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Ontario Mining

Ontario First Nation wins injunction to stop gold drilling – by Tanya Talaga (Toronto Star – February 12, 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.

When members of Wahgoshig First Nation spotted a drilling crew on what they say is a sacred burial site, they demanded to know who the strangers were and what they were doing.

The Wahgoshig, whose Algonquin reserve of 19,239 acres is 113 km east of Timmins, running south from Lake Abitibi near the Quebec border, say they were met with silence. But what was happening on the land was anything but silent, according to court records.

The prospecting work involves clearing 25 sq. metre pads, clearing forest, bulldozing access routes to the drilling sites and the transportation and storage of fuel and equipment.

The workers were with Solid Gold Resources Inc., a junior mining firm that has a 200-square-kilometre prospect at Lake Abitibi near the Porcupine Fault zone. The land they were on, says Wahgoshig band chief David Babin, is not part of the reserve itself but does include the traditional lands the Algonquins have lived on for thousands of years.

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More nickel sulphide and chromite mineralization found in [Ring of Fire] mining camp – Northwest Bureau (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – February 11, 2012)

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

Noront Resources Ltd. has identified more nickel sulphide and chromite mineralization at its McFauld’s Lake Project in the Ring of Fire mining camp.

“While drilling to increase the chromite resource at Blackbird continued to return excellent results, the discovery of two new zones of nickel sulphide mineralization within 500 metres of (the company’s) Eagle’s Nest (deposit), highlights the tremendous exploration potential of this area,” company CEO Wes Hanson said in a news release.

“Both zones of nickel sulphide mineralization were identified by a new, ground-based geophysical survey that was completed in November,” he said. Hanson noted that the Eagle’s Nest feasibility study is progressing on time and on budget as is the resource update and preliminary assessment of the Blackbird chromite deposit.

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[Sudbury] City must ease reliance on government job – by Brian MacLeod (Sudbury Star – February 11, 2012)

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

Greater Sudbury’s relatively slow but consistent growth over the last 10 years shows we’ve been successful in easing the boom and bust cycle, but there are ominous signs in the numbers.

The 2011 census shows the city grew by 1.5%, to 160,077 people from 2006, when the population stood at 158,258.

We’ve done well next to northeastern Ontario’s nine other major municipalities. Kenora grew by 1.1%, Sault Ste. Marie grew by 0.3%, North Bay’s population declined by 0.6% and Timmins grew by 0.4%.

Still, only about 5,500 more people live in Greater Sudbury now than 10 years ago, despite two boom periods in that time. The year 2001 was a signature period for Sudbury. It ended five years of steep decline in which the city lost 10,000 people.

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Goldcorp chair Ian Telfer’s name in an OSC insider trading probe is a high-profile symbol – by David Olive (Toronto Star – February 9, 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.

Chances are you have not heard of Eda Marie Agueci. Until she was suspended by her employer a few days ago, Agueci was a drone in a second-tier Toronto investment firm. She is alleged by the Ontario Securities Commission with being at or near the centre of a ring of friends and relatives engaged in improper insider trading practices at least from 2007.

By contrast, you might well know of Ian W. Telfer, 65, chairman of Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc., one of the world’s largest gold-mining enterprises.

Telfer is a highly regarded figure, and rightly so. He built Goldcorp into an enterprise with $3.8 billion in 2010 and profits of $1.6 billion, with resource-development projects on four continents. Goldcorp has created a multitude of jobs worldwide, and kept Vancouver on the map as a centre of mining expertise when much of that activity has migrated to Calgary and Toronto.

Along with his 40 or so years of mining expertise, Telfer is a philanthropist whose largesse includes the Telfer School of Management at his alma mater back East, the University of Ottawa.

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Sudbury slowly growing – by Mike Whitehouse (Sudbury Star – February 9, 2012)

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

Greater Sudbury’s population has increased over the past five years by about the paid attendance of the average Sudbury Wolves home game, figures show.

Population changes in communities across Canada from 2006 to 2011 were disclosed Wednesday by Statistics Canada, the first of a series of reports in coming months based on results of last year’s country-wide census.

It’s the third census in a row Greater Sudbury’s population has increased — a success for a community that has endured serious population declines in the recent past, a city official says.

Figures pegged Sudbury’s census metropolitan area population at 160,770 in 2011. That’s up from 158,258 recorded during the 2006 census, which was up from 155,225 in 2001.

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[Sudbury Vale workers] Back to work – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – Febraury 9, 2012)

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

Vale’s five Sudbury mines should be back in production by the end of next week, says a company spokeswoman.

Production at the mines was halted Jan. 30 after an experienced development miner, Stephen Perry, was killed on the job at Coleman Mine on Jan. 29.

Since then, Vale has been working with employees to ensure all five mines in Sudbury — Coleman, Creighton, Stobie, Garson and Copper Cliff — are safe places for production and maintenance employees to return to work.

“Production will start resuming at our mines as safety issues are addressed and completed,” Vale’s Angie Robson said Wednesday. “We expect that by the end of next week, most of our mines will be back into production.”

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Cliffs Becomes Easy Target With Cheapest Mining Value in America: Real M&A – by Charles Mead (Bloomberg.com – February 7, 2012)

www.bloomberg.com

For all the acquisitions being struck in the mining industry, no company in North America is a cheaper takeover candidate than Cliffs Natural Resources Inc.

The biggest North American iron-ore producer yesterday sold for 6.4 times its cash from operations, after deducting capital expenses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That was less than every other metals or mining company in the U.S. or Canada exceeding $5 billion in market value, and a 70 percent discount to the median. Cleveland-based Cliffs, which analysts say will generate record sales in 2012, was also the least expensive relative to its estimated net income this year and next.

Mining takeovers accelerated to a four-year high in 2011 as companies sought to replace deposits and industrial growth in China and the developing world fueled demand for raw materials. With Glencore International Plc and Xstrata Plc (XTA) agreeing to merge to create a $90 billion global mining company, Cliffs may attract interest from BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) or Rio Tinto Group, Lutetia Capital said. An acquirer could pay a 30 percent premium and still get Cliffs for less than any comparable publicly traded mining company versus its free cash flow, the data show.

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Sudbury College officially opens doors of Xstrata Nickel energy centre

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.

With the support of a $2 million contribution from Ontario Mining Association member Xstrata Nickel, Cambrian College in Sudbury has officially opened the doors of its new energy research facility.  The Xstrata Nickel Sustainable Energy Centre is home to cutting-edge applied research and education programs for sustainable energy.

Cambrian’s three-year Energy Systems Technology, Environmental Monitoring and Impact Assessment programs will be run out of this 16,000 square foot plus $5-million building.  The centre will also house research facilities to be used by students, entrepreneurs and the general public.

“With this new centre, we are expanding our capacity for applied research and making room for growth,” said Sylvia Barnard, President of Cambrian College. “We are focused on applied research because it gives students in various programs real-life experience working with prototypes and entrepreneurs.”

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Quadra FNX bidders [KGHM Polska Miedz] tour Sudbury – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – February 6, 2012)

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

Getting to know their neighbours in areas in which their company operates is the regular course of business for Polish mining company KGHM, say three of its executives.

The company prides itself on its relationship with employees at its three mines and two smelters in southwest Poland, and the communities they are in. KGHM has made what it is essentially a $3.5-billion offer to acquire Quadra FNX, which has holdings in Sudbury, the United States and South America.

Shareholders will vote on that offer this month. The company is calling it a “friendly acquisition” in which it will pay shareholders up to $3 billion — or $15 a share — and take on the company’s $500-million debt.

KGHM general director Jarek Romanovski, business development officer Chr is Kubacki and director Artur Wienowski visited Sudbury this week to meet with Quadra FNX managers and employees, and leaders in the community.

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Glencore, Xstrata target powerhouse mining merger – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – February 3, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

ROME—The pending marriage of Xstrata PLC and Glencore International PLC would create a mining powerhouse with both the muscle and the appetite to quickly gobble up smaller rivals.

Xstrata, which owns Canada’s Falconbridge Ltd., is in talks with part-owner Glencore aimed at an all-stock merger that would reshape the industry by uniting what is already a formidable miner with the world’s biggest commodities trader.

Xstrata said Thursday it was approached by Glencore, which already holds 34 per cent of the Anglo-Swiss miner. If a deal is struck, a giant with a market value of about $88-billion (U.S.) would be created overnight.

Both companies are run by forceful chief executive officers, both are deal-making machines on their own, and together would be a formidable takeover force that analysts believe could target companies whose market value is at least $10-billion. In its own right, it would be huge in zinc, thermal coal, nickel and copper.

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Glencore in talks to buy Xstrata in blockbuster deal – by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Victoria Howley, Reuters (Sudbury Star – February 3, 2012)

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

LONDON — Commodities trader Glencore is in talks to buy mining group Xstrata in an all-share transaction that could create a combined group worth more than 50 billion pounds (US$79 billion), shaking up the industry with its biggest deal to date.

Glencore, the world’s largest diversified commodities trader, already owns 34% of Xstrata and a tie-up between the two — a deal which would trump Rio Tinto’s $38 billion acquisition of Alcan in 2007 — has long been expected, as Glencore aims to add more mines to its trading clout.

“We’ve always had the belief these two companies should be together,” Glencore Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg told a financial conference in Moscow. Xstrata owns Xstrata Nickel, which in Sudbury employs about 1,000 people who work at Nickel Rim South mine, Fraser Mine, a mill and a smelter.

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[Sudbury Vale] Workers back after fatality – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – February 3, 2012)

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

As a memorial mass is being said today for a veteran miner killed on the job, crews will start returning to five Vale mines where production was suspended after the fatality.

Stephen Perry, 47, died Sunday afternoon after being struck by rock while working on a piece of loading equipment at the 4,215-foot level of the main ore body at Coleman Mine in Levack. Hundreds of people, including about 45 family members from his native Newfoundland, were expected to attend the 10 a.m. service.

About 1,550 production and maintenance workers have been off the job, with pay, since Perry was killed. While some will start returning to work, the focus will remain on safety and not production, said Vale spokeswoman Angie Robson.

Returning workers will be “focused on tasks associated with safety and risk management, and not production-related work,” said Robson. “There is still no timeline on when our mines will return to production.”

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Another death at Vale’s Sudbury mines – Editorial (Northern Miner – February 6-12, 2012)

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

The month of January closed out with Vale having temporarily halted all underground mining at its five nickel mines in Sudbury, Ont., following the death of a miner at the Coleman mine on Jan. 29.

Miner Stephen Perry, 47, was working on the 4,215-ft. level when he was struck by “what appears to be a displacement of material or rock from the development face in the main orebody,” commented Kelly Strong, Vale’s North Atlantic vice-president of mining and milling, in an early Jan. 30 news conference.

Perry was brought to surface where he was pronounced dead by medical personnel, said Strong, who extended his condolences to the miner’s family and friends. He had been with the company for 16 years. This is the fourth fatality in seven months at Vale’s Canadian operations, and the third death at the company’s Sudbury mines.

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Vale, [Sudbury] union agree to work together – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – February 2, 2012)

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

United Steelworkers Local 6500 and Vale Ltd. have agreed to conduct a joint investigation into the death of veteran miner Stephen Perry at Coleman Mine on Sunday.

Six people — three from the company and three from the union — will meet Thursday to begin work on the investigation into the fatal accident.

The shutdown at Vale’s five Sudbury mines will continue so the focus remains squarely on safety, and not on production, said Angie Robson. Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand said he was happy the two sides agreed to work together.

“Hopefully, things will be much better here on in,” in terms of both safety and labour relations, said Bertrand.

Mine production was halted Sunday after Perry, 47, was killed while operating a loader at the 4,215-foot level of the Coleman shaft of the main order body at mine in Levack.

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Co-operative [industry/First Nations]approach to mining venture – (Timmins Daily Press – February 2, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Company, two First Nations sign memorandum of understanding

An agreement has been reached between a mining firm and two First Nations over mineral rights to about 60,000 hectares of land. Ring of Fire Resources Inc. has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Matachewan and Mattagami First Nations with respect to its mineral exploration activities in 10 townships just north of Timmins.

The memorandum sets out the provisions of a co-operative approach to developing the Ring of Fire Inc. interests within the territorial homelands of the two First Nations. The agreement provides for business and employment opportunities that encourage First Nation participation in the mining industry.

The parties have also committed to negotiating an Impact and Benefits Agreement should the project warrant a mining operation.

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