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Editorial: Iamgold’s Letwin tells of hard lessons learned in keynote at PMF – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – October 24, 2017)

http://www.northernminer.com/

A careful implementation of innovative technology and management techniques is key to thriving in the mining industry in the decades to come. That was the message from many speakers, panelists and delegates at the inaugural Progressive Mine Forum presented by The Northern Miner on Oct. 23 in Toronto.

The forum sponsors included IBM, PearTree Securities, PwC Canada, Rio Tinto, Hard-Line, Major Drilling, Hatch and MacLean Engineering.

The event location itself represented the ideals of the day: the carefully restored Art Moderne-style Carlu concert hall and banquet facility, which was one of North America’s premiere concert and party venues from its opening in 1931 through the 1960s. It lay shuttered and almost forgotten by the public from 1976 until its grand reopening with modern amenities in 2003.

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‘Leaner’ Vale reports better earnings, profits (Bloomberg/Sudbury Star – October 26, 2017)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale SA shares rose to the highest in two years after the world’s biggest iron-ore miner beat analysts’ earnings estimates on lower costs, stronger prices and record production.

Shares advanced for a sixth day, gaining 2.1 per cent at 10:18 a.m. in Sao Paulo, after the Rio de Janeiro-based company posted adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $3.02 billion for the third quarter, exceeding the $2.7 billion average of nine dollar-based [estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Pummeled by the biggest commodities downturn in a generation, Vale is once again generating cash after cutting costs and selling assets as prices recover. Chief Executive Officer Murilo Ferreira is betting on new, high-grade deposits in northern Brazil to offset his transport cost disadvantage with Australian mines that are much closer to Chinese steel mills.

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Key lessons from Sudbury – by Dzulkifli Abdul Razak (The Sun Daily – October 25, 2017)

http://www.thesundaily.my/

FROM Bali the trail of “sustainable development” brought me to a little known place called Sudbury in Ontario, Canada. This was in conjunction with a Unesco meeting on sustainable development with respect to indigenous people, especially when they are marginalised (think Rohingya).

Sudbury (400km north of Toronto) is well ahead in sustainable development. It was once a mining town whose fortunes dipped when the price of nickle ore plummeted. Massive ugly environmental scars likened to a “moonscape” were left behind by the mines.

There was also marked deforestation due to the unbridled pollution from industries. In mid-1800s, an intense wildfire devastated whatever remained; this was in addition to rampant illegal logging of the region’s majestic red and white pines.

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Column: Why China’s aluminum industry is praying for blue skies – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – October 24, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Winter is coming in China and that means large swaths of industrial capacity in the regions around Beijing and Tianjin must cut production. Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised “blue skies” will replace the choking smog that envelops many cities in the country’s industrial heartlands, particularly over the “winter heating” months.

Heavily polluting industries in the targeted regions will therefore have to reduce output between November and March. If that means massive disruption to supply chains, so be it. Aluminum production will be cut by 30 percent.

Ironically, the “green” metal, used in ever greater quantities by automotive makers looking to reduce vehicle weight, is made using coal power in this part of China. And coal is enemy number one in Beijing’s eyes.

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Ground zero for lithium: Electric cars spark a new boom for Australian miners – by David Stringer (Sydney Morning Post – October 26, 2017)

http://www.smh.com.au/

A small patch of the iron-ore rich outback in the north of Western Australia has become ground zero in the global scramble for lithium. Here, work is accelerating to deliver the world’s next major mines to feed the soaring demand for the metal from electric car battery makers.

Almost 60 per cent of supply from planned large projects through about the next five years will be added in Australia, enabling the country – already the world’s biggest supplier of lithium – to cement its grip on the market, according to CRU Group.

The biggest mines due to enter production next year are both about 120 kilometres from Port Hedland, the gateway to markets in China.Altura Mining, which expects to start output in the first three months of 2018, is on schedule and already studying a rapid expansion to more than double capacity, according to Managing Director James Brown.

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Barrick Has Surprise Loss on Tanzania Tax – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – October 25, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. reported a surprise net loss in the third quarter on a tax provision related to operations in Tanzania.

An export ban at a unit in the African nation amid a contractual dispute also dragged down production and revenue for the world’s biggest gold miner. Barrick lowered the top end of its 2017 production guidance to 5.5 million from 5.6 million ounces, it said Wednesday in a statement.

All-in sustaining costs to produce an ounce of gold were $772 compared with analysts’ expectations for $785 and $704 in the third quarter of 2016. The third-quarter net loss was $11 million, compared with net income of $175 million a year earlier, Barrick said.

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Candidates mull devolution, mining and tourism potential in Pond Inlet – by Walter Strong (CBC News North – October 25, 2017)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Pond Inlet, Nunavut, a community of about 1,600 people on North Baffin Island, is surrounded by stunning mountainous terrain and the newly created Tallurutiup Imanga (Lancaster Sound) marine conservation area — the largest of its kind in Canada.

It’s also the closest community for the nearby Mary River iron ore mine owned and operated by Baffinland Iron Mines. The mine, approximately 180 kilometres southwest of Pond Inlet by air, has been in production since 2015 and maintains an 800-person camp.

The mine will impact the economic and social life of Pond Inlet for decades to come, but what that legacy will eventually amount to is not clear: the mine has struggled to fulfill its Inuit hiring commitments, and risks to the traditional hunting and trapping way of life in the region have been well-noted by community members and activist groups.

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Do spy agencies hold answer to Dag Hammarskjold’s death? ….UN wants to know – by Alan Cowell and Rick Gladstone (Southern African News – October 02, 2017)

https://southernafrican.news/

LONDON — After 56 years and many investigations, there is new hope that secrets lurking in Western intelligence archives could solve the biggest whodunit in United Nations history: the mysterious death of Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold. Whether the keepers of those archives will allow access remains an open question.

Hammarskjold, an iconic Swedish diplomat who was the second secretary general of the world body, died with 15 others when their plane, a chartered DC-6, crashed just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, minutes from its destination: an airfield in Ndola, in what was then Northern Rhodesia and is now Zambia.

The three official inquiries that immediately followed suggested pilot error was the cause, but the third of the reports, by the United Nations Commission of Investigation in 1962, said sabotage could not be ruled out. That possibility helped feed suspicions and conspiracy theories that Mr. Hammarskjold, 56 at the time of his death, had been assassinated.

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Lumumba, Hammarskjöld and the Cold War in the Congo – by Henning Melber (New African – January 17, 2017)

http://newafricanmagazine.com/

Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in January 1961. Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash under dubious circumstances in September 1961 not far away from where Lumumba was executed. They were in different ways the most prominent victims of the battle for the control over the Congo and its mineral-rich Katanga province at the height of the Cold War, when the winds of change were sweeping across the African continent.

After Congolese Independence in June 1960, Moïse Tshombe declared, with Belgian support, the secession of Katanga. At the request of President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Lumumba, the UN Security Council mandated Hammarskjöld to intervene. But the Cold War constellation turned this into a mission impossible.

Hammarskjöld was soon criticised by either the East or the West for almost every subsequent decision. He tried to maintain ownership over the UN’s role by seeking the cooperation of as many states as possible from the non-aligned movement. India’s Nehru, Egypt’s Nasser, Guinea’s Sekou Touré, Ghana’s Nkrumah and Tunisia’s Bourguiba, became important counterparts and at times even allies to bring a visible involvement of the South into the peacekeeping efforts.

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Small mining companies turn to TSX after flopping on LSE – by Clara Denina and Barbara Lewis (Globe and Mail/Reuters – October 26, 2017)

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/

Lacklustre performances by small mining companies on the London Stock Exchange are driving rivals in need of cash to find alternative ways to raise capital, either by merging or turning to other markets such as Toronto.

Six small miners have listed in London this year, up from two last year, but four of those are now trading below their offer price despite a rally in metals, led by a 27-per-cent jump in copper and aluminium prices and a 10-per-cent rise for gold.

London hosts the world’s biggest mining companies, including Rio Tinto Ltd. and BHP Billiton Ltd., but the poor performance of newly listed miners and other small miners trading in London is pushing some to change their plans.

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Looking for Clues to Fate of Fertilizer Rally Amid Surplus – by Jen Skerritt and Megan Durisin (Bloomberg News – October 25, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

As fertilizer producers in North America enjoy late-season improvement in prices, investors are looking for clues from the companies this week about how much longer the gains will last.

While crop nutrients including nitrogen and potash have rebounded from recent lows, questions remain about the lingering impact of a global surplus and prospects for a slowdown in demand. Producers will begin reporting third-quarter results in the next week, starting Thursday with Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.

Potash Corp.

A rally in potash prices probably helped to boost earnings for the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based company to 12 cents a share in the quarter, excluding some special items, compared to 9 cents a year earlier, according to 19 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

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Trump finally ends the undemocratic autocracy of Obama’s climate crusade – by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post – October 13, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

The Trump administration this week announced it would repeal the Clean Power Plan, former president Barack Obama’s signature global warming program.

The end of the Clean Power Plan — designed to reduce power plant emissions by one-third and establish the Obama administration’s climate bona fides prior to the opening of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 — represents more than another nail in the coffin of the climate change mission. More profoundly, it is another sign that the global warming tyranny that has been compromising the rule of law is coming to a close.

The Clean Power Plan and other global warming reforms could have been legitimate, and Obama wanted them to be. But the global warming bill that he pushed in his first term — the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 — couldn’t muster the necessary votes in Congress.

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Zinc prices help NANA rebound from oil crash – by Elwood Brehmer (Alaska Journal of Commerce – October 25, 2017)

http://www.alaskajournal.com/

Strong returns from the Red Dog mine are helping NANA Regional Corp. overcome oil and gas industry losses. NANA CEO Wayne Westlake said in an interview that the Northwest Alaska zinc mine is outpacing production forecasts at a time when zinc prices are high.

The open-pit Red Dog mine sits about 90 miles north of Kotzebue, the largest community in the region. NANA, the Alaska Native regional corporation for the area, owns the mine that is operated by Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd.

Teck expects production from Red Dog to be between 525,000 and 550,000 metric tonnes this year, according to a September release from the company. Output in that range would be about 10 percent above prior production forecasts.

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[U.S. Mining] Strategic Minerals: The Embarrassment of Riches – by Ned Mamula (Capital Research – October 25, 2017)

 

Environmentalists put America’s vast mineral wealth off limits, ceding our future to China

Despite having a vast reserve of mineral resources, the U.S. is dependent for minerals on the goodwill and cooperation of other nations, including China and Russia.

Why are we in this situation? The answer is simple: Over the past five decades, our mining industry has been crippled by poor stewardship on the part of the federal government and by severe restrictions imposed at the behest of the environmentalist movement. It’s the major reason that scores of mining companies have gone under and tens of thousands of American jobs have been lost.

By contrast, in recent years, with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the oil and gas industry has prospered. New technology has presented us with the prospect of abundant energy, even energy independence—a seeming impossibility just a generation ago. Unfortunately, the story of strategic minerals has taken a very different and indeed sinister turn.

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KGHM chief sees high copper prices boosting earnings this year (Reuters/MiningWeekly.com – October 25, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

WARSAW – Poland’s KGHM, one of the world’s biggest copper and silver producers, will likely improve core earnings this year as high copper prices and output from its mines offset smelter troubles, CEO Radoslaw Domagalski-Labedzki said.

Speaking ahead of quarterly earnings due on November 14, the CEO told Reuters: “I think that the third-quarter results will confirm that the full-year EBITDA will be higher than last year.

“Reaching the seven-billion zlotys EBITDA target in 2021 is absolutely within reach, but would it be possible to achieve earlier? … Logic says this should be possible,” he added, citing copper prices, foreign exchange rates and cost-cutting.

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