United States Mining – Page 122

US funds afoot in junior space – Roundup talk – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – January 30, 2014)

January 30, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

We check in on sentiment about the junior market at the AME BC Roundup conference in Vancouver BC.

VANCOUVER, BC (MINEWEB) – I’ve had a lot of where-is-this-junior-market-going conversations in the past three days here at the Roundup conference in Vancouver BC. As at the recent Cambridge International VRIC show there appears to be a small pickup in optimism about junior market.

It’s not euphoria. Far from it. There’s still lots of healthy scepticism.

I bumped into a consulting geologist, Andrew Abraham with Paradigm Shift 3D Geological Consulting, on the way into the conference this morning and he noted that at so many recent conferences there was a similar buzz. Only, afterwards, it invariably soured. He recalled following up once positive sounding leads only to get non-committals: sorry, we still don’t have any cash to spend.

There have been a spat of financings in recent weeks, however. And that has not escaped many people’s attention here. Many here also take that as a good sign.

Lack of critical minerals processing capacity U.S. ‘Achilles heel’ – Wyden – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – January 29, 2014)

January 29, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

U.S. Senate leaders say the nation must address inadequate U.S. mining processing capacity as well as promoting domestic mining of critical and strategic minerals.

RENO (MINEWEB) – During a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday on S. 1600, the Critical Minerals Policy Act of 2013, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, noted, “A crucial but too often neglected part of this [U.S. critical minerals] supply conversation is mineral processing.”

“Although mining is an important part of the supply equation, and S. 1600 encourages federal agencies to expedite permitting for new critical minerals extraction, it is the lack of processing capacity—transforming the raw materials that we pull out of the ground into the high-purity compounds needed for manufacturing—it is that challenge that is my concern and the concern of many experts,” he observed.

Opposition to Critical Minerals Policy Act is misguided – by Colin T. Hayes (Alaska Journal of Commerce – January 9, 2014)

January 29, 2014

http://www.alaskajournal.com/

Colin T. Hayes is an executive vice president at McBee Strategic Consulting and formerly served as senior professional staff to Sen. Lisa Murkowski on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources.

As someone deeply familiar with Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s leadership on the “Critical Minerals Policy Act,” John Kemp’s Dec. 9 Reuters column criticizing the bill struck me as a cynically misguided reaction to her important work.

Sen. Murkowski introduced the legislation in order to, as she put it, “keep the United States competitive and begin the process of modernizing our federal mineral policies.” This is a laudable goal and an important process, particularly as our foreign reliance increases for materials needed to build semiconductors, skyscrapers, and everything in between.

In Kemp’s view, however, the bill “deserves to die” because it would authorize new federal funding that he views as a sop to “special interests.” With all due respect, he’s wrong.

Freeport, Newmont Say Indonesian Rules Infringe on Pacts – by Liezel Hill (Bloomberg News – January 23, 2014)

January 23, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX) and Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM), the largest U.S. miners, said new Indonesian rules on metal export duties infringe on contracts they have with the government.

Indonesia issued regulations on metal exports this month that curbed the shipping of unprocessed ore and placed duties on exports of copper concentrate, a semi-processed ore that’s shipped from mines to smelters. The rules have resulted in delays to obtain export permits, and Freeport plans to defer some production, according to the Phoenix-based company, the world’s biggest publicly traded copper producer.

The duties on copper, which begin at 25 percent and will rise to 60 percent by mid-2016, took Freeport by surprise, Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson said yesterday on a conference call with analysts. Indonesia, where the company operates its biggest mine, the Grasberg copper and gold operation, accounted for 19 percent of its third-quarter revenue, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Newmont’s Batu Hijau mine in the country contributed 6.8 percent of the miner’s total sales, the data show.

“It would get pretty rough for Freeport if Indonesia stuck to its guns on this,” Dan Rohr, an analyst at Morningstar Inc. in Chicago, said yesterday in a phone interview.

US miners hit out at Indonesia copper tax – by Ben Bland (Financial Times – January 23, 2014)

January 23, 2014

http://www.ft.com/home/us

Jakarta – US mining majors Freeport McMoRan and Newmont have hit out at Indonesia’s new tax on the export of copper concentrate, saying it is in breach of their long-standing contracts of work with the government.

Both companies, which employ thousands of people at their vast copper and gold mines in Indonesia, said on Wednesday they were in talks with the government to resolve the situation. Newmont said it was considering other remedies including “possible legal action”.

Indonesia, a major global exporter of metals such as bauxite, copper, and nickel, implemented a hotly-contested ban on the export of unprocessed mineral ores on January 12 as part of a drive to promote the development of a refining industry. Freeport and Newmont, which together contribute well over $1bn a year in taxes and royalties to the Indonesian government, initially won a reprieve, getting permission to export their partially processed copper concentrate until 2017.

But the finance ministry delivered a sting in the tail when it announced shortly afterwards that the companies would have to pay a progressive export tax that will start at 25 per cent and rise to 60 per cent by 2017.

New Copper Mine Under Construction in Lyon County [Nevada] – Paul Nelson (KTVN.com – January 20, 2014)

January 21, 2014

KTVN Channel 2 – Reno Tahoe News Weather, Video –

http://www.ktvn.com/

Nevada Copper is in the process of building an underground mine at Pumpkin Hollow – a rural area about 8 miles southeast of downtown Yerington.

“There’s nothing out there. There’s no protected habitat. There’s no environmental issues. It’s a perfect mining situation,” says Lyon County Manager Jeff Page. Once the 2,140 feet deep mine shaft is complete, they will start mining more than one billion pounds of high-grade copper.

“To us, this is like hitting the mother lode. This is amazing,” says Korin Barnes, Nevada Copper project geologist. Equipment will be assembled inside the mine shaft and will remove ore from about 35 miles of tunnels resembling an underground city.

Why Colombia halted a US company’s coal exports – by John Otis (Global Post – January 20, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/

Drummond Co. helped make Colombia the world’s No. 4 coal exporter. But after alleged dirty deeds, now Bogota’s punishing the Alabama firm.

BOGOTA, Colombia — By shipping 80,000 tons of coal per day, the Alabama-based Drummond Co. has helped turned Colombia into the world’s fourth largest coal exporter — but it’s always been a dirty business.

From Drummond’s Caribbean port near the resort city of Santa Marta, cranes loaded Drummond coal onto open-air barges for delivery to ships. This process kicked up coal dust that fouled the air, water and beaches, angering local fishermen, beachgoers, hotel owners and environmental activists.

But it all came to a halt Jan. 13 after the Colombian government ordered Drummond to stop loading coal until it meets new environmental standards. Under a Colombian law that took effect Jan. 1, coal must now be loaded directly onto ships via enclosed conveyor belts, a much cleaner system.

Duluth: Hearing on PolyMet mine project draws hundreds, for and against – by John Myers (Forum News Service – January 18, 2014)

January 20, 2014

http://www.twincities.com/

The main ballroom at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center had 1,500 chairs set up Thursday night for the public hearing on the PolyMet copper mine project, and nearly all of them were taken.

Another 100 or so people stood along the back wall for more than two hours of public testimony on the so-called Supplemental Joint Environmental Impact Statement, the environmental review document.

The hearing, the first of three, was hosted by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service — the regulatory agencies that ultimately will decide if the environmental review is officially “adequate” or not.

The audience appeared roughly split evenly, with half saying the science is sound and the project is ready to go ahead but half saying that too many questions loom unanswered.

PolyMet wants to build Minnesota’s first copper mining operation just north of Hoyt Lakes, an open pit mine and processing center that also would produce nickel, gold, platinum, palladium and other valuable minerals.

US EPA publishes ‘final chapter in very sad story’ – Northern Dynasty – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – January 16, 2014)

January 17, 2014

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The proponent of one of the largest undeveloped minerals resources left in the world, on Thursday said the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) final version of its Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment (BBWA) was “really the final chapter in a very sad story”.

TSX-listed Northern Dynasty Minerals, which has high hopes for developing the Pebble copper/gold/molybdenum project, in Alaska, said that while it acknowledged the EPA’s final published version of the BBWA, it believed that the EPA set out to do a flawed analysis of the project.

“Publication of the final watershed assessment is really the final chapter in a very sad story,” Northern Dynasty president and CEO Ron Thiessen said.

The company said that the EPA released drafts of the watershed assessment in May 2012, and April 2013, to widespread criticism about the report’s flawed methodology and findings, including from the state of Alaska, Alaska Native groups and expert peer reviewers commissioned by the federal agency.

1913 tragedy still resonates – by by Bill Lueders (Wisconsin Watch.org – December 17, 2013)

January 9, 2014

http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/

On Dec. 24, 1913, striking mine workers gathered with their families for a Christmas party at Italian Hall in Calumet, Mich. A man wearing a pin for a citizens group aligned with the mining companies entered the crowded second-floor room and shouted “Fire!”

Frightened partygoers rushed to the exit and tumbled down the stairs, on top of fallen others. Seventy-three people, including about 60 children, were killed. The community scrambled to find enough tiny caskets.
No one was ever charged for causing these deaths. A full century later, the event still haunts the Copper Country of the Upper Peninsula.

“I’ve gotten death threats,” relates Steve Lehto, a Michigan attorney who has written extensively on the tragedy. “I’ve been assaulted — literally — at book signings. I’ve had people come up to me and start screaming.”

Lehto understands and even sympathizes with such reactions, which he believes played into the decision to raze Italian Hall in 1984. The community just wants to forget; his duty as a historian is to not let that happen. “This is too important a story,” he says.

Striking Miners, and Children Who Paid the Price – by Neil Genzlinger (New York Times – December 16, 2013)

January 9, 2014

Red Metal: The Copper Country Strike of 1913 from Jonathan B. Silvers on Vimeo.

For more info about this event, click here: http://1913strike.wordpress.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/

‘Red Metal,’ on PBS, Revisits a 1913 Mining Strike

This has been a year of notable 50th anniversaries, but time didn’t begin in 1963. A sorrowful PBS documentary on Tuesday night notes the 100th anniversary of an event forgotten by much of the country but not by the people of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula: a miners’ strike that led to a catastrophic stampede in which 73 people died, most of them children.

The program, “Red Metal: The Copper Country Strike of 1913,” is fairly generic as documentaries go, but in an age of battles over the minimum wage and concern about the distribution of wealth, it resonates. An organizing effort by the Western Federation of Miners led miners in and around Calumet to strike in July, and the companies (the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company was the biggest) were unyielding.

Rio Tinto’s Michigan Nickel Mine Introduces Citizen Water Quality Testing Program – by Codi Kozacek (Circle of Blue – January 8, 2014)

January 9, 2014January 8, 2014

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/

Circle of Blue, founded in 2002 and based in Traverse City, Michigan, is a non-profit affiliate of the Pacific Institute, and the premier news organization in the world covering freshwater issues

Scheduled to begin production of nickel and copper next year, the Eagle Mine is the first new hard rock mine to open in northern Michigan’s Copper Country in decades. It’s so new that Chevy pickups need Kevlar tires to prevent blowouts on the sharp edges of stones not yet worn by mine traffic.

Puncture-proof tires, though, are hardly the only distinctions that separate the Eagle Mine from others in Michigan or across the United States. Two years ago, Rio Tinto, the mine’s developer, made an unusual proposition to the nonprofit Superior Watershed Partnership and Land Trust, a local environmental organization.

Upended by a decade of civic protest over opening the Eagle Mine in the ecologically sensitive Yellow Dog Plains, the London-based mining company, which operates all over the world, wanted to try something very different in Michigan’s wild and water-rich Upper Peninsula. It offered to fund the Watershed Partnership to monitor environmental parameters, like water and air quality.

Yesterday’s Top Story – U.S. mining death toll surges with metal/nonmetals losses–MSHA – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – January 7, 2014)

January 8, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Machinery and powered haulage equipment were the most common causes of accidents for both coal and metal/nonmetal operations in 2013, MSHA reported.

RENO (MINEWEB.COM) – Preliminary data released by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration said 42 miners died in work related accidents at U.S. mines last year, up from 36 mining fatalities in 2012.

While mining deaths were at a record low rate for the first nine months of last year, six coal miners and nine metal/nonmetal miners died in mining accidents during the fourth-quarter 2013, a significant increase from the same period of 2012 when four coal miners and two metal/nonmetal miners died.

In 2013 there were 20 coal mining and 22 metal/nonmetal mining fatalities, compared with 20 coal mining deaths and 16 metal/nonmetal mining deals in 2012. Four mining deaths in 2013 involved contractors (two each in coal and metal/nonmetal), the lowest number of contractors deaths since MSHA began maintaining contractor data in 1983.

For metal/nonmetal mining, 17 deaths occurred at surface operations, while five deaths occurred underground in 2013. Fourteen coal mining deaths occurred underground and six were reported at surface operations during the same time period, said MSHA.

VIDEO: 74-year-old labor film about lead, zinc mining joins National Film Registry – by Wally Kennedy and Andy Ostmeyer (Joplin Globe – January 7, 2014)

April 5, 2015January 8, 2014

http://www.joplinglobe.com/ [Missouri, U.S.A.]

CARTHAGE, Mo. — A 74-year-old labor film that kicked open a hornet’s nest in the Tri-State Mining District when it was released in 1940 is among 25 films chosen recently for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

“Men and Dust” was produced and directed by Lee Dick, a pioneer in documentary filmmaking, and was written and shot by her husband, Sheldon Dick. The couple examined conditions in the lead and zinc mines, and silicosis among miners and their family members. Much of the film was shot at Picher, Okla.

The Library of Congress adds 25 films to the National Film Registry every year. They are chosen for their “great cultural, historic or aesthetic significance.” Films added in 2013, along with “Men and Dust,” include “Judgment at Nuremberg,” “Mary Poppins,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “Pulp Fiction” and “The Quiet Man.”

[Arizona Copper Mining] America’s Future Depends on Decisions We Make Today – by David F. Briggs (Tucons Citizen – January 05, 2014)

January 7, 2014

http://tucsoncitizen.com/

David F. Briggs is a resident of Pima county and a geologist, who has intermittently worked as a consultant on the Rosemont Copper project since 2006.

Opponents claim the Rosemont copper project should not be allowed to be developed because most of the copper concentrates produced by this project will be exported for treatment by foreign smelters and refineries. The false premise of their argument is; “if the copper produced from Rosemont is not consumed here, this project will not benefit Americans.”

How many of you know that most of the copper-bearing materials collected at domestic recycling centers are also shipped to foreign facilities for treatment because the United States no longer has the capacity to treat these materials here? During 2011, recyclable materials containing 1,367,000 short tons of copper were exported to foreign countries for treatment. Most of this recyclable material (75.8%) was exported to China.

Should we also stop recycling copper because most of it is also shipped abroad for treatment? Isn’t recycling copper good for the environment?