Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 435

How investors should play the proposed Agrium-Potash Corp. merger – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – September 15, 2016)

September 15, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The $36-billion (U.S.) combination of Agrium Inc. and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. has been touted as a “merger of equals,” but shareholders of each company are still scratching their heads about how they might benefit. The deal offers no premium, but a promised half billion dollars in combined savings at a time when companies are looking to cut costs as potash prices remain depressed due to global oversupply.

Shares in each company have fallen about 6 per cent since the merger was officially announced on Sept. 12, suggesting market skepticism. At least one Agrium shareholder says the company could face a backlash from investors since the deal exposes them to more volatile fertilizer markets.

“I think the market is speaking on behalf of everyone,” John Goldsmith, deputy head of equities at Toronto-based Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc., an Agrium shareholder, told Bloomberg News.

Mega-merger mania is back. We’ve forgotten all its woes – by Tim Kiladze (Globe and Mail – September 15, 2016)

September 15, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Looking back on the global financial crisis, we often blame mortgage fraud, reckless bankers and lazy regulators for the ruin, omitting that we’re partly to blame for believing empty promises of housing and stock market returns.

Let’s be sure to remember that during the current merger boom.

In 2015, the total value of mergers and acquisitions set a global record, reaching $4.7-trillion (U.S.). Many Canadians failed to notice, because our biggest buyers were domestic pension funds and Brookfield Asset Management, which inked most of their transactions abroad. But they’re now paying attention as blue-chip Canadian companies, such as our biggest banks and pipeline companies, strike deals – the total values of which keep on soaring.

Since Labour Day, Enbridge announced a $37-billion (Canadian) deal to buy Spectra Energy Corp., and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. and Agrium Corp. have proposed a merger in a transaction worth $37-billion (U.S.).

Oshawa’s future at play in talks with General Motors – by Vanessa Lu (Toronto Star – September 15, 2016)

September 15, 2016

https://www.thestar.com/

Unifor has threatened to strike at midnight next Monday unless it wins a commitment from the company for more future work in Oshawa.

For auto workers in Oshawa, it’s do-or-die time. In a city that was once synonymous with General Motors, there’s no promise of any future auto assembly work beyond 2019, so there are real fears production could shut down altogether.

That’s why Unifor, formerly the Canadian Auto Workers union, has threatened to strike at midnight next Monday, unless it wins a commitment from the company for more future work in Oshawa. “If we don’t nail it now, we’re not going to nail it done, ever,” said Jerry Dias, the union’s national president. “If they are planning on closing Oshawa, then we’re going to have a strike.”

GM officials have long insisted that it won’t talk about new products in Canada until a collective agreement is signed first. That’s why the union picked General Motors over Ford or Fiat Chrysler as its target to negotiate a contract that will hopefully set a pattern for the other two automakers.

‘They are absolutely huge:’ Wolves attack [uranium miners] in Northern Saskatchewan as animals lose fear of humans – by Tristin Hopper (National Post – September 15, 2016)

September 15, 2016

http://news.nationalpost.com/

From the dining hall, it sounded like a fight — a midnight scuffle between feuding workers at the Cigar Lake uranium mine.

A security guard hopped into her vehicle to break it up, and for a split second, her headlights illuminated a scene that was anything but a fist fight: a wolf with its jaws around the neck of a 26-year-old kitchen worker. The truck’s arrival spooked the wolf away and the security guard, who has declined media interviews, sprang out to provide first aid.

An adult gray wolf can easily bite through even the thickest moose bones; a fleshy human neck provides little obstacle. A few more seconds and the worker likely would have been dead instead of recuperating in hospital. “A single wolf basically pounced on him,” was what a mine representative told the press.

Wolf attacks aren’t supposed to happen this way, but wolves don’t exactly act as expected in Northern Saskatchewan.

[Churchill, Manitoba] Port in a Storm – by Brian Hutchinson (National Post – September 15, 2016)

September 15, 2016

http://news.nationalpost.com/

People in Churchill believed only weather could defeat them. They were wrong.

CHURCHILL, Man. — Bobby deMeulles sits at his usual perch, next to a window at the Reef coffee shop, keeping an eye on Churchill’s main drag, and beyond that, the town’s old train station and the tracks.

This time of year, railway cars filled with prairie wheat should be rolling past the station for the port of Churchill, 500 metres down the line on Hudson Bay. There are no grain cars today.

There haven’t been any all summer, because Canada’s only deep-water Arctic port — the only port of consequence along 162,000 kilometres of northern coastline — has suspended all grain shipments, a decision made by its Denver-based owner, OmniTRAX Inc. DeMeulles figured something was up, long before the company announced last month it was halting port operations, save for the movement of local freight to small communities further along the Hudson Bay coastline, mostly in Nunavut.

‘Not the wild west anymore’: Yukon opposition weighs in on Klondike mining disputes – by Paul Tukker (CBC News North – September 14, 2016)

September 14, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

NDP, Liberals says government must help find resolution

Yukon opposition politicians are blaming the territorial government for dropping the ball when it comes to resolving disputes over mining claims.

The NDP and Liberals were reacting to a controversy in Dawson City, where two placer miners are attempting to evict members of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation from their homes. The miners say the homes are on part of eight placer mining claims they own.

The First Nation is also involved in another dispute over mining claims on Dawson’s Dome Road. “These conflicts are a direct consequence of inaction by the Yukon Party government over the last 14 years,” said NDP leader Liz Hanson. She says the government has failed to update mining legislation to reflect current land claim agreements.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Canada threatened most often by oil, gas and mining – by Samuel Danzon-Chambaud (CBC News Calgary – September 13, 2016)

September 14, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/

Physical resource extraction accounts for 31% of threats against natural and cultural sites since 1985

Mining and oil and gas extraction account for nearly a third of threats to UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Canada over the last 30 years, according to the international organization.

A total of 75 threats against nine designated natural and cultural sites have been documented by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s State of Conservation database since 1985.

Of those, 23 belong to a category called “physical resource extraction,” which consists of mining and oil and gas operations.The next most common threat types are management and institutional factors (13), service infrastructure (10), transportation infrastructure (8) and buildings and development (7).

Underground mining equipment market to reach US$30.5 billion by 2023 – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – September 13, 2016)

September 14, 2016

http://www.mining.com/

Global underground mining equipment will reach US$30.5 billion by 2023 according to a market research study published last month by Credence Research.

Based on what the firm calls a “comprehensive analysis of market influencing and inhibiting factors related to underground mining equipment industry,” the report concludes that growing urbanization in the Asia Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America is driving up the demand for coal and coal energy.

Coal mining, in turn, is the main user of underground equipment. Only in 2015, this particular sector accounted for 40% of revenue share in the global underground mining equipment market. The sector has also been affected by China’s decision to increase its coal import volumes by 52% over the past year, which has impacted both supply and demand, as well as prices.

[PORT RADIUM’S ELDORADO] THE MINE THAT SHOOK THE WORLD – by Ronald A. Keith (MACLEAN’S Magazine – November 15, 1945)

September 14, 2016

http://www.macleans.ca/

A vivid first-hand report on Eldorado, the supersecret mine in the Arctic, which produces the raw material for atomic bombs

IT WAS cold and wet and eternally midnight. Our helmet lamps were bleared with rock dust as they flickered along the cavern walls, tracing bright patterns of ore stain against the black velvet of the perpetual darkness. The icy breath of ventilating air reminded us that this was no ordinary hard-rock mine but a cave under the floor of Great Bear Lake, within 26 miles of the Arctic Circle.

Our oilskins were beaded with moisture; everywhere was the drip of seepage, the silent flow of water underfoot, the trickle of subterranean streams and the clean cool smell of wet rock. Suddenly, our tunnel halted against a rugged face of pre-Cambrian rock. There, jet-black and glistening in the torchlight, was a broad vein of ore. “That” said Joe Belec, “is it!”

We stood there in the Eldorado mine, 1,000 ft. below the surface of the largest subarctic lake in the world, and gazed thoughtfully at what might have been a seam of coal, but what we knew to be the black magic of pitchblende, the source of uranium, the earth-quaking substance of atomic power.

Crude prices stage retreat as slow economies weigh on demand – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – September 14, 2016)

September 14, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

OTTAWA — Prospects for the long-sought rebalancing of oil markets are rapidly fading, sending crude prices and share prices tumbling Tuesday.

In another bleak forecast for the battered industry, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said on Tuesday that a weakened global economy has sharply reduced the growth in crude demand, while producers in the Middle East continue to pump oil at record levels.

As a result, oil markets won’t come back into balance until the end of 2017 unless there are unanticipated outages like last spring’s fires that shut more than one million barrels a day of production from the oil sands, said the IEA, which advises rich countries on energy policy.

GLOBE AND MAIL EDITORIAL: Ontario’s new electricity policy: History repeats as farce (September 14, 2016)

September 14, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A century ago, when Sir Adam Beck created the public utility that went
on to become Ontario Hydro, his slogan was, “Power at Cost.” A century
later, Ontario’s motto might as well be, “artificially costly power,
priced below cost, with taxpayers picking up the difference.” What a mess.

Karl Marx said that history repeats: first as tragedy, then as farce. In Ontario, the history of failed energy policy repeats – first as farce, and then as more farce.

Premier Kathleen Wynne faces an election in a little over a year and a half, and one of the main issues dogging the Liberal government is the price of electricity. Thanks to policy choices that the government itself seems incapable of unwinding, electricity bills have been on an upward tear for a decade.

Many voters are furious. And so the Wynne government devoted the heart of its Throne Speech this week to a plan to lower the price of electricity. Not the cost of electricity, however. Just the sticker price.

[Ontario electricity rates] Wynne’s way: Rob the poor, help the rich – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – September 13, 2016)

September 13, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Wynne government loves to bask in the virtues of “sustainable” energy.
But its deranged pursuit of green energy at any cost – dating back to
the days when Gerald Butts, Justin Trudeau’s BFF, was cutting his teeth
at Queen’s Park – is not economically sustainable at all.

Electricity prices in Ontario are rising faster than anywhere else
in North America. Many experts, including Bank of Montreal chief
economist Doug Porter, warn that soaring hydro rates are among the
biggest threats to the provincial economy.

Out in rural Ontario, far away from the lush grounds of Queen’s Park, a crisis is brewing. Electricity rates have soared so high that many people can’t afford to pay their hydro bills. Local charities have a name for it: energy poverty. The problem is so bad that they’ve set up relief funds to help protect families from the threat of disconnection.

No wonder Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s Premier, is running for cover. The Liberal government’s energy policy has been a disaster for lower-income citizens, especially in rural areas, where delivery charges are significantly higher.

Saskatchewan Premier backs potash merger, but farmers are wary – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – September 13, 2016)

September 13, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. and Agrium Inc. merger has won tentative support from Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, even as farmers complained that it would reduce competition and increase fertilizer prices.

Mr. Wall, who helped stop Anglo-Australian BHP Billiton’s bid for Potash Corp. in 2010, sees benefits flowing to his province, especially given that the merged company would be headquartered in Saskatoon.

“Here is a chance to solidify two existing companies into one larger Canadian champion headquartered in Saskatoon,” he told reporters. “I am glad we fought the fight we did five or six years ago. Without it … there wouldn’t be a Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan and there wouldn’t be an opportunity to create an even larger, more significant entity headquartered in our province.”

Ontario Liberals try to fix the problems they created with more decidedly liberal solutions – by Matt Gurney (National Post – September 13, 2016)

September 13, 2016

http://news.nationalpost.com/

Ontario’s nearly 13-year-old Liberal government announced a slate of new, purportedly consumer-friendly initiatives Monday. In her speech from the throne, the lieutenant governor said Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government would create 100,000 child-care spaces, and drop the provincial share of the harmonized goods and sales tax from home hydro bills.

There would also be targeted incentives aimed at lowering the punishing hydro bills paid by manufacturers — there are still some left, amazingly — and rural residents.

The throne speech, which followed the Liberals’ recent byelection loss of a Toronto riding to the Progressive Conservatives, is clearly aimed at addressing the discontent many Ontarians feel with their government, particularly over basic pocketbook issues. The tone of the speech, on the whole, had a “we-feel-your-pain” vibe. It’s the government, after all. And it’s here to help.

It takes two to Tango: DeBeers seeks Attawapiskat consent for new diamond mine (CBC News Sudbury – September 13, 2016)

September 13, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Tango deposit could extend operations past 2018 when Victor Mine is expected to shut down

DeBeers Canada says it won’t even look at expanding its diamond mining operations near Attawapiskat without the blessing of the community. After nearly a decade in production, the company is running out of diamonds at its Victor Mine in the James Bay lowlands.

DeBeers Canada sees some potential in a nearby deposit called Tango, with some estimates saying it could extend the life of the Attawapiskat operation by 67 years. But before it does further exploration, chief executive Kim Truter wants the consent of the people of Attawapiskat, even though it’s only legally required to consult them.

“We are really trying to partner in a different way with the community, so they genuinely feel involved in the planning and the thinking and the decision making,” says Truter. It’s pointless us actually operating in these first nations areas if we don’t have local support.”