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Gold and Silver

Inuit org, Agnico Eagle Mines sign benefits deal for Nunavut’s Meliadine gold project – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq News – July 14, 2015)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

“This is another step for a brighter future for Inuit”

It took more than three years of talks — which broke down at least once — but the Kivalliq Inuit Association and Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. have finally completed and signed an Inuit Impact Benefit Agreement July 13 for the Meliadine gold project.

Officials from both the KIA and AEM signed the agreement in Rankin Inlet, just 24 kilometres away from what would be Nunavut’s third operating mine, and second gold mine, after Agnico Eagle’s Meadowbank gold mine outside of Baker Lake.

While complete details of the IIBA are yet to be made public, signatories, in a July 13 news release, said it addresses the protection of Inuit values, culture and language as well as the natural environment. Agnico Eagle told Nunatsiaq News the terms of the agreement will be made public once it translated into Inuktitut.

With the signing of the IIBA, Agnico Eagle says it’s made its first payment of $1.5 million to the KIA. The release also commits the company to working toward a minimum rate of 50 per cent Inuit employment at the mine.

“KIA has strived to balance the need to protect wildlife and the environment,” said president David Ningeongan in the same release. “This will lead to future sustainable development and benefits for Inuit in the Kivalliq region.

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The marriage of mining and technology is inevitable – by Jeannette McGill (TEDxJohannesburg – December 6, 2014)

  Published on 6 Dec 2014 This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Jeannette McGill is one of the foremost thinkers in mining, having earned her stripes working many years underground and studying at the best universities in the world. She makes the point, in this TEDxJohannesburg …

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Filmmaker goes home to document Red Lake mining life – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – June 30, 2015)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

Abudding Toronto filmmaker has paid an artistic and captivating tribute to his hometown of Red Lake with the release of his first feature-length documentary.

Cliff Caines’ 78-minute film, “A Rock and a Hard Place,” is a nostalgic and critical portrait of a resource-dependent town built upon some of the world’s richest gold deposits.

Under the umbrella of his production company, Headframe Films, the documentary received an honourable mention at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver this past May.

The catalyst for the project was in 2010 when he got wind of rumours that Goldcorp was evaluating the possibility of digging up entire subdivisions of Balmertown, a small community within Red Lake where he grew up, to convert the land into a huge open pit.

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Former Kinross Gold CEO working on potential bid for Anglo assets – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – July 14, 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.

Kinross Gold Corp.’s former chief executive Tye Burt is interested in Anglo American PLC’s three copper mines in Chile, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Burt is working with another former Kinross executive, Hugh Agro, to create another mining company after being ousted as Kinross’s CEO for a deal gone awry.

Mr. Burt and Mr. Agro, the former M&A executive at Kinross, are now seeking financing for a potential bid on the Anglo assets, the sources said.

Mr. Burt is one of many people who were given the opportunity to examine Anglo’s Mantoverde, Mantos Blancos and El Soldado mines.

Others include former Xstrata PLC CEO Mick Davis, who now runs a private mining entity called X2 Resources LLP, sources said.

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Primero’s precious problem – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – July 14, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Primero reports being unable to sell silver or gold from Mexico.

HALIFAX – Primero Mining can’t sell its Mexican silver and gold abroad.

The miner, which owns the San Dimas mine in Mexico and the Black Fox mine in Canada, said Thursday that its import and export licenses in Mexico had been revoked following a mess-up over a change of address. Primero said its Mexican subsidiary changed corporate addresses in Mexico from Mexico City to Durango and that precipitated the revocation of its import and export license.

The revocation happened back in May.

Since at least then Primero silver and gold has piled up. It said $6.5 million in revenue from the sale of 880,000 ounces silver had been delayed and that it could not deliver some 630,000 ounces silver as part of a silver streaming agreement with Silver Wheaton.

“Senior customs officials have confirmed that the company’s registry status is being reviewed, but the company has not been given a definitive date for reinstatement of the licenses,” Primerso stated.

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Zimbabwe’s desperate gold rush poisons children with mercury – by Andrew Mambondiyani (Reuters U.S. – July 13, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

MUTARE, Zimbabwe, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Cynthia Dzimbati was exhausted. Her three-month-old baby strapped to her back and panning dish in hand, she had spent the whole day working the Mutare River for not one single ounce of gold.

“This is now my life. I lost my job,” said the 31-year old single mother, looking so worn out she could easily have passed for 50. “I have three children to feed.”

Dzimbati poured a few drops of mercury into a bowl of dirty water and stirred it with her bare hands.

The gold in the river is growing more scarce these days, she said, so the illegal artisanal miners are relying on mercury, a highly toxic substance supplied by the smugglers who buy their product, to trap the precious metal from the muddy river waters in the eastern borders of Zimbabwe.

Public health and environmental experts say the consequences are disastrous. Mercury is contaminating drinking water for miles around and causing neurological damage, especially to children.

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No Gold Rush as Greece and China Troubles Roil Markets – by Rhiannon Hoyle (Wall Street Journal – July 9, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

Gold is losing its shine as a safe-haven investment, as prices for the commodity trade near five-year lows

SYDNEY—Market mayhem is normally a buy signal for one asset: gold. But this time around the precious metal is the dog that hasn’t barked.

The commodity surged to a record high in 2011 amid rising anxiety over the eurozone’s unfolding debt crisis, as mass protests against austerity policies hit the streets of Athens. This year, faced with more turmoil from a deteriorating situation in Greece, investors haven’t yet rushed to gold.

Nor have concerns about China’s economy and its plunging stock market yet caused the sort of panic gold-buying seen in past years.

“Put simply, this year feels as if has had more than its share of drama,” Macquarie said in a client note. “Gold has done nothing. In fact worse than nothing—the price of gold is 3% lower than it began the year.”

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Franco-Nevada Sees Mine Deals Affected by Canada Tax Move – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – July 8, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Franco-Nevada Corp., a Canadian company that invests in mining, said a government review of how a competitor will be taxed on foreign earnings could in future lower the profitability of some financing projects.

“It just changes the level of where these deals would get bid,” Franco-Nevada Chief Executive Officer David Harquail said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

He was referring to so-called streaming arrangements in which companies such as Franco-Nevada help fund a mining company in exchange for a percentage of future revenue from the operation in the form of discounted metals.

Streaming company Silver Wheaton Corp. said Tuesday the Canada Revenue Agency wants to reassess as much as C$715 million ($562 million) in earnings from its foreign subsidiaries. This could result in more than $200 million in back taxes and penalties for the years 2005-2010, Andrew Kaip, a Toronto-based analyst at Bank of Montreal, said in a note Tuesday.

Harquail said he believes Silver Wheaton will have to factor the tax risk into future streaming bids.

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Silver Wheaton Corp shares slump 12% on possible tax reassessment, payments of more than $200M – by Peter Koven (National Post – July 8, 2015)

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

The Canada Revenue Agency is seeking more than US$200 million in back taxes and penalties from Silver Wheaton Corp. in a probe that raises concerns about the company’s entire business model.

Shares of the Vancouver-based firm dropped 12 per cent on Tuesday after the CRA’s proposal became public, wiping out more than $1 billion of shareholder value. Investors were alarmed by the possibility the CRA’s back tax demands could grow much bigger in the months ahead, and that Silver Wheaton could have to pay higher taxes on all its future income.

Silver Wheaton, for its part, fiercely denied that it has ever avoided taxes. “We remain confident in our business structure, which we believe is consistent with that typically used by Canadian companies,” chief executive Randy Smallwood said on a conference call.

The CRA’s probe involves the complex issue of transfer pricing and deals conducted through Silver Wheaton’s foreign subsidiaries.

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Gold-Mine Developer TMAC Declines in Toronto Debut – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – July 7, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

TMAC Resources Inc., the first mining company to have an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in more than two years, fell 6.5 percent in early trading.

The shares, which were sold in the IPO at C$6 ($4.70) apiece, traded at C$5.61 at 10.26 a.m. Toronto time, joining a wider selloff of gold and gold-mining equities.

TMAC raised C$135 million in the offering to help develop its Hope Bay gold mine in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. The company will also use C$65 million of available cash plus a debt facility of as much as C$153 million to fund construction of the mine, located 160 kilometers (99 miles) north of the Arctic circle, Chairman Terry MacGibbon said.

The offering follows a difficult period for gold mining, with two straight annual gold-price declines prompting some of the largest companies in the industry to reduce costs and sell less-profitable mines. The previous mining IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange was completed by Oban Mining Corp., a Canadian gold explorer, in October 2012.

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Iamgold’s troublesome mine – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – July 6, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

The downward revision of production guidance at Westwood will dampen the share price.

Unstable ground conditions are proving to be a major hindrance for Iamgold at the Westwood gold mine, in the Doyon-Bousquet – LaRonde mining camp in Quebec.

Seismic issues – mostly mining-related – at underground mines in the region are nothing new and can require extensive monitoring and management.

But, after a couple sizeable rock bursts, Iamgold is now having to peddle back on projections and reconsider how much gold it can produce at the mine.

Back in January four Iamgold workers were stuck, briefly, underground after a rock fall blocked access. Then, in a similar incident in May, nine workers were again blocked by a rock fall.

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[South Africa] Govt, private sector working constructively to tackle acid mine drainage in Wits basin – by Ilan Solomons (MiningWeekly.com – July 3, 2015)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Although acid mine drainage (AMD) in the Witwatersrand basin is the result of a legacy of environmental mismanagement of water resources by mines and lax enforcement of regulations by government, these role-players are working to constructively address this problem, says Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) senior manager Marius Keet.

Keet was a speaker during the first day of black-owned training and conferencing company Intelligence Transfer Centre’s two-day EnviroMining conference, held in Johannesburg, in March.

The Witwatersrand basin, a largely underground geological formation that surfaces in the Witwatersrand region of Johannesburg, comprises the Western, Central and Eastern basins.

A current key focus for government is to prevent further decanting of AMD from the basins by pumping underground water to protect the environmental critical level (ECL). The ECL is the level above which the water in the mine voids at critical locations, which is where environmental features that need to be protected are at the lowest elevations.

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NEWS RELEASE: McEwen Mining Addresses New York Stock Exchange Listing Requirements

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – July 2, 2015) – McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE:MUX) (TSX:MUX) announced today that it has fallen below the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) continued listing requirement related to the price of its common stock. The NYSE requires that the average closing price of a listed company’s common stock be above US$1.00 per share, calculated over a period of 30 consecutive trading days. The Company was advised by the NYSE on July 1, 2015 that the average price of our common stock for the previous 30 trading days was below US$1.00 per share

Under the NYSE’s rules, McEwen Mining has a period of six months from July 1, 2015, the date of the Company’s acknowledgement, to bring its share price and 30 day average closing share price back above US$1.00. During this period, McEwen Mining’s common stock will continue to trade on the NYSE, subject to all other continued listing requirements. The Company’s listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”) is unaffected by any actions of the NYSE.

“We do not believe that McEwen Mining’s current share price is reflective of the true value of the Company’s assets. Our share price has been under pressure as a result of the decline in gold and silver prices and a general reduction in financing options that have affected many companies in the mining space. The Company values its NYSE listing and will evaluate measures to bring our share price into compliance with listing requirements.” said Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner.

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Barrick Gold makes big changes to become a smaller company – by Joe Castaldo (Canadian Business Magazine – July 3, 2015)

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/

Long-suffering shareholders see potential as the company focuses on shedding debt and getting back to gold

It’s quiet at the headquarters of Barrick Gold in Toronto. On a Wednesday afternoon in May, all that can be heard is the soft hum of the ventilation system. A few years ago, around 500 people filled the office, overseeing mining operations that spanned the globe. Today, there are just 140 employees responsible for a much smaller geographical footprint. And that footprint might shrink over the coming year.

For long-suffering Barrick shareholders, this is welcome news. “We’re taking Barrick back to the way it was 15 years ago,” says Kelvin Dushnisky, the company’s co-president. Back then, Barrick was not a bloated organization that had lost investor confidence, nor was it facing a mountainous $13-billion debt in a depressed gold market. Since 2012, Barrick’s share price has fallen by roughly 70%.

While gold prices are a long way from where they were at the height of the 2000s commodities boom—a reality that’s hurt many miners—Barrick’s wounds are mostly self-inflicted. In 2011, founder and chairman Peter Munk pushed the company to spend billions on an underperforming copper mine in Zambia. Barrick also botched the development of what was to be a monster gold mine on the border of Chile and Argentina called Pascua-Lama. These two headaches have cost Barrick about $15.9 billion over the past few years, according to an analyst at Macquarie Group.

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NEWS RELEASE: ALAMOS AND AURICO METALS ANNOUNCE COMPLETION OF MERGER

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – July 2, 2015) – Alamos Gold Inc. (“Alamos”) (TSX:AGI)(NYSE:AGI) and AuRico Metals Inc. (“AuRico Metals”) (TSX:AMI) are pleased to announce the completion of the previously announced arrangement (“Arrangement”) involving Alamos Gold Inc. (a predecessor to Alamos) (“Former Alamos”) (TSX:AGI)(NYSE:AGI) and AuRico Gold Inc. (a predecessor to Alamos) (“Former AuRico”) (TSX:AUQ)(NYSE:AUQ).

Pursuant to the Arrangement, Former Alamos and Former AuRico amalgamated to form Alamos, and certain assets of Former AuRico, including the Kemess project, certain royalties and cash, were transferred to AuRico Metals. Approximately 95.1% of the common shares of AuRico Metals (“AuRico Metals Shares”) were distributed to Former Alamos and Former AuRico shareholders. Following completion of the Arrangement, Alamos holds an equity interest of approximately 4.9% in AuRico Metals.

Under the terms of the Arrangement, each Former Alamos share held was ultimately exchanged for 1 Class A common share of Alamos (“Class A Shares”), US$0.0001 in cash, and 0.4397 AuRico Metals Shares, and each Former AuRico share held was ultimately exchanged for 0.5046 Class A Shares and 0.2219 AuRico Metals Shares. Upon closing, Alamos has approximately 255,505,000 Class A Shares outstanding with Former Alamos and Former AuRico shareholders each owning approximately 50% and AuRico Metals has approximately 118,120,000 shares outstanding with Former Alamos and Former AuRico shareholders each owning approximately 50% of the shares not held by Alamos.

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