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Aboriginal consultations lengthy but necessary step for mine development – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – September 21, 2015)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

KGHM makes progress with Victoria Mine

After many years of groundwork, KGHM’s Sudbury operations expect to submit a report to their parent company in Poland by the end of October to approve further development and production of the Victoria Mine, says the company’s local environment and community manager.

Ian Horne addressed the Canadian Institute of Mining Thursday about his years of experience negotiating agreements with local first nations regarding the mine’s development.

In 2010 the modernized Mining Act required mining companies operating in Ontario to consult with Aboriginal people before they could submit their mine closure plans to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.

The mine closure plan is a necessary part of any mining project.  “Once you get involved in something like Aboriginal consultation you realize the value and importance of it,” Horne said.

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[Sudbury Basin] McCreedy closure likely won’t impact Victoria mine: Union – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – September 21, 2015)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

KGHM nickel mine to go into care and maintenance Oct. 1

KGHM’s Victoria Mine project should still move forward, despite the recent announcement the company will be closing its McCreedy West nickel mine in Levack next month, says a representative with United Steelworkers Local 2020.

“I know that Victoria is a big priority for KGHM, and I think that project will still be going ahead,” said Myles Sullivan, an area co-ordinator with the United Steelworkers. “It’s a higher grade deposit. It’s a very good deposit, and that will be going ahead from what I’ve been told.”

Sullivan confirmed over the weekend that KGHM’s small McCreedy West Mine will go into care and maintenance on Oct. 1. NorthernLife.ca is awaiting a call back from KGHM regarding Victoria Mine.

The mine’s closure will displace 25 United Steelworkers members, who could apply for jobs at the nearby Morrison Mine – also part of the Levack complex – but would in turn displace workers there with less seniority.

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Times tough for miners all over – by Reuters/Star Staff (Sudbury Star – September 22, 2015)

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

Europe’s No. 2 copper producer Poland’s KGHM said on Monday it would put its McCreedy West copper mine in Sudbury on care and maintenance, the latest victim of sinking prices as worries about demand from China fuel the biggest market rout in years.

Copper prices plunged to six-year lows below $5,000 a tonne last month. They have since recovered to just under $5,300 a tonne, but that’s still about 18 per cent below the 2015 peak.

Also feeding the downward spiral were expectations of a small surplus this year and a larger one in 2016.

Major miners have up until recently mostly refrained from cutting production, but prices have now fallen to levels where some operations are no longer economically viable.

Mining giants Glencore and Freeport have waved the white flag and announced plans to suspend some of their copper production.

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KGHM to shut down McCreedy mine: Union – by Ben Leeson (Sudbury Star – September 21, 2015)

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

In the face of weak commodity prices, KGHM International will shut down the McCreedy West Mine next month, the union representing representing workers there told the Sudbury Star on Sunday.

Myles Sullivan, area co-ordinator for the United Steelworkers, said the company has informed members the mine will be placed under care and maintenance effective Oct. 1, affecting about 25 employees.

“In total, there’s about 40 of our members that are being laid off locally,” Sullivan said.

“It’s really hard. Things are tough in mining right now, with the price of nickel and copper and everything being low. We kind of hoped the (lower) dollar would help offset some of that and I’m sure it’s helping, but it’s still not enough.”

Based on seniority and qualifications, Sullivan said, some workers from McCreedy may have the opportunity to work at the nearby Morrison deposit. Attempts to contact a KGHM representative for comment on the weekend were not immediately successful.

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Nunavik women say family demands keep them from jobs at mines – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq News – September 17, 2015)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

“They want to make sure that their children are cared for”

KUUJJUAQ — Consultations with Inuit women across Nunavik earlier this year found that — not surprisingly — they face the same barriers to seeking and securing employment in the mining sector as other Aboriginal women around the world.

And one of those challenges is balancing work with home and family life in a job that demands that workers be away from home for extended periods of time.

Over the last year, the Kativik Regional Government has worked alongside the region’s Kautaapikkut mining roundtable, a body launched last year to encourage Inuit employment in Nunavik’s mines and mor specifically, to look at the under-employment of women.

Together men and women make up 15 per cent of all Nunavimmiut working at the region’s two mines.

But fewer than half of all Inuit working at the region’s two operating mines are women; about 44 per cent at Glencore Raglan’s nickel operation, and about 20 per cent at Canadian Royalties’ Nunavik Nickel.

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Sudbury’s Wallbridge Mining signs $11-million deal – by Staff (Sudbury Star – September 17, 2015)

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

Lonmin Canada Inc. and Lonmin Plc will spend $11 million over four years in a joint venture agreement with Sudbury-based Wallbridge Mining Company Limited.

In exchange, Lonmin can earn up to a 50 per cent interest in Wallbridge’s four Parkin Properties located North of Sudbury. The deal was announced Wednesday.

“Our business plan … focuses on acquiring value-accretive near-term production opportunities, as well as advancing our exploration properties, including our Parkin Properties, through joint venture partnerships,” Marz Kord, president and CEO of Wallbridge, said in a release.

“I am pleased that we have not only advanced our discussions regarding some external assets, but have now amended the (North Range Joint Venture agreement) with Lonmin to include our Parkin Properties. This plan provides the company with sustainable cash flow, while maintaining active exploration for large-scale discovery upside in the Sudbury camp.

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Noront CEO outlines big plans in the Ring of Fire (Northern Miner – September 16, 2015)

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

VANCOUVER — Noront Resources (TSXV: NOT; US-OTC: NOSOF) has emerged as a leader across the Ring of Fire region in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario, and it has a long-term plan in the works it hopes will establish a world-class nickel sulphide and chromite camp in the region.

The company is knows it won’t be a quick process, but a commitment to social license and First Nation partnerships could lead to successes where larger companies have failed.

Noront made headlines in late March when it acquired 103 claims in the Ring of Fire from beleaguered U.S. base-metal miner Cliffs Natural Resources (NYSE: CLF) for US$20 million. The deal was financed via a US$22.5-million loan agreement that saw Franco-Nevada (TSX: FNV; NYSE: FNV) pick up a 3% royalty on the Black Thor chromite deposit and a 2% royalty on Noront’s properties in the region with the exception of its advanced-stage Eagle’s Nest nickel platinum group metals project.

“We’d always had our eye on consolidating the Ring of Fire because we view it as an emerging camp. I mean you have a greenstone belt with a big ultramafic complex that seems to be chalk full of discovery potential,” said president and CEO Alan Coutts during an interview.

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Vale Rules Out Following Glencore Path as Mining Pain Deepens – by Juan Pablo Spinetto (Bloomberg News – September 15, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s top iron-ore miner is betting that cost cuts and growing market share will be enough to endure low prices, shunning the path of equity sales and halted dividends taken by rival Glencore Plc.

Vale SA, the Brazilian mining giant which is also the largest nickel producer, is focused on reducing expenses further as the start of its lowest cost producing project approaches, Chief Executive Officer Murilo Ferreira told reporters in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, during an industry gathering.

“We aren’t studying a model like the one taken by Glencore, because we don’t consider it necessary for Vale,” Ferreira said, adding that he only has “superficial” knowledge of the operations of the Baar, Switzerland-based trader.

“The Vale team did the diagnosis of the end of the supercycle at the right moment. There was an expressive reduction in Vale’s costs and there is a lot still to come.”

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Nickel, aluminium expected to trade higher in mid-September – by Anne Lu (International Business Times – September 15, 2015)

http://www.ibtimes.com.au/

Markets research firm Angel Commodities said base metals nickel and aluminium would experience a price hike by the middle of this month due to various positive global cues. Nickel, for instance, would be highly affected by Indonesia’s decision to continue its ban on unprocessed metals.

“ We expect nickel prices to trade higher in September 15 as Indonesia decided to retain its export ban on nickel ore, contrary to media reports suggesting the country may relax curbs to prop up its slowing economy,” a representative from Angel told Commodity Online .

Aluminium, on the other hand, will get a price boost on production upgrade from a giant Russian bauxite producer.

“ We [also] expect aluminium prices to trade higher in September 15 as supply glut concerns will likely get a breather as Russia’s Rusal, the world’s top aluminium producer, is considering capacity cuts of 200,000 tonnes a year this year,” the firm added.

Earlier this year, Rusal executive said that bauxite producers across the globe are forced to either cut production or completely shut operations down due to the losses obtained from weak global prices.

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Low nickel price ‘not sustainable’ – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – September 4, 2015)

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

Bring on the monsoon.

It may seem like a strange wish to make from a part of the world that is more likely to get a freak autumn snowfall than a drenching from rain-laden ocean winds, but it could help a domestic mining industry that has been rocked of late by low nickel prices.

“Right now we’re about two-thirds of the way through the peak shipping season for laterite nickel ore from the Phillipines, which is the primary exporter to China,” said Mark Selby, a former Inco executive now heading up Royal Nickel, a Toronto-based junior mining company.

Laterite ore — which Selby describes as “basically soggy dirt sitting at the surface” — is cheaper to mine than the sulphide ore in Sudbury, but complicated to process.

China, which converts it to so-called pig iron once coke is added to it in a furnace, does a brisk trade with laterite providers from the Phillipines and (before an export ban was imposed) Indonesia.

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KGHM, Metis Nation strike Victoria Mine agreement – by Staff (Sudbury Star – September 4, 2015)

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

The Metis Nation of Ontario and KGHM International Ltd. announced Thursday a deal covering development of the Victoria Mine project in Sudbury.

The memorandum of understanding will guide their working relationship as the mine is being prepared for a 2017 opening.

“This agreement is very important to the Metis people because it guarantees that Metis rights will be protected and the Metis way of life in the Sudbury area is being respected,” Metis Nation of Ontario chair France Picotte said in a release.

“We are pleased to continue working with KGHM. Agreements like this one are another benefit that we see coming from the MNO-Ontario Framework Agreement, which was first signed in 2008 and renewed this past year.”

In 2012, KGHM announced plans to spend $750-million to redevelop Victoria Mine near Worthington. One of Sudbury’s oldest and most prolific mines, Victoria would employ more than 200 full-time workers by the time it goes back into full production in 2017. It would produce copper and nickel.

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Investors ready wallets for Russia’s Norilsk Nickel – by Michael Turner (Reuters U.S. – September 1, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Sept 1 (IFR) – Norilsk Nickel is set to receive a warm reception from investors this month as it begins meetings ahead of potentially the first benchmark-sized deal from Russia in nearly a year.

The Russian mining company, rated BBB- by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, is due to go on a roadshow in early September to update investors on its recent performance and strategy.

The company does not have any immediate funding needs, but “continues to see international capital markets as an important part of its funding mix and will remain opportunistic”, according to a statement released on Friday.

One source said last week that the firm could seek to raise about US$500m from a new deal, if interest is big and markets supportive. That would be the biggest deal from a Russian issuer since Gazprom sold a US$700m one-year bond last November.

While Norilsk Nickel has plenty of cash on its balance sheet, Sberbank analysts said the company has US$1.3bn in short term debt and expected high payments to equity holders. “It may look to refinance via capital markets,” said the Russian bank in the research note.

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Vale green-lights underground mine at Voisey’s Bay – by John Cumming (August 19, 2015)

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. Editor John Cumming MSc (Geol) is one of the country’s most well respected mining journalists.  jcumming@northernminer.com

The natural resources industry of Newfoundland and Labrador — beaten down as it is by the steep decline in iron ore and oil prices — has received a most welcome board-level confirmation from Vale that it will indeed pursue underground mining at its Voisey’s Bay nickel-copper-cobalt mine in northern Labrador, once the open pit is exhausted in 2020.

Based on current resources, that would add at least another 15 years of life to the mine, which started operations in 2005.

The Voisey’s Bay site consists of a 6,000-tonne-per-day open pit and a concentrator that produces nickel-copper-cobalt concentrate, plus a copper concentrate, at a rate of 40,000 tonnes of nickel in concentrate per year. The remote, coastal site is accessible by air and sea, with concentrate stored and shipped out on a seasonal basis before the site is locked in by ice.

The decision to go underground at Voisey’s ensures a steady feed of nickel concentrate to Vale’s new US$4.3-billion Long Harbour Processing Plant (LHPP) in the town of Long Harbour on southeastern Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula.

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In Minnesota, fight between mining and environment gets personal – by by Stephanie Pearson (Al Jazeera America – August 23, 2015)

http://america.aljazeera.com/

Projects that would bring much-needed jobs could also ruin irreplaceable freshwater resources

ELY, Minn. — It’s the kind of July day that Minnesotans fantasize about in the dead of winter. Puffball clouds float in a blue sky and daisies sprout under stately pines lining Spruce Road, the main artery of an old logging network deep in the Superior National Forest about 15 miles southeast of Ely.

Paul Schurke is bumping down a dirt road in a Dodge Ram pickup truck. He owns Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge with his wife, Susan, and is famous in these parts as the explorer who co-led the first dogsled expedition to the North Pole without re-supply in 1986.

The dirt track ends before it reaches the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the roadless, motorless, cellphone-towerless 1.1-million-acre ecosystem where nearly 250,000 visitors from around the globe annually pilgrimage to paddle a connected chain of more than 1,000 pristine lakes.

Every night they break camp on a forested shoreline to hear the cool northern breeze whisper through the pines and loons project their mournful calls over vast stretches of open water. Occasionally an emerald display of Northern Lights flickers in a sky entirely free of light pollution.

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FNI locks gates at Lockerby mine site – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – August 20, 2015)

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

The lay-off notices have been issued and nearly three dozen miners are out of work.

Anne-Marie MacInnis, president of Mine Mill Local 598-Unifor, said Thursday she received an email at about 5 a.m. informing her that First Nickel Inc. (FNI) was shuttering operations at its Lockerby mine site, located off Highway 17 near Fairbank Lake.

Effective immediately, 35 of the union’s members have been laid off. “People are feeling surprised,” she told The Star on Thursday. “They showed up today and the gates were locked.”

MacInnis is currently liaising with the union’s legal department to settle severance for affected employees. “I will be talking to the legal department to see if we have any kind of legal action we can take on behalf of our members,” she said.

MacInnis said her members could be eligible for a federally-funded severance program, but only to a maximum of $3,800. It would also mean they would relinquish any recall rights.

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