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Chamber and Unions unite to push for Duluth Complex base/precious metals mines – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – November 20, 2012)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Mining on the environmentally sensitive Duluth Metallurgical complex in Minnesota is gleaning strong local support from a union/Chamber of Commerce alliance.

LONDON – In what must be a welcome development for prospective miners, PolyMet and Duluth Metals, Minnesota’s Chamber of Commerce and local mining unions will be mounting a combined campaign to try to ensure that mining of what has to be one of the world’s most significant mineral deposits, is given the go-ahead by state and federal bodies.

According to a report in the Duluth News Tribune, The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the state’s largest business group, and the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council have formed “Jobs for Minnesotans” to promote development of the state’s first-ever massive base and precious metals mining operations on the Duluth Metallurgical Complex which hosts one of the world’s largest potential polymetallic orebodies and which could see large scale mining for the next century, with its associated employment and tax benefits for the state and federal economies.

The Duluth Complex hosts an enormous resource of relatively low grade polymetallic mineralisation, which in combination represents perhaps the world’s largest ever discovery of an orebody containing copper, nickel, cobalt, pgms and gold – and Polymet and the Duluth Metals 60:40 jv with Antofagasta – the Twin Metals project – are the two most advanced projects on the Complex at the moment. However the area where these enormous deposits is hosted lies in an environmentally sensitive locality between the Boundary Waters recreational area and brownfields mining and processing sites left over from the still significant Minnesota taconite iron ore mines and process plants.

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Nickel Quest a reality: A Virtual Underground Mine Tour

 

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.

The “Nickel Quest” educational resource, was originally launched in June 2007, to complement aspects of the grade seven to grade nine curriculum.

The project was launched with the idea that it isn’t possible to provide all Ontario students with the educational experience of touring an underground mine. The Ontario Mining Association (OMA) took the route of using technology to create a virtual mine tour and take the underground mine experience to the classroom.

The development of Nickel Quest was led by the OMA Virtual Mine Tour Advisory Panel. This group, had representation from the mining industry, education and government, and worked together to produce an educational — and entertaining — resource that will help provide the link for students from mining activity to the products they use everyday and show why mining is important to all.

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More mineral riches from the smoky waters of Minnesota – by John Chadwick (International Mining – November 2012)

International Mining is a global technical magazine written for miners by miners. John Chadwick is the publisher. john@im-mining.com 

Ore riches that built America have much more to offer. Minnesota’s Iron Ranges to the west of Lake Superior – Vermilion, Mesabi and Cuyuna from the northeast of Duluth down to the south-southwest – have been the most important ore deposits in US history, and continue to be so, providing well over 90% of the iron ore the country needs. Just a few of the great historical landmarks include the establishment, in 1901, of the world’s first multi-billion dollar corporation, US Steel.

Before that, in May 1890, Edmund Longyear (founder of one of the companies that was to become, much later, Boart Longyear) brought the diamond drill to the Iron Ranges. This exploration tool was to be a key to unlocking the riches of the region.

There was also the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co (3M) founded in 1902 at the Lake Superior town of Two Harbors. However its only connection with the Iron Ranges was location. The deposit was set up to mine for grinding-wheel abrasives proved to be of little value.

William Boeing made profits from the Mesabi Range and just a few other great names with Iron Ranges associations include Henry Bessemer, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Kelsey D. Chase, and J.P. Morgan.

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Nickel supply continues to spring surprises – by Andy Home (Reuters – November 2, 2012)

http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Nickel has been the underperformer of the industrial metals traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME) for much of this year. The stainless steel input fell harder during the summer sell-off and rallied less than the others on the QE3-fuelled bounce in September.

Since then the broader price pull-back has seen three-month nickel crash back to below $16,500 per tonne, a level where it is challenging the top end of the production cost curve.

The reason for this consistent underperformance is not just concern about the state of the stainless steel sector. After all, global growth fears have affected just about every industrial commodity from aluminum to iron ore to zinc.

What has marked nickel out since the start of the year and what continues to weigh so heavily on prices is the market’s supply side. Supply is expected to exceed demand by 50,000 tonnes this year, according to the International Nickel Study Group.

It will do so again next year but the scale of surplus will depend on the success of a wave of new projects currently entering production, a classic commodity example of bad timing.

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Have Nickel Prices Bottomed? – by Stuart Burns (Metal Miner.com – October 29, 2012)

http://agmetalminer.com/

The supply demand outlook for nickel remains highly uncertain — banks and analysts at least agree on that. Many believe nickel demand, having slumped this year, to have bottomed and that the metal could post a modest upswing next year.

HSBC reports that China posted practically no growth (+1.4%) in stainless steel production (by far the largest market for nickel) in 2012, but is expected to pick up in 2013.

Stainless steel production was actually down in Europe and the Americas this year, but a lower nickel price encourages the use of nickel-bearing steels and in particular austenitic grades, a trend that has seen the ratio of austenitic to total stainless grades increase from 72.1 percent to 73.3 percent during this year.

Although smaller in total demand, the increase in nickel use from non-stainless applications has increased the most rapidly, by 8 percent this year.

Taken as a whole and against the backdrop of slowing global GDP growth, even outright recession in some quarters, nickel demand has held up reasonably well responding to the stainless cycle rather than directly to GDP trends.

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Sudbury nickel mine stops operations at year’s end due to falling prices – by Andrew Livingstone (Toronto Star – October 20, 2012)

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.

Operations at the Sudbury mine site where 40 per cent of the nickel used to make allied artillery during the First World War came from will be suspended at the end of the year.

The Frood site, which has been in operation for over a century, will be closed because of recent decline in the price of nickel and market volatility.

Since 2011, the price of nickel has dropped 30 per cent, 17 per cent this year alone. The closure will not lead to any job losses, said McPhee. 85 workers are currently employed at the site and when it closes, will be reassigned to other jobs within the Sudbury operation.

The Frood site has been mined for more than 100 years, but the ore now has low value and the company had been mining at a loss.

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Vale profits to drop 61%: Analysts – by Jeb Blount and Sabrina Lorenzi (Reuters/Sudbury Star – October 23, 2012)

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

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Vale SA (VALE5.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) the world’s No. 2 mining company, is expected to report that third-quarter profit tumbled 61 percent from a year earlier as output slipped and the price of iron ore and other metals dropped to three-year lows.

Profit is also likely to be hurt by the company’s decision to set aside about $540 million for the possible payment of back royalties in a dispute with Brazil’s government.

Net income likely fell to $1.92 billion in the three months ending September 30 from $4.93 billion the year before, according to the average estimate of 19 analysts in a Reuters poll.

If results expected late on Wednesday confirm the estimate, it will mark the company’s worst quarterly profit in 33 months. Falling prices and weak demand in China, Vale’s largest market, have led the Rio de Janeiro-based company to delay spending, close operations and consider cuts to investments and dividends.

“Third quarter results are likely to suffer from a steep drop in prices,” BTG Pactual Group analysts Edmo Chagas, Antonio Heluany and Gregory Goldfinger wrote in a Monday report.

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Study finds [Sudbury’s Wallbridge Mining] Broken Hammer has potential to be viable – by Star Staff (Sudbury Star – October 23, 2012)

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

Wallbridge Mining Company Ltd. has released what it’s calling positive results on studies conducted on its Broken Hammer copper and platinum group metal project in Sudbury.

“We are very encouraged by the positive results of the pre-feasibility study,” Marz Kord, president and CEO of Wall-bridge Mining, said in a release.

“The pre-feasibility suggests that the Broken Hammer project has the potential to become economically viable and generate positive cash flow. What’s more encouraging is that the deposit remains open for expansion to the west and to depth.

“The footwall-style Broken Hammer project is in a large land package on the northern rim of the Sudbury basin within a 9 km strike length of very similar geology with extremely strong prospects.”

The Broken Hammer project, located north of Capreol, is planned to be an open pit operation used for the extraction of about 196,000 tonnes of copper, nickel and platinum group metals.

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[Manitoba] Province has ‘significant concerns about Vale’s commitment to the Thompson mining operations’ – by John Barker (Thompson Citizen – October 22, 2012)

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

Urgent meeting with Poppinga

The provincial government has ‘significant concerns about Vale’s commitment to the Thompson mining operations’ and says it will be meeting on an urgent basis with Vale Canada President Peter Poppinga to discuss issues relating to Thompson, Steve Ashton, Thompson’s NDP MLA and minister of infrastructure and transportation, said Oct. 22.

“Following meetings with Murilo Ferreira, the CEO of Vale in 2011, and a further meeting between the Premier (Greg Selinger) and the CEO in Brazil in May 2012 we have been engaged in discussions with Vale in relation to the fund and other issues regarding the Thompson operation,” Ashton said. “We have made it clear that the Province of Manitoba is committed to continue working for value added jobs from the nickel resource in Manitoba.

“There was progress on these discussions. However the recent announcement on Birchtree and the delay in a decision on the 1 D project has raised significant concerns about Vale’s commitment to the Thompson mining operations.

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Vale reports production declines across wide band of commodities – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – October 18, 2012)

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page102055?

Bloomberg Industries says Vale’s share of the global seaborne iron-ore market has declined from 28% in the first half of 2011 to 26% for the same period of this year.

RENO (MINEWEB) – Vale has reported production declines in iron ore, pellets, manganese, copper, potash and phosphate rock for the first nine months of this year.

While the Brazilian mega-miner’s coal output increased a record 144.4% during the period, pellet output was up 3.8% and nickel production stayed flat.

For the first nine months of this year, Vale reported iron ore production of 234.5 million metric tons, a 2.2% drop over the 240 million metric tons of production reported during the first nine months of 2011.

“At Carajas we have not been able to match last year’s performance,” said Vale. “Issues with environmental permitting led to the continuation of mining in some older pits, which has entailed lower productivity, lower Fe content and higher costs.”
“Current performance is definitely not consistent with the high quality of our assets and corrective measures are underway,” the company said in its 3Q12 production report.

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Sudbury must become ‘self-sustaining’ – Vale by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – October 18, 2012)

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

Vale’s Sudbury operations must become “self-sustaining,” according to a letter sent to the company’s global operations Wednesday by Peter Poppinga, CEO of Vale Canada Ltd.

What that will mean to the company’s Sudbury operations and its 4,000-plus employees will become clear by the end of the week.

“In every area that we operate, there will be conversations with employees about specific actions that can be taken at those sites,” said Cory McPhee, Vale’s vice-president of corporate affairs. “Sudbury is no different.”

McPhee said Vale needs to make changes to improve efficiencies and control costs, while facing a difficult base metals market hampered by weak prices and demand.

He said representatives from the company will be speaking with employees across its global operations, including in Sudbury, before the end of the week to go over exactly what they mean by becoming more “self-sustaining.”

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Duluth has big plans for Minnesota mining – by John Chadwick (Mineweb.com – October 3, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

According to the miner, truly magnificent orebodies are being revealed in an area that has already played a very important role in the US mining industry.

LONDON (INTERNATIONAL MINING) – Ore riches that built America have much more to offer. Minnesota’s Iron Ranges to the west of Lake Superior – Vermilion, Mesabi and Cuyuna from the northeast of Duluth down to the south-southwest – have been the most important ore deposits in US history, and continue to be so, providing well over 90% of the iron ore the country needs. Just a few of the great historical landmarks include the establishment, in 1901, of the world’s first multi-billion dollar corporation, US Steel.

Before that, in May 1890, Edmund Longyear (founder of one of the companies that was to become, much later, Boart Longyear) brought the diamond drill to the Iron Ranges. This exploration tool was to be a key to unlocking the riches of the region.
William Boeing made profits from the Mesabi Range and just a few other great names with Iron Ranges associations include Henry Bessemer, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Kelsey D. Chase, and J.P. Morgan.

Of the known US mineral resources, Minnesota accounts for 99% of the nickel, 90% of the iron, 88% of the cobalt, 51% of the platinum and 48% of the palladium, 40% of the manganese and 34% of the copper. America’s third largest mining state may be poised to take the lead. In work pioneered by Duluth Metals, its Senior Vice President, Exploration, Dean M. Peterson and his innovative team, truly magnificent orebodies are being revealed in an area that has already played such an important role in the US mining industry.

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Nickel price drop only temporary, TD economist says – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury Northern Life – September 17, 2012)

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

No need for ‘panic’: mining supply association director

The head of commodity strategy for TD Securities said nickel prices may reach as high as $9 a pound by the second quarter of next year. Speaking at a Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA) meeting Sept. 17, Bart Melek said nickel prices have sunk in recent months because China just isn’t buying as much of the metal as it once did.

That’s because the country has accumulated a significant stockpile of metals. But as they start to run out, nickel prices will pick up again, he said. TD is predicting that nickel prices will be at $8.23 in the last quarter of 2012, $8.50 in the first quarter of 2013 and $9.00 in the second quarter of 2013.

Currently, nickel prices are sitting at around $8.25 a pound. They reached as low as $7 a pound in August. “I have about $9 in the second quarter of 2013,” Melek said.

“Before that, inventories will have pretty much whittled down. We will already see an impact of production cuts around the world in nickel facilities, bringing that market into a bit of a deficit.

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China helping nickel: analyst – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 18, 2012)

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

Three key drivers will boost commodity prices in the second half of 2013 — China, China and China — says an economist with TD Securities. China consumes about 40% of the world’s nickel and copper, and its economy is “not c o l l a p s i n g ,” despite some naysayers, says Bart Melek.
 
China has $3.6 trillion in reserve, a minimum debt to gross domestic product ratio and a “big political incentive” to keep growing, Melek told about 100 people at a breakfast meeting Monday of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association.
 
Stability is important in the one-party state, whose government is determined to keep people employed and food on the table, said Melek. China has also embarked upon a five-year plan to move 20 to 25 million of its citizens every year from rural areas to cities. That requires more housing and transportation services that require copper, nickel and iron ore.
 
China’s economy may be growing more slowly than it was, but it’s still growing three to four times as fast as our economy, said Melek, head of commodity strategies at TD Securities. Melek is forecasting economic stability in the United States as well, because of a monetary policy to hold interest rates at 0% to 2015.

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NEWSRELEASE: Canadian Arrow Commences Nickel Production, Discovers New Nickel Massive Sulphides at Kelex

SUDBURY, ON, Sept. 17, 2012 /CNW/ – Canadian Arrow Mines Limited. (CRO: TSX-V) (the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has commenced producing and stockpiling nickel-bearing massive sulphides produced from its Kelex mine.  Furthermore, initial mine development and overburden stripping have exposed unexpected near-surface nickel-bearing massive sulphides extending both east and west along strike of, and continuous with, the current production zone.  The stripping program will continue to further evaluate the discoveries that continue to project an unknown width, depth and strike distance below overburden cover.  Channel sampling is planned once the extent of mineralization is exposed.  Results will be published as they become available.
 
Mr. Kim Tyler, President of the Company stated, “We are pleased to have achieved the production milestone and are particularly excited about the discovery of the new strike extensions. Development work intended for ramp access in unmineralized rock unexpectedly encountered 2 metres of solid nickel-bearing massive sulphide on the sparsely drilled flanks of the known mineralization.  The new mineralization will be a welcome addition to our production plans and demonstrates greater continuity of the Alexo Nickel Complex mineralization on the whole.”
 
Widths of up to 3 metres of continuous massive and semi-massive sulphide over a 22 metre extended strike length on the west and 13 metres of extended strike on the east have so far been exposed.  Depth extensions will become better understood as production advances to depth.

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