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Big Event draws big names in mining – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – May 29, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Everything’s bigger in Timmins. OK, maybe that’s not exactly how the saying goes. But for this week anyway, it rings true.

True to its name, The Big Event, being held this weekend at the McIntyre Community Centre, has grown to become Canada’s largest annual mining expo.

“It’s a big deal,” said Mark Utting, Lake Shore Gold’s vice-president of investor relations, as the McIntyre Ballroom began to fill up prior to the opening banquet on Tuesday evening. “It started about five years ago around the centennial celebration for the city. It’s great, and this room will be packed. It’s been packed every year.”

Utting was just one of the guest speakers representing some of the more exciting gold mining projects in the region. “It puts a very bright light on the community for a few days,” said Utting. “People outside of Timmins know about it, and it’s just become part of the city.

“I go literally around the world meeting investors and stuff. The first time I ever went to Switzerland, I brought a map to show where Timmins is. They all know where Timmins is. It’s one of the best-known gold camps in the world. It has that reputation anyways, but to have a show like this just puts an exclamation point on it.”

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Good reasons to celebrate mining – by Wayne Snider (Timmins Daily Press – May 29, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – This is a week of celebration in Timmins. No, there hasn’t been a new stat holiday added to the calendar. But there are plenty of reasons for Northerners to show pride.

The Big Event Mining Expo takes over the McIntyre Community Centre and will be the highlight of Mining Week in Timmins.

While cosmopolitan urbanites in southern Ontario may scoff, there are plenty of reasons for the mining community to blow its own horn. While other economic sectors have struggled in recent years, the mining industry has been growing by leaps and bounds.

Consider the follow data provided by the Ontario Mining Association:

• In 2011, mining was a $10.7-billion industry in Ontario, up from $5.9 billion in 2002, representing growth of 80%.

• In 2011, there were more than 330 companies actively exploring minerals in Ontario, spending an estimated $5.4 billion.

• The sector is a big plus for exporting. About 72% of Ontario mining customers are located outside the province. Conversely, the sector is great for local suppliers. An estimated 74% of Ontario’s mine suppliers are based in the province.

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[Timmins] Hollinger pit project ‘on track’ – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – May 28, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Representatives from Goldcorp gave Timmins city council a tiny glimpse into the future of the Hollinger Mine open-pit project on Monday.

A handful of conceptual renderings of eventual Hollinger Lake were presented by general manager Marc Lauzier and mine superintendent Paul Miller as part of the report.

But the news everyone at council really wanted to hear was that the goals surrounding the Hollinger Project haven’t changed, despite nervous times in the gold market.

“I’m not going to lie to you, there’s a lot of questions around the community about what’s going on, with the price of gold declining,” said Lauzier. “Of course, it’s been steadily around $1,380, $1,400, $1,350 (per ounce), so people have been worried about that.

“I had a conference call with our COO and our VP of operations on Friday night, and I’m proud to report that after that call, we remain committed to doing this project,” he said. “We’re committed to returning it for safe public use, however, we’re going to do so in a fiscally responsible manner because we have to. Nothing’s changed, really. We’re going to keep our guys employed until we get our permit.

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Mine find drenched in prehistory – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – May 27, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Timmins residents got the chance to see what discovery here has scientists worldwide all abuzz. It is billion-year-old water found 2.4 kilometres underground within the Kidd Mine that has caused such a stir.

A sample of it was exhibited in a jar at Timmins Square Saturday as part of Glencore-Xstrata Kidd Operations’ display for Mining Week.

In 2011, while drilling at the most extreme levels of the Kidd Mine, geologists discovered what is estimated to be billion-year-old water, which attracted attention from national media, scientists and NASA.

“We are looking at a sample of water that was collected at the 8,000 level,” said Pete Calloway, chief geologist for Kidd Mine. “The general thought right now is that this is extremely old water. We aren’t sure how old quite yet, we are leaving it up to the professors at the University of Toronto to make that determination.”

Calloway can draw his own conclusions about the nature of the water, but he’ll let the brains at the university draw the official conclusions. “What we believe is that this water has been trapped within the fractures of the mine and it could be as old as the mine, (mineral formation) which is 2.7 billion years old,” said Calloway. “As we do our work underground and drill the ore body to find out things like grade, tonnage and so on, so that we can plan the mine around the drill holes, we were coming into micro fractures and different faults throughout the mine which in turn liberated the water into the drill hole.”

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Layoffs at Lake Shore Gold [in Timmins] – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – May 25, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Despite laying off approximately 35 employees on Friday, Lake Shore Gold Corp. remains confident in its main commodity.

“We have a lot of confidence in the future of gold and we expect the price to go back up,” said Mark Utting, Lake Shore Gold’s vice-president, investor relations. “You just have to manage your business to be successful in the current price environment.”

The company employed “about 560” workers prior to Friday’s cuts. With localized operations in the region including the Timmins West Mine, the Bell Creek Mine, the Fenn-Gib Project and a rapidly expanding mill site, a large majority of the company’s employees are Timmins residents.

“You never want to do this, and it’s not something you do lightly,” said Utting. “But if you look at our company, we’re very proud of the fact that we’ve grown from 10 employees in 2007 to over 500 employees, even after these reductions today.

“The gold price is down over $250 an ounce so far this year, and we’re a rapidly growing company that’s currently in the heaviest part of its capital spending period. We’re investing a lot of capital in Timmins and as a company like that, we have to be responsive to changes in market conditions.

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World’s oldest flowing water found deep in Timmins mine – by CBC News (May 15, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/thunderbay/

Water as much as 2.64 billion years old has chemistry that could support life

Water found in a deep, isolated reservoir in Timmins, Ont., has been trapped there for 1.5 billion to 2.64 billion years — since around the time the first multicellular life arose on the planet — Canadian and British scientists say.

The water pouring out of boreholes 2.4 kilometres below the surface in the northern Ontario copper and zinc mine is older than any other free-flowing water ever discovered. It is rich in dissolved gases such as hydrogen and methane that could theoretically provide support for microbial life, the researchers report in a paper published Wednesday online in the journal Nature.

“What we can be sure of is that we have identified a way in which planets can create and preserve an environment friendly to microbial life for billions of years,” said a statement from Greg Holland, the Lancaster University geochemist who is the lead author of the study.

“This is regardless of how inhospitable the surface might be, opening up the possibility of similar environments in the subsurface of Mars.”

His Canadian co-authors included Barbara Sherwood Lollar and Georges Lacrampe-Couloume at the University of Toronto; Greg Slater at McMaster University in Hamilton; and Long Li, who is currently an assistant professor at the University of Alberta, but worked on the project while at the University of Toronto.

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Xstrata Kidd Operations wins the 2013 Timmins District Mine Rescue competition – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – May 10, 2013)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

The Mine Rescue Team from Xstrata Copper Kidd Operations has won the Timmins District Ontario Mine Rescue competition.

The winning team beat out a roster of four teams that included defending 2012 champions Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines, Lake Shore Gold and Dumas mining contractors in the competition that was held this week at the Whitney Arena. The Kirkland Lake district contest was also held in Timmins and it produced a separate winning team.

The winning Xstrata team was captained by Jason Leger and included team members Shawn Rideout, Danny Morin, Ted Hanley, Guy Champagne, Marc Villars and Stewart Labine.

This is the fourth time Xstrata has won the honours since 2007. Xstrata and Goldcorp have been seesawing back and forth with the top honours in recent years.

The annual event is held to let the mine rescuers from local mining companies pit their skills against each other for local bragging rights, and also for the right to represent Timmins at the all Ontario mine rescue competition, which will be held in June in Windsor, Ontario. This will include the district winners from Red Lake, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Marathon, Goderich and Kirkland Lake.

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Ontario Mine Rescue district competition on in Timmins – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – May 7, 2013)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

The annual mine rescue competitions for the Timmins District and also the Kirkland Lake District, are taking place this week in Timmins at the Whitney Arena. The Timmins event will feature a local mine contracting company fielding a competition team for the first time.

The events are held each year in mining districts across the province to let mine rescue teams hone their skills, to ensure a high level of standardized training and to give winning teams the bragging rights for another year.

Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines is the current winning team in Timmins, having won the honours in the 2012 competition. Kirkland Lake Gold won the honours for its district, also at the 2012 competition.

The 2013 event began Monday morning with the technicians competition. Each mine rescue team has a technician who is expected to troubleshoot any problems that arise with the specialized equipment the teams use when they carry out their work in hostile underground situations.

The current defending champ for that role is Erik Barr of Goldcorp who last spring won the Timmins District technician’s trophy for the third year in a row. Barr also won the all-Ontario title for best technician.

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Lake Shore Gold readies for growth – by Liz Cowan (Northern Ontario Business – May 10, 2013)

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.

Lake Shore Gold in Timmins is expecting 2013 to be a breakout year. “We are on track now to really transition from junior exploration company to a producer,” said president and CEO Tony Makuch at a presentation in April. He was addressing an audience of more than 150 at a luncheon put on by the Canadian Institute of Mining’s (CIM) Northern Gateway Branch in North Bay.

“We built everything from scratch, starting with greenfield discoveries. We have raised and invested close to $650 million since 2008. And, we are building a mine. We have had a lot of challenges but some big successes,” he said.

With 525 employees, and about 200 contractors, the company operates the Timmins West Mine, which is about 20 kilometres west of Timmins; the Bell Creek Mine, about 20 kilometres northeast of the city; and the Bell Creek mill. The Fenn-Gibb Project, 60 kilometres east of Timmins, has the potential to become an open-pit operation.

“Since 2008 we have discovered seven million ounces. Our challenge is not just to discover, but to show we are profitable. We know there is still a lot of gold there and we can find it, but we have to demonstrate how to turn it into a profitable business,” he said.

Last year, the company met its guidance, achieved a lot of development success, mined and processed 720,000 tons of ore, developed more than 2,000 metres of mine ramps and produced 86,000 ounces of gold.

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Work-related fatalities provide hard lessons in safety – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 29, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Across Canada, and certainly in the mining heartlands of Northern Ontario, people solemnly recognized the National Day of Mourning on Sunday.

In Ontario alone, there were 298 work-related fatalities in 2012. More than 238,000 claims were made by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) on behalf of sick, injured or deceased workers.

In the City with a Heart of Gold, the Timmins and District Labour Council organized a short but emotional ceremony for the public at the Miner’s Memorial, located in the regal shadow of the McIntyre Mine.

Tears were shed for those lost. Many of those present had been affected by the loss of family members or friends due to mine-related accidents or illnesses. There was also a great show of pride for how far workplace safety and training has come, even from just a few years ago.

Carole Lamoureux-Chaylt is an advocate for the Office of the Worker Adviser. She spoke at the Day of Mourning ceremony in Timmins on Sunday.

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Documentary examines Del Villano [1956-59] bear hunt – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – April 22, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Timmins is a community that is built upon stories of heroism, bravery, ingenuity and downright strangeness.

From Sandy McIntyre to Maggie Buffalo, the snippets of Timmins past are wide spread and deeply rooted. But none of the stories transcended the borders of the community and the country quite like the tale of one mayor and his determination to see the Queen’s guard look their best marching in front of Buckingham Palace.

Leo Del Villano served as Mayor of Timmins for many years. Between 1956 and 1959 he gained international fame for having organized the largest bear hunt in Ontario’s history.

“I am looking at an overall perspective on Black Bear hunting and management in Ontario and as I had been going through a number of newspaper articles, I stumbled across Leo Del Villano’s story,” said Michael Commito, a PhD candidate from the Department of History at McMaster University.

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Angus disappointed with lack of [Ring of Fire railroad] plan – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 11, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Members of the federal opposition were taking shots at a government “pipe-dream” this week – and for once it had nothing to do with oil sands.

MP Charlie Angus (NDP–Timmins-James Bay) said he was upset to look through the federal budget and see only cuts to rail service across the country.

He was particularly upset about the lack of mention of the James Bay Port Authority. The idea of a central, federally owned rail and infrastructure corporation — potentially located in the Moosonee region — was the source of much discussion within Northern municipalities, the federal government, and worker’s unions alike over the past year.

“I’m shocked,” Angus said. “I looked through the budget and there’s really no plan for Northern Ontario. One of the big promises being floated was to develop this James Bay Port Authority, and it was being proposed as a way of helping save Northern rail infrastructure. So what happened, where is it?”

On the heels of the provincial Liberals’ decision to sell off the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) in March 2012, followed by the cancellation of the Northland passenger train service in September 2012, there was uproar in Northern Ontario about the perceived lack of transparency and consultation.

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Angus disappointed with lack of plan – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 11, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Members of the federal opposition were taking shots at a government “pipe-dream” this week – and for once it had nothing to do with oil sands.

MP Charlie Angus (NDP–Timmins-James Bay) said he was upset to look through the federal budget and see only cuts to rail service across the country.

He was particularly upset about the lack of mention of the James Bay Port Authority. The idea of a central, federally owned rail and infrastructure corporation — potentially located in the Moosonee region — was the source of much discussion within Northern municipalities, the federal government, and worker’s unions alike over the past year.

“I’m shocked,” Angus said. “I looked through the budget and there’s really no plan for Northern Ontario. One of the big promises being floated was to develop this James Bay Port Authority, and it was being proposed as a way of helping save Northern rail infrastructure. So what happened, where is it?”

On the heels of the provincial Liberals’ decision to sell off the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) in March 2012, followed by the cancellation of the Northland passenger train service in September 2012, there was uproar in Northern Ontario about the perceived lack of transparency and consultation.

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Tragic lesson in [mine] safety – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – April 5, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – By sharing her family’s pain, Lisa Kadosa hopes others can learn from it and avoid a similar tragedy. Kadosa’s father was killed in a mining accident in Sudbury seven years ago. She believes workplace fatalities are frequently the result of avoidable shortcuts.

“We do it all the time. We skip little steps because we think we are invincible. I think by seeing that this does happen, and having a real person up there with tears in their eyes because they’re having to deal with this, can make people really think the next time they’re going to overlook a step.”

Kadosa was one of the keynote speakers at the third-annual Health and Safety Conference put on by the Timmins Regional Labour-Management Joint Health & Safety Committee at the Timmins Inn & Suites Thursday.

Since her father’s death, Kadosa has travelled across country, frequently invited to speak at workplace safety conferences. Kadosa’s father, Robert Nesbitt, was killed at the 2,600 level underground at the Vale Inco Stobie Mine in 2006.

What made his death particularly perplexing was the fact it was the result of what was then a common practice. “Nobody expected a common practice to kill somebody who had been doing the same job for 37 years,” she said.

“There is a sling you use to attach a portable stand to the bucket in a scoop when you transport it from your different sites. That sling is to be removed before you use it.

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Tories, NDP fighting over FedNor – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 3, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – A war of words being waged over the federal government’s plan to support economic development in Northern Ontario.

Due to a lack of information regarding the 2013 budget, that’s about all we know. On Tuesday, the NDP sent out a press release denouncing the ruling Conservatives for “slashing economic development investment in Northern Ontario.”

It stated that FedNor (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario) was facing cuts in the 2013 budget – from $73 million in 2012 to $60.3 million by 2014.

With the government seeking ways to balance the federal budget, MP Charlie Angus (NDP – Timmins-James Bay) said, “There is no real rationalization for trying to get us out of a slow economy by cutting an economic investment.

“FedNor is a major stimulus for getting new business starts, for getting companies re-tooled, so it pays itself off because it’s a driver of the economy. For the Conservatives to be taking a serious whack at economic development investment in the North, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

Angus said funding from FedNor is essential to allowing businesses in Northern Ontario to compete with others based in more opportune locations and regions.

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