero. The snowmobile sped along a newly cut road in northern Saskatchewan. A night of inky blackness. Trees rushing by like black spectres of a lost army. With the hum of the motor and the whistle of the skis on the glazed snow, I was almost dozing to sleep when we rounded a curve and the swaying of the car roused me.

I blinked through the frosted windshield at a pair of strange lights that appeared suddenly up ahead. High, extremely bright, and set wide apart, they looked like the eyes of some ancient mammal that had returned to its northland home. The nearer the lights approached, the more deeply fascinated I became.

The orbs of dazzling white loomed right in front of us. Our driver swung his car off the trail. The machine ploughed easily through a three-foot snowdrift. A sterner and a mightier roar of machinery filled the northerh murk. Peering through the window I caught a glimpse of the largest tractor I had ever seen. Coupled behind were six loaded sleighs as large as circus wagons. At the rear end was a caboose, the warm yellow glow from its window contrasting vividly in my mind with the frigidity of the night.