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Newfoundland and Labrador Mining

UPDATE: 500 workers affected as Wabush Mines idled (St. John’s Telegram – February 11, 2014)

http://www.thetelegram.com/

Cliffs Natural Resources is shutting down production at Wabush Mines, affecting 500 workers currently employed there.

The news was confirmed in an official statement by the company. The statement was not specific to the status of Wabush Mines, but instead focused on a more than 50 per cent slash in the company’s capital spending across its business year over year.

Premier Tom Marshall has issued a statement in response to the news. “The decision by Cliffs Natural Resources to idle its mining and processing operations at the Scully Iron Ore Mine in Wabush is very disappointing. While we believe this was undoubtedly a difficult decision for Cliffs, our thoughts are with employees of the mine and their families during this challenging time,” Marshall said.

“I will be in Wabush this week with Ministers Dalley and McGrath for discussions with stakeholders. We will continue to further opportunities for development in Labrador West. We remain confident in the future of the mining industry in the region.”

Wabush Mines started pulling ore from the Scully Mine in 1965. The ore goes to a concentrating plant at site and is then moved, by rail, to Point Noire, Que.

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Quebec v. Labrador: natives and the hydropower sweepstakes – by Bill Gallagher (First Perspective – February 6, 2014)

http://www.firstperspective.ca/

In my book, “Resource Rulers: Fortune and Folly on Canada’s Road to Resources”, I posit that Quebec had already won a 10-year head start over Newfoundland & Labrador in the hydropower race to North American energy markets. Quebec’s strategic power-surge was cemented by the ‘Paix des Braves’ in 2002; universally regarded as a pivotal resource management legal arrangement that fully recognized the Crees as ‘Resource Rulers’ within their vast homeland containing the watersheds.

Conversely, Newfoundland, at the same time, was finally rebounding on its troubled Voisey’s Bay mining project; yet it was soon to find itself back in court fighting the Labrador Metis Nation and losing to them at the appellate level. In fact, the province had earlier lost at the appellate level to the Innu Nation on the Voisey’s Bay project; which loss had instigated a project shut down and stock drop (similar to what is playing out today in the Ring of Fire with Cliffs Natural Resources – in what is fast becoming an almost unbelievable case of history repeats!)

To no-one’s surprise, the announcement of the Muskrat Falls hydropower project in 2011 landed in an unsettled and charged Labrador native empowerment landscape. Both the Labrador Metis Nation (now called NunatuKavut) and the Nunatsiavut Government, launched repeated and sustained press releases and legal maneuvers to persuade the province and its crown utility (Nalcor) to address the pending impacts on their traditional lands.

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Poo, power, profits and the cult of green investment – by Terence Corcoran (National Post – February 6, 2014)

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

From Toronto’s zoo poo bonds the World Bank’s fossil fuel divestment plan to green bonds and Muscrat Falls, green investment is uneconomic

At the high-powered World Economic Forum meeting in Davos last week, the head of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, called on the world’s top investors and pension funds to “divest” their fossil fuel stocks and bonds and move cash into green technologies. Canada contributes more than $400-million a year to the World Bank and holds 2.43% voting power: Was that voting power cast in favour of Mr. Kim’s “get out of oil and gas” campaign, in contradiction to the Canadian government’s hunger for fossil fuel expansion and investment?

Not that it matters. The World Bank’s anti-fossil fuel effort, and its specific endorsement of the burgeoning international movement to promote fossil fuel divestment, is part of a globe-spanning effort that encompasses a vast range of initiatives.

Canada is a leader in the field, with many projects underway. These range from the growing issuance of Green Bonds to the building of giant multi-billion-dollar so-called green energy projects.

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How the Polar Vortex revealed the hubris in Newfoundland’s leadership – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – January 9, 2014)

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.

Mother Nature just forced two of Canada’s premiers to show what they’re made of, after winter storms left thousands of their citizens without electricity.

Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne was sugar, spice and everything nice, delivering groceries and feeling everyone’s pain. Even when she bungled a gift-card distribution to the powerless, she showed that her heart was in the right place.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Kathy Dunderdale, however, seemed to lead her province through the outages with neither heart nor head. With most of the Rock in the dark, she dismissed the situation as a non-crisis that underscored the wisdom of her government’s controversial Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project. “Would I have done things differently? Absolutely not,” she insisted after power was mostly restored.

Newfoundland premiers have rarely been known for humility, and Ms. Dunderdale seems to be keeping the tradition alive. But her self-assurance is misplaced.

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Vale commissions hydromet nickel plant at Long Harbour (Northern Miner – December 11, 2013)

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. 

VANCOUVER — Twenty years after Diamond Fields Resources discovered nickel in at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador and eight years after Vale (NYSE: VALE) predecessor Inco started mining, work is now wrapping up on a state-of-the-art hydrometallurgical facility that will process the mine’s rich nickel–copper–cobalt ore without smelting it.

Vale has been sending ore from its open-pit Voisey’s Bay mine to its smelters in Sudbury, Ont., and Thompson, Man. Starting early next year those long hauls will be over, replaced by shipments to a new facility in Long Harbour, 100 km west of St. John’s, N.L. — keeping a promise made to the provincial government that Voisey’s Bay ore or its equivalent would be refined in-province.

Cutting back on haulage is just one advantage. More important is the new facility design, which represents the first time hydromet technology will be used on a large scale to produce nickel.

Hydrometallurgy uses water, oxygen, solvents and high pressure to dissolve a metal from its ore, or from a concentrate or intermediate product, such as matte (the product of smelting).

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Stop-work orders common at mine sites – by Ashley Fitzpatrick (St. John’s Telegram – November 04, 2013) (Part 1 of 4)

http://www.thetelegram.com/

Safety officers also issued 696 safety directives to IOC and Wabush Mines in last year

Three years on with no occupational health and safety (OHS) officers in Labrador, and the two positions available remain unfilled. Not that Labrador worksites require close supervision, because major employers don’t often violate the province’s OHS regulations.

Except that they have — repeatedly.

Two of the largest employers in the province are in Labrador West — the iron ore mines at Wabush and Labrador City. The Wabush mine is operated by Cliffs Natural Resources and the Labrador City mine is operated by the Iron Ore Co. of Canada (IOC).

According to ServiceNL, the mines have collectively been given 696 directives from visiting provincial government OHS officers in the last year, from Oct. 1, 2012 to Sept. 30, 2013.

Supervisors at the mine in Wabush were handed 235 directives. The Labrador City mine received 461. There were also regular stop-work orders at both sites.

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Chris Verbiski Turned A Nickel Mine Discovery Into Two Of The Finest Fishing Lodges In The World – by Monte Burke (Forbes Magazine – September 4, 2013)

http://www.forbes.com/

This story appears in the September 23, 2013 issue of Forbes.

The best Atlantic salmon fishing outfit in Labrador–and just possibly in all of North America–was born in the gloaming of Sept. 16, 1993, when two mineral prospectors made the discovery of a lifetime. Chris Verbiski, then 25, a college dropout from Newfoundland with an obsession for rocks, had teamed up with a man named Albert Chislett, then 45, to scour the wild, windswept crags of Labrador for diamonds on behalf of a small mining company.

It had been a rough summer. The two men were sun-blistered and swollen with bug bites. They’d burned through their advance money and were nearly broke. Worse: Only a few weeks remained before the weather shut down prospecting in this harsh, beautiful region on the northeast coast of Canada.

On that early evening, as they headed back to camp in the Inuit community of Nain, they spotted something from their helicopter: a thick stripe of rust-colored rock on a hill above Voisey’s Bay. They hovered over it. Verbiski marked the spot on his survey map. But they were low on fuel and couldn’t descend. It seemed promising–perhaps the indicator of a surge of metals that had been pushed to the earth’s surface a billion years ago. After the fruitless summer that hope was all they had.

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A Custom Fit [for Vale’s Newfoundland nickel project] – by Marianne Dupla and Dave Oliphant (Canadian Mining Journal – August 2013)

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication.

While it was rigorously testing a customized use of hydrometallurgical technology to assure commercial viability for its mammoth nickel-mining project, Vale Canada Ltd. was also testing a comprehensive effluent treatment program that incorporates new high-rate softening and clarification technology to help protect the environment.

International mining company, Vale, is nearing completion of its US$3.7-billion nickel processing plant at Long Harbour, on Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay. The Brazilian mining company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Vale Canada Limited, formerly known as Vale Inco, is directing the construction of the processing plant, which began in April 2009.

Start-up of the plant is scheduled for August 2013. Once fully operational, it is expected to annually produce 50,000 metric tons of nickel, 4,700 metric tons of copper, and 2,500 metric tons of cobalt.

The mined ore will first undergo a concentrating process at the Voisey’s Bay mine site in Labrador before it is transported by ship to the processing plant at Long Harbour. By processing ore concentrate at the plant, Vale anticipates achieving higher metal recoveries while also eliminating the time and expense of shipping to Ontario or Manitoba for refining.

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Vale sweetens pot in push to finish Long Harbour (CBC News Newfoundland – July 24, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/nl/

Vale is putting on a big push to finish the nickel processing facility in Long Harbour, pledging more cash to workers if they meet revised targets. The company says the project is 90 per cent completed, but finishing the job has been a challenge.

The processing facility is behind schedule. It was supposed to be commissioned by the end of June. The new target is Oct. 31.

Vale spokesman Bob Carter says the project has been plagued by shortages of skilled workers and absenteeism. “Resources that were here, and scheduled to be here, are now moving on to other projects,” Carter said.

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Vale may hire foreign workers to solve Long Harbour crunch (CBC News Newfoundland – July 23, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/nl/

Mining giant Vale admits it may have to look outside the country to hire specialized workers to finish its massive nickel processing facility in Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay.

However, Vale says it wants to explore other options first to find such skilled workers as welders and pipefitters for its site at Long Harbour, where the company ultimately intends to process nickel mined at Voisey’s Bay in northern Labrador.

To accomplish that, the company is moving skilled workers from its port site to its main construction site, which the company calls the upper tier. “Because we are short some of those resources, we thought it was best to redirect those resources to the upper tier,” Bob Carter, Vale’s director of corporate affairs, told CBC News.

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Vale may hire foreign workers to solve Long Harbour crunch (CBC News Newfoundland – July 23, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/nl/

Mining giant Vale admits it may have to look outside the country to hire specialized workers to finish its massive nickel processing facility in Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay.

However, Vale says it wants to explore other options first to find such skilled workers as welders and pipefitters for its site at Long Harbour, where the company ultimately intends to process nickel mined at Voisey’s Bay in northern Labrador.

To accomplish that, the company is moving skilled workers from its port site to its main construction site, which the company calls the upper tier. “Because we are short some of those resources, we thought it was best to redirect those resources to the upper tier,” Bob Carter, Vale’s director of corporate affairs, told CBC News.

On Friday, layoff notices were handed out to more than 250 workers with skills that are currently not needed at the main site. Vale, which now plans to finish the port site later, admits it is concerned that it will not be able to find all the workers it needs within Canada.

The company is applying to the federal government for permission to bring in foreign workers.

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Feds, province [Newfoundland] mum on Vale charges – by Ashley Fitzpatrick (St. John’s Telegram – July 11, 2013)

http://www.thetelegram.com/

The federal government has refused to comment on the charges being pressed against Vale Newfoundland and Labrador for alleged illegal release of liquid waste into Anaktalak Bay, Labrador.

Three charges are being laid against Vale relating to alleged breaches of the federal Fisheries Act over the course of almost a month in October 2011.

In response to questions on the case, Environment Canada issued a response by email, received by The Telegram at 9 p.m. Wednesday: “Thank you for contacting Environment Canada. However, as this case is currently before the courts, it would be inappropriate to comment.” The paper posed questions about the Vale case to communications staff at the provincial and federal level throughout the day Wednesday.

The questions — including whether or not the provincial government was aware of the allegations against Vale — have bounced between the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) representatives, a provincial spokesperson for DFO, the Environment Canada communications office in Ottawa and provincial communications staff from Service NL to Environment and Conservation.

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Newfoundland: Out of gas – by Tom Adams (National Post – June 25, 2013)

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

Tom Adams is a Toronto-based energy blogger and consultant.

To understand the scale of the province’s lost gas opportunity, look to Angola at the forefront of LNG market

As North America’s newly abundant natural gas-driven energy renaissance builds, one of the last regions out of gas is Newfoundland & Labrador. Although the province is blessed with abundant proven off-shore gas resources on the Grand Banks and good potential for on-shore gas from ongoing oil exploration, none of that gas will get delivered to Islanders any time soon.

The earliest the province is likely to see any off-shore gas reaching some market is at best 12 years from now according to a preliminary proposal floated by Husky Oil, an off-shore operator. Husky says it is thinking of starting studies on gas development in 2016 at the earliest. One way to understand the scale of the province’s lost opportunity is to compare Newfoundland & Labrador with another jurisdiction economically dependent on its off-shore petroleum resources — the impoverished but now rapidly advancing sub-saharan nation of Angola.

Last week, Angola, working with Chevron Corp. and others, shipped its first load of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to market. LNG development has provided the impetus to build a large infrastructure to pipe its raw gas ashore.

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Voisey’s Bay heading underground – Deal includes $100 million from Vale over next three years – by Ashley Fitzpatrick (St. John’s Telegram – March 30, 2013)

http://www.thetelegram.com/

Vale is taking its mining operation in Voisey’s Bay underground. Construction work for the underground mine is slated to start in 2015, with first ore expected by 2019.

The commitment to the mine extension came as part of a new deal struck between Vale Newfoundland and Labrador and the provincial government.

The deal assures the current mining at Voisey’s Bay can continue uninterrupted while the company’s new, $4.25-billion processing facility at Long Harbour is completed.

It means mining operations at Voisey’s Bay can continue until at least 2035. “It’s an important mine and extending it is important for us and the industry, generally. It’s a fabulous win-win,” said Gerry O’Connell of Mining Industry NL, who spoke with The Telegram immediately following the announcement of the deal.

“(And) with these kinds of mines, you never know. I meant they could go on for — Sudbury’s been going for 100 years,” he said.

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NEWS RELEASE: [Newfoundland and Labrador] Government Secures Commitment from Vale for Underground Mine

Executive Council
Natural Resources
March 28, 2013

A commitment to an underground mine at Voisey’s Bay is the centerpiece of amendments to the Voisey’s Bay Development Agreement announced today by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and Vale Newfoundland & Labrador Limited (Vale).

“The commitment secured by our government with Vale will ensure more jobs and benefits are created right here in Newfoundland and Labrador for our people,” said the Honourable Kathy Dunderdale, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. “The new mine will provide many hundreds of construction jobs after sanction in 2015, and even more operational employment than the current mine after first ore is achieved in 2019. This is another example of this government’s continued commitment to ensuring that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians benefit from the development of our natural resources.”

The Provincial Government extracted extra value with other improvements including enhanced industrial and employment benefits and additional revenue to the Provincial Government of approximately $100 million over three years.

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