Recession hits steel in Sault, mining supply in Sudbury (CBC News Sudbury – October 22, 2015)

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

‘Commodity prices better change pretty soon,’ Sudbury mining supply official says

While there is some debate about whether or not Canada is in a recession, people in northeastern Ontario are feeling a downturn, with hundreds of layoffs over the last few months.

Some of the largest layoffs have been in the steel industry at Sault Ste. Marie. Essar Steel Algoma has laid off 100 workers, with notice that 80 more could come soon.

The other large local steelmaker, Tenaris Tubes, already has 270 workers on layoff and at the end of the month, a temporary shutdown will some of the remaining 230 employees on temporary lay-off, but the company expects to start calling them all back to work in late November.

Russell Rancourt was laid off at Tenaris in February and was hoping to get called back. He’s looked for other work in the region and out west, but has found nothing.

Read more

Nickel Rim miners return to work today – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – October 23, 2015)

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

It will be with heavy hearts and no doubt an eerie sense of their own vulnerability that miners return to work at Glencore’s Nickel Rim South facility near Skead tomorrow. Operations were scheduled to resume Friday, according to a Reuters report, after being shut down Tuesday due to the underground fatality of employee Richard Pigeau.

The worker, 54, was killed when he was struck by a piece of equipment, the Ministry of Labour reported. According to CBC, the accident occurred 5,000 feet below the surface.

Little else is known, however, about the circumstances of the tragedy, pending the outcome of a Ministry of Labour investigation and a separate probe that will be carried out jointly between Mine Mill 598/Unifor and the employer.

No funeral arrangements had been made publicly available by Thursday and the family of the late miner were asking that their privacy be respected in this difficult time. 

Read more

Few details released about Sudbury miner’s death – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – October 22, 2015)

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

The worker killed underground Tuesday at Nickel Rim South Mine near Skead has been identified as Richard Pigeau, but neither his employer nor his union were willing to say much yesterday about the miner’s life, or death.

“We just contacted the family, so don’t want to be disrespectful to them, because they’re just making arrangements right now,” said Anne Marie MacInnis, president of Mine Mill Local 598/Unifor.

In a release issued Wednesday, the local expressed “great sadness” over the loss of a “union brother,” and extended “sincerest condolences” to the family, friends and co-workers of Pigeau.

MacInnis said the union would have more comments to make once the Ministry of Labour releases the site and health and safety committees operated through Mine Mill and Glencore are able to begin their own investigation into the tragedy.

Read more

[Sudbury Glencore] Fatality at Nickel Rim Mine – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 20, 2015)

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

A Ministry of Labour inspector was on the way at noon to the scene of a fatality at Glencore’s Nickel Rim South Mine.

An employee, a member of Mine Mill Local 598/Unifor, was killed when a piece of machinery fell on him. The union represents production and maintenance workers.

Labour ministry spokeswoman Janet Deline confirmed a worker died this morning at the mine owned by Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, a Glencore company.

Deline said paramedics were on the scene and Greater Sudbury Police Service officials were “holding” the site of the accident.

The company issued a statement a few hours after the accident, saying: “We confirm a fatality underground at our Nickel Rim South Mine this morning.

Read more

Inuit-owned firm explores for minerals in western Nunavut (Nunatsiaq News – October 15, 2015)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Nunavut Resources Corp. teams ups with Transition Metals Corp.

An alliance between the Inuit-owned Nunavut Resource Corp. and a Sudbury, Ont.-based company called Transition Metals Corp. has turned up potential sites for gold and base metal exploration following aerial surveys on Inuit-owned land done this past summer, Transition Metals said Oct. 8 in a news release.

In April 2013, the two firms struck a deal to work together for five years hunting for potential mineral deposits within an area known as the Izok Corridor.

The Izok Corridor is an area stretching from Izok Lake to Coronation Gulf that’s the proposed location for a moribund scheme promoted by MMG Ltd. to build a chain of lead-zinc mines linked by an all-weather road.

MMG halted that project in 2013 because of low metal prices and there’s no sign that MMG will restart it any time soon.

Read more

Sudbury PoV: Job losses cause for concern – Don MacDonald (Sudbury Star – October 14, 2015)

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

The numbers are depressing — 4,200 jobs gone in Greater Sudbury since June, according to the latest figures from Statistics Canada. At the same time, Sudbury’s unemployment rate has jumped from 5.9 to 7.3 per cent.

StatsCan said Sudbury had 84,700 jobs in June; that number dropped to 81,700 in September.

It seems likely the bleeding will continue: in recent months, First Nickel announced it would close Lockerby Mine, while KGHM International will be shutting down its McCreedy West Mine. With that, several hundred jobs will be or have been lost.

The companies blame low metal prices, especially for nickel, for their decisions. Analysts earlier in 2015 had predicted nickel would be selling at $9 a pound or so by this time; instead, nickel is well below $5.

Now, there is speculation Glencore, another key employer in Sudbury, is looking at cutting nickel production.

Read more

Action against Vale rare: Mining watchdog – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 10, 2015)

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

The enforcement action Environment Canada took Thursday against Vale Canada Ltd. is very rare in Canada, says a spokeswoman for a mining watchdog group.

Environment Canada enforcement officers, with support from Royal Canadian Mounted Police, executed a search warrant at Vale’s engineering building Thursday. The warrant was part of an active Environment Canada investigation that began in November 2012, said Nathalie Huneault of Environment Canada.

The investigation relates to alleged violations of the general prohibition in the Fisheries Act, which prohibits the deposit of substances that are deleterious to fish into water frequented by fish, she said. Huneault said Environment Canada couldn’t comment further because the matter is under investigation.

Vale spokeswoman Angie Robson said Environment Canada was on site Thursday “collecting information related to alleged infractions under the Fisheries Act that allegedly occurred in 2012. Vale is co-operating fully in providing the information required.”

Read more

Police raid Vale office in Sudbury – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 9, 2015)

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

Three sources have told The Sudbury Star that police and Environment Canada officials raided Vale’s general engineering building in Sudbury on Thursday as part of an investigation into what one source said was a spill affecting fish and wildlife.

A source said Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Environment Canada employees spent four hours removing files, cabinets and computers with passwords from the Vale building on Lorne Street in Copper Cliff.

Another source said police and government officials seized all files, passwords and data from the environmental department, located in the engineering building.

“And they were collecting security cards after the employees left, so they couldn’t come back to the building,” said the Vale employee, who provided the information to The Sudbury Star on the condition of anonymity.

Vale’s Sudbury spokeswoman Angie Robson confirmed that Environment Canada was on site Thursday “collecting information related to alleged infractions under the Fisheries Act that allegedly occurred in 2012.

Read more

Sudbury played key role in [Physics] Nobel prize – by Liam Casey (Canadian Press/Sudbury Star – October 7, 2015)

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

A professor emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. — the former director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in northern Ontario — is a co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on tiny particles known as neutrinos.

Arthur McDonald was roused from sleep at about 5 a.m. on Tuesday by a phone call from the Nobel Prize committee telling him the news.

“I was a little surprised,” he said in a telephone interview from Kingston, laughing with joy. “I am overwhelmed, but excited.”

The first thing the 72-year-old did as a Nobel Prize winner was hug his wife. “Thank you,” he told her. McDonald and Japanese scientist Takaaki Kajita were cited for the discovery of neutrino oscillations and their contributions to experiments showing that neutrinos change identities.

“We were also able to determine that neutrinos do have a small mass and that’s something that wasn’t known before and it helps to place neutrinos in the laws of physics at a very fundamental level,” McDonald said.

Read more

Pacific trade deal good for Sudbury, says Slade -by PRESS RELEASE (Sudbury Northern Life – October 05, 2015)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement will benefit all of Canada but, we in Greater Sudbury with our strong resource and manufacturing sectors, will see many more doors opened for products and services produced here in Greater Sudbury with our new trading partners” says Fred Slade, Conservative Party of Canada candidate.

Canada’s Conservative Government has signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that will protect and create Canadian jobs, and grow every sector of our economy by giving Canadian businesses access to some of the most dynamic markets in the world.

The TPP is a 12-nation market of almost 800-million consumers with GDP of $28 trillion — over 14 times the size of Canada’s economy. Canada will now be the only G7 nation with free trade access to all of the US and Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific continents, that’s over 60 per cent of the world’s economy.

Since 2006, our government has concluded Free Trade Agreements with 44 countries, compared to only five when we took office. “Canada’s mining industry has been a strong advocate for liberalized trade and investment flows for many years,” stated Pierre Gratton, Mining Association of Canada’s (MAC) President and CEO in a release today.

Read more

World’s best coming to Sudbury for mining games – by Keith Dempsey (Sudbury Star – September 29, 2015)

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

The Nickel City will host the 2016 International Mines Rescue Competition. Hosted by Workplace Safety North and Ontario Mine Rescue, the event will bring mine rescue teams from around the world for the competition, which will be held from Aug. 19-Aug. 26.

Vale, Glencore, KGHM, Goldcorp and Drager are sponsoring the event.

“Quite frankly, the competition we’ll see is second to none,” Alex Gryska, Canada International Mines Rescue Competition co-ordinator, said. “If you take a look at this event, you’re going to have volunteers and full-timers (taking part), so you’ll have individuals that are in this event who are full-time mine rescue responders, so the level of capability will be extremely high.”

Hosting the International Mines Rescue Competition in Canada has been something Gryska has been chasing for years.

“I’ve been connected with the International Mines Rescue body since 2001, and my colleagues oversee mine rescue in their respective organizations, so I’ve been connected with them,” Gryska said.

Read more

Sudbury lakes centre developing educational video – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – September 25, 2015)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Sudbury’s Vale Living with Lakes Centre is developing an educational and promotional video designed to share the story of the city’s regreening success.

The story of Sudbury’s regreening, following decades of mining, has long been a shining example of environmental recovery. Now, the Vale Living with Lakes Centre is taking that message into the digital realm with a training and promotional video that will debut next fall.

An initiative led by research scientist Nadia Mykytczuk, the video features a series of vignettes that tell the Sudbury story from the start of the mining era, through the early days of the regreening efforts, and up to today’s advanced science research, and how all of it has helped researchers, miners and the greater community learn from the past.

Mykytczuk noted that the last compendium of the Sudbury story was the Green Book, which was compiled in 1995. But that format is now outdated, and many scientific gains have been made since then, requiring a new way for scientists to inform and engage their audience.

Read more

[Sudbury Basin] McCreedy closure likely won’t impact Victoria mine: Union – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – September 21, 2015)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

KGHM nickel mine to go into care and maintenance Oct. 1

KGHM’s Victoria Mine project should still move forward, despite the recent announcement the company will be closing its McCreedy West nickel mine in Levack next month, says a representative with United Steelworkers Local 2020.

“I know that Victoria is a big priority for KGHM, and I think that project will still be going ahead,” said Myles Sullivan, an area co-ordinator with the United Steelworkers. “It’s a higher grade deposit. It’s a very good deposit, and that will be going ahead from what I’ve been told.”

Sullivan confirmed over the weekend that KGHM’s small McCreedy West Mine will go into care and maintenance on Oct. 1. NorthernLife.ca is awaiting a call back from KGHM regarding Victoria Mine.

The mine’s closure will displace 25 United Steelworkers members, who could apply for jobs at the nearby Morrison Mine – also part of the Levack complex – but would in turn displace workers there with less seniority.

Read more

Times tough for miners all over – by Reuters/Star Staff (Sudbury Star – September 22, 2015)

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

Europe’s No. 2 copper producer Poland’s KGHM said on Monday it would put its McCreedy West copper mine in Sudbury on care and maintenance, the latest victim of sinking prices as worries about demand from China fuel the biggest market rout in years.

Copper prices plunged to six-year lows below $5,000 a tonne last month. They have since recovered to just under $5,300 a tonne, but that’s still about 18 per cent below the 2015 peak.

Also feeding the downward spiral were expectations of a small surplus this year and a larger one in 2016.

Major miners have up until recently mostly refrained from cutting production, but prices have now fallen to levels where some operations are no longer economically viable.

Mining giants Glencore and Freeport have waved the white flag and announced plans to suspend some of their copper production.

Read more

KGHM to shut down McCreedy mine: Union – by Ben Leeson (Sudbury Star – September 21, 2015)

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

In the face of weak commodity prices, KGHM International will shut down the McCreedy West Mine next month, the union representing representing workers there told the Sudbury Star on Sunday.

Myles Sullivan, area co-ordinator for the United Steelworkers, said the company has informed members the mine will be placed under care and maintenance effective Oct. 1, affecting about 25 employees.

“In total, there’s about 40 of our members that are being laid off locally,” Sullivan said.

“It’s really hard. Things are tough in mining right now, with the price of nickel and copper and everything being low. We kind of hoped the (lower) dollar would help offset some of that and I’m sure it’s helping, but it’s still not enough.”

Based on seniority and qualifications, Sullivan said, some workers from McCreedy may have the opportunity to work at the nearby Morrison deposit. Attempts to contact a KGHM representative for comment on the weekend were not immediately successful.

Read more