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United States Mining

EPA sets first-ever curbs on power plant pollution – by Valerie Volcovici (Reuters U.S. – September 20, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON – (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Friday announced first-ever regulations setting strict limits on the amount of carbon pollution that can be generated by any new U.S. power plant, which quickly sparked a backlash from supporters of the coal industry and are certain to face legal challenges.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s long-awaited guidelines would make it near impossible to build coal plants without using technology to capture carbon emissions that foes say is unproven and uneconomic. The rules, a revision of a previous attempt by the EPA to create emissions standards for fossil fuel plants, are the first step in President Barack Obama’s climate change package, announced in June.

The revised rule contained a few surprises after the agency held extensive discussions with industry and environmental groups, raising concerns by industry that the EPA’s new restrictions on existing power plants, due to be unveiled next year, will be tough.

But the regulations announced on Friday cover only new plants. Under the proposal, new large natural gas-fired turbines would need to meet a limit of 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour, while new small natural gas-fired turbines would need to meet a limit of 1,100 pounds of CO2 per MWh.

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Tribes critical of PolyMet’s draft on mining impact – by Marshall Helmberger (Timberjay – September 18, 2013)

http://www.timberjay.com/ [Northeast Minnesota]

REGIONAL – Tribal authorities cooperating in the preparation of PolyMet Mining’s supplemental environmental impact statement are expressing fundamental disagreements with key science and conclusions in the 1,800-page preliminary draft document. In addition, they are challenging the longstanding claim by lead agencies and mining supporters that Minnesota has and maintains strict enforcement of environmental rules pertaining to operating mines in the state.

The lengthy tribal comments, provided by the Fond du Lac Band as well as the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, or GLIFWC, appear to have played a role in the latest delay in the expected release of the draft EIS. The report had been scheduled for release in early September, but officials overseeing the project now say the draft version will be released in late November.

The report also faced significant critique by some officials within the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for a large number of errors. Those DNR comments will likely lead to changes before the draft report is issued in November. Some of the tribal comments may lead to changes, but in other cases, those comments will be incorporated into a dissenting view that’s expected to be included in an appendix to the study.

The extensive comment provided by a number of agencies was not unexpected, according to Steve Colvin, the DNR’s Deputy Director for Ecological and Water Resources.

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U.S. House passes National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – September 19, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/

H.R. 761 faces an uphill battle in a Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate even if the measure manages to survive in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

RENO (MINEWEB) – As the Republicans of the U.S. House of Representatives once again voted Wednesday to streamline mining permit approvals, the question remains as to whether the proposed National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act will again die in the Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate.

The House passed H.R. 761, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act, in a 246-178 vote with only 15 Democrats voting in favor.

This time around even House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) issued a public statement applauding passage of the measure, introduced by Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, the former president of the Nevada Mining Association.

“The United States has abundant natural resources, including critical and strategic materials that are vital to our manufacturers, medical providers and military personnel; and that provides the basis for common household products.

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Nolan, U.S. House vote for quicker mining permits – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – September 19, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan joined with other mining supporters Wednesday when the U.S. House passed legislation to streamline federal environmental permitting for mining projects.

U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan joined with other mining supporters Wednesday when the U.S. House passed legislation to streamline environmental permitting for mining projects on federal lands.

The Bill, HF 761, called the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act of 2013, passed the Republican-controlled House by a 246 to 178 vote.

The bill declares most new mining projects as strategic for the nation, speeds up the federal agency review process and restricts efforts to file lawsuits to stop such projects. The bill essentially sets a 30-month limit for environmental review and a 60-day limit for any challenges.

Nolan, D-Crosby, was one of only 15 Democrats to vote in favor of the bill. He had said in recent weeks that he was undecided on the bill, and opponents of faster-paced mining projects in Minnesota bombarded Nolan with calls to vote no.

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Guest Post: Wisconsin Needs Iron Ore Mining to Grow the Economy and For a Better Tomorrow For All – by Brett Healy (Minerals Make Life.org – September 18, 2013)

http://mineralsmakelife.org/

Brett Healy is president of the MacIver Institute for Public Policy—Wisconsin’s free market voice.

Across a 22-mile-long stretch of Northern Wisconsin, lies more than 2 billion tons of iron ore— a key material in the production of American made steel. Wisconsin’s resources account for an estimated 15 percent of all recoverable iron ore in the United States, representing a deposit critical to U.S. economic competitiveness.

Much progress has been made in recent months to develop Wisconsin’s robust mineral wealth and provide the far-reaching economic benefits that come along with this development. After the passage of Wisconsin’s iron ore mining reform in March 2013, the industry worked swiftly to respond to the updated environmental regulation, which sets a 420-day limit for the state’s Department of Natural Resources to approve or deny a permit. Gogebic Taconite, the owner of the proposed mine in Ashland and Iron counties, spent the summer exploring the deposit and sharing with the public its plans for the project.

If progress continues, the proposed mine could provide more than 700 direct, well-paying jobs that will change the fortune of families in the area for generations to come. It will also indirectly support an additional 2,100 jobs— all in an economically depressed part of Wisconsin that needs help. The mine could also contribute more than $600 million to the state’s GDP, a boost that would positively affect all Wisconsinites.

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Lundin Sees Growth in Rio’s Michigan Cast-Off: Corporate Canada – by Gerrit De Vynck (Bloomberg News – September 18, 2013)

http://www.businessweek.com/

Lundin Mining Corp., the best performer among Canadian base-metal companies, is betting that a cast-off from the world’s second-biggest miner will help double output.

Lundin agreed to buy the Eagle nickel and copper mine from Rio Tinto Group for $315 million in June and plans to bring it into production by the end of next year, Chief Executive Officer Paul Conibear said. Eagle is the company’s first new mine after emerging from two aborted takeovers in 2011. Conibear said he wants to boost companywide annual output to about 500,000 metric tons within five years.

“We’re back to basics to re-grow our company,” he said Sept. 13 in a telephone interview. “We’re looking at trying to increase our cash flow through producing facilities.”

Lundin plans to expand while mining companies including Rio and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s largest, sell assets and reduce spending amid lower prices. Copper has slumped 11 percent this year, nickel dropped 19 percent and zinc is down 11 percent on the London Metal Exchange after growth slowed in China, the world’s largest consumer of metals.

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REFILE-Anglo departure not the end of Alaska’s Pebble mine, locals say – by Yereth Rosen (Reuters U.S. – September 17, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Supporters and opponents of a giant mine to tap Alaska’s gold and copper wealth have found a rare point of agreement: The Pebble project remains alive even without its heavyweight financial backer.

Anglo American, the global mining group that partnered with Canada’s Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd in 2007 to develop Pebble, said on Monday it was pulling out, less than two month after promising shareholders it would cut costs and halve its $17 billion pipeline of potential mines.

Anglo’s departure dealt a sharp blow to the ambitious plan to build an open-pit mine in Alaska’s unspoiled Bristol Bay region, at a time when investors are increasingly cautious about plowing cash into building expensive new mines.

But the hiccups aren’t stopping Northern Dynasty. It sees plenty of opportunity to push ahead on the project, which is expected to produce some 1 million tonnes of copper concentrate a year, on its own or with a new partner.

“This is a huge asset – a huge, valuable asset for the State of Alaska,” said Ron Thiessen, Northern Dynasty’s chief executive, who added that he remains very confident the mine will be built within the next 10 years.

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Will Pebble Project’s growing risks cloud investor rewards? – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – September 17, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/

More bad news for Northern Dynasty’s massive, but struggling Pebble copper-gold-silver-moly project as the deep-pocketed Anglo American announces it is leaving the Pebble Partnership.

RENO (MINEWEB) – The withdrawal of Anglo American from one of the most controversial mining projects in the United States, the Pebble Project in Alaska, should not come as a major surprise to those who have following the project since 2001, the year it was acquired by Northern Dynasty Minerals. Anglo American would become a 50/50 partner in the massive project in 2007.

On Monday, however, Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani—who is definitely no dummy when it comes to determining project feasibility—said: “Despite our belief that Pebble is a deposit of rare magnitude and quality, we have taken the decision to withdraw following a thorough assessment of Anglo American’s extensive pipeline of long-dated project options.”

“We wish the project well through its forthcoming permitting process and express our thanks to all those who have supported Pebble and who recognize the opportunities and benefits that such an investment may bring to Alaska,” he added. Anglo will take a $300 million writedown on its Pebble investment.

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N.Y. trial to examine will of Montana Copper King heiress – by Associated Press (The Missoulian – September 15, 2013)

http://missoulian.com/

NEW YORK — She had wealth few could boast and used it to finance a life few would choose — an heiress to the fortune of the founder of Las Vegas spending 20 years voluntarily in New York hospital rooms.

Now Huguette Clark’s reclusive existence is about to be scrutinized in a Manhattan courtroom, where jury selection is due to start Tuesday in a civil trial over her will. With an estimated $300 million at stake, the case broaches questions about aging, caregiving and the line between encouraging gratitude and extracting gifts.

Clark’s distant relatives say hospital executives, a nurse, a lawyer, an accountant and others in her small circle induced a dependent, fragile woman to give them millions of dollars during her lifetime and in her will. The beneficiaries say she was a sharp-minded, strong-willed, munificent person whose decisions were as deliberate as they were unusual.

Signed when the childless Clark was 98, the disputed April 2005 will largely left her estate to arts charities, her nurse and a goddaughter. It provided nothing for her relatives, who were the main beneficiaries of a will she’d signed just six weeks earlier.

“Fundamentally, however, this tragic story presents much more than just a question of whether a particular will is valid or not,” the relatives’ lawyer, John R. Morken, said in a court filing.

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NEWS RELEASE: Anglo American statement re: Pebble project

16 September 2013

Anglo American plc (“Anglo American”) announces that its wholly owned US subsidiary Anglo American (US) Pebble LLC (“AA Pebble”) has given notice under the Pebble limited partnership agreement that it is withdrawing from the Pebble copper project in Alaska. The Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) was created in 2007 between AA Pebble and an affiliate of Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (“Northern Dynasty”), who are equal partners in PLP. Following the withdrawal, PLP will proceed under the sole ownership of Northern Dynasty.

In light of the parties’ shared desire to ensure an orderly exit, the detailed aspects of AA Pebble’s withdrawal from the Pebble project are being developed and implemented.

Anglo American expects to record an impairment charge of $0.3bn at 31 December 2013 on a post-tax basis.

Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive of Anglo American, said: “Despite our belief that Pebble is a deposit of rare magnitude and quality, we have taken the decision to withdraw following a thorough assessment of Anglo American’s extensive pipeline of long-dated project options. Our focus has been to prioritise capital to projects with the highest value and lowest risks within our portfolio, and reduce the capital required to sustain such projects during the pre-approval phases of development as part of a more effective, value-driven capital allocation model. We wish the project well through its forthcoming permitting process and express our thanks to all those who have supported Pebble and who recognise the opportunities and benefits that such an investment may bring to Alaska.”

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U.S. Coal Companies Scale Back Export Goals – by Clifford Krauss (New York Times – September 14, 2013)

http://www.nytimes.com/

HOUSTON — The ailing American coal industry, which has pinned its hopes on exports to counter a declining market at home, is scaling back its ambitions as demand from abroad starts to ebb as well.

Just south of here, New Elk Coal terminated its lease late last month at the Port of Corpus Christi, where it had hoped to export coal to Brazil, Europe and Asia. Two days later, when the federal government tried to auction off a two-square-mile tract of land in Wyoming’s Powder River basin, a region once poised to grow with exports to Asia, not a single coal company made a bid.

They were the latest signs that a global coal glut and price slump, along with persistent environmental opposition, are reducing the likelihood that additional exports could shield the industry from slipping domestic demand caused by cheap natural gas and mounting regulations.

United States coal exports this year are expected to decline by roughly 5 percent from last year’s record exports of 125 million tons, and many experts predict the decline will quicken next year. At the beginning of 2012, the coal industry had plans to expand port capacity by an additional 185 million tons. But those hopes have faded this year.

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In response: Mining essential to keep the economy running – by Arthur E. Englund (Duluth News Tribune – September 12, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

As a 56-year member of the Society of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, I feel a response is necessary to the Aug. 23 commentary, “What the metals-mining lobbyist left out of column speaks volumes.” The commentary opposing copper-nickel mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, without realizing it, actually cited the need for these mines. By enumerating the number of visitors to Ely (700,000 per year), the number of Boundary Waters visitors (250,000 per year) and the number of deer hunters in Minnesota (600,000) the column actually endorsed the need.

How do all of those visitors and hunters get to those recreational areas? Most likely they go in their cars and trucks and not by horse and buggy. And of course, as most everyone knows, a large amount of Earth-based minerals goes into the manufacturing of those vehicles — and it takes mined petroleum to fuel them.

The Society of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers has as its slogan, “If it can’t be grown, it has to be mined.” This is an irrefutable fact. Test it for yourself. It is not an assumption like the opponents’ that rivers and waters will be polluted by the proposed mines. Regulations and restrictions developed over years in conjunction with the latest available science and technology will provide necessary safeguards to prevent pollution.

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Ex-Massey official gets 3.5 years in prison in mine safety conspiracy – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – September 12, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/

The 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster that killed 29 miners in West Virginia has resulted in prison sentences and jail time for 4 former Massey executives and supervisors so far.

RENO (MINEWEB) – The former president of Massey Energy’s White Buck Coal and the Green Valley Resource Group, David Hughart, 53, has become the highest-ranking coal official to date to be sentenced to prison for violating U.S. mine health and safety standards.

In addition to a 42-month prison sentence, Hughart was also ordered to serve an additional three years of supervised release, according to U.S. Attorney Beth Goodwin.

Although Hughart never worked at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia–where 29 men were killed in April 2010 in the largest coal disaster in 40 years–he admitted that he and others at Massey conspired to violate health and safety laws and to conceal those violations by warning mine operations when MSHA inspectors were arriving to conduct mine inspections.

His cooperation with the criminal investigation of the mine disaster revealed that Massey Energy schemed to avoid compliance with what federal regulators said was even basic safety practices. The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, and the IRS-Criminal Investigation division.

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Massive mine proposed at Oak Flat, sacred tribal land – by Emily Bregel (Arizona Daily Star – September 8, 2013)

http://azstarnet.com/

The planned Rosemont Copper Mine just south of Tucson isn’t the only mining controversy in Arizona. It isn’t even the biggest.

About 100 miles north of Tucson, Resolution Copper Mining wants to build a mine in Superior, a town of 2,800 people, that could yield 1 billion pounds of copper a year. That’s more than four times the projected output for Rosemont Copper’s planned mine in the Santa Rita Mountains, which would produce an estimated 243 million pounds of copper annually.

Resolution — owned by mining giants U.K.-based Rio Tinto and Australia-based BHP Billiton — says the mine would create 1,400 jobs and generate $61 billion over its 40-year lifespan, plus construction and clean-up time. It would extract enough copper to meet 25 percent of U.S. demand.

“If you can imagine five Super Bowls in Superior every year for 60 years, that’s the level of economic boost and economic activity this mine is going to generate,” said Andrew Taplin, Resolution Copper Mining’s project director since October 2012. But the project would also permanently alter an outdoor destination popular with Southern Arizonans. At the Oak Flat campground, five miles east of Superior, stone picnic tables are shaded by centuries-old oak trees.

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Wisconsin governor, Chippewas battle over open pit mine plan – by Carol Pogash (U.S.A. Today – September 8, 2013)

http://www.usatoday.com/

ODAHAN, Wis. — While laughing children bob in kayaks along the sandy shores of Lake Superior, their somber parents hunch over picnic tables talking about their wild rice, their water, their fish and their way of life. Members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians worry about what is to become of their lake, a life source for their people.

Gov. Scott Walker, his fellow Republicans and the governor’s onetime enemies, labor unions, are championing a $1.5 billion open pit mine planned for the Bad River watershed, six miles from the reservation in the pristine Penokee Hills of northern Wisconsin.

On Aug. 30, six Chippewa tribes of Lake Superior sent President Obama a letter requesting the Department of the Interior prepare litigation to protect the wetlands, fisheries, waters and wildlife from mining. The mining area is honeycombed with 70 miles of rivers and streams that flow north into Lake Superior, which the tribes say would be threatened.

This March, Walker signed a bill streamlining the approval process and easing environmental regulations for the proposed open pit iron ore mine, in which wide swaths of earth are removed to extract minerals. The issue playing out in Wisconsin is being repeated elsewhere.

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