Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 473

PDAC 2016: How lithium has become a rare winner amid the commodity slaughter – by Peter Koven (Financial Post – March 8, 2016)

March 8, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

The commodity slaughter of the last five years has left almost no metal unscathed. Almost.

There is a notable exception. Little-known lithium has been a solid performer for the last several years, and has simply skyrocketed in recent months due to expectations of soaring demand from electric vehicles and market distortions in China.

“You could argue it’s done better than anything,” said Jon Hykawy, president of Stormcrow Capital Ltd., which tracks the lithium market. That said, he noted the sky-high prices coming out of China don’t tell the whole story.

The lithium market is tiny in the grand scheme of things, with total demand of roughly 180,000 to 200,000 tonnes a year.

[Plan Nord] Québec’s Incentive – by Brian Burton (Lexpert Special Edition – Mining – March 2016)

March 7, 2016

http://lexpert.ca/

Québec is investing in mining infrastructure as part of its “Plan Nord” but the payoff is not immediate

Québec’s Plan Nord reads a lot like the recipe for stone soup. Like the hungry travellers of legend, who offer up a “magic” stone to cajole villagers into providing the ingredients for a community meal, Premier Philippe Couillard has tossed iron ore, assorted other minerals and $2.7 billion worth of infrastructure funding into the pot. Now he’s waiting to see whether the private sector will thicken the broth with mining and energy projects worth $50 billion.

If it works, Plan Nord will deliver electricity, roads, rail lines, ports, airports, schools, hospitals and thousands of mining jobs to the vast area north of Québec’s 49th parallel, while generating billions in royalties and taxes for government coffers. The 20-year plan covers a sparsely developed area of 1.2 million square kilometres, twice the size of France, that’s laden with iron, gold, diamonds, copper, nickel, zinc, uranium and rare earth minerals.

In Couillard’s favour, lower energy prices and a weaker Canadian dollar help to reduce project costs, and Northern Québec also contains enormous hydro-electric potential. Importantly, the monopoly provincial electric utility, Hydro Québec, is owned by the provincial government.

Mining and First Nations collaboration thriving in Saskatchewan – by Ravina Bains and Taylor Jackson (Troy Media – March 7, 2016)

March 7, 2016

Ravina Bains is the associate director of the Centre for Aboriginal Policy Studies and Taylor Jackson is a policy analyst in the Centre for Natural Resources at the Fraser Institute.

Land certainty and positive partnerships with First Nations make the province one of the most attractive jurisdictions in the world for mining investment

VANCOUVER, B.C./ Troy Media/ – We often hear about First Nation communities in Canada opposing natural resource projects. Whether it’s an LNG plant in British Columbia or mining projects in eastern Canada, the news is full of First Nation opposition to resource development. However, the one jurisdiction that may be the exception to that rule is the land of living skies, Saskatchewan.

In Saskatchewan there are countless examples of First Nations communities working in partnership with mining companies to bring projects to fruition. In fact, there are more than 45 mining partnerships between First Nations and resource companies in Saskatchewan.

For miners, a sense of optimism returns – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – March 7, 2016)

March 7, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The mining industry’s annual bash roared into life on Sunday against an unfamiliar backdrop – a market where metal prices are no longer falling and share values in the sector are actually climbing.

After four years of brutal, grinding decline, the beleaguered industry is finally enjoying a spurt of good news. Gold prices have sprinted to their best start to a year since 1980, while even grimy industrial laggards such as copper and iron ore have displayed twitches of life in recent weeks.

There is, to be sure, a contradiction in these trends – gold tends to be most popular during times of economic stress, while base metals thrive when growth is strong and sure – but nobody at the opening day of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in Toronto was in a mood to question the spate of upbeat developments.

Chile will not block foreign sale of lithium producer SQM: minister – by Rod Nickel (Reuters U.S. – March 7, 2016)

March 7, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO – Chile would not block a foreign takeover of lithium and potash producer SQM SQMa.SN, Mining Minister Aurora Williams said on Sunday.

A stake in Chile-based SQM is up for grabs after an indirect shareholder, Oro Blanco ORO.SN, invited buyers in December to make an offer for its entire holding in Pampa Calichera CALa.SN.

Oro Blanco holds a little over 88 percent of Pampa Calichera, which in turn owns around 20 percent of SQM, a major producer of battery ingredient lithium and an important supplier of iodine and potash.

“Those are decisions to be made specifically by the company,” Williams said in an interview through an interpreter in Toronto during the annual Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention.

Sentiment muted at PDAC conference despite signs of life in mining industry – by Peter Koven (Financial Post – March 7, 2016)

March 7, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Some optimism is starting to creep back into the mining sector — but not much. Sentiment is fairly muted so far at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference, which kicked off Sunday in Toronto. The conference, which is the world’s biggest gathering of mining professionals, serves as a good barometer for the state of the industry, and this year’s show is a reminder that things are pretty grim.

he commodity boom is long over, and metal prices as a whole remain extremely weak due to oversupply and concerns about China’s economy. Most junior miners can’t raise a penny of capital, and share prices are, in many cases, lower than they were before metal prices started to rise in the early 2000s.

“We, as an industry, wasted the opportunity offered by the largest and biggest boom in commodity prices,” Mark Bristow, the chief executive of Randgold Resources Ltd., told the audience, citing the industry’s very poor spending decisions and billions of dollars of writedowns.

Unexpected headwinds keep commodity prices lower for longer – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 7, 2016)

March 7, 2016

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – A faster-than-expected slowdown in demand for commodities in 2015 has placed a damper on broad-based commodity price recoveries in 2016, compounded by lacklustre global economic growth and record inventories, which will take time to work down as production cutbacks and mine closures take effect.

Analysts representing the world’s top market intelligence firms were talking about commodities and the market outlook in Toronto on Sunday, on the first day of the yearly Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s convention – the largest mining show on earth.

Kicking off the afternoon session was Randgold Resources chief executive Mark Bristow, who outlined future strategic paths for mining companies in today’s new environment. He examined the challenges inherent in reconciling the industry’s essentially long-term nature with the market’s short-term demands and explained that the definition of growth was not immutable but changed from stakeholder to stakeholder and at different points in the price cycle.

Paying with gold possible again – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – March 5, 2016)

March 7, 2016

http://www.thestar.com/

Toronto company BitGold makes it possible for you to pay for anything from coffee to a movie with gold on prepaid Mastercard.

Gold is on a tear lately, and that’s been nice for a new Toronto company that has figured out a way for people to store bullion bars in their savings, or even spend it to make purchases.

BitGold (not to be confused with digital currency bitcoin) offers international savings and payment services that allow customers and businesses to make payments and hold savings with the precious metal, which was used as currency as far back as 5,000 years ago.

At the moment, the upstart Adelaide St. firm offers the only gold-backed, prepaid Mastercard in the world when you open an account, which is free. Payments are converted into local funds when they are made.

[Pipelines] The problem with Quebec’s injunction – by Jen Gerson (National Post – March 7, 2016)

March 7, 2016

http://news.nationalpost.com/

Write about pipeline politics for long enough and it’s easy to come to dislike everybody. Especially among those who dislike oil and the oilsands on principle, TransCanada, which wants to build a pipeline from Alberta to Saint John, N.B., makes an easy villain.

According to the government of Quebec, the company was asked to submit its plans for the pipeline, dubbed Energy East. Since it failed to do so, according to Quebec Environment Minister David Heurtel, the province was obliged to threaten an injunction to force the company to follow its environmental laws.

TransCanada said it was totally taken aback by the threat. Especially considering the company hasn’t even submitted the paperwork for Energy East to the National Energy Board yet. A spokesman for the company told The Canadian Press that it thought the issue had been resolved back in early 2015, with both sides agreeing to an alternative process.

A plan for Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine has passed a major milestone – by Steve Karnowski (Vancouver Province – March 3, 2016)

March 4, 2016

http://www.theprovince.com/

ASSOCIATED PRESS-MINNEAPOLIS – A plan for Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine passed a major milestone Thursday with the Department of Natural Resources approving the project’s final environmental review, meaning the company can now start pursuing the long list of permits it needs to move forward.

DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr said he determined that the 3,500-page environmental impact statement for the proposed PolyMet mine in northeastern Minnesota meets all the legal requirements. If the project is built as described, he said, “we will meet standards … intended to protect public health and the environment.”

The approval lets PolyMet Mining Corp. begin applying for the more than 20 permits it needs to build the mine near Babbitt and processing operations six miles away near Hoyt Lakes, at the site of the former LTV Steel taconite plant that has been closed since 2001.

A farewell to gold: Canada winds down its holdings – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – March 4, 2016)

March 4, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s golden age is over – at least in a manner of speaking. The latest report on the country’s official international reserves, published Thursday, shows zero gold on the ledger.

The government has been winding down its holdings of the precious metal for years, but this is the first time it has declared itself to be effectively gold-free since the exchange fund account was established in July, 1935.

Other countries still maintain significant holdings. The United States, for instance, holds 8,133.5 tonnes of gold, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the World Gold Council.

Michael Den Tandt: We need an east-west pipeline, and Trudeau should say so – by Michael Den Tandt (National Post – March 4, 2016)

March 4, 2016

http://news.nationalpost.com/

There is a way the economically vital Energy East pipeline gets built; one that requires time, patience, forbearance, a willingness to consider other points of view, a collective sense of national responsibility, a … oh never mind. We’re doomed. Prepare ye the straw bale house with composting toilet.

Let’s squeeze on our re-imagining caps and visualize, for a moment, how this might work out.

We begin by reminding ourselves that completion of a transnational oil pipeline is of vital strategic interest to every Canadian. The Conference Board of Canada pulled together the relevant data in a voluminous report in 2012, called Fuel for Thought: The Economic Benefits of Oil Sands Developments for Canada’s Regions. In the years since I have not heard or read of any persuasive argument to contradict either the report’s data or its central conclusions.

Premiers ready to work with Trudeau on climate, but wary of carbon tax – by Ian Bailey and Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – March 4, 2016)

March 4, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VANCOUVER — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won agreement from the premiers on a broad strategy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and build Canada’s clean economy, but could not gather enough support for a national minimum carbon price.

In a first ministers’ summit on Thursday, the Prime Minister and premiers agreed that additional action is needed to meet and exceed Canada’s international commitment to reduce GHGs by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

The Vancouver summit fulfilled a Liberal election promise to hold a first ministers’ meeting on global warming within 90 days of the Paris climate conference, in which 196 countries concluded an agreement aimed at holding global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

Lukas Lundin our Mining Person of the Year for 2015 – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

http://www.northernminer.com/

The sage investing advice to “buy low and sell high” is a simple concept, but exceedingly hard to pull off in real life over and over again. Our Mining Person of the Year for 2015, mining executive Lukas Lundin, has repeatedly bought low and sold high throughout his career in many commodities and regions, and has accomplished the equally challenging corollary of building and growing companies during industry downturns.

Born in 1958, Lukas Lundin has led a quintessential cosmopolitan life, with much of his childhood spent in Sweden and Switzerland, followed by his earning an engineering degree from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in 1981.

In 1982, Mr. Lundin headed International Petroleum Corp.’s oil and gas operations and was based in Dubai from 1990 to 1995.

‘Canada failed terribly, the provinces failed terribly,’ Chiefs disappointed after climate talks with PM, Premiers – by Brandi Morin (APTN National News – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

http://aptn.ca/news/

VANCOUVER — Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adams stormed out of the meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada’s premiers and Indigenous leaders on climate change in Vancouver Wednesday because he said it fell to shambles.

“I think Canada’s in a crisis and it ain’t going to get any better now. Canada failed terribly, the provinces failed terribly in regards to addressing this issue,” said an infuriated Adam.

According to Adam the meeting didn’t include any talks of taking care of mother earth, instead the focus was placed on economic development and transitioning to a green economy.