Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 615

Nordgold tries to usurp AuRico with microcap takeover – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – November 14, 2014)

November 14, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

The Russian miner looks to takeover Carlisle Gold Fields in a hostile takeover – not that it’s calling it that yet.

HALIFAX, NS (MINEWEB) – Now you get some thick stuff on this one. Carlisle Goldfields, which owns some near surface gold assets in Manitoba, numbering close to two million ounces in highish-grade resources, has become the bargain prize in an atypical tussle between two intermediates gold miners.

The twisting, and extremely caveat-ridden language in multiple press releases out of Carlisle and Nord Gold sets the tone of what may prove a nasty tug-o-war. From Carlisle today:

“Nordgold issued a news release this morning announcing its request for Carlisle’s consent to make a take-over bid. Carlisle is of the view that, although the request made to Carlisle may be in compliance with the Mutual Confidentiality Agreement, the news release in that regard is in clear violation of the terms of the agreement.”

You may have to read the last line at least twice. Carlisle says Nordgold may be in compliance with a confidentiality agreement, but that it is also in clear violation of said agreement. A little convoluted to say the least.

The gold mining meltdown is so bad even activist investors won’t touch it – by Peter Koven (National Post – November 14, 2014)

November 14, 2014

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

As gold prices stumble and mining stocks sink to woeful lows, a lot of investors are asking the same question: where are the activists? The sad answer, experts say, is that activists don’t see any more hope for this sector than anyone else does right now.

It was a given over the past several years that proxy battles would break out across the mining space whenever commodity prices dropped. Frustrated investors would scrutinize the strategy and compensation of boards and management teams, and quickly act when they saw a problem.

Activists overhauled many mining boards during recent bear markets, including HudBay Minerals Inc. in 2009. There was an average of nine mining proxy fights a year between 2008 and 2013, according to law firm Fasken Martineau.

There are more frustrated mining investors today than at any other point in recent memory. But prices for commodities such as gold, silver and iron ore have fallen so much that it is hard to find opportunity in any of the related stocks.

“If you take over the board and take over the company, how are you going to create value at a gold price like this?” said Wes Hall, head of Kingsdale Shareholder Services.

Obama backed into Keystone corner as U.S. House to vote on pipeline Friday – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – November 14, 2014)

November 14, 2014

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

As the United States Congress moved closer to voting on the Keystone XL pipeline, President Barack Obama seemed increasingly isolated in his dislike of the Canadian project.

After years of bizarre regulatory delays, an out-of-nowhere court challenge in Nebraska and changing White House expectations, the push to line up votes in support of the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline is gaining momentum in Washington.

The House of Representatives was expected to start debating a bill to approve the US$8 billion project proposed by Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. on Thursday and hold a vote on Friday. The Senate is expected to hold a similar vote early next week, likely on Tuesday.

If Democratic Senators, led by Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu — yes, the instigators are people in President Obama’s own party — manage to line up 60 votes in support of KXL, the bill could be on President Obama’s desk for final approval by the end of next week.

Republicans have been long-time supporters of the project and have vowed to present legislation of their own in January, when they will take over control of both the House and the Senate thanks to their mid-term election wins last week.

What does an RMB trading hub mean for Canada? – by Dana Flavelle (Toronto Star – November 11, 2014)

November 14, 2014

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Canada has been designated a trading hub for China’s currency. What does it mean in terms of jobs, the economy and international trade?

Canada has been designated a trading hub for China’s currency, a move aimed at boosting international business between the two countries while also nudging China’s once cloistered “redback” toward global status.

Among other things, it means for the first time, Canadians can open bank accounts in Canada that contain China’s yuan, also known as the renminbi (RMB).

Canadian institutional investors, such as pension funds, will also be able to buy up to 50 billion yuan worth of Chinese bonds and stocks directly. That’s roughly $9.2 billion.

The deal will “continue to boost the Toronto region’s status as a global financial centre,” Janet Ecker, president and chief executive officer of the Toronto Financial Services Alliance, said in a statement.

Commentary: What miners need to know about Canada’s new payment reporting law – by Graham Erion and John Munnis (Northern Miner – November 11, 2012)

November 13, 2014

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

On Oct. 23, 2014, the Government of Canada introduced its long-awaited legislation to mandate disclosure of public payments made by mining and oil & gas companies for the commercial development of oil, gas and minerals. The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act follows over a year of industry consultations and an industry and civil society-led roundtable, both of which Davis LLP has covered extensively. With the introduction of the Act, key details for the payment reporting scheme have been clarified, which are reviewed below.

The basic payment reporting obligation

The Act applies to any entity engaged in, or controlling other entities engaged in, the commercial development of oil, gas or minerals anywhere in the world so long as the entity: has publicly listed in Canada; has a place of business in Canada, does business in Canada or has assets in Canada, and that, based on its consolidated financial statements, meets at least two of the following conditions for at least one of its two most recent financial years; has $20 million in assets; has $40 million in revenue; and/or has 250 employees.

Entities covered under the Act must provide the Canadian government with an annual report detailing the payments it has made directly or indirectly to a public body — whether monetary or in-kind — to develop oil, gas or minerals if the total amount of such payments during the previous financial year is at least $100,000 (or such other amount if prescribed by regulation).

Groups ask why no charges have been laid a year after Alberta coal mine spill – by (The Canadian Press/Globe and Mail – November 12, 2014)

November 13, 2014

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.

EDMONTON — Conservation groups want to know why no federal or provincial charges have been laid over a massive spill from a coal tailings pond in west-central Alberta.

An estimated 670 million litres of waste water spilled into tributaries that feed into the Athabasca River after an earth berm broke at the Obed Mountain mine on Oct. 31, 2013.

The mine was owned at the time by Sherritt International, which has since sold it to Westmoreland Coal Company. Groups including the Alberta Wilderness Association say Sherritt should be charged under the federal Fisheries Act.

They also say they want both governments to make public what was in the tailings, how the spill has affected the rivers and how it may affect the health of people who live downstream. Federal officials and staff at the Alberta Energy Regulator were not immediately available for comment.

“The lack of enforcement and charges for a spill of this magnitude calls into question the approval of any mining development in Alberta,” Brittany Verbeek, a spokeswoman for the wilderness association, said Wednesday.

Non-aboriginal Canadians need to wake up to the rising power of Aboriginal Peoples – by Anna Marie Tremonti (CBC The Current – November 13, 2014)

November 13, 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/

Aboriginal youth and a whole new generation of First Nations thinkers and leaders are speaking up but arguably non-aboriginal Canadians haven’t been listening. In a week when the news is dominated by the trauma of the brutal attack of another young aboriginal woman, we bring you a conversation about empowerment and greater expectations … in what John Ralston Saul calls “The Comeback”

“We are bringing this message for our future generations for our grandparents that went to residential schools for the children that were raped in residential schools. We bring this message forward for them.”

“Stay strong, we are all in this together. We will not fall. We will not end this. We are in this for the long hall with Chief Theresa Spence with all of our Chiefs. With all of those involved in the idle no more movement. We are in unity with the creator, with ceremony.”

Andrea Landry from Pays Plat First Nation in Ontario at Idle No More protest in Ottawa, January of 2013

Court fight complicates Centerra Gold’s Kyrgyzstan connection – by Jeff Gray (Globe and Mail – November 13, 2014)

November 13, 2014

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.

The fate of one of the largest gold mines in the world, nestled in the remote mountains of Kyrgyzstan, could rest on the outcome of an obscure Canadian court battle.

Toronto-based Centerra Gold Inc. owns the Kumtor mine, but has faced political pressure and protests over its environmental impact and over whether Kyrgyzstan is getting its fair share of the profits.

Centerra is essentially a legal bystander, however, as a court case in Toronto proceeds over whether another company can seize millions of dollars worth of Centerra shares that are held by a Kyrgyzstani state-owned enterprise. If the shares are seized, Centerra says, a restructuring plan aimed at giving the Kyrgyzstani government a bigger stake in the mine would become impossible.

The Canadian court battle involves another Toronto-based natural resources company, Stans Energy Corp., which alleges that it was unfairly blocked from developing an open-pit rare earth metals mine in Kyrgyzstan.

Stans challenged this decision in international arbitration proceedings in Moscow, alleging that Kyrgyzstan violated the Moscow Convention, a 1997 treaty among post-Soviet countries on foreign investment.

VOX: Detour Gold: ‘The ultimate risk-reward name’ in gold miners – by David Milstead (Globe and Mail – November 13, 2014)

November 13, 2014

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.

Unsatisfied with a mere bet on bullion? Desirous of a big, fat, chunky wager on gold prices?

May I suggest Detour Gold Corp., a mining stock whose zigs and zags make the volatility in the gold price look picayune by comparison. Detour is a single-asset company, with a young mine near Detour Lake in Northern Ontario. In the past 52 weeks, it’s traded as low as $2.88, upon the surprise resignation of its chief executive officer, and as high as $15.62 in June, when gold prices were above $1,300 (U.S.) an ounce. Detour stock was $6.60 (Canadian) at the beginning of November. It closed at $8.67 on Wednesday.

Despite that rapid rise this month, analysts believe it has plenty of room to run. The average 12-month target price is $13.56, an upside of 56 per cent (one of the higher possible returns among large and mid-size miners, according to Bloomberg data). And some of the bulls are well above that average: Analyst Richard Gray of Cormark just lowered his target price from $23.50 to $18.75. He calls Detour “the ultimate risk-reward name in the gold sector, and right now the upside (reward) far outweighs the current downside (risk).”

Well, let’s dwell on those risks before we give the impression that Detour investors are just one pitch away from a home run. In Saturday’s Globe Investor, we detailed the major issue in the mining industry: Companies that took on significant debt to fund expansions or acquisitions are in a perilous place when gold falls. Analysts are now using prices of $1,100 (U.S.)-an-ounce and below in their models.

Keystone showdown in U.S. emerges as report warns of oil supply threats – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – November 13, 2014)

November 13, 2014

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

The U.S. Congress prepared to hold votes on the Keystone XL pipeline, Thursday, just as a new report confirmed that Americans need it more than they might think. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that the tight-oil boom that has helped wean the U.S. off imports will likely run out of steam in the next decade.

U.S. Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu said she would propose a vote on Thursday to approve the US$8-billion project, which would transport 830,000 barrels a day, primarily from Canada’s oil sands, to refineries in Texas.

Ms. Landrieu, who is at risk of losing her Louisiana seat in a runoff election in December, said on the Senate floor Wednesday she was “confident” she has the votes to pass a bill that would force Washington’s approval, over President Barack Obama’s resistance.

“I believe it is time to act,” said Ms. Landrieu, chair of the Senate Energy Committee and a vocal supporter of KXL, as Congress convened for a lame-duck session.

“I believe we should take the new majority leader at his word and stop blocking legislation that is broadly supported by the public and has been for some time.” A similar vote was expected in the House of Representatives.

How green energy is fleecing Ontario electricity consumers – by Ross McKitrick and Tom Adams (National Post – November 13, 2014)

November 13, 2014

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

Ross McKitrick is a Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph and Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute. Tom Adams is an independent energy consultant and advisor.

Ontario’s green energy transformation – initiated a decade ago under then-Premier Dalton McGuinty – is now hitting consumers. The Nov 1 increase for households is the next twist of that screw. As Ontario consumers know all too well, the province has gone from having affordable electricity to having some of the highest and fastest-increasing rates in Canada.

Last year, in a report for the Fraser Institute called “Environmental and Economic Consequences of Ontario’s Green Energy Act,” one of us (McKitrick) explained how the Green Energy Act, passed in 2009, yielded at best tiny environmental benefits that cost at least ten times more than conventional pollution control methods, and was directly harming growth by driving down rates of return in key sectors like manufacturing.

But complex financial structures and a lack of official disclosure around large embedded costs have let supporters of the green energy act deny that green power is responsible for the price hikes. Green industry advocates, including the consulting firm Power Advisory and advocacy group Environmental Defense, have added up the direct payments to new renewable generators, and concluded that since those costs are relatively small, the impact of renewables on the total cost of power is likewise small.

Falling oil prices, new tax cuts combine to reduce future surplus projections – by Bill Curry (Globe and Mail – November 13, 2014)

November 13, 2014

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.

TORONTO — The recent drop in oil prices has forced Ottawa to chop billions off its revenue projections, a development that when combined with new tax cuts means the government is expecting only modest surpluses in the coming years.

The annual fall fiscal update is based on an average forecast from private-sector economists, but those figures were delivered in early September and failed to capture the steep drop in oil prices over the past few weeks.

The private sector economists assumed North American crude would be around $98 (U.S.) per barrel, but prices have since dropped to around $81 (U.S.) per barrel.

That has a significant impact on revenues. The government is lowering its expectations for them by $500-million this year and $2.5-billion per year from 2015 to 2019, a move economists described as reasonable in light of the circumstances.

The impact of the reduction – when coupled with recent tax-cut announcements – is that the forecast for next year’s surplus will be $1.9-billion.

Micro-organisms have mega-potential for mining – by Steve Armstrong, Carl Weatherell and Jean Vavrek (Halifax Chronicle Herald – November 12, 2014)

November 12, 2014

http://thechronicleherald.ca/

Steve Armstrong is president and CEO, Genome Atlantic; Carl Weatherell is executive director and CEO, Canadian Mining Innovation Council; Jean Vavrek is executive director, Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.

Canada is fortunate to have a plethora of natural resources. In Nova Scotia alone, the mining industry is turning some of those resources into 5,500 jobs, contributing $420 million to the annual economy, and of course, providing the raw materials for products that are used every day.

But all of that doesn’t come easily. Globally, the mining sector faces environmental challenges, rising production costs, and fluctuating prices that warrant substantial interest in discovering new solutions to extract these resources in the most efficient and sustainable way.

Deloitte’s 2014 Tracking the Trends report on mining says: “Miners should innovate by adopting technologies to enable mine design and planning, energy supply, as well as adoption of emerging technologies.”

One of those emerging areas of technology is genomics — the combination of genetics, biology and computer science that studies the DNA in a living organism. This may seem an unusual focus for a sector like mining, but hidden within the rocks and dirt are countless communities of microscopic organisms known as microbes (such as bacteria) that could play a gigantic role in the sector.

Bonfire of the juniors avoided as role of alternative finance gathers pace – by Simon Rees (MineWeekly.com – November 11, 2014)

November 12, 2014

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The number of companies that have delisted from the TSX and the TSX-V is far fewer than many commentators predicted, while the level of financing activity by mining companies on both exchanges has also increased, attendees at the mineLatinAmerica convention, in Toronto, were told.

Alternative fiscal models had also helped many companies weather the downturn, although success had frequently depended on a company having the right investment profile: either being in production or holding advanced-stage projects.

GETTING BETTER

In a market still looking for signs of improvement, the increase in the number of financings on both the TSX and TSX-V compared with 2013 had been a positive development, TSX-V venture exchange director for listed services Tim Babcock said. This included companies in the mining sector and reversed the downward trend witnessed over the past few years, he added. “So 2013 was, hopefully, the bottom.”

Issuers in the mining sector had raised $6.7-billion year-to-date in the third quarter, Babcock highlighted, although he noted that this included an early first-quarter raise of around $2.4-billion by Turquoise Hill Resources, the operator of the Oyu Tolgoi copper/gold mine, in Mongolia.

Second Mount Polley probe looking into government’s disclosures – Mark Hume (Globe and Mail – November 11, 2014)

November 12, 2014

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.

VANCOUVER — A second investigation has been launched into the question of whether or not the B.C. government has improperly withheld information about the catastrophic collapse of the Mount Polley tailings pond.

In a letter to the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria, Michael McEvoy, the acting Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C., has confirmed his office has opened a file into a complaint by the ELC about the government’s refusal to release routine mine inspection reports concerning Mount Polley.

Since the Aug. 4 accident, which discharged nearly 15 million cubic metres of toxic mine waste into the Fraser River watershed, the government has refused to release documents related to the mine, including the annual dam safety inspection reports from 2010 to 2013.

The government said documents couldn’t be released because an investigation is under way. That prompted the ELC to complain to the Information and Privacy Commissioner that the release of documents “relevant to the greatest mining environmental disaster in B.C. history is a matter of clear and pressing public interest.”