Sudbury Basin – Page 22 – Republic of Mining

NEWS RELEASE: VALE AND THE UNITED STEELWORKERS RAISE OVER $470,000 FOR UNITED WAY CENTRAIDE NORTH EAST ONTARIO (January 16, 2020)

January 17, 2020

SUDBURY, January 16, 2019 – Vale and The United Steelworkers announced today that together with Vale’s 50% match to employee contributions, $473,278 has been raised in a joint fundraising campaign for the United Way Centraide North East Ontario (UWCNEO).

“I’m proud of this longstanding and shared tradition of generosity between Vale and the United Steelworkers and want to thank each and every employee who contributed to this campaign,” said Dino Otranto, Chief Operating Officer of Vale’s North Atlantic Operations and Asian Refineries. “It’s indicative of the genuine care and interest our employees have in supporting our community.

Vale matches 50 cents to every dollar employees donate to the UWCNEO. Employees can contribute via a payroll deduction program or in lump sum payments.

“United Steelworkers Local 6500 are honoured to continue supporting the United Way’s 38th annual fundraising campaign,” said Nick Larochelle, President of USW Local 6500.

Organization gearing up to promote Indigenous-mining relationships – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – January 14, 2020)

January 14, 2020

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Minerals Development will be based in Sudbury

Dawn Madahbee Leach is hopeful that a newly forged partnership between Waubetek Business Development Corp. and Rio Tinto will be just the first of many positive working relationships between Indigenous people and the mining industry.

In November, the global mining giant announced it would invest $1 million over five years into Waubetek’s Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Minerals Development, which is being established in Northern Ontario.

“Our partnership aims to grow the opportunity for Indigenous communities to participate in a meaningful way in the benefits that can come from responsible mineral development,” said Simone Niven, Rio Tinto’s group executive of corporate relations, in a Nov. 27 news release announcing the partnership.

Inventus trades heavily on Sudbury update (Resource World – Janary 13, 2020)

January 14, 2020

https://resourceworld.com/

Inventus Mining Corp. [IVS-TSXV] shares advanced in heavy trading Monday January 13 after the company said it has updated the terms of a previously announced non-brokered private placement that aims fund projects in the Sudbury, Ontario region.

It said the updated private placement will be for up to 12.4 million units at 10.5 cents per unit, raising gross proceeds of $1.3 million.

Each unit will consist of one common share and one common share purchase warrant, each of which will entitle the holder to acquire one common share for 17 cents for a period of two years after the closing date of the offering.

Group wants Long Lake plan to move forward – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – January 10, 2020)

January 10, 2020

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Despite concerns raised by some residents, most people living on Long Lake support a new plan to tackle contamination from an old gold mine, according to the head of a stewardship group.

“You can’t satisfy everybody 100 per cent of the time,” said Scott Darling, chair of the Long Lake Stewardship Committee. “But our position is this is the best plan we have seen in close to 10 years for getting the problem solved, and the problem is the arsenic in the lake.”

A cleanup and tailings-containment strategy put forward in 2017 by the Ministry of Energy, Northern Development and Mines was met with more resistance, he said, as it would have resulted in a high volume of truck traffic on area roads. The ministry went back to the drawing board, however, considering four alternatives to the original plan.

Accent: Sudbury’s impact on Lake Huron (hint — it’s major) – by Joe Shorthouse (Sudbury Star – December 21, 2019)

December 23, 2019

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Sudbury is part of the Great Lakes Ecosystem. Water in toilets flushed in Sudbury, along with waters from mine tailings, flows into Lake Huron and pass under the swing bridge on Manitoulin Island

The new partnership of residents who live year-round on the islands in the Great Lakes, called the Great Lakes Islands Alliance (GLIA), held its third annual Summit on Mackinac Island in Lake Michigan in October.

As with previous gatherings, participants reminded themselves that the Great Lakes hold about 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water and living on islands comes with the responsibility of protecting the integrity of this critical resource.

Participants have come to visualize the five Great Lakes as gently sloping eastward from the west coast of Lake Superior to the east coast of Lake Ontario, and as a result, Great Lakes waters eventually flow into the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean.

Vale files $1-million lawsuit, CBC report says – by Staff (Sudbury Star – December 17, 2019)

December 18, 2019

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

A half-dozen people profited in a complex fraud scheme through a Vale mill, according to a civil suit filed in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto.

The document, which was obtained by CBC, alleges former Clarabelle Mill superintendent Lee MacIsaac, along with maintenance supervisor William Auger and parts coordinator Yvan Lecuyer, conspired to pocket at least $1 million through payments on maintenance work that was never performed.

None of the allegations have been proven in a court of law. The suit also names three men affiliated with contracting companies as collaborators in the scheme: Felix Vazquez of Metso Minerals, John Vasconcelos of E.S. Fox Ltd., and Jason Bettiol of ABS Manufacturing.

Striving to understand the mining workforce of the future – by Len Gillis (Northern Ontario Business – December 16, 2019)

December 16, 2019

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Sudbury mining panelists discuss how to recruit, retain employees in the digital age

It is going to take imagination, better communications and some good listening skills for the mining industry to attract and retain enough workers skilled in data-driven and digital technology.

Those were some of the comments during a recent panel discussion held in Sudbury at the annual general meeting of SAMSSA (Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association).

The panel was made up of well-known experts in various sectors of mining. They included Michael Gribbons, vice-president of sales and marketing at Maestro Digital Mine; Lynn Iturregui, project management for mining at Hatch; Roy Slack, the president of CIM (Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum); and Shayne Wisniewski, general manager of mining projects for Glencore’s Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations.

SAMSSA looks to expand, bids DeStefano farewell – by Colleen Romaniuk (Sudbury Northern Life – December 6, 2019)

December 9, 2019

https://www.sudbury.com/

The Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA) held their AGM on Dec. 4 at Dynamic Earth

A Sudbury-based mining supply industry group has its eyes on pan-Northern and global expansion. The Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA) held their annual general meeting on Dec. 4 at Dynamic Earth.

In welcoming members from North Bay, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, and Thunder Bay, the association reaffirmed its intention to support Northern Ontario businesses on a global scale and to generate leads for their member companies.

SAMSSA is currently working to increase their visibility both in the North and around the world. They’ve recently initiated an in-coming and outgoing export program and completed a trade mission to Nevada. From Jan. 12 to 17, 2020, SAMSSA is planning another trade mission to Santiago, Chile. Members are being encouraged to register to explore the market towards establishing a footprint on the ground.

New boss at Vale – Dino Otranto – favours improved safety and being more competitive – by Len Gillis (Northern Ontario Business – December 5, 2019)

December 5, 2019

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

“We have an abundance of ore here, one of the top three nickel-copper orebodies
in the entire world, right here. We haven’t really scratched
the surface of the potential of that orebody,” Dino Otranto said.

Dino Otranto, the new man at the helm of Vale Base Metals in Canada, said he is more than pleased with the level of commitment from Vale employees. He was equally overwhelmed at the level of innovation and technology being used to keep the company successful. Just as important, he said, is the critical need to be more competitive.

Otranto, who has a blue chip mining résumé stretching back to the early 2000s, is the new chief operating officer for Vale’s North Atlantic Operations and Asian Refineries. Prior to that, he was the company’s chief technology officer based in Toronto.

As he spoke recently from his office in Sudbury, Otranto said he had no plan to shake things up when he moved into his role earlier in 2019.

Canadian labour legend Leo Gerard on the past, present and future of unions – Interview by Michael Enright (CBC Radio – Sunday Edition – November 22, 2019)

December 4, 2019

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/

Leo Gerard was 11 years old when he handed out his first union leaflets. That was in 1958, and he was living in Sudbury, a mining town. The leaflets were for the Mine Mill, the union his father belonged to.

What Gerard didn’t know then was that he would spend much of the rest of his life as a labour leader and activist. He began as a staff representative at the United Steelworkers (the USW) and moved quickly through the ranks. This summer, he retired as international president of the USW, a position he held for 18 years.

Gerard spoke to The Sunday Edition’s Michael Enright about his life in the labour movement and the future of unions in an age of globalized trade, a collapsing manufacturing sector and precarious employment.

Wolf Lake part of renewed focus on mining frontier – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – December 3, 2019)

December 4, 2019

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

A junior miner heralding a “new frontier” in Sudbury exploration is poised to add claims around Wolf Lake to a vast property it has already staked in the Chiniguchi-Temagami area.

“This whole area northeast of Lake Wanapitei has never really been explored,” said Stefan Spears, chairman and CEO of Inventus Mining. “Everyone assumed it was too far away or assumed that it wasn’t part of the Sudbury environment.”

The Inventus property, dubbed Sudbury 2.0, lies about 40 kilometres northeast of Sudbury within the Temagami Magnetic Anomaly, an egg-shaped zone that stretches from Lake Wanapitei to Bear Island in Lake Temagami. The anomaly is comparable in both size and magnetic stamp to the Sudbury basin, suggesting a mineral trove may also exist below the rugged surface of this untapped twin.

OPINION: [Sudbury History] For Sudbury, the signs are all there – by Michael Atkins (Northern Ontario Businee – November 25, 2019)

November 25, 2019

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

It was 1977. The price of nickel was in the tank. INCO was warning about massive layoffs, and speculation about negotiations between the United Steelworkers union and INCO was that there would be no way to avoid a strike.

Financial analysts thought it would be a gift to INCO to go on strike because the price of nickel was so low and the stockpiles so high. The union didn’t go quietly. They embarked on one of the toughest and longest labour strikes in Canadian history. It was brutal. Sudbury suffered enormously. It was never the same.

The year before the strike of ’78, a group of community leaders, anticipating the brutal layoffs, began meeting informally about what could be done. They called the gathering ‘Sudbury 2001.’

Sudbury: Construction underway on infrastructure for Vale’s $750M Copper Cliff mine expansion – by Erik White (CBC News Sudbury – November 19, 2019)

November 22, 2019

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

New expanded Copper Cliff mine expected to open in 2021

Construction is underway in Copper Cliff on a set of massive ventilation fans to supply fresh and warm air to miners below. It’s part of Vale’s $750 million refurbishing of the existing Copper Cliff north and south mines.

Danica Pagnutti, the mining company’s senior advisor on corporate and Indigenous affairs, says workers will be tackling new ore bodies beneath Copper Cliff beginning in 2021.

“This is really about the future of our operations here in Sudbury. It represents a major expansion and new sources of ore for our operations, so this is a very important project for us,” she says. “We’re going to need 200 miners and 200 tradespeople and a whole host of supporting roles. It’s a great time at Vale and we are hiring.”

Could there be a second Sudbury mining camp? – Staff (Northern Ontario Business – November 15, 2019)

November 15, 2019

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Inventus Mining claims “breakthrough” that opens “new exploration frontier” in Sudbury Basin

An exploration company probing for nickel and other base metals on the outer fringes of the Sudbury Basin is claiming a “breakthrough” on one of its properties.

Inventus Mining Corp. said it’s found the same kind of rock formations on its Sudbury 2.0 property that’s known to host Sudbury’s “world class” nickel, copper and platinum group metals deposits.

In a Nov. 14 news release, Toronto-based Inventus heralds the “opening of a new exploration frontier” in the basin, based on the discovery of three offset dykes and a breccia belt more than 14 kilometres long.