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Changes at Vale contribute to uncertain mood in Thompson (Thompson Citizen – August 29, 2018)

https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

As Thompson reaches the end of the month that it was dreading for years, if not quite since the smelter and refinery closure plans were first announced in 2010, there’s a feeling that we might not be through the worst of the adjustment yet.

Over this summer, Vale has announced changes to its Manitoba Operations, including the elimination of Mark Scott’s former role as the vice-president in Thompson and the shifting of responsibility for overseeing the mine to Alistair Ross, the company’s new North Atlantic mines director.

A few weeks later, the maintenance shutdown was extended by three to four weeks to preach the importance of safety after some potentially dangerous incidents.

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Conference board report projects modest growth for Sudbury – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – August 23, 2018)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

A new report from the Conference Board of Canada says Sudbury is looking at modest growth for the rest of 2018 and into 2019.

Things are looking up in the Nickel City, thanks in large part to our namesake mineral. The Conference Board of Canada released its Metropolitan Outlook Wednesday, detailing economic forecasts for 16 medium-sized cities.

Greater Sudbury will see modest growth throughout 2018-19. But with unemployment set to spike temporarily, it is not all good news.

“Greater Sudbury’s real GDP growth will hit 1.2 per cent in 2018 and a similar 1.1 per cent in 2019,” the report notes.

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Brazil’s Samarco mine unlikely to restart in 2019: BHP – by Marta Nogueira and Brad Haynes (Reuters U.S. – August 21, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – There is little likelihood that Brazil’s Samarco iron ore mine, a joint venture between Vale SA and BHP Billiton, will restart operations next year even though it expects to have all of the required licenses, a BHP spokesman said on Tuesday.

The statement confirmed comments made by another BHP official, Bryan Quinn, in an interview with newspaper Valor Economico.

Quinn, an executive in charge of the company’s mineral joint ventures, told Reuters in a separate interview that restarting operations at the disaster-struck mine depends on an agreement with prosecutors on building a new tailing dam system.

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‘The north is truly hurting’: Thompson mayor frustrated he can’t get meeting with premier (CBC News Manitoba – August 16, 2018)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/

Dennis Fenske says city’s economic crisis warrants face time with Brian Pallister

The mayor of Thompson says he’s frustrated that he can’t get a meeting with the premier despite the grave economic challenges his community is facing.

Dennis Fenske says he and his council have been trying to arrange a sit down Premier Brian Pallister for months.

They put in a request to meet with Pallister when the premier was in Thompson last week for an announcement that Bell MTS would be awarded the contract to connect first responders across the province.

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Why Shareholders Aren’t Loving Rio Tinto’s Cash Machine – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – August 1, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The big mining companies are thriving again, but they’re right to be cautious.

Poor little rich kids. After a brush with death when commodity prices slumped barely three years ago, the world’s miners are back in rude health. Net debt at the big five is now headed to its lowest levels since the peak of the previous mining boom in 2011, based on reported results and analyst estimates.

Free cash flow hasn’t quite scraped those heady heights yet, but it’s looking barely less robust than it was back then — and much more sustainable, too. While the measure dropped by 38 percent in Rio Tinto Group’s first-half results Wednesday, the change was attributable almost entirely to the timing of a $1.2 billion tax payment on the previous year’s earnings:

One obvious reason for the strength of cash flows is that, contrary to predictions including our own, the companies have so far resisted the temptation to fall off the capital-discipline wagon and splurge on building new mines and infrastructure.

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Vale’s Long Goodbye: 2,814 days adding up to 7 years, 8 months and 15 days – by John Barker (Soundings John Barker – July 31, 2018)

https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/

The Sword of Damocles dangles no longer. Today is the day Tito Martins, then president and chief executive officer of Vale Canada and executive director of base metals for the Brazilian international parent company, told us was coming on Nov. 17, 2010 – 2,814 days ago, or expressed another way, seven years, eight months and 15 days ago.

The day the Thompson smelter and refinery officially cease production and Thompson ceases to be a fully integrated nickel operation for the first time since March 1961.

Mind you, July 31, 2018 – today – is something of an arbitrary bookkeeping sort of marker. At the time of Martins’ 2010 announcement, the closing date was announced as 2015, so we’ve had about three extra years of nickel smelting and refining. As for the actual ramp down, the last furnace tap from the one remaining furnace in operation and anode cast from the smelter and the last cathode pulled from the refinery happened earlier this month.

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Vale increases profits in second quarter – by Staff (Sudbury Star/Reuters – July 27, 2018)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale recorded a second-quarter profit of US$76 million, compared to $16 million a year ago. Despite the improvement, the figure fell far short of a Reuters consensus estimate of $1.265 billion and the $1.590 billion in profit notched in the first three months of 2018.

Reuters said the weaker-than-expected rise in quarterly net income was the result of a big currency hit Vale took, despite higher production.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a good indicator of operating profit, surged 43 per cent to $3.9 billion, matching analysts’ estimates, Reuters said.

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Cobalt27’s Anthony Milewski discusses Vale transaction, cobalt outlook – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – July 3, 2018)

http://www.northernminer.com/

Cobalt27 Capital (TSXV: KBLT) recently acquired a US$300-million cobalt stream on Vale’s (NYSE: VALE) Voisey’s Bay nickel-copper-cobalt mine, beginning in 2021. It also has a stream on the Ramu nickel-cobalt mine in Papua New Guinea owned by the Metallurgical Corp. of China, and a net smelter return royalty (NSR) on the construction-ready Dumont nickel-cobalt project owned by RNC Minerals (TSX: RNX) in Quebec.

In total the company has 12 streams and royalties, as well as physical cobalt. In the last five months alone the company has increased its physical stock of cobalt by 800 tonnes to 3,000 tonnes. The Northern Miner recently spoke with Cobalt27’s chairman and CEO, Anthony Milewski, about the company’s investments and his outlook for nickel and cobalt in the emerging electric vehicle (EV) revolution.

The Northern Miner: You have just completed a $300-million equity raise to pay for the cobalt stream in your portfolio from Voisey’s Bay mine in Labrador.

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NEWS RELEASE: Vale Doubles Exploration Efforts in Greater Sudbury Residents can expect to see aerial surveys this summer

Vale-VTEM-Survey-in-Sudbury-Basin

Sudbury, ON — Vale’s Sudbury Operations has nearly doubled its surface and underground exploration budget from approximately $22 million CAD last year to nearly $42 million CAD this year. This includes approximately 30 active exploration projects and 13 drill rigs currently operating in the Greater Sudbury Area.

This increased exploration activity represents Vale’s renewed focus on resource discovery and development to secure our long-term success in the Sudbury Basin and deliver on our future life of mine plans.

Greater Sudbury residents may encounter Vale’s exploration crews working in the field at various exploration sites across the Sudbury Basin this summer. These crews will be working with heavy equipment and residents are asked to remain clear of these active work sites for their safety.

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Rio Tinto, BHP, Vale tipped to report strongest ever quarterly iron ore exports – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – July 15, 2018)

https://www.afr.com/

The world’s three biggest iron ore miners are expected to confirm the industry’s strongest ever quarterly export figures this week, helping to explain recent weakness in prices for the bulk commodity.

Big miners have exercised restraint in both supply and rhetoric in recent years in a bid to calm fears the iron ore market could be flooded with supply, but port statistics suggest the miners’ inexorable export growth reached new heights in the three months to June 30.

Brazilian miner Vale is expected to announce record quarterly production of 96.3 million tonnes when it kicks off reporting season early on Tuesday morning Australian time, and Rio Tinto is expected to report strong numbers of its own several hours later.

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UPDATE 1-Vale notches record Q2 iron ore, pellet output despite trucker strike (Reuters U.K.  – July 16, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 16 (Reuters) – Brazil’s Vale SA achieved record iron ore and pellet production for a second quarter despite a nationwide trucker strike that paralyzed Latin America’s largest economy in May, the miner said in a filing on Monday.

Vale, the world’s top iron ore producer, said iron ore output reached 96.755 million tonnes in the period while pellet output hit 12.838 million tonnes, despite the strike over rising diesel prices.

The pickup came after a slip in iron ore production in the first quarter due to heavy rains, and as a campaign in China to cut pollution boosts demand for Vale’s top-quality iron ore.

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Biosolids rejuvenate mining wasteland: Reclamation project at Vale tailings ponds in Copper Cliff wins award – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – July 13, 2018)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

In the decades-long efforts to regreen the Sudbury basin, Vale is reporting its Copper Cliff Tailings Project using biosolids is continuing to be successful. So successful, the groundbreaking project recently won an award and plans are in the works to apply it to other reclamation projects.

The Copper Cliff Tailings Project, a joint effort by Vale and Terrapure’s solutions division, Terratec Environmental, has been running for about five years and continues to show positive and even surprising results.

“We are doing this for two reasons: dust control and covering the area with vegetation for long-term closure plans,” said Glen Watson, superintendent of environment decommissioning and reclamation for Vale Canada. It recently won the Water Environment Association of Ontario’s 2018 Exemplary Biosolids Management Award.

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Vale nets enviro award – by Staff (Sudbury Star – July 9, 2018)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale’s Sudbury Biodiversity Program has been been recognized nationally. Vale received the national Towards Sustainable Mining Environmental Excellence Award from the Mining Association of Canada at an awards gala during the 2018 CIM Convention earlier this year.

“We are proud to be acknowledged for Vale’s biodiversity program in Sudbury,” said Lisa Lanteigne, environment manager for Vale’s Ontario Operations. “The program has been successful because of a sustained commitment to community collaboration and an innovative approach to environmental stewardship. The program exemplifies one of our core company values — Prize Our Planet.”

Vale’s biodiversity work in Sudbury focuses on regreening and reclamation efforts, transforming historically stressed lands and waterways back to their natural states after more than a century of mining activities. To improve biodiversity within the community, Vale undertakes a number of activities, including:

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Japan’s Mitsui may raise its stake in Vale: executive – by Yuka Obayashi and Yoshiyasu Shida (Reuters U.S. – July 6, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co (8031.T) may boost its stake in Brazil’s Vale SA (VALE3.SA) if other shareholders sell part of their holdings, a senior executive said, giving it greater influence over the iron ore giant’s management.

Several Brazilian pension funds and BNDESPar, the investment arm of state development bank BNDES have been considering the sale of part of their stakes in Vale, equating to about 3 percent of the miner’s shares in total and worth up to 8 billion reais ($2 billion).

Buying an additional stake was “an option”, Yukio Takebe, Mitsui’s senior executive managing officer who oversees the energy and metals business, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

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$23M program aims to create skills, on-the-job training for Indigenous peoples (CBC News Newfoundland-Labrador – June 26, 2018)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

Voisey’s Bay mine expansion creates hundreds of new job opportunities

Newfoundland and Labrador is teaming up with the federal government on a new $23.6 million-program designed to get more Indigenous people working at the Vale mine in Voisey’s Bay.

On Tuesday, officials from the Nunatsiavut government, Innu Nation, NunatuKavut, Vale, and the federal and provincial governments came together with the College of the North Atlantic (CNA) in Happy Valley-Goose Bay to announce the project.

It’s being led by the Labrador Aboriginal Training Partnership (LATP), and will help train workers for the mine, by giving them hands-on training experiences and skills development.

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