Still to file – Page 8 – Republic of Mining

Proud of the oil sands – by Father Raymond J. De Souza (National Post – June 28, 2012)

June 28, 2012

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

As Thomas Mulcair can attest, it is rather easier to speak about the oil sands than it is to actually get up here and see what is going on. Fort McMurray, Alta. is remote, and while my first visit was rather longer than Mr. Mulcair’s, it was still only a full day.

Three years ago, upon the occasion of the merger of oil sands pioneer Suncor with Petro-Canada, this column examined some of the ethical questions posed by oil sands development. The argument then was just emerging about “ethical oil,” namely that Alberta oil is morally and strategically superior because it does not support odious regimes, from Venezuela to Saudi Arabia to Russia. The argument has only become stronger since then, propelled by Ezra Levant’s eponymous book, and adopted in the rhetoric of the federal government.

The argument is actually stronger than comparative politics, with “democratic” oil trumping “tyrannical” oil. Only some 25% of the world’s oil reserves are developed by private companies; the vast majority are state enterprises. Of that quarter of global reserves, half are in the oil sands. The oil sands are a minority phenomenon in the oil business – development by private companies subject to the rule of law, accountable to public shareholders, and disciplined by market forces. Those displeased with the oil sands can lobby Suncor and the other companies operating here, they can shape the public policy environment, they can even invest and become shareholders, something rather easier to do in Calgary than in Caracas.

How will the city [Sudbury] capitalize on investment and growth? – by Brian MacLeod (Sudbury Star – June 23, 2012)

June 23, 2012

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

Click Here For the Speech: City of Greater Sudbury Mayor Marianne Matichuk “State of the City Address”

Mayor Marianne Matichuk’s State of the City address this week was more of a review than a visionary speech. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as it captures what’s important on her agenda. But the speech spent a lot of time explaining how mining is important to the city — in case you were wondering — and why Sudbury is important to the mining world.

All speeches make room for reflection, but they also need to generate excitement and show what will come of all that potential.

Some of that potential was there, in the speech, but the buzz just wasn’t galvanized for a city that is expected to move into an expansion phase that it hasn’t seen for years. The mayor’s speech was sprinkled with affirmation phrases: “Sudbury is the epicentre of Canada’s hard-rock mining sector”; “there is an incredible sense of energy and prosperity in the air”; “Sudbury is an island of prosperity”; “no one in this entire country can begrudge our community its moment in the sun.”

Searching for the universe’s secrets [at Creighton Mine] – by Rita Poliakov (Sudbury Star – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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

Tony Noble thrives underground. Two kilometres beneath the Earth’s surface, he strides from cavern to cavern, stopping to show off a lack of piping or a water chamber or a tall, thin device filled with liquid.

“It’s like a giant coffee percolator,” he says. “The water comes in at the top and falls down, allowing gas to diffuse out of the surface. Any gas in the water is stripped out. We’re worried about radon.”

Radon, it seems, is only the beginning of his concerns. Noble and his fellow scientists fervently try to avoid radioactivity. Everything in the underground lab is designed to reduce it. The floors are made of acrylic, the walls are

smoothed down so they’re easy to clean and all personnel are required to shower and change before entering. The facility is the deepest and cleanest underground lab of its kind in the world, meaning it has about 100 million times less radioactivity than what’s typically found above ground. “Any radioactivity is a problem for us,” Noble says.

This is because Noble is showing off SNOLAB, a 5,000- square-foot facility where the secrets of the universe are examined and broken down. The lab was built deep in Vale’s Creighton Mine and has received around $70 million in funding.

NEWS RELEASE: Impact of “Dutch disease” on manufacturers smaller than feared

May 16, 2012May 16, 2012

Founded in 1972, Institute for Research on Public Policy seeks to improve public policy in Canada by generating research, providing insight and sparking debate on current and emerging policy issues facing Canadians and their governments.

Click here for: Dutch Disease or Failure to Compete?

For immediate distribution – May 16, 2012

Montreal – Although the resource boom has been widely blamed for the woes in the manufacturing sector and cited as a textbook example of the so-called “Dutch disease,” this diagnosis requires a second opinion, according to a new study published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

In Dutch Disease or Failure to Compete? A Diagnosis of Canada’s Manufacturing Woes, authors Mohammad Shakeri, Richard Gray and Jeremy Leonard find that while a booming energy sector in Canada has indeed contributed to the strong Canadian dollar, only one-quarter of total manufacturing output has been adversely affected by the dollar’s increased strength.

The authors examine the linkages between energy prices, the exchange rate and manufacturing output in Canada for 80 different manufacturing industries.

TSX Venture Exchange…Buy or Sell? – by Aaron Hoddinott (PinnacleDigest.com – April 29, 2012)

May 4, 2012

The TSX Venture has been the worst performing stock exchange in North America for over a year now.

For many companies on the TSX Venture, this is a time period filled with anxiety; much like it was in late 2008, the Venture has fallen to the hands of panic sellers. Investors are scared and have been thinking illogically for several months now. Companies that were being bought for $1.00 per share with heavy volume, just 12 months ago, are having a hard time finding bids in this market for $0.30. Volume and risk appetite have vanished. Again, this is similar to how it was in December of 2008 in that respect.

It’s funny how quickly the psyche of investors can change. And this latest correction in the TSX Venture (a 1 year collapse in value of roughly 45%), is a testament to how powerful emotions are when it comes to moving markets.

This latest correction is the second worst (from a percentage standpoint) in the TSX Venture’s history – yet commodity prices remain at historically high levels and the Dow continues to shake off all negative macro-economic data.

Venture investors are scratching their heads as to why this is happening. The truth is that the TSX Venture has always been a boom/bust exchange. It’s extremely volatile. The exchange has existed for 11 years and during that time, it has gone through 7 bear markets of its own (market downturns of 20% or more).

In West Africa, a Canadian mining company pioneers ‘the new humanitarianism’ – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – March 21, 2012)

March 21, 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.

BURKINA FASO – Mining company boss Steve Letwin was ecstatic when he struck a precedent-setting deal with the Canadian government to work together on a training project for African youth. “I think it’s the model of the future,” says the president of IAMGOLD Corp., the Toronto gold miner that operates the biggest mine in the West African country of Burkina Faso.

Many aid experts are less thrilled by the controversial $7.5-million deal between IAMGOLD, the Canadian International Development Agency, and private aid group Plan Canada. They say the miner’s partnership with CIDA amounts to a taxpayer-funded benefit for a highly profitable corporation.

But like it or not, this may be the shape of things to come. The United States has done 900 such deals between its official aid agency and private companies. Now Canada is heading in the same direction, with four similar projects in recent months. “Welcome to the new humanitarianism,” says one of the skeptics, Toronto physician Samantha Nutt, founder of the aid group War Child.

Mining in Poland: History and Current Production (Poland’s Natural Resources)

February 20, 2012

This information came from the Official Promotional Website of the Republic of Poland. http://en.poland.gov.pl/

Nature has bestowed Poland generously with both non-renewable and renewable resources. The latter, such as wind and solar energy, are used more and more frequently, their growing popularity supported by great advances in technology.

Poland is a country rich in minerals. It is among the world’s biggest producers of hard and brown coal, copper, zinc, lead, sulphur, rock salt and construction minerals.

As early as in antiquity, the country was famous for its amber, transported along the Amber Route from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic coast. The largest amounts of amber, often called Baltic gold, were found at the mouth of the Vistula and on the Sambia Peninsula (now in Russia’s Kaliningrad Region). It was a much valued material at that time and played a major role in barter trade with the Meditterranean. Amber was traded most intensively in the second century AD.

AngloGold CEO says Warren Buffett just doesn’t understand gold and gold investors – by Alec Hogg (Mineweb.com – February 16, 2012)

February 16, 2012

www.mineweb.com

Mineweb’s Editor-in-chief, Alec Hogg, interviews AngloGold Ashanti’s Mark Cutifani and hears some forthright views on Warren Buffet’s most recent attack on gold.

JOHANNESBURG – Anglogold Ashanti’s CEO Mark Cutifani is to local South African gold mining what top South AFfrican asset manager, John Biccard is to the local asset management sector, the man other money managers would most trust to handle their savings. In mining, Cutifani’s astute management has raised the bar for an industry where performance was once measured by volume of rock through the mill rather than gold delivered.

The Australian-born head of Africa’s biggest gold producer has been walking on water lately. He took history’s biggest ever bet on the gold price by closing out the industry’s largest hedge book – at a cost of billions. As the gold price kept steaming ahead, that decision continues to reward Anglogold Ashanti. In the three months to end December it added another $200m to the bottom line.

Cutifani was clearly on a high during our chat this week after the release of his group’s December quarter results. Who could blame him? Apart from that $200m, costs were reasonably controlled, the company got more South African Rands for its gold and the result was a fresh record for profit in any three months. Shareholders joined in the applause when hearing that the yearend dividend was being doubled.

JOINT NEWS RELEASE: Bold Ventures and Rencore Resources Urge Shareholders to Vote in Favour of Merger and Announce Plans for Drill Programs

February 13, 2012

Toronto, Ontario (February 3, 2012) – Bold Ventures Inc. (TSX.V: BOL) (“Bold”) and Rencore Resources Ltd. (CNSX: RNC) (“Rencore”) wish to advise shareholders that the shareholder meetings called to approve the proposed business combination of Bold and Rencore (the “Merger”) will be held on Monday, February 13, 2012 (collectively, the “Meetings”). Pursuant to the Merger, each outstanding common share of Rencore will be exchanged for one common share of Bold. Completion of the Merger and final acceptance from the TSX Venture Exchange (“TSXV”) is subject to a number of conditions and approvals, including fulfilling all filing requirements pursuant to the policies of the TSXV.

The Merger also requires the approval of a majority of not less than two-thirds of the votes cast in respect of the resolution to approve the Merger by shareholders of Rencore and approval of a majority of disinterested shareholders of Rencore entitled to vote at the Meetings and approval of a majority of disinterested shareholders of Bold entitled to vote at the Meetings.

Porketta bingo is Sudbury’s delicious passion – by Jennifer Bain (Toronto star – December 17, 2011)

December 17, 2011

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.

SUDBURY—Stompin’ Tom Connors should come back and write a song about a Sudbury Saturday afternoon. This time it won’t be about booze and bingo, it’ll be about the Beef ‘n Bird tavern where they play cards for pork.

The tavern’s air is so thick with slow-roasted pork lavishly spiced with dill, garlic, salt and cracked black pepper that you can’t smell all the pitchers of Molson and Labatt.

Hockey hero Jerry Toppazzini has five televisions tuned to the NHL game, but everyone’s watching a roasted pork shoulder ooze its juices over a wooden cutting board on a table on the dance floor.

Four identical bronzed beauties, busting out from butcher’s twine nooses, stay warm in the kitchen. The only way to get a mouthful of crackling-encased porketta — roasted eight hours this morning at Tarini Brothers Meat Market and delivered hot — is to win one.

Polish Firm’s $2.83 Billion Bid for Canadian Copper Miner Is Jump Into ‘Deep End’ by Marynia Kruk (Wall Street Journal Europe – December 8, 2011)

December 9, 2011

http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/

To outsiders, Polish copper producer KGHM Polska Miedz SA’s $2.83 billion offer for Canada’s Quadra FNX Mining may look like just another cross-continental deal, a bet copper prices will go higher. Maybe similar to Chinese Jinchuan Group’s $1.1 billion takeover of Johannesburg-listed Metorex, driven by a desire to gain access to higher quality assets to replenish depleting reserves.

But until now, government-controlled KGHM, which has a lock on all the copper and silver deposits in Poland, sat on the sidelines of the acquisition game, even as the government’s stake in it protected it from unsolicited takeovers.

KGHM couldn’t wait forever with its “bold move”, said a Warsaw-based investment banker who didn’t advice on the Quadra deal but hopes to work for the company in the future and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The alternative to this acquisition was stagnation, paying out a juicy dividend year after year, and then shutting down the company when copper deposits run out in about 30 years, analysts said.

MININGWATCH CANADA NEWS RELEASE: Wahgoshig First Nation To Seek Inunction Against Solid Gold Resources Corp.

November 30, 2011

Posted on Mining Watch website on behalf of Wahgoshig First Nation

November 23, 2011 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wahgoshig First Nation is going to court on December 1, 2011 to seek an urgent injunction to immediately stop drilling operations in a sacred area of Wahgoshig’s traditional territory. The area is immediately adjacent to the Wahgoshig reserve and is known to contain burial grounds as well as other archaeological sites. It is also an area frequented by Wahgoshig community members for hunting, trapping, fishing, medicine gathering, and ceremonial activities.

Solid Gold Resources Corp. is a mining exploration company based near Toronto, Ontario. Wahgoshig community members discovered Solid Gold operating in its territory in the spring of this year. Since that time Wahgoshig has continuously voiced its concerns to Solid Gold about the potential impacts to its traditional territory and rights. Wahgoshig has repeatedly requested that Solid Gold stop drilling and meet to discuss how to ensure the protection of these lands and its culture. These requests have been largely ignored.

DELOITTE NEWS RELEASE: Canadian miners face intensifying global challenges

November 28, 2011

Deloitte unveils top 10 trends for 2012

To view the report, please visit http://www.deloitte.com/ca/mining-trends

Toronto, November 28, 2011 — Escalating social, economic, and political factors are forcing mining companies in Canada and around the world to incorporate more complex scenarios into their strategic planning, according to a new report from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL). Released today, the report – Tracking the trends 2012 – provides an analysis of the top 10 trends expected to impact the mining sector at an accelerated rate in the year ahead.

“Gone are the days when conversations about commodity prices were confined to industry analysts,” said Glenn Ives, Americas Mining Leader, Deloitte Canada . “As nations around the world industrialize and strive to improve their standards of living, mining has come to take a more central role on the world stage. And for mining companies, this greater visibility comes with greater responsibility.”

“The mining sector is facing a perfect storm of converging global forces,” said Jürgen Beier, Deputy Mining Leader, Deloitte Canada. “Confronted with unrelenting cost inflation, unprecedented commodity price volatility, ever-tightening regulation and mounting labour shortages, mining executives must be willing to seek unconventional solutions.”

The $200,000-a-Year [Australian] Mine Worker – by John W. Miller (Wall Street Journal – November 16, 2011)

November 19, 2011

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

Resources Boom Fuels Demand for Underground Labor, Spurs Skyrocketing Pay; a $1,200 Chihuahua.

MANDURAH, Australia — One of the fastest-growing costs in the global mining industry are workers like James Dinnison: the 25-year-old high-school dropout from Western Australia makes $200,000 a year running drills in underground mines to extract gold and other minerals.

The heavily tattooed Mr. Dinnison, who started in the mines seven years ago earning $100,000, owns a sky-blue 2009 Chevy Ute, which cost $55,000 before a $16,000 engine enhancement, and a $44,000 custom motorcycle. The price tag on his chihuahua, Dexter, which yaps at his feet: $1,200.

A precious commodity himself, Mr. Dinnison belongs to a class of nouveau riche rising in remote and mineral-rich parts of the world, such as Western Australia state, where mining companies are investing heavily to develop and expand iron-ore mines. Demand for those willing to work 12-hour days in sometimes dangerous conditions, while living for weeks in dusty small towns, is huge.

Quadra FNX plans Podolsky Mine closure – by Star Staff (Sudbury Star/Reuters – November 11, 2011)

November 11, 2011

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

Quadra FNX Mining Ltd. announced Thursday it will wind down its Podolsky Mine operations in Sudbury by the end of 2012 and pay more attention to its flagship operations, including its Morrison deposit near Levack.

The Vancouver-based miner also said it would close its Carlota mine in Arizona. President and CEO Paul Blythe said the company has decided to focus on its more promising projects.

“We believe that the best way to achieve this is by optimizing the opportunities at our two flagship operations, Robinson (in Arizona) and Morrison (in Sudbury), which together contribute over 85% of our operating income, while continuing to deliver on our significant growth pipeline,” Blythe said in a statement.