Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications – Page 194

The Idiot’s Guide to Being a resource minister – by David Robinson (Northern Ontario Business – January 2015)

January 21, 2015

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development at Laurentian University.drobinson@laurentian.ca

Here is some bedtime reading for Claude Gravelle, Greg Rickford and Kyle Fawcett. The Three Amigos are the most influential resource ministers in Canada.

Mr. Gravelle and Mr. Rickford are familiar to Northerners. Fawcett is Alberta’s new minister of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development. They are in charge of much of Canada’s natural resource wealth and they have access to the three most powerful politicians in the country. They are responsible for getting Canada’s resource policy right. This modest column should help them do their jobs.

The Idiot’s Guide to Being a Resource Minister is actually called Guidelines for Exploiting Natural Resource Wealth, by economist Rick van der Ploeg from the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies. [http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/13249/paper128.pdf] The guidelines were written for resource ministers in resource-rich countries like Canada.

Ring of Fire bogged down in bickering – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – January 21, 2015)

January 21, 2015January 21, 2015

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – The much vaunted Ring Of Fire mining development is bogged down in bureaucratic studies along with bickering over where to build a new road, or rail link, to what is clearly the newest, richest and most promising mining development in Ontario so far this century.

That was part of the assessment offered in Timmins this week at an impromptu news scrum with federal Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford, the MP for Kenora and the minister for FedNor. But Rickford also said he is still hopeful the project will blossom.

The Ring Of Fire refers to a massive deposit of chromite and other precious minerals located in the McFauld’s Lake and Webequie area, about 600 kilometres northwest of Timmins. Chromite is an important element in manufacturing stainless steel. The Ring of Fire area could become the largest chromite mining site in North America, a venture measured in the tens of billions of dollars.

The project involves KWG Resources Inc., which has about 30% of the Big Daddy property, and Noront Resources, which has the Eagle’s Nest project. They are the two major players involved. Both are Canadian. Another large company, Cliff’s Natural Resources, an American company, was supposed to be the big player in the development, but it pulled out last year, saying it could not get rights to build a transportation link, nor could it get infrastructure concessions from Queen’s Park.

Industries urged to build trust with First Nations – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – January 20, 2015)

January 20, 2015

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – One of the most respected legal minds in Canada told an audience in Timmins Monday that it is about time for mainstream Canadians to start showing more trust and respect to the Aboriginal community.

The Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former chief justice of the Federal Court of Canada and a former member of the Supreme Court of Canada, was speaking at a special lunch sponsored by the Misiway Milopemahtesewin Community Health Centre on Monday.

“I think it is the No. 1 societal issue facing our country, and that is the plight of our indigenous people,” he told the audience. Aside from being a renowned author, speaker and jurist, Iacobucci is also the man representing the Government of Ontario for negotiating with the Matawa First Nation tribal council for the Ring Of Fire project.

He spoke on the Ring Of Fire project only in passing, but he said it will have to be an example of the non-Aboriginal segment of our society treating First Nations and individual Aboriginals with more trust and respect.

At one point in his speech, he told the Timmins audience that resource companies need to include consultation and accommodating with First Nations.

Noront eager to mine Ring of Fire ore – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – January 19, 2015)

January 19, 2015

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

The head of Noront Resources is appealing to the provincial government to allow it to begin work developing its Eagle’s Nest nickel mine in the Ring of Fire while a plan to share resources with First Nations over the long term is developed.

Alan Coutts wants the province to give Noront the environmental approval it needs to start on its mine and all-weather road while an “over-arching” framework agreement is being negotiated with First Nations about resource sharing and related issues.

Noront isn’t asking for special treatment, said its president and chief executive officer during a visit to Sudbury.

It just wants the province to approve Noront’s terms of reference for the environmental assessment it submitted 2 1/2 years ago so it can keep and attract investors, reach impact benefit agreements with three First Nations near Eagle’s Nest and start mining ore.

Coutts was in Sudbury at the invitation of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce Ring of Fire Task Force to talk about the status of Noront’s project, why it is stalled and what he believes must be done to move it forward.

Sudbury reaches halfway mark in reclamation efforts – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – January 14, 2015)

January 16, 2015

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

If you were a youth in Sudbury, chances are you, or someone you know, spent a summer or two lugging bags of dolomite limestone up the city’s barren hills, prepping the ground for reforestation.

The routine is so ubiquitous, it’s almost become a rite of passage, said Dr. Peter Beckett, a reclamation, restoration and wetland ecologist with Laurentian University who’s dedicated his life’s work to rejuvenating the city’s landscape.

“I’m beginning to think that, by the time we finish this program, everybody in Sudbury will have done this,” Beckett chuckled during his keynote address at a recent meeting of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. “It’s part of growing up in Sudbury, to put lime bags down on the hills.”

Over four decades, the city has spent $28 million planting 9.5 million trees, and life has returned to Sudbury, once pegged as a barren moonscape. Yet despite the decades-long investment, the work is only half done: 3,450 hectares have been reclaimed, but 7,000 altogether need to be done.

That’s still a fraction of the 81,000 hectares impacted by industrial activity, which began with logging in the late 1800s and intensified with the onset of mining when open roasting beds sent high levels of sulphur dioxide into the air, raining down metal particulate, which leached into the soil, impacting the ecosystem.

Sudbury letter: Liberals fail to deliver – by Ryan Minor (Sudbury Star – January 16, 2015)

January 16, 2015

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

It is election time in Sudbury. The governing Liberals will be out making new promises and restating old promises. There is a saying that ‘words whisper, actions scream.’ We need to look past the rhetoric and ask: where are the results?

On the Highway 69 file, the minister of Transportation wants us to believe that the government is still committed to finishing the highway by 2017.

There are several troubling facts that cast doubt on this claim. The last contracts for construction of the highway were tendered in 2012. As of now, the MTO has not concluded a single deal with any of the three First Nations to acquire reserve lands. The remaining 82 km have been in federal environmental assessment since at least 2011. The MTO has no federal permits.

The 2014 budget included funding for 11 km of Highway 69 near Nobel and indicated that construction would start this fiscal year (by March 31). According to an email dated Jan. 8, 2015, from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, information to complete the environmental assessment has been outstanding for years, which is surprising since the engineering is done, the project is entirely on Crown land, the project involves adding two more lanes to the existing highway and First Nations legally cannot withhold consultation.

Sudburians need to ask: what is the true construction timetable for the highway? What sort of issues are holding up agreements with the First Nations?

Real-time communications to allow deep mining – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – January 15, 2015)

January 15, 2015

It may sound like something straight from science fiction, but for miners of the future, suits and helmets that monitor their vital signs, regulate their body temperature and communicate to aboveground operators isn’t so far from reality.

Sudbury company Jannatec Technologies is working to develop fully connected, wearable gear that would do all these things to help miners go deeper underground.

“We’re very good at mining, but our communications and how we move ore and how we move things is still back 30, 40 years, so we have to catch up, and we need higher speed data under there,” Jannatec president Wayne Ablitt said. “We have to give the same working tools underground that are above ground, and that’s our goal.”

Jannatec is one of the partners in the Ultra-Deep Mining Network — established by Sudbury’s Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) — focused on four areas of innovation: rock-stress risk reduction, energy reduction, material transport and productivity, and human health. The network defines ultra-deep mining as mining taking place up to 2.5 kilometres underground.

Mining prospects remain bright in northwest, B.C. – by Gavin C. Dirom(Terrace Standard – January 14, 2015)

January 14, 2015

http://www.terracestandard.com/

Gavin C. Dirom is President & CEO of the Association for Mineral Exploration BC which will host its Mineral Exploration Roundup 2015 conference in Vancouver Jan. 26-29, 2015.

Mineral exploration and development has safely provided opportunity to generations of northwest residents and it will continue to do so.

Our world-renowned deposits of gold, silver, copper, and other critical metals such as zinc and molybdenum, not only provide a source of much needed commodities the world needs but also local family-sustaining jobs and tax revenues to government – revenue which builds schools and hospitals and roads throughout every community in British Columbia.

As British Columbians, we all care deeply about our province and its environment. Studies show resource extraction is viewed as a positive and necessary undertaking, but B.C. residents from all areas demand sustainable practices and strong regulatory oversight.

Responsible mineral exploration and development requires a permitting and environmental assessment system that is detailed and flexible enough to protect our shared environment, yet straightforward and reliable enough to attract investment and provide certainty for the industry to invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually into our economy and people.

British Columbia has a robust environmental assessment process. Project proponents commit to years of effort and multiple studies in order to complete an environmental application.

David Suzuki: Digging out of Canada’s mining dilemma – by David Suzuki (The Straight -January 13, 2015)

January 14, 2015

http://www.straight.com/

IT SOMETIMES SEEMS people in the mining and fossil fuel industries—along with their government promoters—don’t believe in the future. What else could explain the mad rush to extract and use up the Earth’s resources as quickly and wastefully as possible?

Global mining production, including fossil fuels, has almost doubled since 1984, from just over nine-billion tonnes to almost 17-billion in 2012, with the greatest increases over the past 10 years.

It’s partly to meet rising demand from expanding human populations and supply the cycle of consumerism that fuels the global economy through planned obsolescence, marketing unnecessary products and wasteful technologies. And, as the British Geological Survey notes, “It may be uncomfortable to acknowledge, but wars have been the drivers for many of mankind’s technological developments. Such technologies depend on secure supplies of numerous mineral commodities for which demand inevitably escalates in times of war.”

Mining is important to human well-being, but the current economic system means it’s often aimed at maximizing profit with little regard for people or the environment. It’s one area where Canadians can make a difference. Canada is a global leader in mining, especially in Latin America.

According to the Mining Association of Canada, “Almost 60% of the world’s public mining companies are listed on the TSX and TSX-Venture Exchanges, and 70% of the equity capital raised globally for mining companies is raised on these exchanges.”

Patent office decision may help KWG to cut chromite production costs in half – by Jamie Smith (tbnewswatch.com – January 13, 2015)

January 13, 2015

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/default.aspx

THUNDER BAY — Mining is an expensive industry. Just ask KWG Resources, which received good news from the U.S. Patent Office’s International Searching Authority earlier this month. The office found that KWG’s process for using natural gas and an accelerant, rather than a standard electric arc furnace, to process chromite is a novel one.

Vice-president of exploration and development Moe Lavigne said the idea could cut costs by more than half for its proposed operation. It could also have the potential to license the process to mines around the world but it hasn’t had the chance to get the process out of the lab yet.

“We haven’t tested it on chromites from around the world yet but we suspect that it’ll be applicable to any chromite deposit on the planet,” he said. Typically an electric furnace needs to burn at around 1,700 C in order to separate chromite, made of chromium, iron and oxygen. KWG’s process could do the same using natural gas at 1,200 C. That saves energy costs but also equipment costs by burning at a lower temperature.

“At 1,700 C just about everything melts,” Lavigne said. The footprint for the plant is also about a quarter of the size of an electric furnace like the one proposed by once KWG senior partner Cliffs Natural Resources. Electricity prices means a typical plant would likely be built in Quebec or Manitoba where prices are cheaper but natural gas is the same price across the country.

Lake Shore exceeds its gold production targets – by Staff (Timmins Daily Press – January 13, 2015)

January 13, 2015

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Lake Shore Gold in Timmins reports that gold production in 2014 exceeded the yearly target by a significant amount.

The company said it had set a target range of 160,000 to 180,000 ounces of gold for 2014. As it turned out, 186,500 ounces of gold were poured in during 2014, the company said in a news release. Company president Tony Makuch said a similar production target is being set for 2015.

The company said its Bell Creek mill processed 1,245,900 tonnes of ore, at an average grade of 4.8 grams per tonne. The ore was from the LSG Timmins West mining complex and the Bell Creek Mine. Of the 186,500 ounces of gold poured last year, the company reported gold sales of 183,300 ounces at an average selling price of US$1,269 per ounce (CDN $1,398 per ounce).

Production in the fourth quarter of 2014 totalled 43,200 ounces, which resulted from processing 331,400 tonnes at an average grade of 4.2 grams per tonne. The company poured 42,400 ounces during that fourth quarter, while gold sales totalled 41,200 ounces at an average selling price of US$1,200 per ounce ($1,360 per ounce).

LSG has also reported significant improvement in debt repayments as the company strives to improve its financial position, said the release.

Wynne’s actions snub Sudbury on free choice – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – January 13, 2015)

January 13, 2015

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

There was something oddly symbolic about a gesture at a news conference in Sudbury Wednesday. Hours after Kathleen Wynne announced a byelection for Feb. 5, she spoke to reporters at a local hotel. Positive and upbeat, the premier was pleased to be in Sudbury. The city looked Christmas-card pretty under fresh snow.

Wynne introduced Glenn Thibeault, former New Democrat MP, as the best man to represent Sudbury at Queen’s Park. Thibeault seemed nervous and had every right to be. For six years, Sudburians sent him to Ottawa under the NDP banner. Many are angry at what they see as betrayal.

Taking to the podium, Thibeault dropped his pen. Wynne swooped in, picked it up and handed it to him. It was a small movement, but to some indicative of how tightly Thibeault is being handled by the premier.

After hand-picking the former United Way executive director, Wynne and party brass are doing everything they can to ensure he doesn’t drop the ball. It has nothing to do, they say, with Wynne and powerful Sudbury Liberals wanting a member they could quickly promote to cabinet.

It’s about pressing Sudbury issues that need Thibeault’s attention — the expansion of Maley Dr., an arterial road; the four-laning of Highway 69; infrastructure for the Ring of Fire mineral belt.

[Sudbury region] Transportation pioneer recognized for industry achievements – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – January 12, 2015)

May 4, 2015January 12, 2015

In the Smith family, the “r” word is verboten. Patriarch Doug Smith, founder of Manitoulin Transport, is in his 80s, but retirement is nowhere near his radar. After devoting 54 years to building the company up from scratch, Smith maintains the same values and customs that have guided him through more than a half-century of success: modesty, hard work, attention to detail, and a nap every afternoon.

“To this day, his administrative assistant is required to sharpen about a half a dozen number 6 pencils each morning to be at the ready,” said his son, Jeff Smith, describing his father’s daily routine. “His other secret weapon is a bag of Oreos.”

For his contributions to the mining sector through his innovative solutions in the trucking industry, Doug Smith was inducted into the Sudbury and Area Mining Supply and Services Association (SAMSSA) Hall of Fame on Dec. 4, along with the late Paul Marcotte, founder of Marcotte Mining.

Born in Gore Bay in 1933, Doug has remained a humble, hardworking Northerner, never straying far from his roots. After a brief stint in Toronto working in banking following high school, Doug returned to his hometown to help with the family business, Smith’s Wholesale, which serviced general stores, grocery stores and service stations across Manitoulin Island.

Rio Tinto to spend at least $500 million to advance diamond project in India – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – January 12, 2015)

January 12, 2015

http://www.mining.com/

Mining giant Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) plans to invest $500 million in its Bunder diamond mining project in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, the firm boss Sam Walsh said Monday.

Speaking to reporters Walsh added the company is awaiting environmental clearances from Indian authorities to start mining, but didn’t say how soon he expected to receive such permits, Reuters reports.

Rio found the massive deposit in rural India, the most important diamond discovery in the country in the last 40 years, back in 2004. But it wasn’t until 2012 that it got an initial approval to develop the mining project, which is now just waiting for environment and forests clearances.

Rio Tinto Diamonds managing director Jean-Marc Lieberherr said last month the firm wanted to be the main player in the industry in India, driving the sector’s growth in years to come. The touted project is expected to generate about 30,000 jobs and produce up to three million carats a year, Rio has said.

Inquest into Fram, Chenier mining deaths called for April 8 – by Ben Leeson (Sudbury Star – January 7, 2015)

January 8, 2015

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

Briana Fram knows the coroner’s inquest into the death of her brother, Jordan Fram, and Jason Chenier will a difficult time for her family, but hopes it will result in a safer workplace for those who work in mines.

Dr. Reuven Jhirad, deputy chief coroner of the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario, announced Tuesday that an inquest will be held into the deaths of Fram, 26, and Chenier, 35, both killed at the 3,000-foot level of Vale’s Stobie Mine when they were overcome by a run of muck on June 8, 2011.

Inquests into workplace deaths are mandatory in Ontario. “With tragedy, often good emerges,” Briana Fram said. “We’re hopeful that this inquest will bring results that will prevent deaths in the future and protect the lives of miners and people that work in mines.”

Dr. David Eden will preside as inquest coroner. Susan Bruce and Roberta Bald will be counsel to the coroner. The inquest will be at the Sudbury Courthouse, 155 Elm St. in Sudbury, beginning on April 20 at 9 a.m. and is expected to last 10 days, according to the chief coroner’s office.

The inquest will examine the circumstances surrounding the Stobie accident and the inquest jury may make recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths from occurring.