Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 632

B.C. mine’s breached tailings pond one of 98 to undergo independent investigation – by Sunny Dhillon (Globe and Mail – August 18, 2014)

August 19, 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 — The B.C. government has ordered independent investigations into the spill at the Mount Polley mine and at every other tailings pond in the province, saying the disaster has shaken public confidence and threatens to undermine other resource-sector projects as well.

The province – which has been criticized by First Nations near the spill for a perceived lack of industry oversight – has also signed a letter of understanding with two bands, whose leaders say they’ll push for meaningful mining reform.

The hiring of an outside panel of experts to investigate the Mount Polley spill is a shift from the province’s earlier stance that probes by the chief inspector of mines and the Conservation Officer Service would suffice. Each of the three experts on the panel has decades of engineering experience, with one having worked on the investigation into the New Orleans levee failures during Hurricane Katrina.

At a news conference Monday, Bill Bennett, B.C.’s Minister of Energy and Mines, stressed that the province must do whatever it takes to restore public confidence in mining in particular and the resource sector in general.

Mount Polley inquiry must be independent – by Stephen Hume (Vancouver Sun – August 18, 2014)

August 18, 2014

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

Dam collapse: Government was involved in inspecting structure, so a true arms’-length investigation essential

The engineering firm that designed the Mount Polley tailings pond containment system that collapsed on Aug. 4 also designed a tailings dam that failed catastrophically in South America on Aug. 19, 1995.

Knight Piésold designed the tailings containment facility for the Canadian-owned Omai gold mine in Guyana. Before the accident, it had handed off operational responsibility to the mining company, which then hired another engineering consultant, the Canadian firm Golder Associates.

The Omai tailings dam collapse spilled an estimated 2.9 million cubic metres of toxic waste into the Essequibo River, the country’s biggest and most important watershed. (Some estimates run higher.) Guyana’s President Cheddi Jagan, whose government held a five per cent share of the mining venture — it was the poor country’s largest private sector employer — and had been championing its economic benefits, called it “the country’s worst environmental disaster.”

A subsequent inquiry found no criminal liability and a civil class action suit was later dismissed. It’s worth noting, perhaps, that by comparison the Mount Polley tailings dam failure, which B.C.’s Mines Minister Bill Bennett has equated with a simple natural landslide, spilled 14.5 million cubic metres — about five times as much contaminated waste as at Omai — into the Fraser River system, B.C’s biggest and most economically important watershed.

Salt at the source: A day in a Lake Huron mine – by Amy Pataki (Toronto Star – August 16, 2014)

August 18, 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.

We visited the world’s largest salt mine, following the mineral from the tunnels under Lake Huron to our dinner tables and driveways.

GODERICH—Here’s a funny thing about road salt: In its rawest form, it is as slippery as ice. They know this down in the world’s largest operating salt mine, a four-hour drive from Toronto in the pretty town of Goderich.

The mine is 533 metres beneath the surface of the Earth, almost as deep as the CN Tower is high, and tunnels 7 kilometres underneath Lake Huron. It’s owned by Sifto Canada. Visitors are rare.

It’s a strangely beautiful environment, a crystal catacomb of glittering walls and surprisingly sweet air. Salt is everywhere, as thick pillars holding up the 20-metre ceiling and as floating particles that coat the skin and lips.
Salt is also thick underfoot. The exposed seam is rink slick. Miners lay down crushed salt for traction.

“We are standing on product,” says operations manager Mark Rowe. “It should be in a bag, and we’ll get there.”

Bagged or bulk, salt makes our winter roads safe and our summer barbecues tasty. The Goderich mine and its sister evaporation plant (where brine is turned into solid sodium chloride) meet age-old needs with modern technology. Here’s how the grains travel from the ground to your shaker or driveway.

China faces buyer’s remorse in Canada’s oil patch – by Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – August 18, 2014)

August 18, 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.

CALGARY — Chinese companies have shelled out more than $30-billion in Canada’s energy industry, but many of those investments have been hit with operational problems, delays and weak returns, leading to growing impatience in some quarters in China.

PetroChina Co. Ltd., Sinopec, CNOOC Ltd., China Investment Corp. and other state-owned enterprises made a raft of big bets on oil sands projects, shale developments and domestic companies since 2005 and many have yet to pay off.

There is “absolutely” some buyer’s remorse stemming from many of China’s big-ticket acquisitions, said Samir Kayande, vice-president of energy research at ITG Investment Research, who has done intensive studies of some of the deals.

Some problems were the result of purchases made during a rush on assets across the industry, when competition from both domestic and foreign buyers was brisk, Mr. Kayande said. Eventually, assets in the best geological regions are likely to pay off, and those further from the earliest developments will lag in performance, he said.

Officials with the Chinese companies, and Canadians familiar with their thinking, say it is far too early to deem the buying spree, in a notoriously difficult industry, a bust.

Mr. Harper, Tear down this wall! – by Stephen Stewart (Mining Markets – August 15, 2014)

August 18, 2014

http://www.miningmarkets.ca/

Stephen Stewart is a managing partner of the natural resource private equity firm Minvest Partners in Toronto.

Canada’s mining sector needs clear, consistent rules to thrive

Mining has been an integral part of Canada’s social fabric for well over a century and accordingly we have cultivated an abundance of talented geologists, engineers, technicians and financiers who give us a tremendous competitive advantage. Yet many of these professionals sit by idly, frustrated with what amounts to an inability to broaden Canada’s mineral wealth, while other nations position their natural resources to prosper in a globalized economy. Our abundance of oil remains thwarted from transport to any one of our three oceans, and world class orebodies lay dormant as disorder surrounds their required infrastructure.

While Canada’s natural resource industry needs to look inwards in order to analyze and exit its current depressed state, the rulemakers — ie. the federal and provincial governments, as well as any number of regulatory bodies — need to work towards a regulatory system that is meant to safeguard without injuring those it seeks to protect.

Understanding risk is fundamental to investment in natural resource projects so the investor, when making capital allocation decisions, can quantify the risks versus rewards. When projects operate within a congested and opaque regulatory environment, investors balk and follow the path of least resistance away from the unknown. The groundswell of politicized agendas, which layers on increased regulation, have created uncertainty, which delays the advancement of countless resource projects and their related infrastructure.

Oilsands mogul Murray Edwards to help fund Mount Polley mine spill cleanup – by Christopher Donville and Andy Hoffman, (Bloomberg News – August 15, 2014)

August 18, 2014

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

Oilsands mogul Murray Edwards is backing a $100 million bond sale by Imperial Metals Corp. that will help fund the cleanup of a B.C. mine-waste spill, the worst accident of its kind in Canada in 20 years.

Edwards, Imperial’s largest shareholder, agreed to buy $40 million of the 6 percent, 6-year senior unsecured convertible debentures via Edco Capital Corp., a company he controls.

The Fairholme Partnership LP will buy another $40 million. If the issuance fails to raise the full amount sought, Edco will buy non-convertible notes bearing interest at 12 percent to make up the shortfall, Imperial said yesterday in a statement.

Murray, 54, who holds a 36 percent stake in Imperial, has business interests that span energy, engineering and a stake in a National Hockey League team. Buying the bonds isn’t the first time that he’s helped fund development of the Mount Polley copper and gold mine, the scene of last week’s accident, said David Davidson, an analyst at Paradigm Capital Inc.

“Once he invests in something, he supports it through thick and thin,” Davidson, who’s based in Toronto and whose rating on Imperial is under review following the spill, said today in an interview. “Not only is he committed to Mount Polley, but he’s committed at a really tough time.”

Building roads to resources a priority, says NWT premier – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – August 13, 2014)

August 18, 2014

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

Mining is the largest industrial sector in the Northwest Territories (NWT), and building transportation and other important infrastructure is the key to unlocking its potential, NWT Premier Bob McLeod said at a symposium in Toronto on Aug. 6.

“We have long understood that stranded resources represent significant lost opportunity for economic development,” McLeod said in prepared remarks at the infrastructure summit of Canada’s premiers hosted by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. “Without dependable, all-weather connections, the huge base metal and mineral potential in the Northwest Territories will remain locked in place.”

On the sidelines of the conference the premier told The Northern Miner that he expects seven new mines will be built in the NWT between now and 2020, but emphasized infrastructure must be built to help support development in the north.

In addition to diamonds and base and precious metals, the Northwest Territories has conventional and non-conventional oil and gas potential in the Mackenzie Valley and Beaufort Delta, he noted.

McLeod believes that one of the most important steps his government must take is to build a $2-billion highway system through the Mackenzie Valley linking the rest of Canada to Tuktoyaktuk, a small community on the Arctic Ocean.

B.C. First Nations band evicts mining company that owns Mount Polley tailings pond – by James Keller (Vancouver Province – August 14, 2014)

August 14, 2014

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

THE CANADIAN PRESS – CHASE, B.C. — A British Columbia First Nation plans to issue an eviction notice to Imperial Metals Corp. (TSX:III) — the company behind a massive tailings pond breach at a gold and copper mine last week — over a separate project in the band’s territory.

The declaration from the Neskonlith Indian Band is the latest sign that last week’s tailings spill at the Mount Polley Mine in central B.C. could ripple across the company’s other projects and possibly the province’s entire mining industry.

The Neskonlith band said the notice, which its chief planned to hand-deliver to Imperial Metals in Vancouver on Thursday, orders the company to stay away from the site of its proposed Ruddock Creek zinc and lead mine, which is located about 150 kilometres northeast of Kamloops.

The mine, which is still in the development phase and has yet to go through the environmental assessment process, would be located near the headwaters of the Adams River, home of an important sockeye salmon run. The Neskonlith band opposed the mine long before the Mount Polley tailings spill.

“We do not want the mine developing or operating in that sacred headwaters,” Neskonlith Chief Judy Wilson said in an interview Wednesday.

MiedziCopper loses concessions in Poland – by Northern Miner (August 13, 2014)

August 14, 2014

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

Ross Beaty isn’t the type of businessman who normally airs his grievances in public. But when two of his copper concessions in Poland were apparently revoked by the Polish government, he felt he had no choice.

On July 30 Poland’s Minister of the Environment revoked two concessions awarded to MiedziCopper, a private copper exploration company in which Beaty’s Lumina Capital investment group has a large stake. The ministry also cancelled a third concession that it awarded to MiedziCopper’s rival KGHM Polska Miedzi (WSE: KGH), Poland’s largest copper producer and a company in which the government owns 63.6 million shares or about 31.79% of the share capital.

Beaty alleges that KGHM brought political pressure to bear on the Ministry of Environment to reverse its decision awarding two of the concessions to his group and MiedziCopper is now suspending all new investment in Poland.

MiedziCopper has invested about $35 million on exploration in the country since 2010 and had planned to spend a further $65 million over the next few years. The company continues to hold 11 concessions in the country on which it has carried out extensive geochemical, geophysical, geological and drilling activities.

Gold miners pressure suppliers for price cuts amid sector slump – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – August 14, 2014)

August 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.

Goldcorp Inc. is leading an industry push to clamp down on suppliers, pressuring them to slash prices so the mining company can keep costs down amid the sector’s slump.

Miners are under siege after bullion lost about a third of its value over the past couple years. Big gold producers such as Barrick Gold Corp. and Kinross Gold Corp. overhauled operations and wrote down assets to mitigate the downturn. Smaller miners such as Iamgold Corp. have cut dividends to preserve cash. Now mining companies are pushing suppliers to slash prices on equipment, goods and services after years of escalating costs.

Goldcorp, a major producer and favourite among analysts and investors, is leaning on vendors to help reach the company’s goal of cutting costs by 17 per cent.

“We ask that you perform an immediate review of your costs and propose adjustments to your current pricing to meet our target,” the company said in a letter viewed by The Globe and Mail.

The pressure is bearing fruit. By the end of June, Goldcorp had realized $74-million in reductions from squeezing its supply chain – an area it has identified as “one source of significant cost savings.”

BC’s two-faced approach to regulation – by Doug Firby (Troy Media – August 14, 2014)

August 14, 2014

http://www.troymedia.com/

Doug Firby is Editor-in-Chief and National Affairs columnist for Troy Media.

Doug FirbyCALGARY, AB, Aug. 14, 2014/ Troy Media/ – Several organizations have egg on their faces after the tailings pond disaster in central British Columbia. But no one has more than the government of British Columbia.

Yes, Imperial Metals Corp. looks like a bad corporate citizen for failing to anticipate and prevent the collapse of the dam. The mishap unleashed an estimated 10 million cubic meters of water and 4.5 million cubic meters of ground-up rock. The local folks are still waiting to hear when it will be safe to drink the water.

B.C., however, looks even worse and here’s why. As one recent poll found, citizens trust resource industries because they believe they are highly regulated. That is, they expect their governments to protect their interests. By that measure, the bureaucrats have betrayed that trust.

Accidents don’t happen when it comes to this sort of thing. Dams don’t just collapse without warning. They do when people aren’t paying close enough attention to them. Clearly, neither Imperial Metals nor the government of B.C. were paying close enough attention to this dam.

Flight simulator firm CAE puts mining unit up for sale as civil aviation profit soars – by Kristine Owram (National Post – August 14, 2014)

August 14, 2014

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

CAE Inc. is giving up its work underground to focus on the skies, announcing on Wednesday it plans to sell its nascent mining unit to give priority to its core businesses, including the robust civil aviation unit that provided the entirety of its first-quarter operating growth.

“There truly has never been a better time for commercial aviation,” CEO Marc Parent said at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday, adding that he expects to sell 40 civil flight simulators in the current fiscal year.

Mr. Parent said global airline passenger traffic grew nearly 6% in the first half of 2014. In the United States, demand for the flight simulators that CAE makes is strong because several of that country’s airlines are in the midst of replacing their fleets. In addition, recovering demand in Europe, strong aviation growth in the Middle East and the rise of low-cost carriers in Asia are all boosting demand for simulators.

Operating income at CAE’s civil simulation and training unit rose 32% to $49.5-million in the fiscal first quarter, while operating margins jumped to 16% from 12.5% last year.

By comparison, operating income at CAE’s defence and security business, which focuses on military simulators, fell 7% to $21.9-million. Margins dropped 80 basis points to 11.1%.

Clark still promising natural gas dream will produce ‘billions’ to slay B.C.’s debt – by Brian Hutchinson (National Post – August 14, 2014)

August 14, 2014

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

Time and other factors are shredding British Columbia’s $1-trillion liquefied natural gas (LNG) expansion dreams, served up by Premier Christy Clark and leading to her successful — and disingenuous — provincial election campaign last year.

Despite more and more skepticism, she’s still running with it. An expanded LNG industry in B.C. will eliminate the province’s mounting debt, or so the premier claims. As well, “billions-of-dollars in new [LNG] revenue will be dedicated” to a “Prosperity Fund,” a sort of rainy-day account “for the benefit of current and future generations.”

How many “billions-of-dollars” does Ms. Clark have in mind? “More than $100-billion.” That’s a loose figure, based on estimates from reports commissioned by the B.C. government and assuming at least five new LNG plants will soon enter production in the province.

B.C. has a lot of natural gas; in theory, much of it can be piped from the hinterland to seaports, then chilled, liquefied and shipped to markets in Asia.

Easier said than done. Ms. Clark’s “billions-of-dollars” promise relies on a whole lot of what-ifs; nonetheless, the premier and her B.C. Liberal Party ran with it, declaring themselves wealth generators, job creators, debt busters. Their opponents, the B.C. New Democratic Party, offered no compelling response in the election, and lost.

KWG subsidiary to appeal court order waiving its consent for land easement – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – August 14, 2014)

August 14, 2014

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Ontario-focused explorer KWG Resources on Wednesday announced that subsidiary Canada Chrome Corp (CCC) would seek permission from the Ontario Court of Appeal to overturn the July 30 ruling of the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that ruled that CCC’s consent should be waived in an application for an easement to build a road over its mining claims.

In its decision in the appeal brought by 2274659 Ontario Inc, a subsidiary of US-based Cliffs Natural Resources, the Divisional Court set aside the decision of the Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner issued on September 10, granting the original application to dispense with CCC’s permission for an easement over its mining claims.

The Divisional Court, in part, said: “Whether or not it is in the public interest to grant an easement for a road is a matter for the Minister of Natural Resources to determine, after an environmental assessment and consultation with First Nations and other affected interests.

“It is for the Minister to determine whether the easement should be granted in the public interest and on what terms. CCC will be able to participate in that process.”

Editorial: Who designed the Mount Polley tailings dam? – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – August 13, 2014)

August 14, 2014

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. Editor John Cumming MSc (Geol) is one of the country’s most well respected mining journalists. jcumming@northernminer.com

It’s a week and a half after the massive tailings spill at Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley copper–gold mine in B.C.’s Cariboo region, and many unclear aspects of the disaster are coming into better focus.

Of immediate concern, the tailings have continued to flow in an uncontrolled manner out of the tailings lagoon all this time, but on Aug. 12, the B.C. government said that the flow had “decreased dramatically,” and that Imperial had begun building a temporary dike to stop the flow. Lake and river water tests outside the contaminant plume show that this water is within safe drinking water guidelines, and so most water-drinking and fishing bans in the region have been lifted, except in the immediate area of the spill.

Engineering firms are usually pretty low-key when it comes to commenting on their clients’ projects, but the extraordinary scale of the Mount Polley breach has prompted both Knight Piésold and AMEC to go public and describe their roles in designing the tailings dam and its later expansions.

Knight Piésold describes itself as the “former engineer of record of the tailings storage facility at Mount Polley,” and said that it informed Imperial that it would no longer continue in that role as of February 2011. Knight Piésold commented that during the time it acted as engineer of record, the tailings storage facility at Mount Polley “operated safely and as it was designed,” and was subjected to multiple third-party reviews.