Mining and Oil Sector Image – Page 23

Memorial for dead banned at Canadian [Barrick] gold mine in Africa – by Jocelyn Edwards (Toronto Star – May 24, 2011)

May 24, 2011

The Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada, has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published May 24, 2011.

TARIME, TANZANIA—Families of the five men killed by security forces of a Canadian mine are furious after that were denied permission to hold a memorial service Tuesday at African Barrick’s gold mine in North Mara.

“When you have lost your loved ones and you are in a grieving period, for someone to do this to you, it is not right. It would be better if they would take you too,” said Magige Gati, whose 27-year-old son Emmanuel Magige was among the dead.

Five men were killed, and at least a dozen injured, when about 800 locals clashed with security on May 16 at a mine in the area owned by African Barrick, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation.

The clash is the latest episode in an ongoing conflict between residents of North Mara, who come to the mine to scavenge for gold and Barrick, which took over the mine in 2006.

Barrick Gold: Controlling fallout from deadly clash [7 Tanzanian deaths]- Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – May 21, 2011)

May 21, 2011

Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published May 21, 2011.

Stan Sudol, a communications consultant and mining industry blogger,
recommends that the Canadian government establish a fact-finding mission,
headed by a respected, retired, non-partisan individual, to go to Tanzania
“to shed light on this incident. It’s the only way to get credibility back to
the Canadian mining sector. No one is going to believe any report coming
from Barrick or the Tanzanian government,” he says. (Toronto Star, May 21, 2011)

Two words instantly come to mind in cynical business circles when a tragedy occurs under a big company’s watch: damage control. Barrick Gold Corp. landed in a firestorm of controversy last week when seven villagers were gunned down and a dozen more were injured in a brutal clash at its troubled North Mara mine in Tanzania, run by its African Barrick Gold division.

Though Barrick spun off its higher-cost African assets last year to the newly-created London-based firm, the Toronto bullion behemoth remains the majority owner.

And since Barrick’s name is literally on it, the Toronto headquarters is forced to wear — and ultimately repair — the hit to its global brand, and it won’t be easy, say industry watchers and public relations experts.

A Golden Opportunity: How Tanzania is Failing to Benefit from Gold Mining – by Mark Curtis and Tundu Lissu (October 2008)

May 19, 2011

Published by the Christian Council of Tanzania (CCT), National Council of Muslims in Tanzania (BAKWATA), and Tanzania Espicopal Conference (TEC) – Financed by Norwegian Church Aid and Christian Aid

A Golden Opportunity: How Tanzania is Failing to Benefit from Gold Mining (October 2008)

Executive Summary

Gold mining is the fastest growing sector of Tanzania’s economy. Minerals now account for nearly half the country’s exports and Tanzania is Africa’s third largest gold producer. Yet ordinary Tanzanians are not benefiting from this boom both because the government has implemented tax laws that are overly favourable to multinational mining companies and because of the practices of these companies. Tanzania is being plundered of its natural resources and wealth.

Between 1997 and 2005, Tanzania exported gold worth more than US$2.54 billion (bn). The government has received around $28m a year in royalties and taxes on these exports, amounting to just 10 per cent over the nine year period. The 3 per cent royalty has brought the government only an average of US$17.4m a year in recent years. Raising the royalty rate to, say, 5 per cent would have increased government revenues by around US$58m over the past five years.

We calculate that Tanzania has lost at least $265.5m in recent years as a result of an excessively low royalty rate, government tax concessions that allow companies’ to avoid paying corporation tax and possibly even tax evasion by some companies if allegations are true. This is a very conservative estimate, in that it does not cover all the gold mining companies or all figures for recent years (which are not publicly available). Neither does it cover the financial costs of other tax incentives such as VAT exemption, which are extremely difficult to estimate.

Bad Neighbors: Canadian Mining Companies in Latin America – by Liisa L. North (Canadian Dimension – Jan/Feb 2011)

May 18, 2011

Canadian Dimension is a Canadian leftist magazine founded in 1963 by Cy Gonick and published out of Winnipeg, Manitoba six times a year.

Last Year Alone, at least five opponents of Canadian mining projects were assassinated in Latin America: three in El Salvador, one in Guatemala, and one in Mexico. Critics of mining operations there and elsewhere were wounded and maimed in attacks while many, along with their family members, were threatened. Canadian mining corporations were not necessarily directly responsible for the deaths and acts of intimidation and violence, but some of them were carried out by company security personnel and current or former employees.

So it may be the case that the implicated companies are not legally liable, but alongside the local elites and states that license and promote extractive activities, they at the least bear a moral responsibility for creating the situations of conflict in which assassinations and other acts of violence take place.

Most Canadians are not used to thinking of their investors as human rights violators or of Canada as a “bad neighbor.” Sadly, since the early 1990s and especially over the past decade, the activities of our miners are earning us that reputation. The corporations themselves, of course, argue that they are bringing much needed employment and even “sustainable development” to the poor regions where they operate. If they are doing this, it appears to be a form of development that many do not wish to see in their communities.

Canadian mining corporations abroad

A spectacular expansion of Canadian mining investment in Latin America has taken place over the last two decades, part of the general growth of our mining investment abroad. Today, almost 60 percent of all mining companies are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Our miners are prominently visible all over the southern hemisphere, and their operations have provoked demonstrations in front of Canadian embassy buildings in various Latin American capitals.

Canada: A Global Mining Powerhouse – by Cy Gonick (Canadian Dimension – Jan/Feb 2011)

May 18, 2011

Canadian Dimension is a Canadian leftist magazine founded in 1963 by Cy Gonick and published out of Winnipeg, Manitoba six times a year.

Most Canadians are not aware of it but with the help of the Canadian state, corporate Canada is beginning to throw its weight around the Global South – specifically, in metal mining locations of South America, Mexico, Africa and Asia. This has been a mainly recent development, taking off in the 1990’s but really accelerating over the past decade. Today, Canada’s metal mining industry accounts for about 12 percent of all direct investment abroad, second only to financial services.

Why are Canadian mining companies shifting their investments to the Global South? The reason is twofold. First, in Canada the easy to find ore has already been found so that new properties being developed are low-grade, high cost marginal projects. Second, besides giving diplomatic support, Canadian governments have introduced tax measures and the Export Development Corporation provides easy credit that together greatly facilitates the global expansion of Canadian mining.

Toronto is the mining finance capital of the world, raising 30 to 40 per cent of the world’s mining equity most every year, and Canadian mining companies account for a world-leading 40 percent of global exploration expenditure. As of a few years ago, companies listed on Canadian stock exchanges held interests in over 3000 mineral properties in Canada, 1400 in Latin America, close to a thousand in Africa and about 500 in each of the USA and Asia, Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Seven ‘intruders’ killed at African Barrick mine – Peter Koven (National Post – May 18, 2011)

May 18, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. Peter Koven is the Post’s mining reporter. This article was originally published in the Financial Post on May 18, 2011. pkoven@nationalpost.com

When Barrick Gold Corp. spun its African properties into a new company last year, investors knew they were being sold high-risk assets that had their share of problems.

But they didn’t imagine this.

On Tuesday, African Barrick Gold PLC reported details of a horrifying incident at its North Mara mine in Tanzania. According to the company, about 800 “criminal intruders” armed with machetes, rocks and hammers broke into the mine site and tried to steal gold ore. The Tanzanian police were called in and were forced to open fire after being attacked by the intruders. Seven people were killed and another 12 injured.

“The police are making an investigation, so more details will come from them in the days and weeks to come,” a spokesman for London-based African Barrick said.

Mining companies raise stakes in Whitehorse – by Paul Watson (Toronto Star – May 15, 2011)

May 16, 2011

Paul Watson is a columnist for the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published May 15, 2011.

WHITEHORSE—Park officers are normally on the lookout for rowdy campers, untended picnic baskets, guests that won’t go away and the odd ornery bear that lumbers into Wolf Creek Campground on this city’s edge.

Now they have to add voracious mining companies to the list of threats to fend off from the popular retreat in an old growth spruce forest overlooking the Yukon River.

Arcturus Ventures Inc., a Vancouver-based, penny-stock mineral exploration company, has staked its claim on the park, in a zone the city of Whitehorse has designated environmentally sensitive.

It’s a landmark where, every summer, some 60 campgrounds fill up with tourists who travel the Alaska Highway to the park to enjoy its hiking trails and spectacular wilderness vistas on the capital’s southern outskirts.

Shooting Gold Diggers at [Barrick Gold] African Mine Seen Amid Record Prices – by Cam Simpson (Bloomberg Markets Magazine – April 2011)

May 13, 2011

Bloomberg Markets magazine brings the inside view of professional investing with unparalleled access to the most influential people in global business and finance.

Security guards and federal police have allegedly shot and killed people scavenging the waste rock at Barrick Gold’s North Mara mine in Tanzania

(Bloomberg) — Barrick Gold Corp.’s North Mara mine near the Tanzanian border with Kenya disgorges millions of pounds of waste rock each week, piled high around communities where almost half the people live on less than 33 cents a day.

Children in school uniforms scurry across the rubble to reach their classes. Women with water pails atop their heads skirt past the heaps. The piles grow as the longest bull market for gold in at least 90 years pushes Barrick, the world’s largest miner of the precious metal, to increase production.

Villagers, too, are hunting the ore on the North Mara land that their ancestors worked for decades, sometimes paying with their lives.

Security guards and federal police allegedly have shot and killed people scavenging the gold-laced rocks to sell for small amounts of cash, according to interviews with 28 people, including victims’ relatives, witnesses, local officials and human-rights workers.

A national voice for the [Canadian] mining industry [educational initiatives]– by Ryan Montpellier, Gordon Peeling, Tony Andrews

April 7, 2011

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. This joint column is from the April, 2011 issue. rnoble@canadianminingjournal.com

Ryan Montpellier is the Executive Director of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR)
Gordon Peeling is the President and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC)
Tony Andrews is the Executive Director of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC)

In the February issue of the Canadian Mining Journal (CMJ), editor Russell Noble sent out “A call to all Mining Associations”, expressing the need for a national voice in addressing the looming skills shortage faced by the industry. A key question asked was “what are the associations affiliated with mining in Canada doing to help these vacancies?” We were surprised that the editor was not aware of the comprehensive, integrated approach that has been ongoing for some years now, in which industry, government and key stakeholders are very much involved on many levels. Thus the question he posed is relatively easy to answer – unlike the complex issue of the mining skills shortage.

The Mining Industry Human Resource Council’s (MiHR) latest research indicates that the Canadian mining industry will need to hire 100,000 new workers by 2020 to meet the needs from growth in employment and replacement requirements. Rapid and effective solutions are essential. Deloitte wrote an article on this very subject on page 10 of the February issue of the CMJ, with some very valid recommendations which echo aspects of MiHR’s industry-led strategy.