Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 488

Incoming Goldcorp CEO doesn’t expect metals rebound in 2016 – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – December 30, 2015)

January 4, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Gold’s persistent weakness isn’t over yet, according to the incoming chief of the world’s most valuable gold miner.

David Garofalo, who takes over as chief executive officer at Goldcorp Inc. in April, says the precious metal is still emerging from the end of a long period in which it benefited from interest rates that declined to near zero.

Gold, which pays no dividend, shines as a store of value when other investments also produce no yield in real, or after-inflation, terms. However, it loses lustre as competing assets begin to offer higher payouts.

“Right now, gold prices reflect the reality that real interest rates have nowhere else to go but up,” Mr. Garofalo said.

Metal price meltdown opens door for private equity to walk in – by Peter Koven (National Post – December 30, 2015)

January 4, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

No matter how you look at it, 2015 was an awful year for metal prices. But if the majority of experts are correct, 2016 is going to be worse. Maybe a lot worse.

Put simply, market sentiment for commodities has not been this bad in at least 15 years. Nearly every metal is in oversupply, and almost no one thinks China can bail the market out, as it did the last time prices crashed in 2008.

“I think the whole commodity complex has been over-hyped, overbuilt and it’s going to take years to dismantle it,” said portfolio manager John Stephenson, head of Stephenson & Co. Capital Management.

That pretty much sums up the consensus outlook.

Commentary: How to revive exploration in Manitoba – by Stephen Masson (Northern Miner – December 23, 2015)

January 4, 2016

http://www.northernminer.com/

Creation of vast parks would create “wilderness ghettos”

The opportunities related to mining and exploration are enormous in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, but mineral exploration in these two provinces is decreasing, and our industry will need to see changes if we are to expect improvement.

Across the country, although there are some exceptions such as Fission Uranium’s uranium discovery in Saskatchewan and Balmoral Resources’ nickel find in Quebec, the lack of exploration activity by junior companies has resulted in a fall-off in discovery rates.

Without discoveries, mines rapidly approaching the end of their life will not be replaced, and our once-vibrant mining camps and towns will go into decline, and new mining camps will not be founded.

Millions of people being contaminated with toxic mercury used in mines – by Greg Rasmussen (CBC News British Columbia – December 30, 2015)

January 4, 2016

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

Brandon Nichols knows first hand what it’s like to get poisoned by mercury. “I got mercury poisoning two or three times,” he told CBC news. “I got some serious headaches.”

The University of British Columbia grad student had been in South America, researching small scale gold mining operations in Ecuador and their use of mercury.

Mercury is widely used by the miners because it bonds with gold, allowing it be more easily separated from the ore hauled out of countless mines dotting the countryside.

The widespread use of the toxic liquid metal is creating a long lasting environmental hazard that starts with ore processing and travels all the way up the food chain.

Flow-through shares are a made-in-Canada innovation solution – by Richard Sutin (Globe and Mail – January 1, 2016)

January 4, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Richard Sutin is a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright in Toronto.

Canadian policy-makers have long recognized the importance of capturing a share of the innovation economy – or even better, a leadership position. And much has been written and proposed to that end. With labour markets caught in the transition from an industrial to a knowledge economy and extreme global competition, the stakes keep getting higher.

But while successful innovation calls on several factors, the greatest challenge and most important ingredient is access to sufficient risk capital.

Flow-through shares for Canadian resource exploration and development were introduced into the Income Tax Act approximately 60 years ago. While originally introduced to keep these cyclical industries going in tough times, the program became a spectacular success, positioning Canada’s capital markets as a global leader in resource finance.

Editorial: Top stories of 2015 – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – December 23, 2015)

December 24, 2015

http://www.northernminer.com/

Phew, was 2015 a tough year for miners! As we look back and tie a bow around the fourth year of the downturn in commodity prices and the mining sector, we see an industry in defensive mode, spending more time and energy reacting to harsh, global economic forces than charting their own paths forward.

In July, we saw the end of the Commodity Supercyle, as commodity prices represented by the Bloomberg Commodity Index returned to levels last seen in 2002 — or right back to where they were at the start of the much-beloved Supercycle that peaked in 2011.

(To be fair, most other industries have limped along in recession or low-growth mode since the onset of the global recession in 2008, while the mining industry gained some respite with that freaky boom in 2010–11, fuelled by a still-voracious Chinese demand for raw commodities.)

Monster rally for mining stocks – by Frik Els (Mining.com – December 23, 2015)

December 23, 2015

http://www.mining.com/

Investors returned to the metals and mining sector in a big way on Wednesday after good news from the world’s two largest economies and metals consumers.

Yesterday, Chinese leaders paved the way for a raft of measures to stimulate the country’s slowing economy while growth figures in the US, although modest came in ahead of expectations.

On the Comex market in New York copper for delivery in March climbed 1% to $2.13 a pound or just under $4,700 a tonne. The red metal is up more than 6% from a six-year low hit a month ago. The benchmark price of iron ore consolidated its rebound from near decade lows to exchange hands for $40.20 a tonne, an 8.6% advance over two weeks.

Trumbo and the Hollywood redwash – by Peter Foster (National Post – December 23, 2015)

December 23, 2015

http://business.financialpost.com/

When is Hollywood going to make a movie about the persecution of those who dare to question the “consensus” on climate change?

This admittedly outlandish thought came to mind after viewing Trumbo, which is yet another regurgitation of the fondly cherished myth of how a few brave Hollywood screenwriters dared to stand up for free speech against Congressional bullying in the 1940s. And all for nothing more than being crypto Communists.

But a similar threat of deprivation of research funds, and even unemployment, hovers over the academic community when it comes to official climate science and policy. So where are the freedom-loving film scripts?

Dominion Diamond stock surges after hedge fund pushes for overhaul – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – December 23, 2015)

December 23, 2015

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Shares of Dominion Diamond Corp. jumped on Tuesday following news that a Toronto-based hedge fund is pressing for sweeping changes at the Arctic miner.

K2 & Associates Investment Management Inc. released a letter on Monday in which it said it represented a group of investors that had collectively amassed a 5.4-per-cent stake in Dominion, the world’s third-largest producer of rough diamonds by value.

Josef Vejvoda, a portfolio manager at K2, wrote in the letter that Dominion’s share price has “suffered excessively and unnecessarily as a result of misguided policies and missed opportunities.” He pushed for a meeting with independent directors of the Toronto-based miner to discuss how to halt “the continued erosion of shareholder value.”

DIAMONDS: CPAWS very wrong about Victor mine – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – December 22, 2015)

December 23, 2015

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Remember hearing that “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”? Here is a contemporary corollary: “Especially when you cherry-pick your facts to make another look bad.”

The case in point is the report circulated by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s (CPAWS) Wildlands League. In it the organization accuses De Beers

Canada and its Victor diamond mine in northern Ontario of environmental offenses. CPAWS calls the situation a failure of self-monitoring and urges independent monitoring and reporting.

“The report is greatly misleading,” De Beers Canada’s senior external and corporate affairs manager Tom Ormsby said when contacted by CMJ.

You’re too bearish on China growth – by Frik Els (Mining.com – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.mining.com/

China’s leaders in October outlined the direction of the world’s second largest economy over the next five years.

The country’s 13th five-year plan running from 2016 – 2020 is the first one approved by Xi Jinping who led a group on “comprehensively deepening reforms” to overhaul China’s investment-led economy into one driven by services and consumption.

The communique issued in October provides only the basic frameworks of programs and policies with a more detailed plan to be made public in March. But it gave some indication that Xi and company, unnerved by slowing economic growth, decided to put their money again on investment to re-energize the sagging economy.

Fission Uranium nears landmark $82-million investment from state-owned Chinese giant CGN Mining Company Ltd – Peter Koven (National Post – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://business.financialpost.com/

Fission Uranium Corp. is closing in on a landmark deal with a Chinese company that would represent China’s first direct investment into a Canadian uranium firm.

Fission and state-owned CGN Mining Company Ltd. have signed a letter of intent for CGN to acquire a 19.9 per cent stake in Fission for $82.2 million. The two sides also plan to enter an offtake agreement in which CGN would buy uranium output from Fission’s Patterson Lake South (PLS) property in Saskatchewan.

Companies often sign letters of intent that never turn into firm deals, but Fission chief executive Dev Randhawa said it is “highly likely” this transaction will close next month. CGN announced the deal publicly on Monday, and it put the money in trust with Fission’s lawyers, he added.

Opinion: Why the gold sector should ignore price forecast – by Stephen de Jong (Vancouver Sun – December 21, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.vancouversun.com/

Stephen de Jong is CEO of Vancouver-based Integra Gold Corp.

This is the time of year when analysts roll out their economic forecasts for the New Year. For those who keep a close eye on gold prices, this can be a painful process.

It’s been another tough 12 months for the yellow metal, with prices falling for the third consecutive year — down about 10 per cent in 2015 alone. Prices touched a high in the neighbourhood of $1,300 and, as the year drew to close, they neared six-year lows around $1050.

That’s a big dive from the heady days of 2011, when gold hit over $1,900 an ounce. What made things even more difficult for the sector in 2015 was the price volatility.

No charges to be laid in Mount Polley dam breach – by Les Leyne (Victoria Times Colonist – December 22, 2015)

December 22, 2015

http://www.timescolonist.com/

Part of the report by the chief inspector of mines on the Mount Polley tailings-dam failure was devoted to “root cause analysis,” an investigative process developed to look at all the factors that go into engineering failures.

The report cites the Challenger space-shuttle catastrophe and the Three Mile Island nuclear-plant crisis as examples of multiple points of weaknesses in systems, and failures all down the line to understand them.

“Another common trait in structural or system failures over time is the cascading nature of the failure itself,” said the report. “Rarely is there a single physical failure in isolation. One event or condition will trigger or enable another.”

Editorial: Ontario gov’t criticized by Auditor General over Ring of Fire file – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – December 21, 2015)

December 21, 2015

http://www.northernminer.com/

With the Auditor General of Ontario Bonnie Lysyk newly releasing her Annual Report 2015, it’s been the Ontario government’s mismanagement of the province’s electricity generation system that has grabbed the biggest headlines across the country, but she also has a fair amount of criticism in the report on how the government has overseen mining and mineral investment in Ontario, particularly with respect to the Ring of Fire chromite camp.

Lysyk notes Ontario is Canada’s largest mineral producer, accounting for a quarter of all Canadian production, and has one of the lowest tax rates for miners, and yet the Fraser Institute’s survey of mining and exploration companies ranks Ontario ninth among Canadian provinces and territories in investment attractiveness for mineral exploration.

Some of her criticism isn’t too surprising, and reflects the problems of any large bureaucracy such as Ontario’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, which has an annual budget of $41 million and 270 full-time employees.