Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 417

‘We don’t give a damn’: Anti-oil activists step up opposition as honeymoon with Trudeau ends – by Claudia Cattaneo (Financial Post – January 11, 2017)

January 11, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

On Tuesday, Jane Fonda was in the oilsands to agitate against new pipelines supported by Alberta’s left-leaning NDP government and approved by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; more aboriginal lawsuits were flying in Vancouver over Trudeau’s approval of the Petronas LNG project; and in Toronto, environmental activists were scoffing at his efforts to reform the National Energy Board.

Clearly, the honeymoon is over between opponents of oil and gas projects and Canadian governments that hoped to win their approval by cranking up environmental regulations and carbon costs, even at the expense of the economy.

So much for Canada’s ambitious climate leadership program, sold to Canadians on the promise that it would satisfy critics and re-habilitate Canada’s reputation as a responsible energy producer.

Which begs the question: If there is no gain for the pain, why bother?

2017 to be a positive year for mining sector following strong 2016: Citi analysts – by Sunny Freeman (Financial Post – January 10, 2017)

January 10, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

The mining sector will enjoy a positive year of growth in 2017 following a strong performance in 2016, an industry analysis by Citi suggested Monday.

Mining stocks will have a strong 2017, thanks to industry-wide trends toward increased free cash flow, upward earnings momentum and the potential to return excess capital to shareholders, Citi said.

However, it added, they are unlikely to see the same percentage increases in share prices as they did in 2016. The odds of mining overperforming the rest of the market are weak. Last year’s strong mining and commodities performance follows five straight years of underperformance.

World Bank on a Trump economy and commodities – by Frik Els (Mining.com – January 10, 2017)

January 10, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

A pillar of president-elect Trump’s economic plan is fiscal stimulus in the form of tax cuts and $500 billion-plus of infrastructure spending.

Trump’s victory sparked a rally in the copper price which is seen as a bellwether for metals and industry as a whole thanks to its widespread use in construction, the power sector, manufacturing and transportation.

The World Bank’s outlook for the world economy in 2017 released on Tuesday includes a look at the effect accelerating growth in the US could have in the rest of the world and on the commodities sector.

[Prolific Flin Flon-Snow Lake Greenstone Belt] Rockcliff expands  presence in Manitoba – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – October 27, 2016)

January 10, 2017

While it may not be apparent from its share price, which has ranged between 1.5¢ and 16¢ over the last year, Rockcliff Copper (TSXV: RCU) has quietly expanded its grip on Manitoba’s Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt, with recent option deals on two of the mining camp’s highest-grade metal deposits.

In September, the junior explorer signed an agreement with a prospector to earn 100% of the Laguna gold property, which hosts a former high-grade gold mine, 20 km southeast of Snow Lake and Hudbay Minerals’ (TSX: HBM; NYSE: HBM) 2,150-tonne-per-day gold mill facility.

The deposit was mined intermittently between 1916 and 1939 — producing more than 60,000 oz. gold from 101,000 tonnes averaging 20.57 grams gold per tonne — and there has been virtually no exploration done there in the last 70 years.

Encanto Potash Corp. one step closer to financing $3B mine on Sask. First Nation – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – January 6, 2017)

January 9, 2017

http://thestarphoenix.com/

A junior mining company with plans to build a potash mine on a reserve northeast of Regina says two new 20-year agreements to sell a total of seven million tonnes of potash annually bring it one step closer to financing and building the massive facility.

The agreements, known as offtakes, with “bankable” India-based firms should help Encanto Potash Corp. secure the $3 billion it needs to build the mine on Muskowekwan First Nation, said the Vancouver-based company’s director of corporate development.

“We think that with this offtake, we can get our corporate financing,” Gary Deathe said, adding that while no junior mining company has successfully financed a potash operation into production, that is “100 per cent” Encanto’s plan.

Industry and indigenous communities let the sun in on the shared problem of diesel – by Sunny Freeman (Financial Post – January 7, 2017)

January 9, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

One of Chris Angeconeb’s first jobs was documenting diesel spills near schools, health clinics and airports on northwestern Ontario reserves for his Lac Seul First Nation.

Today, 25 years later, as vice-president of junior miner AurCrest Gold Inc., he’s trying to forge bonds between his company and nearby indigenous communities over a shared goal: ending their reliance on diesel.

Using diesel energy means companies and residents alike are susceptible to blackouts due to shortages as well as hazardous leaks and spills. The lack of reliability, volatile pricing and cost of hauling the fuel, often via ice roads or planes, in addition to the increasing viability of alternatives, has made getting off diesel a priority for both miners and remote communities.

De Beers abandons diamond search in northern Saskatchewan – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – December 26, 2016)

January 5, 2017

http://thestarphoenix.com/

The world’s largest diamond mining company says it is walking away from its search for the precious stones on a 43,000-acre property in northern Saskatchewan after several “targets” turned out to be magnetic minerals mixed with organic materials.

De Beers Canada Inc. started looking for kimberlite — a volcanic rock famous for containing diamonds — north of the decommissioned Cluff Lake uranium mine in June after optioning the property from Vancouver-based CanAlaska Uranium Ltd.

On Dec. 23, the companies said in a news release that De Beers was returning 100 per cent of the project to CanAlaska after drilling seven targets and concluding that all 85 targets on the property were related to the same magnetic minerals.

Seventeen of top 100 CEO salaries in 2015 were in the mining industry – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – January 4, 2017)

January 5, 2017

A study on executive compensation by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the 100 highest paid CEOS working at companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2015 earned the average annual Canadian wage before noon on Jan. 3, the first working day of that year.

“Total compensation for Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs in 2015 hit a historic high, registering at $9.5 million—193 times the average industrial wage in Canada,” Hugh Mackenzie, the study’s author writes, noting that the average earnings rate for Canadians in that year was $49,510.

In addition, the average earnings of Canada’s corporate top 100 jumped by 178% between 1998 and 2015, the economist pointed out, or from $3.39 million per year in 1998 to $9.47 million in 2015. “Public outrage over the CEO pay gap hasn’t curbed corporate boards’ enthusiasm for lining the bank accounts of their executives,” Mackenzie writes.

Learn from asbestos – and do more to protect Canadians – by Will Amos and David R. Boyd (Ottawa Citizen -January 4, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://ottawacitizen.com/

The story of asbestos is a cautionary, disturbing and timely tale. The recent announcement that Canada will enact a comprehensive ban by 2018 is a decision that will save lives and prevent painful diseases caused by exposure to this deadly substance.

Banning asbestos is an important step towards fulfilling the fundamental right of all Canadians to live in a healthy environment. It also demonstrates that we finally have a federal government willing to make decisions based on scientific evidence.

To be clear: the decision comes decades late. Thousands of Canadians have already died from mesothelioma, asbestosis and lung cancer. Thousands more will suffer the same fate in the coming years. Asbestos is far and away the leading occupational killer, costing Canada billions of dollars annually.

Challenge 2017: ‘One company, one mine’ could kick off radical return to gold mining’s golden age – by Sunny Freeman (Financial Post – January 5, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

Ian Ball, the 35-year-old chief executive of Abitibi Royalties Inc. with a reputation for being a disruptor in an aging industry, has a radical — if not novel — thesis on how to reinvigorate excitement for gold mining: a return to the days of “one company, one mine.”

In other words, Ball, who first bought gold stocks with his allowance at the age of five and became president of McEwen Mining Inc. when he was 31, yearns for the golden days of mining.

“You look back to the great fortunes that have been made in Canada, it’s always been one mine per company: It was Goldstrike: Barrick; Red Lake: Goldcorp; LaRonde: Agnico Eagle,” he said. “When they started diversifying was when the returns started to go down.”

Two decades after closure of Yukon’s Faro mine, a cleanup plan takes shape – by Justin Giovannetti (Globe and Mail – January 4, 2017)

January 4, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

FARO, YUKON — The Yukon’s abandoned Faro mine is a 25-square-kilometre moonscape, where deep pits filled with millions of tonnes of toxic waste are contained by substandard dams, and mountains of rubble tower in the background.

What was once the world’s largest open-pit zinc mine is one of Canada’s costliest environmental liabilities, according to the federal government, a toxic blight that has yet to be cleaned up after nearly two decades.

“We hardly talk about it, but Faro is a sleeping giant. The amount of money we’re spending is astronomical,” said Lewis Rifkind, who has kept an eye on the Faro project for years as part of the Yukon Conservation Society. Government spending has served only to attempt to keep the blight at bay, but now, after 14 years, Ottawa is close to finalizing its proposed plan to clean up the site.

Ontario’s plan: destroy jobs, save the planet – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – January 4, 2017)

January 4, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Here in clean, green Ontario, where the ambitions of our government know no bounds, a bright new year has dawned. Gasoline is likely to rise by 4.3 cents a litre. Your hydro bill is going up. You’ll pay more for natural gas, too.

But don’t feel blue. You are helping save the planet. All of these higher costs are part of the government’s new cap-and-trade scheme, a vast multibillion-dollar enterprise that is designed to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by redistributing tons of money to big emitters in California and subsidy-seekers here at home.

Unfortunately, the timing is terrible – especially for an increasing number of small- and medium-sized business owners, who can’t figure out how to make a living here any more.

Tumbler Ridge to ring in new year with return of mining jobs – by Andrew Kurjata (CBC News B.C. – December 29, 2016)

January 4, 2017

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

Second coal mine restarting prompts hiring of 220 more people

Ami Strang was working as a lab technician at the Wolverine coal mine in Tumbler Ridge when it was shut down in April 2014. “I moved back in with my parents, I put all my stuff back in storage,” she said. She later found work in Fort McMurray, but it involved being away from home for long stretches of time.

“Luckily for me I’m single and don’t have any kids,” she said. “I know a lot of families here whose dads are gone to camp and aren’t home very often. So it was very hard on the community.”

Strang was one of more than 700 Tumbler Ridge residents to lose their jobs in 2014 and 2015 as dropping demand for coal led to a series of mine closures in the community of just under 3,000 people. “We went to work one day and found out we weren’t working,” Strang recalled. “It was pretty rough.”

Glencore back in the good books of Wall Street – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – December 31, 2016)

January 3, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

In the late summer of 2015, Glencore was evidently sized up by the hedge funds as a potential Lehman Bros.

Debt at the world’s biggest commodities trader, and one of the biggest miners, was way too high, at almost $30-billion (U.S.). Prices for copper and other metals were sinking. The situation became critical when South African investment firm Investec on Sept. 28 of last year said Glencore’s equity value “could evaporate” if commodity prices did not rise and CEO Ivan Glasenberg did not implement a “substantial restructuring.”

Much to the delight of the hedge funds, which had been shorting the shares with alacrity, Glencore fell 29 per cent the next day, hitting an all-time low of 67 pence on the London Stock Exchange – 87 per cent below their 2011 initial public offering price of 530 pence. They were even more delighted by Mr. Glasenberg’s curious inaction. Typically hard charging, he seemed to be resisting a deleveraging exercise that could restore confidence in the company.

Bre-X tale rich with Hollywood drama – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – December 30, 2016)

January 3, 2017

https://www.thestar.com/

Nearly two decades later, the gold-digging investment fraud gets the silver-screen treatment.

It’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre meets Wall Street! How could it not be a movie? That was the husband speaking, lo these many years ago now. Certainly the component parts were all there. For atmospherics: the steam heat of the Indonesian jungle, replete with tigers and cobras and a gator infested river.

Greed? The muscle-bound tactics of some of the largest gold mining companies on the planet would fit that bill, their actions adorned by a cadre of bedazzled brokers and enabling analysts. Corruption? The Suharto regime was rich in the stuff. Intrigue? Surely the surprise helicopter exit of a geologist — a 250-metre plunge into a tropical rainforest — would tweak a viewer’s interest.