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Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications

Ring of Fire Development Must Benefit Ontario – by James Murray (Netnewsledger.com – November 3, 2014)

http://www.netnewsledger.com/

THUNDER BAY – OPINION – Cliffs Natural Resources is a company primarily focused on iron ore. The company has a major holding of claims and lands in Northwestern Ontario’s Ring of Fire chromite deposit.

This past week, Cliffs Chairman said that he doubts there will be any serious action in the Ring of Fire in “his lifetime” and he plans on being around for at least another fifty years.

Cliffs Natural ResourcesLourenco Goncalves, head of U.S.-based Cliffs Natural Resources said, in a published interview with the National Post, that “I don’t believe under my watch, and I plan to stay [alive] for the next 50 years… that the Ring of Fire will be developed”.

Does that mean the Ring of Fire is dead?

Likely not. Long before Cliffs was pulling out – and as they denied the story repeatedly, the company was trying to pressure everyone into going their way.

Right now in my opinion, Cliffs is stating the Ring of Fire is “dead” as a tool to put pressure on the Ontario Government.

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Halloween horror for gold price – by Frik Els (Mining.com – October 31, 2014)

http://www.mining.com/

The gold price was battered on Friday by a quadruple shot – the end US economic stimulus, a record-setting surge in equities, further falls in the crude oil price and a rampant dollar.

In lunchtime trade on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange gold for December delivery was changing hands for $1,167.30 an ounce, down more than $30 or 2.6% on the day.

In morning trade gold gapped down over 3% from yesterday’s close to a low of $1,160.50, the lowest since July 2010. Selling was particularly heavy with more than 2.5 million ounces traded by 13:00 EST.

Bullion bank Societe Generale SA’s head of commodities research Michael Haigh said the chances are increasing that gold will drop to $1,000 an ounce according to Bloomberg.

Haigh, who correctly forecast gold’s precipitous fall in 2013, singled out the shocking decline in the price of oil to below $80 a barrel and its effect on inflation as “adding more ammunition to the downward pressure on gold.”

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Join Manitoba: Northwest Ontario would prosper by linking with our neighbour – by Karl Lehto (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – November 1, 2014)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

1. We have three powerful cabinet ministers in Northwestern Ontario representing both federal and provincial governments — Greg Rickford, Mike Gravelle, and Bill Mauro — yet we are still floundering with indecision and with poorly planned decisions made for us in our capitals.

2. Ontario has a mysterious and stubborn resistance to interprovincial trade and co-operation, particularly with power from Manitoba and Quebec, yet the reasons are never explained to us.

3. We have a big problem: Toronto is just too far away and almost totally focused on southern Ontario with its millions of people and associated problems. Queen’s Park is broke, broken and struggling.

4. We have another big problem in the Northwest which affects each and every one of us. Cheap, clean and safe power is the critical economic engine that drives us all. Cost is presently spiralling totally out of control.

In 11 years irrational energy planning has tripled our power rates and we are billions of dollars worse off today. Manitoba has offered a great alternative which we ignore.

5. Historically, we in the Northwest have been treated as a hinterland with a bone occasionally thrown at us to keep us in line.

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Noront says it needs the province to approve its permits if any work can get done in the Ring of Fire – by Jamie Smith (tbnewswatch.com – October 31, 2014)

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

THUNDER BAY — The provincial government needs to respond if a potential project in the Ring of Fire will see any work this winter.

Nortont’s vice-president of Aboriginal Affairs Glenn Nolan said if the company doesn’t get its permits soon, a whole season of work to get its Eagle’s Nest project off the ground will be lost. New exploration, laying the groundwork for the project’s East West road from Pickle Lake and other work can only begin if the company gets permits so it can put together a plan and start purchasing equipment and use the short winter road season to start moving it.

Timelines and the whole project itself will be ambiguous if the province doesn’t respond soon Nolan said during a Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce lunch Friday afternoon where Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle laid out his government’s vision for the North.

“You’re looking at a whole generation of lost opportunity,” Nolan said. Nolan said the company and province have different timelines. But Noront needs some guarantees to assure investors that the Eagle’s Nest will be developed.

“We need the government to really look at the applications that we put forward so these permits are granted,” Nolan said.

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Coal mining comeback? – by Melissa Villeneuve(Lethbridge Herald – October 30, 2014)

http://lethbridgeherald.com/

The Crowsnest Pass has a rich history in the coal-mining industry. While there hasn’t been a working coal mine in southern Alberta for decades, an Australian company, Riversdale Resources, hopes to revive that.

Riversdale Resources has acquired property at Grassy Mountain and plans to build an open-pit mine producing two to four million tonnes of high-quality coking coal per year over 28 years. The company plans to export it to the Asian steel-making industry.

Managing director Steve Mallyon said there isn’t a lot of new coal supply coming online, and they found the quality of the coal in the Crowsnest Pass region is suitable for high-quality steel-making.

“Grassy itself has very good-quality coking coal, a significant reserve there we inherited plus we added to. We have rail and infrastructure on the doorstep, but also being a town that services the coal industry already, there are a lot of people in that area that have a connection to the coal industry.”

The first coal mine in the Crowsnest Pass opened in 1900, and many of the surrounding communities were mining towns. Mallyon said there are many benefits in coming to a community rich with mining experience. Many who live in the area work across the border at Teck in Sparwood, B.C.

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Enhanced airport best option [Ring of Fire] – by Rick Millette (Timmins Press – October 30, 2014)

http://www.timminspress.com/

Rick Millette is a senior executive director at the Ring of Fire at Northern Policy Institute.

TIMMINS – Fly in. Fly out. It’s been the mantra of remote mines since governments and industry realized they were often left holding the bag for mining towns when the minerals were gone. Roads, water systems and schools remained but were not sustainable by the few taxpayers left behind.

It was a hard lesson, so now fly-in operations make sense when an ore body might only last a couple of decades. A temporary camp can be built to house hundreds of workers with all the comforts of home and then be easily dismantled when no longer needed.

But what should the strategic policy be when an ore body is multi-generational? The Ring of Fire is a 100-year resource, with some claiming 200 years. That’s a realistic projection based on known mineral reserves and when compared to other large ore bodies like Sudbury.

Sudbury’s depth and breadth of minerals is nowhere near exhaustion after 131 years. In addition, the Ring holds more than chromite. A host of other metals are abundantly present, offering mining longevity in their own right.

All this to say that the Ring of Fire may not fit the model for fly-in mining camps. A mining resource that can sustain a community for a hundred years or more has time to diversify beyond dependence on its mining base. Sudbury and Timmins being just two examples in Northern Ontario.

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Long-Term Lower Gold Supply To Help Gold Prices – Goldcorp’s Chuck Jeannes – by Alex Létourneau (Kitco News – October 30, 2014)

http://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Goldcorp Inc. (TSX:G)(NYSE:GG) is bullish on longer-term gold prices, and it’s not based on what the Fed may or may not do, said a Goldcorp executive.

Speaking on the company’s third-quarter conference call, Chuck Jeannes, president and chief executive officer, made it clear that the focus on gold prices shouldn’t be near-sighted.

“During most of this year, the debate of when and how the U.S. Federal Reserve would raise interest rates helped fuel the downward pressure on gold price, and we’re seeing that today,” Jeannes said. “I believe this focus on short-term gold catalysts ignores an important trend in greater long-term importance.

“Put simply, our industry is not discovering as much gold as it once did despite significant increase exploration investment,” he continued. “As such, it is reasonable to conclude that global gold production is facing a sustained multi-year decline that cannot help but positively impact the supply/demand fundamentals, and therefore the price of gold.

“In other words, I don’t believe our industry will ever mine as much gold as we do in 2015,” he added. Jeannes said the company is bullish on long-term gold prices and believes that will translate into more success for companies well placed down the line.

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Chinese rail money for Ring of Fire? – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – October 30, 2014)

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.

The plate tectonics for Ontario’s stalled Ring of Fire development project could significantly shift if Premier Kathleen Wynne’s visit to China pays dividends down the road.

The China Daily reported that the Far North mineral deposits could be cause for a constructive arrangement between the province and its second largest trading partner.

Fang Li, Chinese consul general in Toronto, who accompanied the premier on her first overseas trip was quoted as saying “Ontario is the most important for China among the provinces of Canada,” adding that the large, but inaccessible chromite and nickel deposits in the James Bay lowlands could lead to a cooperative arrangement between the two countries.

“The demand for the minerals is high in China; we can work together if the necessary infrastructure such as a rail line can be built in this area,” Fang said.

Accompanying Wynne on the trip is Brad Duguid, minister of economic development, employment and infrastructure, and Michael Chan, minister of citizenship, immigration and international trade, and representatives of about 60 clean tech and science and technology businesses and organizations.

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Mine closures contribute to 60-70% jobless rate in Tumbler Ridge, says deputy mayor – by Jonny Wakefield (Alaska Highway News/Business Vancouver – October 30, 2014)

http://www.biv.com/

Hundreds of people in the district of Tumbler Ridge lost their jobs in a rash of mine closures this year.

But the town’s exact rate of unemployment – which district staff say would help a push for government assistance – remains a mystery.

Tumbler Ridge councillor Rob Mackay, who also serves as deputy mayor, said a local unemployment rate of between 60 and 70% “would be in the right ball park” since Anglo American Coal and Walter Energy idled their mines in Northeast British Columbia.

The town of 2,700 has been largely dependent on mining since it was incorporated in 1981. Around 700 people directly lost their jobs over a period of around six months, and by the end of the year, there will be no working coal mines in Tumbler Ridge.

“[60 to 70% unemployment] has got to be fairly close, though I don’t know the exact number,” said Mackay. “Those mines were the major employers in Tumbler Ridge.” Both companies cited falling metallurgical coal prices as the reason for the shutdowns.

Jordan Wall, Tumbler Ridge’s economic development officer, said being able to put a hard number on the town’s unemployment rate would underline how bad things are to senior levels of government.

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[Ontario] Province must build RoF road – Editorial (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – October 27, 2014)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

National media coverage on the Ring of Fire has been of the doom-and-gloom variety of late, but that doesn’t mean the province should throw in the towel on the idea for a main access road into the remote mineral rich zone.

Not surprisingly, in the wake of falling metal prices right across the globe, pundits and mining industry analysts have been questioning the RoF’s value. Maybe it’s not that rock-solid after all, the thinking goes.

But surely that thinking is flawed. It’s hardly a shock to discover that when mineral prices fall and stock values plummet, companies are no longer in a position to fork out the enormous upfront costs of building new mines.

Not until a mine is up and running is its proponent in a position to make operational changes, including temporary shutdowns, to ride out the industry’s inevitable ups and downs.

A few years ago, North American Palladium wisely shut down its Lac des Iles mine north of Thunder Bay when the price of palladium plunged. It restarted the operation when the price came back up, casting the views of cynics aside.

Fortunes can also lead the other way. Some may remember when Inmet Mining caved on a major expansion at its former Schreiber zinc mine after prices for that mineral crashed. But none of that means the province should abandon a sensible plan to build a main access road into the James Bay lowlands.

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An Ebola Armageddon Could Trigger a Rebirth in Gold and Silver Prices: Eric Sprott Interview (The Gold Report – October 20, 2014)

http://www.theaureport.com/

Could an infectious disease kill the monster that has been choking gold and silver prices for more than a year? On the heels of a lively Sprott Precious Metals Roundtable discussion, The Gold Report caught up with investor Eric Sprott to ask how a tragedy in Africa could impact the price of precious metals and mining stocks. We also spoke to his Executive Vice President of Corporate Development John Ciampaglia about a new way to gain exposure to gold.

The Gold Report: Deutsche Bank warned in a recent note that the Ebola virus could impact commodity markets, including gold and cocoa, as it spreads to producing countries in West Africa, particularly Ghana and Mali. In a recent article titled “Ebola, The Tipping Point,” you mourned the unnecessary loss of life and predicted 5% less global production next year than this year. Could a lack of supply due to Ebola-related closures really cause the price of gold to rise?

Eric Sprott: There is already a shortage of gold and silver in the markets without a corresponding increase in the price. I wrote an open letter to the World Gold Council questioning its data on China. If you believe the Shanghai Gold Exchange data, China consumes more than 2,000 tons (2 Kt). In 2011, it consumed only about 1 Kt. In the last two years, China has bought an extra 1 Kt gold—25% of a 4 Kt market. If any country came in and bought 25% of the oil market, the wheat market or the orange juice market, the commodity price would not go down. Obviously, the physical gold market is not manifesting itself in the price changes.

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Glencore digging deeper for new Sudbury mines – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – Oct 23, 2014)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

If approved, Onaping Mine will go as deep as 2,700 metres (8,858 feet)

The future of Glencore’s nickel operations in Sudbury will require deeper mines to access previously untapped deposits, said Marc Boissonneault, the company’s vice-president of Sudbury nickel operations.

Boisonneault, who addressed the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce Tuesday, said the mining giant is eyeing two potential Sudbury developments that would require mine shafts as deep as 2,700 metres.

The first project is Onaping Mine, a site that was discovered years ago, but contains ultra-deep deposits that could not be safely accessed until recently.

Glencore estimates the mine contains 15.7 million tonnes of nickel deposits at higher grades than average for the Sudbury Basin, and would require a capital expenditure of $547 million to develop.

The company is expected to complete a pre-feasibility study for the project later in the year, and will decide by the first or second quarter next year whether it would be worthwhile to mine the deep deposits. “Given our life of mine situation, we would like to get started on it soon,” Boissonneault said.

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News Release: Goldeye Explorations Limited’s Weebigee Project: A High-Grade Gold Discovery in Ontario’s Sandy Lake Greenstone Belt – by Robin Luke Webster (The Ontario Prospector – Winter 2015)

http://www.ontarioprospectors.com/home/

Robin Luke Webster is the Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Community Relations, Goldeye Explorations Limited

In 1986, a former Inco Geophysicist, Blaine Webster, founded a private company to stake mineral exploration claims near Sandy Lake, 225km north of Red Lake, Ontario. At the time, he could hardly have imagined that it would take nearly 30 years to launch a comprehensive exploration and drilling program on the property. In the ensuing years, the company, Goldeye Explorations Limited, obtained a public listing, explored a number of other mineral properties, and made an exciting discovery at its Tyrrell project near Shining Tree, Ontario.

While Goldeye carried out limited exploration after initially staking its claims at Sandy Lake, the project was put on indefinite hold soon after due to opposition from nearby Sandy Lake First Nation (SLFN). Knowing the significant mineral potential of the Sandy Lake area, however, and the benefits that a discovery could bring for both Goldeye shareholders and the local community, Blaine maintained Goldeye’s interest in the claims and focused on building a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with the members of SLFN. When Goldeye sold the Tyrrell project to Temex Resources Corp. in 2012, its focus returned to Sandy Lake.

Guided by Ontario’s new mining act, Goldeye ramped up its ongoing efforts to advance the project and in 2013, after a process of extensive consultations and discussions, SLFN agreed to the terms of a comprehensive Exploration Agreement that made it possible for the long envisioned work program to commence.

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In Wake of Mount Polley, Union Wants New BC Safety Regime – by David P. Ball (The Tyee.ca – October 14, 2014)

http://thetyee.ca/

Ministry defends miners’ exclusion from WorkSafeBC.

It took a spate of deaths in Nanaimo’s coal mines to create a ministry devoted to regulating the industry in 1877. Since that era, the provincial department’s authority over mine health and safety has endured — and subsequent worker protection laws explicitly excluded mines to this day.

But after the near slaughter of workers by the Mount Polley mine tailings dam disaster this summer, the union representing many miners in B.C. is warning about worker safety in the industry.

Thirteen B.C. mine workers have been killed on the job since 2000, according to annual Chief Inspector of Mines reports. The worst year was 2006, when four died from oxygen deprivation at the Sullivan mine near Kimberley, B.C.

Over the same period, a total of 423 people were injured at mine sites, averaging 33 a year. WorkSafeBC’s prevention jurisdiction does not extend to mines to which the Mines Act applies.

All activities conducted in relation to mining within the boundaries of a Mines Act permit area fall within the [occupational health and safety] jurisdiction of [Ministry of Energy and Mines].

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Tin’s price slump seen cutting Indonesian shipments by 30% – by Yoga Rusmana and Eko Listiyorini (Chicago Tribune – October 14, 2014)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Bloomberg News – JAKARTA, Indonesia — Tin exports from Indonesia, the world’s biggest supplier, will probably plunge this quarter to the lowest in more than a year after prices declined and as the government moves to impose stricter rules on exports.

Overseas sales may drop 30 percent to 16,000 metric tons from 22,825 tons a year earlier, the median of estimates from one analyst and six smelters compiled by Bloomberg showed. That’s the largest decline since the three months to March and the smallest amount since the quarter ended Sept. 30 last year, Trade Ministry data show.

Tin futures have slumped 16 percent from a six-month high in April on concern that slowing economic growth may curb demand in China, the biggest consumer of industrial metals. Prices dropped even as exports from Indonesia declined 16 percent through September from a year earlier. The government tightened rules on trade in August last year to boost exports of higher- value products and smelters have restrained sales in an attempt to counter declining prices.

“Shipments may slow this quarter as prices have dropped to near the cost of production,” said Jabin Sufianto, chairman of the Association of Indonesian Tin Exporters in Jakarta. “Prices of about $21,000 are unattractive to some smelters,” he said in a text message on Oct. 9.

Futures fell 9.8 percent this year to $20,150 a ton on the London Metal Exchange Monday. They reached $23,849 on April 24 after the country required all refined tin to be traded through the Indonesia Commodity and Derivatives Exchange starting August last year, seeking to create a benchmark price and challenge the role of the LME.

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