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Iron Ore

OPINION: Shining a little light on the Mary River process – by Ken Armstrong (Nunatsiaq News – November 26, 2019)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Ken Armstrong is the President of the NWT-Nunavut Chamber of Mines.

The current impasse that phase two of the Mary River project finds itself in is of great interest and also concern to investors and industry watchers. We’d like to shine some light on three aspects of this process.

First, there has been recent criticism of Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. for positioning several buildings and construction materials, needed for the phase two railway expansion, before approvals for the railway are in place.

Operating in the North is challenging, with remote projects relying on limited transportation infrastructure and seasonal shipping windows. For northern resource projects, it is not uncommon to pre-position equipment at or near a project site in advance of receiving required permits.

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Vale returns looking for low-cost debt after Brumadinho tragedy – by Aaron Weinman (Reuters U.S. – November 21, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK, Nov 21 (LPC) – The insatiable appetite to lend to Latin America’s blue-chip corporations may allow Brazilian miner Vale SA to return to the loan market and borrow US$3bn to refinance debt at ultra-low rates, only 10 months after a dam disaster that left the country reeling.

In January, following the collapse of a tailings dam at an iron ore mine in the Brumadinho region, Vale pulled back on original plans to refinance debt. Ten months and a public relations debacle later, a surfeit of lenders, including relationship banks with established ties to the miner and new lenders looking to forge a bond with one of Latin America’s most frequent borrowers, are expected to flock to the transaction.

A dearth of opportunities to lend to high-quality Latin American corporations has left banks with little option but to aggressively compete for business, giving borrowers cheap access to capital, and clout to dictate lending terms that allow for cost savings and flexibility.

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‘I Love You’ Goldman Sachs, Cliffs CEO Says Year After Outburst – by Joe Deaux (Bloomberg News – November 20, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

A year after Lourenco Goncalves raged against analysts from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. chief’s acrimony has reversed 180 degrees.

“I love you, you are the best commodity desk I have ever seen in my life,” he said at a conference organized by Goldman on Wednesday. That’s a far cry from last October, when Goncalves told metals and mining equity analyst Matthew Korn “you can run but you can’t hide” and criticized the bank for being “wrong about iron ore prices, years in a row.”

Wednesday marked the first time the chief executive officer of the top U.S. iron ore producer publicly sat down with Korn since Goncalves questioned the analyst’s calculations for concluding in a note the company “modestly missed estimates.” In their latest interaction, they were cordial to each other.

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JOURNEY DOWN THE RAILWAY THAT COULDN’T BE BUILT – by Peter Gzowski (MACLEAN’S Magazine – Novmeber 16, 1963)

https://archive.macleans.ca/

A portrait, then and now, of the extraordinary feat that is the Quebec North Shore and Labrador line

THE SUN was inching into the bleak northern sky when Maclean’s photo editor Don Newlands and I checked out of the Sir Wilfred Grenfell Hotel in Wabush, Labrador, to begin the journey to Seven Islands, Que. We had flown into Wabush directly from Toronto and spent a few days there looking into life on the last frontier, à la 1963, and although we had both enjoyed our visit with the men and women who are opening up the wilderness, I for one was anxious to get going.

Our program was to drive our rented car to Labrador City, three miles away over a dirt road, and then take the passenger-express train from there to Seven Islands. Most of this journey would be over the QNS & L — the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway — and seeing the railway, I knew, would be an exciting experience for me.

I had spent the summer of 1952 as a beardless (though not for lack of trying) chain man on a survey party helping to build the QNS & L. And, although I hadn’t been back in eleven years, I had retained a sort of proprietary interest in the railway.

The QNS & L was one of the great construction projects of our time, a job that many expert engineers were certain could never be finished, and many of us who worked on it — there were as many as seven thousand men employed at one time — looked on the achievement much the way war veterans look on battles their regiments have won.

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Intervenors weigh in on when to reconvene Baffinland hearing – by Elaine Anselmi (Nunatsiaq News – November 19, 2019)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Regulatory talks about Baffinland’s proposed expansion of its Mary River mine should proceed “as soon as possible,” or face delays of up to one year, depending on which affected party you’re speaking to.

Intervenors recently submitted their comments on the matter to the Nunavut Impact Review Board, which must decide how to proceed after its hearing ground to a halt on Nov. 6, after Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. said that concerns raised by Inuit hadn’t been adequately addressed.

While agreeing there were unresolved concerns to be addressed, the Government of Nunavut said the hearing should be rescheduled for the first available date, “unless another party can substantiate why it should be delayed longer.”

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OPINION: Iron ore mining not for the faint of heart—it’s a tough business – by Gary Vivian (Nunatsiaq News – November 19, 2019)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Gary Vivian is the President, N.W.T. and Nunavut Chamber of Mines.

It’s important that people understand that governments around the
world—both public and Indigenous—invite mining companies to come
and invest in order to do what those governments themselves cannot
do: that is to convert rock into training, into jobs, into business opportunities
and to generate revenues that can help benefit governments’ constituencies
and beneficiaries.

For example, in Alaska, government funding provided the port and
road for the Red Dog mine, which is owned by the Inupiat and
operated by Teck. The company pays off that road and port over
time with annual payments.

The N.W.T. and Nunavut Chamber of Mines was created over 50 years ago, and our vision is to work for “a strong minerals industry that benefits the peoples of the North.” From that perspective, we would like to offer the following thoughts and observations on the Mary River mining project.

The Mary River project is a game-changing opportunity for Nunavut and Nunavummiut. It provides an opportunity for longer term training, employment and sustained revenues for Inuit, Inuit associations and governments.

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Editorial: Mary River: if financial viability is a factor, then prove it – by Jim Bell (Nunatsiaq News – November 14, 2019)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Nunavut’s system for regulating industrial development, born within the 1993 Nunavut land claims agreement, has likely never faced a greater test than the twisting, turning series of environmental and socio-economic assessments for the Mary River iron mine over the past 10 years.

This was on full public display in Iqaluit earlier this month, when the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s final public hearing on the $900-million railway expansion proposal from Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. imploded amidst a mood of confusion and incoherence. The final two days of that seven-day hearing, scheduled for Pond Inlet, were cancelled.

At the same time, the fate of Baffinland’s multibillion dollar, multigenerational iron mine is now shrouded in uncertainty. When this editorial was written, the review board had yet to decide on a motion from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. that, if accepted, would delay proceedings for eight to 12 months.

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Baffinland lays off 586 contract employees, halts planned work – by Emma Tranter (Nunatsiaq News – November 14, 2019)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. says it has laid off 586 contracted employees working at its Mary River mine. Of those contractors, 96 are Inuit and 490 are non-Inuit, the company said in an email to Nunatsiaq News.

No direct Baffinland employees are affected, Baffinland said. The layoffs come shortly after the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s decision on Nov. 6 to abruptly adjourn its public hearing on the company’s expansion plans.

“Due to the uncertainty of Phase 2 permit approvals, work associated with the 2019 Work Plan has been demobilized,” Salima Virani, a communications specialist for Baffinland, said in the email.

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UPDATE 4-China-backed consortium wins $14 bln Guinea iron ore deal, pipping Australia’s Fortescue – by Saliou Samb (Reuters Africa – November 13, 2019)

https://af.reuters.com/

CONAKRY, Nov 14 (Reuters) – A consortium representing Chinese, French and Singaporean interests won a $14 billion tender to develop part of Guinea’s Simandou iron ore project, sources familiar with the talks told Reuters, edging out Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group.

The consortium – which includes Société Minière de Boké (SMB) and Singapore’s Winning Shipping as well as Guinean government interests – has committed to develop blocks 1 and 2 of the largest known deposit of its kind, holding more than 2 billion tonnes of high-grade ore.

Guinea has sought to develop the Simandou deposit for decades, but the project has been mired in protracted legal disputes and the high costs have curbed interest.

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Brazil’s Vale outlook cut implies at least 14.7% sales drop in 2019 – by Roberto Samora (Reuters U.S. – November 11, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian iron ore miner Vale (VALE3.SA) on Monday said it now expects sales of iron ore and pellets of between 307 million and 312 million tonnes in 2019, implying at least a 14.7% decline from a year earlier as it grapples with the aftermath of a deadly dam burst.

Vale has been compelled to halt production at various mines as it shuts down tailings dams that share the “upstream” structure that collapsed in Brumadinho in January, killing more than 250 people.

The miner had initially forecast 2019 sales at the midpoint of a range of 307 million to 332 million tonnes, before saying in October that it expected them to come between the lower end and the midpoint of the range.

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Baffinland ‘must significantly change its approach,’ Qamaniq says – by Derek Neary (Nunavut News – November 7, 2019)

https://nunavutnews.com/

With public hearings for Baffinland Iron Mines’ proposed expansion of its Mary River mine taking place in Iqaluit, Tununiq MLA David Qaminiq told his colleagues in the legislative assembly that the mining company has more work to do to gain the trust of Inuit.

He suggested on Wednesday that the company should have been more forthcoming about its full plans from its early days.

“Rather than providing a complete picture of the full scope of the project and its ultimate impact on the region, the incremental or ‘phased’ approach to requesting change after change after change has only served to cause confusion and frustration,” said Qaminiq.

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Baffinland blasted for its approach to community consultations – by Elaine Anselmi (Nunatsiaq News – November 6, 2019)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Pond Inlet resident Tim Anaviapik Soucie says the problems with Baffinland’s approach to community consultation for its plans to expand its Mary River mine were evident from the moment chairs were set up in the room.

“Lining people up in chairs to talk to us tells us who is important and who is in charge,” Soucie told the Nunavut Impact Review Board during its hearing in Iqaluit on Tuesday, Nov. 5. “Circles do away with this.”

Soucie described Baffinland’s team arriving in town with a PowerPoint presentation that celebrated their achievements and work so far, and then asked if there were any questions. “This is not consultation,” he said.

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Brazil regulator says Vale ‘negligence’ may have cost lives – by Jake Spring and Christian Plumb (Reuters U.S. – November 5, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s mining regulator on Tuesday blasted iron ore miner Vale SA for failing to disclose problems with a mining dam before a deadly collapse in January, saying this kept the agency from taking actions that could have saved lives.

The dam in Brumadinho collapsed and flooded a nearby company cafeteria and the surrounding countryside with mining waste, killing more than 250 people. It was Vale’s second deadly dam collapse in less than four years.

The regulator’s report on its probe into the disaster is the latest blow to the reputation of Vale, which is under criminal investigation over accusations that top executives ignored warning signs about the dam.

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Baffinland’s Inuit landlord won’t support Mary River expansion – by Jim Bell (Nunatsiaq News – November 4, 2019)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

The Qikiqtani Inuit Association, which controls most of the land occupied by the Mary River iron mine, refuses to endorse or support the mine owner’s railway-based expansion proposal, says the organization’s president, P.J. Akeeagok.

Following a special board meeting held on Oct. 30, the QIA dropped this bombshell declaration into the hands of the Nunavut Impact Review Board in the form of a letter on Nov. 1, just before the start of the review board’s final public hearing in Iqaluit on Baffinland’s phase two expansion proposal on Nov. 2.

At their special meeting, QIA board members voted unanimously to take that position, Akeeagok’s letter said. “Many of QIA’s environmental and cultural concerns regarding Baffinland’s Phase 2 proposal have not been adequately resolved. We are also concerned that there are issues raised by impacted communities that have not yet been addressed,” QIA said.

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Nunavut board rejects Oceans North motion to suspend iron mine assessment – by Emma Tranter (Nunatsiaq News – November 3, 2019)

https://nunatsiaq.com/

The Nunavut Impact Review Board has dismissed a motion from Oceans North to suspend the review board’s assessment of Baffinland Iron Mines Corp.’s railway-based phase two expansion plan for the Mary River iron mine.

In front of a packed audience in Iqaluit’s Cadet Hall, the board presented its ruling on the motion from Oceans North, and two other motions, during the late afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 3. A public hearing on the phase two expansion is currently being held in Iqaluit from Nov. 2 to 6.

The notice of motion filed by Oceans North on Oct. 29 asked the board to suspend its proceedings until the NIRB had the chance to review a document called a preliminary offering circular.

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