Saskatchewan Mining

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.

OTTAWA— Potash Corp. chief executive Bill Doyle expects to see steadily rising worldwide demand for the fertilizer and the need for new export capacity from Western Canada, despite the recent price weakness that has led global producers to cut back on supply.

Western Canadian potash exports should double in the coming decade and, as a result, the industry will need new port facilities in British Columbia, Mr. Doyle said in an interview Tuesday.

In partnership with CN Rail, Canpotex, the marketing arm of Saskatchewan potash producers, has proposed a new export terminal in Prince Rupert, B.C. Mr. Doyle said he expects an investment decision to be made on the $800-million project this year.

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

“No longer do businesses in the energy and mining industries
abandon the province in the face of hostile and activist
regulatory regimes that threaten to make their investments
worthless. Saskatchewan has discovered that, with its
resource base, creating space for secure investment and
innovation is all that’s required for substantial economic
growth.” (David Breen Seymour)

Ontario needs to rethink the Far North Act and specific
aspects of their Mining Act revisions that are causing
many junior mining companies – the lifeblood of the mining
sector – to slow down their activities or leave the
province. – (Stan Sudol)

Saskatchewan stands at an opportune time in its history.

Outside its borders, globalization means there are more people who want to buy what we have and also more people willing to sell us what we want in return. More demand for Saskatchewan’s food and energy-based products in tandem with more supply of the finished goods that its people buy could raise standards of living in Saskatchewan to levels never before seen anywhere. Inside the province’s borders, politics have matured, making it easier than ever to do business.

A deeper theme is that public policy matters. Throughout history, no factor has impacted on the quality of the lives people live more than the quality of their public policies. Many other explanations are given for prosperity, but none of them stand up to scrutiny. If natural resources were the key to prosperity, Nigeria would be rich and Singapore poor.

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

Ryan W. Lijdsman is an international business consultant and freelance writer who has been working with various companies and governments in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

While BHP Billiton failed in its attempt to take over Potash Corp., it is succeeding in transforming the Canadian potash industry from supply management to free market. BHP and other new entrants are opening new potash mines that will sell directly to buyers, bypassing Canpotex. Over the long term, this transformation will be positive for both the industry and the governments that receive royalties, but in the short term the proposed supply increases are far greater than current demand, leading to market volatility as the forces of supply and demand clash.

Canadian potash has traditionally been exported through Canpotex, a producer-owned export cartel made up of Potash Corp., Mosaic and Agrium. Canpotex manages the price and volume of exports and with the other large global exporter Belarusian Potash Co. – a consortium that controls the exports of Belarusian and Russian potash – controls 70% of the export market.

The supply management that Canpotex provided producers has benefited the industry by providing stability when supply was greater than demand.

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A proposed federal strategy to safeguard the habitat of the woodland caribou is causing concern in the mining industry. The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) and its provincial counterpart, the Saskatchewan Mining Association, have started a letter-writing campaign to express their opposition to the strategy developed by Environment Canada.

The federal government released the draft strategy in August and it is open for public comment until February. The mining associations say it will severely limit any further resource or infrastructure development in northern Saskatchewan.

MAC president and CEO Pierre Gratton said the strategy would create a system that would see caribou habitat that had 35 per cent of its area disturbed declared off limits to further development.

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Continued growth expected

Saskatchewan is poised to see $50 billion in capital investment injected into the provincial mining industry during the next 20 years. Mining is a $7.1-billion industry in Saskatchewan and the province benefited from $3.1 billion in capital expenditures in 2010, the largest recipient of mining investment in Canada last year, said Pierre Gratton, president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC)

Gratton was speaking at a luncheon put on by the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce, the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce and the North Saskatoon Business Association.

“Canada and Saskatchewan are blessed with a diverse abundance of natural resources that are in demand from growing global economies, positioning both province and country for continued long-term growth,” Gratton said. “However, our focus cannot solely rest on the economic benefits mining brings.

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

Saskatchewan’s popular Premier, Brad Wall, has a nice mission ahead of him — to lure to his province jobless workers from depressed places such as the United States and Ireland to support his booming economy.

While governments across the developed world are struggling with high unemployment, soaring debt and stalling output, Saskatchewan is expected to lead the country with GDP growth of 5.1% this year, according to the Conference Board of Canada.

Its unemployment rate was the lowest in Canada for most of the year. It rose to a still-tight 5.1% in November, from 3.7% in October. One job website, sask.jobs.ca, listed more than 9,500 job openings Friday. Thousands more jobs are on the way with billions of dollars in planned investment in the potash and energy sectors. Meanwhile, the provincial government expects a record surplus of $25-million this fiscal year, which would have been even better, $115-million, if not for the cost of severe summer flooding.

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

Far in Saskatchewan’s southern plains, between immaculate century-old villages and snow-dusted grain fields, Australian mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd. is toiling hard to grow a Canada-based potash business from the underground up.

Its foundation, the planned Jansen project, is beginning to take shape near the rural municipality of LeRoy, 140 kilometres east of Saskatoon. Two shafts — one to hoist ore, the other men and equipment — are being prepped to sink a kilometre below the surface, where the province’s immense ore deposits lie.

A giant refrigeration plant, the site’s central facility, has started producing brine that is pumped below, freezing the ground so the shafts can be cemented and sealed through a big aquifer that stands in the way.

Coming up next is the carving of an underground city that will be teeming with workers in assembly and maintenance shops, lunchrooms and refuge stations, a maze of tunnels and production areas.

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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.

SASKATOON— Almost a year to the day after Ottawa called a halt to the bruising 100-day Potash War, its victorious general has little interest in reliving old stories from the battlefield.

“It was an experience,” Bill Doyle allows when asked about BHP Billiton’s foiled bid to acquire Canada’s potash champion, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, where he has been chief executive officer since 1999.

But what about the nationalist outcry against the deal? The duel with BHP’s Marius Kloppers, whose hostile takeover attempt thrust Potash Corp. into a global spotlight? The stinging criticisms of Mr. Doyle’s decision to make his home in Chicago? Ottawa’s dramatic, 11th-hour rejection of the takeover bid?

“A distraction,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand during our lunch at Truffles, a small bistro in downtown Saskatoon that specializes in local produce.

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