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Vale board approves US$21.4bn investment budget for 2012 – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – November 29, 2011)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Iron ore gets the lion’s share of Vale’s project capex budget next year, with the bulk of investment allocated to Brazilian projects and operations.

RENO, NV – Brazilian über iron ore miner Vale Monday announced its board of directors approved US$12.9 billion for projects, US$2.4 billion for research and development, and US$6.1 billion for sustaining operations in 2012.

The company also reinforced estimated mining production for 2012 including 312 million metric tons of iron ore, 50 million metric tons of pellets, 16.6 million metric tons of coal, 300,000 metric tons of nickel, 340,000 metric tons of copper, 650,000 metric tons of potash and 8 million metric tons of phosphate rock.

Vale now has 20 main projects now under construction to implement organic growth, comprising 75% of the $12.9 billion budgeted for project development next year. The bulk of the investment will be made in Brazil, which gets 63.7% of the total 2012 investment budget, while Canada will receive 11.7%.

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Long-time Sherritt chief Ian Delaney to retire – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – November 25, 2011)

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.

Ian Delaney, the “Smiling Barracuda” of Bay Street who transformed Sherritt International Corp. into a multifaceted mining company with reaches into Cuba and Madagascar, is stepping down, again, as its CEO.

The 68-year-old business maverick, who still exchanges notes with Fidel Castro and shrugs off his ban from the United States, said he can comfortably relinquish the chief executive officer’s role now that his successors are primed to take over during what he sees as a prolonged period of market volatility.

“They are all firing on eight cylinders, they don’t need me,” Mr. Delaney said in an interview on Thursday after announcing his retirement effective at the end of the year, three years after being “drafted” back to the position. He will be replaced by chief financial officer David Pathe on Jan. 1.

The provocative former Merrill Lynch investment banker will remain as chairman of the diversified Toronto-based resources firm he won control over in a hostile proxy contest in 1990, turning it into Canada’s largest coal producer and the largest independent energy producer in Cuba.

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Truth time on Thompson, Manitoba smelter and refinery – Editorial (Thompson Citizen – October 26, 2011)

The Thompson Citizen, which was established in June 1960, covers the City of Thompson and Nickel Belt Region of Northern Manitoba. The city has a population of about 13,500 residents while the regional population is more than 40,000.  editor@thompsoncitizen.net

It’s time for all the parties or stakeholders to tell the truth about Vale’s plan, announced almost a year ago, to close the Thompson refinery and smelter in 2015. And the truth is the smelter and refinery is closing. Vale has been consistent in their position on this since the day they made the bombshell announcement last Nov. 17.

You don’t have to like that piece of bad news delivered by Tito Martins, chief executive officer of Vale Canada in Toronto and executive director of base metals for the Brazilian parent company, or for that matter you don’t have to like Martins’ direct style or Martins’ himself even. That’s OK.

But you have to give credit where credit is due and Tito Martins has been nothing but a straight shooter on the company’s position on closing the smelter and refinery. He’s told people involved privately what he’s said publicly. And just in case anyone didn’t get the message Nov. 17, 2010 he reiterated it in person Jan. 26 at the Juniper Centre at the Thompson Chamber of Commerce annual general meeting.

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Sudbury in the 1960s – by Sudbury Star (Unknown Date)

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

The 1960s were a period of tension and turmoil in Sudbury, with huge changes in local labour organizations. It was also a period of massive urban renewal and municipal restructuring.

When the decade opened, the entire mining industry workforce was represented by one union — the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. When the decade ended, the United Steelworkers Union had established itself as bargaining agent for Inco employees in Sudbury.

To mark its presence in the community, the union purchased the former Legion Hall at Frood Road and College Street. The building became the Steelworkers Hall.

It was also a time of increasing demand for nickel products throughout the world, helped in no small part by the war in Vietnam. Both of the community’s mining companies, Inco and Falconbridge, were expanding operations.

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Mining pioneer’s memoir reissued [Sudbury History] – by Paul Bennett (Halifax Chronicle Herald – October 9, 2011)

http://thechronicleherald.ca/

Paul W. Bennett is founding director, Schoolhouse Consulting, Halifax, and the author of Vanishing Schools, Threatened Communities: The Contested Schoolhouse in Maritime Canada, 1850-2010.

Dusty old memoirs rarely attract much attention, unless they celebrate the lives of famous figures or capture well the social experience of bygone days. Men and women living ordinary lives rarely write autobiographies and fewer still have the resources to get them published.

The rather obscure Cape Breton-born mining pioneer Aeneas (Angus) McCharles (1844-1906) was an exception to the normal pattern. His personal memoir, Bemocked of Destiny, published posthumously in 1908, achieved some notoriety for its homespun philosophy and has been re-published recently as a centenary project.

McCharles’s fascinating life caught the imagination of Martin McAllister, an amateur historian and former columnist for the Inco Triangle, the official newsletter of the International Nickel Company in Sudbury, Ont. While researching the mining pioneers of Sudbury District some years ago, he stumbled upon McCharles and his long out-of-print memoir.

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Rails to the Ring of Fire – Stan Sudol (Toronto Star – May 30, 2011)

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.

For the web’s largest database of articles on the Ring of Fire mining camp, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“The Ring of Fire railroad should be subsidized by
governments as the huge economic impact will benefit
the economy for decades to come, help balance budgets
and alleviate aboriginal poverty in the surrounding
First Nations communities.” (Stan Sudol)

Notwithstanding the recent correction in commodity prices, near-record highs for gold, silver and a host of base metals essential for industry confirm that the commodity “supercycle” is back and with a vengeance.

China, India, Brazil and many other developing economies are continuing their rapid pace of growth. In 2010, China overtook Japan to become the world’s second largest economy and surpassed the United States to become the biggest producer of cars.

In March, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney remarked: “Commodity markets are in the midst of a supercycle. . . . Rapid urbanization underpins this growth. . . . Even though history teaches that all booms are finite, this one could go on for some time.”

Quebec’s visionary 25-year “Plan Nord” will see billions invested in northern resource development and infrastructure to take advantage of the tsunami in global metal demand and generate much needed revenue for government programs.

In Ontario, the isolated Ring of Fire mining camp in the James Bay lowlands is one of the most exciting and possibly the richest new Canadian mineral discovery in more than a generation. It has been compared with both the Sudbury Basin and the Abitibi Greenstone belt that includes Timmins, Kirkland Lake, Noranda and Val d’Or.

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Vale’s massive Newfoundland nickel refinery takes shape – by Paul Brent (Canadian Mining Journal – September, 2011)

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

Vale Canada Ltd.’s $2.8-billion nickel processing facility at Long Harbour in Newfoundland will be a showcase for the mining giant’s newly developed hydrometallurgy refining technology when the plant is completed in early 2013.

Long Harbour, which will process 50,000 tons per year of nickel from the Voisey’s Bay concentrate deposit in Labrador, will operate much differently than traditional nickel processing facilities. The key difference is the use of hydrometallurgy or “hydromet” technology that utilizes a combination of water and oxygen under pressure to dissolve selected metals from the incoming concentrate.

“It is a process called POL, which means Pressure Oxidative Leaching,” says Rinaldo Stefan, who is project director of the Long Harbour processing plant.

For Vale, one of the big payoffs from the POL process is a significantly reduced sulphur dioxide footprint for the Long Harbour operation. As part of the traditional nickel refining process, sulphur is mixed with oxygen to be removed, captured and then converted into sulphuric acid to be disposed of.

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Are Ontario political party pronouncements echoing OMA’s vision for the future of mining?

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.

As we move closer to October 6 election day in Ontario, it is encouraging to see mining being part of the platform of all major parties.  Many of the topics and positions being presented by the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats seem to reflect the OMA’s plan for the future of mining in Ontario.  Last week, the OMA presented each party’s’ views on mining, however, the issues continue to develop.  The full text of the OMA’s vision for the future “Action Plan for Ontario: Taking Advantage of a Critical Window of Opportunity” can be found on the OMA website www.oma.on.ca. 
 
The Liberal document “Plan for Northern Ontario” has a lot of mining content.   The OMA’s paper calls for “balancing conservation and development targets” and the establishment of a target for new mines in Ontario to demonstrate a commitment to the future success of the industry.  The Liberal platform says “at least six mines are reopening and four new mines are expected to open by the end of 2012 and we’ll open at least eight new mines in the next 10 years.” 

The OMA would like to see an engaged Ontario government working with the federal government, industry and First Nations to cut approval and permitting time lines in half.   While the Progressive Conservatives and NDP have supported permitting improvements, the Liberals have said “we’ll also work to ensure the federal government is at the table for Northern communities and First Nations in planning for smart development of the Ring of Fire. 

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Weak demand saps nickel prices – by Pratima Desai – Reuters (Sudbury Star – August 17, 2011)

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

LONDON — Deteriorating demand from stainless steel mills and rising mine production are likely to push the nickel market into surplus in the second half of the year and put modest downward pressure on prices.

The uncertain outlook for global economic growth and demand because of the debt crisis in the euro zone and the United States mean gloomier prospects for nickel demand.

Stainless steel producers use about two-thirds of global nickel output, which is estimated at above 1.5 million tonnes this year.

First-quarter production of stainless steel rose to a record high of 8.390 million tonnes, according to the International Stainless Steel Forum, and expectations for the second quarter are, at best, flat.

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Inco Limited History (1902- 2001) – by International Directory of Company Histories

For a large selection of corporate histories click: International Directory of Company Histories

Company History:

Inco Limited is one of the world’s top producers of nickel. It operates Canada’s largest mining and processing operation in Sudbury, Ontario, and runs other mines in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia. It has interests in refineries in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, and sales and operations in over 40 countries worldwide. Overall Inco provides about 25 percent of the nickel used globally. The company also produces cobalt, copper, precious metals, and specialty nickel products.

Early Years

Nickel was first isolated as an element in the middle of the 18th century, but not until the following century did it come into demand as a coin metal. Up to around 1890, coining remained the metal’s only use, and most of the world’s nickel was mined by Le Nickel, a Rothschild company, on the island of New Caledonia. At that time, however, it was determined that steel made from an iron-nickel alloy could be rolled into exceptionally hard plates, called armor plate, for warships, tanks, and other military vehicles, and the resulting surge in demand spurred a worldwide search for nickel deposits.

The world’s largest nickel deposit ever discovered was in Ontario’s Sudbury Basin; before long, one of the area’s big copper mining companies, Canadian Copper, began shipping quantities of nickel to a U.S. refinery in Bayonne, New Jersey, the Orford Copper Company.

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NickelOdious – by Jon Nadler (Kitco Metals – June 13, 2011)

Jon Nadler is a Senior Metals Analyst – Kitco Metals

A further decline in crude oil prices conspired to drag most of the commodities’ complex to lower value ground as the new trading week commenced. Thus, precious metals lost chart altitude levels as well, despite the minor, 0.15 loss recorded in the US dollar index this morning.

Part of the early selling pressure was related to investors’ raising cash to cover margin calls incurred in the wake of the sixth consecutive losing session in the equity markets on Friday. However, at the end of the day (or, shall we say, the beginning thereof) reports that China’s economy is slowing (and perhaps more than just a tad) coupled with posturing by Saudi Arabia that it might ratchet supplies of black gold higher in coming weeks were the prime catalysts for the price dips we witnessed this morning.

As regards China, the prospects of a possible “hard landing” by that country’s economy were brought into discussion once again. NYU’s Dr. Nouriel Roubini said that he does not see the combination of China’s reliance on fixed investment (now running at about half of its GDP), its lurking “massive non-performing loan problem” plus its huge amount of overcapacity as resulting in any kind of a rosy outcome. For Dr. Roubini, the period after the year 2013 presents a “meaningful probability” for a Chinese economic “runway disaster” unless the aforementioned issues are tackled and resolved.

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Papua New Guinea [Ramu nickel laterite project] and China’s New Empire – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – January 3, 2009)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. Please note that this article was orginally published January 3, 2009.

MADANG, Papua New Guinea

When Chinese engineers landed in Papua New Guinea in 2006 to inspect their latest mineral acquisition, they faced an arduous journey through the tropical wilderness. They drove over crumbling roads to the Ramu River, then found natives with dugout canoes to paddle them upstream. Next, they hired another team of locals with machetes to slash a rough trail for eight hours through the steamy jungle, dodging poisonous snakes and malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

“It was terrible,” recalls Wang Chun, the chief engineer. “You couldn’t breathe.”

Today, less than three years later, a series of small Chinatowns has emerged in the jungle — complete with Chinese food, Chinese satellite television channels and crews of Chinese migrant labourers living in cheap dormitory huts. Where once was wilderness, you find the workers of China Metallurgical Group Corp., toiling seven days a week and chattering about their families back home in Beijing and Sichuan.

It hasn’t been easy. The state-owned mining company has dealt with violent clashes with local landowners, striking workers, attacks from the media and unfriendly police who arrested more than 200 Chinese technicians on charges of illegally entering the country.

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NEWS RELEASE: Watts Griffis McOuat releases Cu-Ni-PGE Study [for best Canadian exploration targets]

Watts, Griffis and McOuat Limited (“WGM”) is Canada’s longest running (established in 1962) independent firm of geological and mining consultants providing value-added professional services of the highest standards to the global mineral resource industry.

May 10th, 2011

WGM has completed a yearlong study of potential Cu-Ni-PGE exploration targets in Canada. The objective of the study was to identify underexplored areas that exhibit significant exploration potential.

WGM’s team, led by J. Konnunaho, a geologist from the Finnish Geological Survey and an expert in such mineralization, reviewed and prepared an outline of prospective areas in Canada hosting the most favourable depositional environments that could contain such types of mineralization. The study identified and examined 26 such settings, all of which have various levels of demonstrated potential for hosting Cu-Ni-PGE deposits. Targets were then selected based on the following search criteria;

1) current economic potential;

2) accessibility to exploration (remote areas impact exploration costs);

3) geological setting, the presence of those features most favourable for Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization;

4) demonstrated historical and or recent exploration results;

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The Charges Against Big Nickel [in 1946 by U.S. government] – by Richard Mills (Jun 9, 2011)

Richard Mills owns no shares of any companies mentioned in this report and none are advertisers on his site www.aheadoftheherd.com

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information

In 1946, in New York City, the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice filed a complaint against Inco and its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, International Nickel Co. Inc.

Canada’s Inco, at the time, owned 90% of the world’s nickel ore and supplied 90% of U.S. nickel needs.

The charges brought were:

■Conspiracy to prevent competition in the nickel industry
■Fixing prices
■Making cartel agreements with I. G. Farbenindustrie, A. G. and two French companies to prevent competition and peg prices in the world market

The Department of Justice said the nickel industry ceased to be competitive earlier in the century when Charles Schwab arranged a merger between Canadian companies with nickel ore and U.S. companies with the chemical process for separating nickel from copper. Holdings of this combine were consolidated under Inco, Ltd. in 1928.

How ironic that in 2010 the US did not have any active nickel mines. Nickel has a very interesting history and is still extremely important in the everyday functioning of our modern economies.

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Is a Profitable Nickel Laterite (HPAL) Mine a ‘Black Swan’? – by Patrick Whiteway (Canadian Mining Review Blog – January 31, 2011)

Canadian Mining Review: Discussing ideas and issues related to mining in Canada 

Thoughts on mining nickel laterites inspired by two recent books: ‘Linkages of Sustainability’ and ‘The Black Swan.’  

It’s October 2008 and I’m relaxing in a second-row seat of an air conditioned tour bus. It’s crossing the Swan River in beautiful downtown Perth, Australia, when the driver suggests to passangers that the river should be called the Black Swan River. That’s because 300 years ago, he explains, European explorers first visited this part of Western Australia and saw black swans for the very first time. Up until then, the only swans they had seen were white ones. Seeing black swans on this wide, lazy river revolutionized their thinking.

Reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s best-selling book “The Black Swan,” could revolutionize your thinking. This book is all about highly improbable events. Taleb skillfully questions how we think about these events that turn out to have serious consequences. He calls them ‘black swans’ and as I’ll show here, they have a significant role to play in the mining industry.

As a Canadian mine engineer who has visited and written reports on many mines in Canada, I can tell you that improbable events, sometimes called simply luck, surprises, randomness or human error, have enormous consequences for the success or failure of many mines. The only successful, high pressure acid leach (or HPAL) nickel laterite operation in Australia is one of my favorite examples.

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