Twitter

Canadian Media Resource Articles

Turkey in mourning (Northern Miner Editorial – May 14, 2014)

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

Outside of the all-too regular horrors of China’s underground mines, the coal mine explosion on May 13 at Soma, 250 km south of Istanbul in western Turkey, is the worst mine disaster in recent memory.

The death toll stood at 274 and counting at press time, with some 450 miners having been rescued and many dozens still missing. The workings — which extend at least 420 metres — were still being vented of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and fires were still burning. The Turkish government has declared three days of national mourning.

The Soma disaster has beaten Turkey’s previous worst mining disaster: a 1992 gas explosion that killed 263 workers near the Black Sea port of Zonguldak.

Initial reports out of Soma have authorities saying that the disaster followed an explosion and fire caused by a faulty power distribution unit, and the deaths were caused by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Turkey’s Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said 787 people were inside the coal mine at the time of the explosion, and many were injured. A shift change was occurring at the time, so a maximum number of workers were underground.

Read more

Historic silver price ‘fix’ coming to an end after 117 years – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 15, 2014)

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

The silver market is poised to undergo a major shake-up, as the ancient method of setting a benchmark price is coming to an end.

Since 1897, the London “silver fix” has been negotiated each trading day at noon through an auction between bullion dealers. Remarkably, the process has endured despite all the evolutions in trading since then. Similar daily fixings continue to be set for gold, platinum, and palladium.

The silver fix is now dying because the banks that set the price don’t want to do it anymore, and no one else is rushing forward to take their place.

Last month, Deutsche Bank said it planned to give up its seats on the silver and gold fixes as it scaled back its commodity business. That left only two banks to determine the silver fix: Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC. Now all of the parties have decided to withdraw, meaning the last fixing will take place on Aug. 14. All three banks will stay on until then.

The decision to end the silver fixing comes as regulators put more scrutiny on the fixing process amid concerns that it could be manipulated. That follows a scandal in 2012 over the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor).

Read more

Grassy Narrows takes logging fight to Supreme Court – by Jody Porter (CBC News Thunder Bay – May 15, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/thunderbay/

A case before the Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday could determine the future of resource extraction in much of the country. Grassy Narrows First Nation, in northwestern Ontario, is challenging Ontario’s right to issue logging or mining permits on their treaty lands.

Councillor Rudy Turtle said the clear cutting of trees near his home has ruined trap lines and scared away the moose in the area.

“If someone can’t get a moose, they have to rely on store-bought food, which is unhealthy and very expensive,” Turtle said.”Whenever someone kills a moose, it’s their supply of meat for their whole family for the winter.”

The First Nation argued successfully in an Ontario court that their treaty rights to hunt, trap and fish are “subject only to limits placed by the federal government,” as laid out in Treaty 3. Ontario appealed that decision all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The lawyer for Grassy Narrows said the case will lay out the responsibility of the federal government “to try to help sort things out between the non-Aboriginal people who want to use resources and the Aboriginal people who are also using those resources.”

Read more

Duluth sees nickel upside at Twin Metals (Northern Miner – May 14, 2014)

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

VANCOUVER — It’s been a long road for junior Duluth Metals (TSX: DM, US-OTC: DULMF) on the northern edge of Minnesota’s prolific Iron Range, but it looks like the development potential of the company’s Twin Metals joint venture with major Antofagasta (LON: ANTO, US-OTC: ANFGY) is set to come into focus in the next few months.

The companies are set to release a prefeasibility study (PFS) based on a large-scale copper-nickel-platinum-palladium-gold resource in July — the first updated study since a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in 2008 — which will outline a 50,000-tonnes-per-day underground mine.

Duluth has also undergone a management change as it moves towards a potential development scenario, with former-COO Kelly Osborne — who worked as a senior vice-president of underground operations for Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE: FCX) — stepping in as the company’s president and CEO on May 12.

Outgoing president Vern Baker took some time to sit down with The Northern Miner to discuss his four-year tenure with the company, and shed some light on the current state of the Twin Metals project. Baker will continue to serve on the Twin Metals technical committee moving forward.

Read more

‘This is your pipeline’: Eagle Spirit plan is in Canada’s best interests, aboriginal leader says – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – May 15, 2014)

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

CALGARY – Dave Tuccaro is not your stereotypical aboriginal leader impacted by the oil sands: He loves the industry, has become very wealthy because of it and is on a mission to ensure there is a pipeline to link the Alberta deposits to markets in Asia.

The founder, president and CEO of Tuccaro Inc., a treaty Indian from Fort Chipewyan and likely Canada’s most successful aboriginal entrepreneur, is a leading backer of the Eagle Spirit pipeline-and-upgrader proposal from Alberta to the British Columbia coast.

The project is orchestrating a big push to win B.C. and Alberta First Nations’ support just as Ottawa prepares to hand down a ruling on the rival Northern Gateway project, which is struggling with aboriginal opposition.

“What we want to do is to tell the [aboriginal] community: ‘This is your pipeline,’” the usually-private leader said in an interview on the sidelines of an awards ceremony organized by the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business.

“If we find out six months from now that they don’t want it, we will back off. But we know for sure, they know as well, that a pipeline is going to be built, from here to the West Coast. It’s in Canada’s best interest to sell our oil to somebody other than the United States.

Read more

Mining: Geologist takes mineral hunt to his hometown – by James Kwantes (Vancouver Sun – May 13, 2014)

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

Rob McLeod returns to Stewart to explore for gold at Red Mountain, site of his first job after graduation

When exploration geologist Rob McLeod graduated from the University of B.C. in 1993, his first job was drilling for gold at an underground project at Red Mountain near his hometown of Stewart.

It was a “dream job” for McLeod, who grew up fishing, hiking and exploring abandoned mine shafts in the area. During the winter drill program, he would pack ski equipment on the Snowcat they used to travel up the mountain and ski down at the end of the day.

The skiing was good, and so were the drill hits. “I’ve had my eyes on it ever since,” McLeod said of the property at the southern edge of B.C.’s “golden triangle,” a mineral-rich area beside the Alaska panhandle that hosts high-grade gold and stores of copper and silver.

McLeod now has his hands on Red Mountain as well, after an option agreement with current owner Seabridge Gold. The deal gives McLeod’s Revolution Resources 100-per-cent ownership of the project in exchange for a total of $3.5 million in cash and the expenditure of $7.5 million in exploration and development expenses over the next three years.

Read more

El Nino a looming wild card for commodities – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – May 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.

Commodity traders are placing their bets on El Nino. The periodic weather phenomenon leads to torrential rain in South America and droughts in Asia and Africa, and may provide a needed boost for commodities after last year’s slump in prices.

Weather forecasters around the world are predicting that a shift in climate patterns could occur this summer, with some warning of the strongest El Nino in more than a decade.

“One should prepare portfolios to actively trade that event,” Société Générale SA said in a research note released on Tuesday. “We see support for base metals, especially nickel and zinc, as well as more volatility for sugar, cotton, coffee and cocoa.”

The severe weather event, which happens when temperatures warm in the Pacific Ocean, could cause flooding in copper and zinc mines in South America.

It could also cause droughts in resource-rich regions, threatening sugar crops in Thailand and India and drying up waterways needed to transport ore in Indonesia, the bank said.

Read more

Gold miners tarnished by tumbling reserves – by David Parkinson (Globe and Mail – May 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.

For the world’s major gold mining companies, bullion’s sharp price decline has put them in an unfamiliar and not altogether comfortable condition: They’re shrinking. The question now is whether the downsizing is destined to continue – or if a bit of price stability will lure them back into their comfort zone of rebuilding reserves through acquisition.

A new report from independent research firm SNL Financial notes that the combined gold reserves of the five biggest global gold producers (Barrick Gold Corp., Newmont Mining Corp., Goldcorp Inc., AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp.) fell by 11 per cent in 2013. Their reserve total has retreated to 2006 levels, wiping out six years’ worth of growth.

The culprit was the gold price. As it tumbled from $1,800 (U.S.) an ounce in late 2012 to $1,200 in late 2013, the miners were forced to slash the price assumptions they used in their reserve calculations – and remove higher-cost ore from reserve estimates as producing it was no longer economic.

The result has not only been substantial and costly writedowns to reserves, but also a shrinking reserve base that is far from business as usual at the big miners.

Read more

Oil giant Petrobras: Brazil’s broken backbone – by Stephanie Nolen (Globe and Mail – May 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.

RIO DE JANEIRO — The senator shuffled his papers and ran through a list: Five separate federal investigations into corruption. Wild overpayments for new facilities. A monstrous debt.

“We are not talking here about the local grocery store, but about the biggest company in Brazil,” Pedro Taques said when the government summoned the chief executive of the national oil company to an inquiry into its operations a few weeks ago. “How can a company this size commit these kinds of mistakes?”

The CEO stiffened visibly at the question. “Petrobras is not, it is not, a local grocery store,” Maria das Graças Silva Foster said sternly, her dark eyebrows drawn down into a V. “Petrobras is an absolutely serious oil company, distinct from other oil companies throughout the world, due to the challenges it faces every day.”

The woes of Petroleo Brasileiro SA dominate the news in Brazil these days. A market star just a few years ago, Petrobras is beset by graft scandals, has stagnant production levels and is the world’s most-indebted oil company. It is worth 40 per cent less today than it was in 2011. Ms. Foster told the senate these issues originated prior to her tenure and are being addressed.

Read more

Fully automated mines ‘a distinct possibility’ – by Shawn Conner (Vancouver Sun – May 13, 2014)

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

Safety concerns drive mining industry to embrace mechanized performance of repetitive tasks

Increasingly, the mining industry is turning to robotics. In some parts of the world, drones and driverless trucks are being used for mining operations. In B.C., most of the robotics so far are used in drilling. “Underground, we are further ahead than across Canada in terms of either using robotic or semi-autonomous-type pieces of equipment, particularly with drills,” said John Thompson.

A part-time professor at Cornell University, Thompson is the founder of PetraScience Consultants Inc. and is a Chair at the Canada Mining Innovation Council. Many of the machines used for drilling at the New Afton copper-gold mine west of Kamloops are automated or partly robotic.

“Our jumbo drills are semirobotic,” said Sean Masse, mine manager for New Afton, which has both open pit and underground operations. The big Sandvik drills are 12.5 metres long, two metres high and three metres tall. The 21.8-tonne drills bore the holes for the explosives that blast ore free.

“Our surveyors will draw up a design for how the drilling should go, and then we put that card into the jumbo’s computer, and the jumbo will automatically take the drill-bit to where the hole is supposed to be on that pattern. The only thing the operator does is make sure it’s not going to drill into where there’s a remnant of the last (explosive) round.”

Read more

The Agenda with Steve Paikin: A Political Ring of Fire

http://tvo.org/   The Ring of Fire, a chromite deposit in Ontario’s North is said to be worth billions of dollars. The Liberals say they’ll contribute $1 billion if the federal government matches. The Agenda examines the politics and possibilities of the Ring of Fire. May 12, 2014 broadcast. The Agenda with Steve Paikin The Agenda …

Read more

Over 200 killed, hundreds trapped after deadly coal mine explosion in Turkey – by Desmond Butler and Suzan Fraser (Globe and Mail May 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.

SOMA, Turkey — The Associated Press – Rescuers desperately raced against time to reach more than 200 miners trapped underground Wednesday after an explosion and fire at a coal mine in western Turkey killed at least 201 workers, authorities said, in one of the worst mining disasters in Turkish history.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said 787 people were inside the coal mine in Soma, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of Istanbul, at the time of the explosion and 363 of them had been rescued so far.

“Regarding the rescue operation, I can say that our hopes are diminishing,” Yildiz said. Turkey’s worst mining disaster was a 1992 gas explosion that killed 263 workers near the Black Sea port of Zonguldak.

As bodies were brought out on stretchers, rescue workers pulled blankets back from the faces of the dead to give jostling crowds of anxious family members a chance to identify victims. One elderly man wearing a prayer cap wailed after he recognized one of the dead, and police restrained him from climbing into an ambulance with the body.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared three days of national mourning, ordering flags to be lowered to half-staff. Erdogan postponed a one-day visit to Albania and planned to visit Soma instead.

Read more

Paulson-Backed Detour Plots Supersizing Mine: Corporate Canada – by Liezel Hill (Bloomberg News – May 13, 2014)

http://www.businessweek.com/

Everything about Detour Gold Corp. (DGC) is big, from its shovels that scoop up 100 tons of rock at a time to its index-leading share price. Now it’s exploring ways to make Canada’s largest gold mine even bigger.

The company, whose biggest shareholder is billionaire John Paulson’s hedge-fund firm, plans to reach full production at its Detour Lake mine in northern Ontario at the end of the year while it considers options to boost output.

“Our priority remains the ramp up, but it’s not our sole priority,” Chief Executive Officer Paul Martin said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Toronto office. “The next step is to look at our near-term organic growth opportunities.”

Detour Lake, built for C$1.5 billion ($1.4 billion) on 630 square kilometers (243 square miles), is grand by several parameters. Trucks with capacity to each carry 300 tons of rock rumble through the growing pit and the inside of the mill is as large as two football fields, according to Martin.

The size is partly a function of the mine’s lower grades: the company must move about four tons of rock to get one gram of gold. That means the more ore Detour can mine and process, the more profitable the operation becomes.

Read more

Nickel prices continue huge rally on supply concerns – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 13, 2014)

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

The jaw-dropping rally in nickel prices shows no signs of slowing. At least not yet.

When the Indonesian government introduced an export ban in January that severely curbed nickel supply, industry insiders predicted it would have a profound effect on the market. But they were largely ignored by the investment community, which had little interest in nickel after nearly three years of dismal performance by the metal.

In retrospect, the insiders were right. Nickel prices have soared more than 50% since the export ban came into effect. Prices rose more than 5% at one stage on Monday, climbing above US$9.50 a pound. That is the best level since early 2012.

“We’re cheerleading this morning,” said Rick Mark, chairman and chief executive of North American Nickel Inc. “I was amazed to see it up another 30 cents. It’s remarkable that we’ve had two 30-cent days in the space of three or four days.”

Indonesia is responsible for roughly 28% of global nickel mine production. The export ban on unprocessed ore is part of an effort to encourage more value-added processing within the country.

Read more

Oil pipeline consultation with aboriginals doesn’t equate to veto, report argues – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – May 13, 2014)

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

During the past decade, Canada’s aboriginals have turned natural resource projects such as the Northern Gateway pipeline into a lever to assert their interests, regardless of whether they clashed with those of the country as a whole.

Based on the belief that the law is on their side, they have threatened to go to court if Prime Minister Stephen Harper approves the Alberta-to-West Coast pipeline next month, and if he does, to sabotage it if proponent Enbridge Inc. dares to build it.

Cheered on by anti-oil advocates, some aboriginals say ‘social licence’ has moved ahead of all criteria to determine whether a natural resource project can go ahead. The United Nations’ top advocate for the rights of indigenous people fanned the flames Monday by suggesting Ottawa should “probably” consider blocking Northern Gateway.

It’s a speeding train that needs a course correction before a ruling on the Northern Gateway becomes another reason for aboriginals to feel shortchanged.

Dwight Newman, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law at the University of Saskatchewan, provides impetus for that in a new paper for the Macdonald Laurier Institute.

Read more