Cenovus CEO Brian Ferguson’s battle with rock stars and price differentials – by Yadullah Hussain (National Post – January 17, 2014)

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

Brian Ferguson is fed up with critics of the oil sands. Like his peers, the 56-year-old chief executive officer of Cenovus Energy Inc. has generally kept a relatively low profile over the years, more comfortable discussing technological innovations in the oil sands rather than taking on music and film celebrities with far greater name-recognition.

But the industry’s low-key strategy has emboldened opponents to paint the oil sands in the worst possible light, leaving oil executives to seethe privately at the insults, but maintain a congenial dialogue with their worst critics, at least in public. Mr. Ferguson says his company is looking to reach out to a broader audience to counter popular but false perceptions about the oil sands.

“I think there is a desire to better understand what is really happening,” told the Financial Post. “There are lot of sensational comments that are made which are not based in fact, and are factually incorrect.”

Mr. Ferguson admits that the industry could have done a better job of defending the oil sands in the past five years, but that might change. Mr. Ferguson has been at the helm of Cenovus since it was spun off from Encana Corp. in 2009.

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De Beers starts environmental studies at Attawapiskat mine – (CBC News Sudbury – January 16, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/sudbury/

De Beers is moving ahead with environmental studies on expanding its diamond mine in Attawapiskat.

Company spokesman Tom Ormsby said this is still early days, but he said there have been preliminary discussions with the Cree community about what this project, called the “Tango” extension would mean.

“We’re committed to staying the course here with the community and hopefully extending this mine.” Ormsby said De Beers and Attawapiskat appear to have moved past tensions related to roadblocks of the existing Victor mine from last winter.

He says if the diamond mining company goes ahead with this new project, there could be a re-negotiating of the impact benefit agreement with the James Bay first nation.

“We’re not there yet. We hope to make this go, but there’s still some hurdles we need to accomplish to get various approvals and the final data to say ‘Yes, this is going to be economic’,” Ormsby said.

If all goes well, he said, mining at the Tango site near Attawapiskat would begin in 2018.

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Mining industry endorses ‘game-changer’ transparency rules – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – January 16, 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.

OTTAWA — Canada’s mining industry has endorsed a plan that would require mandatory reporting to provincial securities commissions of all project-related payments they make to governments, a move that global transparency groups are hailing as groundbreaking.

In a final report to be issued Thursday, the country’s two largest mining organizations joined with transparency advocates to urge governments to move quickly to implement the plan, which they said would allow citizens in mineral-rich countries to hold governments to account for the resource revenues they collect. The Mining Association of Canada and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada have launched a lobbying effort to persuade the Ontario Securities Commission and other provincial bodies to adopt the new rules.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper endorsed the idea of mandatory reporting for all resource companies at last year’s Group of Eight summit, and Natural Resources Canada is now consulting with provinces and industry on how to implement the policy for both mining and oil companies.

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Detroit auto show: Ford unveils mostly aluminum F-150 (Associated Press/CBC News Business – January 13, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business

Some call it a game-changer. Some just shake their heads. Either way, Ford’s new aluminum-clad F-150 is such a radical departure from past pickup trucks that it dominated talk at the opening of the Detroit auto show.

Ford Motor Co. unveiled the 2015 F-150, whose body is 97 per cent aluminum, on Monday. The lighter material shaves as much as 300 kilograms off the 2,200-kilogram truck, a revolutionary change for a vehicle known for its heft and an industry still reliant on steel. No other vehicle on the market contains this much aluminum.

“It’s a landmark moment for the full-size pickup truck,” said Jack Nerad, editorial director for Kelley Blue Book. The change is Ford’s response to small-business owners’ desire for a more fuel-efficient and nimble truck.

“You’re either moving ahead and you’re improving and you’re making it more valuable and more useful to the customer or you’re not,” Chief Executive Alan Mulally told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

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Quebec’s Osisko comes out fighting against Goldcorp bid (CBC News Business – January 15, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business

Calls $2.6B offer for gold miner too low and opportunistic

Osisko Mining Corp. is calling a hostile takeover bid for the company by Goldcorp Inc. “very low” and opportunistic. Company CEO Sean Roosen said Wednesday the Osisko board is continually seeks value for its shareholders.

“We’re shareholders of the company ourselves. We’re focused on shareholder value 365 days a year and seven days a week. We look at our valuations on a constant basis and so does our board,” Roosen said in an interview with CBC’s The Lang & O’Leary Exchange.

“Osisko’s board of directors noted that the 15 per cent premium to Osisko’s unaffected share price implied by Goldcorp’s offer is very low and the price opportunistic in light of Osisko’s proven high quality asset base,” the company said in a statement.

Osisko urged shareholders to hold off from accepting the $2.6-billion bid until the board, which has formed a special committee including five independent members to review the offer, makes a recommendation on the proposal.

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Kinross defends Tasiast mine layoffs – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – January 16, 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.

JOHANNESBURG — Kinross Gold Corp., dogged by protests and controversy after dismissing nearly 300 workers at its Mauritania gold mine, insists that the layoffs will help safeguard its future at one of its highest-cost operations.

The Toronto-based company, one of the world’s 10 biggest gold producers, is in a serious cost-cutting drive after writing down much of its $7.1-billion cost of acquiring Red Back Mining, owners of the Tasiast gold mine in Mauritania.

But after announcing the layoffs at its mining operation in the West African country last month, Kinross has faced lengthy and bitter protests by the laid-off workers and their supporters. The protests have continued for weeks, triggering a heavy-handed police crackdown.

About a dozen protesters were arrested and a similar number were injured when the police raided the protest last week, according to local reports. Kinross will not comment on the police raid, but it has defended the layoffs, calling them a “difficult but necessary response” to ensure the future of the mine.

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Mining industry confused by mysterious China Gold Stone firm – by Peter Koven (National Post – January 16, 2014)

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

TORONTO – Across the mining world, one question is on everyone’s lips this week: Who is China Gold Stone Mining Development Ltd.?

The mystery began with a press release issued Tuesday morning. The statement claimed a company called China Gold Stone has launched a $780-million hostile offer for Toronto-listed miner Allied Nevada Gold Corp. The press release was retracted hours later, with the sender saying that it was issued “in error and without the advice of counsel.”

Investors and analysts had never heard of China Gold Stone, and this debacle made them take a closer look at it. Before long, they were questioning if the company exists.

The press release calls China Gold Stone a “large-scale mining company” that owns three gold mines in China worth roughly US$15-billion. It also said China Gold Stone is registered in Hong Kong and that it is working with China National Gold Corp. (China’s largest producer) to invest in global mining markets.

While there are an enormous number of little-known mining companies strewn across China, any company with such enormous mineral wealth should be well known.

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Afghanistan’s rare earth element bonanza – by Alan Dowd – Fraser Institute (Mining.com – January 15, 2014)

http://www.mining.com/

After more than a decade of war and nation building, members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are heading for the exits. Although what ISAF will leave behind is better than what was there in 2001, Afghanistan remains a battered land. However, the resources Afghanistan’s land holds — copper, cobalt, iron, barite, sulfur, lead, silver, zinc, niobium, and 1.4 million metric tons of rare-earth elements (REEs) — may be a silver lining.

U.S. agencies estimate Afghanistan’s mineral deposits to be worth upwards of $1 trillion. In fact, a classified Pentagon memo called Afghanistan the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” (Although lithium is technically not a rare earth element, it serves some of the same purposes.)

Of course, the fact that Afghanistan is rich in minerals is not necessarily new information. The Soviets identified mineral deposits in Afghanistan during their decade-long occupation. What is new is the volume and precision of mineral-related information. Afghanistan has been mapped using what is known as “broad-scale hyper-spectral data” — highly precise technologies deployed by aircraft that, in effect, allow U.S. military and geological experts to peer beneath Afghanistan’s skin and paint a picture of its vast mineral wealth. According to Jim Bullion, who heads a Pentagon task force on postwar development, these maps reveal that Afghanistan could “become a world leader in the minerals sector.”

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Why the odds are increasing for Keystone XL pipeline approval – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – January 16, 2014)

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

The U.S. State Department is expected to release a final environmental impact report around the last week of January that will support the Keystone XL, bolstering the odds that President Barack Obama will approve the controversial Alberta-to-Texas oil pipeline.

After more than five years of review, State is expected to release a voluminous Final Environmental Impact Statement that will include a major analysis of the surge in oil transportation by rail, growing markets for oil sands crude and climate change impacts. Observers expect the report to conclude that Canada’s oil sands will get to market with or without Keystone.

The report is expected to influence the President’s final word on the project, which would come after a 90-day national interest determination. There are conflicting views on the timing of that final decision and worries the final phase could drag on.

Some believe the President should move quickly and avoid making Keystone a mid-term election issue. Others argue the President could take until the summer to conclude his review to demonstrate the project was carefully considered and prevent legal challenges.

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Oil industry rebuts ‘trash-talking’ celebrity critics – by Shawn McCarthy and Richard Blackwell (Globe and Mail – January 16, 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.

OTTAWA and TORONTO — Two of Calgary’s most prominent oil executives delivered a scathing rebuttal to celebrity critics such as rock star Neil Young, as the industry attempts to win support for pipeline projects that are essential to its ambitious growth plans for the oil sands.

Cenovus Energy Inc. chief executive Brian Ferguson and TransCanada Corp. chair Russ Girling brought an aggressive message to a joint presentation at Toronto’s Canadian Club, in which they defended the country’s current approach to environmental protection and resource development.

Their appearance came just three days after Mr. Young launched a cross-country “Honour the Treaties” concert tour with a press conference that slammed the oil-sands development as an environmental catastrophe, ruinous to the health of local populations and an abrogation of treaty commitments.

Without specifically mentioning the singer, Mr. Ferguson said celebrities have been “trash-talking” Canada’s oil industry.

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Pioneering Manitoba woman to enter Mining Hall of Fame – by Chris Purdy (Canadian Press/Global – January 15, 2014)

http://globalnews.ca/toronto/

Kate Rice was so brilliant she could have done anything, and her family was so wealthy she could have done nothing at all.

The adventurous, tough-as-nails beauty from southern Ontario set out for the rugged Manitoba wilderness 100 years ago with a shotgun and snowshoes in search of treasure.

She never struck it rich, but she did discover the first nickel deposits in the province and made headlines across the continent as Canada’s first “girl” prospector.

“Living in the middle of nowhere, depending solely on yourself … I know how hard it is to work in a man’s world,” says Toronto businesswoman Linda Rice, 60, who recently found the mining legend’s name on a branch of her family tree.

She says she can’t even imagine what life would have been like for such a woman a century ago. “I was gobsmacked … I was very excited that I was related to such a pioneer.”

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Takeover bids cut both ways in Quebec – by Peter Hadekel (Montreal Gazette – January 15, 2014)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

There’s long been a circle-the-wagons mentality in Quebec about corporate takeovers. When a buyer from outside the province is interested in a Quebec company, a protectionist reflex often kicks in and calls are made for government action.

We saw it again this week when Vancouver-based mining giant Goldcorp Inc. made a $2.6-billion hostile takeover bid for Montreal-based Osisko Mining Corp., operator of the big Canadian Malartic gold mine in Abitibi.

The Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal was quick to ring the alarm bells, calling on the Quebec government to ensure that if the transaction goes through “it won’t harm the economy of Quebec and the metropolitan region.”

But for every Quebec company that gets taken over by outside interests, there’s one making a deal abroad. That’s how the market works in a global economy.

Widely-held Osisko is one of the few Quebec-based mining firms with operations and production in the province, said Board of Trade president Michel Leblanc.

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Bennett resists calls for wider review of coal project – by Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – January 14, 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 — British Columbia will review parts of a proposed coal export project under its jurisdiction but is unlikely to weigh in on other concerns, including whether Port Metro Vancouver should export more U.S.-mined thermal coal, provincial Mines Minister Bill Bennett said.

“As a minister who believes in natural resource extraction and understands the very important connection between resource development and the Canadian economy in general and the B.C. economy in particular, I don’t think we can pick commodities or pick particular industries and say, ‘Well, we don’t like that – we’re not going to do that one,’” Mr. Bennett said Tuesday.

“The rules and regulations and standards apply to everyone,” he added. “And if you want to build something or do something in B.C. and you can meet those rules and regulations and standards, then it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or what commodity you’re dealing with – if you meet those standards, you should get a permit for what you want to do.”

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Hot Propects in a Cold Climate – by Russell Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – January 2014)

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

It’s the largest island in Canada, the fifth largest in the world, and it contains some of the most beautiful land and seascapes on the planet, but Baffin Island is also one of the harshest and most unforgiving places on earth when it comes to Mother Nature and her weather conditions.

It’s a place where trees can’t grow, songbirds are rare, and perhaps most of all, it’s an extremely cold place where the sun comes in seasonal divides.

From November to January, the island experiences nearly 24 hours of darkness with less than two hours of twilight. On the flip-side of the calendar, there is continuous daylight from May to August. During the spring and fall months, it’s a gradual fade from dark to light and light to dark, respectively.

At first glance, Baffin Island seems to be an uninviting place, but look a little closer at the more than 11,000 people who live there because they love this massive rock at the top of the world that they have always called “Our Land.” It’s the only home they know, because most of the residents represent generations of Inuit people who have always lived on the island.

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Too many Obituaries, not enough Want Ads – by Russell Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – January 2014)

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

Obituaries, unlike Want Ads, are taking up more space in our newspa¬pers lately and sadly, so too are the number of deaths involving mining com¬panies and subsequently, the job opportunities they once offered to skilled and willing workers.

Barrick Gold’s and Cliffs Resources’ recent issues involving their grand projects in South and North America respec-tively are perfect examples of ‘death-and-hope’ situations (much like Obituaries and Want Ads) because they have resulted in headlines around the world that have not only cast doubt on the individual companies, but they have also caused disappointment within the ranks of shareholders and future investors alike.

And by ‘future investors’ I don’t mean people with money to gamble on mining shares, but people in our schools right now who are contemplating their futures in careers that once included mining as an industry offering a lifetime of opportunities.

Fortunately for the most part, it still does because as we all know, the industry isn’t going to dry up and blow away like many of the jobs at Barrick and Cliffs did recently.

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