Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 507

Editorial: Signs of life in copper market – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – September 9, 2015)

September 10, 2015

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

Glencore’s surprise decision to cut back its copper production coupled with stronger-than-expected Chinese copper import data have had a salutary effect on copper prices, which jumped 5% on Sept. 8 to record their biggest one-day percentage gain in two and a half years to US$2.43 per lb. at press time.

That’s a 9.5% rise from the near seven-year low of US$2.22 per lb. seen a little over two weeks earlier on Aug. 24, 2015. For context, that’s still well above the recessionary low of just US$1.26 per lb. on Dec. 24, 2008, but nowhere near the sweet, sweet record-high price of US$4.60 per lb. on Feb. 14, 2011. In some ways, copper’s price gyrations have mirrored that of crude oil, which saw sudden price gains of 27% over three days in late August on lower U.S. production estimates, and expectations of supply cuts from other producing countries.

In light of what it calls the “challenging environment for commodities,” Glencore has had its subsidiaries Katanga Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mopani Copper Mines in Zambia launch a major review of their copper-mining businesses, and suspend production at both Katanga and Mopani operations for 18 months until finishing expansion and upgrade projects that will continue to get funding, including the whole-ore leach at Katanga and the new shafts and concentrator at Mopani.

Want off China’s market roller coaster? Look to the U.S. – by Joe Chidley (National Post – September 10, 2015)

September 10, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Stock market lingoists will tell you that the 29th element on the periodic table is dubbed “Dr. Copper.” That’s not because the malleable metal is good for your health, but because its predictive capabilities are allegedly so strong that it should hold a PhD in economics.

As goes the global economy, so goes the price of copper, which is used in just about every manufactured good that human beings make these days. As a result, you might think this week’s rally in copper is a sign that the global economy has at last turned a corner.

You might be wrong.

Until the recent rally, the good doctor had spent the summer looking more like a patient on life support than a healer. Copper futures on the Comex in New York had been hit hard over continuing concerns about the slowing economy in China, which consumes about 40 per cent of global supply, and eventually reached US$2.25 a pound on August 26, the lowest level this decade.

Since then, however, copper has staged a remarkable rebound. The most dramatic signs of life came early this week. On Tuesday, futures rose more than five per cent, the biggest one-day gain in years.

Is Ecuadorian ‘justice’ Canada’s business? – by Peter Foster (National Post – September 9, 2015)

September 9, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Last Friday’s decision by the Supreme Court to allow “Ecuadorian villagers” to pursue a US$9.5-billion claim against California-based oil giant Chevron in Ontario stresses that the merits — or otherwise — of the case were never at issue.

The decision was about jurisdiction, not justice. But since the case has been dubbed “the legal fraud of the century,” a cynic might suggest that that the decision was analogous to the Supremes being primarily concerned about whether an individual who engaged in a holdup had a proper gun licence.

The nine judges do make reference in their unanimous decision to a devastating U.S. district court finding that the Ecuadorian claim was rooted in massive fraud perpetrated by Steve Donziger, the American lawyer driving the case. But, wrote Justice Clement Gascon, “That decision, and the underlying allegations of fraud are not before this Court.” Undoubtedly those allegations, and the U.S. decision, will be a very big part of the proceedings when the case returns to Ontario.

Certainly, global trade and investment depends on the rule of law, and, according to Justice Gascon, “Canadian courts, like many others, have adopted a generous and liberal approach to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.”

How Chevron’s courtroom loss in Ontario against Ecuador villagers was just the end of the beginning – by Drew Hasselback (National Post – September 9, 2015)

September 9, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Chevron Corp.’s Ecuador case is unfolding in many jurisdictions around the world, but Ontario is emerging as one of the most important.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada decision gave plaintiffs from Ecuador a green light to ask an Ontario judge to recognize and enforce in Canada a US$9.5 billion judgment debt. The plaintiffs obtained the judgment against Chevron in an Ecuador court back in 2011.

This was a big win for the Ecuador plaintiffs. Yet buried deep within the Supreme Court judgment is recognition that the enforcement action will be no slam dunk. Indeed, the Supreme Court has merely set the stage for a huge legal showdown between the company and the Ecuadorian plaintiffs in an Ontario courtroom.

In a separate U.S. proceeding, Chevron convinced a U.S. federal judge that the Ecuador ruling was an “egregious fraud.” That fraud finding will be tested yet again in Ontario as the Canadian enforcement proceeding continues.

The Supreme Court dealt only with a question of whether the case was properly brought in Ontario. The court did not endorse the underlying Ecuadorian legal case.

Nova Construction hopes to open Junction Road coal mine – by Richard Cuthbertson (CBC News Nova Scotia – September 9, 2015)

September 9, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/

Town once famous for mines could start supplying Nova Scotia Power

An industry that was once the economic lifeblood of Springhill, N.S., could soon return to the town, as an Antigonish company seeks the green light to sample 10,000 tonnes of coal starting as soon as early next year.

Springhill Coal Mines Ltd., a subsidiary of Nova Construction, wants to dig an open pit to pluck the coal from land it owns in the Junction Road area and ship it to Trenton to test as fuel in Nova Scotia Power’s generating station.

“We’re still a province that burns a lot of coal per year to generate electricity,” Nova Construction President Donald Chisholm told CBC News. “For a number of years to come, that’s probably going to remain the same.”

Springhill Coal Mines submitted an application to Nova Scotia Environment on July 27. At this point, the company is only applying to drill for test amounts and any move to open a full scale open pit mine would be subject to a fresh application and full environmental assessment.

Opinion: Environment exposes political hypocrisy – by Harry Sterling (Vancouver Sun – September 8, 2015)

September 9, 2015

http://www.vancouversun.com/

Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, was the Department of External Affairs’ representative to the International Joint Commission from 1981-83, representing the interests and views of the Canadian government on trans-boundary issues.

It seems politicians everywhere have a tendency to become somewhat schizophrenic when confronting sensitive issues that many of their constituents may strongly support or vehemently oppose.

One such increasingly contentious subject is the environment and exploitation of its resources, an issue politicians in both Canada and the United States increasingly find dividing members of their respective societies.

Such divisions can be especially sharp and heated when involving proposed economic development of untapped resources, especially if it involves offshore oil drilling or mining in pristine regions.

Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian lawmakers, notably in provinces such as British Columbia, have recently found themselves increasingly confronting divisions over specific economic projects in their jurisdictions that are raising concerns regarding cross-border developments some believe could endanger their local or national interests.

Public fears put uranium mining on same path as shale gas in Quebec – by Ross Marowits (Canadian Press/CTV News – September 8, 2015)

September 8, 2015

http://www.ctvnews.ca/

MONTREAL — Fears about radioactive contamination may close the door to uranium mining in Quebec just as public angst shelved shale gas extraction in the province in 2011. “Like shale gas, it touches a sensitive chord in Quebec,” says Ugo Lapointe of MiningWatch Canada, which opposes mining of the metal that fuels nuclear power plants.

Hundreds of municipalities have joined First Nations to oppose uranium mining, worried that it could threaten their health, harm natural environments and ruin traditional hunting and fishing.

Quebec’s environmental regulation agency (BAPE) has concluded there is no “social acceptability” for uranium mining to proceed at this time. After a year of study, a three-person panel said that it would be premature to authorize development of Quebec’s uranium industry.

While uranium mining has made substantial progress, especially in containing waste, there are still many uncertainties and “significant gaps in scientific knowledge of the impacts of uranium mining on the environment and public health,” it said in a lengthy report.

‘Mixed emotions’ in Quebec as Rio Tinto rebranding drops Alcan moniker – by Bertrand Marotte (Globe and Mail – September 8, 2015)

September 8, 2015

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

MONTREAL – A move by Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Group to drop the storied Alcan name has touched a nerve in Quebec and fostered a feeling in some quarters that the company is cold-heartedly discarding a priceless piece of Quebec’s heritage.

The chief executive of Rio Tinto’s Montreal-based aluminum division, Alfredo Barrios, said in a recent internal memo the corporate name is being changed from Rio Tinto Alcan to “the Aluminium product group of Rio Tinto” by way of aligning with Rio Tinto’s other product divisions in a uniform global branding effort.

Mr. Barrios acknowledged the change “may understandably generate mixed emotions” for employees from within the ranks of the former Alcan, which Rio Tinto took over in a $38-billion (U.S.) deal seven years ago.

When Rio Tinto’s aluminum division headquarters moves next year from its current Sherbrooke St. location in the “Maison Alcan” to the spanking new Deloitte Tower next door to the Bell Centre, the major new tenant will be identified only as Rio Tinto.

Blame fossil fuel users – not producers for greenhouse gas emissions – by Gwyn Morgan (Globe and Mail – September 7, 2015)

September 8, 2015

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1700s, fossil fuels have transformed humankind’s journey in almost every conceivable way. Agricultural production has soared, transportation was revolutionized, electrical power enabled breathtaking technological advancements, and petro-chemistry has provided synthetic materials for the manufacture of everything from fertilizers to plastics to clothing and even heart valves.

Real GDP per capita, the measure most closely reflecting global living standards, has soared by more than 1,600 per cent (according to Indur Goklany, a member of the U.S. delegation that established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in lock-step with the per-capita growth in fossil-fuel consumption.

Harnessing our planet’s enormous endowment of natural hydrocarbon energy is, without doubt, the greatest factor underpinning the huge gains in virtually every aspect of humanity’s remarkable progress. And the technological advances made by the workers who unlock those buried resources have been equally profound.

Do tax credits help Northern mining? Economists and industry disagree – by Chris Windeyer (CBC News North – September 4, 2015)

September 8, 2015

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

‘Everybody thinks it’s a magic bullet but it doesn’t do anything,’ economist says

It’s been a regular feature of Conservative federal budgets since 2006: an extension, for another year, of the 15 per cent Mineral Exploration Tax Credit.

The Conservative Party is now promising to extend that credit for another three years, if it’s re-elected, and boost the credit to 25 per cent in remote areas, including the territories and large parts of the provincial North.

There’s just one problem, says Lindsay Tedds, an economist with the University of Victoria: it may not actually work.

“Everybody thinks it’s a magic bullet but it doesn’t do anything,” Tedds says. “It does not increase investment to the point where you’re going to have increased exploration.”

Why the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit is such a bad idea – by Lindsay Tedds (MACLEAN’S Magazine – September 2, 2015)

September 8, 2015

http://www.macleans.ca/

With taxpayers worried about government spending, we should demand better than the renewal of a credit that represents a wasteful use of tax revenues

Conservative leader Stephen Harper speaks with Joe Guido, President of Premier Mining Products as he is shown drill bits during a campaign stop in North Bay, Ont., on Wednesday, September 2, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Conservative leader Stephen Harper speaks with Joe Guido, President of Premier Mining Products as he is shown drill bits during a campaign stop in North Bay, Ont., on Wednesday, September 2, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

As I am sure all of Canada knows (and much of the world), Canada’s much awaited gross domestic production (GDP) numbers came out Tuesday. Everyone, by now, knows the punchline, but buried in those numbers were little gems that I was certain would lead to policy announcements today. And I was right. The first ones out of the gates have been the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) which announced an extension to and enhancement of the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit.

Canadian miner Nevsun defends operations in Eritrea as locals flee to Europe – by Ian Bickis (Canadian Press/Canadian Business Magazine – September 4, 2015)

September 4, 2015

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-news/

CALGARY – Canadian mining company Nevsun Resources is defending its operations in Eritrea following a damning report by the United Nations that accused the miner of using forced labour in the North African country.

Nevsun released an updated independent human rights report this week that found no evidence of forced labour or human rights violations at its 60-per-cent-owned Bisha mine in Eritrea, where thousands of people are fleeing on perilous treks to Europe.

The report by LKL International Consulting is in contrast to June’s UN report, which said Nevsun used forced labour at the Bisha mine after the company was required to hire government-owned contractors that included Segen Construction.

The UN commissioners spoke with former Segen workers who said they were forced to work at the mine while in the compulsory national service. “Even though Segen tried to conceal their status, the majority of Segen’s ‘workers’ were in fact conscripts performing their national service,” wrote the commissioners.

Fission’s uranium price – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – September 4, 2015)

September 4, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

There is a big gap between the company’s assumptions and reality.

HALIFAX – First let me say Canadian-junior Fission Uranium has its hands on a delightful discovery with the Triple R deposit. It’s already pretty big, high grade, and set to grow.

It and predecessor companies made the find a few years back in the Athabasca Basin, where the cream of the world’s uranium resides – at least in terms of grade. They recently calculated a 79.6 million pound uranium resource, indicated, at 1.58% U3O8. That’s quite sizeable and high grade by the industry’s standards.

Fission has released an early stage economic analysis (preliminary economic assessment or PEA in Canadian parlance) that puts the price tag at $1.1 billion to get it into production, with a 14-year mine life. It also anticipates pretty low operating costs per tonne – in the mid-teens per pound uranium.

But here’s my beef on the PEA and I’m not alone in having it. Fission (and RPA as the consultant) use $65/lb uranium as the base case in the PEA, giving it a catchy 35% IRR, post-tax. Yet current uranium prices are a lot lower in spot and contract markets and have been so for years.

‘Window of opportunity’ for new LNG projects is gone because of supply glut, consultancy says – by Yadullah Hussain (National Post – September 4, 2015)

September 4, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

The window to build liquefied natural gas projects in Canada and elsewhere has closed amid a global supply glut, says global energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

“There is a clear reluctance by companies to stand down, but the reality is that the window of opportunity closed over six months ago for everyone, not just for Canada,” Noel Tomnay, vice-president global gas and LNG research for Wood Mackenzie said in an interview.

Qatar and Australia led the first two waves of LNG development with the U.S. spearheading the third wave, even as Canadian and East African proposals were stalled.

“Canada’s biggest competitor is not the U.S. — it is probably Mozambique,” Tomnay said, noting that these two regions would probably the play the role of niche, “strategic resources” for investors in the next wave of development that will cater to demand after 2022.

First Mining Finance sees more acquisition opportunities after three-way deal – by Peter Koven (National Post – September 3, 2015)

September 3, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Canadian mining heavyweight Keith Neumeyer is taking advantage of awful market conditions to snap up promising assets left and right.

First Mining Finance Corp., Neumeyer’s “mineral bank,” unveiled a three-way deal this week in which it will buy Gold Canyon Resources Inc. and PC Gold Inc. for a total of about $66 million in stock. This comes less than two months after First Mining acquired Coastal Gold Corp., its first acquisition.

Vancouver-based First Mining only went public in April, but the company sees this as the ideal time to buy junior mining assets on the cheap. Juniors are suffering through their worst bear market since the Bre-X crisis because of sinking commodity prices and a near-total lack of financing options.

“We don’t want the market to turn around soon, because we really want to load up on assets,” Pat Donnelly, First Mining’s president, said in an interview. “And so the longer this bear market continues, the better for us.”