Twitter

Newfoundland and Labrador Mining

BOOK: Once Upon A Mine – Story of Pre-Confederation Mines on the Island of Newfoundland – by Wendy Martin (1999)

Chapter One – Dawn of Mining Days

Mark Twain once maintained that ‘a mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top’, an unflattering view which supports the common belief that mines are prospective derelicts owned by derelict prospectors. The Newfoundland mining industry has, even so, survived for over 100 years and currently holds a lucrative position in the Newfoundland economy.

The mining history of Newfoundland extends further in time and space than is generally recognised. Nearly every major bay around the Island contains at least one abandoned mine that still lives within the memories of adjacent communities; and although the first recorded mining attempt happened only two centuries ago, a knowledge ofNewfoundland minerals has existed for twice that time span.

Sixteenth-century English explorers made the earliest documented references to Newfoundland minerals. When Sir Martin Frobisherexamined the shores of what is assumed to have been Newfoundland’s Trinity Bay in 1576, he found a shiny heavy stone(1) – probably pyrite, a mineral now known locally as ‘Catalina stone’after the Trinity Bay town of Catalina. Anthony Parkhurst returned to England in 1578 with pieces of copper and iron ore from the St.John’s and Bell Island areas.

On the strength of the Frobisher and Parkhurst discoveries, Sir Humphrey Gilbert took a Saxon ore refiner named Daniel of Buda with him to Newfoundland in 1583. Daniel, an energetic individual, retrieved an array of copper, iron, lead and silver ores from the Avalon Peninsula.

Read more

GLOBE EDITORIAL: It’s not as if it’s the Iranians – let Australians mine our uranium (Globe and Mail – June 25, 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.

There’s no reason at all to object to the decision of Greg Rickford, the Minister of Natural Resources, to allow an Australian company, Paladin Energy Ltd., to develop a uranium mine in Newfoundland and Labrador, 140 kilometres northeast of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, with Australians holding the majority of the shares.

On the contrary, the odd thing is that Paladin had to seek permission to do so, as a foreign corporation – over and above the similarly unnecessary process of the foreign investment review under the Investment Canada Act, with its mysterious “net benefit” criterion. In the rejected takeover by BHP Billiton of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan in 2010, Ottawa even more mysteriously declared Potash to be a “strategic asset,” not a term used in the ICA.

The federal government has had a “non-resident ownership policy in the uranium mining sector” since 1987. The policy allows for an exemption from the requirement of at least 51-per-cent Canadian ownership if there aren’t enough Canadians who want to build the prospective uranium mine in question.

Read more

Dust from abandoned Cliffs’ mine casts pall over eastern Canadian town – by Mike De Souza (Reuters U.S. – June 19, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

OTTAWA – Heavy dust clouds blowing from Cliffs Natural Resources’ abandoned Wabush iron ore mine into a small township in the eastern Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador is putting a focus on the liability of miners that seek creditor protection and walk away from assets.

Iron ore and coal miner Cliffs Natural Resources Inc announced in February 2014 it was shutting down its Wabush mine. This year it sought creditor protection for its Canadian assets.

The fate of the deserted mine is in limbo until it is either acquired by a rival or Cliffs is able to restructure and exit creditor protection.

Local residents say the abandoned site has many open pits, with drilling equipment, trucks and other equipment stranded on the site.

“Now that the company has gone into closure, it is very hard to maintain a relationship with them. From a corporate level, we have not heard anything from them in almost a year, if not longer,” said Colin Vardy, mayor of the town of Wabush.

Read more

Australia’s Paladin Energy Ltd wins historic approval to operate Canadian uranium mine – by Peter Koven (National Post – June 23, 2015)

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

Paladin Energy Ltd. has achieved a first for an Australian company: It has won the right to operate a uranium mine in Canada.

The approval from Ottawa, announced Monday by the company, is a signal that Canada welcomes more foreign investment in its uranium industry. And that has positive implications for a struggling sector that could really use some outside capital.

“This is an historic decision that could have implications for all uranium companies and projects in Canada,” Raymond James analyst David Sadowski said in a note.

Paladin said the federal government approved its request to be the majority owner and operator of the Michelin uranium mine in Labrador. The company hopes to begin production when the sputtering uranium market rebounds.

This approval was unique because Canada has a Non-Resident Ownership Policy (NROP) governing its uranium sector.

Read more

Teck Resources dinner bittersweet, with mine closing at end of June – by CBC News Newfoundland & Labrador (June 13, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador

A mining company that’s about to shut down its copper and zinc mine near Millertown held an unusual celebration this week.

Teck Resources is closing its Duck Pond mine at the end of June, so the company invited workers and dignitaries to mark the occasion Thursday night with a sit-down dinner in Grand Falls-Windsor.

For some, Duck Pond, which opened in 2007 and has been the island’s largest underground mine, is more than just a workplace.

“Very sad. We’ve made some really good friends there,” said Sharon Coffin of Lewisporte, who started at the mine eight years ago on the security gate. She now works as an underground equipment operator. She told CBC that the closure is a big loss for the workers, but she’s remaining stoic about it.

“We spend about six months out of the year together, we’re family almost, and we look after each other,” said Coffin. “I’m still going to pursue the mining career and hoping not to have to move. But if we have to move for that — so be it.” The mine has employed more than 300 people, many of whom are from the central Newfoundland area.

Read more

Battle between Canadian mining magnates for Coastal Gold Corp heats up – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 5, 2015)

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

Two Canadian mining magnates are fighting an increasingly heated battle for a tiny junior company, with one accusing the other of “incestuous behavior” within his empire.

Keith Neumeyer’s First Mining Finance Corp. has offered six cents a share (or about $10.2 million) for Coastal Gold Corp., which has a project in Newfoundland. The rival offer for Coastal, from Stan Bharti’s Sulliden Mining Capital Inc., is worth about 2.3 cents.

Given that First Mining’s offer is more than double Sulliden’s offer, one might assume that Neumeyer is convinced he will win. But that isn’t the case. Coastal’s board is currently endorsing the Sulliden bid, and Neumeyer would be surprised if that changes.

“It’s a joke,” he said in an interview. “They are obviously not acting in the best interests of shareholders and exercising their fiduciary duties properly.”

Neumeyer, who previously founded First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and First Majestic Silver Corp., thinks the problem here is inter-relationships between Bharti’s companies. Both Sulliden and Coastal are under the umbrella of Forbes & Manhattan (F&M), Bharti’s conglomerate of resource companies.

Read more

Nickel: The Outperformer And Top Pick For 2015 – by Stephan Bogner (Seeking Alpha – April 21, 2015)

http://seekingalpha.com/

Summary

Nickel was the best performing metal in 2014.
Nickel is the top commodity pick of several investment banks, including Morgan Stanley.
The Voisey’s Bay area may host the next big nickel discovery since it is abnormally under-explored.
From today’s perspective, Voisey’s Bay wasn’t really a great nickel discovery, but still one of the world’s biggest.

• 22 years ago, Robert Friedland’s Diamond Fields Resources Inc. stumbled onto nickel while looking for diamonds in Canada’s remote north.

• Only three years later, in 1996, Friedland sold his lucky strike, the Voisey’s Bay Nickel Deposit, for $4.3 billion USD to Inco.

• Prior to being purchased by CVRD (now Vale (NYSE:VALE)) in 2006, Inco was the world’s second largest producer of nickel.

• In 2005, the Voisey’s Bay open-pit and concentrator started production. Vale is currently completing an engineering study for an underground mine to be constructed between 2016-2019, extending mine life to 2035.

Read more

Labrador West dealt another blow as IOC announces 150 layoffs (CBC News Newfoundland – April 09, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador

Labrador West has been dealt another significant economic blow, with 150 layoff notices going out Thursday to unionized workers with the Iron Ore Company of Canada.

The workers are members of Local 5795 of the United Steelworkers, which represents some 1,400 people at the operation, said president Ron Thomas.

The layoffs come amid a significant drop in commodity prices, and many were expecting cost-cutting measures from the mining giant. IOC is majority owned by Rio Tinto, and employs roughly 2,500 people in Labrador West and Sept-Îles, Que. Labrador City Mayor Karen Oldford said it was a “sad day” for the community, but the number was roughly what the town expected if there were going to be layoffs.

“All we can do is try to work with the families that are going to be affected and hope that the commodity prices will turn around quickly, just as quickly as they went down, in order to try to get people back to work,” she said.

Earlier efforts by the company to cut costs at Labrador City failed, with the union overwhelmingly rejecting a proposed wage freeze in February. There was also very little participation in early retirement incentives.

Read more

Cliffs to put mines, rails, ports up for sale in Quebec, N.L. (CBC News Business – April 7, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business

Mine company under bankruptcy court protection as it completes its exit from Eastern Canada

The Canadian Press – Idled Quebec iron ore mines, railways and port facilities, are about to be put up for sale as part of a court-supervised exit from eastern Canada by Cliffs Natural Resources.

The Cleveland-based mining company’s subsidiaries, which filed for creditor protection in January, are seeking a Quebec court’s permission to solicit interest next month in the Bloom Lake mine, the Wabush Mine, and related port and rail assets in Quebec and Labrador, according to a motion filed by monitor FTI Consulting Canada.

Bloom Lake General Partner Ltd. and affiliates such as Cliffs Quebec Iron Mining filed for protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act amid falling iron ore prices.

Excluded from the sale process are Cliffs’ chromite assets in Ontario’s Ring of Fire that are in the process of being sold to Noront Resources for $20 million US.

Read more

Russell walks out on media amid questions about Inuit land claims – by James McLeod (St. John Telegram – March 18, 2015)

http://www.thetelegram.com/

“We should have increased dialogue. We should be sitting and talking as opposed to discussing litigation,” Russell said in the House of Assembly Tuesday, responding to a question from Liberal House Leader Andrew Parsons.

Russell reportedly told a Nunatsiavut Government minister, “Go ahead and take us to court, we’re going to win anyway.” In the House of Assembly, Parsons wanted to know whether Russell talked to a lawyer before issuing the challenge.

“You asked them to sue us. Was that based on an opinion, and if not, why would you make that comment?” Parsons asked. Russell said he didn’t talk to anybody in the Department of Justice or the Attorney General, but he said some officials in his department looked at it.

“I would assume that our officials went through all the proper channels,” he said. The crux of the issue is an agreement the government signed dealing with the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine, and the Long Harbour processing plant which is behind schedule.

The government amended the agreement to allow Vale, the mine operator, to ship more nickel ore out of the province in the next few years while the Long Harbour plant is getting up and running.

Read more

Nunatsiavut president Sarah Leo ‘quite disturbed’ over Vale agreement – (CBC News Newfoundland – February 25, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador

The Inuit government in Labrador isn’t happy with the announcement of changes to the Voisey’s Bay agreement, which will allow Vale to continue exporting unprocessed ore from the massive nickel mine.

Nunatsiavut president Sarah Leo said the Newfoundland and Labrador government was required to consult the Inuit because the mine is on land connected to their land agreement with the provincial and federal governments.

“We should’ve been consulted — I mean, it’s in our backyard. It’s right here,” she said. “We have a land claims agreement that specifically has a chapter dedicated to the Voisey’s Bay project,” Leo told CBC News. “So, it’s very important to us that we have an understanding and are involved in what’s happening with the project.”

On Tuesday, Natural Resources Minister Derrick Dalley and Vale VP Stuart Macnaughton announced that they were amending the Voisey’s Bay Development Agreement to allow the company to send nickel concentrate from the mine in Labrador to Ontario and Manitoba for processing.

The delay is connected to delays in completing Vale’s massive processing facility in Long Harbour, in Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay.

Read more

Vale to pay Newfoundland $230-million for nickel export boost – by Sue Bailey (Canadian Press/Globe and Mail – February 25, 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.

ST. JOHN’S — Mining giant Vale SA will pay Newfoundland and Labrador $230-million for letting the company export more Voisey’s Bay nickel concentrate while a processing plant ramps up in the province.

Vale will be allowed to export another 94,000 tonnes that must be replaced later, Natural Resources Minister Derrick Dalley said Tuesday.

The move will mean $200-million in compensation from Vale over three years. Another $30-million in community investments from the company are to be negotiated with the province. Complex design and other issues have delayed full operation of the Long Harbour processing plant, about 120 kilometres west of St. John’s.

The $4.3-billion facility will be an asset for years to come, Mr. Dalley said. The announcement is on top of other export allowances in 2013 and 2002, totalling 633,000 tonnes in potential processing exemptions that must be replaced.

Stuart Macnaughton, Vale’s vice-president of operations in the province, said the added flexibility means mining at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador will continue while the plant in Long Harbour is finished.

Read more

Vale gets extension for exporting Voisey’s Bay ore – by Terry Roberts, CBC News Newfoundland – February 24, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador

Long Harbour nickel plant now schedued for full production by 2018-19

Vale has won approval from the Newfoundland and Labrador government to export more nickel concentrate from its mine at Voisey’s Bay, as a result of delays in commissioning its $4.25 billion processing plant in Long Harbour.

The company will pay $200 million over four years in compensation for the right to export an additional 94,000 tonnes of nickel concentrate from its mine on Labrador’s northern coast to its other processing facilities in Ontario and Manitoba. Vale will contribute another $30 million to a community fund.

The exemption gives Vale flexibility in its efforts to bring its nickel processing plant in Long Harbour, in Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay, up to full capacity, and to avoid any production interruptions at the Voisey’s Bay mine, which is one of the Canada’s most significant nickel finds.

The latest amendment to the Voisey’s Bay Development Agreement was announced Tuesday morning by Natural Resources Minister Derrick Dalley and Stuart Macnaughton, Vale’s vice-president of operations in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Had the export cap not been increased, we would have been left with no choice but to stop operating in Labrador for up to 18 months and not resume normal operations at Voisey’s Bay until Long Harbour was able to process larger quantities of nickel concentrate from Voisey’s Bay,” said Macnaughton.

Read more

House prices dive, food bank use is up as latest mining bust hits Labrador town – by Sue Bailey (Canadian Press/Brandon Sun – February 4, 2015)

http://www.brandonsun.com/

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Jason Penney knows the highs and lows of a miner’s life in Wabush, N.L., a one-industry town where the price of iron ore is discussed like the weather. But he says the community of 1,900 has reeled since its main employer shut down last year.

“We’ve never seen it quite this bad,” the president of United Steelworkers Local 6285 said from the office he now occupies alone. An administrative assistant and a safety officer were both let go along with about 500 other workers who lost their jobs when the Wabush iron ore mine closed.

Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. blamed high production costs and nose-diving commodity prices as demand from prime steel buyers, such as China, waned. The company also confirmed last month that it had stopped production at its Bloom Lake mine in Quebec, about a half-hour drive from Wabush.

Penney said the move affects another 500 workers who flew in and out. For Wabush and nearby Labrador City, which bills itself as the iron ore capital of Canada, it means a loss of crucial spinoff and service jobs.

It’s all adding up to one of the most resounding busts ever for the region, Penney said. “There’s been a lot of people in sad, tough times. It was a rough Christmas on a lot of families.

Read more

Iron Ore goes bust in Labrador West, once booming in production – by Terry Roberts (CBC The Current – January 23, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/ Click here for program but note advertisements for other news segments: http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/current_20150123_79604.mp3 The fall in demand for Iron Ore is turning life upside down in the part of Labrador they once called “Mini Fort Mac”. Today we head to Labrador West, Canada’s capital of Iron Ore, where they know a thing or two about …

Read more