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Gold and Silver

Timmins Gold producer St Andrew Goldfields puts a shine on OMA high school video competition

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Ontario Mining Association member St Andrew Goldfields (SAS) is once again offering tangible encouragement to the children of its employees to enter the high school video competition So You Think You Know Mining. However, this year it is expanding its support with incentives for teachers and schools.

SAS is increasing the stakes in SYTYKM. Any Ontario high school student of any SAS employee who produces a film and enters SYTYKM is eligible for a $250 cash prize from a random draw. The company is making the same offer with a second $250 prize for the children of Quebec-based employees even though they are not eligible for SYTYKM, which is only for Ontario students.

On top of this, which is what SAS offered last year, there is an opportunity for schools which support SYTYKM to earn a $1,000 grant. They are limited to one per school. “Our goal is to make equipment, resources, software or whatever tools you require available to you to assist with your submission. And your school can keep it,” said SAS in its promotional materials. Mentors – one per student film maker – will also be awarded a one-eight ounce gold coin.

“We are going outside our walls this year to offer up to $1,000 to Ontario schools supporting SYTYKM that our employee’s children attend. As well, a one-eighth ounce Canadian minted gold coin will be given to any teacher, staff or administrator who mentor one of our employee’s students through to the end and a video is submitted,” said Geoff Ramey, Vice President Human Resources at St Andrew Goldfields.

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Will gold’s 12-year continue in 2013 – by Ross Marowits (Toronto Star/Reuters – January 21, 2013)

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.

MONTREAL – Gold is expected by many to continue to sparkle as an investment opportunity over the next two years despite a 12-year bull run that briefly took the precious metal as high as US$1,900 an ounce before pulling back.

Investment strategist Gavin Graham says gold should rise from its current price of US$1,689 an ounce to approach the 2011 high price later this year before perhaps hitting US$2,000 in 2014.

“I know a number of people have got US$2,000 an ounce pencilled in at some stage over the next 18 months to two years and that’s not an unreasonable forecast,” the president of Graham Investment Strategy Ltd. said.

Gold saw its smallest price increase since 2008 last year and, adjusting for inflation, it remains below the real all-time peak of US$850 per ounce set in 1980. That’s equivalent to a nominal value of about US$2,500.

Once gold breaks through US$2,000, Graham believes it could attract skeptical buyers. “There’s still more legs in it even though it’s gone up a lot.” Serge Pepin, vice-president Investment Strategy of BMO Global Asset Management, also sees gold rising despite fears that India, the world’s largest buyer of the metal, could slap a bigger tax on gold imports.

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Gold mine plan goes to next step – by Northwest Bureau (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – January 21, 2013)

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

A federal environmental assessment has begun for Treasury Metals’ proposed Goliath gold project near Dryden. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is looking for public input on any potential environmental impacts the proposed gold mining project might have on the area and what should be examined during the environmental assessment.

The public can review and comment on the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) guidelines, available at www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca (registry reference No. 80019). Copies of the guidelines are also available for viewing at the Dryden and Sioux Lookout public libraries.

The report identifies potential environmental effects to be considered, and the information and analysis that needs to be included in the EIS. Treasury Metals wants to develop, construct and operate an open-pit and underground gold mine just east of Dryden.

The mine would process 2,500 tonnes per day of rock containing various concentrations of gold over a mine life of up to 12 years.

Treasury Metals owns the property which is close to infrastructure (electricity, natural gas and highways). Ore would be partially processed on-site and shipped off-site for further refining and upgrading.

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Greece Sees Gold Boom, but at a Price – by Suzanne Daley (New York Times – January 13, 2013)

http://www.nytimes.com/

IERISSOS, Greece — In the forest near here, bulldozers have already begun flattening hundreds of acres for an open pit gold mine and a processing plant, which Canada’s Eldorado Gold Corporation hopes to open within two years. Eldorado has reopened other mining operations around here, too, digging for gold, copper, zinc and lead from nearby hills.

For some residents, all this activity, which promises perhaps 1,500 jobs by 2015, is a blessing that could pump some life into the dismal economy of the surrounding villages in this rural northeast region of Greece.

But for hundreds of others, who have mounted repeated protests, the new mining operation is nothing more than a symbol of Greece’s willingness these days to accept any development, no matter the environmental cost. Only 10 years ago, they like to point out, Greece’s highest court ruled that the amount of environmental damage that mining would do here was not worth the economic gain.

“This will be a business for 10, maybe 15 years, and then this company will just disappear, leaving all the pollution behind like all the others did,” said Christos Adamidis, a hotel owner here who fears that the new mining operations will end up destroying other local businesses, including tourism. “If the price of gold drops, it might not even last that long. And in the meantime, the dust this will create will be killing off the leaves. There will be no goats or olives or bees here.”

Tensions over new development schemes are being felt elsewhere in Greece, too, as the country stumbles into its sixth year of recession, eager to bring in moneymaking operations and forced by its creditors to streamline approval processes.

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[Timmins] Hollinger house to be saved – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – January 17, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Those worried about one of the finest and most accurate links to the city’s past needn’t worry. The last remaining original Hollinger house will survive the sale of the property it sits on.

More than 300 of the historic homes were built after 1913, when Noah Timmins founded the mythical Hollinger Mine. Most of the homes were located between Algonquin Boulevard and Vimy Avenue and were instantly memorable because of their bright alternating green and red tar-paper patterns.

The house overlooking downtown Timmins at the top of Shania Twain Drive is of the green variety. Mayor Tom Laughren said that while he doesn’t know where yet, the old Hollinger house behind the Shania Twain Centre and the Underground Gold Mine Tour will be moved to a new location.

Earlier this month, Timmins council declared its intention to sell the property, on which the attractions currently sit, to the Goldcorp mining company. Plans are in the works to demolish the Shania Twain Centre and absorb the mine tour site into a proposed open pit. But the mayor said that the Hollinger house means too much to the city to let go.

“I think when we were talking land and buildings, it’s more related to the Shania Twain Centre, as well as the buildings that are kind of attached to the Gold Mine Tour,” said Laughren about the property sale.

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NEWS RELEASE: Alamos Announces 40% Premium Takeover Offer for Aurizon

January 14, 2013

Toronto, Ontario (January 14, 2013) – Alamos Gold Inc. (TSX: AGI) (“Alamos” or the “Company”) announced  today that it has commenced an offer to acquire Aurizon Mines Ltd. (“Aurizon”) for approximately C$780 million in cash and shares (the “Offer”). The Offer will remain open until 5:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on February  19, 2013 unless withdrawn or extended. Alamos has also applied to list its common shares (“Alamos Shares”) on the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”) under the symbol “AGI”.

Under the terms of the Offer, Alamos proposes to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Aurizon (“Aurizon Shares”) for consideration value of C$4.65 per Aurizon Share. Each Aurizon shareholder can elect to receive consideration per Aurizon Share of either C$4.65 in cash (the “Cash Alternative”) or 0.2801 of an Alamos Share (the “Share Alternative”), subject in each case to pro-ration based on a maximum cash consideration of C$305,000,000 and maximum number of Alamos Shares issued of 23,500,000.

The Offer reflects a premium of approximately 40% based on the closing price of C$3.33 for the Aurizon Shares on the TSX on January 9, 2013, and a premium of approximately 37% based on the volume-weighted average price of the Aurizon Shares on the TSX for the 20 trading days ended January 9, 2013.

Full details of the Offer are included in the formal Offer and take-over bid circular that will be filed today with securities regulatory authorities (together with all related documents). Alamos will formally request an Aurizon security holder list today. The take-over bid documents will be mailed to Aurizon shareholders.

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Lake Shore expects continued growth in 2013 – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – January 14, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Preliminary year-end numbers released by Lake Shore Gold indicate that the corporation’s Timmins West Mine has met forecasted expectations for 2012. In addition to meeting expectations, the release indicates the mine and its milling operations are on track to meet predicted 2013 growth.

“We finished 2012 strong with higher production and improved grades during the fourth quarter,” said Lake Shore president and chief executive Tony Makuch in a corporate release. “For the full year, we achieved our production guidance, producing 85,782 ounces and pouring 85,184 ounces.”

Of those total 2012 ounces, 23,738 ounces were extracted from the mine in the fourth quarter, accounting for 24,041 of the ounces poured in 2012.

“Equally important, we met our key mine development and milling expansion objectives, including increasing both our mining and milling capacity by 25% to 2,500 tonnes per day. We remain on track to increase production capacity to 3,000 tonnes per day during the second quarter of this year.”

The original indicators that showed gold quality at 3.9 grams per tonne was increased to 4.4 grams per tonne in the fourth quarter of 2012. “The progress we achieved in 2012 has positioned us for significantly higher production, reduced spending and improved cash operating costs in 2013,” said Makuch. “Production for the year is targeted at between 120,000 and 135,000 ounces of gold.”

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[IAMGOLD] Co. funds university pit-mine position – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – January 15, 2013)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

A mining company called IAMGOLD Corporation has donated $1.25 million to Laurentian University to fund Canada’s first research chair in open-pit mining over a five-year period.

IAMGOLD will soon start mining operations at its Cote Gold project, an open-pit gold mine located near Gogama, about 180 km north of Sudbury.

“This is going to be a large mine that is going to require a lot of talent to operate,” said Gordon Stothart, IAMGOLD’s vice-president and chief operating officer. “Part of how we run our operations is to look around locally for who you can start to source talent.”

Laurentian has started a global search to find a suitable candidate for the research chair position, and is expected to make a decision as early as July.

“The main thing is we need someone with experience in open pit mining,” said Ramesh Subramanian, director of Laurentian’s Bharti School of Engineering. The school of engineering will establish the openpit mining research chair and choose the candidate for the position. Subramanian said about 75% of the world’s mines are openpit, but most mines in Canada are underground.

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Laurentian strikes gold with [IAMGOLD] research chair – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury Northern Life – January 14, 2013)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

IAMGOLD donates $1.25M to fund position

Thanks to a $1.25-million donation from IAMGOLD Corporation, Laurentian University’s Bharti School of Engineering will soon host the country’s first research chair in open-pit mining. The research chair is also the first at Laurentian funded entirely by private industry.

IAMGOLD Corporation, a 6,000-employee company with operations in Quebec, West Africa and South America, plans to open an open-pit gold mine at its Côté Gold project south of Gogama in 2017.

The company is looking to spend $1.4 billion to develop the mine, which will employ up to 2,000 people during construction and 400 people once up and running.Given these plans, the company thought it was a good idea to sponsor the research chair, said IAMGOLD CEO Stephen Letwin.

He said the company needs employees trained in the area of open-pit mining and sees the contribution as “an investment in the future.”

“I just can’t tell you how pleased we are to be part of the community and be partners with the school and partners with the region,” Letwin said, speaking to Northern Life on Jan. 14 after the position was announced.

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Barrick to Lead Wave of Gold-Mining Asset Sales in 2013 – by Liezel Hill (Bloomberg Businessweek – January 08, 2013)

http://www.businessweek.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) and its global competitors are poised to sell assets this year as the companies seek to reverse two years of share-price declines.

Barrick, the largest producer of the precious metal, held talks to sell its majority stake in African Barrick Gold Plc (ABG), which runs the company’s highest-cost mines, before announcing today the negotiations had ended. CEO Jamie Sokalsky is reviewing the company’s other assets, and Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM), the world’s second-biggest gold miner, and Canada’s Kinross Gold Corp. (K) are among other producers that may sell assets, according to Dahlman Rose & Co.

“Every single one of the companies in this industry is looking for ways to create value, whether it be a spin out, or being taken over, or a restructuring,” David Christensen, who oversees about $450 million as CEO of San Mateo, California- based ASA Ltd., said in a Dec. 11 phone interview.

The possibility of increased sales represents an about-face for an industry that spent $69.7 billion on 410 takeovers and joint ventures in the last five years, as companies competed to boost output and reserves. Now gold miners including Barrick say they’re focused on returns instead of growth after equities lagged behind gains by the metal for the sixth straight year.

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Excerpt from “The History of Mining: The events, technology and people involved in the industry that forged the modern world” – by Michael Coulson

To order a copy of The History of Mining please click here:http://www.harriman-house.com/products/books/23161/business/Michael-Coulson/The-History-of-Mining/

HOW THE PROSPECTORS GOT TO CALIFORNIA

The experience of those taking part in the California Rush was easier than the privations that would be experienced by those making it to the Klondike in that later rush. However, getting to the Californian gold fields was no picnic. Whilst today there are many road and rail routes across and through the great Sierra Mountains into the Pacific USA, in the 19th century the overland crossing from the eastern and central states into California was fraught with danger.

The other routes used were sea routes, first the long voyage down to the tip of South America, round Cape Horn and up to San Francisco, before the relatively short land journey south to the gold fields. The time this route took and the considerable dangers posed by the huge storms that often blew around Cape Horn led to a third route being established, sailing to the Panama Isthmus and then going by land to the Pacific side to board ships to San Francisco at the Gulf of Panama. Whilst this latter route was obviously faster than the Cape Horn route it was not without danger as Panama’s climate harboured diseases such as malaria and yellow fever, which led to many fatalities amongst the travellers.

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Demolition planned for Shania centre [for gold mine] – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – January 9, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – The Shania Twain Centre and Underground Gold Mine Tour will be history in more ways than one if Goldcorp Canada completes a deal to purchase the land where those attractions are located.

“If an agreement can be reached, our plans are to demolish both,” Domenic Rizzuto, manager of human resources and corporate social responsibility for Goldcorp’s Porcupine Gold Mines, told The Daily Press.

Goldcorp’s interest in the property comes at a time when the company is developing an open pit mine in an area pocked by subsidances from the old Hollinger mine workings.

The original proposed layout of the open pit saw the exterior wall or berm curving around the property where the Twain centre and mine tour site are located. If the land sale goes through, there will be less need for Goldcorp to prevent the berm from encroaching in that area. “Goldcorp is in discussions with the city to purchase the Shania Twain Centre and Gold Mine Tour because there is an economic case to so,” said Rizzuto.

Timmins council announced on Monday the city was close to finalizing an agreement to sell the Twain centre and mine tour property to Goldcorp.

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Growth golden at Brigus projects – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – January 9, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – The coming year holds the promise of further expansion for Brigus Gold operations in the Black-River Matheson area. The Black Fox mine is slated to expand production while the Grey Fox mine will continue operational prep for full production in 2015.

For Brigus CEO Wade Dawe, 2013 will be yet another landmark year in growth for the mid-level operation, one that will see the residents of Timmins benefit.

“In 2012 we made great progress, we built the underground portion of the mine (Black Fox) and that is wrapping up very well,” he said. “We are on track to increase production in 2013 to between 90,000 and 100,000 ounces compared to the 77,347 ounces in 2012.”

This increase will continue to lay the ground work needed to allow Brigus to focus on further expansion of the Grey Fox operations. Dawe said that 2013 should be a stable year.

“Right now, we have approximately 377 employees at the Black Fox mine,” he said. “In 2013 our employment numbers will be reasonably stable. We may add up to 5% of additional personnel, although we are essentially stable in 2013.” Operations will ramp up even further in 2014.

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Barrick, China walk away from Africa deal – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – January 9, 2013)

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.

Barrick Gold Corp. has ended months of efforts to sell its African unit to state-owned China National Gold Group (CNGC), unwilling to settle for fire-sale prices even as it struggles to cover massive cost overruns elsewhere.

The assets had been up for sale as part of a revitalization strategy that was launched by the world’s largest gold miner last summer amid a falling stock price and shareholder discontent.

The move leaves Barrick with a high-cost producer in African Barrick Gold PLC at a time when mining on the African continent is losing its shine for shareholders, who are wary of resource nationalism amid months of labour strife in African mines.

The end to the talks also underscores the fiscal discipline of Chinese state-owned mining companies, showing they are careful not to overpay for assets even as the country seeks ownership of mineral resources to feed booming economic growth.

Barrick chief executive officer Jamie Sokalsky, who took the helm of the Toronto-based miner in June after the ouster of predecessor Aaron Regent, engaged the Chinese as one of a series of bold moves to address investor backlash against Barrick, which like others in the sector pursued aggressive growth for years but failed to spark good returns for shareholders.

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Rubicon Minerals appoints new operations boss – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – January 7, 2013)

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.

Rubicon Minerals has appointed a new vice president of operations and hired a new director of investor relations. “Putting in place a team that can take us to the next level is one of my key priorities,” said Michael Lalonde, Rubicion president and CEO, in a Jan. 7 statement.

Dan Labine is the new operations boss, effective Jan. 21 and Allan Candelario will handle investor relations. Labine has more than 35 years of engineering, mine operation, and project management experience, most recently as Goldcorp’s senior project manager in charge of the construction and development of the Cochenour project in Red Lake.

Rubicon is constructing a gold mine in the Red Lake district. Its Phoenix Gold project is slated for a 2014 startup. Labine supervised the construction of a five-kilometre underground haulage drift between the Cochenour project and its Red Lake mine infrastructure.

Labine previously worked in management for Inco, AMEC Earth and Environmental Ltd. and was a senior project engineer for Nordpro Mine and Project Management Services.

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