Innu nations in Quebec on verge of historic land settlement that would give them greater autonomy (National Post – February 7, 2016)

http://news.nationalpost.com/

After decades of a David versus Goliath struggle with the federal government, three small Innu nations are on the verge of securing a land claim settlement unlike any other in Canadian history.

The treaty would see the First Nations and Quebec governments co-manage a territory 16 times larger than the island of Montreal — setting aside certain areas for conservation and opening others up to mining partnerships with the Innu.

It would also guarantee royalties of at least three per cent for the group on all development within their vast traditional territory — centred in Quebec’s Saguenay and Côte Nord regions. The Innu would retain exclusive hunting, fishing and logging rights on most of the 8,000-square-kilometre land mass.

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Nickel price crushed by weight of ghost stocks – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – February 8, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – Another day, another landmark low for the nickel price.

London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month nickel traded down to $7,900 per ton on Monday morning. Forget the troughs of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. Nickel is now trading at levels last seen in April 2003.

And there may be worse to come.

Might the price of nickel fall below that of copper, which is currently trading on the LME around $4,600 per ton? “Not an inconceivable prospect by any means,” according to one analyst, Leon Westgate of ICBC Standard Bank. (“Commodities Weekly”, Feb. 4, 2016).

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Tahoe Resources-Lake Shore Gold’s $945M deal brings potential benefits for both sides – by Peter Kovin (National Post – February 9, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

TORONTO – Tahoe Resources Inc.’s friendly $945 million deal to buy Lake Shore Gold Corp. is being viewed as a logical transaction that addresses challenges faced by both companies.

Tahoe gets to diversify into Canada, increase its growth profile and reduce exposure to Guatemala, a very challenging jurisdiction. Lake Shore, meanwhile, can develop its projects quickly without worrying about diluting shareholders or taking on more debt.

“We believe this transaction brings strong mutual benefits to our respective shareholders and establishes the premier low-cost precious metals producer in the Americas,” Tahoe chief executive Kevin McArthur claimed on a conference call.

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Investors’ rush to gold, bonds, an overreaction to temporary problems – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – February 9, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Growing fears of a new financial crisis are driving a stampede to safety by investors spooked about what lies ahead for the global economy.

Stock markets around the world tumbled Monday as money poured into what people perceive as safe assets – primarily government bonds and gold. The hardest-hit stocks were those of global banks, the companies most vulnerable if world growth were to abruptly slow and asset prices were to sour.

Meanwhile, gold jumped, touching $1,200 (U.S.) an ounce for the first time since June, and the yield on Canada’s benchmark 10-year government bond fell to its lowest level on record as investors sought havens from the economic storm. A cluster of concerns has combined to chase people out of riskier assets.

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Why ‘flow-through shares’ are a flop – by Kevin Libin (National Post – February 9, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

You’d be hard pressed to find bigger fans of “flow-through shares” than the Bay Street lawyers and bankers using them to finance roughly a half-billion dollars in mining and energy deals every year.

But they’re hardly alone. Once dubbed by the Financial Post as “Canada’s quirky tax innovation,” flow-through shares were given high praise recently, in another national news outlet, by Richard Sutin, senior partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, who called them a “spectacular success, positioning Canada’s capital markets as a global leader in resource finance.”

And in its “Action Plan for Prosperity” a few years ago, the Coalition for Action on Innovation in Canada, chaired by Liberal big-thinker John Manley, urged policy-makers to build on the “success” of the flow-through share program — which “has helped make Canada a global leader in resource financing” — and expand them to other industries.

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Cameco posts lower earnings amid “really tough” global market: CEO – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – February 8, 2016)

http://thestarphoenix.com/

Five years after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the uranium market has not recovered as quickly as expected, forcing Cameco Corporation to “learn to live in a different paradigm,” according to its president and CEO.

“I think everybody underestimated the reaction of Japan,” Tim Gitzel said, noting that while the Japanese government abandoned its plan to phase out nuclear power entirely, its stringent regulatory regime has allowed for just three reactor restarts to date. “We thought that would happen a lot faster,” Gitzel said.

The “really tough” global market, combined with factors such as the devalued Canadian dollar, resulted in Cameco posting a $10 million, or $0.03 per share, loss in the fourth quarter, bringing its yearly earnings to $65 million, or $0.16 per share — a 65 per cent slide from the $185 million it made in 2014.

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Value of U.S. metal mine production drops 15% – by Andrew Topf (Mining.com – February 7, 2016)

http://www.mining.com/

The USGS also says the States is now 100% dependent on other countries for 19 minerals

The United States earned less from its mines in 2015 and became more reliant on outside sources for critical metals, according to a new report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The data comes from statistics gathered by the USGS on about 90 mineral commodities considered essential for the U.S. economy and national security.

Concerns have been raised for years that the United States is too dependent on other countries, namely China, for rare earth elements deemed essential for its aerospace and electronics industries, leading to suggestions that the U.S. create a strategic minerals reserve.

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Arizona Mining shows upside at Taylor (Northern Miner – February 5, 2016)

http://www.northernminer.com/

VANCOUVER — When it comes to opportunities in the junior space that tick the prerequisite boxes for mineral development, there aren’t many that can match Arizona Mining (TSX: AZ) and its emerging Taylor zinc-lead-silver deposit roughly 80 km due southeast of Tucson.

The company features an accomplished management team and strong financial backing, and it completed a promising drill campaign last year that hints at the potential for a great mining opportunity driven by high grades and a clear permitting path.

Arizona is the brainchild of chairman — and well-known corporate finance figure — Richard Warke, who founded Augusta Resource and Ventana Gold. The company previously operated under the Wildcat Silver banner before shifting it’s identify in mid-2015 to signal a new focus on the Taylor discovery, which is part of the 140 sq. km Hermosa project.

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Miner Tahoe Resources adds Ontario gold mines with Lake Shore buy (Reuters U.S. – February 8, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

Miner Tahoe Resources Inc (TAHO.N) (THO.TO) said it would buy Canada’s Lake Shore Gold Corp (LSG.TO) for about C$751 million ($540 million) to add low-cost gold mines in Ontario to its portfolio.

Precious metals miners have been clamping down on costs amid a sharp decline in the price of bullion that has weighed on exploration spending, capital to sustain operations and dividends.

Spot gold prices XAU= have fallen nearly 40 percent from its peak of $1,920.30 an ounce in September 2011. The deal comes after Goldcorp Inc (G.TO) sold its 25.6 percent stake in Tahoe for C$998.5 million last June.

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[Pipelines] Will it be Paris or Calgary, Mr. Trudeau? – by Rex Murphy (National Post – February 8, 2016)

http://news.nationalpost.com/

What will it be, Paris or Calgary? That is the question.

Are the commitments made so energetically and with such a show of elan in Paris superior to the need to give support and relief to the oil industry in Calgary? Indeed, the commitments made in Paris run counter to the needs of Calgary (let Calgary here stand for all Alberta).

One cannot make huge pledges to reduce carbon emissions one week and wax all enthusiastic about giving federal support to pipelines intended to carry Alberta oil the next. The two agendas are simply not compatible.

Thus, the debate over pipelines is not about the pipelines themselves, as there is really only one question that a debate over pipelines has to answer: will they be safe?

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Debt risks mount as Canada’s base metal miners sink deep in the hole – by Peter Koven (Financial Post – February 6, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

As one base metals mining executive after another took the stage last week at the TD Securities Mining Conference in Toronto, they knew almost everyone in the audience had the same question: What are you going to do about the balance sheet?

Right now, it’s the only topic that matters. The crash in copper, nickel and zinc prices, which began in 2011 but picked up steam in the past eight months, has torn into miners’ revenues and raised serious concerns about their ability to repay debt.

Canada’s biggest base metal miners assumed they would enjoy long-term metal prices far above current levels when they borrowed hundreds of millions (in some cases, billions) of dollars to build and acquire mines. Now the grim reality of the situation is taking hold, and companies need to take action to avoid disaster.

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Mild winter blocks access to ice roads in remote Ontario reserves – by Julien Gignac (Globe and Mail – February 6, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Many remote First Nations communities in Northern Ontario are suffering the effects of one of the mildest winters on record: Roughly 60 per cent of ice roads connecting dozens of reserves to southern municipalities have yet to open. Most of those that have opened can only sustain light traffic – snowmobiles or small, half-ton trucks.

Frigid temperatures are welcomed in the region, as ice roads function as lifelines to otherwise landlocked First Nations, expediting the transportation of such supplies as diesel fuel, building materials and food. Sometimes community members themselves make the trip to Thunder Bay to stock up on essentials. Without winter roads, northern communities have been forced to ship supplies by air, a costly endeavour.

“Nothing’s moving,” said Darrell Morgan, president of Morgan Fuels, which is a top distributor of fuel in the Northern Ontario region. “The lack of ice is a tough go. We supply some communities with fuel through air freight, but it’s extremely expensive.”

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Hydro-Québec on a research quest for the ‘God Battery’ – by Bertrand Marotte (Globe and Mail – February 6, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VARENNES, QUE. — Karim Zaghib powers up a Chevy Volt electric hybrid for a tour of his domain: the energy storage and conversion facilities at Hydro-Québec’s sprawling two-square-kilometre research campus in Varennes, a Montreal exoburb on the South Shore of the St. Lawrence River.

Mr. Zaghib is Hydro-Québec’s point man on a high-stakes strategic mission to develop the superbattery of the future that will propel the much-vaunted all-electric car into the realm of commercial viability and consumer receptivity.

The veteran electro-chemist is a self-described idealist who dreams of spearheading the big technological breakthrough in electric-vehicle battery technology, committed to making a major contribution to a cleaner, more liveable planet.

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The Gates-backed Canadian building a better battery – by Alec Scott (Globe and Mail – June 23, 2015)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Donald Sadoway is the Mr. Chips, the Mr. Holland, the Miss Jean Brodie of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The elfin 65-year-old from Oshawa, Ontario, is the sort of teacher who alums discuss fondly at reunions. Remember the class on the chemistry of Champagne, when he wore a tuxedo and served flutes of bubbly?

Or how he blasted Handel’s Water Music at the start of the class on how hydrogen bonds with oxygen?

Sadoway has won almost every teaching award they have at MIT, some of them multiple times. But he also explodes that nasty old distinction between teachers and doers. He is an inventor with 19 patents, and he’s about to launch a battery that could change the world.

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It’s time to buy mining stocks, says Ross Beaty – by Lesley Stokes (Northern Miner – February 5, 2016)

http://www.northernminer.com/

VANCOUVER — Mining financier and entrepreneur Ross Beaty told an audience at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference in late January that it’s a “phenomenal” time to buy resource stocks.

“The tide is way out and it’s a buyer’s market everywhere across the board from oil, mining, currencies, and real estate,” Beaty said. “Every so often cycles get to the point where they’re at today and it’s just hard to lose. It’s a wonderful time to be in the market.”

He admits the vast majority of his money has always gone into companies he either manages or is otherwise involved with, but in recent years, he’s been beefing up his stake elsewhere in the junior resource sector.

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