Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications – Page 165

Time to step up for steel – by Mike Verdone (Sault Star – February 3, 2016)

February 4, 2016

http://www.saultstar.com/

Sault Ste. Marie MPP David Orazietti urged the federal government Wednesday to adopt a new trade policy to ensure fair trade for Canadian steel workers.

He said the current federal trade remedy system is antiquated and must be changed. “It’s more than 20 years old, it’s outdated. This system does not reflect the global realities of trade today,” Orazietti said.

He called on Ottawa to immediately embrace the Trade Remedy Modernization plan as outlined by the Canadian Steel Producers Association (CSPA) during a press conference Wednesday afternoon at his constituency office while flanked by local industry stakeholders, including union and company representatives from Essar Steel Algoma and Tenaris Algoma Tubes Algoma, as well as reps from retiree groups.

Magnesium mine promising jobs, diversity in Timmins – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – February 1, 2016)

February 3, 2016

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

A new mining project coming to Timmins has the capacity to create 1,000 local jobs and economically diversify the City With a Heart of Gold.

General Magnesium Corp. is set to start production this spring on a magnesium-talc mine that has an NI 43-101 resource estimate of close to 100 million tonnes, including 54,076,357 tonnes in the measured and indicated category, and 43,000,000 tonnes in the inferred category.

Last fall, following 16 months of due diligence, the company secured a multi-year, $4.9-billion deal with Hunter Douglas Metals, whose parent company manufactures aluminum blinds. Magnesium is a key component used as an alloy in manufacturing aluminum.

Fast-growing mining and oil & gas industries, and the huge number of supply-chain jobs they create – by Joshua Wright (New Geography – September 18, 2013)

February 2, 2016

http://www.newgeography.com/

Please note this is a dated article, but very interesting – Stan Sudol

The fastest-growing industry in the U.S since 2010 isn’t large or well-known. In fact, nearly half of the estimated 5,100 jobs in support activities for metal mining are located in one state: Nevada. Nonetheless, employment in this niche mining industry has ballooned 53% since 2010, and it creates a huge number of supply-chain jobs in other parts of the economy.

Four of the five fastest-growing industries from 2010-2013, based on EMSI’s 2013.2 employment dataset, are related in some form to mining and oil & gas. These industries (e.g., oil & gas pipeline construction and support activities for oil & gas operations) have been carried by the boom in oil and natural gas production in pockets of the U.S., from North Dakota to Pennsylvania to Texas. And their growth has sparked new jobs in other sectors.

‘Resourceful’ reputation must be earned – by William Watson (London Free Press – January 26, 2016)

February 1, 2016

http://www.lfpress.com/

That’s a nice line the prime minister delivered at Davos about how we want the world to know us for our resourcefulness, not just our resources. Nice. Not necessarily wise.

“Resourceful” says, literally, “full of resources.” We still are full of resources. They’re just worth a lot less than they were not long ago. If your resources lose value, then, sure, something other than resources is a useful second best. But when your resources are going for a high price, selling them is not actually cheating.

And, by the way, our resources don’t just show up at the border already packaged for export. We have to be very resourceful to get them there. In fact, a great first resourcefulness test for a new federal government focused on that quality would be to figure out how to get land-locked Alberta energy across pirate provinces hostile to it, and thence to world markets.

Petition calls for Northern Ontario’s separation – by Sarah Moore (Sudbury Star – January 30, 2016)

February 1, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

A grassroots movement to make Northern Ontario an independent province is gathering steam. An online petition launched this month has collected more than 670 names.

Trevor Holliday, who launched the petition, said his goal is similar to that of the 1970s’ Northern Ontario Heritage Party and other Northern Ontario separatist movements: To divide the province in two and treat Northern and southern Ontario as separate entities.

“I would want Northern Ontario to become its own province. That way it can be run by the people of the North for the people of the North, so that all the money from the North isn’t taken and given to the south and then we’re just left to whittle away.”

Exploration at standstill: prospectors – by Rick Owen (Kirkland Lake Northern News – December 14, 2015)

January 29, 2016

http://www.northernnews.ca/

KIRKLAND LAKE – A Northern Prospectors’ Association member is involved in a process that includes the Wabun Council and the provincial government, in an attempt to coming to some sort of resolution that will allow prospectors back to work in the bush.

John Rapski has mineral claims that fall within Wabum Council’s traditional land, and he has been consulting for an extended period of time, to try and get access to explore his mineral claims. Currently, he is still being held on the sidelines instead of prospecting and exploring for new mineral finds.

Rapski said the problem is the Wabum Council wants prospectors to sign the same agreement that would apply to mining corporations and this doesn’t work for prospectors. He said if a prospector sighns the agreement they are personally libel and the agreement doesn’t look after the individual prospector.

Glencore gets Sudbury extension – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – January 28, 2016)

January 28, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Sudbury’s second largest mining company, Glencore’s Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, has received approval to exceed emission standards while it upgrades its Falconbridge smelter.

Glencore officials are pleased with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change’s recent decision to grant approval of its site-specific standard application for nickel at the smelter, said company spokeswoman Yonaniko Grenon.

“This approval allows us the required time to research, design and implement the technologies and processes required to further reduce nickel emissions from our Sudbury smelter facility while maintaining compliance with Ontario’s Air Quality Regulation,” she said.

The province is getting in the way of new mines: Study – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – January 27, 2016)

January 27, 2016

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Familiar regulatory barriers hampering nine mining projects in northwest

Exorbitant hydro rates, a myopic First Nations consultation process and an onerous environmental review system — a familiar trio of regulatory barriers — are hampering the development of new mines in northwestern Ontario, a new report says.

Regulatory barriers have halted the development of nine mines in northwestern Ontario since 2010, say the authors of a new report from the Northern Policy Institute.

Those nine proposed mining projects, which include Noront Resources’ Eagle’s Nest and Black Thor projects in the Ring of Fire, and Treasury Metals’ Goliath Gold project, had the potential to create 23,000 jobs and generate an estimated $135.4 billion in wealth, says the mining industry report.

Ring of Fire, stalled or not? Two MPP’s square off. – by Staff (BayToday.ca – January 27, 2016)

January 27, 2016

https://www.baytoday.ca/

The Ring of Fire mineral discovery has the potential to be a tremendous boost to Ontario’s rich and long mining economy that goes back to the 1800.

PC MPP Toby Barrett says the Ring of Fire, the world’s largest chromite deposit sits stalled. Michael Gravelle, Minister of Northern Development and Mines disagrees. Because the project could mean huge benefits for North Bay, we present both sides of the argument.

First, here’s MPP Toby Barrett

As a rural southern MPP travelling the North – last week’s pre-budget hearings were my fourth tour over the past year – I am always struck by the commonality we share with our resource-based economies, whether it be farming or forestry, mining or steel.

To put it bluntly, batteries suck! – by John Petersen (InvestorIntel.com – January 8, 2016)

January 27, 2016

http://investorintel.com/

We have a love-hate relationship with them. We can’t imagine life without batteries but we’re rarely happy with them because they invariably need to be recharged or replaced at the worst possible moment.

There’s a reason that “damned” is the attributive adjective most commonly associated with the noun. The best summation I’ve ever heard came from a PhD electrochemist who said, “Batteries are a grudge purchase.”

My love-hate relationship with batteries runs deeper than most. From 2004 through 2007, I worked as legal counsel for and served as chairman of a public R&D stage battery company. Since 2013, I’ve been an officer and director of a private company that’s developing a unique hybrid drivetrain for heavy trucks and struggling to find a battery that can handle the drivetrain’s power profile.

Massive Sudbury Vale pollution reduction project half done – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – January 23, 2016)

January 25, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

The director of the largest environmental project ever undertaken in Sudbury wants to clear up any misconception that work on Vale’s Clear AER (atmospheric emissions reduction) project halted in 2013 when the project was revamped.

The Brazil-based mining company scaled back what was to be a $2-billion retrofit of the Copper Cliff Smelter Complex after the decision was made to operate one furnace instead of two.

Dave Marshall told an audience this week that the project is 55 per cent complete, $625 million has been invested in it so far and it is on target for completion by January 2018.

Dome closure a warning for North – by John R. Hunt (Timmins Daily Press – January 22, 2016)

January 25, 2016

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – The impending closure of the Dome Mine in Timmins will be a hard blow for that community which lost two other major mines over the years.

It is also a warning for those concerned with the future of Northern Ontario.

The North depends upon its natural resource industries. Mining and forestry are the backbone of the northern economy. Agriculture is growing and will get bigger if the predictions of global warming are correct.

The dome is rooted in history. According to local legend, it was discovered when a prospector fell down an embankment. His hobnail boots scraped the moss off a mineral vein and the Dome was discovered.

Graphite to be processed at refurbished Matheson mill – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily News – January 22, 2016)

May 13, 2016January 22, 2016

http://www.timminspress.com/

BLACK RIVER-MATHESON – Production is expected to begin this spring at a newly refurbished graphite mineral processing facility in Matheson.

Great Lakes Graphite Inc., based out of Toronto, announced this week it has received permitting approvals for a micronization facility that will take raw graphite material and process it into a more refined and more marketable industrial mineral.

Paul Ferguson, the company’s chief marketing officer, said the Great Lakes is currently in the process of refurbishing the plant located on Vimy Ridge Road, located a few kilometres southeast of the built-up area of Matheson.

He said the company has a graphite mine property, that is not yet in operation, but that the Matheson plant is just what Great Lakes was looking for.

Project documents impacts from aluminum powder in miners – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – January 21, 2016)

January 22, 2016

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Janice Martell hadn’t even heard of McIntyre Powder until a few years ago. Then someone suggested her father, Jim Hobbs — who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease after three decades of working in nickel and uranium mines — could be eligible for compensation. She began to research. And what she discovered was a revelation.

Between 1943 and 1979, underground miners working at operations in Canada and around the world were mandated to inhale fine aluminum dust — called McIntyre Powder by the mining executives who established the practice — at the start of every shift, and cough it up before heading home.

Facing high rates of health claims from miners, executives thought the powder would coat the lungs, working as a preventive measure against silicosis, a respiratory disease caused by breathing in fine silica particles.

Getting to grips with the lithium market An interview with Mr. Lithium.- by Peter Epstein (Epsteinresearch.com) (Mineweb.com – January 21 2016)

January 21, 2016

http://www.mineweb.com/

The following interview of lithium expert / consultant Joe Lowry of Global Lithium LLC was conducted over the past 6 days by phone and email. The opinions, views and purported facts herein are entirely those of Mr. Lowry. His vast experience in the lithium industry makes his commentary well sought after. I’m thankful that Joe is willing to provide insightful market intelligence, information that most investors don’t have access to.

You’re known as, “Mr. Lithium.” Please explain how you rose to lithium prominence? What does your firm Global Lithium LLC offer clients?

Not sure I’ve, ‘risen to prominence,’ but thank you for the compliment. The, ‘Mr. Lithium’ thing evolved over time. Almost 20 years ago, someone in Japan called me, Mr. Lithium in a group meeting and gradually the name spread. I lived in Asia for more than a decade beginning in 2000. I think some people found the, ‘Mr. Lithium’ moniker easier to remember than my real name.