Republic of Mining

Job losses in northern Manitoba could reach 1,500 in next 3 years: Briefing note (CBC News Manitoba – October 23, 2017)

October 25, 2017

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

As many as 1,500 jobs in northern Manitoba could be lost over the next two or three years, according to an internal document sent to Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Blaine Pedersen in May.

The briefing note, dated May 10, 2017 and obtained by the New Democrats through a freedom-of-information request, projects the job losses could amount to as much as $100 million in lost income, with a loss to the regional economy of roughly $300 million.

The numbers were part of an advisory note to Pedersen ahead of the province’s Look North initiative, announced in its throne speech in November 2016.

After Oct. 30 election, Inuit org will lobby for Nunavut-Manitoba link – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – October 25, 2017)

October 25, 2017

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

CAMBRIDGE BAY—A road to bring cheap, clean power and internet northwards—and, at the same time boost the economy in central Nunavut: that’s what the Kivalliq Inuit Association wants for the future.

On those goals, the KivIA sounds a lot like the Kitikmeot Inuit Association on its western Nunavut Grays Bay port and road project, which has received $2 million from the Government of Nunavut to pay for the permitting process for the project.

After the territorial election Oct. 30, and a new premier and cabinet are chosen, the KivIA plans to head to Iqaluit “to move our priorities forward.” “What’s holding us up right now is the elections,” said KivIA President David Ningeongan, after he delivered his organization’s report to the Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. annual general meeting in Cambridge Bay.

Tanzania: Dar Posts Biggest Coup in Mineral Wealth War (All Africa.com – October 24, 2017)

October 25, 2017

http://allafrica.com/

TANZANIA is on course to register the biggest coup in an economic war over its mineral resources after striking a deal with Barrick Gold Corp, to settle a tax and revenue sharing disputes over three gold mines in the country operated by its African subsidiary group, Acacia Mining.

After three months of painstaking negotiations, the Toronto-based company said it will pay the government 300 million US dollars (about 700bn/-) as part of the deal, give the government a 16 per cent stake in its mines, and will equally split “economic benefits” from the mining operations.

Barrick owns 63.9 per cent equity interest in Acacia Mining which is the country’s largest gold miner. As part of the agreement, Barrick Gold Corp said the government will participate in decisions related to operations, investment, planning, procurement, and marketing.

COLUMN-Nickel the latest metal to feel the electric vehicle buzz – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – October 25, 2017)

October 25, 2017

http://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters) – First it was lithium. Then it was cobalt. And now it is nickel’s turn in the electric vehicle spotlight. Nickel is just as important as the other two metals in manufacturing the batteries that will power the green technology revolution.

It is used in both currently dominant lithium battery configurations, nickel-cobalt-manganese and nickel-cobalt-aluminium. Indeed, it may increase its material share against cobalt, a metal that is posing all sorts of supply problems, both physical and ethical, for the automotive sector.

Growing demand from battery-makers will exacerbate “the predicted structural shortage of nickel between now and 2025,” according to research house Wood Mackenzie.

Juniors oppose Barrick’s plans to turn an old mine into a ski resort – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – October 24, 2017)

October 25, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

Junior miners say they oppose Barrick Gold’s (TSX, NYSE:ABX) idea to transform its old Mascot Giant nickel mine located near Hope, British Columbia, into a ski resort.

In an email sent out to the media, J.A. Chapman Mining Services Engineer, John Chapman, stated that his and other companies “are still actively conducting mineral exploration in and around the old Giant Mascot mine and are therefore against Barrick’s recreation proposal.”

Chapman attached a letter he sent back in 2012 to Gordon Hogg, the MLA for the B.C. riding of Surrey-White Rock, asking the provincial government to stop Barrick’s plans. He believes that the giant’s attempts to enter the hospitality business is just a way of turning a non-performing asset into a positive cash-flow operation.

As its diamonds break apart in production, Stornoway shares take a hit – by Nicolas VAn Praet (Globe and Mail – October 25, 2017)

October 25, 2017

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/

Quebec’s first diamond mine has a grating problem: Its gemstones are breaking more than anyone anticipated. And that’s hitting the shares of its owner, Stornoway Diamond Corp.

The emerging diamond producer built the Renard mine in the Otish Mountains, a range of hills north of Lac Mistassini in north-central Quebec, in the summer of 2016 with a $946-million financing package. The project came in under budget and five months ahead of schedule, igniting hopes that it will lead to other resource development in the province’s vast northern territory.

But Stornoway has hit a snag. The Renard diamonds are breaking in processing to a higher degree than the company expected, hurting both the price they’re fetching at auction as well as Stornoway stock. In the diamond industry, bigger is better. And too many big Renard diamonds are getting smashed in its crushers. The quality profile of the diamonds has suffered as well.

Mercury was considered a cure — until it killed you – by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen (Toronto Star – October 22, 2017)

October 25, 2017

https://www.thestar.com/

The baby’s hands and feet had become icy, swollen and red. The flesh was splitting off, resembling blanched tomatoes whose skins peeled back from the fruit. She had lost weight, cried petulantly, and clawed at herself from the intense itching, tearing the raw skin open. Sometimes her fever reached 39 degrees.

“If she was an adult,” her mother had noted, “she would have been considered to be insane, sitting up in her cot, banging her head with her hands.”

Later on, her condition would be called acrodynia, or painful tips, named so for the sufferer’s aching hands and feet. But in 1921, they called the baby’s affliction Pink’s Disease, and they were seeing more cases every year. For a while, physicians struggled to determine the etiology.

Mad Scramble for Lithium Stretches From Congo to Cornwall – by Thomas Wilson and Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – October 25, 2017)

October 25, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

For evidence of just how hot battery ingredient lithium is right now, look no further than Australia’s AVZ Minerals Ltd.

A penny stock until a few months ago, the mining hopeful has surged about 1,300 percent this year. The proposition: recasting a remote, century-old tin mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a supplier of lithium needed to power electric cars.

While its rise has been dramatic, AVZ isn’t alone in the rush to position for a rechargeable-battery boom. In the U.K., a company founded by former investment banker Jeremy Wrathall is planning to tap thermal springs in Cornwall, a region more famous for its beach coves. Other companies are hunting for lithium deposits from Germany to Mali, and even Afghanistan plans to tender exploration permits.

SSR Mining eyes $90 million expansion at Seabee gold mine – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – October 24, 2017)

October 24, 2017

http://thestarphoenix.com/

The new owner of Saskatchewan’s only gold mine is planning a seven-year, $90 million expansion it hopes will boost production, cut operating costs and extend the operation’s lifespan into the mid-2020s.

SSR Mining Inc.’s planned investment in the Seabee gold operation, which is about 125 kilometres northeast of La Ronge, is “really exciting,” said the president of the Saskatchewan Mining Association.

“I think the $90 million … that they’re looking at really sends a strong signal that they’re looking at re-investing in that whole area for the long-term. It’s really significant,” Pam Schwann said.

Which industry best creates wealth and reduces poverty in Canada? Resources (as usual) – by Mark Milke (Financial Post – October 24, 2017)

October 24, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

With the recent cancellation of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline — after the company spent $1 billion in attempts to jump through ever-changing regulatory and political hoops — it is time to remind ourselves as Canadians where much of our country’s recent economic uptick originated. Answer: In resource exploration and extraction.

This was illustrated again recently, just before the TransCanada announcement, with Statistics Canada’s recent release of key census data. The data revealed how median Canadian household income rose to $70,336 by 2015, up almost $6,900 from $63,457 in 2005 or nearly 11 per cent.

The provincial breakdowns are even more revealing than the national figure. Median income went up by $20,161 in Saskatchewan (37 per cent), $18,151 in Alberta (20 per cent) and $15,068 in Newfoundland and Labrador (29 per cent).

How One Iron Ore Miner Plans to Beat a Global Glut – by Swansy Afonso (Bloomberg News – October 24, 2017)

October 24, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The global iron ore market may be oversupplied for as long as half a decade, keeping prices under pressure, according to billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd., which plans to fight back by raising the quality of its output amid a global shift toward higher-grade material.

Supply will exceed demand for the next three-to-five years, keeping prices between $50 and $60 a metric ton for ore with 62 percent iron content, according to R. Kishore Kumar, chief executive officer of the company’s iron ore division.

Weak prices and the rising preference for higher-grade supplies by China is hurting miners on India’s western coast, which ships out most of the nation’s lower content ores, he said in a phone interview from Goa.

Seismic testing to uncover mineral potential in resource-rich regions – by Angela Gemmill (CBC News Sudbury – October 24, 2017)

October 24, 2017

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

Laurentian University conducting 7-year, $104-million study into structures in earth’s crust

The large trucks seen recently along major roadways in Sudbury are conducting seismic testing. It’s all part of a major research project by Laurentian University.

That seismic testing is not to detect natural or man-induced mining seismic activity, rather the testing is similar to sonar or ultrasound, says Harold Gibson, director of the Metal Earth Project.

The vibration trucks send out seismic waves, which reflect off features in the earth’s crust and then back to receivers or geophones that have been spread out 20 to 30 metres apart. The data is compiled into a seismograph showing 40 kilometres below the surface of the earth.

A renaissance to reverse US strategic minerals imports: Dig, Baby, Dig – by Ned Mamula and William Murray (The Hill – October 23, 2017)

October 24, 2017

http://thehill.com/

The “energy dominance” strategy pursed by the Trump administration has focused on keeping the national economy free from coercion by nations that use resources as economic weapons.

In a joint op-ed in June, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt alluded to this strategy, extolling the American energy renaissance and pledging that energy discussions would “no longer (be) about peak resources or being beholden to foreign powers.”

Given this heightened attention to energy security, it’s too bad leaders are not paying the same attention to a national security risk at least as large as oil-import dependency was a decade ago — the domestic supply of critical and strategic minerals.

Philippines environment minister hopeful for end to open-pit mining ban – by Manolo Serapio Jr and Enrico Dela Cruz (Reuters U.S. – October 24, 2017)

October 24, 2017

http://www.reuters.com/

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines’ environment minister said he was hopeful that a ban on open-pit mining would be lifted before the end of the year after a government panel recommended its removal on Tuesday. Lifting the ban would allow the development of some big-ticket mining projects including the $5.9 billion Tampakan copper and gold mine.

Open-pit mining is allowed under the mining laws of the Southeast Asian country, the world’s top nickel ore exporter. However, the former environment minister Regina Lopez banned it during her 10 months in office, saying the environmental degradation ruined the economic potential of places where it was done.

A staunch environmentalist, Lopez stepped down in May after she failed to win congressional confirmation. Roy Cimatu, a former soldier, replaced her and was confirmed in his post by lawmakers earlier this month.

Mixed fortunes for Anglo’s copper, coal and nickel divisions – by Ilan Solomons (MiningWeekly.com – October 24, 2017)

October 24, 2017

http://www.miningweekly.com/

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified major Anglo American recorded increases in production at its copper units, while coal and nickel production decreased in the third quarter, ended September 30.

The company on Tuesday posted a 6% year-on-year increase in production on a copper-equivalent basis in the third quarter of the year. For the first nine months of the year, copper equivalent production had increased by 8%, while copper production increased by 5% to 147 300 t.

Production from the Los Bronces mine, in Chile, increased by 8% to 78 100 t. Anglo American stated that higher ore grades at the mine had been partially offset by the impact of a ball mill stator failure at the processing plant, which reduced throughput. Repairs are scheduled to be completed in the fourth quarter.