Republic of Mining

Canada’s ‘Light Touch’ on Penny Stocks Draws Ire as Deal Fails – by Danielle Bochove, Kristine Owram and Natalie Obiko Pearson (Bloomberb News – November 9, 2017)

November 9, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Investors are fuming over the collapse of a $750 million mining deal that sent a tiny magnesium explorer soaring, sparking criticism that Canada’s light-handed approach to regulating its venture market needs to get heavier.

Canada’s investment regulator won’t be reversing the trades on West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd. from Oct. 5, when the Calgary-based penny stock surged almost 1,000 percent on a deal to sell its main assets to an unknown buyer.

The announcement “did not contain information which was either misstated or inaccurate,” according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg News that the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada sent to an investor in the company.

Cameco Corp. takes another hit, but production cuts positive for uranium market – by Jonathan Ratner (Financial Post – November 9, 2017)

November 9, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

The patience of Cameco Corp. shareholders is being tested yet again, as the Saskatchewan-based uranium producer’s latest round of quarterly earnings fell short of expectations, and now the company is cutting its dividend and temporarily suspending work at two operations.

The news sent Cameo shares higher, as the production cut is expected to be beneficial to a global uranium market that is widely forecast to be oversupplied by approximately 20 million pounds in 2018.

“This is the type of supply side shock that is positive for the market, but negative for Cameco in the short term,” said Rob Chang, an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald. “…These are necessary moves that reduce losses and actively help fix the global supply situation.”

Rio Tinto joins race for stake in world’s largest lithium miner – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 8, 2017)

November 9, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

Canada’s PotashCorp must sell its interest in Chile’s SQM within 18 months of merging with Agrium, and Rio wants it.

Rio Tinto (ASX, LON:RIO) is said to be weighing an investment in Chile’s Chemical and Mining Society (SQM), the world’s largest lithium producer, becoming the latest in a long line of companies interested in grabbing a stake in the Santiago-based miner.

According to Chilean news site El Mostrador (in Spanish), the Anglo-Australian giant is eying the 32% interest in SQM that Canada’s Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (TSX, NYSE:POT), the world’s largest producer of the fertilizer by capacity, has to sale to be allowed to merge with smaller rival Agrium (TSX, NYSE:AGU).

The Saskatoon-based potash miner is working with Goldman Sachs and BofA Merrill Lynch to sell its stake in SQM (worth about $4.5 billion at current market values), and so fulfill some of the conditions imposed by regulators in China and India to approve the company’s friendly merger with Agrium.

U.S. ditches transparency rules for resource companies as it courts Saudi oil giant Aramco – by Ashley Renders (Financial Post – November 9, 2017)

November 9, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

The United States has withdrawn from an anti-corruption initiative that aims to show how much money is exchanged between governments and companies for access to natural resources, setting it apart from Canada and other countries that have taken steps to improve transparency in the oil, gas and mining sectors.

It’s a move that could make the U.S. more attractive to large extractive companies that prefer to keep their finances away from the public eye—including Saudi Aramco, one of the most secretive oil companies in the world.

The U.S. began the long process of becoming a member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international standard that requires governments to report key information about the extractive sector, in 2011.

Coal’s Trump Bump Is Over – by Brian Eckhouse and Tim Loh (Bloomberg News – November 8, 2017)

November 9, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

It’s been a year since President Donald Trump’s election and his pledges to transform the energy markets haven’t exactly come to pass.

In fact, what was true under President Barack Obama is still true today: Coal’s share of the power mix is declining, and wind and solar remain the fastest-growing U.S. sources of electricity.

Try as Trump might, economics, not policy, have driven these seismic shifts in the way America uses energy during his first year in office. His second year, though, could prove to be another story.

A conversation with Mining Association of BC president and CEO Bryan Cox (B.C. Business – November 8, 2017)

November 9, 2017

https://www.bcbusiness.ca/

You might think the mining sector and the beer business have little in common. Bryan Cox knows different: both are technical, highly regulated and people-driven industries, says the president and CEO of the Mining Association of BC (MABC), who led public affairs for Western Canada at Molson Coors Canada before joining the provincial advocacy group in 2014.

Alberta native Cox, who holds a political science degree from the University of Calgary, is no stranger to bureaucracy or the resource sector. His father ran a food services business that catered to oil and gas companies, and from 2002 to 2006 he worked for the B.C. government as a public affairs officer and ministerial assistant.

He then returned to his home province for a stint as government relations manager with Edmonton-based Epcor Utilities Inc. Promoted from VP of corporate affairs at the 116-year-old MABC this past May, Cox aims to boost the B.C. mining industry’s profile and ability to compete.

Copper Traders Are Making High-Flying Bets About the Future of the Metal – by Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – November 8, 2017)

November 9, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The frenzy in the copper market is luring traders to take high-flying bets that prices are headed back toward a record.

Call options wagering on copper climbing above $10,000 a metric ton by December 2018 have started trading during the past two weeks, London Metal Exchange data show. In total, traders have spent about $4.5 million on the contracts.

Copper hasn’t traded at those levels since 2011, the peak of a commodities boom mainly fueled by a roaring economy in China, the biggest user.

[British Columbia Golden Triangle] Pretium ramps up – by Lesley Stokes (Northern Miner – October 30, 2017)

November 9, 2017

VANCOUVER — Pretium Resources’ (TSX: PVG; NYSE: PVG) new 8.7 million oz. Brucejack gold mine in northwestern B.C.’s Golden Triangle district is “well on its way” to becoming a 500,000 oz. per year gold producer, president and CEO Joseph Ovsenek says.

During the third quarter, the company produced 82,203 oz. gold from 261,262 tonnes grading 10.52 grams gold per tonne. News of the results drove company shares up 28% to peak at $15.48, before settling to $14.98 at press time.

“I’m fairly confident that our quarterly results beat the expectations on the street,” Ovsenek tells The Northern Miner during a phone interview. “There’s also a Credit Suisse research note that talked about a large short position on Pretium, and how this is forcing some of those to cover. So I expect that’s a big part of our recent share price gain as well.”

Op-Ed Pebble Mine is a poison pill for Alaska’s wild salmon – by Carl Safina and Joel Reynolds (Los Angeles Times – November 9, 2017)

November 9, 2017

http://www.latimes.com/

Carl Safina is a professor of journalism at Stony Brook University and the founder and president of the Safina Center. Joel Reynolds is western director and senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Bristol Bay watershed, in southwest Alaska, comprises 40,000 square miles of bogs and evergreen forests, rimmed by distant mountains and shimmering with rivers and feeder streams. In these waterways, miracles happen. Together they sustain the largest remaining salmon fishery on Earth.

For more than a decade, a Canadian mining company, Northern Dynasty Minerals, has wanted to gouge one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines into the heart of the watershed, putting its rivers on a centuries-long poison drip.

The company has failed to move forward with the project, known as Pebble Mine, due to intense and sustained opposition.

Armed separatists occupy villages near Freeport’s Indonesia mine – by Fergus Jensen, Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Sam Wanda (Reuters U.S. – November 9, 2017)

November 9, 2017

http://www.reuters.com/

JAKARTA/TIMIKA, Indonesia (Reuters) – Armed separatists have occupied five villages in Indonesia’s Papua province, threatening to disrupt Freeport-McMoRan Inc’s giant Grasberg copper mine, which has already been hit this year by labor unrest and a dispute over operating rights.

A state of emergency has been declared and around 300 additional security forces have been deployed to the mining area of the eastern province after a string of shootings since Aug. 17 that killed one police officer and wounded six.

“They want to disrupt Freeport’s operations,” said Suryadi Diaz, a spokesman for the Papua police. “(Freeport) is rich but they are poor, so they just want justice,” Diaz said, adding that the militants were a splinter group of the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM).

Russia Bets on Hungry China With $6 Billion Fertilizer Mines – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – November 8, 2017)

November 8, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

China’s dilemma of how to feed its booming population will partially be answered by fancier fertilizers, according to one of the world’s richest billionaires.

EuroChem Group AG, owned by Russian commodities tycoon Andrey Melnichenko, is spending over $6 billion on two mines to produce potash, a reddish mineral found deep in the Earth that’s prized for its ability as a soil fertilizer.

The company is counting on Asian farmers buying more sophisticated crop nutrients aimed at soil deficiencies or different crops, rather than saturating the ground with a blanket of chemicals. China’s farmers have long relied on heavy doses of state-subsidized fertilizer to boost yields, but that’s left fields contaminated.

Provenzano argues steel plant status won’t sully Sault’s case for ferrochrome processing plant – by Elaine Della-Mattia (Sault Star – November 8, 2017)

November 8, 2017

http://www.saultstar.com/

SAULT STE. MARIE – Sault Ste. Marie has some definite advantages in presenting a strong case as to why a ferrochrome processing plant should be established in the city. It has an ample-sized brownfield, it’s close to transportation routes such as water, can supply an abundance of power and has a capable workforce.

The city, and three other communities, were formally approached by Noront and asked to make a compelling case to host the plant and show the Canadian-based mining giant that it can meet Noront’s requirements.

But some argue that Sault Ste. Marie also has some definite hurdles that need to be quashed in order to give the city a fighting chance for the $1-billion facility that will bring, with it, good-paying jobs for a skilled workforce a decade from now.

North American Nickel forecasts Greenland project launch by 2024 (Reuters U.S. – November 1, 2017)

November 8, 2017

https://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING, Nov 1 (Reuters) – North American Nickel should start producing at its flagship Maniitsoq project in Greenland by 2023 or 2024, when demand for nickel from electric vehicle (EV) batteries should be in full swing, the company’s chief executive officer (CEO) said on Tuesday.

The Toronto-based exploration company, which acquired the Maniitsoq licences five years ago, has invested over $50 million in exploration so far, CEO Keith Morrison told Reuters in an interview in Beijing, where he was attending the annual Greenland Day at the Danish embassy.

It will be at least another five years before it has finished exploration, completed feasibility studies and construction, and started selling its metals output.

The $750 Million Magnesium Deal That Came Up $750 Million Short – by Danielle Bochove, Natalie Obiko Pearson and Kristine Owram (Bloomberg News – November 8, 2017)

November 8, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

It was one of 2017’s mega mining deals. And then it wasn’t. West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd. — the tiny Canadian explorer that surged nearly 1,000 percent last month after announcing a pact to sell its main assets for $750 million — said the deal has collapsed. The buyer couldn’t come up with a deposit for less than 1 percent of the transaction value, or $500,000.

“The purchaser failed to pay the deposit” by the Nov. 6 deadline, Calgary-based West High Yield, which trades under the ticker WHY, said in a statement late Tuesday. “The board of directors of the company decided to terminate the agreement.”

The collapse ends a transaction that sparked a review by regulators following West High Yield’s extraordinary surge on Oct. 5 after it announced the deal. The stock jumped to C$2, from just 36 cents the previous day, giving the company with no revenue a market value of C$114 million ($89 million).

Spare a Nickel for Vale? – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – November 8, 2017)

November 8, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Here’s a sign that 2017’s nickel boom is in full swing: Vale SA is looking to sell a slice of its New Caledonian unit, and seems to be attracting bidders.

The interest in Vale New Caledonia, or VNC, is surprising because the division — on a French-ruled island in the Pacific that’s due to hold a vote on independence next year — is one of the highest-cost mines in an industry that’s spent years losing money.

The existence of willing buyers is as strong a signal as you could want that the prospect of fresh demand from electric vehicle batteries is leading many to bet on a recovery from nickel’s three-year slump.