Sudbury Basin – Page 61 – Republic of Mining

[Sudbury mine] Closure part of global trend: Analyst – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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

Nickel analyst Stefan Ioannu of Haywood Securities in Toronto is not surprised by Vale’s decision Thursday to close the 100- year-old Frood Mine in Sudbury.

” You have deposits and greater depths right now,” he said. “The deeper you go, the more expensive it is to get to stuff. Maybe ( Vale) can squeeze a little more out if it sells at $10 (a pound), a little less at $7.”

Ioannu said the Frood decision is one of many being made across the globe right now by the mining industry. “One of the big things we have been seeing coming out of the majors is a focus,” he said. “They will be shutting some of their big projects and focusing on regular operations to cut costs. It’s an interesting shift.

“It’s very difficult for the big companies to justify developing things with the (nickel) price now.” Ioannu said while he sees nickel prices rising to US$10 a pound, they could bottom out at $6. The reason they will rebound, said the mining analyst, is that high-grade nickel pig iron deposits in Indonesia — which could be turned on and off quickly and flood the nickel markets — are mostly gone and only low grade ones remain.

[Sudbury Vale] Operations suspended – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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

The first shoe has dropped at Vale’s Greater Sudbury operations as part of the company’s new “self-sustaining” push. Vale announced Thursday it is suspending operations at the Frood section of Stobie Mine by the end of the year. The 85 employees affected will be transferred to other operations.

“No employees will be laid off as a result of this decision,” said Vale spokeswoman Angie Robson. “While this move will affect approximately 85 employees, those employees working at Frood will be deployed to other areas of the operation, and all commitments under our collective agreements will be honoured.”

Robson said the move was a hard business decision that had to be made in difficult times. “Current market volatility, declining metal prices and falling demand for our products requires decisive action to ensure our business in Sudbury remains sustainable and robust throughout this challenging economic cycle,” she said. “Frood has a rich history and has been integral to our success for more than a century.

“However, after more than 100 years of operations, Frood is a remnant area that has low value ore and declining grades. In (times of ) lower metal prices, we are actually mining at a loss. At the same time, the area requires high capital investments in order to sustain production, so while the grades are going down, our mining costs there are increasing.

[Sudbury] LU president back for second term – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

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

Despite opposition from professors, Laurentian University president Dominic Giroux received unanimous support from the school’s board of governors for a second term that will extend to June 30, 2019.

The board endorsed the unanimous recommendation of the Presidential Review Committee to renew his term as the school’s president and vice-chancellor.

“The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive about the university’s accomplishments and progress since Dominic Giroux joined us,” Floyd Laughren, chair of Laurentian’s board of governors, said in a release. “Our board is extremely pleased with president Giroux’s performance and we are excited by the compelling vision that has been presented for the years ahead. We are fully confident that president Giroux is the leader to make the vision a reality.”

But not everyone at the university was pleased with the decision to give Giroux a second five-year term as president. A vote from the university’s faculty, before the Presidential Review Committee’s recommendation, did not go in his favour. Giroux took that in stride, however.

[Ned Goodman] Donor hopes to create world’s best mining school – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury Northern Life – October 16, 2012)

May 7, 2013October 18, 2012

http://www.northernlife.ca/

LU names mining school for Ned Goodman

Ned Goodman said his goal is nothing less than to make the Goodman School of Mines the best mining school in the world.

Laurentian officially named its new mining school after the CEO of Dundee Corporation Oct. 15 after the Goodman Family Foundation made a large contribution to an endowment fund set up for the mining school.

The contribution was made with the condition that any financial commitment, present or future, remains confidential.

However, Laurentian University president Dominic Giroux said the Goodmans’ contribution, along with others, brings the university more than halfway to the endowment fund’s financial goal of $20 million.

Goodman is a geologist, securities analyst, portfolio manager and senior executive, and has invested in many mining operations.

He was the driving force of the Dundee group of financial companies, which grew under his family’s leadership from a $300 million base to a $50 billion mutual fund entity.

Sudbury must become ‘self-sustaining’ – Vale by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – October 18, 2012)

October 18, 2012

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

Vale’s Sudbury operations must become “self-sustaining,” according to a letter sent to the company’s global operations Wednesday by Peter Poppinga, CEO of Vale Canada Ltd.

What that will mean to the company’s Sudbury operations and its 4,000-plus employees will become clear by the end of the week.

“In every area that we operate, there will be conversations with employees about specific actions that can be taken at those sites,” said Cory McPhee, Vale’s vice-president of corporate affairs. “Sudbury is no different.”

McPhee said Vale needs to make changes to improve efficiencies and control costs, while facing a difficult base metals market hampered by weak prices and demand.

He said representatives from the company will be speaking with employees across its global operations, including in Sudbury, before the end of the week to go over exactly what they mean by becoming more “self-sustaining.”

Goodman makes historic donation [to Laurentain’s School of Mines] – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – October 16, 2012)

October 16, 2012

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

A substantial donation to Laurentian University’s upcoming School of Mines will help propel the school to the top of the world heap in the discipline, said Laurentian President Dominic Giroux.

On Monday the university announced that an “historical gift” from Ned Goodman, the president and CEO of the Dundee Corporation, has put the school ahead of the halfway mark to create a $20 million endowment fund for the new mining school.

“To have the Goodman name associated with Laurentian University is exceptional,” Giroux said.

Through the Dundee group of financial companies Goodman helped build a $50-billion mutual fund entity. After he was laid off by Noranda in 1960 he went on to get his MBA from the University of Toronto and eventually became an important financier of Canada’s mining industry.

To honour Goodman and his donation, the exact amount of which has not been disclosed, the new school will be officially named The Goodman School of Mines. “It’s a school that needs the investment,” Goodman said about Laurentian. “It’s in the right place and it has the right background and it should be one of the best mining schools in the world, but it’s not there yet.”

[Sudbury] ‘Pro-Cliffs’ group worried – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 5, 2012)

October 5, 2012

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

A group of concerned citizens, comprised of people who are all “pro-Cliffs,” will hold a public meeting Oct. 15 in Capreol to strike a formal committee to hold the company’s and government’s feet to the fire on the issue of environmental health and safety.

Retired mining health and safety activist Homer Seguin said half a dozen citizens, including former longtime New Democrat MPP Elie Martel, have been meeting to discuss Cliffs Natural Resources’ plan to build a ferrochrome processing plant north of Capreol.

“We’re pro-Cliffs,” said Seguin, “because the jobs are welcome. But first and foremost comes safety.” Cliffs announced in May it plans to build a $1.8-billion smelter at the former Moose Mountain Mine site to process chromite ore the Clevelandbased company will mine in the Ring of Fire.

The committee’s support will come with the condition that the plant be built and operated so as not to adversely affect the health of its employees, and the air and water in the city, said Seguin. Little is known about chromite processing, said Seguin, and that’s something at which a formalized committee would examine.

Mining inquiry gains momentum – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury Northern Life – October 2, 2012)

October 3, 2012

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

150 pack Steelworkers Hall for forum

Wendy Fram said she was overwhelmed by the turnout at a forum examining the need for a mining inquiry at the Steelworkers Hall Oct. 1. About 150 people, many of them friends of her late son, Jordan Fram, packed the hall, and stood at the back when the chairs ran out. Jordan, along with his co-worker Jason Chenier, died in a mining accident at Vale’s Stobie Mine last year.

“I find that there’s already support to help us deal with this inquiry,” Wendy said. “Hopefully this is going to work for us. I’m going to try to stay as positive as I can and work hard and get this going.”

During the event, Wendy was elected chair of a new group called Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support (MINES), which will push for a mining inquiry. Her daughter, Briana Fram, was elected the group’s secretary. Miner Jodi Blasutti along with Cheryl Dufoe, whose son, Lyle Dufoe, died in a mining accident in Timmins in 2007, will act as co-vice-chairs.

Those at the event were invited to sign up as members of the group. “It’s my first time ever being a chair of a committee,” Fram said. “I’ll do my best. I have my daughter for support, which is a great support. My husband works at Vale, so he has a lot of great input as well.”

ESSAY:Staring down my ghosts in Northern Ontario [Sudbury mining] – by Sandra Chmara (Globe and Mail – October 3, 2012)

October 3, 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

Little is left of the old nickel town of Victoria Mines: a few metres of crushed slag that once formed a road; sunken foundations, bits of wood. Now a ghost town in Ontario’s Sudbury Basin, it is where my family’s Canadian story began, around the turn of the last century.

Since my father’s death, my heart has been balled into a fist. I thought that coming to look at this place might ease the grip. As we exit the car, we spread out and take measure. Granite tumours bulge: unwelcoming, treacherous for my elderly mother and aunt and uncle. My husband and I keep our little boy close.

Occupying this ground demands an almost sepulchral reverence. It is a haunted space, even if its ghosts exist only in my awareness that life once burgeoned here and then was gone.

Scattered in the scrub are morsels of ore and the occasional verdigris shock of copper-cobalt. Evidence of the living – broken jars, a wooden cross, shards of metal – lie hidden within a hissing ocean of weeds and grass.

[Sudbury Vale] Steelworkers prez disturbed by police decision – by Heidi Ulrichsen – (Sudbury Northern Life – September 14, 2012)

September 16, 2012

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

Police won’t lay charges in miners’ deaths

Steelworkers Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand said he’s “angry” Greater Sudbury Police have decided not to lay any charges against Vale in the deaths of two miners at Vale’s Stobie Mine June 8, 2011.

Charges could have been laid under the Westray Bill, which makes organizations criminally liable when they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent injuries and deaths on their property.

Insp. Todd Zimmerman of the Greater Sudbury Police said police “conducted a thorough investigation, and we did not reach a threshold of criminality.” There was “no criminal negligence found on the behalf of anyone,” he said.

Jordan Fram and Jason Chenier were killed when a run of muck unexpectedly came out of the ore pass close to where they were working at the 3,000-foot level of the mine, burying them and killing them instantly.

Vale puts railveyor to test – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – September 2012)

September 13, 2012

Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal is a magazine that showcases the mining expertise of North Bay, Timmins and Sudbury.

The successful demonstration of Sudbury-based Rail-Veyor Technologies’ innovative material handling system at Vale’s 114 Orebody could lead to a significant change in mine design, enabling smaller openings, improved safety and faster advance rates.

A surface demonstration of the rail-veyor at Vale’s Stobie Mine proved that the technology worked, but it had to be put to the test in an actual mining operation before the company could specify it for future mine developments.

“We proved the ore-handling capability of the rail-veyor at Stobie,” said Alex Henderson, Vale’s general manager of underground technology for base metals. “This demonstration is more about how we integrate it into our development and production processes.”

Assuming the final verdict is positive – and all indications suggest it will be – the rail-veyor can be classified as proven technology and considered as an option in feasibility studies for new mine developments in Sudbury and elsewhere across Vale’s global footprint.