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Saskatchewan Mining

Rio unveils big potash find near BHP mine – by Matt Chambers (The Australian – March 18, 2014)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business

RIO Tinto has declared it is sitting on a big potash deposit in Saskatchewan in the same basin where its rival BHP Billiton is spending $US3.8 billion ($4.2bn) just to be ready to mine the fertiliser ingredient when global food demand warrants it.

In its annual report, Rio described the KP405 potash discovery as the eighth “tier-one” discovery in the past decade by its exploration group. “Drilling results indicate encouraging potash grade and thickness,” Rio said.

“Higher nutritional standards, population growth and limited arable land make potash a critical factor in maintaining global food security.” Rio’s Russian partner, Acron, has been more animated, saying there is the potential for a long-life, low-cost mine at the “massive” KP405 deposit.

BHP chief Andrew Mackenzie describes potash as a potential “fifth pillar” of BHP’s commodities business, indicating the potential he thinks the company has in Saskatchewan’s Elk Point Basin.

BHP last year approved a $US2.6bn spend to gain access to the deposit, bringing total approved spending to $US3.8bn before it has made a definite decision to mine.

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Cameco finally starts up production at Cigar Lake after years of delays – by Peter Koven (National Post – March 14, 2014)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Thirty-three years after it was discovered, and nine years after construction began, Cameco Corp. has finally brought the much-anticipated Cigar Lake uranium mine into production.

The company made the landmark announcement on Thursday. And after a seemingly endless string of delays and setbacks at the giant Saskatchewan-based project, it must have come as a relief.

“There were a lot of doubters who said it would never be done,” chief executive Tim Gitzel said in a phone interview from the mine site. “But I never gave up on the creativity and the perseverance of our workforce.”

When Cameco’s board approved construction of Cigar Lake in 2004, the expected capital cost was $450-million and first production was planned for 2007. By the end of last year, the cost was a staggering $2.6-billion and it still wasn’t in production. Needless to say, it has been a much tougher process than Cameco ever imagined.

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First Nation businesses tap into potash opportunities – by Kim Smith (Global Regina – March 5, 2014)


http://globalnews.ca/regina/

REGINA – The plan was to create opportunities for First Nations in employment, business and community development – but according to BHP Billiton Potash, its success is less about recruitment and more about building relationships.

Last year, the company signed an agreement with three Saskatchewan First Nations – Kawacatoose, Day Star and Muskowekwan – to create employment opportunities.

“You have to be part of the community needs and work with them in addressing those needs,” said BHP Billiton Potash’s Alex Archila following a luncheon organized by the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business.

“If you look at a business opportunity to just make money, we don’t believe that will be sustainable.”

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Cameco Welcomes Nuclear Commitment in Japan Draft Policy – by Liezel Hill and Christopher Donville (Bloomberg News – February 26, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Cameco Corp. (CCO), Canada’s largest uranium producer, welcomed a commitment by Japan to nuclear power almost three years after the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant.

As Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks the restart of the nation’s 48 reactors, all of which are idled for safety checks, the government yesterday presented its draft energy policy showing nuclear as an important component in the nation’s future energy mix. Cameco rose the most in more than three years in Toronto and other uranium stocks soared. Paladin Energy Ltd. (PDN) surged 21 percent in Sydney trading today, its biggest one-day gain in more than nine years.

“To put it out now in black and white is very encouraging,” Cameco Chief Executive Officer Tim Gitzel said yesterday in an interview. “The process is unfolding as we thought it would, it’s just taking longer” than expected.

Uranium prices have slumped 47 percent since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s nuclear power plant. The disaster led to Japan suspending its fleet of reactors. Some of those plants will come back online this summer, Takayuki Sumita, director-general for oil, gas and mineral resources at Japan’s ministry of economy, trade and industry, told a Singapore conference yesterday.

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Potash may show the way for First Nations to tap into resource based opportunites – by JP Gladu (National Post -February 25, 2014)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

JP Gladu is president and chief executive of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business.

Community, local and regional initiatives can often be lost in the larger dialogue of multinational corporations and the work they do. The Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business hopes to change that by providing the opportunity for that dialogue to happen between big business and the entrepreneurial spirit of the First Nations people through a series of aboriginal business luncheons.

At a luncheon in Regina on March 5 at First Nations University, the keynote speaker will be Alex Archilla, asset president for BHP Billiton Potash, who, this past summer took charge of the $2.6-billion Jansen Project in the Treaty 4 Territory of Saskatchewan.

Potash plays a vital role in feeding a growing and hungry world population. And Jansen, the world’s best undeveloped potash resource, is capable of supporting a mine with capacity of 10 million tonnes a year for more than 50 years.

There is a significant opportunity to create stronger business ties through potash development in Saskatchewan, which would strengthen long-term certainty for business, as well as create new platforms from which Aboriginal communities can thrive.

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Over 50 Saskatchewan miners spend night underground waiting out fire (Saskatoon Star Phoenix – February 15, 2014)

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/index.html

BY THE CANADIAN PRESS – VANSCOY, Sask. – Dozens of workers at a potash mine in Saskatchewan are safe after a fire broke out a kilometre underground and forced them to spend the night in emergency shelters. More than 50 people were forced to seek refuge in shelters at the Agrium facility near Vanscoy after the fire started during a shift Friday night.

The site’s general manager, Mike Dirham, said the fire started on a scoop tram, which is a type of underground loader. Dirham said the tram has a fire suppression system, but he says it couldn’t extinguish the flames. At that point, Dirham said the miners headed for the shelters to escape the smoke.

“There is food and water and telephones in there where we can communicate with the people in each shelter. They vary in size from a capacity of holding 10 people to a capacity of 60 people,” Dirham said, noting that miners don’t need to wear masks while they’re inside.

“They’re a self-contained shelter. They just need to go in and close the doors and wait for emergency response personnel.”

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Saskatchewan Dene group wants more consultation on Areva’s Kiggavik project – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq Online.com – February 6, 2014)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Project proposes flying uranium to northern Saskatchewan

Athabasca Dene in northern Saskatchewan say they have not been properly consulted on Areva’s Kiggavik uranium project near Baker Lake. Although the Kiggavik site is hundreds of kilometres away from their traditional lands, the Athabasca Dene oppose the proposed transportation of milled uranium — known as yellowcake — by plane from the mine to northern Saskatchewan.

Areva proposes to fly some 5,000 tonnes of yellowcake each year to Points North, Saskatchewan, where it would then be transported by truck or train.

In December 2013, the Athabasca Denesuline Né Né Land Corp., which represents First Nations in Black Lake, Fond du Lac and Hatchet Lake, passed a resolution opposing the transport of uranium over their territory.

In a letter addressed to the Nunavut Impact Review Board that same month, the corporation said Dene are worried about accidents and the potential damage to their local environment.

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Mining firms watch case of Hells Angels at Xtreme Mining – by Dan Zakreski (CBC News Saskatoon – January 29, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/saskatoon/

Reviewing hiring policies in wake of dismissals and threatened lawsuit from Hells Angels at PCS Cory

They’re characterized by police across Canada as a dangerous criminal organization. Until last year, Hells Angels from the Saskatoon chapter worked at the Agrium potash mine near Vanscoy and at the Potash Corp. mine at Cory.

They lost those high-paying jobs when Leonard Banga at Xtreme Mining and Demolition decided he didn’t want Hells Angels in his company. This decision has triggered alleged death threats and a potential lawsuit.

Mining companies across the province are closely watching the story unfold.“I think it did make people reflect on their hiring policies and their harassment policies in the workforce, and making sure that contractors were accountable for the actions of their employees,” said Pamela Schwann, executive director of the Saskatchewan Mining Association.

Three Hells Angels from the motorcycle club’s Saskatoon chapter are threatening to sue Banga for defamation and wrongful dismissal. They lost their jobs at the company when they revealed on a company questionnaire that they are members of what Banga calls a criminal organization.

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Potash turning into a buyer’s market – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – January 22, 2014)

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.

The giants of the potash industry are losing their grip on the market. In a sign that the industry is shifting in favour of the buyer, Russian producer OAO Uralkali took a 24-per-cent cut in potash prices when it negotiated a semi-annual contract to supply China with 700,000 tonnes of the crop nutrient.

“This was a very good deal for the Chinese,” said Michael Levshin, analyst with Veritas Investment Research Corp. “It’s the least China has paid for potash in more than half a decade,” he said. In the past, China and India have tried to force the world’s biggest producers to reduce prices by delaying their potash purchases.

But the Asian countries had marginal success until last year when Uralkali killed the Russian-Belarus potash cartel and sent the fertilizer industry into turmoil. Before the breakup, Belarusian Potash Co. (BPC) and its North American equivalent Canpotex Ltd. controlled 70 per cent of the market.

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Patience, luck are key to diamond mining in Saskatchewan (CBC News Saskatchewan – January 20, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/sask/

It has been 25 years since diamonds were first discovered in Saskatchewan

Twenty-five years after deposits of diamonds were identified in Saskatchewan’s north, people in the mining business say it will take patience, and some luck, to create a viable diamond industry in the province. One of the companies that is looking for diamonds is North Arrows Minerals.

“There is a real process involved and it requires patience, and persistence,” company president Ken Armstrong told CBC News, noting the normal progression, if all goes well, to a functioning mine is 15 years.

“We had some good targets,” Armstrong said of their most recent exploration work. “We’re hoping there’d be kimberlite, and there is. We were hoping there’d be diamonds, there’s diamonds. So now we need to keep on going at it and do more work to try and expand it and see if there’s size to the body and if the grade might be there, and ultimately there’s a whole bunch more work just to get to the point to determine if the diamonds have a value or not.”

Another company, Shore Gold, has been working on its Fort-a-la-Corne site, east of Prince Albert, since 1995.

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TNM’s 2013 Mining Persons of the Year: Fission’s Ross McElroy and Dev Randhawa – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – December 23, 2013)

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

Since the days of the Manhattan project, there have been three conventional rules for finding uranium mineralization in Saskatchewan: it occurs in the Athabasca basin, usually in the lowest sandstone unit that’s in contact with the basement rock; the best place to look is in the eastern part of the basin; and the shallow stuff has all been found, so you need to go deeper into the basin to find more.

Well, the new Patterson Lake South ultra-high-grade uranium discovery by joint-venture partners Fission Uranium (TSXV: FCU; US-OTC: FCUUF) and Alpha Minerals turns all that conventional wisdom on its head: the deposit is 8 km outside the southwestern edge of the basin in a relatively unexplored area, and it lies almost at surface, covered only by glacial overburden and a shallow lake.

And for this, we are awarding our 2013 “Mining Persons of the Year” to Fission president and COO Ross McElroy, the technical point man on the discovery, and Fission chairman and CEO Dev Randhawa, who has ably guided the company through not one, but two major corporate overhauls in a single year.

Ross McElroy is a veteran geologist with an uncanny ability to place himself at the heart of the discovery of high-grade Canadian mineral deposits.

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Potash dims economic glow in Saskatchewan, but premier says it’s still good – by Jennifer Graham (Canadian Press/Brandon Sun – December 23, 2013)

 http://www.brandonsun.com/

REGINA – Slumping demand for the pink mineral potash dimmed Saskatchewan’s economic glow at the end of this year.
But Premier Brad Wall says the outlook is positive for the year ahead, despite pressures in the potash industry and a report that Saskatchewan’s boom could be cooling.

“We have to take a look at the whole economy,” Wall said in a year-end interview with The Canadian Press.

“Our economy is diversified. We’re more than just one sector. We have a lot of … cylinders that are firing in this economic engine … so when the natural resource sector is down, we’re still creating net thousands of jobs year over year.” Saskatchewan’s economy took off in 2007, based largely on revenue from natural resources, such as oil and gas and potash, which is used in fertilizer.

But potash and the companies that produce it were hit hard this year when Russian-based Uralkali, one of the world’s largest potash producers, quit an export partnership. China and India, key markets for fertilizer, then delayed purchases in expectation of lower prices. That sent shipments plunging.

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Uralkali gains share amid volatile potash market – by Peter Koven (National Post – December 20, 2013)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Last summer, Russian potash giant OAO Uralkali predicted that its plan to collapse a cartel-like entity would allow it to seize market share from rivals, including those in Canada. It appears the company was right.

On Thursday, the company said its potash sales volumes in the third quarter were 2.6 million tonnes, essentially in line with last year’s figure, while export volumes rose 11%. That is a solid result, because it comes amid a period of extreme volatility and uncertain demand in the potash market. Both Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. and Agrium Inc. reported year-over-year sales volume declines of more than 20% in Q3, despite falling prices.

Uralkali said its new strategy is progressing “very satisfactorily.” “They did gain share in Q3,” said Joel Jackson, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

Historically, potash companies made money by withholding production to keep the market in balance and maintain their pricing power. But Uralkali, the world’s biggest producer, threw that plan out the window when it shut down its cartel-like marketing partnership with Belaruskali last July and vowed to boost production.

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Op-Ed: Profitable PotashCorp underpays province – by Scott Doherty (Regina Leader-Post – December 17, 2013)

http://www.leaderpost.com/index.html

Scott Doherty is western director of the union Unifor, which represents some workers at PotashCorp.

For communities relying on the resource sector, there can be few mornings more devastating than the one earlier this month when workers at the Lanigan potash mine arrived at work, only to be told they were now unemployed and to go right back home. They had been laid off.

What a hard drive home that was for many back on the highway, heading out across central Saskatchewan, back to one of the many rural communities that rely on potash for their livelihood. They had plenty of time to let the news sink in … only to have to repeat it to their families when they got home.

For some 212 workers at the PotashCorp mine in Lanigan, that was how the morning of Dec. 3 played out when the company announced it would lay off 440 workers across the province and more elsewhere.

Workers at the mine were expecting something to come as potash prices dropped. Years of strong prices had come to an end with the Russians pulling out of an international potash marketing group.

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Why Scrooge visited Potash Corp. workers early – by Ryan Lijdsman (Winnipeg Free Press – December 11, 2013)

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

Ryan Lijdsman is a Canadian-based international business consultant.

EDMONTON — This Christmas, Potash Corp. spread the holiday cheer by raising dividends to its shareholders and gifting 18 per cent of its workforce with layoff notices.

These actions may appear counterintuitive and even bizarre to employees and those who don’t study business, but the reality is they are not out of the ordinary and are becoming more and more common in Canada. A corporate culture of maximizing shareholder value and short-termism has overtaken building “real value” and long-term corporate sustainability.

The theory of maximizing shareholder value was originally developed in the 1970s by free-market economists at the University of Chicago. Its raison d’être was to protect shareholders from a “managerialist” philosophy that taught corporations should be professionally managed to serve not just shareholders, but also employees, customers, and the broader society. It taught the purpose of the corporation was to serve shareholders and the best way to maximize the total value of the company was to maximize share price. An increase in share price was viewed as proof of greater economic efficiency, a view that is currently held in most publicly-traded companies.

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